So, we left Cookeville about a half hour late. Not so bad. A half hour is nothing.

Then we finally make it to Nashville, and spend about 2 hours or so talking with my mom. I have some of the coolest parents on the face of the earth. The reason this is weird is because I can't stand most of the rest of my family. But my parents, and the relatives they're close to are all seriously cool.

So anyway, we get directions from my mom, after she makes iso promise to provide for all the old people when he takes over the world (and tries to convince him to kick my ass into actually doing shit more often, she's cool, but she is my mom after all, mom's do that...although not necessarily in that way), we pick up Shade the Demon Brewer and immediately head for Memphis.

Now, you may be wondering why we're heading for Memphis. It's all because of the Magic prerelease for the Invasion set. Prereleases are sweet. You get to see the cards a week or two before anyone else does, you get a special foil card, and you get to play in a sealed deck tournament, which is the best type for people like me who are pretty good at the game, but not really into playing 'professionally'. And normally, they hold 3 prereleases in Tennessee, one in Memphis (where the level 3 judge actually is), one in Nashville and one in Knoxville. Why? Cause these are the 3 largest cities in Tennessee. You didn't guess that? What is wrong with you?

But this time, they didn't have one in Knoxville or Nashville, so it was either Atlanta, Birmingham, or Memphis. So we pick Memphis. Know why? Well, I was born in Memphis, and my mom was born here, and my dad was born in Arkansas, so most of my close family stays in Memphis. And we decided to stay with my uncle, my mom's eldest brother, cause he's easily one of my coolest relatives. Plus he doesn't give a shit about much of anything we do. Like I said, he's cool.

Anyway, we're on our way here, when everyone decides they're so damn hungry we just have to stop at Steak & Shake. Now, iso works at the Cookeville Steak & Shake as a trainer, and our waitress is bad. Probably horrible, but I only go in for superlatives when I'm hyper. And he just can't stand it. So he bitches to the manager, and we manage to get our stuff for half price, although the reason he did it is just cause it was pissing him off.

Anyway, by the time we get to my Uncle's we're about 2 hours or so late. Which is fine. He doesn't care. He's cool. We watch Scream 3, cause it was on, then pretty much everyone heads to bed.

Today we got up at something like 7:45, left at 8:15 to find the fucking Agricenter, which is where the tournament was being held. When they hold it in Nashville, it's at the Renaissance, pretty much the most expensive hotel in Nashville. Here, it's at the Agricenter, which is out in the middle of nowhere. I know this because it's about a 20 minute drive from my uncle's house, which is out in the middle of nowhere.

So anyway, we get there, register, and did I mention that it wasn't until we were on our way to Memphis that we told Shade that Heather Hudson (an artist) was going to be there? Mark has 3 Italian 'Chains of Mephistopholes's, a card she did the artwork for, and easily one of the most powerful cards by her ever. I brought my 3 'Hope and Glory's, cause I love that card.

So we get there, and no one has a single Chains. Until Heather Hudson shows up.

Now, after the tournament, we were discussing the Head Judge's girlfriend, who's extrememly attractive. And I just have to say Heather Hudson is pretty attractive, too. Plus, I like people who can draw. I can't, so people who can are very attractive to me in another way completely.

But anyway, she shows up, and she has artist proofs (when the artwork is done and printed up, the artist receives a few proofs of the card to see how they turned out and keep for themselves and stuff, there's a limited number of them), which she's selling for $2. Shade buys every single Chains proof she has, it's like 7 of them. I think he gets all but one of them signed, the one he plans to play with. I got my 'Hope and Glory's signed, and bought a fourth one (a proof) and a 'Scroll Rack' proof, and got them all signed. I also got her to sign some of the cards I got in my Sealed Deck that she did the artwork for. She's really nice, and I think I convinced her to make an attempt to get more Horses in Magic. That's my quest. Everytime I meet anyone who has anything to do with WotC or Magic, I'm going to plug horses, cause horses rock. Plus it'll piss off caz if there are suddenly 10's and 10's of horses in magic, where before there were only 2. One is in a set that was mostly run in Asian countries. The second was at the Duelist Invitational, which only 26 people are invited to, and these people are the best in the world, and it's like the Iron Man competition for Magic. You have to have the best record out of 4 or 5 different formats there to win it. The prize is spiffy, too.

So anyway, that was cool, and then I got my cards. The deck I registered was okay. The deck I played was better. I won my very first game, I trounced the guy. But then I had some bad draws, so I lost the first match. Second match, got mana screwed once, and the second game I lost by one turn. Third match, my opponent never showed up, so I won. Fourth round, I played a woman who wasn't very experienced, swept her. Fifth round, I played a kid who was a pretty good player, but a lousy deck builder, swept him. I would have kept playing until I lost another match, but there was a mini-sealed deck, which Shade spotted me for cause I promised him the foil 'Raging Kavu' (since it was technically a prerelease, you got a second copy of the Prerelease Foil Rare) and any one other rare of his choice that wasn't a 'Reya Dawnbringer' (an Angel Legend who kicks all sorts of ass, and when I say ass, I mean...well, have you ever seen an ass? Now have you ever seen a big crowd, like at a fucking Backstreet Boys concert. Well, she'd go out, and kick every single one of those fanwads asses pretty much simultaneously, with a little bit of kickass left over to take out any Britney Spears fan she comes across).

Now, in the main event, I got some okay cards, the best two probably being 'Urza's Rage' (a card that basically says, I smack you. Boy do I smack you. Do you see me smacking you here?) and a 'Crosis the Purger' (a Dragon Legend who, when smacking you, may also suck your hand away. Easily coolest of the Dragon Legends (except 'Tek', who isn't a Legend though, but he is a Dragon) but not quite as cool as 'Nicol Fucking Bolas'). There were some other decent cards, a couple Djinns, a Guardian, Dual Lands, Tri-Lands, so on and so forth. Like I said, okay.

The cool thing about the foil rare for this prerelease was that it was in Latin. Which makes it the only card ever printed in Latin. I might keep this one, although normally I don't care about foils or special cards at all. Just stuff you can play.

Anyway, I do the mini-prerelease. First thing I see is 'Treya the Something-or-otherer', the Dragon Legend that, after smacking you good and hard, gives me some more life. Next thing I see...? 'Crypt Angel', a black Angel with Protection from white that brings some other creature back to life. Next thing I see? 'Reya "come here and let me kick your ass" Dawnbringer', macmommy of the entire set (well for me anyway, cause I like Angels---side note, did you know that there has never been a single male angel in Magic in the appx. 7 years of it's existence). Not that I came up with the word macmommy, which, btw, is a fairly stupid word. But until I come up with something better, I'm being forced to use it by the Magic Card Nickname Association (the MCNA are bastards that way).

So already I knew things were going well. Also got some other decent rares, and some really good uncommons and stuff.

Lost the first match cause my opponent had all sorts of mad creature advantage with his 'Hate Weaver', which I didn't have the removal to rid myself of. Since it's single elimination, I'm out.

I do, however, manage to trade off my golem's for some sweet uncommons I wanted, cause, frankly, don't give a good god damn about no stinkin' golems.

So, it's pretty much over, right? That's what we think. Yeah, cause by now, we're all out of the main tournament. But no, Shade and iso decide to take the judge test. In fact, Shade was running the mini-prerelease tournament.

Now, when I took the judge test, I took it, then reviewed it with John Carter (our local level 3, although he's moving to Philadelphia soon), took about 20 minutes, then I judged my booster draft and boom! That's it.

Shade judged his game while taking the test. Then I'm out, and caz has finished his booster draft (playing not judging), and for the next 2 hours or so (while iso's judging his booster draft) Shade is reviewing his test with John. I mean, damnit, his score wasn't much lower than mine. What did it take 2 hours to discuss? Then, after they're done, and iso's booster draft is over, they spend an hour discussing his test. I mean, come on people.

So we left at like midnight, earliest, it may have been later than that. We were there from about 9 to midnight, and that entire time was not spent playing Magic. At least 3 hours of it was sitting around being random cause I'd been awake since 8 am. Plus I had stuff from They Might Be Giants running through my head, most of it from 'Fingertips'.

And I didn't win a door prize. I've yet to ever win a door prize. Well, no, I won one once at one of those employee picnics we used to go to when dad worked at AT&T. I don't remember what it was, and I'm almost certain it was destroyed long ago. Given a choice between having won that back then, and winning a box o' cards now..., guess which choice I'd be making. Fuck, I'd probably have made that choice back then.

Not only that, but out of all the different Saproling spells in this deck, I did't get a single card that in any way had anything at all to do with Saprolings. Man that was weird. Oh well, que sera, sera, cest la vie, and other things that mean that history is exactly that.

So now we're back here, and I'm the only one up, but my uncle made spaghetti and fried chicken and it was really good, so I ate, checked my e-mail and all the sites I check daily (when I remember, and when I actually move enough to turn my computer on (which is right next to my bed) and actually do stuff on it (I often find myself typing with one hand cause I'm too lazy to use both of them), which is most days), and here I am, writing this diary.

Is this sad or what?

"What's that blue thing doing here?" --They Might Be Giants

recent...
2000-09-24 - Sometimes some crimes go slipping through the cracks, but my weekend was okay.
2000-09-22 - Yes, I'm still awake. No, I don't know why. No, this isn't helping.
2000-09-21 - I've lost my way.
2000-09-21 - Today's randomness level is...
2000-09-19 - M-u-s-t S-l-e-e-p