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Two For The Illusionist Please...

Triple G had some discount movie passes that were soon to expire so we decided to go see The Illusionist last night. He was running a little late, so I went into the theater and got the popcorn and soda. By the time he arrived the scheduled start time had passed, but we were well within previews time. Triple G turns in his passes, asks for two tickets to The Illusionist, hurries upstairs, hands off the tickets and the ticket taker directs us to Theater 2. We run inside and take our seats. The previews seem to go on forever. We start to get nervous. The movie's company logo comes on screen and it's Paramount - we get more nervous. The affiliate company logo comes on screen and it's MTV. We had just sat through the previews for Jackass: The Movie 2. We curse, get up and exit the theater in a dash. I walk over to the guy and tell him he was wrong and that The Illusionist isn't in Theater 2. He checks his crumpled little paper and tells us that we are correct and that it is in Theater 11. Apparently he was reading Roman numerals notes Triple G. The man instructs us to take the elevator up one flight. We wait...and wait. It doesn't come and the man instructs us to go downstairs and take it form there. So we have to go down to go up? We go downstairs and wait for the elevator...and wait. At this point I wander towards the ticket counter and the manager passes. He asks if we need assistance. I tell him we were directed to the wrong theater and need to get to Theater 11 on the third floor. He looks at me blankly and says there is no third floor nor a Theater 11. Perfect. By now we've missed too much of The Illusionist (assuming it actually was playing there somewhere) and ask for a credit. The manager is more than happy to comply. We hand him our tickets and he glances at them. They say Jackass: the Movie 2. He asks us who sold his these tickets and Triple G responds with a flat "you did." The manager apologizes and gives us free vouchers good until 2008. We start to head off and he stops us. Are you going to take that with you he asks, refering to the popcorn and soda? I look at him in disbelief. Well, we paid for them didn't we? And so we head out to the street, popcorn and soda in hand. I note that the irony is pretty thick, to which Triple G responds, Jackass: the movie indeed.

Ode to Stuffy Doll

The Time Spiral Prerelease was a huge success for our region. It wasn't the #1 Prerelease (Champions), but it was certainly in our Top 5. At the Long Island show on Saturday it was just me, a scorekeeper and one judge...and we had 4 main flights running at once! So, yeah, we were understaffed and it was rough, but I made it work (to quote Runway). I won't say much more about the Prerelease itself, but I do want to note that WotC finally did what I always hoped they'd do - pull back old mechanics and characters from Dominaria! This set is like a dream come true for me. I love Dominaria and the Brothers' storyline and I can't wait to read the Time Spiral book and update all my themed decks (Knights, Saprolings, Druids, Wizards, etc.), which had been on hold for blocks upon blocks. By far my favorite card in the set is Stuffy Doll. If Eric Cartman were a Magic card, he would be Stuffy Doll and I love Cartman. Stuffy Doll is an uber blocker and self-sustaining bitch-slap machine. How can you not love that? I will be collecting Stuffy Dolls from this point onward, so if you have any, please send them my way.

Philly a la Carte

It seems all I've been doing lately is work and with the Time Spiral Prerelease this weekend, that trend isn't going to change anytime soon. I'll save the deatils of my endless work for another post. Right now, as always, I must continue the tradition of posting about my exotic trips. This time around I went to a place not so exotic - the city of brotherly love. Interestngly, the last time I was in Philly it was for Pro Tour Philadelphia which was held in the same place as my conference. I've always liked Philadelphia, but this time around I just wasn't feeling it.

I went to Philly for the annual ASBMR conference which is normally quite good and much more enjoyable than the ORS meeting (which tends to have too much clinical material for my taste). As usual, the exhibit hall was fun. I managed to get all the cool freebies including a 120 MB flash drive, a blank writing book, and of course forzen yogurt at the Lilly booth. The talks and posters at the conference weren't nearly as entertaining. I found myself rapidly losing interest and on the last day of the conference I couldn't bring myself to even enter the convention center. This apathy became coupled with frustration as I wound up having to pay for nearly everything "individually" during this trip. It's totally unacceptable to pay $200 a night at a hotel and have to also pay an additional charge for using the fitness center and internet access. So, yeah, if you're thinking of staying in a Loews Hotel - don't.

Fortunately, the social aspect of the trip was good. My friend Vijay from High School who lives in NYC had been in Philly that weekend visiting his girlfriend, so I managed to meet up with them for some Tapas at Bar Ferdinand (highly recommended). I also got to spend time with the folks from my lab. The ASBMR Social Event was enjoyable as always, despite being inside the Frankling Institute (the huge statue of Ben watching us as we danced was sort of odd) and despite being straddled with the worst party band ever.

By far the highlight of the trip (and this pretty much canceled out the disappointment thus far) was a visit to the Mutter Museum. This is hands down the coolest museum I have ever visited. Basically it's a medical museum filled with specimens and information highlighting the pathologies and abnormalities that you seldom see. Sadly I couldn't take pictures in the museum, but it's probably just as well, for if I did, you would be seeing pictures of two-headed babies in jars, a petrified body, a 40 pound colon, a gangrene hand, and much much more. I felt like one of those teenagers that accidentally walks into the house of a serial killer in a B horror flick. Good times!

New York $10K Championship Debt

The past weekend a Versus $10K Championship tournament came to my hood and never having been a part of one of these, I felt compelled to get involved. This was a first, though, because it meant working under another head judge who was the same level as me and another TO (yes, NYC has two UDE Premiere Tournament Organizers). Now, I know this particular TO personally, but I've never actually worked under him, so this was entirely unfamiliar territory.

The turnout was lower than expected, only around 180 players showed up. Unfortunately, I can't really discuss my observations of how the event was run in this post because I don't like to portray people negatively in pubic forums. What I can say is that the event and those working it seemed far less professional than Pro Circuits, Pro Tours, PTQs and Regionals I've worked. The behavior of some of the judges was, I felt, unacceptable. This included how they interacted with players and how they handled their duties. Now, don't get me wrong - the event was not a catastrophy. It went smoothly and the players seemed pretty happy, but to an outside observer I think eyebrows would have been raised. There were also problems on the the side of UDE as various foils and deck boxes were not shipped for prize distribution. Hopefully this sort of thing can be remedied and will not happen again in the future.

At the event I got some experience team leading and dealing with some unique situations that only arise when multiple events are being run simultaneously with different head judges. At first it was very interesting/weird to work under a HJ who was the same level as me, but then it became less weird as he basically turned the $10K over to me on Day 2. I took the Top 24 through thier drafts and into their playoff games as well as table judged the finals. It was a long weekend as I knew it would be (a good 12+ hours each day), but I'm used to this. When I finished on Sunday I was looking forward to the relief. Unfortunately, the compensation for my effort was pretty poor. Yes, I got the $10K foils (one of each...I hope that's what we were supposed to get; PCs give multiples of certain foils), but a certain number of packs are supposed to be given to judges dependent on the number of players in the event. I'm pretty sure we got less than the minimum recommended (this was a two-day event after all). Now, I was somewhat expecting this going into the event, but seeing several judges leave early or disappear for extended periods of time and still get paid the same amount, well, that just sucks in my opinion.

At the end of the day the TO thanked me a lot for my help and said I'm welcome to judge anytime for him. As much as I love the guy, and even though I did learn some interesting things about judging and myself, I'm not a newbie at this. I head judge my own events on a regular basis and I do a stellar job. I wouldn't normally recognize this, let alone say it out load, but at this event one of the younger judges came over to me and said, "Hey! Do you remember me? When I was 13 you were running the JSS I was in. I remember I made a bad mistake and you came over and were so nice about it. I remember that to this day and now I'm a judge." I think a lot of the players and my TOs recognize this too which is why they compensate me so well. So, while this weekend put me no closer to paying off my current debt from playing soccer, it helped me see myself a little better and I feel very lucky to be respected so much by the players and by my current Magic and UDE TOs.