Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Hump Day Happy Hour - T. Rex

My boss was good enough to let me pillage his CD collection a while back, and one of the standouts was Electric Warrior by T. Rex, best known for the tune "Bang A Gong (Get It On)." But since there's a good bet you're familiar with it, I give you "Life's a Gas."



Aw, screw it, it's my birthday so here's another one: "Jeepster."



I'll call you jaguar if I may be so bold,
Regis

Supplies!

It's my birthday (whatever, nobody cares about 26), and I've got a present for you: my previously promised tournament report from the Star Wars CCG tourney I played in this weekend in Fort Collins. I don't feel like recounting all my wacky adventures from the trip (like almost getting lost in Fort Collins and buying new bedding), so you're stuck with a bunch of nerd jargon that most of you won't understand - hooray!

NoCo April Local Tournament Report

The stars finally aligned and I had a free weekend that coincided with a tournament in Fort Collins. It’s worth the five hour drive as I have friends in Laramie and Cheyenne that I can hang and crash with, so I made the trip. For light I played Rescue The Princess with ‘Back beat tech (start Rycar to pull Plastoid Armor (v), which pulls the “Back” cards and makes them destiny 5 used interrupts; this is extra nice with the drain boost of Leia’s Back (v) so long as it doesn’t get grabbed) and I threw together a Chancellor’s Office CR(v) mains deck with Trained In The Jedi Arts. I hadn’t played either of the decks before, so I didn’t really know how they’d hold up. It’s been a couple days without much sleep since the event, so details are going to be foggy.

Game 1: Dark vs. Brett’s WYS (v)
We got off to a slow start, as we were both pretty rusty. He had me paying for my Office drain pretty much the whole game, since I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about facing the Super Falcon. Vader (v) knocked Yoda MOFO out the box thanks to his DV-1 gametext and a low draw on Brett’s part and hung out at the Spaceport for a good chunk of the game. It dawned on me that Swilla Corey would have been an awesome card to have (+1 drain bonus from Trained and a +1 from the City), but everyone else at the tournament thought it was the dumbest idea they’d heard in a long time (I thought it was a good Jon Cates-style idea, which isnt' really saying much, but I digress). If I play the deck again, that card is definitely going in, damn the torpedoes. Anyway, I blew my second and final The Empire’s Back (v) with both Mauls in my Force Pile, and never managed to draw one. Vader shuttled up to Conquest (v) and hit Han with I Have You Now, but I drew lowish and Han just retorted right back. Brett eventually won the damage race. FL -13.

Game 2: Light vs. Ryan’s CR(v) Death Star Fear
He didn’t come to ground once the whole game, so freeing Leia was a snap (even if I forgot to retrieve, thinking that Cell 2187 (v) still prevented retrieval when you sprung Leia). I got out an early Han, Chewie, and the Falcon and knocked Chiraneau out before I flipped, so his drains weren’t so bad. He grabbed Escape Pod (v), so I was free to smack him with a couple of Leia’s Back (v)-enhanced drains when he didn’t satisfy Resilience (yay playing chicken at the Death Star!) and a some looped HCF action via Han’s Back (v). Other than an OOC combo’ed Blizzard 1 (I think), the only card to get POOPed was a Thrawn on like the second to last turn. I won the damage race, FW +15.

Game 3: Dark vs. Matt’s MWYHL
So I noticed a giant glaring flaw in my deck right away: I don’t have any way of getting to Dagobah. This game was pretty boring up until the end, since he just trained SOS (v) while I piled up pretty much everybody at the Office: Lord Sidious (with a DJLS (v)), The Gemmeperor, Janus (woo-hoo drain +1 with the Emperor at a BG), Vader (v) with his saber, Maul Young Apprentice with his double stick, and Galen with his saber. At least the site saved my drain and drain bonuses from being cancelled, so I wound up dishing out a drain of six a turn (would have been seven, but he Projectioned me, and I was paying three and losing one for Maul’s double blade). Eventually he flips and sends Mace and Obi JK to party. Vader and Mace get Clashed/YABed, Obi barely got hit (hooray Force Lightning used), and Maul got hit and Mess comboed. Matt wound up peeling like nine. Mace got beat down the next turn; Matt drew his all four cards in his Reserve Deck for saber destinies and didn’t have a card to not draw for BD so he couldn’t use the stacked Artoo in Red 5. Oh, he did put Kessel out at the end, and even though I left it alone it was too late for him. FW +14.

Game 4: Light vs. Matt’s ORS ISB JP Bad Time Funhouse
Bleh, this game was kind of weak. Once again, I got no Force from my opponent's start. Despite failing to match how much Force I had with what I needed to do, I managed to free Leia and flip without getting Trampled in the Yavin 4 DB. Commander Willard and General Rieekan got smacked down something fierce by Boba Fett BH and EPP 4-LOM, but Leia, Padme and Artoo smacked down P-59 at the War Room with a couple of blind 6’s. Alas, it was too late because that deck deals out some quick and cheap damage FAST. FL -15.

So in the end, I got third place with 4 (+1), narrowly beating Tom’s 4 (+0) - way to be the model of mediocrity, Tom! It was a lot of fun, and the northern Colorado group is all class in my book. Thanks to all of you for a great time, and special thanks to Jerry for the Sergeant Doallyn that never hit the table, Matt for lending me the SE dark Coruscant system for more choketastic fun, and Mark for running the dang thing (just pick a weekend I can make with nice weather for once, will ya?).

Friday, April 24, 2009

Greenland, Ho!

Tomorrow is my first Star Wars: Customizable Card Game tournament since the summer, and I will play my first actual game since Christmas break when Cates was in Sheridan. I won't say what I'm playing tomorrow (so as not to give the Coloradans an advantage, not that they need one...) but I'll post a tournament report detailing my glorious triumphs (likely of a moral persuasion).

Huzzah!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Annual Review

Friday marked my third anniversary as an employee of Aspen Mountain, and today I had my annual review with my boss (the VP of the company). It pretty much went like this (I'm not paraphrasing, honest):

"The president is happy with you, the secretary is happy with you, I'm happy with you, everyone else is happy with you. Keep up the good work."

One more year until I can sit for the PE, but it won't be offered until October, so I really have 18 months. Maybe I should start studying.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Hump Day Happy Hour - John Lee Hooker

It's another day of the usual excitement here in Sheridan - which is to say, not much. It's been threatening to rain pretty much all day but hasn't done a whole lot of anything so far. Ah, the joys of April.

I pulled Gillian, my hollowbody Ibanez ArtCore, out for the first time in a few months over the weekend and dusted off some old copies of GuitarOne - including one with a transcription of John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom." If you've only heard one tune by the man, this is probably it (not counting George Thorogood's cover of "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer"), and it kicks equal amounts of ass whether he's backed by a band (like in the clip) or just on his own, stomping his feet. This is the kind of song that'll make the gray go away.



How how how how,
Regis

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Morale Boost

Apparently it's more convenient for my father to call me and have me look up a number in the phone book than it is for him to just look it up himself. I'm not quite sure how to feel about this.