Chuck-ese

I was reading David Wong’s “The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey” yesterday. A agreed with some of the points, disagreed with others, and generally liked the article. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of reading the comments, and was stupified by the fanboyism and dickish behavior that abounds. Here’s an example:

Jonathane
It’s pretty clear from these ideas what kind of gamer you are. Maybe you should change the name of the thread to ‘7 commandments dumb action games for console fans should obey’. I can’t take anyone who mocks oblivion or half life seriously.

While he has the right to his opinion, completely disregarding someone’s arguments because that person (and not necessarily the given argument) challenges your beliefs is the sort of thing that gets us into great (meaning large, not possesing good qualities [quite the opposite]) debates about politics, religion, science, video-game consoles, and any intersections of the aforesaid subjects. When people pull out their ignorant-jackass comments, other people follow:

Oregano Angercock
I think it’s pretty clear what kind of gamer jonathane is. An incredibly fat gamer.

Another ad-hom attack, but worse in that it is pure insult and has nothing to do with anything Jonathane said. This poster was just being a huge dick. But that’s how things go, it’s human nature. I offend your sensabilities, so you put up your defenses, I put up mine, and nothing gets resolved, and we get the big mess that society’s in right now. This is ones of the downsides to having an open exchange of ideas: everyone gets to contribute, fucking retarded or not. The other is that everybody gets to choose what they want to believe out of the swirling mass of information, fucking retarded or not. You could have put in some of the one hundred million (100,000,000) hours of human thought that went into Wikipedia, or you could spend a couple of minutes (heh) thinking up and typing the above response.

Everybody knows that people on the internet are more than willing to let out their inner fucktard (see the comment by John Watts), yet few realize that that is just an extension of what people do naturally, that it’s putting the brakes on the advancement of human thought and limiting the progress people can make as a community just as surely as it makes us cringe in disgust when we read it on the internet.

[Although we do now know that this type of verbal defensiveness is a manifestation of “bad” high self-esteem.]

Check out this website, Don’t Stay A Virgin.

I was sure I wrote something about internet neutrality somewhere in here, yet I can’t find it?

Did I seriously consider this?

Perhaps…

I used to be into Magic: The Gathering (WARNING: linked site is pure shit). A few short conversations with a couple friends overwhelmed me with nostolgia, and for the past month I’ve been playing Magic constantly. This may just be a psychological defense mechanism against my immanent entry into college, but it’s more fun than, say, developing a neurosis. I built two decks in this time period, both utilizing the color blue, but in completely stupid ways.

The first of these we’ll call Three Color Bastard.

Island x3
Swamp x13
Plains x 6
Tainted Isle x 2
Tainted Field x2
Coastal Tower x1
Salt Marsh x1
Counterspell x3
Gravedigger x2
Grinning Demon x2
Yawgmoth’s Bargain x1
Havoc Demon x1
Morality Shift x1
Healing Salve x1
Mystic Penitent x1
Tireless Tribe x2
Standard Bearer x1
Glory Seaker x4
Starlight Invoker x1
Recuperate x1
Ancestor’s Chosen x1
Scroll Rack x1
Sleeper’s Robe x1
Psychatog x2
Recoil x1
Seer’s Vision x1
Undermine x1
Ertai, the Corrupted x1
Soul Link x2

This deck played one good game. It was a guerilla-style game, with my life fluctuating between 1 and 29, last minute Ancestor’s Chosen plays, and super-draws with Bargain. I was eventually backed into a corner with one card in my library, Ertai out (but with no creatures to sacrifice to him), Mortailty Shif played, and most of my cards removed from the game to fuel two now-dead Psychatogs. I was able to prolong the game by one more turn by sacrificing Yawgmoth’s Bargain to Ertai to counter a burn spell that would surly have done me in. The deck sucks because it lacks focus; it was mostly just a vehicle to give Ertai some play-time. Scroll Rack works well only in conjunction with Bargain, and that whole setup works only if Morality Shift is still buried in the deck somwhere.

This next deck has not been dignified with a name.

Island x10
Forest x7
Irrigation Ditch x2
Treetop Village x1
Unsummon x3
Envelop x1
Veiled Sentry x1
Flight x2
Intervene x2
Psychic Venom x1
Mana Leak x3
Remove Soul x1
Tidal Surge x1
Wind Drake x1
Puppeteer x2
Rystic Deluge x1
Errant Minion x1
Labyrinth Minotaur x1
Vizzerdrix x2
Recall x1
Thalakos Seer x1
Boomerang x1
Phantom Warrior x1
Levitation x1
Temporal Distortion x1
Sunken Hope x1
Confiscate x2
Distorting Wake x1
Norwood Ranger x2
Fog x3
Wall of Wood x1
Urborg Elf x4
Regrowth x1
Tangle x1
Wall of Ice x1
Creeping Mold x1
Desert Twister x1
Mesmeric Orb x1
Chimeric Idol x1
Mirror Golem x1
Phyrexian Hulk x1
Temporal Spring x2
Aether Mutation x2

The premise of this deck was to use the green creatures and blue control spells to survive until you could kill your opponents wtih small unblockable creatures (Phantom Warrior, Thalakos Seer), or with a flying Vizzierdrix. Why not use large green creatures (you know, what the color is known for)? Because I’m an idiot. I’m using two colors out of thier elements. The only redeeming aspect to this deck is Mesmeric Orb, which pisses people off to no end.

Come back whenever the hell I feel like writing the second half of this article to see how I combine these two decks to exploit the true Power of Blue.