It's nice to see....

that my son seems to be growing into his large head. Thanks to some fuckup in my genetic makeup, my son was born (as I was) with a large head, complete with prominent forehead. Not so much that you'd think he was 'special,' (though the doctors thought I may have been hydrocephalic - read: water on the brain - when I was born, and after reading my mother's notes regarding my infancy have found no empirical evidence to the contrary....weird). Did that deserve paranthetical separation? Probably not. Fuck it. Anyway, I digress. I was looking at the slideshow of pictures that is the screen saver on this pile of excrement that I like to refer to as Lappy. Yes, that is a Strongbad reference, also regarding a laptop of dubious quality. It sure would be nice to be able to use one of the two fully functioning desktops that we own (that are lying in pieces) in any capacity, but Allie's got it in her head that we have no room nor any use for them since we have this wonderful piece of shit (that I will dub Alfred in Jenny's honor) to use. It has no functioning CD-ROM drive. The power cord has been gnawed on by a small animal and shorts out. The battery does not hold a charge. So, I've made a decision. As soon as I'm sure she's asleep, I'm going to sneak into our bedroom and try to retrieve my balls from the jar on top of the dresser and reinstall them, then hook up one of said desktops and hide this piece of shit in a secure place until I am able to take it out to a remote field and empty into it a full 14-round clip from my large-caliber Beretta. God bless the Italians. Not only have they invented my favorite type of food and gifted to our band the best bass player ever born, they make beautiful guns.

I have digressed so far that the only way to bring this back is to start a separate paragraph. My son has a large head. I watched the progression of pictures on the screen saver on this laptop, and noticed that as he grew older, his body grew longer while his head stayed roughly the same size. Thank God. Hopefully his body will catch up quickly, or we'll have to add another member to the "My God, his head is disgustingly large!" crew. So far, only Danny and I are members. 8" fitted hats are hard to find.

I've been revisiting an old hobby since the new year began, something a select few friends and I used to engage in quite fervously a few years back. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will finally admit it to the general public: I play Magic: the Gathering. I'm sure most of you will remember the outcasts in high school during lunch as they flocked to whatever corner they could exist in without being disturbed or heckled, whipping out those oh-so-familiar brown-backed cards with intricate drawings on the front. Everybody knew the kids who played Magic. I knew several people who played in high school. Where most people mocked them (and the game itself), I simply sat neutral on the whole situation - I knew nothing about the game, so didn't belittle the people who played it, no matter what I heard. I was friends with all walks of life in high school, so to insult those who played Magic would invariably either be to insult my friends themselves, or friends of theirs.

I actually wasn't even invited to play the game, let alone learn about it, until I was about 19 and my friend Emil was living with me in my grandma's basement. I had always collected sports cards (overwhelmingly basketball, I estimate my collection to be 15k+ cards), and every time I went in to West Coast Sports Cards in Federal Way (still my preferred shop), I'd hang out on the left side of the store, furtively searching for a John Stockton card that I didn't have in my collection, while watching the people on the right (Magic) side of the store either playing games or purchasing cards. One night, Emil and I got righteously stoned (as we were wont to do at the time), and he busted out his Magic cards. He taught me how to play and even gave me a deck of his, as well as a smattering of his collection. A few days later, with a somewhat infantile grasp on the game, I ventured over to the right side of the West Coast Sports Cards store. Chris, an employee that I was used to shooting the shit with and buying cards from, sauntered over, sized me up with his chin out, and proudly said (pretty sure this is verbatim): "What the fuck are you doing on this side of the store? The sports cards are over there!" Knowing that he knew his shit when it came to sports cards (he once offered to buy on the spot a Gary Payton game-used jersey card serially #'d 82/100 that I pulled right in front of him for $100) as well as Magic, I was a bit surprised at his reaction, but succeeded in stammering out this witty little gem: "Uh, yeah, I know, I play Magic now." He laughed and tossed some game verbiage directly over my head, then, noting the confused and somewhat embarassed look on my face, chilled the fuck out and sold me some cards. Thanks, douche :).

Flash forward to this previous week. Emil, my homie/bro-in-law Ryan, and I have gotten together a few times and revisited our collections, which have pretty much sat in stasis since the last time we played (ok, maybe not Emil, he played occasionally in the interim). So I realized that when we quit, I had a few pretty good decks going. A co-worker of mine had kind of re-piqued my interest in the game recently when I caught him upstairs sorting through a deck of his. We struck up a conversation about it, and I brought in some of my cards to show off. This guy, having played the game in its earlier incarnations, hadn't seen a lot of the cards that had come out in the last few years, and these are cards that the old-school players only dreamt about back in the day. So we agreed that since he was closing yesterday, as was I, we'd bring some decks and finally play each other. We were able to play twice, each lasting roughly a half an hour. After hearing about his prowess and how he'd humiliated people in tournaments with the decks he owns.......

I kicked his ass. Twice. The first time, my life total was 36 when he lost, and my deck hadn't even had a chance to properly pop off yet (you start at 20 life points each, you lose at 0). The second time, I had a Kormus Bell out that turned his Swamps into 1/1 creatures, and used my Prodigal Sorcerer to kill them off, keeping him from casting any worthwhile creature he had in his deck, while using a Minister of Impediments to tap the one creature he had successfully cast so my creatures could get through unblocked. Haha, no one reading this will understand that......

Yep, I'm a nerd. Few people knew me before I grew my hair out and my eyebrows actually turned brown and I started playing guitar and all that good shit. Yep, if you actually pay attention, you'll see one of the smart, nerdy kids that just happened to have good genes and went from the quiet little dorky bookworm to the cute "mysterious" kid that played in a band - or so I was referred to on both sides of the spectrum.

Well, time for a smoke and bedtime. If anyone is actually listening to me out there, thanks for reading (wow, talk about a complete 180 from the first few blogs). Maybe I should concentrate on making this less abrasive.

We'll see. Later.