Everything Is Fine

Category: Life

This category is basically just for “stuff I do” – basically the most “blog” of categories.

  • Doing Stuff By Yourself is Fine

    First of all, I’m actually almost done with Expedition 33 (or at least “almost done” in that I’m up to the “final” dungeon). My post about how that game is fine will be coming… I don’t know… I’ll just say “soon-ish.”

    Anyway, this post was going to be about how Live Music is Fine (because just before and after Gen Con, I went to various shows) but then I decided to make it slightly more personal and slightly more general and just make it about going and doing things you want to do, regardless of whether or not your friends want to go with you.

    Don’t get me wrong, going to movies, concerts, sporting events, casinos, or whatever it is you like to do with other people that like to do them is great. Sometimes, though, you end up being the only one in a particular group that’s into a particular thing. (Weirdly, I’m basically the only person in my group of board gamers that also plays Magic: the Gathering. There’s one guy who also plays on Arena, but there’s nobody who’d be up for going to a prerelease or doing a cube draft or whatever.)

    When that happens, just go. You wanna do something special for yourself (for your birthday, or because you have the day off of work, or just because you’ve always wanted to), go do it. Don’t wait for other people to be available (because they never will) or drag someone along that isn’t interested. (That being said, if they’re kind of interested, absolutely try to cajole them into it. I’ve gotten a few friends to watch wrestling pay-per-views with me the past couple of months by just bringing it up all the time.)

    None of your friends like the band in town, but you’re a big fan? Fuckin’ rock out by yourself! Chat with the people in line next to you, or in the seats next to you (or in the pit next to you if that’s your thing). You’ll meet great people and you’ll still have a good time.

    Maybe it’s being 40, or maybe it’s that I have money to blow (occasionally) now, but all of those “oh man, I would go to that, except…” events just don’t have anything stopping me anymore. Maybe it’s the post-COVID environment. (Weirdly, I didn’t go to concerts pre-COVID, so I didn’t really miss them not happening.) For me, it’s mostly concerts (lately, at least), but you could also include things like going to AEW events or that trip to Connecticut I did last fall, where I did some sightseeing and went to Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. (I had been wanting to visit Foxwoods since I was a younger, more avid poker player… it’s gone downhill since then.)

    So yeah, it’s not that I’m “checking things off the bucket list” yet. I don’t think buying a ticket to see Chevelle is quite to that point. But don’t be ashamed to like what you like. It’s fine.

    And Ghost was fine, Summer of Loud was fine, Volbeat and Halestorm were fine, and Chevelle was fine. I’m glad I went to all of them.

  • Magic: the Gathering – Final Fantasy is Fine

    Two weeks ago (three if you count the prerelease, which I guess you might as well), Wizards of the Coast released the latest Magic: the Gathering expansion set: Final Fantasy. These cards feature famous characters, places, and events from the history of the video game series (Or at least, I think so; I’ve never played any of them. Maybe there are games that aren’t represented.) and due to that, demand is through the roof. This is bigger than a few years ago with the Lord of the Rings set, which itself was way bigger than the crossovers with Warhammer, Doctor Who, Fallout, and whatever other ones have been done lately.

    In a lot of ways, it’s good. People who have never played Magic are being drawn to the game, which is usually great. (Not every person getting into the game is great, but in general, more Magic players is better, in my opinion.)

    And what is the Final Fantasy series? It’s a bunch of epic stories, featuring culturally iconic characters drawn beautifully that’s been around since 1987. It’s made for a trading card game. (Yes, there actually was a Final Fantasy trading card game. Wait, is a trading card game. It’s still around, and just had its own expansion release in March.)

    Anyway, as far as Magic settings go, it’s a good one. I like it a lot more than Aetherdrift (“Your favorite Magic characters driving cars”) and Outlaws at Thunder Junction (“Your favorite Magic characters wearing cowboy hats”). Having 16 mainline games to pick and choose from means only the most important stuff gets in. I played one prerelease and a few drafts on Arena, and I like the cards. The set is fun to play, which I guess would be the main objective of producing it.

    (Here’s me playing one of those drafts lately.)

    However, there’s more going on here than just a Magic expansion that has Cloud and Sephiroth in it. Magic also has years of characters, stories, and art. Right now, the most popular format that people play is Commander, which allows you to use (for the most part) any card from Magic’s history, and now, alongside all of that history of characters like Jace Beleren, Ajani Goldmane, Liliana Vess, and Chandra Nalaar (not to mention characters that haven’t been the face of the game, like Jaya Ballard, the Phyrexian praetors, and the leaders of the Ravnican Guilds), we’ve also got various Doctors Who, Gandalf, Aerith, and coming soon, Spider-Man and Avatar Aang.

    Basically, sitting at a table of Magic players is like watching a game of Fortnite. Oh shit, is that Doctor Octopus?! Attacking Gimli?! Wielding Excalibur?! (Yeah, there was an Assassins Creed set, too.)

    I mean, it’s still Magic. You tap lands to cast spells, and attack your opponent with creatures and try to reduce their life total to 0. These “Universes Beyond” sets as Wizards calls them, in that sense, aren’t that different from any other, especially if, like me, you play each set in a self-contained way in sealed or draft events. Mechanically, it doesn’t matter if the card has Spider-Man on it since the rules text and the character are independent of each other.

    Fun side note there – that’s actually a snag Wizards has with the upcoming Spider-Man set. They got the license from Marvel to print characters on trading cards, but they did not get the license from Marvel to put the characters in a digital card game, so the Spider-Man cards will not be “printed” into Magic Arena or Magic: the Gathering Online. Instead, a different set where all the cards are mechanically identical but “in universe” for Magic will be there.

    So then why aren’t they just doing that for every set? (Not “having different characters on the cards between paper and digital,” that’s stupid as hell. I mean just having Magic characters and setting on all the cards.) Why pay Square, Marvel, Games Workshop, or whoever owns the IP for Doctor Who (the BBC?) for licensing when Wizards could (and in at least one case, still has to) just use their own IP on the cards. (And they could even cross over with their own IP, like they did with Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, or with Hasbro’s other properties like they did with Transformers.)

    And it’s not even just Magic being “Fortnite-ified”. Beavis and Butthead are being added to Call of Duty. Freddy and Jason were in Mortal Kombat. The Ninja Turtles were added to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Everything crosses over with everything. Hell, not only is every game like Fortnite by just jamming every celebrity or IP into it they can find, Magic specifically printed cards with Fortnite elements on them. (They were reprints reskinned as Fortnite stuff, so “Smuggler’s Copter” became “Battle Bus”; “Wrath of God” became “Shrinking Storm”; etc.)

    And that’s what’s wrong with M:tG FF – it’s an effort to sell Magic cards to people who wouldn’t want them. It’s an effort to sell Magic cards to people who likely won’t ever play Magic again six weeks from now when the next expansion comes out. It’s an effort to keep selling us IPs we’ve already seen and experienced instead of coming up new ones. And it’s only going to keep happening more.

    But man, the cards are fun. I’m gonna play some more.

    It’s fine.

  • Booking hotels for Gen Con is fine.

    Every year around this time, the Gen Con housing portal opens up. Some years ago, they changed the system so that instead of just first-come first-served at Noon on Sunday, every badgeholder is assigned a time somewhere between Noon and whenever all the times are done. The “best” rooms are still gone by 1, and the rest generally not much later than that, but that’s what happens at a convention of 70,000 attendees.

    I’ve been attending Gen Con since 2012, and while I’ve had several hotel rooms that were farther than I’d have liked, or booked under unusual arrangements, but I’ve always had one. It’s always possible to stay somewhere, and usually relatively close by. This year is no exception.

    Actually, this year I got what I generally consider my favorite hotel, where all my con friends hang out. The room will be a little cramped, but should be fine for crashing at night.

    Now, just to wait the 5 months until the con.

  • Everything is (going to be) fine.  (Eventually. Probably.)

    As noted in the Q&A of this page (and eventually in the About page), the site was named because my opinion of things is generally “It’s fine.”  I thought of the name several months ago, when things were maybe “ominous” or perhaps “scary” but people seemed like they were maybe “cautiously optimistic” (not “optimistic” in like “things will be good” but more in the sense of “they won’t be as bad as I’m imagining”) or more likely “expecting bad, but not like the absolute worst”.  Flash forward to now, where we live not only in the worst timeline, but also the dumbest and everything is most definitely not fine.  And now I own this domain name (for at least the next year).

    However, I am still cautiously optimistic.  I still fear that things will get worse before they get better, and if you’re part of the LGBTQ community, part of the BIPOC community, a woman, an immigrant, or really, part of any other marginalized or underrepresented group, you probably have serious concerns, and you are not wrong to do so.

    My “optimism” (if you can really call it that, as I’ll explain) isn’t necessarily that everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows.  Almost certainly not.  However, for better and for worse, our country (and honestly, the whole world now, and probably just capitalism in general) is pretty good at solving problems, but only when they become truly existential in nature.  We can’t try to solve, say, climate change, because it’s expensive and number has to go up, but everybody being dead makes number go down, so we won’t let that happen.  (It’s why Costco isn’t rolling over and dumping their DEI initiatives like everyone else; they realize, not that diversity and inclusion are morally good (they are), but that casting as wide a net as possible for customers and employees is just good for business.)

    Not that we should just trust capitalism to get us out of this, because while “number go up” might keep us alive, it certainly won’t help.

    What will help is the innate nature of people to survive and aid in the survival of others.  Obviously, not everyone has that, and it will be difficult to try to attend to everybody while taking care of yourself.  But that’s okay, because there are a lot of us.  So first, ensure your own safety and survival, by whatever means necessary.  If it means just lying low, then do that.  And if it means ordering grey market pharmaceuticals off the dark net, then do that.  (And there will be people providing them.)  And if it means agitating, protesting, marching, rabblerousing, etc., then go for it.  (Don’t try to make your own life worse, but if you’re in a situation where that’s the only way, then find a group and go for it.)  Then, when you’re safe, you can help others.  (Whether that’s through money, time, food, security – whatever you have that you don’t need that someone else does.)

    Personally, I don’t really have perspective on how bad things are right now.  They sound awful, and they don’t sound like they’re improving, and I’m admittedly in a position of relative privilege.  Regardless of what my career prospects look like for the immediate future (probably fine, and that’s not just me committing to the bit), I know I don’t have to worry about not being able to update my passport or register to vote or use a public restroom.  I’m not on any psychological medications (although maybe I should be).  I don’t remember the last time I got a vaccine (besides COVID-19 and the flu, which will probably still be available, albeit maybe not subsidized anymore?)  Basically, when I look ahead, and see things as being “fine, eventually”, I can’t tell if that’s because they’ll actually be fine, or just fine for me.  (Or if I’m just completely wrong.  That’s possible.)

    All we can do is keep on keepin’ on.  Take care of yourself.  And each other.

    As for me, this will (hopefully) be the last time this site talks about any of this.  There are plenty of people out there more qualified and better equipped to do it, and if you want that stuff, you know where to find it.  I just want to get on with the nonsense I had in mind when I came up with the site.  Out there, things are on fire and people are getting hurt, but here…

    …Everything Is Fine.