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Episode 28: A Little Bit of This and That

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Total running time: 25 minutes and 19 seconds.

Show Notes:

--Introduction to episode 28: A Little Bit of This and That
--Discussion of Time Spiral rumors.
--Time Spiral Orb of Insight
--Suicide Black deck memories (Hatred)
--Favorite memory of the week: Playing with Chaos Orb
--Closing music from Panic at the Disco ("I Write Sins not Tragedy").  Music available on the Podshow Music Network at music.podshow.com.

Unrelated Magic links, but cool or controversial stuff anyway: --Building It Right: A Dreamblade Article
--What is Labor Day anyway?

Creative Commons License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Contribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Subscribe using iTunes: To subscribe to The Magic Sock using iTunes, simply click  here. (You'll need to have iTunes installed on your computer.)

For more information on how to subscribe to a podcast (video or audio), be sure to check out episode 5 of The Magic Sock: How to Subscribe to a Podcast.

Closing: Magic: The Gathering is trademarked and owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. The Magic Sock is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro in any way. To send feedback, send an e-mail to themagicsock@gmail.com.  Audio feedback is welcome but please keep the mp3 file to under 45 seconds and be sure to mention your name and city/state/country.

Building It Right

My latest Dreamblade article, Building It Right, is now available on the official Wizards of the Coast Dreamblade site. Go on over and check it out.

In other news, yes, I'm still working on painting the room. I've speckles of white paint in my hair and all in the hair on my arms. Thankfully, I have an old pair of glasses that I used. Long day yesterday: I worked a full day, came home, and painted for three hours (and did wash). I didn't get a chance to eat until after 9 p.m. Not too much time for anything beyond painting. I am hoping to be able to do another podcast for The Magic Sock tomorrow night, but it might not happen because of all the painting I'm doing.

Tonight: The primer is dry so I only need to start taping up and then put on a coat of the blue. Eventually, the room will be nicknamed the "blue" room (after the sign my wife made for my old blue room at our previous house). Going from ugly mint green wallpaper in the new house with dark, thick green carpet to a blue room with a cool glaze effect, hardwood floor, and a throw rug will be very cool. I've a good solid few days worth of work yet to do (after painting the blue, I need to put the glaze effect on, then paint all the baseboards and the door frames, and finally rip up the rugs, pull all the stapes out, and clean up the floors as best I can). Ugh, I'm tired just thinking about it! Still, one step at a time.

Good Times and Lots of Work

Let's get the rough stuff out of the way first. I spent a good chunk of time working on my office this past weekend, but I'd be lying if I said it was easy. I've gone through enough DIF chemical (helps to strip off wallpaper glue) that gummy residue was all over my jeans, old sneakers, and lots of old towels. As of last night, my wife and I had scrapped all the glue off the walls but now we're going through washing the walls down with hot water and scrub brush. After opening the windows yesterday, the heat and humidity caused the remaining glue to become gummy on the walls. My wife discovered this and it's a great fine because the cleaner the surface you have to paint, the better. If all goes according to "plan," we'll finish up tonight or tomorrow with all the scrubbing of the walls. I then want to wash all the walls down with a chemical (TSP I believe) and then do a small bit of spackling on those holes from nails and a crack in the ceiling. Hopefully by Wednesday, I'll be putting the primer coat on all the walls. After that, I'm hoping to get one coat of the blue paint onto the walls. If I'm really adventurous (I doubt this will happen), I'll even start ripping up the rugs and preparing the floor.

Work on the office has taken a lot of my time but we did go away Friday night and for most of Saturday. Late Saturday and Sunday were spent working on the office.

But the fun part was last night: My wife, son, and I went to go see Trout Fishing in America with another couple and their 3 year old daughter. I was able to meet with Ezra (a member of the band) and had him sign their new CD and my wife met with Keith, having him also sign their new CD. Trout Fishing in America rocked last night and although it rained for the second hour of the concert, I haven't had that much fun at a concert since the last Paul McCartney concert in which my mom and I sang along to Beatles and Wings songs.

But the best part of the night was seeing my son air guitar and dance and tumble all over our blanket. With the concert being outside, we had two blankets lined up and the kids danced and played. What a blast! Best $20 I've spent in a long time! If you're not family with Trout Fishing in America and have kids, do yourself a favor and pick up a few of their CDs. Their music is fun but also good music.

In the realm of writing, I did get a fourth draft of my latest story finished, but I haven't printed it out and really had a chance to go through it. I'm also working on scoring an interview for a freelance article I'm working on and did get a writing invoice out in the mail.

With the holiday weekend (Labor Day here in the States) coming up, I want to try and get as much work done as I can so that I can celebrate my brother's birthday on Sunday and then relax.

Take it easy!

Episode 27: Vintage and All Things Old School

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Total running time: 27 minutes and 58 seconds.

Show Notes:

--Introduction to episode 27: Vintage and All Things Old School
--Theme music from Doctor Who (UK Sci-Fi TV show)
--Discussion of Selecting 10th Edition.
--Lotus Bloom and rumored Time Spiral cards.
--2006 Vintage Championship at GenCon
--Feedback: Mono Blue Control Rules!
--A memory from the recent past: 2004 Vintage Keeper deck
--Closing music from HatHead ("Dance of the Wolf).  Music available on the Podshow Music Network at music.podshow.com.

Unrelated Magic links, but cool or controversial stuff anyway: --All things Doctor Who (from Wikipedia)
--Listen to the Doctor Who podcast at Podshock.net
--Doctor Who wiki
--Doctor Who on the U.S. Sci-Fi Channel

Creative Commons License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Contribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Subscribe using iTunes: To subscribe to The Magic Sock using iTunes, simply click  here. (You'll need to have iTunes installed on your computer.)

For more information on how to subscribe to a podcast (video or audio), be sure to check out episode 5 of The Magic Sock: How to Subscribe to a Podcast.

Closing: Magic: The Gathering is trademarked and owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. The Magic Sock is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro in any way. To send feedback, send an e-mail to themagicsock@gmail.com.  Audio feedback is welcome but please keep the mp3 file to under 45 seconds and be sure to mention your name and city/state/country.

Immigration

First, read this article about illegal immigration and then get back to me. Although I disagree with some of what Ruben Navarrette Jr. writes, I happy to see that there's a voice of reason out in the press. Lately, everything has been so black and white that I appreciate Navarrette's stance that illegal immigration isn't about racism. I'd like to know about his thoughts on what the law should be for children of illegal immigrants--specifically children who weren't born here in the United States. If you were 6 years old and your parents came to the U.S. as illegal immigrants and still are, where does that leave the 6 year old 10 years from now?

I believe in smart laws rather than ones that make us feel safer so that we can protect our "American-ness" and be apart from those different than us. What really distrubs me are people who just classify an entire race as "lazy" or corrupt. In my experience, people of all races and creeds can be lazy or corrupt. Shouldn't we not judge an entire group of people?

Related to the illegal immigrant issue is the racism that muslims are facing in the world today. Heck, you can be on an airplane and think two muslims look suspicious and if you tell the cabin crew the plane will be turned around. There's a point in which we need to take a step back and understand that we're fearful of terror and of those taking what we have.

I believe that overcoming fear is to first accept that we're afraid. We're afraid that others will come into our country and make Spanish the national language. We're afraid of immigrants taking away our jobs. We're also afraid of immigrants coming into the U.S. and actually being terrorists who will attempt to harm our way of life.

Our path is simple: We can try to border ourselves up (like American tried after the first World War) or we can work smart and deal with our fear. Having open borders so anyone can come into the U.S. at anytime isn't a great idea, but at the same time, there are millions of people living here illegally. What are we going to do about it? Ship those millions of people out of the country? That's a bit drastic in my opinion.

If you've not thought about these issues, then maybe it's time to take a stand or at least to turn reality TV off and look around. Are you in favor of people being forced to speak English when ordering a steak sandwhich in Philadelphia? Is it right for muslims to be pointed at and held as criminals overnight for looking "suspicious" on an airplane? What should be the fate of the children of illegal immigrants who are growing up here in the U.S.?

Oftentimes in life, the Golden Mean--the path of moderation--might be best. Keep an open mind, question your beliefs, and realize that others disagree with what each of us believes. Question and learn. Education is the key.