GP Providence and saving money

Last weekend Jamie and a few other magic friends spent the weekend in Providence for the Magic Grand Prix Legacy event. It was a pretty sweet experience and makes the first 'pro' event I've been to. Players from all around the world fly to GPs to compete for Pro points and prize, making it a very competitive environment. It was amazing to see some big names at the event, and it was especially surprising to me how tall they all were in person. Giant! I saw LSV, PV and Owen Turtenwald play and the perfection that they played at was fantastic to watch. Really inspiring. I myself didn't have any byes for the event (Pros come in with 3 byes on day one) and I went 4-3 before I dropped. You needed to be X-2 to have a chance to top 8 after 17 rounds! There were 1200 people there!

I just had the urge to finally tighten up my spending. I just got stuff to pack lunches after not packing a lunch for a year and a half. That alone will save me over 100$ a month. I can cut FNM for a while and save 60$ a month, plus I am canceling netflix (I never use it anyway) and closed one of my FFxi accounts. That'll easily save 200 a month. Working to see if I have another 100 somewhere will be more challenging though..

It's been getting hot again :( I've been hearing about storms that my friends and family have gotten in PA and I am jealous :( We haven't gotten ANY thunderstorms yet where I live in CT...

Tomorrow marks exactly 2 years since I started working in CT. It's quite a big feat and I hope I can make it last a few more.

One Year Later

It's officially been one year since I've first started this blog and one year and one month since I've moved to Connecticut. Wow, I cannot believe how much has happened in the past year and how quickly the anniversary came. About this time last year I was living with Josh. I remember playing Call of Duty 4 after work all the time and I remember picking like 20 lbs of blueberries. I remember cooking a lot and making sweet deserts on Sundays. I remember meeting a boy for a month and making a mistake with Josh. I remember tearing myself apart over it and barely hanging on. I have so much to thank you guys for helping me through it. I am very fortunate to have started this blog.

After I split with Josh I got my own apartment and I've been living under my terms. I haven't talked with Josh since. In the end I think it was better for me, emotionally. I was always depressed when I was with him because I knew I could never have him. Now that I'm on my own and living without him I don't get depressed anymore. I've honestly never had a moment since then where I have been really sad.

Nowadays I still play Magic: the Gathering a lot and I'm looking forward to the release of Final Fantasy XIV online. They finally published a release date for it: Sept. 30th! It'll be coming out the week of my birthday and I'll be taking about 2 weeks of work off to play it lol...

Next week is Connecticon, a convention held every year in CT. It'll be a fun filled weekend of Magic and other geeky activities I am sure. Looking forward to it!

Another day

I've probably done a lot the past few weeks. Last weekend for example I went to Rhode Island with an attractive yet obnoxious teen to play in a magic tournament. I've also recently gone back to eating real food for dinners. Tonight I'll be playing cards again as well.

Final Fantasy 14 has been making advances in development and they had a display at E3 which was today. I can't wait for that game to come out. I've given up on FF11 because I just can't play without my original character.

When I logged into MSN messenger today an article popped up called "Australian 'angel' saves lives at suicide spot". I read it and felt my tears well up at one point. I think it might have inspired me to post. Here is the link: Link

Paranormal

Okay, normally I would think I'm just going crazy but I'm convinced something paranormal just happened to me.

I was out playing Magic tonight, as Wednesday is Magic night and all. After magic I headed back home and stopped to get gas. I noticed that I didn't have my phone on me and I checked my pockets and the seat of my car to see if my phone had fallen out, but to no avail.

So I thought maybe I had left my phone at home instead of at the card shop because I really didn't want to drive all the way back. I checked at home and I didn't see it there so I decided to drive back. It is about 12:20 AM at this point so I know I have just wasted sleeping time but I couldn't wait until Friday night to get my phone back.

It had been raining hard earlier and apparently hail as well and when I left the rain had stopped, but not five minutes after I left for the card shop again the rain had started back up but this time it was raining really hard. Like flash flood hard. AND it was terrific lightning storm.

So I finally get to the card shop thanking God I made it there safely and I see that there are no cars there... everyone had left and I couldn't get into the store. I ran from my car through the pouring rain and back because I had to make sure in case the door was locked. I was so afraid of getting hit by lightning.

I ran back and jumped in my car and climbed into the back seat. I decided it was best to wait out the eye of the storm. So I waited about 10-15 minutes and decided to climb back into the front seat when I saw it. My phone was sitting there on the driver's seat........ I said "God?" out loud in a frightened voice. Seriously, I know I checked the seat and my pockets and all around for my phone. It didn't just fall out of my pocket into my seat. Normally I would just say wow I am such an idiot how could I miss it, but my phone magically appeared in my seat. I'm not even mad that I made the trek "for nothing" because I'm convinced it wasn't with me. The lightning on the way back though was just spectacular.

Alumni weekend and more Magic

Well, it's been like 2 weeks since i've updated... so much for returning to frequent posting lol. 2 weekends ago Jamie and I left to go visit our fraternity in western PA. They were having an alumni golf tournament, so we wanted to see some old friends (we had no intention of golfing, haha). We rented a car because we didn't want to put the miles on our cars and we drove off to New York to pick up another fraternity friend. After we picked up Adam, we went south to Philadelphia to pick up another friend to make it 4 of us. Shortly after we left Philly the rental car started shaking violently and we realized it wouldn't go in reverse! We spent a couple hours but we eventually found an Enterprise to swap cars with us. Man, I can't believe a rental company gave us a crap car. I mean really crappy...

It was about 12 hours on the road since we left when we arrived at our fraternity. We met up with old acquaintances for dinner, then spent the evening at our favorite local bar. The next day my Mom came up to visit and she and my sister and I went to a park for a few hours. It was nice of course to see family during my visit, since I really don't drive to PA very often.

Sat night involved a BYOB at our fraternity house. It was an enjoyable night until one of the girls blacked out and hit her head on the ground and had to go to the hospital. She looked as pale as a ghost! The party ended then and we set up our beds in the lounge and watched Kill Bill until we fell asleep.

If you were a follower from way back you may realize that this was the same fraternity that Josh went to. He didn't go because his girlfriend's graduation was the following week or so and he was going then. Yes, his girlfriend goes to the same school and is friends with my 'brothers' so without a doubt I expected her to blab her unintelligent mouth about what happened between Josh and I. Well no one said anything to me, but I could tell that some of them knew. One of my closer friends that is also friends with Josh didn't really acknowledge me :/ I was/am upset about the whole thing but what's happened is in the past and I have no control over that.

...

I've figured out that I have played magic at the card shop for 7 out of the last 8 days... Last weekend was a pro-tour qualifier, which we all played in. I went 2-2 and then dropped because I just wasn't feeling well. I needed more sleep and food to eat to be more competitive. This Saturday is another large tournament called Regionals that I will play in. I hope to do well there at least.

...

Work might get interesting soon, since I will be on an Agile team soon enough. Right now my manager is off for the next like 3 weeks, so I'm just keeping myself busy until then. At the end of this month it will have been exactly one year since I've started working there, WOW. I cannot believe how fast time has gone and all that has happened to me in the last year. I plan on having an anniversary post around that time since I started this blog shortly after :)

The weekend

During the week I noticed a crack in my windshield. It starts on the passenger side at the top and runs down to the left past my rear-view mirror. I think it might even be getting larger, so I need to have it looked at this week. I'm planning on driving myself and 3 other friends back to college next weekend, so I might need to have that fixed...

Wednesday night was another magic night. I managed to build a crazy deck and won 6 packs. Last night, Friday, only 5 people showed up for magic including myself, so we couldn't sanction the event. It's unfortunate that we couldn't and that all the shops around seem to be competing for players. I did manage to open an expensive card, so I was at least happy with that. Sunday night there is a "release event" that I'll play in too.

Lots of magic

So last weekend was member appreciation day at the card shop I play at. So I got up at like noonish and went and played there until 5AM lol... Non stop magic. We often do what we call a 2v2, where just four of us draft and the winning team gets to keep all the rares.

Well for one of the 2v2s I got paired down with an inexperienced player so I was a little upset. Then I opened a really rare and expensive card and was a little flustered, because I knew I was probably going to lose it, so I really tried my best to draft the best deck. I believe I did and we had some great games. In the end we went to overtime and I lost the final match. But afterwards Jake (who beat me) came up to me and asked me to sign his card! With a sharpie! He said it was the best game of magic he's played in a long time and wanted to remember it. I don't know, but I think signing his card was more memorable than if I had won it myself...

This Friday at midnight is the release of a new card set, so I'll be playing at the shop then.

Back to posting regularly?

Well.. sorry I haven't been posting very often like when I started, but now that it's Spring maybe I'll be in a better mood :P 2 days ago I started really cleaning up the apartment. I even unpacked my last box from when I moved in! As I was cleaning I thought about "Spring cleaning" and wondered it there is something about spring that makes us want to get stuff done? Another human trait perhaps that is (mostly) unavoidable for even non-conformists as they won't even realize it? I'm rambling :P

I've been playing Magic a lot, mostly 2 nights a week for quite a few hours each night. I think I'll have to stop playing on Wednesdays, since I have to work the next day. Last night I got back after 1 AM and I had to get up early for work.. that didn't work out well. I woke up almost missing work and I decided to work at home (which I can do with my laptop) so I wouldn't be late. I was still tired though and I still have to do some work before I go to bed.

Next Friday a new Magic set is coming out, so I've been pre-ordering some of the cards on ebay. I'm getting a few lots of cards for cheaper than I think they'll end up being when they see play, which if fun and actually is kind of a rush to try to outbid people haha. Like I have to wait until the last second of the auction and click bid.

So I got my computer set up and it's working great! Windows 7 runs very smooth on it and the 24 inch monitor is nice, lol. I also went out and got a high quality mouse, the Razor Death Adder. It's a precision mouse that requires only the slightest movement to move the curser around the large screen, which is really handy.


In other news, I've been thinking about getting a smart phone kind of soon. Probably a Motorola Droid after my trip at the end of the month. I'll be going back to my college in PA to attend my fraternity's alumni golf tournament. I've never actually golfed before, haha... but I'm going just to meet up with the chapter before they graduate.

Alice, Final Fantasy XIII, and Magic

This past weekend I played in a Magic "Standard" tournament with Jamie and a few other friends. 3 out of the 4 of us made the top 8, which was pretty cool.

Today I picked up Final Fantasy XIII and the special edition strategy guide. I was planning on playing it all day, since I took the day off, but I've only played a little bit. It's not bad or anything, just gonna take it slow I guess.

Sunday night I went to see Alice in Wonderland (by myself). I normally wouldn't go by myself unless I knew the theater was going to be empty, but this was just a movie I had to see. I loove Tim Burton + Johnny Depp. Two of my many favorite people. The movie was alright, except for the drunk guy sitting next to me laughing his ass off at stupid things and talking the entire time... Maybe he was on drugs, idk. I'll see it again on blue ray when it comes out :P After the movie I went out and got a poster with the Cheshire Cat on it, lol.

This is War

Uh lets see. I probably shouldn't wait a week to update, as I'm probably missing a few things when I post. Last Friday I went to Omni Comics for Friday Night Magic. I went even though my friend Jamie was out of state and I usually go with him. I built a kind of crappy Green/Red deck that I managed to come in 4th with out of 16 people. Only won 1 pack... that's one complaint I have about the place I play at; the prize support kind of sucks.

Worked at home today since the landlord was suppose to come and replace some cracked windows, but he never showed up. They called and will probably come to replace them in a week. I don't really care since they are paying for heat, but I don't really want them going into my apartment when I'm not in it so I'm trying to work remotely when they come.

Dan called today (He's the judge at the place I play magic). He wanted to know if I was up for a draft today, so I said yeah and that's what I did tonight. I built a really strong Red/Black deck that was very aggressive, but I lost some key games out of sheer bad luck. First night that I didn't win anything... I guess I can't win them all /shrug.

I discovered that 30 Seconds to Mars, one of my favorite bands, released a new album today, called "This is War." I'm listening to it now for the first time, and I'm not really sure how I like it yet. I'll have a better opinion after I listen to it a couple of times, but I think they went a step down from the power of the previous album.

Pro Tour Qualifier

I've managed to unpack most of my things and I am enjoying living on my own.

I had training for two days at work last week, so that was a nice break from work. Tony, an old, funny Chinese guy and one of my mentors at work wants me to go snowboarding with him and a bunch of my coworkers on my team, but I told him maybe next year. I've gone snowboarding and skiing before, but with my experience it was never fun for me. Sure, I probably didn't like it because I was new and fell a lot... but it's also just too cold and dangerous for me to consider it fun. I want to like it, so maybe next year. Besides, it's pretty expensive to get all of the right gear that i would need.

Friday night I went to a coworker's house to hang out. He had a bunch of us over and we listened to music, played some Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox, and drank a little. After a while my coworker's left execpt for Drew and myself. Then it got a little awkward as other people came over that we didn't know. They all looked 17 or 18 but claimed to be 20. I don't know why but I didn't leave until after 1 am...

Saturday I got up real early to go to the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Qualifier. There were about 280 players all competing for the one Pro Tour ticket to San Diego and lots of prizes. Each player recieved 6 booster packs to make a deck out of, and it was Swiss pairing all the way. My card pool was very strong, but I made some mistakes and didn't have the luck needed to go all the way. I finished 5-4 after 9 rounds, which isn't too too bad. Only got 3 boosters as a prize for finishing in 53rd place.

We went to my friend Jamie's house after to hang out. Some of us wanted to go to a Chinese Buffet for dinner, but others wanted to have delivery, so we ordered a ton of Chinese food to simulate a buffet at home. The only thing I had to eat all day was a fun sized Kit-kat bar, so I made sure we ordered a ton of food! It was too much though, we couldn't finish it..

Today I'm watching football games and my fantasy team continue to go undefeated as it goes 11-0. I need to prepare for a presentation type thing that I need to do at work to explain what I learned a training a few weeks ago. My boss is just trying to scare me, so I'm not worried about it. I'll throw something together and prepare some handouts and I will make it a casual conversation as opposed to a formal presentation.

Sorry I've been neglectful and I hope you all have been doing well.

Broken Heart in a New Place

It feels like every time I come here to post, something drastic has happened in my life. Well, hopefully that will change soon as I get settled in my new place. Since the last post, Anthony broke up with me. I thought our relationship was very strong, all the way up until Halloween and after. We shared so much affection for each other, but then last week I noticed he wasn't acting the same. He was almost trying to avoid talking to me online and he made up excuses for when I asked if he'd like to see my new place this weekend. So I asked him if something happened, because I felt like something was different, and he just replies that he wants to break up... I really don't know what to think of it all, I mean we had a good thing going and he just all of a sudden lost interest. I don't get it. I really liked him, and I think I'm slowly getting over it, but I think I'm going to take a good break from trying to date anyone right now. I just can't handle another set back.

So I finally have a place to live, and I'm all moved in now. I just have to unpack and organize everything. I do enjoy living on my own now; I have a greater sense of freedom here.

Friday night my friend Jamie called me up to see if I needed help moving some things with his truck. I said yeah, then he also wanted to know if I'd like to come with him to a Magic: the Gathering friday night draft event. I was still feeling down about Anthony, so I was really glad he called me up. I had a good time and I played two sanctioned drafts and did surprisingly well in them, considering I haven't seen the card set until that night.

All day Saturday I was moving stuff between apartments and buying food and stuff for the new place.

Today, I finished moving stuff over and Jamie calls me again and wants to see if I'm interested in playing a Magic sealed deck tournament. I didn't have time to play the whole thing, so I just went over and watched him play for a little bit. Afterwards, I did some more shopping for apartment stuff and then I went out to meet Bob for dinner at Chuck's steakhouse in MA. I had a really good time with a great friend once again.

Thanks for everything.