At the Kitchen Table

It’s  the end of the Worlds as know it.

Today started early. I set my alarm for 7am so that I could be to the site in plenty of time to see the opening ceremonies and the HOF induction.

I caught the 49 bus to Fort Mason. This reminded me vividly how much nicer the public transportation system in Chicago is.

I made it to the venue in plenty of time. On entering the hall, I was greeted my Magic’s reigning posterboy:

Meeting people.

I spent much of the day simply meeting people: those that I’ve met before, and those who I know on twitter and the like.

The list is long but the day began, and ended (over a fabulous diner at Tony’s) with Robert Martin (Men of Magic), Trick, Adam (aka Trick version 2.0), and Evan.

I got a seat for the ceremonies. BDM stopped on the way to the stage to say hi. Brian is simply a great guy whose knowledge of the game and it’s history is simply amazing.

I watched the opening ceremonies and the HOF induction. It’s so good to see Steve OMS get in. This is so long overdue. I noticed Shuhei having a good laugh at the recounting of his past achievements and adventures: Play every GP across the world, and something about petting an alligator?! He was in fine form today, in Japanese attire.

I squoze in an 8 man standard pickup. I played UW Illusions, and lost in round 2. More public events later in the weekend.

After that event I wandered around more and met up with more people.

Notably, I ran into Lokman Chen Fresh from his GP San Diego top 8. Lokman is someone I have good memories of playing at Superstars when it was my LGS.

I finally had the pleasure of meeting @affinityforblue himself, Joey Pasco. We had a long chat that wandered over several magic and non-magic topic.

Tristan Sean Gregory is another guy I know from my days at Superstars/ChannelFireball. Good times catching up and having a deep discussion of the OP changes.

I must say I was dismayed when I saw where the event was. Restaurnats? NOT. Coffee? NOT. The coffee I took care of with a short walk to StarBucks, and lunch was in true San Francisco style: food trucks! Real food trucks, unlike as the legally castrated trucks in Chicago. Yummy food trucks, too. Mmm.. chicken and donuts!

Waiting in line for lunch I met Josh Frankel (@inkwell_looter) and chatted with him and Mark Rosewater.

Sat with Josh, Adam (@the_stybs) his wife, and a couple other guys.

After lunch Adam and I played a game with a couple casual decks he had. I ran the BG werewolf deck with copy effects. I won that one fairly handily. I believe  he is planning to write it up. It was fun, and the first time Ive had the opportunity to play with werewolves. The dual face cards are a bit of a pain, but the werewolves are great fun. After he experience with them, as well as the Delver in my Illusions deck, I see the value of using checklists.  I’m sold.

Many of the greats are here. Many old timers as well. I’ve seen Jon Finkel several a times, Alan Comer, Darwin Kastle, Rob Dougherty, Randy Beulher. Many seem to be here because it really is the end of the Worlds as we know it.

Artists, spell slingers, and Seishiro Ohkubo with his amazing 3D alters. So nice I’d want to put them in a perfect fit…. um….

Finally met and had a good chat with Ziam Beg, after working with him on channelforeball.com.

Adam and I did a fairly significant trade.  I almost took one of his Underground Seas as part of it, but decided to go with more on less valuable lands: pains and various colorless generators for my Karn Commander deck that I’m rebuilding. I followed that up with cruising the vendor booths for more Commander fodder.  I like Adam’s idea of building a ‘Commander box‘.  This weekend is getting it up & running.  It’s time to head back to the ATM…

After a day full of magic Adam, his wife, Trick, Robert, and Evan and me heading to dinner at Tony’s in North Beach (corner of Union & Stockton). If you like traditional pizza, get there at least once while you’re here!

The day wrapped up back at the Armory with me meeting (a hug was as far as it went) my favorite kinklive.com girl.  A while ago it came to light that we had a couple of really good friends in common (which I had dinner with on Wednesday, in fact). A great day over all.