TŠIF - Thank Šamaš it's Friday

Here are some thoughts/experiences, which I've recently had:

Yesterday, while walking home Veronica and I passed a woman yelling into her phone, "When you die it's not all unicorns and rainbows..." Her volume was set to 11.

We should start a band that only plays in slow motion, at least in our rocking music videos.

I want to make a Minecraft scale model of the city of Ugarit, although maybe something like Carchemish or maybe a Neo-Assyrian palace. Whose up to join me in what will inevitably be hours and hours of hard, thankless labor for no real good reason?

By the way, new banner…now I'm hungry.

Here's something I was reading for my Akkadian class. It is a liver omen. So if you kill a sheep and look at it's liver and see the following, you'll know what to do.

BE IGI.BAR ki-ma BAD-ma u3 ši-lum i-na ŠA3-ša na-di aš-ša-at LU2 i-ni-a-ak-ma mu-sa3 i-ṣa-ba-as-si2-i-ma i-da-ak-ši
If the naplastum-mark is like the BAD sign and a perforation is situated at its heart, the wife of a man will have illicit intercourse and her husband will seize her and he will kill her.
By the way the BAD sign is the Sumerian name for the sign and represents the Sumerian pronunciation of the logogram, but it doesn't have any connection to the english word "bad."

Revisiting My Fearless Magic Predictions

Back three years ago, I made a series of magic-related predictions. Now let's check back in to see how many of them I correctly predicted to see if I am secretly Nostradamus in disguise (also you guys promised me a bucket of fried chicken if I got at least 4 correct).

1. Swords to Plowshares will be reprinted in the next three years. - INCORRECT
So it seems that Wizards feels that Path to Exile is about the high water mark of power for this level of effect. Maybe they have concerns about this and Path coexisting in modern or maybe they feel it would be too dominating in standard. I want to say I heard Mark Rosewater talk about the flavor of STP causing a creature to starting farming was out of the context of how wizards designed the way that white flavor-fully deals with creatures.

2. Control Magic will be reprinted in the next three years. - INCORRECT
This one I'm now pretty sure is not going to happen. Control Magic has a completely realistic power level for standard and is such a great simple cards with lots of complexity under the surface. However, someone at Wizards has stated that creature stealing effects without a downside are simply too powerful to show up at uncommon for drafting purposes. The control magic variants they have done in the last three years have all been significantly less powerful and Soul's Ransom might set a precident that the effect will be moved to higher rarities. If this is the case, Control Magic doesn't feel rare and would probably just disappoint many people if it was printed as a rare.

3. Stone Rain will not be reprinted within the next three years. - CORRECT
This one seems pretty obvious looking back now. Wizards has been trying to encourage new players to get hooked on magic by trying to create a better experience for more inexperienced players. Mechanics like discard, counterspells and land destruction all lead to players having few choices and less ability to interact with their opponents. What makes magic fun for most players are these complicated decisions and the interactions between cards. Stone rain, especially with the existence of mana dorks, is simply too powerful and inspires too many people to rage quit for it to be coming back any time soon.

4. Scars of Mirrodin will have little in common with Mirrodin Block. - CORRECT
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this one is correct, although I didn't really define it very well to begin with. Scars was much more about the Phyrexians and their infect ability than anything else. Sure the metalcraft and imprint mechanics had some powerful and interesting cards, but the block had no overpowered artifact synergies like affinity and ended up being more tangentially about artifacts as compared to the original Mirrodin block. Since Wizards starting using the story to drive the flavor of their sets more starting with this block, so flavorfully this block returned to a lot of the same elements in the first block to check in with how they had changed, the more nuanced answer might be that mechanically this statement is true but flavorfully this statement is false.

5. Dan will start playing magic again in the next three years. - INCORRECT
Dan, much like the legendary sasquash, has only been heard of through the eyewitness reports of those who think they might have seen him in the Food Lion parking lot or possibly driving past, but nothing has been confirmed. No one can really be certain what this giggly beast is up too, but one thing is for certain, he is probably high right now.

My You Make the Card Submission

"Zombie Outbreak"

Black Enchantment

Zombies you control have deathtouch.

Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies from damage dealt by a zombie you control, you may put that creature onto the battlefield under your control. It is a black zombie in addition to its other creature types.

Star Wars Episode VII

Brule's Rules

You (and by you I mean my fellow authors of this blog, celebrities, everyone who has ever looked at a webpage on the internet, the chickens pictured below, myself and especially Jared from the Subway commercials who is not a celebrity) are fat!!!! You need to loose some weight. You need to go on a diet. Here are some tips for you if you can spare a few seconds of shoving Doritos into your mouth with your fat sausage fingers to be able to wipe off the dust and click your mouse.

Also, you need to get some exercise fat-ass!!!! Might I suggest Estonia Werewolf Wrestling . . .



For your health!!!!!

I'm Thinking of Opening a KFC Pt. 2

The recession is upon us.  The farm was hit by hard times.  Thanks Obama!  It was especially hard to let the delicious chickens go.  I remember it like it was just yesterday that my inventory would immediately fill up with eggs when I walked in the chicken coop.  I would then have to machine gun throw the eggs against the wall and a baby chicken would hatch 1/8th of the time.  There's so much pixelated beauty in the world.

I'm Thinking of Opening a KFC

I have been farming in Minecraft.  Wheat, Cows, Sheep, and Chickens.  I tried pigs but couldn't find any carrots...  Its time to move on though.  Stay tuned for when I post the images of me letting out the animals!

 

 

Joey you could totally show up this little bitch

I Don't Think I've Done enough Drugs

This has been your weekly public service announcement, Please keep our street cleans kids.

Adults make sure to beat your children, plants, pets, and elders, if they do not uphold societal standards. I feel a Frank Zappa phase coming on...

Obama Comics Part 3: The Umpire Strikes Back

Obama Comics!!!!

Real Talk: There's Something Wrong With My Toast

Hey sports fans.  Its time for an official blog meeting.  As you know, summer is just around the corner.  In order to make this the best summer ever we have scheduled a week at The Waalkes Cottage.  The dates are July 20th until July 27th.  We would like everyone to come.  Hopefully this works for you guys.  We had been planning on scheduling it a little closer to the summer but as always there's some Waalkes extended family drama going on.  If no one shows, it will be me, Mom, Dad, and the Bells.  Never again will I be forced to take a nap against my will.  I mean, wtf, they wouldn't even let me listen to my headphones while they were napping!  But I digest.  We just wanted to give you all advanced notice now that we've scheduled the week.  TTYL

Our new Blog Mascot?

Serious though, that thing doesn't give a fuck.