bad health

Ok if you wanna skip to the bad part its at the bottom. If you wanna be happy then you can start reading here:

I found out that the book about Scrabble is called "Word Freak". Boy is that guy a huge word freak! The author started playing Scrabble and desired to become better, and is meeting all of these new friends, most which are highly ranked. I am only half way though, but I can only guess that his dedication and his strive for success really gets him over the top.

This story does remind me of my childhood with this card game called Magic. I would watch some friends play in elementary school and become interested, so I buy some cards and play with my brother, for fun. I read some advertisements in the box it came with, and saw that the game had a tournament scene. Being about 10 at the time, I had no means of getting around, and I was too young and immature to be competing anyways, since most participants are at least 18 (that I have witnessed). We would play for hours upon hours, day after day, with the same old cards until they became battered and beat up. We then stopped when my brother lost interest because he would lose most of the games. That is when I stopped too...

Until I came to Baylor and stumbled across a website: The Game Closet. That place held tournaments every Friday, and also random ones, and large cash prize ones. I went to one of them, and met a guy from Baylor named Andre. I was so rusty since it has been about 8 years since I have touched the game. I lost to Andre due to poor play and lack of knowledge of the current cards (plus he is a very high ranked player). That lost ensued in me the desire to re learn the game, and find out what current cards are being played. 

This game can be very expensive. I chose to be Asian and be cheap. A typical deck that is high tier (very strong, has not many weaknesses) costs at least $200 to build, and can get up to $400+ish. The deck(s) that I build? $35-$50. I found some powerful cards that are not expensive and stuck them together. I took the cheap decks and started playing in the Friday tournaments, called Friday Night Magic, for a few weeks. Once I learned the metagame (what decks are being used) I quickly gained ranks. I won a total of 3 tournaments out of about 7, which is not bad considering I had to learn everything from scratch. I remember finishing almost dead last the first time. The rest, I finished somewhere in the middle of the field. I beat Andre in the finals of one of the FNM tournaments, and used a $35 deck vs his $200+ one. I felt bad for winning because he was my ride, every time. I also beat the highest ranked person there, Zach, but he beat me every other time we played each other. He is a strong player, and made appearances and top 16 finishes in larger tournaments.

I stopped playing after the game got too expensive to keep up with. Cards cycle each year, so you have to keep buying new ones and making new decks. This one ridiculous card called Jace, the Mindsculpter, is very powerful and he costs $100... for one flippin piece of cardboard. And all the top tier decks run 4 copies, so that is already $400. So I take back my estimate, and decks can reach up to $700+. That is when I quit because my poor college butt can not afford a hobby like that. 

But the thing is, I did not feel any connection with my Magic peers. I felt like the odd one out. The guys are great, but I think I am not nerdy enough to pretend to be nerdy to fit in. I dunno. I don't pretend though. Reading Word Freak, I know for sure I would never fit in with those folks. They've got different character. Sometimes I wish I were like them, but I am happy with who I associate with now. So in the end, I did not really lose anything by stopping. I do not think I will return in the future, since school is picking up and I am starting to enjoy living life more and enjoying the outdoors (some of those folks haven't even seen sunlight...)

Anywho, I have been keeping up with some workouts, and am sure glad I am. I did a blood test on Wednesday and got my results in today. Apparently I am at a high risk for diabetes. My AcI? is 6.3 whereas the upper limit is 5.7. My brother got the same result and my mom is 6.5 or 6.7 -- I forget. I guess it runs in the family... I don't drink soda or eat that much candy. I don't have glucose in my urine, but my brother does... That is why you should do routine check ups. We did it only cause it was $65... bad excuse. So another goal I am going to set is, eat healthy and watch the sugars. I think I can keep up with that! I already gave away my banana bread to Jenny! Everyone loved it! 

That's all I got. To boost your spirits, the Mavs won in the biggest comeback of NBA finals history. Nuff said. And I won Spades with Steve, against Kaili and Jenny. We were at 999 with 9 bags... 1 point away from winning (we played to 1000), but got set, but won in the end regardless.

I also got my car tinted on Tuesday and my dad didn't say anything, but ironically my mom did. She says it is too dark but it is legal. Sides are 33% and back is 18%. Texas law allows 25% on sides and the back does not matter. the % corresponds to light transmitance, so the lower the %, the darker the tint.

My car is white and the interior is all black, so it looks like the tint is super dark. Here are some pics...

And here is my dog Cici, whom I run with almost every night! And sprint with every time:

-KT