Articles

Although I didn't sacrifice quite as much as the arch-mage did, I did make some major sacrifices for Magic this weekend. To attend the Australian Nationals for Magic the Gathering, I gave up time that I should have used to study for my major exams on the following Wednesday, paid about $250 for the whole trip down to Canberra and of course, I gave up a Friday night that I usually use to go clubbing and get totally trashed. I made all these sacrifices for one reason alone: The prize money. Seriously though, I went down to Canberra because I wanted to play Magic against the strongest players in Australia and know where I stand among them.

I arrived the Canberra convention at about 12:00 noon on Friday because my friend Paul wanted to try and play in the meat-grinders. While Paul is grinding away, I walk around the convention center for a bit with a smug "I've already got an invite¨ grin on my face to scout what the grinder decks are like. Some of the grinders that I recognized down there include Nick Smith, Jim Bandas and Josh Lopez (J-Lo). Nick and Jim managed to grind their way into the Nationals while Josh missed out at the semi-finals on both limited and constructed grinders. However, he did manage to walk away with two boxes of cards, which I think helped to heal his battered spirit and hushed his brother Kris.

One of the odd things that happened in the grinders is that some guy played at the grinders even though he had already got an invite. The result is that he got disqualified for the Nationals immediately and kicked out of the grinders. Why would someone want to spend $15 to enter the grinders while he had an invite is beyond me. I mean, if he had too much money, he could always give it to me.

After browsing around and saying hello to everyone I knew, I went to dinner with Paul who lost to Nether-haups in the grinders and his girlfriend Fiona at Sizzlers where they claimed to have excellent food and steaks as thick as my arm. What they didn't tell me was that they don't remember how to get there and in the end it took us an hour to find the place. Fortunately, I did get to see a lot of Canberra during this adventure while we talked about how weird the roads in Canberra are. In Sydney, the roads and the buildings are more crowded so that it will not take long for a person to travel from one place to another and turn around if they have made a mistake. In Canberra though, the roads are built like some place created with Sim City, where everything is stretched out with long roads connecting them from one place to another. The end result is that once you got on the wrong road, you would need to travel on that same road for about 10 minutes before you can turn around! Personally, I think this kind of architecture is less then practical and only suitable as a model on display.

Due to our delay, I was starving by the time we finally got to Sizzlers and went straight to the salad bar for a pig out. When my burger arrived, I was already stuffed like a turkey with macaroni and cheese and this strange delicious meat (Paul reckons it was shark meat) from the seafood salad. The steak in the burger was as good as Paul and Fiona said and the service at the place was even better. The waiters there practically wait on you the whole time throughout the meal and they are very well mannered even though they are going to close late because of us. If I were in their shoes, I would have kicked us out so that I could get home on time.

With our hunger satisfied, we decided to call it a night and head for our accommodation, which is the car for Paul and Fiona and the floor at my friend Eddie's room in the Australian Nationals University (ANU) for me. Despite of my positive features such as great looks and witty remarks (insert laugh here), I have the sense of direction of a drunken ape and the ANU is no place for me to monkey around. It actually took me an hour to find which dormitory my friend stayed at (there were 6 dorms in total) and another hour for me to find the room. I kind of felt like Link in "The Legend of Zelda" on N64 when I traveled around the place except that I'm using my own legs and there was no princess to give me a kiss in the end.

By the time I finally got to Eddie's room I was dead tired since my skinny muscles aren't used to this kind of exercise, and to add to my misery, even though ANU is huge, Eddie's room is tiny. I don't think I could have fit sleeping on the ground if I'm wasn't skinny like an anorexic girl. When I was laying out my sleeping bag I realized that I had forgotten to bring my pillow, so I had to use my bag filled with clothes with a jumper on top as a replacement. The ground was hard to sleep on even with the soft layer of padding in my sleeping bag and every bone in my body ached as I rolled around trying to find a comfortable position. This was when I started to think that this trip and my cost cutting scheme wasn't such a good idea after all; maybe it is time to get out of this cheap way of thinking of mine? This question floated in my mind for a while as I lulled myself to sleep, with curses for my own stinginess as my lullaby.

End of Day 0, to be continued.

Special thanks to Paul for driving me down to Canberra and Eddie for letting me crash at his place.