All posts by Robin

I'm a woman in my early thirties living in North Carolina, USA, and I have a lot of varied interests; I love creative writing, music composition, web design, surfing the Internet, thinking out loud, and gaming. And yes, my glasses are crooked. :)
Wednesday in the Word

Only Faith Saves Us, Not Works, Politics, or Anything Else

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Galatians 1:10
10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

In the first chapter of the Book of Galatians, Paul is assuring the members of the Galatian church that there is no other gospel, no other basis of faith, than that which he has already preached to them–the good news concerning Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord, who gave himself in sacrifice for our sins, and was raised from the dead, just as we can be raised from our spiritual deaths and live a Christian life.

Many of the Galatian Christians were confused by the other religions that swirled about them, especially some who were told that they still had to follow many of the ceremonial rites of the Old Testament as the Jews did. Since in that day there was a sect of Jews called “Zealots,” who did not like the melding of Judaism and Christianity that was going on, some new Christians were trying to walk a middle ground by doing some of the Old Testament practices in addition to following the New Testament’s gospel. They were attempting to please the others around them, afraid of what would happen otherwise.

Paul rebukes this practice of pleasing men rather than God with verse 10. After all, the Galatians have said they believe in God; why then are they worried about what that belief might begin in their community? So what if somebody else gets their underwear in a twist about your beliefs–if you love Christ and want to serve Him on earth, Paul reminds them, it’s your business with God, not anyone else’s. No matter who they might politically offend in their town, Paul encourages them not to sway from their beliefs.

With Christianity now more a majority than the minority it was in those days, it may be hard for modern Christians to connect with how fearful the Galatians might have felt about their newborn faith. After all, Christians aren’t persecuted very much anymore; in fact, we are often the ones doing the persecuting of others, if history is any reminder. The conservative political parties (in America, at least) proudly wave the Christian flag alongside the American flag, seemingly praising God with one side of their mouths and decrying the liberal heathens with the other.

I would suggest that Christians today face a new type of persecution from non-Christians–that of being lumped in with the media frenzy of bigotry and judgmentalism that closely shadows many conservative “Christian” political candidates. While I call myself a Christian, for instance, I shy from calling myself a “conservative” Christian, because I don’t want people to think I agree with the brand of hateful, angry conservatism I see in the popular media. You could say I’m still seeking the approval of man by “hiding out” in this way; I’m trying to walk a middle ground, pursuing a Christian life without trying to make it as political as it’s ended up being in the last few years.

No, I’m not very brave when it comes to my own newborn faith; I only returned to the fold a few years ago, after all, and I still feel very fragile about it sometimes. I think many of us modern Christians are in the same boat, though–we’re Christians, not necessarily conservative (though often people use the two words interchangeably). We worry about being associated with the overbearing imagery of conservatism that gets broadcast through sound bites and 1-minute news features, because even if the imagery is incorrect, it’s what people think conservative Christianity is all about. Those of us who call ourselves Christian but don’t necessarily have that same conservative standpoint will thus be unfairly judged by association. (And it already happens, believe me–I’ve been told before that I need to “shut up about God” and I don’t “need to judge somebody else’s beliefs.” Those who know me well know that I am the last person to judge someone harshly based on religions, with all the junk that’s happened to me in the past.)

But we cannot keep seeking the tacit approval of others by hiding who we are–that’s what Paul is telling us in this Scripture verse. Just like today’s Christians, the early Christians he was writing to were worried about political affiliations and family traditions, but Paul urged them to think spiritually rather than worldly. If we are Christian and apolitical, for instance, or Christian and liberal, or Christian and anything, we should allow that Christianity to shine through in everything we do, seeking only the approval of God by believing in Jesus Christ. Only that faith–only that belief–will save us. No good works, no political contributions to “holy” candidates, or anything else of earth will save us.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

You Can Get Fat With Friends, But You Have to Get Healthy On Your Own

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As a “fat girl” for the last 14 years of my life, I have struggled with my weight and my shape, trying all different types of lifestyle changes, eating plans, and even exercise programs. I have alternately hated my body and tried to love it, tried to use exercise equipment and then eschewed it, etc. I’ve tried walking alone on a track; I’ve tried doing various diets (even low-carb, for about 5 minutes); I’ve tried exercising with music on headphones. Nothing worked for a very long time–I got bored, I got out of the habit, and then it was back to living like I was, relatively sedentary because of my lower body’s arthritic injuries, and avoiding anything green and leafy like it’s got mold.

Does “Healthy Living” Always Have to Equal “Lonely Living?”

During these years of struggle, I’ve noticed something: “living healthy” is a lonely process, like I referenced in the title of this article. It’s very difficult to get people to eat healthier with you, or to exercise regularly with you, due to scheduling, different food needs and likes, and just plain being too busy or too disconnected. And since I’m such a social creature, liking to do things with other people than by myself, it makes it doubly hard to stick to any plan. Not only are the plans difficult to follow because they’re SO different from the way I live my life and they often cause me lots of physical pain, but I have to do everything alone. Doing things alone is a great way to unmotivate oneself.

Perhaps I sound like a crybaby. No matter; I’ve been called a crybaby many times during my life, and I’d say that my sensitivity makes me a much more impassioned writer and a better artist than it makes me a well-adjusted human being. It’s just that if I have to go through something as life-altering, painful, and tough as “getting healthy,” then I’d like a little support. After all, there are support groups for everything else in life.

“Anti-Health” Support Groups, Ahoy!

In fact, I’m comfortable making the assertion that we currently have unintended “anti-health support groups” in America and around the world. There are plenty of people to help you eat all the wrong things, but if you’re on a super-healthy diet, you eat alone. There are plenty of people to help you laze around and watch TV all day, but if you’re going to exercise, you have to do it by yourself. We all help each other sink farther and farther into unhealthy activities because those unhealthy activities feel so darned good and the healthy activities feel like punishment.

In light of this, why are fat people like me subjected to teasing, ridicule, and blame, when we ALL are to blame for being rather hedonistic in our choices of lifestyle? Somehow, it’s still completely “our fault” for being fat, even when the culture immediately around us rewards bad choices and punishes good choices.

When Good Health is Associated with Bad Emotions

I’m tired of being lonely during exercise, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Apart from my Zumba experience, which has been amazingly awesome despite not being able to do quite all the moves yet, my exercise repertoire in the past mostly consisted of boring workouts that somehow manage to leave me unbearably sore and bedridden the next day.

Walking, for instance, BORES ME TO TEARS. Just walking and walking around in a circle not doing anything else productive is not relaxing for me–it makes me anxious about the time I’m wasting doing this useless junk when I could be at home working on a project I’ve got coming up. Walking and other “10-reps-of-this, 20-reps-of-this” exercises drive me insane. There’s nothing to THINK about except how much pain I’m in, and how much pain I’m going to be in tomorrow, and how airless my lungs feel. There’s an incredible isolation that descends upon you when you’re in pain–no one else can feel what you’re feeling at this moment, and quite possibly, no one even cares how much it hurts. When exercise is associated with humiliation and pain, it’s no wonder people don’t want to do it.

I’m also tired of being lonely at the dinner table, and I know I ain’t the only one. When everyone else is indulging in wonderful treats of all types and you’re stuck with a “Rabbit’s Delight” salad, you begin to feel like the odd one out. If you’re the only person counting calories, watching carbs or fat, etc., you feel like you’re in “Food Time-Out.” Starving oneself while everyone else eats heartily, eating something that tastes absolutely disgusting just because it’s “healthier” than what you like, is not my idea of culinary fun. As a very picky eater, hating almost all vegetables and fruits because of the nasty pulpy/crunchy textures and brackish dirt/water tastes, it’s hard for me to find healthy things that I can eat, though even I draw the line at Taco Bell’s ground beef these days (it’s more grease than meat, or is it just me?). I try to choose the least of the food evils and eat smaller portions of whatever I get, but I still feel like I’m depriving myself–and I end up hungry 45 minutes later, without fail.

Do We Deserve “Body Punishment?” I Don’t THINK So!

When “getting healthy” is lonely, boring, and horrible, it doesn’t exactly help anybody join the program. And yet, it seems there’s an idea of “body punishment” for those who have to get healthy to live longer lives–somehow, it’s perceived that we “did this to ourselves,” so we “deserve” all the pain and hardship we go through to get healthy. Not everyone who is fat and/or unhealthy got that way by life choices; sometimes, as in my case, our genetics chose for us.

A Side Note about How My Genetics Chose for Me
As a young child, up to about age 10, I was actually fairly slim, and tall for my age. In fact, my grandmother once got mad at my parents after seeing a photo of me at age 8 on a recent beach trip–she saw the dark circles under my eyes (hereditary) and the slenderness of my whole body and thought that they weren’t feeding me enough. But I went from being that tall and almost-too-skinny 3rd grader to being a rounded, textbook endomorph model in 5th grade. I was 90 pounds and 5’3″ at the beginning of 5th grade, and by the end of 5th grade, I was 145 pounds and 5’5″. I had just turned 11 years old, and went from skinny girl to fat girl almost overnight, gaining butt, breasts, and hips, and a wonderful little muffin top belly which has helped me look pregnant ever since. It was like a switch flipped off, and my metabolism crashed, with absolutely no change in exercise level or food intake. My mother, my aunt, both female cousins, and my maternal grandmother all went through this same body change at onset of puberty as well, so I know it’s not just peculiar to me.

I wish all the skinny Minnies who run diet and exercise plans understood this, how my own body betrayed me and made me a target for all the school bullies, both male and female. Because of how I was treated, especially in middle-school gym classes, exercise became strongly associated with feelings of unpreparedness, humiliation, and sub-humanity. It has taken over a decade to even begin to break down those psychological associations of punishment and pain, and I’m fairly confident my experience is all too typical.

How Can We Start Helping One Another?

Yes, I will say if somebody’s just sitting in bed day after day stuffing themselves until they’re almost sick, they’re doing themselves a disservice. But even so, they deserve support too. Otherwise, there will be no motivation to leave their comfort zone, and they will sink further into their painful and insidiously dangerous lifestyle. While I’ve never turned to food as an emotional void-filler, I do know the hopeless feelings associated with diet and exercise, and it’s no place for any human being.

If you truly want to help someone become healthy again, you don’t treat them like dirt–you offer them support in the form of being an “exercise buddy,” a “going-out-to-eat buddy,” whatever kind of buddy you need to be in order to keep them accountable (and keep yourself accountable, too). Knowing that someone else actually gives a rat’s rear end about what you’re doing is a wonderful motivator; I’ve seen it work with me and with other people, too. When other people reach out and care, when others connect with you, want to know week by week how you’re coming along, you start thinking “maybe I’m worth being cared about.” That healthy attitude change is the first real step to becoming healthy in body again.

Monday in the HTMLab

Content Organization: Like Cleaning a Digital Room

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Sometimes, when you’re developing a website, the sections of your website just fall into place. Say, if you’re creating a business site: you’d likely have a page called “About Us,” plus a page about each of your products and services, a page of affiliated businesses and links to their homepages, and a contact page. Fairly simple, straightforward page creation, which leads to simple, straightforward (and compact) navigation.

Unfortunately, dividing up your site’s content into pages and sections is not always that easy. Take my City of Heroes fansite–I’ve mucked around with the navigational sections for so long and tried so many different organizational styles, and I still haven’t gotten it where I want it. In my case, there are so many sections, and some of the sections kindasortamaybe overlap…not to mention that some pages that seemed like they’d be better as huge conglomerations of subject matter now seem like they need to be separated out into 4 or 5 different pages.

To try to fix this problem, I delved into the concepts of making individual pages and dividing up your navigation into understandable (and user-friendly) sections. Here is the step-by-step process I have come up with for fixing navigation and page division:

Look at Your Site as a User Would

This is very difficult for web developers and designers to do–looking at the site as if you’re not the one who made it is unsettling, at the least. But you need to have a fresh perspective on your site if you’re having trouble developing intuitive and understandable navigation for your users.

To gain some insight into this process, try browsing a site you’ve never been to. Doesn’t matter what it is, just browse it. While you do this, note any frustrations with the site’s organization. Does the navigation make sense? Is it easy to find individual pages just by clicking through the navigation, or have you already had to resort to the search box (if there is one provided)? Are the pages arranged into logical sections, or do the sections seem to have arbitrary labels?

Experiencing a new site like this forces you into a user’s perspective–for a short while, you have to navigate a site you’re not intimately familiar with. Now, go back to your own site, and explore the exact same way you just did. Does the navigation you’ve crafted, the sections you’ve devised, really make sense, or does it only make sense to you because you developed it? Be honest with yourself here.

In the case of my City of Heroes site, I have much of my navigation sorted by topic, but then I have a couple of non-topic labels (“New Players”, etc), which doesn’t fit the rest of the site’s organization. It makes it difficult to know which sections are most appropriate for pages to reside in–isn’t everything I publish more for new players, after all? If I want to fix this navigation problem, this content section problem, I need to take away the New Players section and make a more topical section (or sections) for all the pages that are currently within it. (This would be me practicin’ what I’m preachin’.)

Look at All Your Content, All Together

Sounds like a huge, time-consuming job, but trust me, it really, really works. Copy-paste all your written content into one large, simply-text file. (If you have photos as most of your content, congregate them all into one folder, and it works just as well–any place where you can look at all your content as a whole instead of in navigational pieces is the goal.)

Why do this? Because it will enable you to see what all your site encompasses in terms of content. In my case, even though I have 70+ pages of content on my City of Heroes fansite, copy-pasting it all into one file can show me where my articles for new players overlap themselves, and what articles don’t really fit the purpose of my site (like the “Humor” section, which, according to some users, isn’t very funny at all).

Doing this for your site can help you weed out what content doesn’t really “go” with the rest of your site, as well as figure out how it could be grouped better. Maybe those 3 tiny pages of useful links could be grouped together on one page instead; maybe that huge page featuring several novella-length articles could be broken apart and made into a section instead of a single page.

This exercise is especially helpful for figuring out where you have duplicated content on your site without realizing it. For instance, I had a fansite back in 2005 that I was trying to fix up, and I discovered during this very process of copy-pasting and scanning my content that I had 3 pages of almost exactly the same information. I don’t know how this escaped my attention, but it had, and so I could actually delete two of the pages and fix up the remaining one. Not only can this help you with your content, but it keeps you from doing unnecessary work later on pages that don’t need to exist!

Start Fixing

Combining pages together or breaking them apart can be time-consuming as well, but if you’ve got all your content in one file like the last step suggested, it makes this task a lot easier. Rearrange, rewrite, delete, or add content as necessary, and if you need to, break your content into totally-new sections. Yes, this will take some time, but if you can make your site better and more efficient by doing this, then you need to do it–better and more efficient sites are more visited and enjoyed sites.

For my City of Heroes site, breaking the New Player section into possibly two or three sections based on topics is the big concern. But along the way, I could also tighten up content that needs a rewrite, and delete some places where I’ve accidentally duplicated content. There are also some places in the site where I need to update my information to make it current with the game environment.

Upload Your New Content and Navigation

I’d advise not to debut your new content organization until you’ve warned your users about it. It would be very disconcerting for a user to be browsing and suddenly–whoops!–that page they were just viewing isn’t there anymore!

Instead, give notice a week ahead of time that you will be scheduling “site downtime” for the reorganization process, and make the site inaccessible for the time that you’re going to need to upload everything. You can put up a temporary index page that tells the users what’s going on and what date/time you expect to have everything done, without any links to any content yet. (Don’t forget to edit the index page back to the way it was at the end of the process!)

Summary

When you have a site, be it a large informational site, a small business site, or anything in-between, you need to have a good sense of how content is divided up and how it is accessed. If it’s too confusing for users, they won’t return. Reorganizing your site, just like reorganizing your room, is key to helping your site function better and be more welcoming!

Saturday with the Spark

Papercrafting Post #3: Gift Tags

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Yes, I know, Walmart and other big-box or discount places sell little gift tags you can tie onto your gifts. But who wants to spend $2 a pop for these little cardboard gift tags, when you can make loads of them yourself for a lot less money (and a much craftier, customized look)? This is part of papercrafting–making personalized items that cost less and also use up material that you might otherwise throw away.

The reason I chose to cover gift tags on this Papercrafting Post is because it’s a useful item that could easily save you money if you know how to make it yourself. You just have to be willing to break out a little creativity and spend a bit of time putting it together. Not as hard as it might seem!

What You’ll Need

  1. Card stock of any color OR unlined index cards of any color
  2. Any colorful or patterned paper you have lying around (crumpled-up tissue paper, old wrapping paper, etc.)
  3. Solid-color printer paper OR construction paper
  4. Double-stick tape OR a glue stick
  5. Single-hole puncher
  6. String, thread, ribbon, OR yarn

Eight Steps to Your Own Gift Tag

  1. Cut out a piece of card stock or an index card in the desired shape. Doesn’t have to be square–you could even cut it into a really fun shape if you want to!
  2. Using your cut-out shape as a guide, cut out a piece of your selected patterned/colorful paper. Make sure that your paper’s shape is about a centimeter/half an inch bigger around the edges than your card stock/index card shape.
  3. Wrap your paper shape around one side of the card stock/index card, taping or gluing down the edges as you go, kind of like wrapping a present. You will end up with one side of the tag completely covered with the paper and one side just covered around the edges. This is what you want.
  4. Get a piece of your solid-color piece of paper and cut out a smaller version of the shape of your gift tag.
  5. Affix this to the back of the tag (the side that is only partially covered) with tape or glue stick.
  6. Use a single-hole-punch tool to punch out a hole in your gift tag, for the string to be threaded through.
  7. Sign your tag on the solid-color side as appropriate (better to write on it now rather than wait until after you’ve tied it to your gift, trust me)
  8. Thread string, thread, ribbon, or yarn through the hole and tie to your gift, and you’re done!

Resources

Available at Office Supply Stores

  • Card stock
  • Index cards
  • Printer paper
  • Double-stick tape
  • Glue sticks
  • Single-hole punchers

Available at Big-Box Stores’ Craft Sections

  • Wrapping paper
  • Construction paper
  • String, thread, ribbon, and yarn

Likely Available In Your Home
Don’t forget to shop your home first–you might have more crafting materials hidden in your junk drawers and recycling bins than you’re aware of.

  • Old giftwrap/tissue paper
  • Scraps of printer paper and construction paper
  • Random bits of thread, yarn, string, or ribbon–even a twist tie can work!
  • Index cards that have been barely used and could be erased
Friday around the Web

Suppressed Inventions, Drawings of Da Vinci, In the Beginning…, and Privnote.com

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The 18 Most Suppressed Inventions Ever
Do you believe all these very interesting yet unheard-of inventions really existed? Decide for yourself!

DrawingsOfLeonardo.org
A website collecting together all the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci.

In the Beginning the Universe Was Created
The famous quote by Douglas Adams about the creation of the universe. It does not go where you expect it to go. 😀

Privnote.com
Got a note you want to send in a funny spy kind of way? Write it here, send the link to the preferred recipient, and the note will digitally “self-destruct” after being read!

Thursday in the Zone

The Maddening Efficiency of Poison Counters

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As a Magic player for several years (since 2004), I have made a name for myself among the local groups by playing a distinct “life-gain” style of play, also known as “stall.” I gain life and prevent damage in most of my decks, and do mainly combat damage as a win condition; this allows the other player to play their strategy, but most of the time they cannot actually do me any lasting damage. In my eyes, it’s a win-win, because I get to play my strategy without being overly worried about my life total, and they get to see how their deck plays in extreme long-game, with plenty of time for joking around and socializing in the process.

However, a not-so-new mechanic that was revived in Scars of Mirrodin threatens this easy and relatively carefree way of playing. It’s called poison counters.

Poison Counters Before Scars of Mirrodin

In the 1994 Magic set Legends, the first cards dealing with the “poison counter” effect were printed. Poison counters were a new way to win or lose the game–if a player accumulated 10 poison counters, they automatically lost the game, no matter what their life total was. It was, in a way, a second type of life total, even though the creators of the game still refuse to acknowledge it as such.

From 1994 to 1997, Wizards of the Coast worked with poison counters in several of its sets. Expansions such as The Dark, 4th Edition, Chronicles, Homelands, Alliances, Mirage, Visions, and 5th Edition each had just a few cards sprinkled in that concerned poison counters. Within these sets, poison counters were generally dealt directly by creatures, usually with wording such as “When [card name] deals damage to a player, that player gets X amount of poison counters”, not always matching how much damage the creature dealt.

Because of the fairly scant number of cards dealing with poison counters, it was somewhat difficult to incorporate into an entire deck strategy. Thus, the mechanic did not see a whole lot of play after these sets faded into memory.

Poison Counters Since Scars of Mirrodin

Fast-forward thirteen years, to 2010–the release of Scars of Mirrodin, and the introduction of a very new and quite deadly mechanic: infect. This new mechanic combined the effects of two other fairly good mechanics, “poisonous” and “wither,” into one super-powered game-changer for any creature.

With the advent of infect, previously small one-drop, 1/1 creatures with very little prowess to their name could become killing machines in their own right. They could wither away the opponent’s creatures, but they could also give undefended players a poison counter. And once given one poison counter, opponents were then susceptible to a mechanic called “proliferate,” which allowed the proliferate-wielding player to “choose any number of permanents and/or players with counters on them, then give each another counter of a kind already there,” according to the official rules reminder text.

This substantially increased the playability of poison counter strategies. With so many new infect creatures and so many new proliferating spells and permanents, it was suddenly viable–and suddenly very deadly, not just to tournament players, but to the global Magic-playing population.

My Beef with Poison Counters

Even though most of Magic’s developers don’t want to believe that poison counters represent a second type of life total, they are. They represent a 10-turn clock in the background of the game, which is completely at the mercy of the other player, especially thanks to infect and proliferate. What’s more, they are a life total that to date, players have only two ways to change:

  • Leeches, a card from the much-maligned set Homelands, gets rid of all poison counters on a target player, and transfers it to damage to the regular life total instead;
  • Melira, Sylvok Outcast, from New Phyrexia, prevents its controller from getting poison counters, and directly counters the infect keyword and its -1/-1 effect on creatures.

Damage, I can deal with easily–it’s called Holy Day and Fog. Loss of life, I can spring back from; Life Burst and Beacon of Immortality for the win. Poison counters? With only two cards in the ENTIRE GAME to counter this strategy and take back control of my own poison counter total, it’s a very small chance that I have those cards and can make them work in one of my existing decks, or build a new deck with them in it that makes any kind of cohesive strategy.

Furthermore, poison counters are a death stroke to my typical gameplay style of “casual, slow and steady, more joking than playing.” I can’t have fun and be casual when I have an uncontrollable clock of counters going in the background the entire game. I’m forced into running scared the whole game, trying to outrun my typically Standard-format opponent with Vintage-format decks that just were not made to counter this kind of strategy. It feels like I’m taking a timed final exam that I didn’t study for. I hate being timed, especially when I don’t control the clock and don’t have the right resources or knowledge to finish the test of skill.

I thought Magic was supposed to be a game, but poison counters have changed the whole face of it. If the game developers are truly trying to make Magic into a purely competitive, cutthroat game, then they’re succeeding–they have just taken a major step toward stamping out Casual Play once and for all. Yes, it’s a great mechanic; it’s effective, and it forces people to play quickly and powerfully. But it’s far too competitive for those of us who use Magic and other GAMES to relax and have a good time with friends.

Warning, This Gamer’s Climbing onto Her Soapbox!

To me, poison counters represent everything that’s wrong with Magic these days. Yes, I know, I sound like an old fuddy-duddy, waving my proverbial cane about and muttering “Well, in MY day, WE didn’t HAVE no stinkin’ poison counters and tournaments!” But it’s true–Magic has grown exponentially more competitive as the mass of Standard-playing customers has increased in size, and the game developers seem to be pandering more toward this aggressive, tournament-winning style of play.

Now, I’ll freely admit, I don’t think I’ve ever won a Magic tournament, because the deck styles that I most enjoy playing are meant more for multi-player games and extreme-long-game setups. (In multi-player games, I’m liable to win without anybody realizing how powerful I’ve become until it’s too late. In one-on-one games, I am wiped off the map before my first combo piece is on the board.) But I LIKED playing casually and playing multi-player. I LIKED just playing silly combos that only affect me and create a hilarious situation, like being able to gain 64 life off a single Life Burst because of Boon Reflection and having 3 Life Bursts in the graveyard. Gaining astronomical amounts of life doesn’t hurt anybody else, and it’s hysterical to watch.

But with most of the local gamers I know going over to the “dark side” of strictly tournament play, my favorite style of playing is nearly extinct. Everyone is either playing the more aggressive mechanics and more recent formats, playing me one-on-one and wiping the floor with me, or taking me down with poison counters that I can’t control. As my blog title says, poison counters (and mechanics like it) are maddeningly efficient. They’re maddeningly efficient at making me and other casual players like me quit the game entirely, because it’s no longer fun–it’s a gun fight, and I came equipped with a butter knife.

How Can We Defend Against Poison Counters?

Well, now that I’ve said my piece about how Magic seems to be going all uber-competitive, how can players work around these annoying little poison counters?

Besides using Leeches or Melira, Sylvok Outcast, there ARE ways to defend against getting poison counters, as listed below:

  1. Blocking any and all Infect creatures. Make sure the creature you block with has a larger toughness so that it can survive the -1/-1 hit!
  2. Removing or destroying Infect creatures and Proliferating permanents. Disenchant, Naturalize, Doom Blade, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Shock, Lightning Bolt, and Shriekmaw are just a few cards off the top of my head that can help this cause.
  3. Countering Infect creature spells and Proliferating permanent spells. Blue always has an answer for everything.

Even a primarily Vintage player like me can find ways to use the above strategies to protect myself from poison counters. After all, I play big-toughness creatures as a rule of thumb, and I also enjoy pumping my little creatures to stronger power and toughness to overcome my opponent, so I do have at least the ability to block the infect creatures. I also run a good deal of creature removal and enchantment/artifact destruction in most of my decks, so I can get rid of permanents that could proliferate what poison counters I have. And while I don’t run a lot of Red, Blue, or Black, I can occasionally Shock and Bolt some of the smaller infect creatures if I have to.

It is important to note, however, that not every deck can encompass these strategies. For those of us who build decks and rarely change them because they work so well, it’s annoying to have to change out some parts to a well-oiled machine just because of one mechanic. But if you want to survive in today’s Magic: the Gathering, you sometimes have to sacrifice the beauty of a well-designed Vintage- or Legacy-format strategy in order to build “what works” against the mechanic flavor of the month. “What works” may not be exactly your cup of tea, but it will give you a better chance to win, and perhaps a chance to have that fleeting, mythical experience called “fun” again.

More About Poison Counters and Player Discussions of Strategy

From wiki.mtgsalvation.com:

Ways to Remove Poison Counters? @ TappedOut.net
Need Help Preventing/Removing Poison Counters @ MTGFanatic.com
Complete list of cards that directly deal with poison counters @ Gatherer

Wednesday in the Word

God Renews Us, If We Let Him

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2 Corinthians 4:16
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

Paul couldn’t have said it better. Our life on earth drags at us, ages us, weighs us down with responsibilities and stress, and can even force us into depression and anxiety. Things weren’t much different when Paul was writing–life was still touch and go in most of the small villages and towns he visited, and in most of the new churches he was helping to start. People struggled day to day to exist, let alone think or worship.

That’s why Paul sought to encourage people (here, the people of the fledging Corinthian church) not to let their faith flag or falter. He knew times would be hard for them, but he nurtured them by talking about their earthly selves as the “outer self,” and the spirit as the “inner self.” While their earthly selves could and would be vulnerable to fear, doubt, guilt, pain, rage, and hatred, God could directly touch and renew their inner selves, their spirits, because they believed in Christ’s power to save and forgive their sins through His sacrifice. Because they believed in a just and loving God, they could trust in Him to help them through the sorrows of their lives, and therefore, they would be rid of worries and guilt a lot sooner.

God does the same for us, if we stop worrying, fretting, and squirming long enough to let Him be part of our lives. For me, God’s Word was hard for me to get into at first, but since I began studying it closer (especially as part of my “Wednesday in the Word” segments on this very blog), I have found myself becoming heartened by what I read. Just as God renewed David’s strength, just as He encouraged Abraham, just as He reached out through Jesus to comfort the woman convicted of adultery, He can hold our souls in His hands and heal them.

But we have to be willing to trust Him completely–otherwise, we’re lulled into believing that we’re strong enough to handle everything in our lives. Then, we become trapped by our own self-sufficiency, and we forget that God is there…and then, we stop believing He exists because we don’t feel Him in our lives anymore. Paul reminds us not to forget that God is there, and that God is ready, willing, and able to renew us spiritually, to help us stay heartened and encouraged despite the problems we face.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

“Unna-med” and Other Laughable Anecdotes from My Life

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Academically, I’m considered a pretty smart girl. I’m a Phi Beta Kappa, was active in many academic honor societies, and generally got high grades in all my coursework (both in public school and in college). But, despite all this education and all these book smarts, I’m also quite capable of saying (and doing) dumb things, as are we all. Sometimes, there ain’t a drop of sense in my head, as the following anecdotes will show, rather plainly:

Hanging Up a Towel to Dry

One day during the summer I was 10, I had gone up to my uncle and aunt’s house about a half-mile away to swim in their backyard pool with my cousins. We had a great day swimming, and by the time I walked back to my house, my beach towel was completely sodden. I hung the beach towel on the bathroom doorknob when I got in, and promptly forgot about it as I took care of rinsing out my bathing suit and getting a shower to get all the chlorinated water out of my hair.

A few hours later, Mom came downstairs and was incensed to find that I’d left the beach towel hanging up to drip slightly-sandy water all over the bathroom floor. “What were you thinking?” she asked, showing me the dirty towel and the yucky bathroom floor. “You should have put the towel straight into the washer if it was dirty!”

“But Mom,” I argued back, “I had to hang it up to let it dry before I could wash it!”

…It made sense in my head… V_V

The “Shortcut”

A few years ago, I was attending college on a campus full of one-way streets. I had heard a lot of my friends complaining about them, saying that the path to one of the more centrally-located dorms was a particularly large pain in the posterior.

“Well, I never have any problems getting to that dorm,” I replied one time. “I found a shortcut.”

There was indeed a street that wrapped back around the dorm in question, and was easy to get to from the side of campus that we always approached from. All you had to do was turn left when you got past the cafeteria building and looped up toward the infirmary, and you could get to the back of the dorm really easily.

I had been going that way for as long as I could remember. Thus, I was shocked when a campus police cart pulled up behind me one day, its lights and horn going, as I was leaving campus for the weekend (since it was not only a shortcut to the dorm, but to the main road out of campus). I pulled to one side of the road and rolled down my window, expecting him to say I had a burned-out taillight or something.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he approached the window.

“I’m heading out of campus,” I said, gesturing forward as I spoke.

“Didn’t you see the signs?” he asked, and he pointed across the street, to a “Wrong Way” sign facing in my direction. Apparently, I had disregarded that one…just like I’d disregarded the four other “Wrong Way” signs I had already passed. My shortcut, it appeared, was indeed handy–but it was illegal.

(And don’t worry about my “record”–the campus police officer let me go, after I explained myself, with a laugh and a warning not to do it again!) XD

And now for the piece de resistance…

Hey Guys, Come Check This Weird Name Out!

When I was in 9th grade, I was taking Physical Science, and the teacher had a map and chart up of history-making hurricanes displayed on the wall near his desk. Having always been fascinated by the study of weather, I came in early one day and busied myself studying all the hurricanes listed on the map–where they hit, what time of year, how strong they were, etc.

One hurricane in particular caught my eye–it had struck southern Texas in 1899, and was named “Unna-med” (I mentally pronounced it “Oo-nah-mehd”). “WOW!” I thought. “That must have been a really active hurricane season–they got all the way to the U’s in the alphabet!”

Then I wondered what the name “Oo-nah-mehd” meant. “Wonder if it’s based on an ancient Aztec or Mayan word?” I mused. “It’s a really unusual name for a hurricane, but being that it hit so close to northern Mexico, they might have gone with an international name rather than an Americanized name.”

My head buzzed with this all day. I came home and told Mom and Dad about my discovery, and they were curious as well. I told them that I was going to school tomorrow to show the other kids what I’d learned and maybe ask my teacher about it. (Remember, kids, this was in 1999 before the Internets was the phenomenon that it is today. My family didn’t even HAVE internet at home yet, so I couldn’t go home and look it up–if I could have, I could have saved myself a fail. XD)

Anyhow, I got to school the next day and excitedly told all my friends about the crazily-named hurricane I’d found. They wanted to see the map, and I told them to come with me to my science classroom so I could show them. We were all pumped.

I tore up the stairs to the second-floor science classroom, put my stuff down at the desk, and went over to the map, easily finding the aforementioned storm name. I looked…and there it was. “Unnamed.”

“Where’s the cool storm name?” one of my friends asked, as she ran into the room after me.

All I could do was stand there and laugh, nervously. “Um…yeah, you’re not going to believe this, but…I totally misread the name,” I said, sheepishly.

“Wait, huh?” my other friend asked. Then she looked at the map, and where my finger was pointing.

“Unnamed?” she asked, furrowing her brow. “But you said it was…”

“Oo-nah-mehd,” I finished, and we all burst into giggles. Yes, that’s right, I had just figured out an exotic new pronunciation for the word “unnamed.” Fail complete, facepalm in progress. XD

And Yes…All These Stories Are True

Embarrassingly true. I think God’s “common sense” jar was empty the day I came through. XD But I have to be honest about myself (both my awesome moments and my laughable fails). Sometimes, it pays to remember we’re all human, and laugh about it. ^_^

Monday in the HTMLab

WordPress: Doing Pages versus Posts

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On a typical WordPress blog (and possibly other blogging software as well), you have the option of doing Posts or Pages for your content. But what’s the real difference?

Many beginning bloggers do not know, and I was confused when I first started using WordPress. “My posts are going to appear on web pages, so why do I need to bother using something called a ‘Page’ with a capital ‘P?'” I wondered.

So I set about learning the differences for myself. Here is what I discovered:

Pages

Pages are static–they occur outside “the Loop,” or the time-sensitive code that produces the Posts. Because they’re outside the normal blog post structure, they have to be accessed through the “Pages” links and sidebar modules instead of falling in chronological order with Posts.

Because they’re not in “the Loop,” Pages look kind of silly with a date on them. After all, you can’t find them by searching through the date-sensitive archive anyway. Also, Pages don’t usually have a need for the comments template, unlike Posts. If and when you design a custom blog theme, don’t just copy-paste your Posts template as your Page template–if you don’t want a date to show, and don’t want comments to be allowed on your Pages, remember to take out those bits of code before you publish.

I find that Pages are better for static information that isn’t time-sensitive like Posts tend to be. Content like your “About Me” page, a links page, an FAQ, or product information looks better on a Page and can be more easily accessed from anywhere on the site.

Posts

Unlike Pages, Posts happen within the time-sensitive framework of “the Loop,” at least in WordPress. Because they happen in “real time,” so to speak, having the date included as part of your Post template makes it possible to search for Posts through the Archives pages of your WordPress site. Apart from needing the date included, Posts also more than likely need a Comments template so that visitors can post replies.

Posts seem to be best for regular blog entries and time-sensitive information like site updates, rather than general site information like “About the Author,” or more static information like “Product Specs.” Also, since Posts are more searchable through the Archives pages, Posts are better for your main blog content.

Making the Choice

If you’re still confused about which format to put a certain block of content in, ask yourself the following questions about the content you’re working with:

“Does this content need to be readily available to users no matter how long it’s been since I published it?”
If yes, you likely need to put this content on a Page.

“Is this content only going to be relevant for a little while, and then fade into old news?”
If yes, you likely need to make it into a Post.

Summary

I hope this quick rundown of using Pages versus Posts has helped you figure out what type you need more of for your site. WordPress offers this diverse functionality as a way to help us bloggers and webmasters publish content–we just have to know how to make use of it!

Saturday with the Spark

Digital Cut-and-Paste Art

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No Elmer’s School Glue or scissors required! Just a mouse and a simple art program on your computer can create some wild and fantastic artwork.

This instinct-based, haphazard-looking way of making art is not really new–think of Jackson Pollock’s artwork–but doing it digitally instead of with a paintbrush and palette is a little newer. No longer are we constrained by the tools we can buy or the paint colors we can find–you can create any color and use almost any type and texture of brush. You can even cut pieces out of your picture and put them somewhere else without hurting the canvas! Check out the process below:

The Process of Making a Cut-and-Paste Digital Artwork

(In the following demos, I’m using Microsoft Paint.)


Start with a blank white canvas, sized however you like.


For this art piece, I dye the background completely black. You can choose to dye the background any other solid color or make a pattern in the background if you wish, too.


I use “Calligraphy Brush 2”, at the widest width available, and choose the basic bright red available by default from the Paint palette. Then I paint rather randomly and haphazardly all over the canvas.


Then I choose the default yellow, again with the wide Calligraphy Brush 2, and paint randomly again, trying to cover different areas from the red, and a little less than the red.


Then I take Turquoise from the default palette and paint once again, still trying to cover different areas from the yellow and red streaks.


Now, I choose the “Select” tool, with a rectangular shape instead of the free-form shape, and cut out a small, nearly square shape from the piece. Then I move the cut-out piece just a little down and to the right, to reveal a white corner edge.

I follow the same procedure (except moving the cut piece down and to the left) with the second cut piece, below:


You can also resize one of your cutout pieces if you like–here, I’ve resized the bottom-left cutout piece to be much larger than its original size. It makes it almost pop out in 3-D, to my eye!

You could leave it like this if you like the white part of the picture; in my case, I want to recolor those white parts black again, to match the background.


This is a look I’m happy with, but you could also dye the background to match one of the other colors you’ve included in the picture. A shot of solid red, yellow or blue in this picture, for instance, would be striking!


This is my finished example. Yes, I know, it might look a little kiddy still, but I just wanted to show you the technique with as different a trio of colors as possible.

Other Examples of Color and Cut-and-Paste

If you like this haphazard abstract look but don’t want a ton of bright colors, you can also do something like these:


Here, I’ve used a gray background, with turquoise, pale blue, white, and purple sprays on top instead of the Calligraphy Brush. Then, I used the free-form selection tool to cut out and move some shapes to create sinuous and strange lines within the piece. At bottom right, I blew up one of the small shapes to a larger size.


In this piece, I used first a rose-pink Watercolor Brush across a sand-colored background, then added pale yellow Natural Pencil, then a creamy Calligraphy Brush on top. I didn’t cut anything out from this piece because it looked fine the way it was.

Doing Something More with Your Creations

If you have access to a more sophisticated graphics editing program, like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, you can do all kinds of fun stuff with these types of creations. (I used Photoshop Elements 8.0 for the following edits.)

Look at the two different looks I created out of my example piece, just by Motion Blurring it in two different directions:


Motion Blur going down from left to right brings out a lot of the blue lines and makes the red and yellow fade a little more. Reminds me of a ribbon dancer’s movements!


Motion Blur going up from left to right brings out a lot of little red and yellow streaks, almost like shooting stars.


I used the Liquefy filter to swirl these colors and sinuous shapes together. I know it doesn’t look like much right now, but this technique is all about seeing potential. This, for instance, could be useful as the beginnings of a website header (a little more blurring, cropping, and some text in a beautiful font and color, perhaps?).


I used the Paint Daubs filter, increased the width of the brush, and changed the brush to “Sparkle” to create this effect. The creamy swirls almost look like rippled water reflections on the bottom of a pool.

Summary

This kind of art requires us to be instinctual in our process. Choose the colors and shapes we like most in this moment, and just start going at the canvas until you have something beautiful. And if you don’t have something beautiful at the end, no worries about wasted paint or wasted canvas–you can just hit the “New” button and start again!