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. :)
Sunday in the Wild

Upcoming: Picture Week!

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To shake things up a little bit around here, I’m going to do a weeklong series of posts with just a few pictures, instead of my usual verbosity. Each day will showcase an image or series of images pertaining to that day’s topic (Monday’s picture will cover webdesign, Wednesday’s picture will reference Biblical/Christian imagery, etc.).

I’m looking forward to this unusual, Tumblr-ish take on blogging. This might be a bit difficult for me, since I love to write (and love to talk), but I’m willing to try it, to stretch my blogging wings a little!

Saturday with the Spark

Being a Newb at Art: Not a Bad Thing

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Most people look at newbies or people who are new to something, negatively. Newbies are seen as lacking knowledge, always needing help, and not worth the time of experienced people. This most certainly goes for artistic pursuits; many times, I’ve seen experienced artists of every type look down on the “newbs” in their field, as if they have no talent or aren’t worth even talking to.

But, in my opinion, being a “newb” at something doesn’t mean you won’t have any talent for it. In fact, I’ve found that instead of my own newbish-ness getting in the way of learning more, I feel freer to explore whatever I’m trying to learn. I’m not yet so “experienced” that I’m locked into thinking a certain way or always doing things a certain way. Creatively speaking, being a newb can actually be more fun and more enlightening.

Newbs Have More Fun! (And Make Better Art)

Why do I say that being a newb is more creative and enlightening? Because as artists, as creative people, we can get sucked into the trap of “creating what other people like” or “creating art that sells” instead of “creating what we want.” We can easily fall for doing things the way other people have done them, just because the other people were successful and we want to be successful, too.

The bad thing about following the crowd in this way is that it can kill your desire to do art for yourself, as I have found out with my novel and my webdesign. Try to please others too often and for too long, and you end up completely dissatisfied with your soulless work.

But allowing yourself to be a newb, or getting back to a newb state of mind, can free you from this constrained thinking, and thus get you back into creating what makes you happy and what expresses your thinking the best. For example:

  1. Visual Art: Being an art newb means you can paint, draw, sketch, and/or sculpt any way you please; you aren’t constrained by the “laws of the Masters” or what’s currently avant-garde.
  2. Music: Being a music newb means you can put chords and melodies together according to what sounds good to YOU, not what sounds good to some dusty expert, or even what other musicians think.
  3. Dance: Being a dance newb means you can try out different poses and motions without worrying that it’s not part of a “traditional” dance routine, and without trying to do moves that you physically can’t do yet.
  4. Drama/Theater: Being a drama/theater newb means you are free to play any kind of role you want and explore many different characters without being typecast yet.

Creativity is All About “Thinking Outside the Box”–Why Put Your Art in a Box, Then?

In essence, being a “newb” at art means that you’re still defining your style, still exploring your art, and still having fun with it. The moment you lose that sense of wonder and exploration for your art is the moment the artistic sense in you wilts, in my opinion. See: my novel, and my increasing difficulty with writing it because I’m afraid nobody will “like it enough.” As soon as that fear crept in, writing slowed to a crawl for me.

But it is possible to get your “newb groove” back, as I have written about recently. Just allow yourself to experience art the way you used to, allow yourself to be childlike and “newbish” all over again. You’d be surprised how well this works! After all, yours truly just wrote a new page in her novel. 🙂

Friday around the Web

32 Keys to Life, Entertaining Cucumbers, Nick Gentry, and Genius Ideas

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32Keys.com
32 philosophical keys to life. I liked the one about the past (#14) 🙂

G4TV: Cucumbers: Not Just for Eating
So, they’re for eating and …um…entertaining? I guess that’s ONE way to put it…?

NickGentry.com
An artist who uses old diskettes and other electronic waste as canvases for his masterpieces.

Genius Ideas
Amazing (and often kinda funny/strange) ideas for solving some of life’s random problems.

Thursday in the Zone

Jelly Jumper

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Looking for a Flash game that will test both your reflexes and your skill at solving puzzles? Then give Jelly Jumper a try!


A shot of the first level–deceptively easy!

Basic Gameplay

In Jelly Jumper, you control a cute little guy made of green jelly, and you’re trying to jump him around a virtual, generic black keyboard, in which certain keys are traps, certain keys are helpers, and certain keys are just there to give you fits. The goal is to jump on all the green-highlighted keys, and if you can do it within a certain number of jumps, even better!


These are your targets–jump on all of these in a level to complete it.

You move the little guy around the virtual keyboard with your arrow keys. If you venture too far off the keyboard, your poor little jelly man will die, but any regular black keys (unmarked) are always safe zones.

The Various Types of Keys


Bomb
Space
High-Jump
Space
Opposite
Space
Random
Teleport
Space
Fall-Away
Space
Protective
Space
Matching
Teleport
Space

Explanations

  • Bomb Space: instant death if you hit it.
  • High-Jump Space: propels you much higher into the air so you can get across bigger spaces.
  • Opposite Space: you move in the opposite direction from normal. Example: if you hit the Up arrow key, you’ll move down the keyboard instead.
  • Random Teleport Space: will put you on another section of the keyboard when you hit it.
  • Fall-Away Space: falls out from under you once you hit it, kinda like the donut blocks in Super Mario Bros.
  • Protective Space: creates a protective bubble around you when you hit it, so you can touch down on a bomb space without fear of death for the next jump.
  • Matching Teleport Space: always occurs in pairs–when you hit one, you’ll instantly be transferred to the other one.

Strategies

This takes precision, patience, and a little luck, especially as you level up. The first level (pictured at the beginning of this post) is quite easy, but a little farther into the game you get levels like these:


This is the most irritating level I’ve gotten to so far. The black keys are your only safe zones–no wonder this level is called “Stepping Stones!”


No, wait, I take that back, THIS is the most irritating level I’ve done so far. See all those matching-teleport spaces along the top? You can’t tell which one is linked with which; you just have to jump on them and find out where they each take you! Ah, experimentation…

Playing this game, you will get good at pressing the arrow keys JUST long enough to propel you to the target without overshooting it. Getting a run-and-go can help you on certain levels where your targets are spaced farther apart, but on some levels, it pays to just jump in a safe place for a little while if you need to get your bearings. Don’t worry too much about trying to do the level in a certain number of jumps, especially if you’re just starting out. You don’t get penalized or lose progress for jumping 20 times in a level which usually can be done in 3 or 4…trust me, I tested those limits quite thoroughly. LOL

As the game progresses, you’ll find more and more bomb spaces surrounding your targets, promising instant death at a touch…you just have to keep your cool and not move too rashly. Also, beware of moving spaces–those bomb spaces and teleportation spaces can and do move around in a few of these levels!

This game is an excellent combination of a puzzle game and an action game–it makes you think, but also makes you work your gamer reflexes.

To Play:

Jelly Jumper at JellyJumper.com

Wednesday in the Word

Living Holy for God’s Glory, Not Redemption

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2 Corinthians 5:9-10
9 So whether we are at home in the body or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

In the larger context of chapter 5, which discusses our souls being “clothed” with the “earthly tent” of our physical bodies, Paul’s instruction about living “at home in the body or away” takes on a significant spiritual meaning. Indeed, everything we do with our bodies while we have them is done in God’s sight, and we will need to account for why we have done these things.

“But wait,” you might ask. “When one accepts Christ, isn’t his/her sin cleansed away? Why do I have to ‘account’ for sin when Jesus’ sacrifice is supposed to cover it?”

This very same question was uppermost in my mind, too, until I studied more about holy living while on earth (which is what this passage concerns). Before Jesus, the only way to get to Heaven was to follow Mosaic Law, laid down in the first five books of the Old Testament (also known as the Pentateuch). Through following the Law, you would become righteous enough in God’s sight to be accepted into Heaven.

Problem? Nobody could follow the Law all the time–thus, nobody could really be righteous enough to go to Heaven. Thus, why God bridged the impossible gap between Him and humanity with His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus’ sinless life, blameless death on the cross, and glorious resurrection stood in for us; when we accept that His sacrifice was meant for us, our sins become covered by the grace of that wondrous act.

Accepting that grace, however, is not carte blanche for us to sin all we want. Once we become Christian, we do not have to live holy for our own redemption, but we DO have a responsibility to live holy as a good representative of Christianity. That is what Paul is discussing in this part of 2 Corinthians: living holy so that we represent God well while we’re here on Earth. We may no longer follow Mosaic Law for the purpose of being worthy to go to Heaven, but we need to make sure our words and deeds point the way back to God.

Think about it this way: if all Christians behaved like the secular world, why would anybody want to learn about the faith? If there is no visible difference between the people of the Christian church and the people of other beliefs (or of no beliefs), no one will be interested enough to find out about God. It’s our responsibility as Christians to live a Christlike life, to glorify God and to show others the way as well.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

The Difference Encouragement Makes

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Can you believe it’s been over a year since I started Zumba? I sure can’t. I didn’t think I’d ever find an exercise program I’d go back to twice, let alone keep attending for thirteen months. And yet, I have. What an odyssey to get even this far! And how much I have changed, physically and emotionally!

Before: Fearful, Uncertain, and Doubting

When I started Zumba back in June 2011, I was uncertain and afraid. I worried I’d be judged by my classmates, feared that the instructor would be a drill sergeant, and was scared that I wouldn’t be physically capable of doing any of the exercises. But most of all, I worried that this would be yet another notch on the “failed-exercise-attempt” post.

After all, all my other attempts at doing exercise over the years had failed. Back in middle school, I was too busy being victimized and bullied about my weight to really understand/do exercise; in high school, I avoided gym class like the plague for that very reason. And by college, my knees and ankles had taken so much of a beating that exercise was painful and frightening. Even after college, when I knew I needed to get fit and wanted to try, all the types I tried were lonely and boring (as I have written about before in October of last year and January of this year).

Why The Fear and Doubt Receded

But surprisingly, this attempt succeeded almost from the beginning, and has continued to succeed. Why? I believe it’s because of all the positive encouragement I received.

For one thing, my fellow Zumba class members are all cool people, most of them just like me, trying to get healthier instead of trying to show off perfected moves. I don’t feel intimidated by anyone else, and I don’t feel like they’re judging me, either. Instead, I feel that I’m in a class of my peers, peers who offer compliments to each other and support when needed.

Secondly, the instructor from whom I began taking Zumba classes truly took time to teach the moves rather than just expecting us to follow along. I never felt utterly lost the way I used to feel in other exercise classes. And the best thing? She offered positive reinforcement and urged us all to just “keep our feet moving,” not to worry about doing the moves perfectly. Instead of demanding we follow exactly as she demonstrated, she encouraged us to do only what our bodies were capable of, so that we would not hurt ourselves.

For me, a lifelong self-destructive perfectionist, that was a blessed relief to let go of that worry. She helped me see that I COULD do the exercises, and never let me discourage myself out of coming back to class. “You may not do these moves exactly the way I do,” she said once, “but if you’re moving at all, you’re going to help yourself feel better over time.” She was right.

The Result of Encouragement: Positive Change

Because of the encouragement I found in both my classmates and my instructor, I now believe in myself a lot more, and I’m beginning to have fun, too. It is possible to have fun doing full-throttle, sweat-inducing exercise–I never believed that before. Slowly, exercise has gained positive associations in my mind: where before it was always associated with shame, pain, and lack of ability, now it is associated with camaraderie, fun new challenges, and the thrill of being able to do more and more.

I think the lack of proper encouragement holds many people back from exercise these days. Either they try to do it all by themselves and end up feeling lonely and bored, or they try to exercise in a place that does not offer social encouragement and support. As I told my Zumba instructor, “I had to change mentally before any change could take place physically”–and I believe that. I had to feel that exercise was a positive experience worth having before I could convince myself to stay with it. Encouragement filled that gap for me.

Some Encouragement for You

I hope, if you’re reading this article and are trying to get in shape, that you will look up positive, encouraging people who know a lot about fitness and health to help you on your own fitness odyssey. Having people who can guide you as you try to get healthy makes such a positive difference. I didn’t think it would, until I experienced it for myself.

But I also hope, if you’re reading this article and know someone who’s trying to get in shape, that you will reach out to them and become a buddy to them, helping in any way you can. Heck, even if you see someone else at the gym who’s struggling along, I hope you’ll reach out and be kind to them. Positive encouragement from you could mean the difference between them coming back or them leaving and never returning. You never know!

Monday in the HTMLab

Picture Tweaks for the Web

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These are the days of instant picture-taking and sharing, and as such, most people don’t worry too much about how the pictures look; it’s more about the subject matter than anything. But, if you’re a webmaster/webdesigner, pictures take on a slightly different meaning. They are not only photos, but visual representations of your website.

It’s easy to get daunted by all the image-creation and image-editing software out there. But I’m here to tell you there are quick little tricks to make your photos (and your website) a little more awesome for your users. Read on and discover!

Photos in a Range of Sizes: Convenience for the User

When dialup and slower DSL connections ruled the Web, thumbnail photo galleries were all the rage. They were the fastest way to preview tons of photos, because users could see at a glance which photo they wanted to click on and view in full. Downside? They took forever to make, because you had to select the most salient point of the photo to make it attractive to click.

These days, web designers trying to present tons of visual content do not have to resort to thumbnails anymore due to slow connections (for the most part). Instead, what is most helpful for the modern Internet user is a selection of various sizes for your photos and graphics, a la Flickr. Like so:


This is the small size…


…and this is the larger size!

This way, your users do not have to try enlarging or shrinking the photo on their own; instead, you as the webdesigner/webmaster provide them with a choice of sizes for their convenience. (And the more convenient you can make photo-saving, the better!)

The “Levels” Tool: Beautifying Even the Most Drab of Photos

Looking for a way to subtly enhance your Web-ready photos and graphics without making your pictures look fake? Then you might want to try changing the images’ “Levels” settings, in your favorite trusty image editor/creator. (I’m using Photoshop Elements 8.0; your program may differ slightly in how this feature is set up, or it may not have a Levels tool at all. More about how to work around that in the next section. 🙂 )

Let me show you the difference a few Levels tweaks make:

Before changing Levels: A pretty outdoors picture.


Showing the Levels dialog box alongside the picture, with no changes yet.


With slight rightward shifts to the leftmost arrow (the Shadow settings), then slight leftward shifts to the middle arrow (the Midtone settings), the colors appear stronger and make the picture more interesting.


End result: a MUCH better “pretty nature pic.” And yet, it doesn’t look fake–it just looks better, at least to my eye.

Small, subtle changes like this can make your photos more vibrant and captivating–and who doesn’t want and need that kind of draw for their website?

Brightness/Contrast: The Poor Man’s Levels Tool

Now, if your image editor/creator does not have a “Levels” tool, all is not lost! Before I got Photoshop Elements, I used a long-forgotten program that had only the barest of image “editing” wizards and tools. The most sophisticated editing tool it had was a tool called “Brightness/Contrast,” and in a pinch, this can spiff up the colors of your photos like the Levels tool can. The following example uses a recent picture of me to demonstrate. (Avert your eyes if necessary–I am no model. xD)

My picture, before changing any Brightness/Contrast settings.
The Brightness/Contrast dialog box, ready to make my picture AWESOME!
With slight changes to the Brightness and Contrast settings (Brightness +10, Contrast +20), the pink of my shirt looks more colorful, my hair looks a little darker, and my skin looks a little bit smoother (and if that ain’t a miracle, I don’t know what is!).
Finished product: a slightly more presentable me–always a good thing on the Internet. (And if you recognize this picture from my Twitter avatar, points for you! xD)

With Brightness/Contrast, you can make your pictures just a little bit livelier. Just don’t go overboard changing these settings, otherwise you will end up with fake-looking pictures. Like, more fake than me with blonde hair. 😛

PNG-8 Format: Smoothest Gradients and Truest Colors

If you want a lovely gradient effect for your website, these days it’s best to turn toward the PNG format, and to the PNG-8 format in particular for smooth gradients in a small file size.

Observe the difference when you save the same exact gradient in the three major Web image file formats:

This is a low-quality JPEG rendering, with obvious diagonal striations going across the image. (You CAN get a smooth gradient with true colors in a JPEG format, but the file size will be much bigger.)
The GIF file format, especially with “Restricted” colors like this one, makes a pointillist mess of the gradient. (The “Perceptual” GIF setting does render the gradient better, but still has annoying striations running through it.)
Ah, perfection! The PNG file format renders the gradient just as well as when I created the image, but contains it within a 33 KB size!

PNG-24 Format: Best Transparent Graphics Creation

On the other hand, there is a use for the PNG-24 graphics format: making truly transparent graphics. I’ll show you what I mean:

From left to right: GIF, PNG-8, PNG-24, all with transparency settings on. Which icon would you rather use in your webdesign?

To my eye, the PNG-24 format results in the best-looking transparent graphics, whether the graphics are small like icons or big like website headers. By contrast, the “fuzziness” around the GIF and PNG-8’s icons make them both undesirable for making true transparent graphics. While the file size may be a tiny bit bigger (the PNG-24 in my example is 618 bytes, as compared to 387 bytes for the GIF and 430 bytes for the PNG-8), the payoff is definitely worth it from a design perspective.

Dark Page Backgrounds: Show Off Those Beautified Pics!

Now, for the final question: How do you properly display your newly-spiffed pictures? Answer: with a darkly-colored page background!

Think this is too simple? It does work–way back in high school, I served on the Yearbook Staff for a year, and learned a similar trick of telling a “good” picture from a “bad” one. It seems that pictures just show up better if they’re against a black or dark-colored background, and it’s easier to tell if you need to reshoot the picture or if it’s worth using. The same goes for displaying pictures on the Web; a darker background can make the colors in an image pop a little more, or help the details show up better.

The following side-by-side example shows what I mean:

This is based on exactly the same picture, with no Brightness/Contrast or Level changes between the two. And yet, the one with the black background/border around it seems to have more detail and better colors than the one with the white background/border. Weird, but it works! Using a darker-colored background for your picture pages will make them show up just that much better.

Summary

You don’t have to be a photo whiz (or a Photoshop ninja) to make your pictures look awesome for the Web. All you need are a few quick and subtle tricks to spiff up those photos for their Internet closeups, and you’ll have a much better collection to show off!

Saturday with the Spark

The Lost Song (A True Story)

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In January of 2011, I had written a wistful, prayerful contemporary Christian song, titled “Adrift,” and performed it for my church. They enjoyed it, and I loved singing it because it was a way to worship. Once I had performed the song, however, I moved on to composing newer songs and working on other projects. Little did I know that it would be the last time I would perform the song as it existed then.

Sickness, Difficulties, and Losses

A few months later, I began to fall ill repeatedly, suffering strange new headaches that lasted up to 3 days and were not treatable with any medicines. My will to create, my will to write and sing and play, were thus taken from me, since I sometimes suffered up to 10 headaches a month like this. Soon, weeks went by in which I was never without burning, crushing head pain, whether I was sleeping or awake.

It felt, as spring blossomed into summer and summer faded into fall, that I was living 25% of my life. I went to bed feeling like I had been run over by an 18-wheeler, and woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a school bus. And the constant pain, which got worse if I tried to sleep it off and never truly went away, about drove me nuts. During this time, I also lost the use of my laptop for a little while (due to someone else’s carelessness), and that added stress didn’t help my health much. My mental creativity stunted, my physical energy sapped, and my creativity-producing machine gone–it felt as if I were getting slapped around by life.

Finally, during a routine visit to the dentist in October 2011, we discovered that my wisdom teeth were severely infected and had to be removed. The subsequent oral surgery in early November not only pulled the sources of infection from my jaw, but also seemingly got rid of those burning, never-ending headaches. At last, I could live my life again! I thought everything would be back to normal concerning my creativity, so I could get back to doing what I loved–writing and polishing my prose, poetry, and music.

Not so, as I found out. A mere month after my surgery, my poor injured laptop’s hard drive died, and the data on it was completely irrecoverable. All the work I had done since June 2010 was lost–including the lovely song I had written and performed almost a year previous. All I could remember, because of my grave illness and all the stress, was the title. No lyrics, no melody…no nothing. I mourned it along with the rest of my lost works, knowing that with my forgetfulness, I would likely never remember it.

A Little Scrap of Unexpected Song

I was horribly sad over this, but at least I could comfort myself with a large fraction of my work, which I could still build off of. Slowly, I began to amass more works, though they were nothing like what I had lost, I knew that.

In the middle of all this personal, creative rebuilding, my boyfriend and I had gone to the movies to watch The Avengers when it came out, and I was reminded of how much I had liked some of the other Marvel movies that had come out before, especially Thor, which had come out in March 2011, during the first stages of my terrible headache/wisdom tooth infection.

I ended up borrowing the movie from my boyfriend’s family, then buying a copy of my own, since it had quickly become a favorite of mine. (And, as is my wont when I really enjoy a film, I had already watched it several times back-to-back-to-back. xD)

But it was during one of my many repeat plays, as I watched the scene in Thor where Loki discovers he is not truly Odin’s son, that a little scrap of song started playing in my head. Occasionally this happens to me, where a character or a mood will inspire a new song within my head–it’s a great way to get new ideas. And, since I had composed very little during my illness, I was understandably stoked.

“COOL, I finally got an idea for a new song,” I thought, watching the evocative, sad scene play out as the plaintive, new little melody curled around my brain cells. The melody ached, expressing such wistful sorrow that it nearly brought me to tears. And then…something in the tune jarred memory awake. “Waitaminnit…” I thought, analyzing the short little melody. “That tune–oh, my God, that’s ‘Adrift!’ That’s my lost song!!”

Rebuilding The Lost Song

You never saw a chick pause a movie and run down the stairs to get to her piano keyboard so fast. In minutes, it felt like, I had reconstructed not only the chorus melody, which was the first bit I had remembered, but I had also gotten back the melodies for the verses and the bridge. Not only that, but some lyrics were coming back, too, albeit slowly and in pieces.

A couple of frenzied rebuilding hours passed, and I was able to get back 90% of the original song, with new lyrics put into the places I simply could not remember. I was overwhelmed with the creative urge–after all, my lost song had come back after I had feared I would never, ever remember it all.

Though I am still a little sad for the bits of lyrics I can’t remember, the new lyrics seem to fit even better than the old ones, at least in my estimation. This gives me hope that perhaps all of my lost works, all the little stories, poems, and beginnings of songs, might one day come back better than ever, too, after being cast “adrift” in the void of memory.

Friday around the Web

Words of the Masters, James’ Face, Orange Foliage, and Drugstore Beauty

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Words of the Masters
Quotes from some of the world’s best thinkers and philosophers…

James’ Face
James has one mean (Photoshop-geek) friend. Changing his pictures on Facebook to have a slightly different expression? Not cool…but very snicker-inducing.

Orange Tree Foliage
An explosion of sunset colors, except that this is growing on a tree!

10 of the Best Drugstore Beauty Buys
Learn what awesome, high-quality makeup products you can find at your local drug store (I’m not kidding)!

Thursday in the Zone

It’s Almost 900! (A Tale of Epic Life-Gain)

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It all started with me, my boyfriend, and two Magic decks we had never played against each other–his Zombie Clerics (known as “Priests of Pain and Drain”) against my Sanguine Bond & Boon Reflection (affectionately nicknamed “Sanguine Boon”) deck.


Priests of Pain and Drain decklist @ EssentialMagic.com

Sanguine Boon decklist @ EssentialMagic.com

The Opposing Strategies

My boyfriend’s Zombie Cleric deck’s strategy is actually pretty simple, revolving around a four-card combo: Cabal Archon, Rotlung Reanimator, Conspiracy, and any random Cleric to begin the fun. Use Cabal Archon to sacrifice Clerics to gain 2 life and make the opponent lose 2 life (this is called a “life swap”). Now, thanks to the Reanimator, the Clerics you sack through the Archon give you Zombie tokens, which then become Clerics themselves with the use of Conspiracy set to Clerics. Repeat cycle as long as you have mana to do it.

My Sanguine Boon deck is also pretty simple: gain enough life to be able to stall till I get Sanguine Bond (and, if I’m lucky, Boon Reflection). Then, play more super-cheap life-gain spells/abilities, causing major life loss through Sanguine Bond and the ability to draw more life-gain spells using Well of Lost Dreams. (I’ve spoken about this strategy before, but not in this larger context.)

How These Strategies Faced Off

My boyfriend’s strategy would have probably succeeded against mine in the early stages of the game, if I had not played an Isochron Scepter with Rest for the Weary imprinted on it. Ever after, every time I played a land, I would be gaining 8 life instead of just 4, and I could gain at least 4 life every turn. But, because I don’t play much offense in my deck, he was able to amass his combo fairly soon after I had played the Scepter-Rest combo, and so he was able to start draining me of my newly-gained life points.

Stalling Like Mad vs. Life Drain Like Mad

Fast-forward to about turn 25 or 30, and both of our decks were running at near-top capacity. I now had two Boon Reflections out, gaining 16 a turn off Rest for the Weary if I hadn’t played a land and 32 a turn if I had played a land. But my boyfriend was able to drain at least 16-20 life off me per turn with the Cabal Archon “sack-a-Cleric” combo. With all the early-game life gain I had done, he was not able to defeat me entirely, but was able to make my life total yo-yo all over the place. We were both fighting for purchase; he was trying to keep my life total under control, and I was trying to survive until I could get that darned Sanguine Bond, which still hadn’t shown up yet.

Game-Changer: Well of Lost Dreams for 7 Cards

The almost literal stalemate continued for the next few turns. At last, I pulled Well of Lost Dreams; I played it, used Ghost-Lit Redeemer’s ability to gain 8 life, and paid 7 mana to draw 7 cards, since I had been top-decking for most of the game. The long-awaited Sanguine Bond was the first card I drew, and Demonic Tutor was the last, promising a second Sanguine Bond in hand if I could last that long. My life total was now up around 400-500, with my boyfriend’s life total just a little higher. I thought I could make it. 😉

Sanguine Bond (x2) for the Win!

Once the first Sanguine Bond was played, I sacked the two Sunspring Expeditions I’d had ready and waiting on the table for most of the game, which created a 32-point life-swap thanks to the double Boon Reflections. That, plus my usual Scepter-Rest combo and a Ghost-Light Redeemer or two gaining me more life, drained him of over 150 life in one turn. Then…well, I managed to retrieve the other Sanguine Bond; though I wasn’t able to play it that turn, I knew next turn would become even stronger, as I gained quadruple life and made him lose quadruple life, twice.

A couple of turns after I played the second Sanguine Bond, it was over, 2 hours after we had started. My ending life total was 894–and that was with my boyfriend draining off 32 every turn for close to 20 turns. :O How high would it have gone if he hadn’t been keeping it down somewhat? The world may never know.

So, using my Sanguine Boon deck, I finally beat my boyfriend’s Zombie Cleric deck…and it only took 2 hours of free time. Ahh, extreme-long-game Magic at its best. 😀