WPI’s D-Term 2006 Magic Extravaganza

(Warning: quickly put together and not proofread)
I know that I’m not the first one to say this, but Daylight Savings Time just seems to me like a really dumb idea. Starting next year, Congress has decreed to make DST even longer by a month, leaving Standard time only around for like 4 months of the year, and requiring countless software & firmware patches. I just don’t get it. If people need an hour more of daylight, why not just get up an hour earlier? Why do we need to set the clocks? There’s just some sort of inherent want for “noon” to be “sun overhead”, and then tricking ourselves to make noon at a different time so that we have an extra hour of daylight? Huh? If this tricking ourselves actually saves energy, why not just be at UTC-4 instead of UTC-5 year-round?

“It’s time to upgrade.

Your copy of Microsoft money includes online services for three years. To continue enjoying use of services like investment tracking and synchronization with MSN Money, please act now and upgrade to Money 2006.” — Microsoft Money 2003, when I opened it today.

I’ve been getting more involved lately in the Magic judging community. A couple weeks ago I judged at another Pro Tour Qualifier, this coming weekend I’ll be judging at the Connecticut Two-headed Giant Limited State Championship (which people really ought to go to the one in their state if they can, as it’s a really fun format), and the following weekend I’ll be working at a Team Standard Pro Tour Qualifier. Basically I’m working at premiere events once or twice a month, although March is particularly busy. I may be testing for level 2 in the summer, although I’m not sure about that yet.

What is science?

So, since I had received a gift card to Best Buy from my in-laws for Christmas, I decided to go with the new video card. I got an ATI 9550, which should hopefully let my computer serve my needs for another couple years.

While we were there, we decided to look at computer chairs, since Jessi could really use a new one. Since we seem to have quite a knack for picking chairs that fall apart, the warranty on the chair is an important piece of information we want to look at when comparison shopping. Luckily, all the price tags at Best Buy say “Full warranty text available on request.” So, we requested it. One poor sales clerk and two managers had no idea what that line was supposed to mean and didn’t seem to realize that it ever existed there. They scoured their company intranet looking for any sort of information. They were not successful. This did not increase my confidence in buying a chair from Best Buy (not that it was high to begin with), and so we left.

New video card or new computer?

This Second Life virtual world is very interesting… The game has its own economy, with people willing to buy and sell “Linden dollars” (L$) for U.S. dollars (US$), with a fluctuating exchange rate based on demand. There’s also real estate speculation and trading. People are making a full-time living off of the game, mainly through real estate and by creating and selling custom clothing, objects, and bodies.

I’ve been trying to try out a new game called Second Life. I finally managed to run it today after taking one of ‘s somewhat-older video cards to use instead of my wonderful-for-CAD-but-doesn’t-work-on-games FireGL E1. The game is basically like an old-fashioned MUX, but a 3D MMORPG world. The basic account is free. You interact with others in this virtual community, in a world made up primarily of what its participants created. Participants create objects and script them to do things. It seems pretty neat. My name there is Peter Newchurch if anyone else wants to jump on as well. (And apparently I may get some bonus if you sign on using my referrer link.)

While “Southern Hospitality” is a stereotypical expression, we found it to be quite true on our venture to Virginia. Basically, the quality of the service at a restaurant was directly proportional to how far South we were. The service at the Olive Garden in Richmond (which we went to Friday night since we were too late for the GPT) was the best service I have ever had in a restaurant. It was just, very, very, impressive. Have others who’ve traveled found the same to be true, or were we just lucky and happened to find a great server?