South Dakota State Parking Absurdity
As a South Dakota State University student, I have learned the rules. If you want a parking spot for a 9 o’clock lecture, be prepared to be on campus by 8:15, or there are no guarantees. By 8:30 am, all of the parking that isn’t completely remote to classroom buildings is packed, including the sides of the streets at least 3 blocks deep into surrounding residential areas. These residential areas, of course, are full of people aware of the problem and also people who find it difficult to park near their own homes.
On-campus students have their own residential parking, and that is wonderful. Students who live in the dorms should have a place to put their cars. No problem here.
As there is an obvious problem, the University has gone to some trouble to correct it, namely erecting a new parking lot in the last few years on 8th street near Crother’s Engineering hall, which has admittedly relieved at least some of the parking problem on that side of campus. The problem continues to grow, however, and no student with a car who attends classes on campus will tell you that parking is easy.
To address these concerns, the Board of Regents and the Administration have announced their intention to make SDSU a walking campus. A walking campus. They are going to make a campus… with an already huge parking problem…less accessible to people with cars.
The reasoning is similar to a case which comes up from time to time in the U.S. Congress: should we or should we not reduce the number of people who live under the poverty line by changing the poverty line?
For the sake of all that is holy, we should not.
Attempting to change the definition of the problem in order to change the expectation of parking on campus is not only absurd: in South Dakota winters, it is downright dangerous. In September and October, I would not be greatly opposed to riding my bike the 1.5 miles to and from campus, but the solution becomes ridiculously untenable in, say, February, when I would be putting myself in severe physical danger to attempt such a thing.
People HAVE to drive to class. Telling them they have to walk because there is no parking simply removes their ability to safely attend. Unless the decision is combined with unusual amounts of creative problem solving which I have no reason whatsoever to believe is present in either the Board of Regents or the SDSU Administration, the plan will be a huge, dangerous flop.
The best case scenario is that the institution sees a drop in attendance because of the policy: people can’t drive to campus, therefore they can’t go to class, therefore they elect not to attend school at SDSU. The worst cases involve someone getting hurt trying to get to school because of a crappy policy.
Changing the rules you operate under works when the rules are changeable. It is great for removing a self-limiting belief or making innovative strides in whatever field you want. If, however, such an innovator tries to change the rules beyond what is possible, he will quickly find himself a new way to fail.
I just want to go to class. Build us more parking, SDSU administration. Don’t restrict our transportation options to make yourselves look better or enact some absurdly small effect on the environment.
“Drop Deposit” System for Magic Tournaments
Under the new and controversial Planeswalker Points system, there is a problem. The incentive to drop from tournaments (and thus not lose rating points) is gone. StarCityGames recognized this problem in Atlanta this past weekend at their event:
In the absence of any reason not to drop from an event aside from a vague notion of “not being scummy” (Mr. Erwin’s words), one should not expect any other reaction from advantage gamers, particularly those that have had their tournament ended prematurely.
One solution to this problem leaps easily to mind: Encourage the gamers to game the system.
A $1 drop deposit on tournament entries would go a long way toward preventing unwanted no-shows in tournaments. As a percentage, a $1 deposit on a $20 tournament entry is the same as charging a $.05 deposit on a $1.00 soft drink container, and encourages players to follow through on a simple action that will decrease their negative impact on the rest of the tournament, that is, no-showing instead of dropping and taking away the opportunity for their opponent to play a round of magic.
Of course, the deposit would be returned to the players that played all rounds and only withheld from those players that did not show up for a round they were scheduled to play in.
Admittedly, this solution creates extra work for already stressed tournament organizers, but of those that I know (Steve Port, I’m looking at you) the enjoyment of the players is consideration #1 for those fine people.
Glenn Goddard of Sunmesa Events has suggested that the number of new players in the tournament was at least partially at fault for the increase of no-shows, and that may easily be, though it is suspect that the change was noticed the first week of the Planeswalker Points system’s inception and not before.
In reality, both reasons probably contributed to the high number of no-shows at the event. It remains to be seen whether or not a definite or highly probably reason for the no-shows can be determined. If the problem continues or increases and if the Planeswalker Points system can be substantially blamed in the way I’ve described, a drop deposit appears to be an elegant solution that is fully empowered to have a positive effect on players’ enjoyment at tournaments, and in that sense would wise to remember in the event that it is needed.
Thomas Martin Cleberg
Stammering batchelor.
The romantic gamblers.
Belt-charming maestro:
notable, rich, smart gem.
Most tangible charmer,
nimble torch megastar
bent, orgasmic thermal
metal storming breach.
I’m the strong, calm bear- (the)
bright, clean marmoset.
Magic, mental brothers – (the)
trim, changeable storm.
Earthworms
I remember stomping puddles when I was 5, as the rain pelted the sidewalk, shaking up little coronets of moisture from the pools in the recessed concrete outside our building standing against the sky, the darkened apartments covered with department store curtains or blankets stapled tentatively covering a world the contents of which I could only guess at. I remember the ghosts of earthworms melting into the puddles, wispy white membranes drifting to the top. The lucky ones that still retained their color squirming for dry land, dragging fat bands across gravel that must have seemed like boulders, blindly stabbing the concrete looking for something to grasp. I cried for them, then. I tried to take them out of the puddles and put them back into the grass, though many were already dead. Mom yelled at me for touching them, they were dirty. Poor creatures driven from their holes by the threat of drowning and forced into a world they didn’t know, one hostile to them in every way. The rain continued, bleaching the color from the grass and the sky and the worms. I worried about the acid rain cloud on the news, sure it had come to our town. Even thinking that the rain would melt me as it had melted the worms, eat holes in my skin as it fell I didn’t fear it, not as I hide from the rain today even from the threat of mere discomfort. I had to try to save them, in the face of certain death. I spent hours gathering these strands of pink-grey life, trying to get them home. Between the puddles in the shallow pits of earth beneath the grass, I formed writhing funnel cakes of worms, and they tested the ground, but they instinctually knew it wasn’t time to go down. I buried the ghosts in shallow pockets where the sidewalk ended. The rain didn’t stop for hours, and I continued my somber duty of saving them and honoring them until my socks sloshed in my Velcro shoes. The piles I made on hills stayed there, just waiting out the storm. They covered the whole yard, dark green speckled with raised pink. When the first hot rays of the sun came back, I waited until it began to dry and the sun went down to leave them to thrive.
It rained today. I stepped over lumbricus terrestrises on the reinforced, chemically perfected concrete inlaid with strain relief grooves. I knew their skin was covered with a mucous membrane, which allows them to take in oxygen through their skin and that they were in no danger, but were enjoying what gardener John Mertus calls “a wild singles bar,” evidently even more exciting than ours as they can play either role. I smirked as I saw one squirm on the sidewalk, looking for a mate, thoroughly enjoying the knowledge that it was enjoying the wormy version of the good life. I stopped to watch its movement, as it slowly picked across the lubricated ground it felt so at home on. In one instant, a jacketed girl talking on her phone tromped the worm, leaving its flesh depressed along the contours of the tread of her shoe. As it flailed, half-compressed with the sidewalk, in one second I remembered everything and began to cry.
Pure Blue Reason
We have changed from the old site, manciniantimes.wordpress.com for various reasons, including the fact that noone damn knows what a Mancinian was, including me. A quick google search turns up exactly that blog and followers of Henri Mancini, he of the Baby Elephant Walk. This new title will hopefully be more resonant with readers and less big-band affiliated.
and now…
Correspondence from Ardad
I have been understandably reticent to speak of this; the consequences of the forthcoming letter are no less than foundation-shaking and revelatory. I have spent many hours pondering the consequences of revealing this knowledge to the general public. Finally, in my darkest hour, the realization came to me that, no matter the personal consequences to myself or my family, I must accept them and bring the contents into the arena of public thought.
Months ago, I received a letter with no return address in a firm envelope better called a thin dusty volcanic slate box, sealed with what would appear to be an Ouroboros Serpent in the throes of death over an oily and substatial ribbon. In my excitement and intrigue, regrettably I broke the seal and opened the package without reproducing the image either manually or digitally, and the only remains are the shattered seal and still-vivid image within my own memory. In order that the facts be disseminated as honestly and faithfully as possible, a drawn approximation of the seal admittedly wanting for a more practiced and steady artistic hand and the actual remains of the seal are entrusted below:
But nowhere else
I am a Magic player.
Here I am.
This common phrase, so often unsaid in public for reasons that I will explore is a very powerful statement.To me, it means you and I, the two of us, are likely to get along and have a very extensive set of shared experiences and even language, no matter the languages we each speak or the countries we each live in. It says “I play games in my free time,” “I enjoy fantasy,” or simply “I like to compete.” If someone I meet says these simple words in a public arena, that is a conversation that will continue.
This, of course, is not true for everyone that hears those words. As has been stated in many articles, videos, twitter posts and just about every other format available, the expectation that these words will instantly freeze any social situation is the danger, near-completely internal to our community. “Nerd” is no longer even a strong prejoritive, as those with specialized knowledge rise to prominence and technology pushes the world forward on every front. The timid player worries about typecasting. Not to belabor the image of the anti-social nerd, but internally many players see only this face of Magic. In every community, there are people who struggle with social subtleties and the modernly ubiquitous “awkwardness”, and yet in most communities these few do not define the image of the community as a whole. What is it about ours that we allow it to do so?
Ubiquitous and overused. Vague.
Ever since I heard the Wizards promotional slogan “Here I Rule” it has gnawed at me. I couldn’t place it for the longest time, and I tried to pinpoint what it was about the words that kept it up. It seems upbeat. Here is a place, a community in which I can succeed, I can prosper, I can win. I don’t know of a person who doesn’t want that. Still, the slogan kept gnawing at me until I read it on a poster at GP: Denver and my contrary mind still filled with the residue of our collective stereotypes immediately produced the reparte “… but nowhere else.” Of course, this upset me and I tried to reason my way out of it. “There’s no way they meant it that way…” I said to myself. “They couldn’t possibly have, that would be just a huge jab at everyone.”
... but nowhere else.
The more I argued with myself, however, the less I could see another possible meaning for the slogan. The continuation of the phrase seems naturally to flow from the phrase itself. “Here I rule, but nowhere else.” Now, I’m a spikey kind of player, not one often given to analyzing the fantasy elements of the game, and certainly not one that follows all of Wizards’ marketing efforts with any degree of continuity, but this flat offends me. As a continuation of the stereotypical view (again, within the community and not outside of it, please go tell someone you’re interested in that you play magic and check out their reaction after you explain it, it’s a viewpoint-altering experience) the copy is unmatched in unabashed pandering. Magic players are successful people, within or outside the community. We play the game to enjoy ourselves, whether through winning the tournament or jamming some EDH with friends. For god’s sake, Wizards, give us some credit. We don’t play the game because we failed out of the rest of life. We play for fun, for the social aspect, for the challenge, for the excuse to travel, and extremely rarely for the money. Give us the benefit of the doubt and help us escape the stereotype, break down the psychological wall that separates the community from the mainstream and get others involved who would like to play the game, but are successful in other aspects of their lives. We wouldn’t want to miss them, would we?
Suckers for Ash Wednesday
There is a group on campus right now giving out suckers for Ash Wednesday. What a strange thing to do without irony.
Immediate Death Benefits
Your nervous system is designed (not in the “designer” sense) to make life or death decisions regularly (citation needed). If you do not exercise this ability, it cannot develop and will atrophy as if it were an unused limb. This is why the fat kid who never takes a chance always bites it when he tries to follow the risk-taking, athletic kid. If you are the fat kid, it is imperative that you do not attempt to risk your life without prior practice for your system.
If you are merely an average member of society in the modern age, as most of those reading this will be, your life-or-death-decision-making skills are probably in a deep state of atrophy. I suggest a rigorous, yet measured, life-risking program. If you skydive, frequent violent-biker bars, or have unprotected sex with strangers frequently, the world will quickly give you feedback that will improve your decision making skills for the future. Well, that or you’ll buy the whole thing.
