Quard's Corner: Welcome to my Insanity.  Buckle Up.

[Warning: Due to the presence of strong insanity, mirth and gratuitous references 
to imaginary trained typing ferrets in this month's Quard's Corner, the Environmental 
Sanity Protection Agency has issued a Level 5 Hilarity Warning to all readers.  If you 
are humorously impaired in any way, *DO NOT* even think of reading any further. 
This article can cause spontaneous guffaws, chuckles or hysterical giggles; remember 
to breathe. And for God's sake, don't drink anything nose-unfriendly while reading it. 
Milk only does the body good if it's inside your body and not rocketing out of one's 
nostrils in the quest for freedom.] 

A Hilarity Warning for my articles?!  I was wondering what the government was going 
to do after forcing those silly TV ratings on everyone.  Oh well... 

Welcome to the latest edition of Quard's Corner and thank you all for the feedback and 
hordes of expensive gifts you all keep sending me. Especially Ms. Ellen Levitt of Morristown,
New Jersey.  I never had a 24k solid gold set of Fallen Empires before.  Bless you. 

I'd like to start this article with a little rant about waiting for my Tempest pre-order from 
UPS.  But, seeing as this is the third paragraph (who counts or reads government warnings
anyways?), I guess I'm a tad late.  How very terrible of me.  Blame the voices in my head, 
as they all continuously insist on singing off key. 

Waiting for Tempest 

The UPS man left a note on my door.  It seems he's holding my package hostage until I 
write my John Hancock on his pathetic little post-it note.  It says that if I do this, he'll 
deliver the goods tomorrow. Well, it's tomorrow NIGHT, 11:25pm and my box of 
Tempest is still being held captive in his little brown portal to Hell.  What happened?!  I 
left that silly yellow "please kind sir, deliver my package for I wish you to do your 
&*%$!ing job and leave it at my door" post-it taped up for him and the note's still there! 

He lied. He lied to me. He lied to my wooden door.  He lied to the cellophane tape that I
used to hold up his stupid yellow post-it so that the schmoe would leave me my Tempest
box . . . except he never showed up!  He'd better have a real good excuse for not delivering 
Tempest; like maybe his arms were pulled off by a rabid bunny or he was mauled by a feral 
platypus... 

Federal &*^@%!ing Express would have shown up and delivered my package!! 

Did I forget to draw arcane symbols on my rug with dust and pray to The Dark One, 
prostrating myself as a sacrifice to pure Evil?  Did I forget a monthly payment to Richard
Garfield since he now owns the patent to corruptible card...err...trading card games?  It's 
just not fair!  There are actually little kids taunting me with their Tempest cards and I 
don't have any!  Grrrrr.... 

(end of UPS rant) 

With that over with, I'd like to take this time to express my condolences to all the Pro Tour
players out there who flew in to Pro Tour Chicago to find out that 50% of their decks were
rendered useless by the October Rulings they never heard about.  Kudos go to all the 
judges that staged a major uprising in the Judges mailing list afterwards and accomplished 
the nigh impossible - rulings will now be posted in the judges mailing list.  Go figure. 

Oh and while we're at it let's all raise our confused gazes to whoever the genius is that came 
up with mana sources, not to mention the geniuses that now insist on ruling poorly and cause
cards like Null Rod and Cursed Totem to be suddenly useless just because they refuse to 
realize that they should have just issued errata to Abeyance and saved us all a lot of 
continued agony. 

Now with all the talk lately about the formation of some sort of player's organization that's
continually trying to form, I thought I'd help them all out by coming up with a list of how not 
to try to justify a player's association: 

How *NOT TO* Try to Justify/Promote a Player's Association 

1.  We'll be Chick magnets. 
2.  If we don't like a judge's ruling, we'll beat him with his own Oracle. 
3.  Can you say impotent? 
4.  We'll really be able to influence WotC.  Honest.  We've got them right 
     where they want us. 
5.  Ever notice we never talk about players cheating? *Snicker* 
6.  Boycott events if we don't get our way?  Are you nuts?!  We want da money! 
7.  Oh...casual players?  Screw 'em.  We're talking professional players man. 
8.  Hey maybe we could get some cool shirts. 
9.  Sportsmanship?  What's that?  We play to win, loser. 
10. We'll be just as professional as the Duelist Convocation. 
___ 

I'd also like to take this opportunity to express to you all my deepest regrets that this
month's Corner does not include, as last month advertised, a centerfold featuring my
beloved Ferratio the trained typing ferret in all his furry glory.  We took the pictures
and had them developed at the local One Hour Photo-Mat and later found out they were
confiscated by the authorities.  The clerk thought they were indecent and phoned the
police and they confiscated them.  No charges were filed and we just found out that if you
want to see Ferratio you now have to spend $29.95 for the latest Weasels Illustrated Sports
Calendar. 

I was thumbing through the latest Duelist and stumbled upon the Reader Survey card that's in each issue.  After thinking about it for some time, I thought I'd share with you what I came up with... 

My List of What I'd Like to See in The Duelist: 

1.  More Magic humor! (Magic humor has no errata!) 
2.  Free Pez-Dispensers. 
3.  Combos that are so great people would actually read them. 
4.  Phil Foglio's What's New strip expanded back to two pages! 
5.  Graham crackers. 
6.  Decks created by the R&D people for all environments. 
7.  Monkey brains.  On a stick. 
8.  The Duelist (#20 was somehow replaced by a 128-page Tempest flier). 
9.  Mallomars. 
10. A picture of everyone at the Duelist piling on Tom Wylie for his latest rulings. 
___ 

On a side note, I thought I'd commend Wizards with their covert efforts in printing a price 
guide in the Duelist.  What you say?  Impossible?! Nah, thanks to Iguana's Comic Book
Cafe, there is now a six-page Magic price list "advertisement".  Iguana's price list ad is
trumpeted as exclusive to the Duelist.  Sneaky, huh?  And such reasonable prices for 
Magic singles too... (you'll have to look for yourself to guess if I'm kidding.) 

I just realized something that's potentially very amusing. I have heard that in order to play 
the first expansion to that wonderful Magic: The PC Game on CD-ROM you need to keep 
the new expansion CD in the drive. What happens when the next expansion comes out?  I 
think there's room in my CD-ROM to stack two CD's (one on top of the other should 
work), but I am a tad worried what will happen if I try to stack three of them... perhaps the 
answer is to glue or duct-tape them all together? 

With all the rantings going on about the now-famous October Rulings, I also thought I'd help
everybody out with... 

Signs that You Blew It When Appealing a Ruling to Tom Wylie 

1.  Your subject header has more profanities in it than consonants. 
2.  The basis for your appeal of a ruling, in your own words, is that the ruling sucks, 
     bites, blows or makes your Turbo-Ornithopter deck useless. 
3.  At the end of your strikingly detailed, incredibly concise and well-worded appeal 
     you inadvertently infer that Tom has tiny genitalia. 
4.  At the end of your message you close it with "Suck On This, Loser" 
5.  You laugh at him because the WotC Customer Service people you called agree that 
     you're right. 
___ 

(And now it's time again to answer a few of your burning questions): 

Q: Why do I show up three times on the DCI list with slightly different names? 
 -  Arturo, InterNet 

A: Because you probably filled out 3 different DCI cards at 3 different tournaments. 
But don't worry, I'm sure it's only you and the DCI rankings are actually quite accurate. 
Right now I'd like to strongly suggest that the DCI should flatly reject memberships from 
anyone in the Federal Witness Protection Program. 

Q: Why don't I show on the DCI rankings list, after all I have played in 20 DCI tourneys 
last year.  -  Arturo, InterNet 

A: Not to worry, I'm sure you're the only one that this has happened to and the DCI rankings
are reasonably accurate. 

Q: Hey Quard, why does the DCI list my deceased Gladis the Wonder Goldfish as having 
an 1800 ranking in Sealed?  - Jim Frey, Atlanta GA 

A: Well I am sure this is the only time it has happened and the DCI rankings are...ah hell, 
who am I kidding?  The MIR space station works much better than the DCI's ranking 
system. 

Q: Why are Magic foreign translations so inaccurate?  - Jim C., Ohio 

A: What?  You think there's no such thing as the Cross-Dresser of Sardia, The Guardian
Fleece, Time Halt, Powder Sink and Ali of Pyro? Who knows, maybe next time Wizards 
will think of actually hiring people that speak the language to do the translations.  Their Cliff
Notes translation guides don't seem to be working too well. 

Q: Don't you think that Drew Tucker's art sucks?  His paintings look like pig vomit! 
 - Anonymous, InterNet 

A: You know for a long time I've seen lots of you people ragging on Drew and I'd like to 
take this time out to tell you all what whiny little stupid insignificant pretentious maggots 
you are.  Drew Tucker's art is distinct and quite refreshing and I doubt anyone complaining
about his art (or any other of the Magic artists) has 1/1000th of the talent he does.  The 
man makes a living painting and brings his unique and creative talents into making Magic art
something that stands out.  If you don't like it, go play Spellfire or get a job doing Magic 
work for Wizards. 

Q: Why do I keep playing Magic when I don't have money for buying new underwear? 
 - Dean W., San Jose 

A: Who wears underwear? 

End of Article. 

Note: Are there any Magic related questions you'd like to ask me that might see print in an upcoming Quard's Corner in Vault? If so, e-mail your questions to me at quardd@hotmail.com. 

This article was put together for your reading pleasure by Vincent B. Navarino (aka Quard on IRC:#mtg) and his imaginary trained typing Ferret, Ferratio. Vincent considers himself quite the humorist and can regularly be spotted late at night on IRC:#mtg(EFNet) tormenting the people there with his rantings. He'd also like to write Magic humor for the Duelist and someday might start submitting his articles to them, but is too afraid of rejection right now after not having a date in over 3 years. If you'd like to talk with him please feel free to send him e-mail at quardd@hotmail.com. All feedback received is welcomed. 

Warning: any hate mail will be forwarded to a neighbor he doesn't like.