random bits

[cellio]

Now there's an odd failure mode. Tonight I opened a book I bought recently (new) and found that it begins on page 41. Nothing was torn out; it appears to be a binding error. I guess I should have checked sooner (I bought it a couple months ago), but it's a torah commentary on Exodus, which we start this week, so I didn't need it before now. Fortunately, Amazon has an extended return period for books bought late in the year, so they'll exchange it and I don't even have to pay to ship it back. Yay.

Dani has decided to tackle the vast collection of Magic: The Gathering cards (most of which are his, but the older cards are mine). We haven't played in years; I would consider playing again in a simplified world, but they lost me when not only were there 6000 different cards, but they decided that many of the commons needed four different types of art. When I can't easily track what my opponent has in play, I lose interest. I understand that it's worse now; Dani says they are still publishing expansions and making money at it. After 12 or 13 years of this, I wonder how many cards there are now. (For comparison, the basic game, the one I played in the beta edition, had 300 cards. The first, and best, expansion set added, I think, about 75. Things went downhill from there.)

A few links:

These "new rules" might be incorrectly attributed (the reason they're on Snopes), but they sure are funny.

Advice from hindsight (from unspace).

This biscotti recipe sounds easy enough to try (from cookingengineer).

The origins of the great war of 2007 (link from rjlippincott).

Aieee. As tsjafo comments, I wouldn't trust the government with a pill that can alter memories. Granted, they're a long way from erasure, but I still don't trust that sort of technology in the hands of anyone with the power to compel -- in which category I would also place health providers, 'cause they're mostly owned by the insurance companies.

Comments

Re: M:TG

[rectangularcat]

After writing that comment - I went to look at ebay - seems they are going at about 1000$

Umm, tempting, considering I have some other rare ones too like my Time Walk and my Time Twister. I kept them for sentimentality reasons but really they sit in an old cookie box and really no one cares about them anymore except for me and my glory gaming days...