Have a lovely holiday all…we will be closed for Xmas day and then back at 3 on Thursday….go play some games. 😉
On Saturday we are doing a special two-headed Giant for Thomas’s belated birthday…Avacyn Restored with a reloaded Helvault. 😉 Should be great fun…
My uncle Richie was a good guy. Not just because of what he meant to me, but in the big picture, doing major good in the world sort of way. The last thing he did, before needing to retire because of his cancer a month ago, was to be the head of Illinois Department of Child and Family Services…basically the head guy in the state for looking out for making sure that kids are taken care of when things go wrong for them. He cared deeply for kids, and fought with everything he could to make sure, more than anything else, that they could feel safe. It seems like such an obvious thing for most of us, but without it in a kids world, nothing is right. And with it, there is virtually nothing that kids can’t face.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=9342306#
For me, he was an easy laugh and a safe feeling of warmth whenever I would see him. That was, after I forgave him for the great race track incident. (Where a 3-4 year old’s sense of unfairness kicked up to, and stuck at a ten when his uncle brought me a super cool electric race set that was clearly to old for him to play with, and proceeded to set it up with his dad and play with it in front of me, while I sat there like a jr. Nascar spectator, howling with desire to get in their and grab the wheel).
It seems that the best way I have to deal with great sadness is to try and put back in more goodness back into the world, as a fierce embrace of those sad feelings. With Richie, who cared so much about kids, I’m going to do it by doing what is in my wheelhouse…getting people some joy through games. For the next couple of days, if you buy something to give to toys for tots or any other group of kids/adults, I’ll put something good into the bucket from me. And if you buy two, I’ll give you a third to go into the charity bin. I don’t mean this as a promotion…just a challenge so we can both do something good. If not, just give or do something that will bring some sense of peace to some kid who is trying to make it through a dark day. I’m doing it for me, but I hope Richie would have liked it.
(Personal message from Ben…store owner guy):
I had an epiphany last week.
While watching an ad for Target, showing people trying to sneak out of Thanksgiving dinner early to get to their sale, something in me just snapped. I realized last thing in the world I wanted was for people to leave each other on one of the few days they have together as families just to go off shopping. Sure I want the business, but not at that cost, (particularly when the biggest point of what we do is to help provide excuses for people to have fun together).
Therefore, I’ve decided to do things different for the rest of the season:
BTW…if you want to just buy stuff for donation, we will do what we did last year, buy two and we will match with a third.
We are going to be adding reviews and recommendations to the site every day from now on. We’ve also started using our twitter account to do to things, say what is going on live at the store, and feature either cool new stuff we just got in, or good quick sales we are having. Feel free to subscribe if that sounds like fun.
Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!!! Make sure to do some random act of kindness!! 😉 As always, thanks so much for the business, and more importantly, the intensely cool community. I can’t tell you guys how thankful I am for that.
Two bits of news regarding store Friend, Peter Mohrbacher. For those of you who don’t know, Peter is one of the better Magic artists who happens to live in Alameda. He has done a ton of cool cards, including Erebos, God of the Dead, the much maligned (only for abilities, not for lack of great art) and the ever amusing Grimgrin. Some folks have been lucky enough to get one of the custom matts that he has done and brought by the store, and he is always happy to chat and sign cards whenever he comes in. He moved into Alameda a couple of years ago, with a brand new baby in tow, and to no one’s surprise, only popped in a few times for the next number of months. But since then he’s come in a bunch of times, sometimes bringing his increasingly beautiful daughter in tow.
The sad news is that he is leaving town in the beginning of Dec. to move back to his home town of Chicago to bring his daughter to be near her grandparents. Partially this is enabled by the fact that he has left his current full time (non-magic) gig to pursue projects based on his art full time. As sad as we are to see him go, we love his work (and like him) so we’re very excited for him. As part of that, he has started a Kickstarter project for a special collection of his work, both playmats and full art prints, including some amazing canvas style limited framed pieces. In two days he’s at about 40% of what he is looking for, so this is very very cool. He will also leave us with a small gallery worth of stuff for us to sell in the store.
Ok, ok,,,I give…We’ve bowed to popular demand and decided to start doing Two-headed Giants every Saturday night except the first of the month (which is for Date Night Magic.) For those who don’t know, Two-headed giants are team magic games, where two people build their decks together, and play as a team. We get a bunch of buddies playing, as well as couples and parent/kid teams. Because you get to show each other your cards and decide what to do together, it is a great way for new players to have a great time without feeling any pressure to need to know what they are doing yet. (Since you talk about each thing you do, you don’t have to worry about “doing it wrong”). For an experienced player, it’s a great way to share what they love doing with someone they care about, and for those others, it is a really fun way to see what is going on, without feeling any pressure. These events are very casual and light hearted, so it makes for a really great night.
Events are $17.50 per person (4 packs for each) unless we do a special/older set that is more expensive. Side note to parents: Ok…from one parent to another (INCLUDING THE MOMS), this is really wonderful thing to do with your kids. They love it because they get to be the smart one for once and they get you to share something with them that they love. You get to see what it is all about, and because you are on the same team and get to talk about everything you do, you don’t have to struggle with either competing with your kid, or having them go so fast that you can’t follow, or get into the standard parent/kid arguments about what you should have done. 😉 More importantly (and again, I have 12 year old and 9 year old kids too), we are hitting the time when the kids are pulling away, embarrassed to be hugged and just turning into those ‘wah,wah, wah” adults from the old peanuts cartoons. We’ve had a lot of parents that have found this little oasis of maintained connection as they do this with their kids. Having a “date” with them like this is pretty cool, and feels good for both of you.
After weeks and weeks of epic battles with the website…(mostly with me losing)…things are finally looking a bit more like I have a clue!! Lick the banana, it tastes like banana, lick the snozberrys, they taste like strawberries, and click on an event on the site, and it actually seems to get there. (I know it seems like it shouldn’t be that hard..that’s what I thought too.)
So the Special Event fun for this week…
New in Stock and for sale on Friday...the 2013 Magic Commander decks… These 100 card special decks feature great classic cards as well as some never seen before cards, including the first ever card with protection, not from another color or creature, but from a player!?! For the first batches we have, we’ll be selling them for $45 for each (except the Mindseize with that special card which is going for $65). These are VERY limited, so if you want ’em, grab them fast. Any player who buys 3 or more will get a Modern Masters Pack as a bonus. $199 gets a bundle of all 5 and 2 Modern Masters packs.
42 isn’t just the ultimate answer…it’s also the new record for the number of players for Friday Night Magic at D20 Games!! And last weekend, we sold out yet another two-headed Giant.
This saturday night , we will have our tribute to halloween…our Two-headless Giant. We’re bringing back the best all time halloween block—Innistrad. This set has gone way up in price as it went out of print, so the price per player will be $33 rather then the usual $17.50, however, to give a chance for a little discount, anyone who comes dressed as any character from Innistrad, Dark Ascension, or Avacyn Restored gets an extra $3 off per person.