What a weekend

After spending Friday night fighting orcs, trolls and ring wraiths in Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, things got busy.

Saturday morning was the last Star Trek CCG tournament before Nationals later this month.

I realised that everyone in our league has grown accustomed to my Federation 2-Mission Deck, so I decided to mix it up a bit and go back to a deck I haven't used in ages: a Terok Nor Mission-solver.

It's kinda risky, since the Terok Nor faction hasn't been advanced at all in several expansions, so the cards are mostly quite old, and are therefore not geared to deal with some of the newer dynamics. The good thing about it is that no-one else has used the Terok Nor deck in ages, so no-one would be expecting it.

It totally worked. I got a bye in the first round, which gave me a chance to look through my new Dangerous Missions booster draft boxes. I didn't get anything terribly exciting other than the Dangerous Missions premium cards.

Second round I went against a newbie with a Borg Mission-solver deck. He had been trained by our current top player, whom he had beaten in the first round. Much to my satisfaction I had left my Homeworld and was attempting Missions before he had gotten his first ship out. Plus my Dilemmas performed their usual magic slowing him down nicely. It was a clear and relatively
quick victory.

Third round I went up against another newbie using a Romulan Mission-solver. I made equally short work of him. That made 9 victory points, which is what is needed to win a 3-round tournament... the second tournament I've ever won. This deck rocks. I'll need to practice with it a bit before Nationals, but I'm fairly certain that I can expect a good result. Assuming I can do as well against the three or four players in the league who are usually better than
me, I'll soon have a new Adversaries Anthology box to keep my stock cards in.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to stick around to enjoy my victory. I had to rush off to a concert, stopping along the way to pick up something at Hide's mom's place. I arrived at the school almost an hour late, just in time to catch the tail-end of the warm-up practice.

The show went pretty well, after which I had to dash off once again to get home in time to get ready to go out: we were meeting some of Heidi's old high-school colleagues at a pre-reunion get-together. At the same time I was expected to sing at a retirement party, so a stressful juggling act ensued.

I had to abandon Hide at the get-together so I could go to the party and be ignored by the guest of honour (who had allegedly specifically requested a solo from me). I was not impressed. I managed to get back to the get-together just in time for the last round of drinks. Great.

Then yesterday it was my sister's birthday party where I made a failed attempt to educate my woo-woo infatuated family as to the real nature of "alternative medicine". I don't know why I bother. At least my nieces and nephews are entertaining.

Now, this morning I arrive at the office and sit chewing my nails to smithereens while I await a response from my boss who may or may not decide to increase my salary in order to prevent me from moving to another company who has offered me a job. I suppose I should be flattered that she even decided to think about it, considering the last three guys from my team who
left were sent on their way without so much as a kick in the pants.

These people don't seem to realise the stress they're putting me under by waiting so long to get back to me. This comes from the use of "resource" instead of "employee"... they find it inconvenient to think of me as a person, and that the decision they're making will have resonating consequences for my life, and that of my family.

I feel like a guitar string that's being tuned... they're turning the knob and winding me tighter and tighter. Every hour I have to wait is another turn on the knob. Not only am I no longer in tune, but I'm starting to feel like I'm about to snap.