Monday, September 27

gah

I hate this country and I want to go home.

Yesterday I was in a bad mood for no evident reason. Chris and Luke played in their first Magic tournament and won a few games. I played 2HG with Zack. Zack is a fun guy, but I hated the new set. In 2HG poison decides every game in an immediate and non-interactive way. It's worse than permission magic (which I actually love). Infect is a terrible mechanic and I'm particularly angry because I know Rosewater fought the other designers to make it happen when he should have just let it go. Given the 600+ geeks in the Radisson hotel the air was also thick with infection. Perhaps I'm getting a little ill. Speaking of which, we went to Kaiser Hospital again today to try and get some paperwork so I can claim back the ridiculous $350 I had to spend to get a prescription for codeine (which you can buy over the counter in Australia for $20). It was particularly upsetting because I didn't want to go in the first place but Chris felt guilty and insisted. Not half as upsetting as the events of this second visit. Turns out the paperwork that got 'lost in the mail' was actually a bill. What I had paid was just a down payment on the $816 I owe for my visit. I'm so furious at how ridiculous it is. Chris is beating himself up about it. For taking me and then, because he has insurance and could have got painkillers easily, not lying to the staff and got them himself. The whole situation is terrible but it doesn't look like there's much I can do about it. I'll get the paperwork and then try to claim it from my insurance.

We also spent this morning trying to organise flights to Las Vegas. So far it's proving expensive and daunting and possibly not worth while. Tomorrow we'll got to a travel agent and try to get Anj's flight vouchers validated. So much business here is conducted in an underhanded way. But I guess that's not so much different from Australia, more that I don't know how to avoid it. Unfortunately neither do my international chums.
After unpacking and repacking all my bags it looks like I lost a small one somewhere between the station and Chris's apartment. It had my travel essentials so iPod, Nintendo DS, Ventolin and earplugs. No big deal.
Found it. I used my enormous powers of deduction and complete refusal to believe that I could lose something through negligence to deduce that it was in Chris' sports bag with his soccer shoes. Bam! Cheered me up before bed.

In other news the Scott Pilgrim game is fun.

2 comments:

Josh said...

Sorry you're feeling rotten, cuz, both Lauren and I have colds, we are the House of Infect. PreRelease day for us was quite fun. After thinking we'd just be alone, turned out Jai+Erin teamed, as did our friends Reimann+Nick, Carlos+Matt, and Nathan was there too. L+ I went 2W 2L, a standard effort for us. I like the set, particularly the proliferate business, the counters can get Jainormous! Speaking of which, Jai, Erin, Reimann + Carlos came back to our house, and so we drafted 2011 + Scars combined. Twas fun, but we were magicked out by the end of it (some 8-9hrs in a day). I totally won, beating Jai in the final!! I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I don't think I've ever beat him before, and certainly not with a draft deck (which I'm usually crap at). I've just reorganised our winnings and some extras to make some OK decks for L+ me to play with. She's just excited that we've had a really gamer friendly weekend with MTG + DnD (and star wars DnD on the Friday before). Meanwhile, Karl is going to Germany on Thursday, so he's been having various events including a Vegan Feast with many vegie curries, an Espy night, in amongst him making a harp from scratch, forging a set of wedding rings for his friends, crocheting a jumper for himself and building a case for his saxophone + trombone-didgeridoo (out of PVC piping). So wish him luck on his adventure! Missing you plenty, but also pretty jealous you're getting to see and experience so many cool gamer things. See ya round mate, lotsa love, Josh.

sunny said...

You beat Jai!? Nice one. That deserves a pat on the back and a beer in the belly.