Getting back into Pokemon cards has also meant finding other card games fun as well. The photo alongside is of my brother playing YuGiOh with me. It was fun revisiting this and it has me pulling out my dusty tin of cards and looking at my deck again.
Why am I doing this?
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Today was the second monthly Adelaide Pokemon Nerds VGC Meet Up. The meet was held at Shin Tokyo in the same space as the trading card meet, which actually had people turn up to it unlike the previous event. Naturally, there was trading and battling, and the usual nostalgic talk about the older games. I had a battle with Craig and got my ass handed to me yet again, and Mel was nice enough to trade me not only a Zorua but a Charmander and Bulbasaur! She’s a legend for that, but Craig sucks balls. Sweaty balls.
Britt and I also invested in Pokemon cards, because why not. We bought a learner pack that splits a deck into two 30 card decks to learn the game, as well as three booster packs each. Because we’d registered for the TCG meet as well, Shin Tokyo gave us each a free booster pack on top of that. Being I haven’t played the game since primary school, I’m looking to relearn the rules and maybe play it if someone else is willing.
I wouldn’t have minded a bigger turnout, but it was pretty damn fun either way.
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I have business/social calling cards!
Courtesy of Moo.com and About.Me, I was given 50 free business cards built off of the information on my About.Me page. All I was meant to pay for was shipping, but with some googling I managed to eliminate that too, rewarding myself with the product completely free.
Of course, I don’t really have a use for them as yet. All I do at the moment to a professional standard is riffle cards and flick balls1, and that hardly calls for an exchange of details.
Maybe one day my writing will be of such a standard that publications will pay me amazing amounts of money for my opinions on something. Fat chance, but it could happen2.
Or I could become an astronaut and go into the farthest reaches of space. I could meet an alien and with these cards it would be a snap to exchange contact information. “Do you have a pen so I can write down your email address?” He’d say, to which I would respond,
“No need! Here, let me toss you my card. It has all my details on it.”
I’ll smile, and the alien would look perplexed before pointing out the obvious, “You can’t just throw it, there’s no gravity so it’ll just float there.”
My smile drops, as I ponder the fact that this yellow3 creature, who astonishingly can speak fluent English, actually has a point. After a few moments, I finally speak. “You have a point. Here, I’ll just hand it to you.”
The exchange done, we can finally get back to the matter at hand; I have calling cards and I don’t really need them at this point in time. Still, it’s cool to have some.
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This game suffered the same Steam release faults that Fallout: New Vegas had, much to my frustration. However, it finally came out yesterday, and I’ve been playing it.
I’ve never been a big fan of Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. I know the basics, but I lack the want to actually play. This game however, had me the moment it was officially announced. Why? Look below.
Yes, that is Max1, Strongbad2, Heavy Weapons Guy3, and Tycho4. Yes, I am playing against them.
This is the appeal of the game; four characters from different universes, playing and chatting to each other while you all play poker. This makes what I see as a normally boring game ten times more fun. Watching Strongbad get angry at the Heavy, or Max inform the table of everything he is going to do with the chips (including his want to cover himself in grease and roll around in them) is more fun that you’d think.
The game is obviously made specially with Team Fortress 2 fans in mind, as there are items you can win off of the characters, which are then rewarded as unlocks in TF2. It’s a weird marketing strategy, but when you take into account the amount of players who obsess over new weapons, it makes sense for a low budget game.
Poker Night At The Inventory has a few graphical bugs that need looking at (For example, bets not showing up correctly at the top of the screen, and Max’s cards clipping through his chip stacks), but it’s still immensely playable and fun.
It’s got it’s novelty, and I like it, but I can’t help but wonder if the magic won’t wear off come a few weeks time and it suffers the same fate as Alien Swarm seems to have in the general gaming community. For only five dollars though, I guess it doesn’t really matter.
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Rubenerd’s latest post about getting a Woolworths “Everyday Rewards” card got me thinking about the way people are so adverse to loyalty and reward cards in general. I’ve never quite understood it.
I’ve always loved the idea of the cards; I’m going to buy the thing regardless, so why NOT get something as a bonus. I have quite a few cards of this nature, and they all give me a little something extra without seemingly any downside.
I’ve heard a few excuses for not wanting them, the most popular of which being that they create clutter, and that their primary use is to track you tin hat style. Both excuses are rather foolish.
The idea that they cause clutter just says to me that person has no skills with organization. You don’t need to keep every card in your wallet at all times. Keep them all in a drawer or something, and when you plan to use the services attached to it, grab it for the trip. It’s that simple.
As for the tracking idea, a fun fact is that for a few of them, they do, but not always in the negative way people perceive it. The stats they collect isn’t just so they can simply send a heap of advertising your way, but so they can improve as a company and make more money. By collecting basic statistics they learn where they earn more money, and where they lack. It’s like an ever-present customer service survey. People use the card for the “rewards”, and companies get the information they used to rarely get when someone might by chance decide to fill out a questionnaire. Sure, some companies use the information for the wrong thing, but I for one haven’t had any trouble with the programs I’ve joined, and the benefits of some of the cards are unmistakably good.
Hudsons Coffee’s card takes ten percent of every purchase and turns it into credit of sorts. Essentially this rewards me with one free drink for every ten I buy. Joining the program, I had to give basic details including my email address, and the card came with enough starter credit for a free drink initially. Since then I’ve only gotten one email from them. Isn’t a bad trade for some free coffee.
I remember when I worked at BP, and I’d offer people who filled up on LPG to join the “Autogas Rewards Program”, which gives anyone with a card two cents off the litre. The worst thing was how suspicious people got over such an offer. The reason was the obvious “you never get something for nothing” paranoia, but if people thought, they’d realize they aren’t, and that it’s not a bad thing. The person would join the program, and get the card, allowing them to get the discount on LPG for their car. In turn, BP gets a loyal customer who will keep coming back BECAUSE of the discount. There’s your reward, and there’s your cost. The reward outweighs the “cost”.
Basically, with so much crapping on about how tight money is these days for everyone, I constantly wonder why so many people will turn down free things like this. There is no major downside to such great deals. I mean, we’re talking about guaranteed discounts and rewards for simply being a loyal shopper; it could be worse.
Why do you avoid the cards?
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So Ruben, how does it feel to be immortalized as a trading card?
So I’ve recently gotten obsessed over Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series, after quite a few of my friends recommended various “Abridged” shows to me. It’s one of the greatest internet series I’ve ever seen. I’ve never laughed so much at something like this. But of course, it’s brought back my love for the actual card game.
I have a tin full of what I estimate to be around a couple of hundred Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and as of a couple of days ago blew the dust off them. My brother has his cards, and we played a game or two, bringing about nostalgic feelings you’d expect from such things.
This morning I contemplated buying another deck so I could get hold of the new rule book, to reacquaint myself with the game. It’s been quite a few years since I played and I know the rules have changed quite a bit.
This was one hobby of mine that unlike tazos, Pokémon cards, and Where’s Wally, stood the test of time. I KNOW no-one plays this anymore, and “card games are for kids”, but this was a big part of my life, and regardless of what it is, it’s definitely a fun game.
Did anyone else play this game? Or am I the only nerd in the house?
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