Five things I hate about living in Alaska

I'll elaborate more on each of these (maybe) at some other point down in the future. After getting a sharp reminder of number two today, I just wanted to get there while I was once again thinking of them.

5) Politics. I know these days politics suck everywhere. My problem up here is we have a lot of big fish in a relatively small pond. It's like when we finally became an actual state, our politicians of the time saw all the corruption going on in other state governments and decided to jump right to that level as opposed to easing into it. Granted, I know the oil boom 20 years later is probably more to blame than our earliest politicians, but I get the feeling a lot of them still share much of the blame.

4) The Dating Scene. Also something that I'm sure sucks everywhere, especially for my age group. I don't know what it is (probably the isolation and glacier water), but there seems to be a sense of entitlement from men and women alike up here to thinking they deserve better partners than they actually do. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm no better in that department. I know you can't believe everything you read on the internet, but it often looks like people in the lower 48 have more success in finding dates and having dates go well, even if they're not an actual love connection.

3) The Isolation. This is a double edged sword. Sometimes it feels nice to be relatively detached from the real world. But when a weekend getaway out of state costs $1000+, it gets old quick. Not to mention, since there's flying involved, you have to do a lot of planning for everything. If I lived in the lower 48, I could drive a few hours to be in a different city with a different culture. And since I drove there, I'd have my own means of getting around instead of relying on taxis or some form of public transportation depicted on a map I can't understand (I'm looking at you, Seattle!).

2) Almost Impossible to get Good Produce. This past weekend, I bought a bag of bell peppers for putting in my lunches for the week. They seemed good at the time. I went to cut them up this morning and only two of the six hadn't already turned soft and wrinkly. One of them was even very visibly rotting even though I didn't see any sort of rot or mold when I grabbed them from the store. This kind of occurrence happens more often than not and it's getting incredibly frustrating, especially as I'm trying to eat healthier these days. 

1) GCI. That's the main ISP up here. They're a horrible company that knows they have a captive market for true high speed internet and they take full advantage of the fact. And really, it's not just them. It's nearly every "Alaskan" company. In my experience, no one likes to screw Alaskans over more than Alaskan owned companies. They all know there's limited (and sometimes none at all) competition up here and they're willing to profit off of it to the maximum extent possible, even when that comes at the expense of their fellow Alaskans. It's absolutely disgusting and rage inducing and just casually thinking about it probably puts my blood pressure at an unsafe level.

Anyways, this is a brief synopsis of the consistent reasons I sometimes daydream starting life anew outside of Alaska.

Song of the Day 

This doesn't mean I'm maturing

Surprised myself today. By not ordering a Magic product I'd been planning on ordering. It's a deck that will be sold for today and only and if you miss out, you're SOL. Well, technically I can buy it later on the secondary market, but it will undoubtedly cost at least twice as much (likely even more) than it would've had I just bought it direct from WotC today. 

The thing was though, when I woke up today, I admitted to myself it was a deck I'll likely never play that has art based upon some fictional Japanese pop star (Hatsune Miku) that I have no interest in. Like I realized me buying it was just giving in to FOMO for no other reason than the FOMO. Sure, I could tell myself I was going it as an investment - this deck will undoubtedly be worth twice it's cost in a year's time and is only likely to keep going up from there. But the truth is I likely wouldn't sell it. Partly because I'd want to keep holding on to it to see just how valuable it could get. But mostly because a product like this will have a smaller group of potential buyers than most Magic products and I'm too lazy to try and seek any of those buyers out. 

I know not buying something isn't really a big thing. But for me, it kinda feels like it is. Not life changing big of course. More like a small step in the right direction kind of big. This doesn't mean I won't make future dumb purchases (I probably will), just that I'm getting better at recognizing them and maybe now being able to opt out on occasion. (Which hopefully leads to more opting out and then more opting out and so on). 

Song of the Day 

A good change on my every other Sunday routine

 Thanks to outdated and asinine military male grooming standards, I have to get my haircut about once every two weeks. Which I usually do every other Sunday. And today was one of those Sundays. 

As I drove to my haircut today, my brain seemed to pull out this random reminder of how these Sundays would go back when I was drinking.

I would wake up hungover (naturally), initially telling myself I just needed to pull myself together long enough to pretend I'm a responsible adult and take care of getting my haircut. Once that was done, I could come home and do what needed to be done to take care of the hangover (i.e. start drinking again). Sometimes I'd fall back asleep after this self pep-talk and sometimes I wouldn't, but either way once I was up and moving, I was just thinking of drinking again already. 

I'd tell myself I could just get my haircut tomorrow, either before work when I was working swing shift or after work when I was on day shift. And many times, that was the plan I went with. But sometimes I was able to convince myself to just get it done. (Usually, those were the times I was low on alcohol in the house and would need to go to the liquor store anyway). 

So I'd shower and all that other good morning stuff and be on my way. It should be noted, the haircut place I went to was like five minutes away and that's with hitting every red light on the way there. But almost without fail every time, I'd have to turn around and head back home halfway there because my stomach would start feeling weird and I'd need to get to a bathroom quick. Then I'd take care of what needed to be taken care of and head back out. Usually my stomach was still feeling a bit off and I'd just be praying the whole time to not having one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. 

Thankfully I never had one of those embarrassing moments, but the whole experience was miserable. I remember so often getting home telling myself that was the last time I'd go through that; that from then on out I wouldn't drink so much on Saturdays when I'd have to get a haircut the next day. Funny enough, I usually made that promise to myself while opening my first drink for the day. 

Anyways, looking back on those memories today, I'm definitely glad to not being going through that anymore. Pretty sure by this point I'd always be pushing the haircut to Monday. Or I'd have just started buzzing my hair on my own - both to keep from having to leave the house on Sundays and to save money on haircuts so I could buy more booze. 

 Song of the Day

Back to Peak 3

 As I figured I'd do, I decided against playing more Magic today. Instead, I went hiking. And went back to Flattop Peak 3. Not the most exciting hike to choose, especially considering the weather, but it's one I was sure Hamlet could handle no problem and I wanted to be able to take him along with me today.

 While it was seemingly just partly cloudy in Anchorage itself, once I got to the base of the Chugach that changed it was all cloudy. Which made me feel kind of foolish having put on a bunch of sunscreen before heading out. The sunscreen became even more annoying when, despite the clouds and what I thought was cooler weather, I began sweating like this was my first workout in months and the sunscreen mixed sweat from my forehead began stinging my eyes. Literally, I could not wipe sweat away fast enough and I contemplated just calling it a day and ending the hike not even a half-mile in. Fortunately, I kept going.

We got to the ridgeline and started towards peak 3, having a view much like the picture above most the way. Which in some ways made for a cool view, but in other ways was annoying as I had no idea how much further I needed to go for my destination. 

Finally, after taking much longer than I remember it taking last time, we made it to peak 3. Where the view didn't change much. We also didn't stop at peak 3. All because I read my app wrong and thought where we were at was like half a mile short of peak 3, so we kept going. It only took me about 1000 ft to realize my mistake and we turned back as I could tell Hamlet was getting tired. Not to mention I didn't pack enough snacks for myself to make a whole half day trip out of the hike. 

The clouds did finally start clearing and we got some of the views that always fill my heart with joy.  

Lately after hiking I've been going to Wild Scoops to get a scoop of ice cream. This time I tried the Off-Trail Chocolate and holy crap was it delicious! I hope it sticks around for awhile - I've been doing this thing where every time I go to Wild Scoops I try a new flavor, but I'd really like this one to be around when all that is done to have again. I also went to Moose's Tooth (of course), but as good as the pizza was, it wasn't pretty enough for a picture.

Anyways, a few take aways from the hike:

1 - I used low ankle shoes for this one. Never again for hikes that have some technical parts to them. Don't know what I was thinking when I grabbed these ones for this hike; I usually know better. Mid level ankle or higher on anything but the flat and easy trails, damn near rolled my ankle a few times. Also had to stop multiple times to get pebbles out of my shoes - very annoying.

2 - I need to make a packing list for all my different possible hikes (less than half-day, half-day, full day, etc.). I'm always forgetting something and this time it was the bear spray, which kept me from doing a little exploring I'd originally been planning to do. Instead I stuck to the populated trailed where I was sure I could outrun at least one other person in case a bear showed up.

3 - Did about five miles with this hike and by the end Hamlet was struggling a little more than I would've expected for such a hike. Now that might possibly be because I walked him yesterday and he needs a full rest day between any real outings, but it also may just be his age getting to him even more than the last hike (definitely hoping for the former). Something I definitely need to be keeping an eye on though. 

 Song of the Day 

Magic: The Gathering, The Hobbit pre-release after action report

Once again, my initial desire to just skip the event and stay home was gone as soon as I started playing. I ended up going 3-1-0, which is my best showing to date.Going into round four I was one of six players undefeated. Unfortunately, a couple big misplays on my part during my final match led to me losing the match 2 games to 0. Oh well, I'd say I'm still somewhat inexperienced to competitive play (even casual competitive play), so tonight made for a pretty good learning experience. 

The better part was just meeting new people. Sure, there were some people I didn't vibe with, but overall most people were relatively normal and cool to chat with.

That said, I'm still on the fence about going to any pre-release events tomorrow. My original plan for this weekend was to go to all the pre-release events I could fit in, but now that I've done one, it feels like it may have been enough. Mostly cause as much as I enjoy meeting and talking to new people, it's a bit exhausting and I may need to do a few more events before I build up the mental and emotional stamina needed for  two days in a row of it all. (I know, I've done two days in a row of pre-release events before. And it was hell, hence the lack of desire to do so again).

The other reason I'm hesitant to do more events tomorrow is, as said in my last post, this isn't just that amazing of a set. On a one to five scale, my initial impressions of this set are a three. Most these cards seem like they'll fit right into commander decks, but I don't see anything changing the meta in other formats. If anything, the few bangers there are will reinforce the current meta in standard. Granted, I could be wrong about the set - I often am when it comes to these things. But I feel like if I go to any pre-release events tomorrow, I'm going to see a lot of the same of what I saw today and nothing new. I think also the meta for this pre-release has already been figured out online, so a lot of people tomorrow will be building similar decks and that's just kind of boring for such events.

In conclusion, I had a good time and am once again glad I did it. But I'm doubtful about doing even more of it tomorrow. 

Song of the Day

A thousand dollars "saved"

This weekend is the pre-release for the latest Magic: The Gathering set, The Hobbit. Being the Tolkien fan that I claim to be, I was pretty hyped for this set when it was announced. I even budgeted out some money for spending on this set, $1000 dollars to be exact - with the ability to spend more if needed. My original plan was to get two collector boxes (which I were assuming would be between $350 - $400 a box on release) and two regular boxes (assuming $150/box on release). Thanks to Magic's seemingly ceaseless growth in popularity, the market has become filled with scalpers and speculators and those prices I was assuming were quite off.

The cheapest collector box I've seen in town (and online) is $600. The cheapest play boxes I've heard of are $180. Nearly all other product has been marked up 10-50% over MSRP. Also, due to a multi-billion dollar company (Hasbro, owners of WorC, the makers of Magic) being unable to figure out logistics, play boxes in a lot of areas, including Anchorage, have been delayed. Regardless, I'm not paying these prices for sealed product.

For starters, this set isn't that great. I want it for the Tolkien connection, but if you take that away from most these cards, they're pretty generic Magic cards that are in no way ground breaking. Most the singles in this set won't likely hold enough value to justify the cost of a box. (Unless of course the speculators sit on their sealed product and create a false scarcity for the singles, which isn't out of the realm of possibility these days).

Also, it's a small set, so buying a single play box will still result in lots of duplicates. I'm also seeing posts online from people that bought a box that had multiple duplicates of the same rare cards, which means collation at the factory when placing cards into packs was absolutely horrible. Which makes sense since quality control has been turning into a bigger and bigger issue for Hasbro over the past couple years (but hey, at least the shareholders are happy).

Lastly, for everything but the collector boxes and bundles, there will be another print run. Meaning prices are very likely to come down for play boxes and scene boxes. 

So instead of the $1000+ I would've likely spent on new Magic product this weekend, I'm going to be spending $40; $40 I already spent a month ago to register for a pre-release tournament happening tonight. Maybe if the LGS has bundles available at a decent price I'll buy one of those, but I'm doubtful they'll have any available and even if they do, they'll be well over MSRP. 

And now that $1000 can be put towards something else. Or nickel and dimed away as I usually do. 

Song of the Day 

A random day in the life of...

Woke up later than I planned today. Originally thought to myself I may as well stay in bed for even longer. Or just move from the bed to the couch and spend the day playing video games I mean, I took the day off from work kind of last minute and didn't have hard plans for it, so why not spend it doing as little as possible? But for some reason, I pulled myself out of bed and got on the treadmill. I'm still just doing three miles at a time when I jog, But this time I managed to maintain a 9 min/mile pace, which is my goal pace. So I'm happy about that.

And then to continue to be counter productive to a lazy day, I left the house. I went to Title Wave Books and bought some movies I'll probably never watch, but somehow it feels good to know I have them in my collection just in case I ever think I might be in the mood. 

What movies? 

Ant-Man. I don't know why, but the guys at work have been big on super hero movies lately and Magic just released a Marvel themed set, so I figured may as well.

Coming to America. It's an Eddie Murphy classic and peak 80's comedy (though not as peak as Trading Places, which also seems relevant to today's economic climate).

Out Cold. I've never even seen it, though I remember wanting to see it when it came out. So I probably will watch this one. Soon.

And lastly, season 2 of Frasier. Figured I should get it since I already had season 1 and 3 and needed some continuity for them. And while I can't say I love the show, I do think it did a good job of capturing much of the look and feel of the 90's into the early 00's. Not as good as Friends mind you, but I've still got a soft spot for sitcoms that span that gap. 

And that's my day. So far.  

Song of the Day