vesuvan doppelganger

i still pat myself on the back about it to this day.

i once traded a friend a wall of brambles for a vesuvan doppelganger - yes, that's right - a fucking vesuvan doppelganger!!

but i digress...well actually, no i don't digress; i haven't even presented a cohesive thought yet so i can't possibly have digressed...phew! you see, i have this problem of getting sidetracked and veering off the main point when i talk - fortunately i don't have that problem when i write..............allow me to congress...

i grew up in a idyllic neighborhood surrounded by several boys all around my age. as i think back, i realize that we did not really have anything in common. this fact is probably why i haven't had a meaningful interaction with any of them since middle school. well that and they were all assholes.

that might be overstating the point, let us just say that every kid in the neighborhood grew up with the knowledge that in any social context involving more than two of us, anyone of us was liable to be viciously stabbed in the back if it meant that there was social capital to be gained from the act.

say what you will about julius caesar, at least brutus had the decency to actually stab him in the back. tragedy my ass - that troglodyte got out easy. also, we did have one thing in common, we all hated to lose to each other. baseball, basketball, madden, mario kart, capture the flag, hockey, pogs, baseball card collections, and my personal favorite - magic cards! although i used to consider these kids my friends, i have now had the fortune of real friends and i know the good, old neighborhood crew for what they were - amicable combatants (most of the time).

besides simply being an enormously fun game, magic cards in particular provides two distinct paths to demeaning and demoralizing one's friends. there is the classic beat down 1v1 stylie, involving the disarming and humiliation of one's opponent by objectively proving that every decision that they made in constructing their deck was a poor one; and then there is the cold-blooded trade, involving trading a friend a card of questionable value in return for pure gold.

even though you probably have no idea what it means because you actually had a life when you were in the fifth grade, allow me to present the vital stats of the trade involved.

vesuvan doppelganger

card type: creature
creature type: shapeshifter
power/toughness: */*
casting cost: 3
card text: upon summoning, doppelganger acquires all characteristics except color of any one creature in play on either side; any creature enchantments on the original creature are not copied. during controller's upkeep, doppelganger may take on the characteristics of a different creature in play instead. doppelganger may continue to copy a creature even after that creature leaves play, but if it switches it won't be able to switch back.

wall of brambles

card type: creature
creature type: plant wall
power/toughness: 2/3
casting cost: 2
card text: : regenerates.

so, to reestablish the situation - i had a wall of brambles and my "friend" had a vesuvan doppelganger. you do not understand anything about these vital stats that i just wrote - fine. but i think that you do notice something about these two cards even though you are a complete newbie - the description for a vesuvan doppelganger is complicated - the description for a wall of brambles is a bit simpler.

you see, i screwed my amicable combatant because i looked at the vesuvan doppelganger and realized that there was a good chance that he did not know what the card text meant (you most likely have no idea what the card text means either - but trust me, it is sweet). in magic, a complicated description often does not a valuable card make - and i screwed him - hard. the wall of brambles is a decent card - but most expert players would never waste a spot in a deck for one. a vesuvan doppelganger however, can be the basis of a kick-ass deck.

am i immoral for allowing my friend to make this trade with me?

What Privacy?

Has it ever occurred to you that you don't know your friends as well as you think? Well, now the internet has the answer. A website called spokeo can now with a simple search fill you in on what you're missing. Here check me out. And by things that you might be missing I mean address, household, facebook pics, approximate credit score, home value, income, age etc. Ok, so that might not be the most valuable thing for improving friendships. But it might be really valuable for people who wanna sell me shit.

Meanwhile Facebook is pulling another one of it's patented "We've changed our privacy policies and you have no clue what's going on" moves. Frankly, I don't trust them and I'm not exactly sure why.

Am I being silly here? Is this all part of the natural and desirable spread of information? Or is the complete commodification of self and society? Who actually stands to gain from all of this?