20051031
20051008
the first two weeks of college life
Friday the 23rd of September
I move into my dorm. It is rather small, but all my stuff fits in there. I meet some of my cluster-mates.
Saturday the 24th of September
I wake up early and head out of the range of the football game traffic to get picked up by my parents and taken to Foolscap, a small science fiction convention that, this year, features both Harlan Ellison and Penny Arcade and thus, promises to be the swearingest science fiction convention ever. Before the convention begun, Harlan was bitten by a macaw and needed to get a tetanus shot. Gabe and Tycho kind of didn’t fit in, but were really entertaining in their own panels. Harlan was Harlan, a statement which makes sense if you know about him. I went with him and my parents out for dinner at Crossroads Mall, which was a pretty entertaining experience, but it’s kind of hard to explain why if you don’t know about Harlan Ellison. Perhaps the best explanation I can give is that he is exactly like his writing style. Bear in mind that his writing style is kind of like Ray Bradbury’s evil twin.
Sunday the 25th of September
I sort out the bus schedules and figure out how to get down to the Seattle Center for the Ravnica prerelease. I run into Jeremy Yuse, who once went to Maplewood and now works at Magic Arsenal. I pay money to roll dice and win an Atogatog. This is arguably better in some ways than winning a foil Serra Avatar last time. I played a round of draft, in which I managed to get passed(!) a Watery Grave. My Green-Black-Little Bit of Blue deck manages to do better than I expected, and I end up getting second place and taking away 4 boosters. Fun moments: playing Fists of Ironwood on my opponent’s creatures so I could get Saprolings; losing a game where I can’t play Hex because there’s only five creatures in play.
After that, I end up in the last flight of the regular Sealed Deck event, where I create a bizarre Blue-Black-Red contraption that also does way better than expected. I managed to half-deck somebody once with Tunnel Vision, just kind of randomly guessing what cards are in his deck. I win a lot more packs, which include a foil Sacred Foundry. That seems to be worth about sixty dollars right now. Oh my.
Monday the 26th of September
I take the bus down to Pacific Place to get a PS2. I haul it, along with a memory card, an extra controller, and We Love Katamari back to my dorm and set it up. I roll stuff into balls.
I also find out that my cluster-mates are half football players and half guys from Mercer Island with Asian girlfriends.
Tuesday the 27th of September
I meet up with my mom and we go buy textbooks. She brings another shelf, a few of my clothes, and, inexplicably, a pack of dried squid. I set up the shelf. I walk around in search of stores that sell things and end up all the way in Montlake. I take the bus back. I call Erin a lot trying to get in contact with her.
Wednesday the 28th of September
My classes begin with programming at 9:30. After that, I walk up and down University Way NE twice trying to find a store that the Internet claimed sold Magic cards but the Internet lied. I find a comic book store that also sells a lot of RPGs and I find a place to play Magic on Friday nights, though. I go back to my Chinese history class. History may be written by the winners, but Chinese history is written by middle-aged white guys. Good lecturer, though. I finally get in touch with Erin. I also run into Maura Harrison and we have dinner.
Thursday the 29th of September
I finally get in contact with Lisa Akiyama and we end up having both lunch and dinner together. I have the first day of my art class. Over the past week, I’ve managed to run into pretty much everyone I know who’s going here. I make plans with Erin to go up to Bellingham over the weekend.
Friday the 30th of September
I get very lonely. I seem to have missed all my cluster-mates when they went out to see Serenity. I play Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes almost all the way through, until the loneliness eats at my heart from the inside. I end up calling Lisa about nine times but I can’t get in contact with her. I eat a very sad dinner alone and then I decide to stop feeling sorry for myself, so I go down to play some Magic. It’s good to be able to talk with people for like ten minutes about all the possibilities that Doubling Season brings.
“This means that Spike decks are now viable!”
“Screw Spikes! I’m going to build a Thallid deck!”
Saturday the 31st of September
I take the bus back home, eat some lunch, and head up to Bellingham, listening to Neko Case on the way up. After some confusion, I manage to meet up with everybody else at the mall. Good times are had. I drive back, taking everybody else who’s going to Lynnwood with me. We discuss our immense loneliness and inability to meet people.
Sunday the 1st of October
I hang around the house with my family. I use the car to go shopping for PS2 games; I end up with Final Fantasy X, Onimusha 2, and Ninja Gaiden Black (which is for Xbox). I am driven back up to my dorm room after dinner.
I feel better.
Monday the 2nd of October
In my programming class, I manage to meet someone (by virtue of my increasingly awesome handbag): a somewhat nerdy and somewhat cute Chinese girl. We arrange to meet up for lunch. She shows up about twenty minutes late, so it’s a good thing I waited. I also end up being late to class by spending too much time at lunch.
Tuesday the 3rd of October
While getting lunch with my cluster-mates, I run into Maura Harrison studying. She is readily identifiable from behind by virtue of her raven-black hair and constant drinking of Diet Coke. We try to meet up for dinner but are stymied when she changes her schedule such that she has class then.
Wednesday the 4th of October
I meet up with Jessica (the Chinese girl) for lunch again and meet a couple other (Chinese) people that she’s met. Lost has pretty much the best plot twist ever on it. I complete my first ever computer program during the commercial breaks.
Thursday the 5th of October
I take a guess at Amber’s email address and it works, putting us into contact for the first time in about a month. I write out the bulk of this piece while compiling music for the I Really Miss You Mix Tape. This tape will be the saddest thing ever, like an anti-tank missile made out of pure sorrow.
Friday the 6th of October
I discover that I am the king (or at least prince) of Ravnica draft. At approximately 1:00 in the morning, I post this.
I move into my dorm. It is rather small, but all my stuff fits in there. I meet some of my cluster-mates.
Saturday the 24th of September
I wake up early and head out of the range of the football game traffic to get picked up by my parents and taken to Foolscap, a small science fiction convention that, this year, features both Harlan Ellison and Penny Arcade and thus, promises to be the swearingest science fiction convention ever. Before the convention begun, Harlan was bitten by a macaw and needed to get a tetanus shot. Gabe and Tycho kind of didn’t fit in, but were really entertaining in their own panels. Harlan was Harlan, a statement which makes sense if you know about him. I went with him and my parents out for dinner at Crossroads Mall, which was a pretty entertaining experience, but it’s kind of hard to explain why if you don’t know about Harlan Ellison. Perhaps the best explanation I can give is that he is exactly like his writing style. Bear in mind that his writing style is kind of like Ray Bradbury’s evil twin.
Sunday the 25th of September
I sort out the bus schedules and figure out how to get down to the Seattle Center for the Ravnica prerelease. I run into Jeremy Yuse, who once went to Maplewood and now works at Magic Arsenal. I pay money to roll dice and win an Atogatog. This is arguably better in some ways than winning a foil Serra Avatar last time. I played a round of draft, in which I managed to get passed(!) a Watery Grave. My Green-Black-Little Bit of Blue deck manages to do better than I expected, and I end up getting second place and taking away 4 boosters. Fun moments: playing Fists of Ironwood on my opponent’s creatures so I could get Saprolings; losing a game where I can’t play Hex because there’s only five creatures in play.
After that, I end up in the last flight of the regular Sealed Deck event, where I create a bizarre Blue-Black-Red contraption that also does way better than expected. I managed to half-deck somebody once with Tunnel Vision, just kind of randomly guessing what cards are in his deck. I win a lot more packs, which include a foil Sacred Foundry. That seems to be worth about sixty dollars right now. Oh my.
Monday the 26th of September
I take the bus down to Pacific Place to get a PS2. I haul it, along with a memory card, an extra controller, and We Love Katamari back to my dorm and set it up. I roll stuff into balls.
I also find out that my cluster-mates are half football players and half guys from Mercer Island with Asian girlfriends.
Tuesday the 27th of September
I meet up with my mom and we go buy textbooks. She brings another shelf, a few of my clothes, and, inexplicably, a pack of dried squid. I set up the shelf. I walk around in search of stores that sell things and end up all the way in Montlake. I take the bus back. I call Erin a lot trying to get in contact with her.
Wednesday the 28th of September
My classes begin with programming at 9:30. After that, I walk up and down University Way NE twice trying to find a store that the Internet claimed sold Magic cards but the Internet lied. I find a comic book store that also sells a lot of RPGs and I find a place to play Magic on Friday nights, though. I go back to my Chinese history class. History may be written by the winners, but Chinese history is written by middle-aged white guys. Good lecturer, though. I finally get in touch with Erin. I also run into Maura Harrison and we have dinner.
Thursday the 29th of September
I finally get in contact with Lisa Akiyama and we end up having both lunch and dinner together. I have the first day of my art class. Over the past week, I’ve managed to run into pretty much everyone I know who’s going here. I make plans with Erin to go up to Bellingham over the weekend.
Friday the 30th of September
I get very lonely. I seem to have missed all my cluster-mates when they went out to see Serenity. I play Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes almost all the way through, until the loneliness eats at my heart from the inside. I end up calling Lisa about nine times but I can’t get in contact with her. I eat a very sad dinner alone and then I decide to stop feeling sorry for myself, so I go down to play some Magic. It’s good to be able to talk with people for like ten minutes about all the possibilities that Doubling Season brings.
“This means that Spike decks are now viable!”
“Screw Spikes! I’m going to build a Thallid deck!”
Saturday the 31st of September
I take the bus back home, eat some lunch, and head up to Bellingham, listening to Neko Case on the way up. After some confusion, I manage to meet up with everybody else at the mall. Good times are had. I drive back, taking everybody else who’s going to Lynnwood with me. We discuss our immense loneliness and inability to meet people.
Sunday the 1st of October
I hang around the house with my family. I use the car to go shopping for PS2 games; I end up with Final Fantasy X, Onimusha 2, and Ninja Gaiden Black (which is for Xbox). I am driven back up to my dorm room after dinner.
I feel better.
Monday the 2nd of October
In my programming class, I manage to meet someone (by virtue of my increasingly awesome handbag): a somewhat nerdy and somewhat cute Chinese girl. We arrange to meet up for lunch. She shows up about twenty minutes late, so it’s a good thing I waited. I also end up being late to class by spending too much time at lunch.
Tuesday the 3rd of October
While getting lunch with my cluster-mates, I run into Maura Harrison studying. She is readily identifiable from behind by virtue of her raven-black hair and constant drinking of Diet Coke. We try to meet up for dinner but are stymied when she changes her schedule such that she has class then.
Wednesday the 4th of October
I meet up with Jessica (the Chinese girl) for lunch again and meet a couple other (Chinese) people that she’s met. Lost has pretty much the best plot twist ever on it. I complete my first ever computer program during the commercial breaks.
Thursday the 5th of October
I take a guess at Amber’s email address and it works, putting us into contact for the first time in about a month. I write out the bulk of this piece while compiling music for the I Really Miss You Mix Tape. This tape will be the saddest thing ever, like an anti-tank missile made out of pure sorrow.
Friday the 6th of October
I discover that I am the king (or at least prince) of Ravnica draft. At approximately 1:00 in the morning, I post this.
20050921
drilling
There is drilling going on outside today - to what end, I don't know.
I feel certain that it is drilling its way into my mind. It broke through the crust of my subconscious and into my dreams this morning.
I dreamt that I was some kind of stealth witch (?) and my mission was to destroy the drill. There was a bookstore involved.
I feel certain that it is drilling its way into my mind. It broke through the crust of my subconscious and into my dreams this morning.
I dreamt that I was some kind of stealth witch (?) and my mission was to destroy the drill. There was a bookstore involved.
20050914
keitai
I nearly missed being invited to Mallory’s birthday party because I’m not on MySpace. Everybody else was invited in advance through this fancy Internet friends network and I was hastily invited at the last minute by a call of Mitch’s cell phone. I am told this is one of the reasons why I should get a MySpace. I don’t see how it wouldn’t be simpler to just get my phone number. Or my e-mail address. Or leave me a comment here – surely there must be a few readers who know that they can just click on the comments link and respond with whatever words they think look good strung together.
MySpace is just the latest in a long line of faddish Internet communities. As Dragon Ball Z declines in popularity to Pokemon and then to Yu-Gi-Oh, so too does LiveJournal fall to Xanga and Xanga now to MySpace. What happens to these orphaned pages as they are abandoned in the owner’s transition to the next 12-to-20-something Internet fashion trend? First come the vultures: a few who examine links, thoughts, and photographs, but finding them to be dead with no sign of resurrection forthcoming, soon turn their attentions to other things. Eventually, the site or the host will die, and all the archived data returns to the ether it was born from.
Will that happen to this site when it dies? How long until the infrequent updates turn to no updates at all? My page will stand as an unobserved monument in a forgotten cemetery, one only ever visited by a few. But it will not fall to rot; it will remain pristine as the day it was first carved until finally the winds of deletion clear it entirely, changing it from existent to nonexistent in barely a moment.
It is the nature of the Internet that such things are gone never to be found again unless one knows the arcane keywords that will dredge them up from Google, but I recall distinctly a story on BoingBoing about a video card forum (or such) that had been hijacked by various lonely people and had eventually turned into a place for them to talk about their loneliness. It is the whim of the God of Internets that such things occur: an obscure back corner of the Web picked up on by a few like-minded people eventually turns into a community and then receives a boost from the largest linkblog ever. Contrast, here, this page, where the visitors are few and they never leave a sign.
I am writing for an audience of ghosts, and you wonder why I never update? What do ghosts enjoy hearing about? Does it bring the spectral hordes delight if I discuss Magic: the Gathering? Or video games? Or perhaps if I shout my personal life out to total strangers, maybe someone will respond?
I suppose that’s what disturbs me so much about the Internet, is that people do respond. Friendships are made across continents between people who’ve never even seen each other’s face. It’s like a global masquerade ball, an intricate waltz where the dancers constantly change their masks. Anonymity changes people, and not always for the better. It allows us reveal aspects of ourselves that we wouldn’t share with ordinary society. It then brings us together with people who share the same desires and creates an insular community where these desires may be cultivated – you need only look at the numerous furry and fetish communities for proof of that. Read Something Awful and you see the dark side of the Internet. Yes, it connects, and it disseminates information, but few of those connections are meaningful, and little of that information is useful.
Weekend Web is a feature that exists solely to expose the truth of human nature as revealed on Internet forums. Video games, of course, attract mindless emotion and poor spelling like nothing else, as anyone who’s ever played CounterStrike can attest. Teenagers are fun too. Global communications networks seem like a wonderful thing until you realize that what’s being said has no value and, as an added bonus, is totally incomprehensible.
I was recently in the company of a girl a couple years younger than me. She had a cell phone. Naturally, she would continually receive calls from her friends. The demand of the modern world is “connectivity at all times.” The Internet, the phone network – it’s all mobile now. You can take it with you wherever you go, so that you can contact other people whenever you want, and they will want to contact you in return. In Japan, cellular connectivity has become a kind of subculture. It’s called keitai. On the subways, on the street, you connect to the world with your cell phone, you carve out your little niche of territory by taking your friends with you. The exchange of information has become so very easy.
Communication has finally surpassed information. The number of ways that exist to say things outpace the number of things there are to say. We begin to text-message gossip to each other, cloaked in an arcane language of acronyms and abbreviations. The Internet has forever devalued the art of writing, as it strips language of subtlety and meaning. Youth of the modern age are impatient. They want things to be fast. I grew up on MS-DOS, and spent much of my adolescence in front of video game load screens. Computers have taught me patience. When I first used the Internet, DSL was only a dream and 128k was blazingly fast. Images you had to wait to load, and movies were a long wait for little payoff. But the rest of my generation, who started out on newer hardware, have become accustomed to getting things now, to fast, simple, personal transmissions.
There are extreme futures towards which we are headed. They are dark ones. The Internet will be replaced with a new connection protocol, one which can be monitored, regulated, and controlled. Uplinks will be implanted into us directly. We will have 100% connectivity, 100% information. But we will have lost our capacity to determine what is important. That will be determined by whatever sounded the most important on the newscasts. It will be determined by what your friends say. You’ve never seen them in person, but you talk with them all of the time. All of the time.
Keitai is the most paranoia-inducing thing in the world. Cell phones allow you to be tracked anywhere, whether or not they are turned on. People can find you and talk to you whenever they want. Theoretically, the information is confidential, but (corporations/the government/insert paranoid agency here) can always make a deal that you can’t find out about. But it’s not them that I’m concerned about. It’s the fact that face-to-face social contact is being supplemented and often replaced with digital translations of normal communication. We move daily towards the point where we are just people in invisible boxes speaking to each other over tin cans and wire, preferring the safe distance and sheltering communities of shared interests that the Internet provides over the often awkward and uncertain proposition of making physical friends the old-fashioned way.
MySpace is just the latest in a long line of faddish Internet communities. As Dragon Ball Z declines in popularity to Pokemon and then to Yu-Gi-Oh, so too does LiveJournal fall to Xanga and Xanga now to MySpace. What happens to these orphaned pages as they are abandoned in the owner’s transition to the next 12-to-20-something Internet fashion trend? First come the vultures: a few who examine links, thoughts, and photographs, but finding them to be dead with no sign of resurrection forthcoming, soon turn their attentions to other things. Eventually, the site or the host will die, and all the archived data returns to the ether it was born from.
Will that happen to this site when it dies? How long until the infrequent updates turn to no updates at all? My page will stand as an unobserved monument in a forgotten cemetery, one only ever visited by a few. But it will not fall to rot; it will remain pristine as the day it was first carved until finally the winds of deletion clear it entirely, changing it from existent to nonexistent in barely a moment.
It is the nature of the Internet that such things are gone never to be found again unless one knows the arcane keywords that will dredge them up from Google, but I recall distinctly a story on BoingBoing about a video card forum (or such) that had been hijacked by various lonely people and had eventually turned into a place for them to talk about their loneliness. It is the whim of the God of Internets that such things occur: an obscure back corner of the Web picked up on by a few like-minded people eventually turns into a community and then receives a boost from the largest linkblog ever. Contrast, here, this page, where the visitors are few and they never leave a sign.
I am writing for an audience of ghosts, and you wonder why I never update? What do ghosts enjoy hearing about? Does it bring the spectral hordes delight if I discuss Magic: the Gathering? Or video games? Or perhaps if I shout my personal life out to total strangers, maybe someone will respond?
I suppose that’s what disturbs me so much about the Internet, is that people do respond. Friendships are made across continents between people who’ve never even seen each other’s face. It’s like a global masquerade ball, an intricate waltz where the dancers constantly change their masks. Anonymity changes people, and not always for the better. It allows us reveal aspects of ourselves that we wouldn’t share with ordinary society. It then brings us together with people who share the same desires and creates an insular community where these desires may be cultivated – you need only look at the numerous furry and fetish communities for proof of that. Read Something Awful and you see the dark side of the Internet. Yes, it connects, and it disseminates information, but few of those connections are meaningful, and little of that information is useful.
Weekend Web is a feature that exists solely to expose the truth of human nature as revealed on Internet forums. Video games, of course, attract mindless emotion and poor spelling like nothing else, as anyone who’s ever played CounterStrike can attest. Teenagers are fun too. Global communications networks seem like a wonderful thing until you realize that what’s being said has no value and, as an added bonus, is totally incomprehensible.
I was recently in the company of a girl a couple years younger than me. She had a cell phone. Naturally, she would continually receive calls from her friends. The demand of the modern world is “connectivity at all times.” The Internet, the phone network – it’s all mobile now. You can take it with you wherever you go, so that you can contact other people whenever you want, and they will want to contact you in return. In Japan, cellular connectivity has become a kind of subculture. It’s called keitai. On the subways, on the street, you connect to the world with your cell phone, you carve out your little niche of territory by taking your friends with you. The exchange of information has become so very easy.
Communication has finally surpassed information. The number of ways that exist to say things outpace the number of things there are to say. We begin to text-message gossip to each other, cloaked in an arcane language of acronyms and abbreviations. The Internet has forever devalued the art of writing, as it strips language of subtlety and meaning. Youth of the modern age are impatient. They want things to be fast. I grew up on MS-DOS, and spent much of my adolescence in front of video game load screens. Computers have taught me patience. When I first used the Internet, DSL was only a dream and 128k was blazingly fast. Images you had to wait to load, and movies were a long wait for little payoff. But the rest of my generation, who started out on newer hardware, have become accustomed to getting things now, to fast, simple, personal transmissions.
There are extreme futures towards which we are headed. They are dark ones. The Internet will be replaced with a new connection protocol, one which can be monitored, regulated, and controlled. Uplinks will be implanted into us directly. We will have 100% connectivity, 100% information. But we will have lost our capacity to determine what is important. That will be determined by whatever sounded the most important on the newscasts. It will be determined by what your friends say. You’ve never seen them in person, but you talk with them all of the time. All of the time.
Keitai is the most paranoia-inducing thing in the world. Cell phones allow you to be tracked anywhere, whether or not they are turned on. People can find you and talk to you whenever they want. Theoretically, the information is confidential, but (corporations/the government/insert paranoid agency here) can always make a deal that you can’t find out about. But it’s not them that I’m concerned about. It’s the fact that face-to-face social contact is being supplemented and often replaced with digital translations of normal communication. We move daily towards the point where we are just people in invisible boxes speaking to each other over tin cans and wire, preferring the safe distance and sheltering communities of shared interests that the Internet provides over the often awkward and uncertain proposition of making physical friends the old-fashioned way.
20050906
i got all excited when i saw that last comment
...and then i checked it out.
Forthcoming: why I hate cell phones and the Internet!
Forthcoming: why I hate cell phones and the Internet!
20050821
lessons learned from travelling in europe
Belgian Magic players are teh suck. I have this from a Czech girl who lives in Belgium. All her Belgian Magic-playing friends are too weak. All her Czech Magic-playing friends are too strong.
Irn-Bru, available only in Scotland, is possibly one of the best sodas ever. It's like cough syrup mixed with bubble gum. In a good way! Now if only they made a pink ear medicine flavor...
Irn-Bru, available only in Scotland, is possibly one of the best sodas ever. It's like cough syrup mixed with bubble gum. In a good way! Now if only they made a pink ear medicine flavor...
20050731
breaking radio silence
Last night, at approximately 1:30 A.M., someone was vacuuming nearby. Not just any kind of vacuuming - it was the vacuum equivalent of loud, passionate sex, modulating pitch then holding it still at erratic intervals. I also heard a car door being shut at various intervals, so I don't know what that's about.
There's been a lot of disgruntled commenting about how the new Magic card front design is so much worse than the old design. I maintain that if you're going to complain about design changes, Magic cards have sucked ever since they changed "Summon Creature Type" to "Creature - Creature Type." Which, for the record, was back in Urza's Destiny.
But I don't hate the new front design - and if anyone gets to complain about the new Magic cards, it's the old-school guy who's been playing since Ice Age. So I think it's time to objectively compare the two in various categories and find out who wins overall.
Overall Layout
The new layout is the winner here. The only major change was adding bars to put the name/mana cost and type/expansion symbol on, as well as putting the power/toughness in a more noticeable box - but that's kind of a big improvement, design-wise. What it does is unify the card so that instead of appearing like two separate boxes - art and text - it scans to the eye as one large block of content. I'll give new 1.5 points for that.
Font
Again, this is one of the reasons why the new layout is cleaner. The new title font is black and bold, making it easier to read. There were also a couple of problems with the old title font - the capital "F" looked like a lowercase "f," and the white cards ended up with basically white text on a white background, making them very hard to read at a distance. This is just a minor thing, but new gets .5 points, for 2 so far.
Tap Symbol
You have to look closely to notice it, but they didn't change the symbol itself. They changed the colors. I kind of like the sepia shade they use on the new generic symbol backgrounds, but there was also a nice feel to the black-and-white symbol. The new symbol sticks out less on the card, but I think it's a tie.
Lands
They've changed the text box color on lands a lot. It started out with the dual lands' funky striping, and has been through various shades of purple, green, and blue-green before they settled on gold for the colorless lands and split-colored for the dual lands. I like the new lands' gray text-box background more than the Weatherlight-to-Scourge gold one (Ice Age-era purple is my favorite), and I think it's kind of a tie in terms of card backgrounds - the old one is nice and clean, but the new one feels a bit more landy. Overall tie!
Artifacts
Probably the most controversial change was making artifacts gray. Cause, you know, they're colorless and all, and "gray" is usually the first thing that comes to mind when you think of "colorless." I really think that brown expressed "artifact" better, but I've also enjoyed playing with my gray artifacts, and the new ones have nice background detailing that the original lacked. Also, the old artifacts had some weird pastel mosaic thing going on in the text box, which means it's another tie.
Gold
The old gold cards were rich and lavish, from the wavy gold-brown background to the fancy purple text box. It really felt like you were casting something special, like mixing the colors together gave you the privilege of playing with these elite spells. The new gold doesn't even come close to that. 1 point for the old!
Black
The backgrounds are pretty much the same overall - old is a little more understated, but new is a bit peppier. The new text box is just gray, though, and the old one was probably the best of the original text boxes, looking like it was burned there by unholy magic. For that marginal victory, I award old a half-point, putting at 1.5 to 2.
Blue
The new blue background just looks watered-down. The old one was probably the best background among the originals. The new blue text box isn't that impressive either. Old gets a point!
Green
I'm kind of ambivalent as to the differences in the text box but I like the old background better. I don't like the pastelization they did to a lot of the backgrounds. Old gets another point, leaving things at 3.5 to 2.
Red
They had a perfectly nice design that just screamed "Red! Stone!" It was nice and clean, but they felt (rightly so) that red was more famous for fire than rock. So they made the new background a sort of washed-out lava thing. Now red looks kind of orangeish-pink. I know what they were trying to do here, so I'll only give old a half-point.
White
New White wins on a lot of different levels. Look at Old White! Look closely. What do you see? Lace. Lace and sand. I'm not a huge fan of white, but I think it deserves better than to be classed as an old Victorian lady who hangs out on the beach in her frilly undergarments. The new cards are a nice clean white with a subtle marbelization effect. That's honestly a lot better. Combine that with the fact that the white cards have WHITE TEXT ON A WHITE BACKGROUND, FOR GOD'S SAKE and you come up with a severe trouncing. 1.5 points for new!
Foils
I don't actually know at what point they started making the foil cards look good but they definitely sucked from Urza's Legacy (when they were introduced) through Invasion block, so I'll give the more recent cards a quarter-point for making the foils actually be something I might want to play with.
In Conclusion
Old cards beat out new cards, but only barely - it's 4 to 3.75, and I could easily tweak it up to a tie if I got really picky in my analysis. You probably disagree with me, but I've been thinking about this a lot (not that much, though) and I think this is a pretty objective estimate.
Although I am maybe a little overenthusiastic for gold cards.
There's been a lot of disgruntled commenting about how the new Magic card front design is so much worse than the old design. I maintain that if you're going to complain about design changes, Magic cards have sucked ever since they changed "Summon Creature Type" to "Creature - Creature Type." Which, for the record, was back in Urza's Destiny.
But I don't hate the new front design - and if anyone gets to complain about the new Magic cards, it's the old-school guy who's been playing since Ice Age. So I think it's time to objectively compare the two in various categories and find out who wins overall.
Overall Layout
The new layout is the winner here. The only major change was adding bars to put the name/mana cost and type/expansion symbol on, as well as putting the power/toughness in a more noticeable box - but that's kind of a big improvement, design-wise. What it does is unify the card so that instead of appearing like two separate boxes - art and text - it scans to the eye as one large block of content. I'll give new 1.5 points for that.
Font
Again, this is one of the reasons why the new layout is cleaner. The new title font is black and bold, making it easier to read. There were also a couple of problems with the old title font - the capital "F" looked like a lowercase "f," and the white cards ended up with basically white text on a white background, making them very hard to read at a distance. This is just a minor thing, but new gets .5 points, for 2 so far.
Tap Symbol
You have to look closely to notice it, but they didn't change the symbol itself. They changed the colors. I kind of like the sepia shade they use on the new generic symbol backgrounds, but there was also a nice feel to the black-and-white symbol. The new symbol sticks out less on the card, but I think it's a tie.
Lands
They've changed the text box color on lands a lot. It started out with the dual lands' funky striping, and has been through various shades of purple, green, and blue-green before they settled on gold for the colorless lands and split-colored for the dual lands. I like the new lands' gray text-box background more than the Weatherlight-to-Scourge gold one (Ice Age-era purple is my favorite), and I think it's kind of a tie in terms of card backgrounds - the old one is nice and clean, but the new one feels a bit more landy. Overall tie!
Artifacts
Probably the most controversial change was making artifacts gray. Cause, you know, they're colorless and all, and "gray" is usually the first thing that comes to mind when you think of "colorless." I really think that brown expressed "artifact" better, but I've also enjoyed playing with my gray artifacts, and the new ones have nice background detailing that the original lacked. Also, the old artifacts had some weird pastel mosaic thing going on in the text box, which means it's another tie.
Gold
The old gold cards were rich and lavish, from the wavy gold-brown background to the fancy purple text box. It really felt like you were casting something special, like mixing the colors together gave you the privilege of playing with these elite spells. The new gold doesn't even come close to that. 1 point for the old!
Black
The backgrounds are pretty much the same overall - old is a little more understated, but new is a bit peppier. The new text box is just gray, though, and the old one was probably the best of the original text boxes, looking like it was burned there by unholy magic. For that marginal victory, I award old a half-point, putting at 1.5 to 2.
Blue
The new blue background just looks watered-down. The old one was probably the best background among the originals. The new blue text box isn't that impressive either. Old gets a point!
Green
I'm kind of ambivalent as to the differences in the text box but I like the old background better. I don't like the pastelization they did to a lot of the backgrounds. Old gets another point, leaving things at 3.5 to 2.
Red
They had a perfectly nice design that just screamed "Red! Stone!" It was nice and clean, but they felt (rightly so) that red was more famous for fire than rock. So they made the new background a sort of washed-out lava thing. Now red looks kind of orangeish-pink. I know what they were trying to do here, so I'll only give old a half-point.
White
New White wins on a lot of different levels. Look at Old White! Look closely. What do you see? Lace. Lace and sand. I'm not a huge fan of white, but I think it deserves better than to be classed as an old Victorian lady who hangs out on the beach in her frilly undergarments. The new cards are a nice clean white with a subtle marbelization effect. That's honestly a lot better. Combine that with the fact that the white cards have WHITE TEXT ON A WHITE BACKGROUND, FOR GOD'S SAKE and you come up with a severe trouncing. 1.5 points for new!
Foils
I don't actually know at what point they started making the foil cards look good but they definitely sucked from Urza's Legacy (when they were introduced) through Invasion block, so I'll give the more recent cards a quarter-point for making the foils actually be something I might want to play with.
In Conclusion
Old cards beat out new cards, but only barely - it's 4 to 3.75, and I could easily tweak it up to a tie if I got really picky in my analysis. You probably disagree with me, but I've been thinking about this a lot (not that much, though) and I think this is a pretty objective estimate.
Although I am maybe a little overenthusiastic for gold cards.
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