Jamie Wakefield

Because I have been trying to use it with Internet Explorer. Bill Gates was quoted as saying something like "It doesn't ship until Netscape doesn't work." I can't find the exact quote but that was during the early browser wars and Bill was ordering his team to make it so that Windows had built in code that would mess with Netscape Navigator, making it crash more and be less effective at browsing the web. Yeah, he got into a lot of trouble with that one. Well, now I think Google is doing the same thing. I am typing this in Firefox and wow, does everything on Blogger all of a sudden work again. I can format text, I can cut and paste, I am assuming I can center pictures again and have them pop up when you click on them. Let's try. Biker Thor says "Touch my bone you get dragged behind my Harley." Yup, the Dog of Thunder is centered and (unlike in IE) when I click on the picture it expands to full size. My blogging just got a lot less frustrating.

Wendy and I deciding to leave Spain is much like any similar decision in life, like leaving a job or a lover. Once you have made the decision, everything we love and hate about Spain is magnified. I won’t miss the city. Sure, I’ll miss the parks and the massive statues and the atmosphere and the food, but I won’t miss “the city.” I had never lived in a city before Madrid. I have always been a country boy and visits to any city always made me wonder – Why would anyone live here? My brief stays overnight only convinced me more, thanks to the sirens, people screaming at each and traffic noises all night long. But, Madrid is different. I fell in love with Madrid from the first time I woke up in Wendy’s bed and she took me for a walk and to lunch. Madrid is much more like a village, connected to another village, connected to another village and on and on. It’s just not the same as the newer cities in America. You can’t walk a hundred yards without seeing something older than whe...

Well, I have a new post that was going to go up today and both times I have tried to post it, it ignores all my formatting.

"If I had one wish it would be to eliminate greed." I say this in the wake of learning that Gaddafi has sequestered billions of dollars of oil revenue for himself and his family. This is just one in a long line of people where too much is never enough. It reminds me of the Koch brothers and Fox news trying to break up unions in Wisconsin. Or Walmart paying its workers minimum wage, never granting health insurance while the Walton family (owners of Walmart) is one of the richest families alive. I'm not against human desire to succeed or even become wealthy. I find those goals lofty, as shoudl everyone. But once you have billions do you really need to make others suffer so you can have even more? But no. Stealing a hundred million from your country isn't enough. You have to have twenty times that. You can follow me on Twitter as Jaedence.

Shogun vs. Bones Jones – In every competition there are those guys who are just a level above everyone else. In poker it’s a sign of distinction to win a World Series of Poker bracelet. You are a master of the game now. You are head and shoulders above the top 1% of the game. But you know what? There are players with a dozen of those bracelets that are head and shoulders above you. Magic is the same way. There are guys who make the Pro Tour and some guys that have broken the top eight more than once. That is amazing! To make the top eight at a pro tour more than once is a huge feat. You are The Man (or Woman.) And there are guys like Finkel and Budde that have WON more pro tours than the amount of people in Vermont than have ever even competed in a Pro Tour. They are head and shoulders above the rest. This is starting to sound like a dandruff commercial. Let’s change this from “head and shoulders” to “superstars.” Other examples of people being the master of their particular arena, bei...

One of the eternal questions. – Who is better/who would you want to be – Superman or Batman? I would prefer to be Superman. I don’t like to fail. One thing people say is that Batman is more realistic than Superman and today, it occurred to me, that is just not true. How long do you think you would survive dressed as a bat fighting against guys with guns? Realistically you would last about one crime fighting night before being shot. If you survived that and persisted in your efforts and actually made yourself a nuisance, you would be killed. There’s a reason the police travel in pairs and call for backup when faced with superior numbers. “Where’s your detective skills now Bats?” BLAM! It is easier for me to believe that an alien would have powers above those of normal men than it is for me to believe a guy can take out ten gun-wielding mobsters using only boomerangs and martial arts. If given the choice, I would choose to fly, be super strong, and immune to gunfire. In fact, since I hat...

The Dog of Thunder warns you to stay away from his teddy monkey! . It is fifty degrees and sunny today in Madrid. Madrid has received about one inch of snow that melted the second it hit the ground this year resulting in zero accumulation. In the abstract, Wendy and I miss snow. It will be nice to come back to Vermont and have a real Vermont winter next year. In reality, we miss snow but I know I’ll be plenty sick of it soon enough if snowfall next year is anything like this year. In Vermont, people have literally had to shovel snow every day for weeks on end this year in a record breaking snowfall winter. The second eye surgery went well, adjusting the left eye and putting the new lens in the right eye without complications. It is now two weeks and a day later and I am experiencing everything I was told I would experience. Peripheral vision is a little weird, still sensitive to sunlight, lights in the dark have a halo around them, but the eyes are improving every day by minor amounts...

Wake up and smell the coffee. You need to know this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqW4F-EQ9LM&NR=1

I was going to put some Natalie Imbruglia lyrics here, but they just didn’t fit how I’m feeling. I’m not out of faith, I’m not naked, cold and shamed, lying on the floor (that was Saturday night), nor has my inspiration run dry. Wait, actually, yes, I guess my inspiration has run a little dry… At this point last year I would bound out of bed and have a billion things to work on. I was putting the finishing touches on a book, approaching agents, working on another book, updating my blog and thinking about getting back into Magic. Well, two hundred rejections later, book finished and self published, then another book self published, then twenty-odd mediocre columns later – I’m a little beaten down. Two hundred rejections is a lot. I had some agencies ask for a partial, a few less asked for a full to read but none of the agents I approached wanted to rep me. My return to Magic and Magic writing has been less than stellar. So, now what do I work on? Let’s take them one at a time. I’m very ...

I want some ducks. I blame Joshie Trash Talker. See, he has just bought his first house and he wants ducks because ducks are cuter and cooler than chickens, and yet, they still make eggs. I eat a lot of eggs and I love animals. So, I announced this to Wendy this morning, as I fried up three scrambled, that when we get home this August, I want to get some ducks. “So we’re going to have ducks and Guinea Pigs?” I don’t know where the Guinea pig idea came from but when we were in Ecuador it’s a common food. They have little pens for them and all they need is grass and water. Since it’s perpetual spring in Ecuador grass is easy to come by. Once they get big enough you skin them and grill them. I found them quite tasty. “That’s a great idea. I can move the cage around on the lawn and I won’t need to mow.” “They have to come inside in the winter though.” “Nah, that’s when we’ll harvest them.” “Harvest them?” “Sure, we’ll have a big feast. We’ll invite all our friends and family. They’ll love ...

Wouldn’t it be cool if we had Superheroes? No. No it wouldn’t be. Since I sometimes get nauseas from reading too much a few days after each eye surgery, I stocked up on a few things to watch. One of those things was Justice League Unlimited animated clips from YouTube. There are some things that work better in print than they do in animation or films and vice versa of course. One of those things is battles. If Superman is fighting Doomsday in the middle of Metropolis, thousands of people are going to die. The animated JLU illustrates this in almost every episode with the massive destruction of property when two super humans fight. Take a look at this clip of Superman fighting another good guy, Captain Marvel aka Shazam. If I remember correctly, this is a new housing project so no one is actually in those buildings. But in many other episodes, fights like this happen in well populated downtown and there are people inside those buildings. All of those people are dead or maimed for life....