Ruling Britannia V

It never fails to amaze me how it is the most unlikely sections of this column that seem to get me the best feedback. In the case of last month it was my footnote at the end about the inability of sci-fi fans to pull women when they are in a group following our failures and (limited) successes at Gencon. Two different people have mailed me saying that the reason is the tendency to shop talk. Women tend not to gravitate towards a group where phrases like 'card advantage' and 'SI Lock down' are being mentioned. Grant Robinson (Kiwi) says that the best method is to get a girlfriend before you start playing cards (the James Farmer method) as we tend to call it while someone who I can only identify by their email handle of Kirk152 says that if you only go out in pairs or threes, your success rate will be higher (the Rik Thomas method). Anyone else have any ideas?

As you are reading this, DecipherCon would have finished and we will have a new World Champion and suntans or, if things turned out slightly differently, no World Champion and letters of apology from the Doubletree resort explaining how their hotel was destroyed by a hurricane a few days before. Either way at least the waiting will be over and I will not be spending any more evenings on the phone to DT and Rik or talking in the pub with Ringo, James, Tobes and Colm about my Worlds deck. Because the fact is, I am 3 days away from my flight to Florida and I still don't know what the hell I'm playing. Oh sure, we've got ideas but with the wealth of what can charitably be called talent here in London I seem to get very conflicting advice. Because by the time you read this it will all have passed, I might as well share with you what is being tossed around at the moment.

DT: Being the best deck builder out of the lot of us I have been taking his advice quite rigidly. He has been throwing around a number of ideas including Fed Speed, Ferengi Speed, Romulan Hero and Cargo running. However when he starts talking about Speed Card ratios and shuffling algorithms I tend to lose interest and go down the pub.

Tobes: The Porn Queen shagger is a bit retro in his deck ideas thinking that no deck can be good unless it contains at least 30 Rogue Borg. He spent 10 minutes the other day on the phone trying to tell me that if you played Masaka then you could download all the Blood Oath cards despite Obelisk of Masaka so I think I'll leave him out of the final deck building team.

James: Convinced I should play Cardassians. He always plays Cardassians because he builds his decks with his fiancée and she knows nothing about the game but likes the colour purple. If she liked the colour green instead, James might have been world champion by now (although how he would work his 35 System 5 Disrupters into a Rommie deck I don't know). Anyway, the fact that Cardassians are crap has meant that James hasn't won a tournament in ages and I'm unlikely to take his advice.

Colm: Really wants to go to the worlds but is skint. He has told me this on many occasions and tried playing my regional winning deck at the European championships but bombed out because he got all confused and timed out every game. Plays the best decks that never win tournaments but specialises more in going over my current ideas than offering new ones.

Rik: Knows everything about the game, all the cards, all the gossip and all the rules. However, to my knowledge he hasn't actually played a game for about 18 months so most of his great ideas are untested. However both he and DT are coming round my house for a deck building session tomorrow and so I'm sure his apathetic attitude combined with DT's Win or Die attitude should lead to some interesting discussions.

Ringo: My worlds campaign was so important to him that went on a scouting trip all the way across America playing 5 or 6 tournaments (actually he went backpacking across the US in an attempt to eat, drink and get laid and Star Trek CCG was just a distraction). However his most recent deck design involved removing his opponents outposts from his neutral zone with Wake of the Borg so all his ideas are now being carefully scrutinised for 'Matt Slade' style errors.

Naturally I will give you a full report of the worlds in next months issue but DT thinks I've got a good chance of doing well and who am I to argue with someone who calculates the probability of drawing a Kivas in your opening hand to 3 decimal places?

So anyway, what else has been going on this month? Well given that it is under 3 weeks since I wrote last months issue, not an awful lot. As you may remember, I left you last month after just having come back from UK GenCon in Manchester. The following week saw a low-key tournament in which I tried out a potential Worlds deck and won the tournament. Afterwards we went for a few drinks and James' other half Angela managed to throw up in Leicester Square in an almost identical spot in which the Prime Minister's son Euan Blair had done a couple of months previously. Unfortunately it was also where the hand prints of a famous film star were which an American tourist decided she would like to put her hands in a few minutes later. You crazy Americans! Also, in an important step forward Tobes tried talking to a woman for the first time since the Danielle saga. Although he already knew her we all think this is an important step in the right direction if his mental scars are to heal.

The following week was one of those days that started off average and just got better. After a few friendly games of Trek which mainly revolved around DT Temporal rifting everyone's ships, we descended to our favourite haunt Pages Bar where Marina Sirtis would be doing a P.A. You might not think that Trek actors making appearances is a big thing, but it is in England because none of them live here and so we have to try and snare the ones taking a holiday or something. Marina is the exception of course because she is a Londoner born and bred with Greek heritage (which partly explains Troi's pointless accent). Anyway, James, Tobes and I got to the bar at about 4 o clock and so by the time Marina started preaching to the masses, we were somewhat the worse for lager (or vodka in Tobes case because he is a bit of a woman when it comes to drinking). Anyway James feels it is his duty to shout out things at celebrities (bear in mind this is the same person who claims to have seen Claudia Christianson's tits) and the fact that she is a Tottenham fan (soccer) who had lost that day by the end of the night he had been christened (by Marina) 'West Ham man'. Not that by that stage we were remembering much. Several Budweisers accompanied by cries of Whhaaazuuuuuupp (look, it's still original over here, okay!) and some assorted strong spirits caused us to tell the queer landlord Bob in no uncertain terms that he is a paedophile (apparently; me and James don't remember this). After that we staggered home although James' journey was punctuated by throwing up twice and falling asleep on the train and waking up in Southend where a not too impressed Angela had to pick him up. The following day Tobes sent us the photo's from the previous night so if anyone wants a picture of Marina dancing on the bar to the Timewarp, James dancing to the Jackson 5 or me hugging a tree then mail me at the address below and I'll happily send you the JPEG.

One more thing before ending this unusually short article. Following the popularity of the direct transcript of Steve Tobin's story, I thought I would follow it up with another. The following is an email sent by Ringo from Las Vegas a few weeks ago. I'll decline to leave my own comments because it's just too funny on its own:

Hey there people, never let anyone say that Vegas is a nightmare. Tell them it's an autopsy mixed with pussy and greatness.

The casinos love me. Yesterday I gambled from 9 in the morning through to 8 this morning. Throughout the day I had approximately 50 vodkas complimentary from the house (through 23 hours) and got through 80 cigarettes and 3 steaks (again all complimentary).

This however was somewhat marred by being arrested while walking between a couple of casinos for punching someone's dad (yeah right, actually he punched me for no reason). The cops (3 of them on bicycles with guns) roughed me up and I have really severe bruising on my left arm.

Anyway I survived that and headed for the next casino where I carried on for ever 'n ever (so drunk at this stage that I'd forgotten I'd already been arrested until I realised I was slightly dripping with blood.) Eventually I was escorted off the premises after falling unconscious on the walk for a piss and knocking over a cocktail waitress.

Actually being kicked out of the casino is quite fun - they take you into a mini cell block and take all your details. Unfortunately I was so drunk I ended up just taking the piss out of the security guys. This included when being asked what colour my eyes were I refused to open them and instead gave them the finger. (Eventually they more or less forced them open.) And when they asked if I had any tattoos I told them I had one on my knob.

So I took my $64 of tokens from that casino over the road to the other casino where the tokens were still valid where I won $175. Nice. Especially as I was still drunk and had to keep asking the blackjack lady to tell me what I had.

Okay, that's more or less the news from Nevada other than that I'm sharing a room with 7 Australian girls (4 fit, 2 average, 1 Skoda) and 2 of them are sleeping together on the bunk near me. And they're quite loud as well. Anyone want a free pair of knickers there's enough flying around the room.

One more thing, I am currently wearing a Roman toga from a pool/BBQ party. I made it myself out of a bed sheet and now it's deteriorated so much it looks more like a skirt. Nope, no photos guys!

Very little point me writing anything else as anything I could say pales in comparison to that! As always, stories and other material to the below address.