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ASK THE JUDGE 07/29/2005: Feature Friday
It's Been Five Years
Chris' one year in review last week got me to thinking, so I looked it up. Just over five years ago, on 19 July 2000, I wrote my first article for Star City, called "Survival of the Smartest." Since then, I've written countless words, answered innumerable questions, made my share of mistakes, and had loads of fun. I've met bunches of readers in real life, and certainly have made some wonderful friends as a result sounding off on these pages.
"Final Judgement" morphed into "Ask the Judge," which led to "Feature Friday," which, by the way, was always intended as a nod to my dear friend since 1957, Anthony Alongi, with whom I wrote three installments of "Ask the Casual Judge." I took two long breaks, one to deploy to Saudi Arabia, and one when I moved here to Virginia. Both times, my good friend and fellow Level 5 Judge (not to mention European Organized Play Manager) Gis Hoogendijk sat in.
A year ago, Chris took over the job of answering the questions daily (I had surpassed my 10,000th question or so, and was suffering from a little triggered ability fatigue), although I continued to do the editing, mostly because I didn't want the Knut to drop over from exhaustion. You see, his job as editor means editing stuff from writers who he's chosen to produce for the site. Writers, at least theoretically, know about esoterica like capitalization (which is apparently now optional in English), and verbs, which I hear are quite happy to be attached to either subjects or objects. Many "AtJ" questions come from folks who aren't, well, writers. It makes the editing a little more time-consuming.
Back in the early days, I tried to spruce up writing about the rules by writing a few stories that illustrated various things about them. They were fun, but I didn't think the idea really had legs. With All Humility premiered the short-lived series on 15 Dec 2000, telling the tale of Franklin, Cloudchaser Eagle, and his run-in with a particular enchantment. Everyone Makes Sacrifices ran on 18 Jan 2001, and gave us the story of Lou, the Charging Troll, and why regeneration wasn't going to help this time. Still searching for interesting topics, in April 2001 I decided to interview myself, which is one of my favorite things to have written.
Over the past five years, we've talked about the movers and shakers of Magic, some Judges and other folks that don't get the recognition they should, and my opinions on various matters such as wine, baseball, Shakespeare, movies, women, politics, cheaters, and the Hall of Fame (no, I swear there's no particular reason I put those last two together).
During our time together, we've decided together that Orim's Chant is not a counterspell and that Artifact is not a creature type. We've learned that Saproling Burst doesn't use Last Known Information. Most importantly, we've seen Star City go from random.casual site to the most important site in the game outside of magicthegathering.com. It's been quite a ride. We owe laying the foundation of it to The Ferrett, and the real follow-up on that promise to The Knut; he is truly The Man. I'm glad I could be part of the team.
It's not over, but there will be a small change in "Ask the Judge." Chris Richter will continue to answer your questions, but starting on Monday, Seamus Campbell, a most excellent Level 3 Judge from Portland, Oregon, will take over the daily duty of editing the articles. I'll still be around for "Feature Friday," and spell Seamus or Chris when they need a break. As always, feel free to drop me a line any time you want to talk about anything at all.
I'll see you next week.
