Now is the time where my life schedule interferes with my writing schedule. Since I will be at the Vs. Pro Circuit this weekend, I don't have time to continue my Japan Travel Diary until next week. But, if you'll remember, this is Ask the Editor after all, and I still have oodles of questions from you to answer before I wrap this shindig up.

Here we go again...

Oh, all the time, but I try not to go all ninja about it and freak out, or else people would get hurt and I'd get fired/arrested/caned/sodomized/etc. Doing the Japan/Oz trip felt like the luckiest non-Pro Tour/alternate art Black Lotus painting topdeck you've ever had, and you know what's even cooler? January. Nagoya, Japan. I get to go back.

People keep telling me how lucky I am to have my jobs, and all I can do is get this big sh**eating grin on my face and agree with them. I just hope it lasts for a while, because it's most certainly good times. I have yet to travel to Euroland (the whole thing is owned by Disney, right? How else do you explain lederhosen?), but I hear there's a PT there in July, so who knows...

I was quite pleased with your responses. As a matter of fact, it this now Nov 3rd I am answering on, Miami has lost, and so has Kerry. As for the "who would win in a fight response" I must say it was possible the funniest thing I have seen on starcitygame.com in a while. Solid answers to the idiotic questions.

This is a tough one, because a lot of the biggest ladies' men (like Adrian Sullivan or Richie Frangiosa, or supermodel-dating Noah Boeken) have migrated off the tour. These days it's probably some Euro/South American who tears up the dance floor like Raphael Genardi or some such, but it's definitely not Dutch little-orphan-Annie doppleganger and world champion Julien Nuijten, even if he does have like a billion dollars in winnings already and wears his bling like Little Bow Wow. On the flip side of the age coin, Dirk Baberowski clearly pulls in the over-50 crowd with his rakish good looks and forest of grey hair, and even Kai has been faring well lately, as he's a mean, lean running machine. This may explain why he hasn't won a PT in a couple years... In Japan, Kuroda is now happily married, Oiso is still in his gangly, bambi stage, but Maki looks like he'd make all the girlies swoon. It's surprising how much more attractive the Japanese Mike Flores is than Flores himself, but michaelj was always successful in that area of life before he became a daddy, so Maki has to be a playa, right?

Regardless, I don't know any of them quite well enough to comment, therefore I'll just focus on the Americans.

One of the up-and-coming ladies men of the PT is clearly Columbus Top 8 competitor Gadiel Szleifer, whose sway over the womyns is akin to that of the cigar-puffing baby from Roger Rabbit. He's crass, cool, looks like he's 2, and gets all the nurses with big hooters. I see a great career in store for this kid. Plus, I hear his mom is even hotter than Aaron Kerzner's mom, who is already a legend in the Type One community and looks to have real crossover appeal.

In the slightly older age range, you have Osyp Lebedowicz, who is always this close to winning the hearts of women everywhere, but then manages to make one fatal mistake and goes home to dance his heart out in front of the mirror until he falls into bed, too spent to cry. Or so I hear from his roommate, real ladies' man Eugene Harvey. Those two make a helluva tag team, so if you are in the club and see them walk in, hold your woman close or you might lose her to the vortex of testosterone.

Finally we have Brian Kibler, who recently fell off the face of the Earth and may never be heard from again. Well, that or he's been living with Gabe Walls, which is essentially the same thing. Anyway, Kibler probably has the best natural looks of anybody on the PT, and Brian can hook up with women or men whenever he sets his mind to it. That said, he only uses his powers for good instead of evil, in spite of being an obvious creature of the night. Contradiction or cunning linguist, the world may never know the true story behind Kibler's various conquests.

If Geordie Tait were around, he's blow a gasket, but I don't read King's fiction anymore. It just doesn't do enough for me and I often find it frustratingly wordy. His non-fiction stuff remains amazing.

More, though the voting machine irregularities are a bit on the terrifying side. Having voting machines without a paper audit trail is completely asinine, and I have a really hard time fathoming why any state legislature thought this was a good idea, but apparently it happened everywhere. It would be like running a Sealed Deck Grand Prix without deck reg or deck swap and then expecting to have no problems. It might work, but the odds on it happening are ridiculously long. This could degenerate into a long rant about how a country that bases its identity on having representatives elected by "the people" should actually make sure that every person's vote is properly counted, but instead I'll just say that it was nice not to have the Supreme Court decide who our president was this time around and leave it at that.

Any time... well, until I'm done running this column, which will be a couple of weeks yet.

I honestly didn't have a preference in country, since I knew both of them were going to be swell. I also didn't do any research ahead of time about what I'd like to sightsee - I just played everything by ear and still enjoyed myself without feeling stressed that there was a lot of stuff I had to get out and do. As for women... I've stated many times how much I love Aussie women and their accents and they did not disappoint. What did disappoint was the fact that I got sick and didn't get to go clubbing or even to visit any place with large concentrations of women except the beach. Even clubbing wouldn't have been ideal though, because once I found a hot girl or three, I'd just want them to talk to me the whole time, and clubs aren't exactly the ideal place for that.

As for Japanese women, I would have reprised my Australian tactics of stopping randoms and taking their pictures, but unfortunately I DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE. It's shocking how much more difficult that makes things. It's hard to be charming when what you are saying sounds like "Blah blah American blah blah blah blah picture, blah?" I do have to say that my appreciation for Japanese is growing rapidly, and it's only enhanced by the fact that the winter "uniform" for women in Tokyo is a short skirt and boots.

As for Ironworks, it won't work in a metagame that is geared up to stop Affinity, but it's surprisingly solid if you find one where Affinity does not exist. If Disciple or Ravager had been banned, we might have found out just how good Ironworks could be, but alas it was not to be. More cannot be said at this time.

I have to hop a flight soon, so we'll wrap this here. If you are in Anaheim this weekend, give me a shout, and if you aren't, peep the coverage over on www.metagame.com to see whether Magic players can steal tens of thousands of dollars from another CCG. Last PC, one of the Vs. 10k Champions (which is like a Magic Grand Prix) called the Magic players "dead money" before going 0-3 drink. We're still laughing about that one...

Ted Knutson
Teddy Card Game
Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2