It's Friday and I'm at FNM.

There's a significant shortage of level 2 judges in the Midwest (and probably everywhere else), so I find myself again applying my extensive Magic experience to everything other than actually winning Magic tournaments.

A QS member recognizes me from my articles and we talk briefly about writing for the site. I'm genuinely surprised to be recognized at an FNM, so I tweet it out.

And I almost immediately regret my tweet ...

I make it home and pack my wares, in bed by 11:30pm. Tomorrow's the PTQ with Becvar, and it's too late to be staying up.

...

4:30am.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

The alarm's not supposed to go off until 4:45, but at this point I'm not going back to sleep for 15 minutes. And rather than battle the snooze bar and disrupt my peacefully sleeping wife and grumpily sleeping dog, I head for the shower.

No balance.
Can't open eyes.
Never going to make it.

I emerge from the shower unscathed after a couple near misses with the slippery basin.

My contacts don't go in, eyes still dry from the night before. It's going to be a long day.

It's 4:47 am, in the kitchen. I reach for the breakfast of champions: an orange Rockstar Recovery and a pull from the Pop Tart roulette box. I'm not thrilled with my odds, despite them being in my favor. I reach into the box knowing there are three packages of Raspberry, one Chocolate Fudge, and two packages of Chocomallow--the bastard flavor that taught me why you don't go off plan at the grocery store.

Raspberry! The day's turning around.

I attempt to log into Destiny. Zur might be gone by the time I get back from the event and I want to make sure I don't miss out on his weekly offerings. Internet is down. WTF!? I play tech support and discover there is an outage reported in the area and realize  I have a half an hour until I'm supposed to meet Becvar at his house, 45 minutes away.

It's 5am and I grab a banana (wait for it) and head out the door, the radio greets me with this little gem:

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

I'm confused. The panel says Jennifer Lawrence, but... bu... what the what? Why? Why is this on the radio? I try to make sense of the world and ramble on as I hit 465 I start eating my banana, chucking the peel out the window like I'm winning a game of Mario Kart. Good luck catching up suckas!

Nick - You're late!

Me - Yep! I hope we don't miss it!

Nick - Eta?

Me - 20

I hit send as I park my car in front of his house. He's all loaded up and ready to go. He says something about me being late, I tell him to take it out of my bonus and inform him that I'm shooting the old married couple vibe today so he should expect lots of bickering. What can I say? When you look this good, you develop a bit of a diva complex.

It's 6:12am and we've found McDonald's. Nick calls it "breakfast," though I'm not sure he has any idea what that word actually means. He's buying, so I roll the dice and come up with a steak, egg, and cheese biscuit and a Coke.

Nick orders the same thing, but gets Diet Coke with no ice. No ice means more beverage! I'm truly in the Presence of the Master.

I'm fairly sure there's a used condom in my "sandwich," but it's dark and I can't verify, so I just soldier on and choke it down. I make a note to take another year's hiatus from McDonald's.

We make it to the venue with roughly forever to spare. One player and two judges made it there before us. Total. As with Columbus claiming the new world in the name of Spain, we claimed the good tables for our own. Suck it, other guys!

Time for some sitting around.

Things start slow. We keep waiting for the wave of folks showing up at the last minute and it never comes. Final attendance: 72. Not a promising number.

In a region where a below-128 PTQ is considered a failure, this is likely a sad foretelling of the months to come. A general malaise is likely carrying over from the PPTQ program as tournament organizers struggle to find their way.

Nick loads the table up with his garage sale wares: used fatpack boxes - $3, used deck boxes - $1, used binders - $5, and bulk rares for a quarter a piece.

"It's just free money," he explains, a phrase I know I'm going to hear all day. I stock the case in alphabetical order by color, a system that fails me time and time again as I apparently forget how the alphabet works as soon as I start looking at the cards upside down.

We make a few buys, a few sales, and Nick hatches a scheme that makes me embarrassed for him. The collection he just bought is sleeved in pretty new Dragon Shields and he's a penny pinching bastard shrewd business man, so he grabs a hundred of them and slaps a post-it note on the stack: $4.

As if on cue, a man walks up and asks if we have any Dragon Shields and Nick sells the man a set of "gently used" sleeves.

I'm dying, laughing at the absurdity and the overwhelming sense of pride Ni ck displays.

"That's just free money."~Nick Becvar

He unsleeves another stack of a hundred and sells that one ten minutes later. I have no words.

As the #2 in command of this two man operation, my duties are clear:

1. Stand next to the stuff while he parks the car
2. Stand next to the stuff while he goes to the bathroom
3. Stand next to the stuff while he stands in line to buy coffee
4. Go get lunch
5. Stand next to the stuff while he parks the car

It had come time to perform #4.

A quick Google search revealed the Lucky Dragon only a five minute walk away. We call and attempt to order a plethora of items, none of which are available. What is available? Burgers and orange chicken.

We opt for Orange chicken.

Here's where things get complicated. The Dayton convention center has a strict "no outside food and drink" policy, so I empty my backpack to smuggle orange chicken into a PTQ. I start walking and find the rat's nest of a resturant. It's right next to the bus depot, so people are milling about looking miserable and hating their life because it's 30 degrees and their next bus isn't there yet.

I stuff the flimsy styrofoam containers of orange chicken into my backpack, knowing this isn't going to pan out well as the containers are sitting at an angle.

The contents spill out inside the plastic bag but luckily my vintage Ultra-Pro gaming backpack isn't damaged. But our bowels soon are. My second helping of regret is consumed and we unanimously agree that we should have gone with Arby's instead.

More sitting around.

The afternoon has a PPTQ scheduled for 2pm. Final attendance is a meager 31.

We sell a few cards, make a few deals and are paid a visit by Aether Games' own(er) Kyle Lopez. Shop talk is had. Stories are told. Deals are struck. Healthy debates ensue. Becvar doesn't talk about his buys or his sales. He brags about a singular accomplishment - selling used Dragon Shields for a total of $8.

Some more sitting around.

Soon after we find ourselves sitting around some more and decide that it's time to eat some dinner. We finish the day at a hole in the wall BBQ joint and are not disappointed in our decision to try out the smoked burger.

Sweet, sweet glorious victory. Becvar get's a refill on his drink before we go - no ice. VALUE.

Two hours in the car and we're Nick's home. I have another 45 minutes to my house.

It's 9pm and I'm home much earlier than I expected. Time to write an article.