So, where's the apology? pt. II of Team CMU

[Killer Joe]

First: I am attending various classes this summer at Duquesne Univ. I started this past Monday and have not had the pleasure to defend myself on this topic, what a surprise to log on this morning and find not only that TEAM CMU has come to the rescue of one of their memebers, but finding my name "MUD" in my area.
I APOLOGIZE for anyone who misunderstood what I said in the CMU post.
Allow me to clarify:
I DO support local business.
I DO get mad when anyone recieves preferential treatment.
It's a challenge and learning experience, for me, when I play against people with better skills.

Now, to really make myself look bad, I am on vacation next week, and I'm attending summer classes the week after that so I will not be on the boards much and not at the local shop for a while, therefore allowing this stupid thing to fester into a frenzy and not being able to defend myself, OY!

To Mike, Ron, Nate and the other TEAM CMU members who found this 'casual' site:
No one really gets too ticked if you show up to a tourney, but, it has been my experience, in the past, present, and I'm sure it will in the future, that preferential treatment has/had/and will happen at tourney's, and that SUCKS! I'm not necessarily saying that any one of YOU have demanded it, but it has happened.
As for playing against 'pro-tour' players, I'm not mad that you SHOW-UP to a little, itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, tournament at a local shop, I get mad when I think the "Little Guy" is getting shafted via fixed pairings (it only has happened for first rounds, Mike), or the toureny getting held up beyond a reasonable time (truthfully, when I found out we were holding up the start time of the tournament, I KNEW who it was for, even before the store owner said it).
If Ron (Real Thing) is mad at these comments, so be it. I didn't say that HE was in the wrong, but that I felt the store owner should've started the tournament no later than 10 min. past the posted start time. Everything else I said was true but written through "Angry Eyes".
Hey, I'm just another human schleeping around on this pebble we call Earth, I have put my foot in my mouth before, and we will do so again in the future, and guess what, so will YOU!

This is Mark Ortego
A fan of "Team CMU"

 

[Istanbul]

Good lord.

If I see even ONE MORE FREAKIN' POST on this topic, I'm gonna keep out of this particular forum for...say, a couple of weeks...until this crap blows over.

Nobody cares anymore, people. Let it die.

 

[Istanbul]

Oh, by the way...I stand by my opinion. This is dirty laundry that, now that it's been aired and garnered every conceivable viewpoint from anyone who cares, should be solved in a private forum.

Nasty e-mails from the infantile notwithstanding.

 

[rakso]

Whoa, take it easy.

I suppose you have valid grievances, but I don't think anyone wants to rehash the entire argument, or at least not without an aggressive tone.

It's great to apologize, but an apology may not be the best place to add your grievances.

 

[EricBess]

Guys, chill!!

YJ is not "adding his grievances" or "adding a viewpoint". He is trying to clear the air and I for one support him.

He never once varied from his stance and anyone that reads what he said carefully should realize that. And no, he never expressed ire with anyone except the store owner who didn't stand by his typical rules. The ONLY point at debate is whether or not he did this out of preferencial treatment.

And guess what - at this point, it doesn't really matter if it was preferencial treatment? Why? Because the issue isn't whether preferencial treatment occured this time, but whether it ever occurs and whether it is a norm.

Personally, there aren't enough "big name" players in my area for it to be an issue here, but it would really grate on me if it did.

Anyway, team CMU - the issue isn't about you at all. I personally was impressed with how some of you handled the situation, but a bit disturbed by a few comments by a couple of you that took the whole thing way too personally. I got the impression that you were looking for anything in the post that might be construed as an attack rather than trying to decypher the reasons behind the post.

The only question you need to ask yourself is, do you support preferencial treatment? Make sure your honest with yourself. If you say you don't, but secretly, you like to be treated "special" because of your status, than you are being hipocritical. If you do and you admit it, at least you are honest, but you can't fault YJ for not liking it.

Anyway, we are all just trying to enjoy this same game of ours, so there is no reason we can't get along as a community. YJ has pointed out what might be a problem with the society. Agree with him or don't, but at least aknoledge that he has a valid concern. Note that I stand neutral on whether or not the concern was justified in this particular instance as it is unimportant.

 

[Zadok001]

Thread NOT closed. I already told YJ I won't close this one - At least not right away. But Team CMU has probably already seen the other one closed, and therefore, isn't returning to see this one...

Just for the record.

 

[Gizmo]

I`m beginning to see sour grapes here.

The explanations put forwards by the CMUers tally much better with my own experiences of how tournaments at local shop level work than does the version put forward b YJ.

YJ says 45 minutes the tourney was held up for CMUer. CMUer says 10 minutes, then 30 minutes selling things to ucstomers which distracted the TO while the CMUer was in the shop. No attempt has been made by YJ to reconcile these two viewpoints.

As far as I can see the CMUers did nothing wrong, nothing untoward, no favouritism was shown, etc etc.
I see conspiracy theories matched to sour grapes.

 

[Ransac]

I agree with Gizmo that this is being carried too far. However, I can see why Yellowjacket is so mad. Here is what I saw.


1: Yellowjacket was upset because the store owner delayed the tourney for a number of minutes so a friend, and member of Team CMU, could compete.

2: Yellowjacket did not display his displeasure of this to the owner of the shop, or at least hasn't posted that he didn't.

3: A member of CMU commented that he felt it was unfair that his team was being bashed publicly without the team knowing.


My opinion: Yellowjacket has every right to be angry at a delayed tournament. Yellowjacket has the right to publicly post his feelings about what happened. It was morally unacceptable for Yellowjacket display his comments to the public without discussing this with the shop owner and Team CMU.


Joke of the Day: A horse walks into a bar. Bartender says "Why the long face". Horse says "I just walked into a bar, wouldn't you be upset?"

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Killer Joe]

I think the lines are deep enough in the sand .

 

[Apollo]

Hmm... some comments:

Isty: some people care about this. If you don't like it, don't read it. I skip over threads all the time, can't you manage?

Everyone: Way I see it, YJ was complaining about a store owner giving preferential treatment to stars. He never bashed CMU, never said that they asked for the treatment. They (or a selected couple of them) just came in and blew everything whey out of proportion.

This is meant for everyone, though I'm going to adress Gizmo's comments:

I`m beginning to see sour grapes here.

About what?! YJ has no reason to have sour grapes! He said that he didn't play the guy in the tournament, so he wouldn't be mad at this guy cause he lost. He would be mad at the people that beat him. YJ doesn't have sour grapes about anything. He's mad cause the tournament started 45 minutes late.

Here's another way to look at it. If YJ wanted to attack CMU, he would have come out and said: "What's up with CMU? They come down to our little tournament, where we're just playing for fun, and use their stupid pro tour decks to win the thing! It's not like they can gain anything from it. Playtesting against us isn't going to do them any good anyway. The only reason they could possibly have come is to kick our butts and rub their greatness in our faces!"

But he didn't. He attacked the store owner, when it would have been much easier to straight-out attack CMU.

Perhaps you haven't seen some of the other threads. YJ has bragged plenty of times about having the best players in his area. Why would he attack them now? Answer: he didn't attack them.

As far as I can see the CMUers did nothing wrong, nothing untoward, no favouritism was shown, etc etc.
I see conspiracy theories matched to sour grapes.

What you have here is one person's statements against another's statements. Real Thing says one thing. YJ says another. I hate to say this, but it looks to me like you, Gizmo, automatically sided with CMU. Think of it this way: YJ had no reason to make these comments up. He initiated the topic; if it had never happened, why would he have brought it up? Real Thing, on the other hand, would have every reason to deny the favoritism; he wants it to keep up, and he's defending his buddy, TESG. That's why I put much more credit in YJ's 45 minutes than Real Things's 10 minutes. I would like to point out that the only CMUer there was Real Thing. So it is his word against YJ's, not CMU's against YJ. And again, YJ had nothing to gain from making anything up.

YJ says 45 minutes the tourney was held up for CMUer. CMUer says 10 minutes, then 30 minutes selling things to ucstomers which distracted the TO while the CMUer was in the shop. No attempt has been made by YJ to reconcile these two viewpoints.

No attempt has been made by the CMUer to reconcile them either. But of course, you don't bring that up...

In fact, I'm the only person that has tried to reconcile them. Perhaps YJ didn't try to reconcile them because his was flat-out correct, and Real Thing's was bogus. If that's the case, then there's nothing to reconcile. I don't know. You don't know. So why are you so quick to go after YJ?

Honestly, Gizmo, I can't see why you have suddenly jumped in with Real Thing when it is quite obvious that he is making a big deal when he was never attacked. Even the other CMUer back there admitted that they had just misunderstood everything.

Zadok: please don't close this quite yet. I'm interested in hearing responses. At the very least, it's only fair to Real Thing and perhaps TESG (if anybody brought this to his attention) to give them a chance to respond.

 

[Almindhra]

Well, I've been thinking about this issue, and...

I declare that it is all YJ's fault and that he should humbly please and beg the Team for forgiveness while giving his notepad full of trading history...

...Mwhahahahahhaa...lol...

Don't get so upset about it, YJ, they sound like jerks anyways...j/k!!...lets lighten up here...

 

[Killer Joe]

I once told Aaron Forsythe that I thought Ron (real thing) was one of the nicest guys I've met while playing magic, I had no idea that he (Ron) would ever make a personal assult towards me and at THAT, I believe it was caused by this misunderstanding of who I was mad at.
One thing is for sure, I should've opened my pie hole and complained right then and there at the store, to the store owner, and to the rest of us that were there. But I know that might've been misconstrued as "Sour Grapes", so I thought I would blow off steam here, not thinking I needed to invite any or all persons involved to participate or retort to it.
Lastly, someone mentioned about my POST TITLES. Here's several I could've written:
"Late starts" - boring.
"I'm mad" - who cares.
"preferential treatment"-old story, everyone knows it's out there.
"Well-Endowed Women"-already used and I just wanted to write that .
"The continuing stories of The Evil Shop Guru"-he's actually much better now so it's pointless to speak of him in that manner.
All titles that would attract little or no attention. But mention a high profile team and BOOM! you get readers. Was it right to use their name? Yes. Only to highlight the point that I percieved a member of that team getting preferential treatment due to his membership to the team.
DID HE REALLY GET THAT KIND OF TREATMENT?
In my opinion (my opinion-I just wanted to reiterate that for the comprehensive impaired), YES.
Did he call about being late? Yes. But, I'm sure he didn't ask to recieve preferential treatment.
So, am I allowed to be mad? No I'm not, appearently.
Did I personally attack Ron's character/playing skills or his personal integrity? No I did not.
Did he attack me personally? Yes he did.

 

[HumanError]

Opinions are a lot like ***holes...everyone has one.

But what the heck, I'll throw in mine.

I read this thread, I read the last thread, and while I do think Yellowjacket was a bit out of line, I understand what it's like to be a bit irate at preferential treatment, so I'd be inclined to let him slide like a lot of other people did here.

What horrifies me is the sheer volume of remarks made against Yellowjacket and the precious few made against Real Thing.

Yellowjacket stated an opinion. It was an irate one, but it was an opinion.

Real Thing comes in here and starts spouting off like a volcano, brutally overanalyzing every little thing that Yellowjacket said, making ludicrous accusations and showering it all with a profound arrogance. Am I the only one that was disgusted by his post? I don't have any problems with CMU. I don't have any problems with any team. I don't even know these people and I doubt very many of us do. But I'm unnerved that the best anyone can do is tell Real Thing to calm down when his statements were dripping with insult and sarcasm.

In regards to reconciling Yellowjacket and Real Thing's viewpoints, look at it this way: Yellowjacket makes a mildly irate post but his facts seem clear enough. Real Thing gets unspeakably defensive over the tiniest things. If I were to overanalyze like he'd been, I would venture to say he's overcompensating because he knows he's in the wrong and he knows he receive(d/s) preferential treatment.

But that's just me, I'm just another random guy.

And Istanbul, dude...if this thing bothers you, just don't read it. It's simple as that.

 

[Apollo]

HumanError: Thanks, I totally agree with you. I was just going to stay out of the thread, until I saw those posts and had to jump in. I myself felt like blowing up at him, but tried to keep that out of my posts because I didn't want other people to see me the same way.

That's where the common stereotype of the arrogant pro comes from. Most are nice guys (like the rest of CMU generally were), but the occasional pro that acts like that causes the stereotype.

 

[Spiderman]

Throwing my insectoid weight into the fray...

I pretty much agree with Apollo's opinions. I don't really see where YJ stepped out of line; he's complained before about tourneys in his area, Rando has done some complaining, TeamRegime has had his share (off the top of my head).

I have to cock my head in surprise at Gizmo's statement "CMU explanations tally much better with my experiences with local shop tourneys". Huh? No offense, but I wasn't aware you traveled regularly to the shop in question. While I'm sure you can expect certain things from a local level (whatever they may be), trying to take one shop and relate it to a "general" experience without actually being there (maybe you have and you haven't mentioned it) seems a bit presumptuous. You may be saying it's similar to your experiences but it sounds like you are giving more weight to a "professional team" automatically. You may not have intended it that way, but that's how I read your stance throughout. Sorry.

 

[Killer Joe]

I e-mailed Arron Forsythe and apologized about my misleading title with the red angry face and Team CMU next to it. It was a bit of a sensational title (hey, "Large Breasted Women" was my second choice but that REALLY had nothing to do with my rant ).
And lastly, I'm sure restraint by the team's leaders were made known to the person who blasted me, otherwise, there would be more unbrideld "hate" aimed at me.
I sure hope we can get this thing behind us and shake and be mild acquaintences again.

This is Mark Ortego
A suporter of Local Businesses
and STILL, a fan of Team CMU