It’s Magic storytime again! Check out Storytelling with Cardstock 1 for the introduction to the game and why all the parts of the trading card are important.

This time, I’ll be focusing on my favorite pieces of art from cards, and the artists that make them. Instead of stories of cards, we’re looking at stories of artistic styles. What makes these artists’ best pieces great?

Johannes Voss is a recent addition to the Magic art team. He’s provided a few dozen illustrations, including some real powerhouse cards that have great art as well (Daybreak Coronet and Restoration Angel), but when Voss gets to play with light, his real strengths come through. Commander’s Authority is a fairly bad Magic card, but the art is incredible. He’s also apparently who you go to when you need stained-glass wings. A lot of his Magic art is visible on his ArtStation page. (ArtStation is a great resource for finding very cool artwork from video games, movies, and physical games.)

Picking your favorite Terese Nielsen artwork is impossible. She’s been a part of Magic art since the very beginning, but her early work wasn’t as spectacular. More recently, she’s found her calling: Strong colors and lines. Lot of lines. LOTS OF LINES. Her high levels of detail make her artwork unmistakable nowadays.

If we’re talking about iconic artists of Magic, Rebecca Guay has to be in the picture. An artist with such a connection to Magic that she is the only artist that you cannot persecute, she has contributed many iconic cards to the game. Her art has a flow of movement, but they are rarely complex. Even with detailed artwork, the content is easy to understand. Her work with Magic is mostly over, but she comes back for a few cards now and again (they are foil cards, so the digital image doesn’t do the art justice).

I’ll cap this off with probably the most prolific Magic artist. If you only look at John Avon’s lands (these are super important to play the game), he’s done 169, most of them the basics (basic lands are included in every set). Recently, he did the artwork for an ambitious project: lands without borders. On all the other cards, a black border and card frame cover part of the card, but for these, it would be as little clutter as possible. The work speaks for itself. The use of mostly monochromatic color palettes make each piece feel cohesive in a way that few other basic lands do.

A lot of Magic artwork is available to view on artofmtg.com. I could do an entire analysis of a set’s art design from just this site. Maybe that’ll be Artists in Cardstock 2.

Here’s what I’m going to do. For each match, I’ll make a prediction at the top, then talk about how the characters work with each other. Unless there’s some amazing stuff going on in the match, I won’t talk about it. I’m here about the characters themselves and why the storytelling works or it doesn’t.

Daniel Bryan vs Big Cass
Prediction: Daniel Bryan
Daniel Bryan is probably the #1 fan favorite wrestler of the past 5 years. He recently made his return from what was assumed to be a career-ending injury. He plays a very good plucky underdog. Big Cass is, well, big. He believes that people should care about him, but that they care about Bryan instead. He used to be part of a strong team, but his partner is gone.
This is a classic David vs Goliath matchup. Technical skill vs brute power. The smart money is usually on the little guy, especially because Big Cass has won previously. It wasn’t a great match, but it’s always good to see Bryan wrestle. The winner was Bryan, outlasting the larger opponent with a strong move to win it. Big vs small stories are hit or miss, but this one was pretty good.

Sami Zayn vs Bobby Lashley
Prediction: Bobby Lashley
Sami Zayn started as the ultimate underdog, but now he’s being a bit of a dick. Bobby Lashley is ripped, an American badass, and a fan favorite from years ago. I’m not a huge fan of this storyline.
Not only is Lashley the “good guy” in this scenario, he’s also very athletic, and Zayn has been kinda messing with him. If this is a culmination of a storyline, then Lashley should win.
The start of the match was a lot of Zayn avoiding fighting. It’s a standard trick, but it’s kinda boring. Zayn used to be a fan favorite, but he’s getting worse. This match was meh. After the fight finally got started, Lashley just tossed him around the ring. Lashley won, and it was dumb and boring.

Elias vs Seth Rollins (C) for the Intercontinental Championship
Prediction: Seth Rollins
Elias is a massive dick that plays the guitar. People love him, and love to boo him. That’s wrestling for you. He always has a big intro before his matches. Seth Rollins is a massive fan favorite whose entire character is that he’s really good at being a wrestler. He’s defended the title against 6 different guys.
The way the story is going, Rollins will probably keep the title until at least Summer Slam. I was expecting a good match, full of creative moves. Rollins took a beating, but he kept on fighting, which is how the match usually goes. These guys beat the tar out of each other. Either man could have won, but in the end, Rollins caught a lucky break. It was a good match. Not a good match to introduce people to wrestling, but those are few and far between.

Three for three so far, and we’re barely an hour into the show.

Sasha Banks, Natalya, Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, Naomi, Lana, Ember Moon, Charlotte for the Money in the Bank contract
Prediction: Ember Moon
The point of the Money in the Bank match is to set up a ladder, climb up, and take down a briefcase above the ring. The briefcase allows you one chance to fight the champion at some point in the next year. These matches are usually pretty good, but they are also clusterfucks. Eight different wrestlers, all fighting each other, jumping off of high things. The story of these matches is usually “we all want to win.” It really requires you to “buy in” to the concept that is wrestling storylines.
Ember Moon is crazy popular, a rising star, and really good at wrestling. Sasha is cocky, Natalya is a bitch, Becky is an underdog, Alexa is a MASSIVE bitch, Naomi is plucky, Lana is awful, and Charlotte is a powerhouse. But Ember Moon is still my pick.
It was, indeed, a clusterfuck. In the end, Alexa Bliss won. She did very good work at the champion before as a massive bitch that people loved to hate. I expect that she will do good work again.

Roman Reigns vs Jinder Mahal
Prediction: Roman Reigns
Jinder Mahal and Roman Reigns are both generally both disliked, and their storyline was bad. I’m not expecting a long match. I’m not expecting a good match. Reigns is generally viewed as a favorite of management, which means he wins a lot.
The crowd clearly didn’t like the match, chanting “CM Punk” and “Boring” early on. I don’t blame them. Reigns beat up Mahal’s twiggy assistant who was already injured, then won the match. It was bland, and felt like it took too long.

Carmella (C) vs Asuka for the Smackdown Women’s Title
Prediction: Asuka
Carmella won the Money in the Bank contract last year, told a fantastic story of holding that contract for a long time, cashed it in, and was really cocky. People loved to hate her. Asuka has the longest undefeated streak, man or woman, in a WWE-owned product. She came from New Japan Pro Wrestling. She’s a crazy fan favorite.
The story leading up to this has been Asuka just wrecking Carmella. I expect that will continue.
OK, this match hit a weird point. Someone dressed in Asuka’s signature mask came to the ring. This threw out any prediction I could have made. Asuka deserves better than this.
FUCKING JAMES ELLESWORTH! He started as a joke character for other wrestlers, then started teaming up with Carmella. He has been gone for a while, but as soon as he was revealed as the fake Asuka, I knew Carmella was winning, and win she did.

AJ Styles (C) vs Shinsuke Nakamura (Last Man Standing match) for the WWE Heavyweight Title
Prediction: Shinsuke Nakamura
Both of these guys are amazing wrestlers. AJ is probably the best wrestler in the company, and Nakamura acts strange and hits really, really hard. Nakamura punched AJ in the balls and has generally been a massive dick. Their storyline leading up to this has been the two of them beating the piss out of each other for months. Now, their match is Last Man Standing. Instead of winning with a pin, you win when you beat up the other guy so badly, he can’t stand up for a 10-count, like in boxing. They can do anything they want. Hit each other with chairs, smash each other though tables, etc.
Nakamura has been putting in great work, and he deserves a run with the title. He might not win it here, but he should. No matter who wins here, the match should be great. Just two dudes who don’t like each other beating each other up. Simple story, with lots of ways to tell it.
As expected, they beat each other up all over the ring. Tables, chairs, utilizing the steps, the whole nine yards. The ending came when Nakamura was put through the announcer’s table after being kicked in the balls. AJ won. I expect there to be another match between them at Summer Slam.

Nia Jax (C) vs Ronda Rousey for the Raw Women’s Title
Prediction: Rhonda Rousey
Nia Jax is large and has been doing well as a champion. However, recently, she has started to act like a bully; before she became champion, she was the one being bullied for her size. Ronda Rousey is a former UFC champion, and she is a force to be reckoned with. Nia doesn’t consider the smaller, faster Rousey a threat, and Rousey is fired up. She employs submission moves to win, which are hard to pull off on larger opponents.
Ronda is new to the WWE, so winning the title would be an amazing achievement. However, management really like to push celebrities.
Nia Jax just kinda threw Ronda around for a while. This is typical of big wrestlers, much like Big Cass at the start of the show. Ronda jumped from the top rope, something she’s not known for, but it didn’t work.
Wow! In a repeat from last year, the winner of the Money in the Bank contract appeared! Alexa Bliss was champion before Nia Jax, so this is some good long-term storytelling. Also, I didn’t see this coming. This match ended in a disqualification, so it doesn’t matter. Alex Bliss ended up champion.

Samoa Joe, Brawn Strowman, Rusev, Kevin Owens, The Miz, One member of the New Day, Finn Balor, Bobby Roode for the Money in the Bank contract
Prediction: Samoa Joe
This is the men’s version of the match. A few important differences: The New Day is a team of three wrestlers, and one of them is in the match, but before the match started, they hadn’t said which one. It turns out it was Kofi Kingston, the fast one of the group. Also, Brawn Strowman has been written as an unstoppable machine, and it works because he’s massive.
The others in the match: Samoa Joe isn’t as big as Strowman, but he’s quick. Rusev is super popular because every day is Rusev Day. Kevin Owens is a very popular asshole. The Miz is an even more popular asshole. Finn Balor is super athletic.
Samoa Joe would be great as a contract holder, just showing up to matches and being threatening.
There was a lot of teaming up on Strowman. They piled ladders on him, then when he got out, they kicked him a lot, but he got over it. Then he slammed a dude from the top of the biggest ladder through a table. It looked really painful.
Strowman is running through literally everyone. Joe is the only one that can really stand up to him.
If you know what the Accolade is, Rusev almost put three guys in the Accolade at once. It’s nuts.
Holy crap, Balor jumped off a ladder and landed with both feet on a guy.
Well, if Samoa Joe wasn’t going to win, it was because Strowman won instead. The big guy wrecked everyone.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad event. Not every match was amazing, including the Asuka match. But Alexa cashing in was surprising, and I can’t wait for Brock Lesnar vs Brawn Strowman.

(As I write this, I’m eating a delicious beef stick from Morelli’s. I’m not sure I can ever have Jack Links Beef Jerky again.)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a Mexican market that had a restaurant inside. This is almost the exact opposite: an Italian market without a restaurant, but with a lot of alcohol.

Morelli’s opened in 1915, when you could sell food and alcohol without a fancy license. As their business continued, their business model turned more to alcohol, both imported and domestic. Since their business was so old, they were grandfathered into the new rules. Businesses now can’t sell alcohol and food in the same store (which is why Cub Foods here has a separate store-front for wine and spirits). As long as Morelli’s keeps selling food and alcohol, they can keep their unique business.

Inside, you are immediately aware of the meats. Like a bakery smells of fresh bread and a candy store smells of candy, this place smells like meat. There are sliced meats, big steaks, bulk ground beef (cheaper than the big grocery store, BTW), and tasty beef sticks (as I mentioned I am eating). Oh, and bacon. Breakfast is going to be good.

Besides the fresh meat counter, there’s not much other food. Various noodles, olive oil, and other Italian staples are available. There’s some Morelli’s brand spaghetti sauce, which I’m sure will be tasty as well. But then there’s the alcohol.

Morelli’s bills itself as “Discount Liquor”, and they aren’t kidding. There’s standard brands at good prices, but there’s also large boxes of $2 wine. It’s not quite the Costco of alcohol, but this is not the kind of place that would have wine tastings.

Overall, it’s not a place worth road-tripping to (unlike the various craft soda shops outside the Twin Cities), but if you live near Payne and Tedesco, I recommend getting some discount tasty meat or take-and-bake pizza.

Whether it’s playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, writing stories or movies, or simply appreciating books and movies already written, I’m a sucker for character development. I might go into more detail about each of these points in later posts, but I will attempt to lay out here some of the major character archetypes. And I mean “major”. These will be very broad, so they should apply to the media you are enjoying or creating.

Mary Sue/Gary Stu

I put the Mary Sue first because it is the pratfall of many a writer, myself included. Let me start with an example. When I started writing my superhero universe (which is in desperate need of a fifth or sixth rewrite), the main-est of the characters was born in my hometown, looked like me (except he was in shape), held a high position in the Boy Scouts that I had tried to obtain, was immediately made the leader of his team, and by the end of the first big story arc, was romantically attached to the attractive blonde teammate.

The term Mary Sue was coined 40 years ago, when a writer sent a story into a Star Trek magazine about Lieutenant Mary Sue, the youngest Star Fleet officer who could do no wrong. It now refers to a character who is unnaturally good at their position, and doesn’t have to work very hard to get to that position. This is bad character design, because that’s not how the real world works for most people. We want to see characters struggle and overcome, because that’s what we understand life to be about.

Many people say Rey from Star Wars 7 as a Mary Sue, since she kinda shortcuts all the usual Jedi training and just does it instead. Feel free to think upon that yourself instead of posting in the comments about how I’m a chauvinist because I don’t like a strong female lead.

Background characters

This is another pratfall of writers. Background characters are still characters, and sometimes need just as much development as the main characters. Example time!

In the Harry Potter books/movies, Harry Potter is the main character. We know that because the stories revolve around his actions, and because his name’s in the title. (Note that having your name in the title doesn’t make you the main character. See: The Legend of Zelda.) We understand Harry’s goals easily: he wants to be a wizard. He wants to win the Triwizard Tournament. He wants to not get killed by He Who Must Not Be Named.

But Harry isn’t the only character. He’s flanked by Ron and Hermione, opposed by Draco and Snape, and mentored by Dumbledore and Hagrid. Each of these characters has their own goals. Ron is trying to be unique among a giant family full of wizards. Hermione wants to prove that her ordinary parentage won’t stop her from succeeding. Draco spends all his time thinking he’s better than everyone else, and he’s mostly right. Snape’s motivations are difficult to nail down, but they’re definitely there. Dumbledore and Hagrid both want to see Harry succeed, from different angles.

What makes all these characters work in a series ostensibly about Harry Potter is how their goals align or contrast. Ron and Hermione ally themselves with Harry because they see each other as comrades in obscurity, who all have to work extra hard to achieve their own goals. Draco quickly learns that Harry is not to be messed with, which only makes him mess with Harry more to prove his own superiority. Snape has history with Harry, and works very hard to make sure he will be there for him when the time comes. And Dumbledore and Hagrid are giant softies who want to see everyone succeed.

Give background characters goals, figure out how they work with the main character’s goals, and you will have much more compelling characters.

People who are Too Cool

Switching gears back to characters that are Not Good, beware of characters who have room to grow, but start out with too much character development. This limits how far the character can actually grow before you have to expand your world to make room for the character.

Two good examples of this are Superman and the recent Call of Duty games as wholes. Superman, in his early days, just did basic superhuman things. High jump, immune to bullets, hears really good. Nowadays, he’s practically invincible. It’s hard to find a challenge for Superman to overcome, because he’s so powerful. Yes, such threats exist, but they aren’t on the scale that normal people could possibly mirror in their life.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a good game. The story was a bit bombastic, but it made sense. The most recent “modern” installment, Infinite Warfare, opens with one character single-handedly storming a space station, killing basically everyone before being taken out by the big bad guy. If that’s the opening scene, escalation from there is difficult.

That’s not to say that starting big can’t work. It’s all a matter of context and scale. In Saints Row 4, Earth is destroyed within the first hour of play. However, since the context of the game has galactic proportions, Earth is actually pretty small on the scale. It’s only a big deal to us because we live on Earth.

OK, that’s enough typing for today. Later, I’ll either dive deeper into one of these, or come up with some more archetypes to talk about.

It’s not often you have to pass through a metal detector to see art. Maybe I’m just used to the MIA having lax security. But the Vision of Peace is worth seeing, even if you have to concede to underpaid security officer’s requests.

Inside the Ramsey County office (where I have been for jury duty, but I wasn’t paying attention then), a massive white onyx statue stands. It’s made of over 30 pieces of stone that were carved individually, then assembled. It depicts five Native Americans smoking pipes, their smoke rising to form a larger figure. It’s not the most detailed sculpture in the world, but it is the largest onyx sculpture.

There’s more to it than just being large. It actually oscillates back and forth over the course of a day. Every 2.5 hours, it completes its rotating and does another cycle. This serves a few purposes. First, you’d never be able to see the detail work on the back otherwise. Second, this allows the statue to “see out” farther, casting its gaze over a wider area.

The statue was unveiled on May 28, 1936, so yesterday was the 82nd anniversary. But that’s not the only cool artistic thing to see in the county office.

The building itself is interesting. Designed during the Art Deco period, a lot of the functional parts of the building are more art than function or decoration. The elevator doors are almost sculptures, the lights are angular instead of round, the ceiling in the lobby is reflective (making the statue look even better).

In the basement, there’s a bit of history, including the history of the sculpture and the building. There’s also a piece of the 35W bridge that collapsed, which is important to remember, but a little weird to have on display.

Parking is available at curb-side, and it doesn’t take more than 20 minutes to see the sights.

Told you we’d be back here. It’s time to take another look at how Magic: the Gathering uses the entire trading card to tell a story. This time, we’ll be looking at two (or more) cards that together tell a single part of a story.

For my introduction to the game of Magic and the parts of a card, you can check out Storytelling with Cardstock 1.

I was reminded of this topic from a Magic podcast that ended up on the topic of the card Grapple with the Past. I’m not linking that card yet, because to truly understand the story, you have to start with Make a Wish. The story of this single card is that wishes are frowned upon, but still happen. The card itself allows you to gain back cards that were once discarded, so the function matches the flavor.

If you read Part 1, you know that I looked exclusively at the world of Innistrad. Make a Wish is from that world, at a time when, creatively, the Magic team didn’t know there would be a return. But return they did, and that’s when some genius decided to make Grapple with the Past. For full effect, I’ll put the two images next to each other.

The same artist drew both cards. Years apart, a story once thought over is continued. And that wouldn’t be the last example of past-and-present storytelling in Innistrad.

First, the zombies were encroaching on the church. Now, the zombies are in, and they aren’t going to go away. (The same artist drew these two cards. Different than the last artist.)

Moving away from Innistrad, let’s take a journey over to Tarkir. Tarkir was inspired by Asian cultures: nomadic Monguls, Tibetan monks, etc. It is also a land of dragons, but not at first. The dragons have all gone, and Sarkhan, a hometown boy finally returned home, doesn’t like the lack of dragons. He goes back in time and changes the timeline so that dragons are alive in the present. There’s a lot of timeline-vs-timeline storytelling here, but the best example is Summit Prowler, the monster that’s the same in both timelines.

The dragons are back, and with them, a change in perception for the poor summit prowler. In the first timeline, they were feared. In the second, they are a tasty snack.

Here’s one more, and it’s a doozy. Magic’s favorite villain currently is Nicol Bolas, and I’ll do a full work-up of his story one day. Recently, a group of main characters ignored good advice and confronted him. The end of that story is a series of five cards named So-and-So’s Defeat.

Clearly, the five of them didn’t do very well. But if you look carefully, one of them is different. Can you spot it? Scroll down for the answer.

 

 

 

The third one, Liliana, is different. Of all five, she still holds her purple energy power in her hand, and she’s not being actively defeated. In the story, her defeat is not physical or emotional, but transitional. Nicol Bolas, instead of destroying her, basically says, “Remember how I kicked your butt before? How about you owe me a favor” and lets her leave. He hasn’t called in that favor yet, but I don’t think it will go well.

There’s more storytelling in the cards, but not as much multi-card storytelling. Usually, it’s just pieces of a big story, not interconnected pieces. I think the next Storytelling in Cardstock will have to be single cards with my favorite art.

So far, I’ve mostly talked about the things I enjoy that other people have done. Even the Songs of the Week are other people’s music. Don’t worry, this won’t be my debut album. Instead, I’d like to start a semi-recurring sub-theme here on Exploration days: my creations. This will include looks at some of my artwork, my short- and long-form fiction writing, music video concepts, and even my movie scripts. On this first expedition into my creative side, we’re taking a look at my first “full-length” film script, Enniland.

I don’t have much training in formal script writing. I took Intro to Screenwriting while working on my Art degree. If I didn’t need to focus on my Art credits, I might have taken more screenwriting classes; I devoured the assignments for that class. For one assignment of a 12-page script (about 10-15 minutes of film), I actually wrote two: a gamer diving into a virtual reality to save a girl trapped by a secret government agency, and an older WWE-style wrestler having one last match and teaching one last lesson to his protege as he passes the torch. The class read both scripts (if you’re writing scripts, get them read. It helps so much), and the teacher said that the virtual reality story might sound good as a feature film. She didn’t know what she was getting me into. By the end of the semester, I had 70 pages. It’s increased to 80, and I’d like to get it at least to 90 one day.

I don’t think I can boil down all of 80 pages in this space, but I’ll give you my quick explanation. Jason, our protagonist, is thin and weak in the real world, but in Enniland, the virtual game, he is respected, powerful, and a little bored. One of his friends in the game catches the ire of a wizard named Penny; after a brief exchange of power and knowledge, Jason and Penny find a commonality. Both love to play the game, and both play at a level that few have attained. But just as Jason is getting to know her, Penny shares something terrible: she’s in danger in the real world, and she believes that Jason is the kind of person who won’t stop until she is safe.

But Jason isn’t cut out for real-world exploration, not anymore. He goes back to the game, and lucks into finding a secret connection point to a secret underground base full of robots. Jason connects to one of the robots and starts piloting it around, thinking he’s still in the game. That is, until he finds Penny strapped to a table covered in electrodes. Lucky Jason had stumbled upon a shadow team’s clandestine hit squad, disguised through a video game, using Penny as an unwilling pilot.

I don’t want to give away too much of the ending, mostly because the ending still needs some work. I will say that I use my favorite writing trope: the beginning and ending are mirrored in order to bring a full closure to the story.

I haven’t read through this in a while. It’s no Citizen Kane, but I’m still happy with it. And this all came from a little idea. I guess the moral of this story (and most of these creative ideas of mine) is that old Shia Labeouf line: “Don’t let your dreams be dreams.” Try stuff.

Today, I finished re-listening to the TV Crimes Podcast (come back to us one day, you glorious bastards), and needed a new distraction on my drive around town. I ended up on a Magnum P.I. re-watch podcast, and this gave me an idea. Re-watch podcasts are a thing, and I’m all about trying new things. I also like watching movies, and as the progenitor of the Liam Neeson Peril Meter, I kinda feel I owe it to the world to present my findings.

First things first: this is not the announcement of a podcast. I’m still working on technical things, like having a good enough microphone, and having the time to watch these movies with other people so we can have podcast banter. This is just an exploration of what the podcast could be, and what the LNPM is. Hopefully, the podcast will follow soon.

Second: a re-watch podcast is a podcast (internet talk radio-ish) where each episode of the podcast is a discussion of one episode in a show, or one movie in a chronology. For example, there are re-watch podcasts of Magnum P.I., every Star Trek series, and multiple different podcasts named Countdown to Infinity re-watching all the Marvel movies before Avengers: Infinity War.

Now that that’s out of the way, what the heck is the Liam Neeson Peril Meter, or the LNPM?

Liam Neeson is a prolific actor. His first credited role on IMDB is in the leading role of Pilgrim’s Progress, a classic Christian tale, in 1978. Up through the 80’s, he had a variety of roles, but in the 90’s, he found his true calling: action. Not the kind of action that Vin Diesel or Sylvester Stallone would be in; you won’t see Neeson in The Expendables 4. Liam Neeson excels in movies where violence feels like the last resort, even though violence is exactly where we’re headed. Some of his best roles aren’t in action movies (Schindler’s List, The Lego Movie), but he’s got the range for it.

Because of his many roles in dramatic action movies, I started to wonder: how much trouble does Liam Neeson get into in these movies? How does he handle this trouble? To that end, I devised the Liam Neeson Peril Meter to categorize, from 1 to 10, the amount of peril that Liam Neeson is in, per movie, taking into account how he handles that peril. For some examples: in Star Wars: Episode 1, Liam Neeson is in a fair amount of peril, but he handles it so well that I would probably rate it a 3 at most. In Taken, Neeson is in about as much peril, but guns his way through all of it, making the peril seem much greater, so probably a 7 or 8.

I have a Google Sheet of 71 films, guest appearances on TV shows, and one video game. If this podcast actually happens, I don’t know how many of those get watched, but I’m hoping for all of them.

Which movie do you think will rate the highest? The lowest? Does anyone else remember Sam Raimi’s early attempt at superheroes Darkman?

This is something I haven’t done before, but it’s not particularly exclusive to the Twin Cities. However, since it is a new experience for me, I figured I’d talk about it.

My brother has talked about donating plasma before. It’s spending money, or lunch money, or emergency funds. So last week, I went to a local plasma donation center and signed up.

For those who don’t know, plasma is the liquid part of your blood. It’s important for your circulation, but not as important as red blood cells. However, that same plasma can be used to create medication. Your body can stand to lose a little plasma every now and then, just like it can stand to lose a little blood now and then. But since the plasma isn’t as important to your circulation, you can lose more of it at a time. At most, you can give about a pint every visit, and you can donate twice a week.

If you want to get signed up, keep in mind that your first visit will take a while. Because they’re messing around with your fluids and your fluids are important for you as well as for their future use, it’s important that you are healthy going into the procedure. All added up, between signing up, safety information, a quick physical, screening (done every visit), and the actual procedure, it took almost 2 hours. I’ve been informed that it will take only a little over an hour on future visits.

The procedure itself isn’t painful. The worst part for me was that I had to be constantly squeezing my hand, in order to keep blood flowing. That’s not something I usually do, so my hand muscles were complaining. Other than that, they drew out a lot of my blood, spun out the plasma, added in saline, and pumped it all back in. No dizziness, no muscle weakness, nothing.

The first few visits at this particular clinic give a bonus, and once the bonus is over, the regular pay can get up to $300 per month. It’s not living money, but for 2.5 hours per week, it’s pretty good extra money.