How's life?

[Marshstepper78]

Running necessary errands has become a bit heavy now. There are line-ups and procedures to follow once you get inside a store, procedures that vary from one establishment to another. The overall atmosphere is heavy as people are afraid of each other.

The mayor of Montreal wants the federal government to declare a state of emergency here before this health crisis turns into a humanitarian one (re: the homeless in downtown Montreal). I think we are heading into our peak period right now. My wife was told that 2 people at her workplace (major news station) has tested positive for Covid-19; good thing she's been working from home. I also heard on the news this morning that one of our major francophone universities had 2 positive tests, which is a bit worrisome as schools have been closed for about 2 weeks. Who knows how many people have been in contact with those two carriers since they got tested and got the results?

The city of New York looks to be getting out of hand, and we are about 500kms away. Trump is sending troops to our border; it's sad that his focus is to work his electoral base by showing that he is ''doing'' something about the situation, as if people going south into the US through Canada is the problem. I don't know anyone that would willingly flee Canada to go to New York right now - absurd attempt to blow smoke up people's asses. I heard that some Republicans are even blaming his impeachment process for distracting him from being able to better manage this crisis - laughable!

Harvey Weinstein may have found his way out of Rikers; I read that at least 60 people in that New York prison has tested positive for the virus. I'm not even sure this is a tin foil hat moment...

Seriously crazy times we are living in right now.

[WizardSpartan]

The city of New York looks to be getting out of hand, and we are about 500kms away. Trump is sending troops to our border; it's sad that his focus is to work his electoral base by showing that he is ''doing'' something about the situation, as if people going south into the US through Canada is the problem. I don't know anyone that would willingly flee Canada to go to New York right now - absurd attempt to blow smoke up people's asses. I heard that some Republicans are even blaming his impeachment process for distracting him from being able to better manage this crisis - laughable!

Haha, trust me as someone who lives in the U.S. Nobody is worried about Canadians transmitting it to us. In fact, y'all might want to put some troops on the border to stop us filthy Americans from bringing Covid into Canada. We're up to 100,000 cases, btw.

Ya know what's even sadder than the fact that this is happening? The fact that I'm not even surprised by this. Of course Democrats are being blamed for our "leader's" "decisions". Of course he's sending troops to ensure the one thing that definitely won't be happening isn't happening. Sigh.

Tbh, I would love to drop this portion of our discussion. Talking about the U.S.'s federal government is useless and depressing.

[Aetherium Slinky]

Movement has been restricted to and from Uusimaa region. I think my father is barely on the other side, not that it matters at all since we're not supposed to see anyone.
Restaurants, cafes and pubs have been (finally!) closed by the government. I know a place I used to work at that is still open until the very last minute and I'm not sure it's good publicity for them. Everyone else has closed their doors already.

[WWolfe]

And there's the stay at home order for my state that I've been expecting.

[Marshstepper78]

Montreal, unsurprisingly, is the hot spot in Quebec right now, and the various regions in my province are now closed off from non-essential travel. I'm wondering if they are going to deny access to all the bridges leaving the island soon.

The provincial government has now closed all grocery stores on Sunday as a measure to give the clerks a day off. There are still shortages of various items in stores and line-ups to enter, reminding me a bit of the stores I saw backpacking in Cuba in February.

It's a little bit discouraging to see that not all essential services allowed to remain open respect the same public health protocols. I left a pharmacy this morning because no one was at the entrance controlling/monitoring the customers entering. This was in stark contrast to the second pharmacy I went to whereby I was asked if I had a fever/felt sick and just returned or knew someone returning from vacation. They gave me some hand sanitizer and then let me in. The nearest Walmart has no limit of people allowed to shop at the same time and not everyone seems to have the same notion of social distancing, which makes buying things an akward experience to be avoided until the end of this crisis. I now know the stores in my area with the best hygiene practices and will frequent those exclusively.

[Slyvester12]

CleanBelwas, hope everything goes well for you and yours.

As for me, Japan is taking an...interesting approach to things. They're basically delaying every positive measure until the public and other countries shame them into it. Also, Japanese people just have bad hygiene in general. They have flu epidemics every year and every school cancels multiple classes for a week at a time for them, but everyone accepts it as a matter of course instead of changing.

Same with corona. We're told to do the equivalent of social distancing, but the staff still have to go to an empty school every day and sit in a tiny staff room because God forbid paid employees don't sit at their desks even if it's literally a health hazard and no one has anything to do.

[Morganator 2.0]

It's great to see everyone come together like this. Deckstats doesn't have a very large group of active posters and it somehow makes me feel some kind of connection with all of you. We all barely know each other and yet we're willing to lend emotional support when needed.

Which is something you should do by the way. Check-in on people, see how they are doing. I want to see everyone come out of this in good shape. What I'm most worried about is if a regular poster suddenly stops coming onto this site.

[WizardSpartan]

It's great to see everyone come together like this. Deckstats doesn't have a very large group of active posters and it somehow makes me feel some kind of connection with all of you. We all barely know each other and yet we're willing to lend emotional support when needed.

We in the Deckstats forum prefer quality over quantity.

What I'm most worried about is if a regular poster suddenly stops coming onto this site.

That would be too scary, yeesh.
Edit: Well, my baby, Red_Wyrm's, last post was on the 23rd.

[Aetherium Slinky]

What I'm most worried about is if a regular poster suddenly stops coming onto this site.

Where's Soren?

[Morganator 2.0]

Red_Wyrm was last active on March 27^th. Soren841 was last active on March 28^th, but hasn't made a post since March 9^th. Nothing to be alarmed about yet.

[WizardSpartan]

I can't believe I missed the part of their profile that says last active
I feel better now.

[WWolfe]

So how is everyone doing?

[Morganator 2.0]

The Ikoria spoilers have been the highlight of my days so far. Props by the way. You've done a good job at keeping up with them as they come out.

I'm still working. Somehow I'm classified as an essential service. I can't tell if its a good thing or not that I am still working.

[Aetherium Slinky]

One of my relatives probably has the virus. They've got a lung disease so all we can do is wait and see.

Otherwise I've kept myself busy by studying for university entrance exams and brewing new stuff. I was worried I wouldn't find a new pet commander from this set but Zaxara is definitely one that calls to me. Keeping it.

[WizardSpartan]

Now that my teachers have actually started giving us stuff to do, I don't mind being stuck at home as much.

I've been getting back into piano recently (stopped playing because I didn't have time with school) and I've forgot how much fun it can be.

I just bought some cards for Alesha (I got a Japanese Ravos, Soultender for $4.50 and a MB1 Recruiter of the Guard for $8, so I feel pretty good about myself) so I'll be receiving some cards within the next week and some cards mid May (they were preorders on M20 and IKO cards). That ought to brighten up my days!

While I haven't found a commander I plan on buying, Tayam, Luminous Enigma goes infinite so easily. I've goldfished 5 games with him and went infinite by accident 3 of the 5 times. Also, he's pretty easy to build budget. Just add a bunch of sac outlets, all the bulk Persist and Undying cards, and it's a solid deck.

Lurrus of the Dream-Den is really fun in an Aristocrats shell in Pioneer. I learned that if you manifested an X costed card (Hangarback Walker for example) you can actually pay mana for x when flipping it up, which is dope. On the flipside, if you want to cast Walker from the gy with Lurrus, you can only cast it for x=1. Still, Zulaport Cutthroat, Cruel Celebrant, Cartel Aristocrat, Witch's Oven, Cauldron Familiar, Hangarback Walker, and Rally the Ancestors + removal and disruption make for a pretty powerful deck!

Morg, if you don't mind me asking, what's your job?

That really sucks MustaKotka, I hope your relative gets better.