• I admit I’ve spent a good part of this week thinking about and trying to learn from last week’s failure. I actually made a Reddit thread about it and the advice I got was pretty humbling. (I’m a little embarrassed to even be sharing it!)

• On the same topic, one article that really resonated with me was Steven Savage’s post on the importance of marketing yourself in geek career fields, Are You A Fact?

• Do journalists joke too much on Twitter? I’ll admit stuff like this is a bit silly, but I like to see the personalities of the people who deliver our news. I really liked my former colleague Kris Holt’s blog post on the topic.

• Tomorrow I’m heading to my local card shop to play in the Magic: The Gathering Gatecrash prerelease tournament. There’s a young crowd which means I always end up losing to a lot of twelve-year-olds who insist they’re “going easy on me.” This time though, I’m boning up on Prerelease survival articles in advance. Wish me luck!

• Sweet, more Genshiken anime! I bet Viga, the East Coast’s biggest Genshiken fan, is freaking out right about now. (And if you ever get a chance to see one of her panels on the series, they’re fantastic.)

• Speaking of talented panelists, I’ve been lucky enough to attend Charles Dunbar‘s lecture on Yokai more than once, and he always mentions a Yokai-heavy anime called Natsume’s Book of Friends. I never realized the show is on Crunchyroll now. Guess I know how I’ll be spending my free time for the next few weeks.

(Simic guild gate image via Wizards of the Coast.)