Updated
4/27/08. Welcome to a page all about me, John Streetz. I've
gone by several nicknames since the beginning of the internet and
before. Those names include Sir Ghilias and Streetz. I made up the
name 'Sir Ghilias' back when there were Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and not the internet. I made the name in an effort to create a
good handle for my mother's BBS site (The Trading Post was its name). Sir Ghilias
seemed good. You'll be amused to know that before Sir Ghilias,
when I was younger, my handle was Count Duckula! What can I say, I loved that
cartoon.
Other hobbies I enjoy include web design, collecting, biking, RPG Online
gaming and barbershop. About barbershop, I haven't sung in that for a few years now
but I still enjoy listening to it, singing tags, writing tags and drinking with
barbershop buddies. The chorus I sang with for several years was
Westtown's Chorus out of Lombard, IL. There website can be found here.
While I have been out for a few years I still want to join in again..
but just don't have time to dedicate myself to it.
If
you are curious to my current profession, I am a salesman for Doyle
Signs, Inc. in Addison, IL. I have been employed there
cumulatively for over 10 years. I enjoy the constant challenge of
the fast paced custom sign business as well as the design aspects and
project completion facets of the same. I have also been doing some
small design work and a bit of IT-like work for the company and hope to
move up into more challenging roles within the company.
Earlier this year
I quit a second job that I had for about eight years cumulatively.
I worked as a server for Outback
Steakhouse. While I will miss the many great people that I met
and came to know while working there I am even more happy to be done
with serving tables. Aside from the poor tips you get 80% of the
time, it is a thankless job. Over the course of the last ten years
I've seen the percentage of nasty people and bad tippers increase ten
fold. Outback, on the other hand, is a great company. A
quick little interesting note: my first day at Outback was on my 21st
birthday. I'll leave that day's story for a blog sometime.
Some other items
that I collect include Garbage Pail Kids. In fact, if you have the
entire set for 1st or 15th series (the original ones), please let me
know. I am interested in buying them from you.. since eBay sucks
at life in terms of getting these.
--back
to magic.. what my site is about...
I have
been collecting Magic: the Gathering for about eleven/twelve years on and off. I
started around Unlimited and The Dark and then stopped collecting after Ice
Age. Then I picked it up again around the time of Tempest. Then I
stopped again after Nemesis and started once again when Apocalypse came
out. While I have been playing and collecting for a LONG LONG time, I
don't have many complete sets (with the exception of Fallen Empires, Urza's
Block, and the majority of the last few blocks...) and I
don't have a lot of my Unlimited, Revised good cards anymore. I sold them
for quick cash at a GenCon in Wisconsin back in 1997... boy, do I regret that.
I initially put
this website together back when I crashed my car the summer of 2002.
What better way to waste time than to
create a website. Since then it has grown immensely to the point where I
have advertisers seeking to advertise on my site (as it seems rather popular
now). I sincerely hope you enjoy the site as I have spent a
great deal of time working on it. It all started when I put together a quick
database in EXCEL to keep track of my decks, cards and ideas. After
submitting almost all of my decks to the www.mtgfanatic.com
deck section, I quickly
revised many of my decks to make them worthy of being posted on the
Internet. I will admit, I don't have an entire collection of 80 ALL STAR
decks... but I do have a hefty collection of built decks which are each fun to play. Fun is the reason I collect and still
play. When I get to play anyway... [I'm lucky to play 10 times a year.]
Some of the people I first starting collecting and playing with
include (but is not limited to) Jon Greenwood, Jon Schneider, Rob Siebert, Dave
Comings, Dave Hayes, Karl Hayes, Jon Kluge, Pat Highland and Tom Wyse.
Most of them don't really play anymore, but hey, if one of you is reading this... GIVE ME YOUR CARDS! You aren't using them anyway! I still
play with my good friend Jon Greenwood every once in a while.
Since his card collection is limited, we usually just play with my
decks. At one time I had 80 decks put together of reasonable play
value. Now I have taken many of them apart and have about 20 decks
to play with. I have found great value in buying the precons
from the last few sets; its a quick and easy way to show the new set
mechanics to my Magic buddies (who don't collect like I do).
 The
artwork to the right is that of Unifying Theory from the Odyssey block portrayed by Ron
Spears. Art was the reason I first starting collecting M:tG. Some of my favorite artists from the game include Rebecca Guay,
DiTerlizzi, Ron Spears, Rk Post, Quinton Hoover, Carl Critchlow, Kev Walker, Jeff Miracola, Mark Tedin, and
Paolo
Parente. You find much of their artwork posted around my site along with other
great artists. I started collecting Magic right after I
collected Dungeons & Dragons art cards with artwork on one side and details
of the character, item or spell on the other. I still have those too.
Anyway, I tried collecting Spellfire and Jyhad along with a few others, but none
of them had the excitement and versatility of Magic: the Gathering.
I
am excited that Magic has been around for over fifteen years, and I look
forward to the sets in the future. I hope Magic lasts as long as
I'm around. It's a great game and know that I wouldn't host this
site for free if it wasn't just a 'great game'.
Note:
For the your reference as a Magic: the Gathering player, according to
Mark Rosewater's Player Profile.. I am a Johnny/Timmy. I think it
fits my playing personality pretty well. Although I'm more of a
Johnny than a Timmy.
|
FAVORITE
DECKS ON MINE:
Celixia is a fictional magic card set I have been working on since
the site was originally created. Once I found the MtgEditor I went
all out and now the set is complete with 365 cards. Click on the
logo above to see the set. If
you want to contact me about anything, just email me:
this
addy.
 |
