Thursday, February 16, 2017

Fire and Dice, A Refuge for Nerds in the Valley


I've been on vacation for a week. I'm just hanging out at home away from work, laying low for a while. It's an unpaid vacation so I'm going to be working for free for a week but its fine. I wanted to talk about my favorite hangout place with my friends-Fire and Dice!

Fire and Dice is a hobby shop that I've been going to for over a year now. You can find old blog posts where I wrote about my sm4sh tournaments there and how I did and stuff. It used to be located on Ventura and De Soto but it moved to a bigger space and is now located at on Vanowen and Winnetka. It didn't move far and I can always catch a ride there with friends if I provide a bit of gas money. The place is known for its board games, Magic the Gathering tournaments, and Smash 4 tournaments which occur every Thursday.

I used to be obsessed with attending every sm4sh weekly and getting better and better. As I started working more I never got Thursdays off so I haven't been able to attend for a super long time. However, I've been getting lots of Mondays off, which are Magic the Gathering tournament nights. Since I started playing Magic there I've met many new friends, one of which even made me a really good deck. I've become pretty good at the game and gained a much better understanding of the tactics than from when I used to play as a middle schooler.

I actually go there to play Magic often now. I wish I could go to more Sm4sh tournaments there but honestly I'm so rusty in Sm4sh that I'm sure some high school Sm4sh junkie that plays 24/7 would crush me. That wouldn't stop me from attending though. I'd still be down, and I might even go tomorrow. But that's the topic for another post. Here I wanted to talk about how great fad (Fire and Dice) is.

Fad is the most fun place I can go to with my more nerdy friends. I have another set of friends who wouldn't set foot at fad because they hate smelly nerds crowded in a small space (we experienced this when I took them to a big sm4sh tournament) and also they aren't into magic or board games. However, my more nerdy friends and I love going to fad because its like a refuge, a safe haven for people like us-nerds.

The fact that tournaments are cheap ($5 commander league magic the gathering, which I enter every Monday that I can attend if I'm off work, and $10 sm4sh singles entry) and that you can hang out there until 10 pm is just icing on the cake. If you don't want to play magic, or participate in their Dungeons and Dragon event (every Wednesday) you can relax and play one of their many board games that they have out in the open on display. I really want to play their Mario chess game sometime, that would be sick.

Fad has improved my social life a lot. I've met so many cool people and new friends just by hanging out there. I'm probably never going to meet a girl friend there or anything but I always have a good time every time I go. I've actually come to find video gaming to be a bore because I'm so used to going to fad and playing magic with friends. I find hanging out in a social environment much more fun and better than sitting in my room on my computer and playing games.

All in all fad is a hip and happening place when it comes to hobby shop fun and gaming in the valley. There's other hobby shops but fad is the best one I've been to. Game Ogre was another great place in the valley (used to be in Northridge) but I heard today that they moved to Agoura Hills. Guess fad really is the best place for nerds in the valley.

There's so much more stuff to do there that I haven't done too. I was thinking about eventually getting into the Dungeons and Dragons scene on Wednesdays. Maybe one day. I wanted to write about how cool fad is because I've been really enjoying hanging out there on my vacation. Its a great store and its run by a bunch of super cool Asian guys. If you enjoy sm4sh, magic the gathering, dungeons and dragons, and board games you should definitely check this place out!

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