One year passes, and another begins. All too quickly, if you ask me, but here it is. This is the first Saving Throw of 2007. It's not the first saving throw of 2007, of course, being as some friends and I rolled a number of those this last weekend, but it's the first Saving Throw column. I kick in another contest entry with a story from this weekend's gaming session. Other than that, this is a short column; with the holidays, things are slow in the tabletop gaming world.

And so, let's get on with it...

On December 27th, the Great Designer Search for Magic: The Gathering, an online elimination-style competition for a paid internship at the game's developer and publisher, Wizards of the Coast, came to an end. Alexis Janson won the competition, earning a six-month Research and Development internship at the company's Renton, Washington headquarters. In a surprise twist, the other two finalists, Graeme Hopkins and Kenneth Nagle, were also awarded paid internships. "All three made an absolutely amazing performance, so we did some scrambling around R&D in order to keep all three of them as interns; they each have a lot to offer the company," said the company's Randy Buehler.

I'll return next week for yet another Saving Throw. See you then.

Shawn "Found the high anvil" Bruckner

David E. "Hit by the high anvil" Taylor