Xenos and Chaos on top at Throne of Skulls?

Stats borrowed from Claws and Fists' excellent post and recap here:  http://clawsandfists.blogspot.com/2012/01/throne-of-skulls-final-standings.html

Oh the fun you can have with metrics.  From an average score standpoint: Xenos own 4 of the top 5 slots.  Xenos and Chaos own 7 of the top 10.  But soft scores count: "you also get points based on how many of your opponents nominated you as their favourite opponent of the weekend" - with that taken into account, it's possible to infer that Xenos and Chaos players are more fun to play against.  SinSynn should have a field day with this one.  I'll give the Imperial sc.. uhm.. players a break and make the disclaimer that this was only one tournament, and won't try to make a grand claim that it's a result of finally getting to play against a more diverse field, instead of the usual higher volume of Imperials.  An opportunity for a higher number of people to play armies they enjoy playing, vs. those they play simply to win with.  For ToS, 73 of 128 players were Imperial, just shy of 60% so not a huge disparity.  One could argue that this is 'working as intended' going back to Jervis' WD article about the format encouraging diversity by scoring by codex rather than straight up ranking.  Probably the most interesting metric of all?  Zero Sisters of Battle.  How's that White Dwarf codex plan working GW?

Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

Inspired only slightly by Nurglitch's erudite pontifications to post this as a non-sequitur to a Tyranid blog.  For good measure, I'll own up to definitely being inspired by Pinky's non-sequiturs to Brain's AYPWIP question.

I wonder sometimes how to explain the importance of imagination to my kids, family, and friends.  Well - how important is it?  To me, imagination is the best possible weapon against a small, narrow mind.  If you're reading this, I can guess you've probably encountered them somewhere in your life's journeys.  In practical terms, your imagination is your mind's ability to grasp the realm of the possible.  To see a thing and think it through, to understand its implications, uses, and potentials.  More importantly, to create something altogether new and previously unseen.  Imagination's counterbalance, wisdom, is what you've learned works, and what doesn't - usually through trial and error.  Together these make up our mental bandwidth to process the world - and they govern our ability to not only survive, but to make our life better, be happy, get richer, get more stuff, find that special other person - whatever your goals happen to be.  Whether consciously defined or not, goals are the product of our imagination.  In the same sense however, we are fettered by the bounds of our imagination, a prison we cannot see until we look through the lens of another's imagination, and grow richer for it.  The serenity of balance is simply to imagine at all, and confident use of wisdom to test the products of our imagination.  I pity those who only live in the 'real'  world.

Realizing I've not been posting much lately - which in turn makes me realize that colocating all of my hobby stuff with my computer probably wasn't the smartest move.  Add in an impertinent girl-child who refuses to play Super Dungeon Explore until I get the figures painted in all their chibi goodness and I've not been doing much more than reading a lot of blogs, playing Orcs Must Die (such a great game!), and working on non-Tyranid figures not enough to get a game in yet.  If only my imagination weren't an utter slave to my short attention span.