I loathe my Pokémon League. I've been to three different ones, and overall, they sucked. My first one, Toys 'R' Us, was decent, except for this one arrogant Assistant Gym Leader. Promising that he would hand out Promo cards at the end of every League session was his major downfall. He refused to hand out promos after 8:30 because he claimed the session was officially over and he couldn't do anything else. One day, he was handing out Promo Eevees and as soon as I got there, he "ran out" of them. He said I had to wait until next week, even though I saw another boxful of them right under his hand. He just shooed me away before I could say anything about it. You can guess that location was short-lived. SUCK-O-METER: 6 (Assistant Gym Leader)

I moved to my local Borders, and that was the best. The first day there, they were giving out the Misty's Seadra activities. PA! and my general knowledge of the cards got me one right off the bat. I fought about 5 kids that day, all falling to my Mr. Mime deck. I was 120 points richer that day (activities gave me 10, as did attending) and I left happy. Next Saturday, I picked up another Misty's Seadra activity just for kicks, turned it in, and got another one! Anyway, that's when I fought my best rival of the day. After fighting him twice, losing one and winning one, I noticed that he had a ton of excess cards. I was a little low on PlusPowers, so I asked him if he could give me some and he gave me 3. After that, I spent the last half-hour trading cards and I picked up a holo Poliwrath (Base 2) in exchange for a holo Electrode (Jungle) and a non-holo Mr. Mime in exchange for a non-holo Dark Dugtrio. The next week I was in France and missed the tournament I signed up for, which sucked, but I came back next week and got another Misty's Seadra. I battled, traded, and left. The final week there was the Giveaway Day. I picked up about 20 promos (including 3 Misty's Seadra and those Eevees I missed out on) and about 10 TMs and all but the Soul and Earth badges. I also got a Certified Coach sticker and 7 Challenge stickers, minus Misty. I exchanged AIM SNs with the guy I battled with so much, then left to seek another League. SUCK-O-METER: 1 (missing the tourney made it suck)

I'm stuck in Zany Brainy now and it sucks. I showed the Gym Leader my badge book on the first week and she noticed I had no points (save for the Boulder Badge) but 6 badges. I explained to her about Giveaway Day and she took my badge book for the week. I came back next week and another person was running the League. I explained to him about Giveaway Day (about 20 times) and how I didn't have my Badge Book. He said that their crack squad of savvy, motivated workers couldn't find it and I'd need to start all over with a new one (which wasn't even a book, just photocopied pages). Of course, by this time I was fuming. I was not about to start again with no points after I had worked so hard to get my 6 badges ( ;-) ). He finally found it in the box sitting next to him and I saw a SoulBadge attached to the cover. Now, I kinda forgot my murderous rage towards the guy when I opened it up to get my points for attending. I saw, on my EathBadge page, that the girl from last week had given me 150 points toward it! Now I was ecstatic and completely forgot how dumb this guy was. That was the first week. Next week, I met my arch-rival, Pikamaster (can't reveal his real name). He was pretty overconfident with his deck, and he had a good reason to be. He always let out his stinkin' Moltres first thing and killed me SO fast...I fought him 3 times, each time killing me with a different Moltres, and went up to the Dim Leader to get my 30 points. I then decided to trade with some people when the Leader runs up to me, screaming "DON'T EVEN SAY THE WORD TRADE IN HERE AGAIN OR I'LL KICK YOU OUT!" Now, I was afraid for my life at this point, so I just decided to not trade. I browsed the store since there was nothing to do, then bought a pack or two of Gym: Heroes. I forget exactly what I got, but it was a good haul. After the session was over, I traded with Pikamaster...Pidgeot for Mr. Mime. Both non-holo. Basically, the same thing happened the other two weeks until the League ended. SUCK-O-METER: 9 (Pikamaster kept it from scoring a perfect 10 - he's gotten less overconfident)

Now here's what truly sucks. They guaranteed me that the league would be open again January 6th. I call the 4th, seeing if there's any open spaces. The same guy tells me there's no League and I should call back next month. I called the Borders I used to go to, and they said they weren't doing it this year. In a desperate attempt, I called the other Zany Brainy by the Borders and they said they were still waiting for word from their management on whether they're doing the League this year or not. I'm still waiting for any notification about League activities from these locations. I've been on their websites, nothing. I might just have to call them again. Yeah, maybe that'll work...