Programmer, engineer, scientist, critic, gamer, dreamer, and kid-at-heart.
I actually initially thought that there would be a PTQ this weekend. When I found out there would just be a normal Standard tournament the night before, I assembled a deck quickly. I went with Blightning Beatdown:
Unfortunately, things did not go well for our hero. Tournament report follows.
So I saw _Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull _last Friday. Two days later I also watched for the first time Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Instead of doing a lame movie review, here’s a double header feature!
(Warning: Spoilers for both movies follow)
Regionals was today, 18-May. The format was standard and I went to play at Galleria.
I have a mixed track record for regionals. During Regionals 2006, I went 1-4-drop with a rogue deck of my own design. During Regionals 2007 I played Korlash/Mishra built by Flores, going 5-and-3.
I was debating whether I would even go to play in the tournament, as I was totally unprepared and was quite tired. I figured a straight aggro deck would be fine, as I didn’t want to play Reveillark again for the expected nine rounds. I lent out the merfolk deck, so I cobbled together a build of Elves the night before instead:
An alpha release was just announced for Open Office 3. Being an Ubuntu user, Open Office is really the only sane choice I have for an office suite. At work I’m using Microsoft Office 2007. Among the office suite applications, I’m most of a power user for the spreadsheet applications. Here’s my side-by-side comparison of Excel and oOo Calc:
Microsoft Excel 2007 on Windows XP:
OpenOffice Calc 2.4.1 on Ubuntu:
Due to an increased workload, as of Friday night I was still totally unprepared for Block Constructed. I decided to skip the Shadowmoor Block Inaugural tournament yesterday, but I still showed up in the afternoon at Galleria to look for cards. Luckily, there was a draft signup so I went ahead and gambled some money on my supposed skills in Limited.
After waiting some 3-4 hours for the draft signup to reach 8 people, we got started. I always carry a pair of scissors in my bag now since I’m really bad at opening packs when my hands get sweaty.
Part 1 of this series is here.
Creating a WordPress template is harder than I thought. Luckily I’m modifying the default template instead of starting from scratch. The one I’m creating is rather simple but after spending almost 8 hours on it so far, I’m still far away from completing it. I’m guessing the more complicated layouts take more than two weeks of full-time work.
Here’s my current WIP:
Changes since the last part:
The tournament was yesterday, May 03, Standard at Robinson’s Galleria.
I was planning to play Green-White midrange, as documented on Deckbuilding for an Unknown Metagame.
Web design has never been one of my strong points, and it’s something I’d like to improve on.
The Roy on Magic blog has been using the default WordPress Template since forever, and I’ve been trying to find a good WP Template that fits the “Magic the Gathering” theme.
Put the above points together, and I have a new personal project. Just for fun, I’ll log my progress here.
This coming weekend is the release of Shadowmoor. As with any new set coming in, this means a new environment with an unknown metagame, and is especially true for the large set Shadowmoor. It’s an opportunity for those of us who believe we have some modicum of deck-building skills. I plan to be playing Standard on Saturday, one day after set release so I will try to build a deck to take advantage of the wide open field.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates is an action-RPG by Square Enix. The original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles came out on the NGC. Ring of Fates is a different game for the NDS, though I guess it’s sort of a spiritual successor. I finally managed to get some NDS time and finish this game last night.
In the Philippines, the Sneak Peak serves as our release party, and the format is the same as the prerelease: Four rounds of sealed, each win gets you a Shadowmoor booster pack. 4-0 wins a Shadowmoor deck box.
The sealed pool I opened and registered was a mediocre pile with limited removal and rares like Rage Reflection, Reaper King, Vexing Shusher and Demigod of Revenge. This not being the prerelease, the pools were shuffled around after registration.
For all of my working life I’ve gotten used to sitting at a workstation where I do not have regular internet access. So while I’ve often read a lot of those articles about how to maintain focus, I’ve never actually realized how difficult it was until I brought home a bunch of work-related reading material to catch up on. Yes, I tried to read boring work-related stuff on an internet-enabled machine. Wonder how much progress I managed?
The prerelease was held last April 19 at Robinson’s Galleria. The last time I went 4-0 and won a shirt was Time Spiral prerelease. I have a good feeling about this one. Then I crack open the following sealed pool:
Tournament was last April 12 2008 at NG Galleria, with 3 formats: Block, Standard and Extended. I played Standard again with minor changes to last week’s deck.
Sideboard changes: -3 Surgespanner, +3 Unsummon
Tournament report follows.
The tournament was held last 29-March at Neutral Grounds Galleria. The format was Standard and my deck was Heavyweight Ramp. 256 people, 9 rounds (!)
I’m blogging from an airport; I feel like such a seasoned traveler. Actually I’m writing this post just so that I can claim to post on the internet from airports.
I am of course flying back to Manila after a short 3-day visit to Hong Kong. People always ask me where I plan to go while in HK, even though I always come here to work. It’s even worse this time, as I flew in Sunday evening, attending a three-day seminar until Wednesday, working during the evenings then flying back Thursday morning. Not much time to do anything really.
On my way home today I passed by Megamall as usual, and there was a Scrabble tournament going on. I stopped for a few minutes and watched. I realize a lot of people would probably find watching Scrabble games boring, seeing only two geeky people spelling out words at random, not even making any sense. But watching the Scrabble games brought me back to a time when I didn’t have the internet to keep me up at nights.
Scrabble is a game close to my heart, me and my brother Kerwin practically grew up with the game.
Eagerly awaited, the fourth installment of the Ace Attorney series has arrived, with a brand-new leading defense attorney. Of course, not one week after I got my copy, I’m done. It kept me up at nights and made me come in to work late; well worth it.
To those who are not familiar with the Ace Attorney games, it’s hard to explain the appeal of the game; with all the thinking and reading to be done, it’s definitely not exciting to watch. Anyone who’s finished one of them knows what it is though. There’s that feeling you get when you all the testimony and evidence finally come together, and you figure out how it was done but you still have to figure out how to prove it!
Detailed review (and spoilers) follow.
Given what today is, I thought it would be a good idea to say a few words on the current brouhaha. Instead of just enjoying the holiday watching DVDs that is.
Just something I posted on a certain mailing list a few days ago:
I find it hard to believe that ousting GMA now would lead to any true change. We’ve seen what the countless political episodes have exposed: corruption at almost every level of government, both the executive and legislative branches beholden to bribery and extortion. The problems in our government are systemic in nature, and it would take more than the ouster of a single person to effect any meaningful change. Even if we were to find someone *with good intentions* to replace the president, he’s still likely to be swallowed up by the system.
Flight B, February 2, 2008, Saturday at Neutral Grounds Galleria. The format is LOR/MOR sealed.
I get my product and check it out. No outright bombs or cash rares, but I immediately spot the Drowner of Secrets + Merrow Commerce + 2 Stonybrook Schoolmasters. I had reasonable fliers and permission, so I built the blue-white deck. My only removal being a Weight of Conscience that I did not actually put in the maindeck.
After finding out that KDE4 was already available for Kubuntu 7.10, the nice screenshots of the new Oxygen theme and hints of a revamped panel and widget system appealed to my inner geek envy, so I decided to install and give it a whirl.
My quick impression, after 15 minutes of usage:
