Thursday, December 02, 2004

I am selectively permeable



Okay! So, last update was 40 days and 40 nights after the previous update, and December 1st is the 40th day after the last update, so I was supposed to blog today, December 1st, but unfortunately it's December 2nd now. I told Bao I would blog, but I was too busy playing World of Warcraft. Duy played WoW from 10:30-stillgoing today, so that's over 15 hours. So he's a bit more leveled than I am, so I have to catch up, which is why I didn't have the time to blog. Sorry Bao. How about I'll buy you dinner next time? ^^

Anyway, I'm pretty tired now, so I won't blog about an event that happened with an Umbrella, and our being banned at Campus Pizza. But that will be an interesting update when I do update that. Lol.

Also, for fun, Bao, Duy and Jason are trying to make me say less weird words... STARTING... Oh no, it is like, that is mmm...damn true. Thingieing likes to thingieing Snarcraft with Scrambrose. It is interesting. Such failage. .... NOW!

So I will say less of those things, starting now... mmmdamn. Oh damn, what failage... oh damn again... .... Lies. But now, I accept the challenge. But it's not fair, Bao keeps saying Mmdamn now instead of me, because it is still funny. But I want to type about my umbrella explosion event, but not just yet.

So, as I promised, this is the update, 40 days and 40 nights after the last update. I should have another update soon to talk about Umbrellas and my bannage from Snampus Pizza.

Anyway, World of Warcraft will be consuming most of my time now. So I'd just like to say I miss you auntie! And sis! and of course Bao's looking over my shoulder now and he wants to type something:

Bao: I miss you too!

I'm not sure who he's saying that to, though, Lol. Anyway, here's a song that Bao posted on his blog, and I like it a lot too. Have a listen and comment about it, lol.

http://www.baomon.com/board/gankutsuou.mp3 - it's an opening theme to an anime that is interesting. I think Alex Chen would like it.

Anyway, I'm really tired now, so I gotta kick that other guy out of my room so I can fall asleep on my bed. Bao will turn off the light for me too.

Friday, October 22, 2004

The Fridge is out!



It's been about 40 days and 40 nights, and now I'm back, after Bao and Jason pushed me to blog again. I've been pretty busy. Anyway, Bao has blogged a lot about what has happened, and Jason blogged too.

Champions of Kamigawa is a fun magic set, I really like it. And Bao got an Xbox, and it's really awesome. I play Magic Battlegrounds on it a lot. It's a lot different than the magic gathering card game, but it's still cool, LOL. And we have 2 months free of xbox live, so we can download new content for magic battlegrounds.

Anyway, I shouldn't be blogging now... I have CCF tonight, but I don't think I'm going again, lol, and next week Bao's having a VSA Halloween night and I might go, even though I don't dress up and stuff. failage. But it should be fun.

Next week will be really busy, with a stat 332 quiz, and the psych 101 midterm. It will be beast. I think I should study more, but like yeah.

(Duy doesn't want to type anything) (What the) (the what?) (the record)

Fine, I accept your challenge.

Anyway, I'm busy next week, so I'll blog again in 40 days and 40 nights.

Saturday, September 11, 2004

R66Y...that is my name



So just yesterday, Bao posted an OC Remix version of Robo's theme on his blog. Now, I really liked the few OC Remix songs that I've heard so far, so I had to dl this one to see what it was like. And I loved it! It was a bit weird at first, but then after I listened to the whole thing a few times, I actually found it pretty funny. Though sometimes the lyrics are hard to make out, I think I got most of them (after turning up the volume up on my speakers, heh.) So I guess I'll post them up here just for the heck of it. And for all of you who have played Chrono Trigger, I highly recommend this track - it's upbeat, unique and funny. :) (Though you'll only really understand it if you've played the game.)

Chrono Trigger The Incredible Singing Robot OC ReMix

Though I am made
of titanium,
I still feel human like you.

Covered in tin
and six of her twins,
I left them and came with you.

I might not be blue
like my brothers, I know,
but my gears will last forever.
I am happy to be,
in your party, aren't you?

Robots can be,
for evil or good.
Please don't reprogram me.

My memories and thoughts
are all I have left.
Am I malfunctioning?

In twenty-three hundred AD,
I was left here to study the humans.
Then you came along,and I played this song, for you.

R66Y, that is my name,
but you can call me anything.
Just leave me here,
I'll tend to this place.
I'm good at gardening.

So Fiona and me,
we planted the trees,
and you went into the future.
Just look and see
this forest I made for you!

*** *** *** *** ***

Though I am made
of titanium,
I still feel human like you.

Won't you pick me
instead of that frog?
I can do healing too.

=======END=========


And yeah...I'm finally back in Waterloo now. Subletters made a big mess of the place and moved some stuff around, but then they also left us some free stuff lol. The only bad thing is that though our internet works now with the new modem, we can't seem to find where our router from last year went. We think that we might have left it here in the house, but it's not here, and if the girls took, I highly doubt it would've been by "accident". Maybe I'll just buy a router...and then when I get home, I can network my two new comp to make transferring stuff easier. But that would involve getting a ride to Futureshop probably one day....hmmm...

[edit] YAY! All our internet problems have been solved! Using long network cables, we connected everyone directly to the router, and don't have to use the hub, which was probably ninjaing us in the first place. We also got a different router from Duy's house, and it seems to be working pretty well. So maybe this year, we'll actually have decent internet lol! [/edit]

Monday, September 06, 2004

Aiyah!!



The 2004 Magic World Championship Results

Canada was sooo close! Argh, we got Silver! Oh well, at least it's better than nothing. Next year perhaps. Canada is finally coming back into the competitive Magic scene after a long absence. Now, if only the Blue Jays would get better... :P

The crazy thing is, the World Champion this year was some 15 year old Dutch kid. That means that he'd be about in gr.10...whoa, when I was that age, I was still pretty clueless about deckbuilding, playing a super huge red/white "control" deck. Oh man, and this guy's the WORLD champion and now is $52,366 richer. I wonder what he'll do with all that money...

In other news, moving back to Waterloo on Friday. So I'll be missing fellowship and such. I think Bao is moving back on the Saturday, so I'll be the only there for a day. Hope the internet works...and we still have to go in one day beforehand to get the keys back too...sigh.

Saturday, September 04, 2004

Getting Ninjaed by Chinese superstitions -> Magic Cards in 3D



So, today I was supposed to be going to a wedding all day, but due to a last minute change of plans, my family's only going to the reception, so currently I'm wasting time being on the computer, waiting for my mom to come home so that I can eat lunch.

Anyways, this weekend is the 2004 Magic World Championships, and so I decided to browse around the online coverage on the Wizards site to see if there was anything interesting. There weren't any special or unique types of decks this year, as everyone seemed to be playing the same typical internet decks. The tournament's almost finished, seeing as how this is Day 4 and they're already at the quaterfinals; but Saturday is the team event day, so we'll have to wait until Sunday to see who actually wins the title of World Champion for 2004. The cool thing is that there are TWO Canadians in the top 8! Canada hasn't been doing well in competitive Magic for a long time, and I don't think a Canadian has ever won the World Championships, so it'd be pretty cool if a Canadian won this year. :D It's always been either a European or an American every year before this.

Besides the actual tournament coverage in San Francisco, however, they also have several pretty cool side events going on. One of them is in the link below, and leads into the title for this blog entry.

3D Magic

Perhaps one day we should try that out with some of our cards, heh. I think maybe Barbed Lightning or Pristine Angel would look awesome done like that...too bad most of the cards I'd want to see are rare. :(

Thursday, September 02, 2004

A Couple of Random Things



So it's September now...so that means school is starting soon. Ahhh!! In some ways, it's a really good thing, in other ways, it's not so good. From the looks of my schedule and stuff, and it seems like I should be having a pretty good year, so for the most part I'm happy. :)

Now, a couple of things I found while browsing the web. First of all is a tidbit from Pojo's Yugioh site. They have a section called "CCG Tips" where ppl can submit their own tips on the game, and then see them published on Pojo's website. (Most of them are really crappy ones done by little kids.) So I was looking at a few random ones, trying to find if any of them were actually good, when I found this one, under the name "How to right good TCG tips":

http://www.pojo.com/yu-gi-oh/CCGTips/Sept2004/Yugi-01/How%20to%20right%20good%20TCG%20tips.htm

It's pretty ironic that the guy was ranting about ppl making a lot of mistakes in their tips, that he doesn't even bother to check his own heh.

Secondly, for anyone out there who know how to play Magic, I was eagerly awaiting the Champions of Kamigawa preview card that was shown this Wednesday, and let me say that it was AMAZING. I almost said, "Holy S---" aloud when I saw it. And I thought Mindslaver was crazy and uniqure, but this card takes the cake. Magic needs more cards like this one:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mf5

:D Now there's a spell that can "counter" those spells that can't be countered, haha. There's so much new stuff being crammed into Champions, looks like we're in for another amazing set. Makes me want to participate in the CHK draft that the Sci-Fi club at UW will probably be holding.

Anyways, I have to get back to unpacking and other chores if I want to be able to do stuff later today. So it's time for this entry to end. Player four defeated!

Sunday, August 08, 2004

An amusing sign from a Bulk Barn located near Lake Huron: (thanks Andrew!)



And yes, I should be doing a "real" update, but this will have to do for now. :)

Sunday, July 25, 2004

"He has outlived his usefulness..."



Wow...yesterday's half draft/half sealed event was fun! Fifth Dawn rocks!
I want to post a full review of it, but I don't have much time, so I'll just go through some highlights:

Stuff that happened during the draft
-dealt 10 damage in one attack with a Skyhunter Skirmisher equipped with a Cranial Plating, which many ppl think is the best limited common in Fifth Dawn

-managed to draft 3 Grimclaw Bats (had a chance at 4), 3 Chittering Rats, and 3 Cranial Platings, making it possible for me to build a pure black deck if I had wished, like the last time we had the Onslaught block draft at Duy's old house. Seems like the ppl we usually draft with don't usually like playing black or something, but also in this draft, Jason on my left and Mike on my right kept feeding me good black cards

-playing in a 2 vs 2 game, having my teamate Bao pull a Composite Golem/Bringer of the Black Dawn combo, only to have the opposing team of Jason and Duy answer it with an even more amazing Avarice Totem double switch and tutor for Shatter combo. (Jason casts the totem on turn one. A while later, he switches it for Duy's Arcbound Stinger equipped with a Dead-Iron Sledge. Then still later, Bao taps out cast a Composite Golem and sacs it for WGRBU to bring out the Bringer. Duy, taking the next turn after that, switches his totem with the Bringer at the end of Bao's turn, and then uses the Bringer to tutor for a shatter in his upkeep and destroy the totem. Thus, he ended up being able to keep Bao's bringer permanently.)

-the atmosphere during the whole day was really relaxed and fun, since we didn't have a tournament, and it was good 'cause that allowed for minimal pressure while drafting and deck building. Many ppl did stuff just for fun, such as Jason putting the 14 mana blue instant called Blinkmoth Infusion into his deck and going for a pure sunburst strategy lol. And also, in the above situation, I knew that Duy could possibly steal the Bringer once Bao brought it out, but I told him to do it anyways since it would be such a cool combo. It ended up being the highlight of the game

-people going "whoa" and saying various other exclamations when finally discovering some of the many awesome cards in Fifth Dawn, stuff like Desecration Elemental, Bringer of the Red/Black Dawn, Possesed Portal, Cranial Plating, and various sunburst cards including one that starts off with negative power and toughness!

-everyone generally having fun during the whole event, even though there wasn't that much interaction between Mike's group and our group, and ordering a lot of pizza

My deck did better than I thought it would do, considering that I couldn't decide on a second colour until really late into the draft, and by that point I had already passed up many good white cards. I would've been able to pick up another Skirmisher, but I passed it up for a Barbed Lightning, and I didn't even end up playing red. I was really tempted though, by the fact that I once again opened a Spikeshot Goblin in my Mirrodin starter. Making a deck with only 40 cards was really restrictive this time, forcing a lot of ppl to either jump to 60 card decks or have to cut out a lot of stuff that they drafted from their decks. I chose the latter approach for a 40 card white/black deck, most notabaly having to kill a Terror and an Isochron Sceptre, which were sitting on the table and mocking the whole time for not including them haha.

So all in all, I'd say that the event was a great success, too bad more ppl couldn't have come...I wonder if we'd be able to hold a draft with more than 8 ppl. Maybe some other time. And it seems Bao is now more interested in Magic/drafting, hehe. I don't mind that at all, as I love discussing about aspects of the game with anyone. And now that we've done quite a few drafts together since high school, it seems that we're all improving in skill, which is fantastic. Perhaps next time, if we go to another tourney at UW, we can actually win something lol. But anyways, people getting better = more challenging decks to play against = more possible discussions about limited strategy = very cool.

Ricky apparently is having his own d20 get-together today, and it seems like Bao and Duy and even David might have went. I couldn't go or do anything today 'cause I had no ride and was kinda busy...but oh well. We still have one more game of Bao's campaign to go before the summer ends. Hopefully that'll be a good one!







=====================================================================================
[edit] Hmmm...I remember Bao saying that the last d20 game would be on the second weekend in August. I can't remember if that is the weekend of the 7th or the 14th, but now it seems there might be a slight problem. Fellowship on the weekend of the 14th is going to be on Saturday instead of Friday, 'cause they're going to Beachfest in downtown Toronto and it's going to be some big event. I already pre-registered for it too by paying $5. Fellowship is usually on Fridays though. But since I already promised Bao I'd help him with the game, it looks like here are the options.

1) Have the game on the 7th if possible.
2) Move the game to the 15th, which is a Sunday.
3) I would tank Beachfest and go to the game at Bao's instead.

Of course, I would prefer options 1 or 2, but I dunno if that's possible with other ppl. So Bao and others, if you read this, then tell me what you think. Whatever option, unless it's option 2, I'll end up tanking some other stuff to make it happen. Dang, why does everything have to be scheduled on a Saturday? :( [/edit]

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Mirrodin Block Sealed/Draft Event anyone?



Mosquito bites are not fun. Camping is fun. Camping for two weekends in a row is funner. Camping two weekends in a row with good friends is the best. :)

Now that Joshua Camp and JOY Retreat are over, I'll soon start to get back into the routine of things, like softball and volunteering. Hopefully my twenty-something mosquito bites will have healed by the time I go camping again on the weekend of August 22 =/

And now, a funny happening from today's softball practice:

A few people are practicing fielding by throwing the ball around. After Sam barely misses a catch...

Paul - "Don't worry Sam, I used to catch like that when I was your age."
Sam - "You know Paul, you are younger than me."


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyways, the main point of this update was to see if anyone was interested in attending a Magic event this weekend at DB's house. (see below for details) Preferably, it would be this Sunday, but Saturday would work too, so I guess it depends on whoever's coming. We have to know by Friday though, to be able to buy enough packs and etc. So if you're interested, let either me or Bao know. Cost should be about $25 (to purchase one Mirrodin starter, one Darksteel booster, and two Fifth Dawn boosters for each person.)

The following is an email that Duy sent out a while ago, with more info. We're probably going to be following the stuff laid out there, except for the team stuff if there isn't enough ppl.

So, sometime this summer, we plan on having another Magic tournament, using the three sets of the newest block. Fifth Dawn comes out sometime in June, so it'll be after that, obviously.

If possible, we're thinking of making this a team tournament, with four pairs of two playing. An odd number of teams would suck (as it almost always ends up becoming a 2v1), and two teams of three would be unwieldy or something, so if we can't get 2v2v2v2, it will likely be normal 1v1 battles.

Hm.. okay, maybe we'll play 1v1 any way, but the drafting process can be done in teams to help each other or something....

So if you know of anyone who may be interested (as we don't have 8 people yet), send them a copy of this e-mail or so.

This time, instead of just a draft, we're thinking of making it part sealed, part draft. Yes, it's an odd combination.... So, first you open your Mirrodin starter and can look through that, then the boosters will be drafted like we normally do. If this is in teams, we will allow discussion between partners at all times. Partners will be sitting beside each other during the drafting process.

We could also make it really luck-based and have you draft before opening your starter... heh heh heh.... ... ... probably not though. =P

We would like to have one Mirrodin Starter, two Darksteel boosters and two Fifth Dawn boosters, but that comes out to the price of roughly 7 boosters per person (roughly $30). If people aren't quite willing to pay that, then we'll cut out one Darksteel booster. Please respond with your preference. Deck size will be determined later, depending on the number of boosters we get.

Now here's one last catch that we're adding for fun: when going into this tournament, you should know nothing about Fifth Dawn. Don't look at any previews or spoilers beforehand, and don't discuss it with others that know stuff about it. So everyone will have to thoroughly read the cards when drafting the Fifth Dawn boosters, and who knows, you may get some pleasant surprises...

And that's the end of that chapter. Or something.


So yeah, we've been planning this for a while, and I'm hoping that we can at least get more than 4 ppl there heh. Anyone and all are welcome. :)

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Preparing for JOY Retreat - July 9-11



So...I told Duy that I'd post an update on my blog by yesterday, giving the details of the last part of my week. The point was to explain and show how busy I was from Wed - Fri (I basically went out early every morning and didn't get back until late at night everyday.) and explain how I kinda forgot about some plans I had for the weekend. But, I guess I already pretty much explained that part to DB already, and I've been kinda swamped with planning for the upcoming retreat and parents ordering me to do other mundane chores around the house. (Just tonight, I had to help take the ends of tons of those long green beans...it took forever and ended up hurting my fingers. It kinda sucked since I wasn't going to be eating them anyways...but oh well.)

Either way, I'm pretty sure the members of the group wouldn't really care that much about what happened with me, and if they do, they can just message me. I'll have a real update after I get back from the retreat, which will surely give me lots of things to talk about. Before I go though, I just want to wish my softball team a good week, and also Bao a fun anime-a-thon this weekend. Too bad I can't come...

Oh, one last thing, an idea Bao popped to me yesterday. Anyone up for a CSI marathon? :)

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

To my friends Bao and Anson...haha



Currently Listening to: Chris Tomlin - Not to Us

Anyways, here I am updating again, finally heh. Since I'm doing this almost right after reading Bao's latest update, some of this post might be influnenced by his. (like the currently listening to thinger above)

Today was the first day in a while on which I've had absolutely nothing planned, and so I used it to catch up on house cleaning duties, doing the laundry and stuff, thereby making my washing machine malfunction for a while. It washed my clothes, but then didn't drain the water, so my clothes ended up being soaked in water for a couple more hours than needed...oh well, Mom came down later and solved the problem.

In between the laundry and Mom coming home, David called, and we talked for a couple of hours. We talked mostly about how we've both not really been doing much on our job hunt, and how we should've gotten a job long ago. He was going to try to go visit some places today,but he was sick, so I told him some things that he could do to try make up for that problem as much as he could, like taking Fisherman's Friends. Now for me, the reason I haven't been job hunting that much is half due to laziness, and partially due to getting discouraged and other stuff. But now that I've started volunteering at MCBC, I wouldn't mind continuing to do that for the rest of the summer heh. I would rather volunteer there than make minimum wage at McDonald's. Sure, I wouldn't be getting any different job experience, and wouldn't be making any money, but at least doing mundane secretarial work there is more presentable on my resume. Nevertheless, I probably will still make an attempt at getting a job for the last two weeks of summer - David wants to meet with me on Thurs to borrow interview clothes and perhaps go to some employment places together. But then I have the bbq at Jeff's house to go to in the morning, and it seems everyone wants to plan something for Canada Day, so I dunno if I'll be able to go with him or not. I dunno...I wouldn't mind not having a job this summer, it's my parents that are always on my case bugging me about it...

I woke up at 10 am today, which is a rarity for me recently. So I did a few chores in the morning, and then was going to talk about future plans with someone and start typing out stuff, but was ninjaed by my comp screwing up. So I had to reboot it a couple times, and eventually got fed up with it and went to go do something else. Read a few more letters out of C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" which Pastor Sharon gave me as a thank-you for volunteering. It's a pretty interesting read, serious at some points, and humourous in others. Now I know what the Moks and other ppl are talking about when they mention this book. This is a book that pretty much any Christian should read.

Even though I woke up earlier today, I felt really tired by the time I finished dinner, and thus I went upstairs to sleep for a bit at around 7. Therefore, I didn't get to vote like I planned, and I woke up finally after a few attempts at around 10:15, a bit late for CS:Miami. Oh well, Bao taped the episode if I really want to see it again, and the Liberal candidate owned in my riding, so my vote wouldn't really have mattered anyways. (I was going to vote Liberal like my parents were, if I was going to vote at all.)

Bao recently posted up a summer weekend schedule on his blog, and he has a really busy two months coming up. And now that I finally thought about it, with all the stuff that I've started doing recently, I'm going to have a very busy second half of summer too. Now that my small group meeting date is set on Sat, I'll have to leave early every time we have a d20 game probably, and any other events that are held on Sats as well. I probably could tank one meeting sometime, but then when we first started, we weren't really sure what date it was going to be on, and we all made a commitment to attend as many meetings as we could...so yeah, going to be hard for me to do stuff on Saturdays now, espeically since my softball is a Saturday team once again. (which means that most of our games are going to be on Sats)

Dang...so much stuff to do, so many scheduling conflicts lol. I was hoping to finish something that I've been putting off for a few days now today, but then I got ninjaed by being tired and partially sidetracked by the phone. And tomorrow is another day of volunteering, which has to start even earlier since I wasn't early enough in calling Paula and asking for a ride. Meh, at least that means I can probably get a good breakfast tomorrow with Yurger. Then maybe at night on Tues, I can finally get more of that stuff done, and maybe do what I told Bao that I might do, although this one is pretty long already I think. ;)

So there was my day. Sorry if it's boring and etc, but I couldn't really think of much other topics to write at this hour heh.

Monday, June 14, 2004

Sooo Busy...



Yeah, that's my excuse for not blogging much lately. Of course, it's not entirely true, but I'm not about to explain the details here. It just seems that everytime I want to blog, something else comes up. :P

Anyways, today I had to drive Alex Chen to church, 'cause he had no ride. But that's okay, 'cause I got to eat with him and Jon's family afterwards at 99. (The vietnamese noodles place.) During the time before our food came, we decided to go over to Toy's R Us to look at stuff. I haven't been in a store like that for a really really long time lol. Neither had Alex. He commented on how much it reminded him of his job at Wal-Mart, 'cause of the shelves and everything, and how he could take apart most of the store if he wanted to. I guess his job wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't all night shift. =/

Eventually, we found ourselves in the card games section, and we saw a lot of display boosters of Yu-gi-oh cards. They still had packs from almost every set, and unlike most kinds of cards, each pack was separated wrapped up in containers similar to the ones that they use to hold action figures and etc. I thought that was kinda weird; why wrap something up in another container when it's wrapped up already? It just makes more garbage for ppl to dispose of. And more of hassle getting to the cards in the pack. Jon said that it might be to prevent ppl from cheating and bending the packs to see if there's a holo card inside, but that's a pretty lame way to do it if you ask me. Magic packs don't feel any different if they have foils in them.

Another bad thing about Yu-gi-oh is their pricing. Most of the packs there were selling for $5.99. That's like 6 bucks, for a total of 9 cards. In those 9 cards are 8 commons and 1 'rare' card. Now, these aren't rare cards like in the Magic sense, where they're usually good, but rare as in "harder to find then common." If you're lucky, one of the cards in your pack might be randomly replaced with a super rare card (1 in every 6 packs) or an ultra rare card (1 in every 12 packs) And besides that, if you're the luckiest guy on earth, you might get to pull a secret rare (1 per box) So basically, if you're buying a pack of Yu-gi-oh, you're not even guaranteed to get something remotely playable, and you're spending a lot of money to boot. Compare this to Magic, where even nowadays, $4.50 can get you a pack of 11 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare (the rarest rarity in Magic). And, unlike rares in Yu-gi-oh, a lot of Magic's rares are actually playable in some form. (barring things like Mudhole)

In a second glance, however,I noticed that the packs of a couple sets, notably Pharaonic Guardian, (Pharaonic...is that even a real word? =/) were selling for only about $2.00. Jon explained that that was because most of the cards in Pharaonic were crap, and it only had about 5 good cards that would be worth getting in a pack, one being a secret rare. Jon was tempted to get a booster of Invasion of Chaos, but balked at the price. He managed to inspire me, however, to try my luck with PG packs. I thought, "it's only $2 each, it can't hurt that much to just buy a couple of packs this once." Jon does his bending trick and uses his skills to try and pick good packs for me, so eventually we decided on two of them. So after some money swapping between me and him and Alex, I got my two packs. Jon tried to get the cashier to let him buy a pack for me for only a twoonie cause he "only had two bucks," but that plan omnifailed for kinda obvious reasons heh.

So after eating, we go outside to open them, and discover that Jon's lost his touch lol. I got GARBAGE in those two packs (Pharaoh's Treasure and Wandering Mummy were my rares, in case anyone cares)...I don't think the total value of each of them were worth even more than $1.00 *sigh* stupid Yu-gi-oh...I pity the ppl that play that game kinda...it's such a rip off. I know I've ranted a bit about that already, and my opinion has grown even stronger now. The game is worse than Magic, yet it costs more to play and the odds of getting good packs are even less. Wow, talk about dumb. The ppl at Upper Deck just have to do a quick rushed translation of the Jap cards, and then they can print a new set and steal even more money from little kids. They shouldn't even be in the TCG market...good thing Yu-gi-oh will never surpass Magic, which is an original and more advanced game.(IMHO, haha)

We hung around outside the restaurant until our parents were done, and talked about school - marks needed to get into comp eng at UW, and more bashing of Yu-gi-oh. =)
A while into our discussion, Brian Chau, one of my good friends whom I haven't seen in ages, came out of the restaurant. Thus, I ended up talking to him a lot...and found out that he now works part at Top Child. So he went from student to teacher, lol. Maybe I could get a joh there soon...heh, dang those other ppl.

So now, after spending a total of $4 (well, technically $20, if you count the Suijin that I bought for Trevor as a present) on Yu-gi-oh, I'm the proud owner of a Yugi starter deck (I think), a pack of Metal Raiders, a pack of Magic Ruler, and two packs of Pharaonic Guardian. The more I buy of this game, the more I hope that it will eventually die off. But at least now I have enough cards to be able to teach ppl the game...(David) hehe. If only it was free...

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Update and Mini-d20 Modern FAQ (part 1)



So, I was planning to post this update like on last Tuesday, but that night, I got sick for the first time in a long time. I came down with a sore throat, which eventually turned into a really bad cough a couple of days later, so I wasn't able to do much most of the time. But now, one week later, I'm almost 100% healed. :) And one good thing is that now I've kinda gotten into the habit of sleeping earlier, so that I can actually wake up the next day lol. Thanks to everyone who encouraged me while I was sick.

Anyways, I've been reading a lot of d20 stuff, especially since I'm now helping Bao GM his campaign, and besides reading up on the combat rules and etc, I started reading about the different character classes, and especially the advanced classes. I was trying to decide what character I would want to play next in a campaign similar to Bao's, with no magic at all allowed. (I've always liked developing new ideas and strategies for different things; I've made up tons of Magic decks ideas in the past, but have never got to try the majority of them due to time and money constraints) Fortunately, making a d20 char doesn't cost any money, though making sure it's exactly how you like it can take a great deal of time.

I played my bodyguard for one mission, and although he is pretty cool IMHO, I wouldn't want to play him again...perhaps at a later point in time I'll bring him back. At one time in the past week, I was reading the requirements for one of the advanced classes, and I started thinking about how the book always says, "The fastest path into this advanced class is from the (insert basic class here) hero class, though other paths are possible." Of course, any character can eventually be able to take ranks in any of the advanced classes by putting skill points into cross-class skills, taking feats, and waiting till they are at a high enough level/Base attack bonus (BAB). I was more interested, however, in ways that a character of a class other than the associated basic class could be able to get into an advanced class by level four. (Ex: Making a character who takes his first 3 levels in strong, but then becomes a negotiator at level 4) The advanced classes are designed so that the earliest a character can begin leveling in them is at fourth level, and since some advancd classes only grant really good abilities at high levels, it would be in the player's best interest to start leveling in that advanced class as soon as possible. Being able to take an advanced class that's not "normal" for your basic class is also good 'cause it lets you combine different stregnths, and it would be a unique way of making a character as well. (Ex:The fastest way to become a field medic is to take 3 levels in dedicated first, but taking three levels of tough first might make a better field medic, since you can tank more and then heal your allies...)

Thus, this lead me to start researching ways to get to the advanced classes as fast as possible, without having to take any levels in the associated basic class. I've decided to post my findings here...since it'll be the easiest way to show it to everyone who would care...heh. So without further introduction, I present:





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Quick Paths to Advanced Classes: A d20 Modern FAQ

The purpose of this FAQ is to educate players on ways to get to certain advanced classes faster when not starting in the associated basic class. It also might serve to inspire people to build more interesting and different characters, in order to better mix and match their abilities.

The main barrier that prevents characters from choosing any advanced class is the skill requirements or, in the case of the strong advanced classes, the BAB requirements. Most advanced classes require 6 ranks of some skills, and unless you're playing the associated basic class, odds are that those won't be class skills for you. Though you can still put ranks into those skills, it means that you'll have to wait until level 9 to be able to fulfill the requirements for that advanced class. (since the max ranks you can have in a cross-class skill is [half your char level + 3] divded by 2.) For the strong advanced (A) classes, you could just wait until your BAB reaches +3, but that might also take a while depending on what basic levels you've been taking.

It hit me very quickly that the solution to the class skills problem might lie within the occupation you choose. Since each occupation lets you choose a couple of skills that you make as permanent class skills, a character could simply pick an occupation that allowed him to get the class skills so that he could start taking levels in the A class that he wanted as soon as possible. The only problem would be finding an appropriate occupation for each A class, and judging if the stuff you have to give up in order to take that occupation is worth it. Below, I've listed each of the advanced classes and their requirements for convenience, and also all the possible ways (besides using the associated basic class) that you can start advancing in them by level 4.

=STRONG=

Soldier:
-BAB +3
-Knowledge (tactics) 3 ranks
-Personal Firearms Proficiency

Martial Artist:
-BAB +3
-Jump 3 ranks
-Combat Martial Arts
-Defensive Martial Arts

The bad news is that only the strong basic class gets full BAB progression, so there's no way to take a strong A class by level 4, except by taking 3 straight levels in strong to start. :( But the good news is that both of these A classes only require 3 ranks in a certain skill, so you can wait till your character's BAB eventually grows high enough. Then, even if you don't have the necessary skill as a class skill, you'd only be "wasting" 3 skill points to pump it up, instead of 6.

=FAST=

Gunslinger:
-BAB +2
-Sleight of Hand 6 ranks
-Tumble 6 ranks
-Personal Firearms Proficiency

Infiltrator:
-BAB +2
-Move Silently 6 ranks
-Hide 6 ranks

Four basic classes (Strong, Fast, Tough, and Dedicated) will have +2 BAB at level 3. Unfortunately, there's no occupation that gives you both of the skills needed for the Gunslinger , so there's no quick way to become either one unless you're a fast hero. You can get tumble from athelete and sleight of hand from being a criminal, but no occupation provides both.

If you're aiming for Infiltrator though, you're in luck - a whole two occupations allow you to take both of the needed skills as class skills. Those occupations would be criminal and military. Although both of them only provide you with +1 wealth, they both offer you a nice selection of bonus feats, including personal firearms proficiency.

=TOUGH=

Daredevil:
-BAB +2
-Concentration 6 ranks
-Drive 6 ranks
-Endurance

Bodyguard:
-BAB +2
-Concentration 6 ranks
-Intimidate 6 ranks
-Personal Firearms Proficiency

Dang Wizards. Concentration is like one of the most useless skills in d20 modern (without Arcana) and they make it the only tough skill. Even worse, only Tough heroes get it as a class skill, and no occupation grants it either, so there's no way to quickly become a Daredevil or Bodyguard outside of being tough. Intimidate is also a charismatic class skill and drive is also a fast class skill, however, and besides endurance being a pretty useless feat, both of these A classes are pretty good.

=SMART=

Field Scientist:
-Craft (chemical) or Craft (electronic) 6 ranks
-Knowledge (earth and life sciences)or Knowledge (physical sciences) or Knowledge (technology) 6 ranks
-Research 6 ranks

Techie:
-Computer Use 6 ranks
-Craft (electronic) or Craft (mechanical) 6 ranks
-Disable Device 6 ranks

Now's where we start talking, heh. There aren't any occupations that grant the three skills needed to become a Techie. (There are, however, occupations that give each of those skills, especially many for computer use.) On the other hand, looking down the list of occupations, you'll eventually get down to the technician. Being a technician allows a character to choose 3 skills from the list to become permanent class skills. Among that list are Craft (chemical, electronic, mechanical, or structural), Knowlegde (business, earth and life sciences, physical sciences, or technology), and Research. Wow! What a coincidence that 6 ranks in those 3 skills are exactly what one needs to become a Field Scientist! This means that ANY character can become a Field Scientist at level 4 just by choosing the technician occupation. (That's what one of the characters I'm making is doing...being a technician to splash one level of Field Scientist in order to get Smart Defense...) The technician occupation also endows your hero with a +3 wealth bonus, which is pretty high. The only downside is that you don't get any bonus feats that way.

=DEDICATED=

Field Medic:
-BAB +2
-Spot 6 ranks
-Treat Injury 6 ranks
-Surgery

Investigator:
-BAB +2
-Investigate 6 ranks
-Listen 6 ranks
-Sense Motive 6 ranks

Dedicated is the only basic class for which both its associated A classes can be quickly accessed through other basic classes by taking the right occupation....wooohooo? Too bad both dedicated A classes aren't that good. :P Nevertheless, it is possible to make ANY strong, fast, or tough character into a Field Medic. (Charismatic and Smart chars are limited by their slow BAB progression.)How, you ask? Simple, just take the adventurer occupation. (Field Medics have to be a little adventurous, after all.) That will let you choose spot and treat injury as permanent class skills, and also give you a nifty bonus feat to boot. That feat can either be archaic weapons proficiency, brawl, or personal firearms proficiency, and thus this occupation is a good choice despite only giving a +1 wealth bonus. Saving is usually worth more than gaining a couple more wealth points.

The Investigator kinda sucks, but if you're planning on making a smart hero, you can still manage to become an Investigator by level 4 if you take the religious occupation. Investigate is a smart and dedicated class skill, so you don't have to worry about that, and being religious allows you to choose listen and sense motives as bonus class skills. It also gives you an additional bonus class skill and +2 wealth, so it's not that bad...though personally I'd rather have a bonus feat. Investigator isn't a really good class, so I doubt I'll be seeing one soon anyways, let alone a smart one.

Finally, we have:

=CHARISMATIC=

Personality:
-Diplomacy 6 ranks
-Perform (any) 6 ranks
-Renown

Negotiator:
-Bluff 6 ranks
-Diplomacy 6 ranks
-Alertness

At first, I thought that any character could become a Personality OR a Negotiator quickly simply by taking the celebrity occupation, but then I realized that the celebrity only let you choose ONE class skill out of the list, and not two. :( Oh well, no one really wants to be a Personality anyways lol. Renown isn't really that useful, unless you have the frightful presence feat. Being a Negotiator, however, is a lot easier, one just has to take the entrepreneur occupation, allowing you access to bluff and diplomacy as permanent class skills. That course of action also gives you a reputation bonus of +1 and a hefty wealth bonus of +4. Not bad. The alertness feat also can help in certain situations, granting +2 on all listen and spot checks. Therefore, literally ANY character can become a Negotiator by level 4.

So there you have it, all the quick paths to the 12 advanced classes presented in chapter 6 of the d20 Modern core rulebook. I could do the psionic, shadow chaser, and other Arcana classes, but I think most people would be able to get the idea themsevles from this FAQ. If I've missed any paths or you think I've made an error, please leave a comment or let me know through some other means. Later on, I'll post a couple of sample unique characters that I've made using the knowledge from this FAQ, and I think they're pretty good, at least in combat. Like a 3rd level fast 1st level Field Scientist hero with a Barrett Light Fifty..hehe. Hope this FAQ has been of some use to you, or at least been entertaining.

-Alan Yu

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Sunday, May 23, 2004

Short lil (Long)Update


Hmm...what to say, what to say? Fellowship yesterday was amazing. It was more fun than I thought running around Food Basics and buying stuff for underpriveledged families. Even though we massively underestimated how much all of our stuff would cost and ended up spending about 24 bucks more than we should've, it was all for a good cause. Afterwards, went out to Chat and Tea House again, after a long wait. There was the Noah's Ark skit practice and stuff going on, so we didn't actually get theere until like...late 10 o'clock? Anyways, this time, the Alex brothers came along, after being invited me and Andrew...I think we may have frustrated them by making them wait so long though...whoops.

So I was one of the first ppl there and I ordered a weird flavour of bubble tea - Barley Embryo. I remembered that it tasted good the first time I tried it, and it still did, so I suggest for everyone to try if possible haha. And the bubble tea is really cheap there too, it's only $2.00 for a small. Some ppl played some Double Dash again, and then later I played some Melee with Alex Chan; unfortunately ppl had to leave soon afterwards so we only got in a few games. At first, he was like "I don't want to play smash, I have it at home...it's good, but it got old so fast." So I assumed he was pretty good at the game or something. When we started playing, however, he was like "I think I was good with Link...or wait, maybe Mario," then later on, "Oh, how do you do a smash attack again?" :)
Thus, I attempted to teach him the basics of how to play, and I think I succeeded somewhat, at least he knows how to smash and charge smashes now. He SD'ed like a million times though...heh, but hopefully with practice, he'll get better, and then I'll finally have someone to play against lol. It's pretty fun to teach him, too. Got home at around 1:35 am, and parents were kinda mad at me, 'cause I forgot to call.

Today, I went to Bao's house for my first time co-GMing...and what happened was:
1) Settlers of Catan with me, Duy, and Jason (newbie) For once, I wasn't the first one there haha. The ending was a sweet race to the finish, and everyone knew Jason was going to win, so me and Duy had to risk development cards to try and steal the win from him. In the end, Duy's card wasn't what he needed, but mine netted me a Market for my final victory point and the win. It was really close though; find scores were Alan 10, Jason 9, and Duy 9.

2) d20 with Bao's summer campaign, mission 2. It was alright...got kinda confused on the vehicle combat rules at first, but thanks to Wen's cool idea of how to work things, the battle went much more smoother than it probably would've if we just did the traditional way. Thanks sir. In the end, Bao barely had to use any of his chase map, and the group (or rather, Raymond) managed to capture one of the female members of the Mask Gang - Cindy, even though whether she can really provide them with any useful info remains to be seen. The other, non-combat part of the mission was pretty cool as well (You missed out, David, we could've used your diplomacy and etc!) The only twist that me and Bao didn't forsee was the PC's going after Howard Leder and not letting him escape; we didn't expect Duffman (Raymond's char) to chase after him offering him Duff beer and the tasering the driver of the taxi that he was in. :P Anyways, it was getting late, so we decided to end the mission early, and have the music part in mission 3 (which is good, so that David can participate in it too, heh) Ordered more pizza, and at least it wasn't as beastly expensive as last time, even though going out probably might have been more fun. Oh well, it should be interesting going to Ricky's place for the next game...

3)More Settlers, this time there was Wen/David as a tean, Bao, Duy, and Ricky, while I was the banker. (or, as David put it, God lol) I won't bother going into the details of this game, and Bao has pics and stuff of it anyways, but suffice it to say that Bao came back from what I thought was the worst starting position out of everyone, and managed to from where ppl and win the game. He wanted to make things more interesting, though, so he revealed his hand, and just like with Jason in the previous game, everyone conspired to keep him from winning, by stealing his longest road. In the end, Duy managed to get "second" place. Unfortunately for Wen/David and me...our machine gun brick king strategy didn't really work out lol.

This quote, which I really liked, was said about halfway into the game:

Wen/David had been at odds with Ricky starting from the beginning of the game, with both of them racing to build in the same area and using the robber to ninja each other. So, after they had both even the score and had a kind of truce going, Ricky rolls a 7 a suddenly plops the robber down on one of Wen/David's hexes (either 6 brick or 10 wood, can't remember). In response to this: (as best as I can remember)

David: What was that? I thought we were even, that was like an unprovoked attack. Grrr...you are so going down Ricky!
Wen: Yeah, come on, we weren't attacking you anymore. Why are you going after us again?
David: Unless he's being like Bush, who thnks that it's better to attack them so that can't attack us in the first place. (referring to the recent Iraq war)

I dunno why, but I found that quote really funny. Of course, I'm mostly paraphrasing what they both said tonight, but it was kind of a "from where?!" moment. I wasn't expecting anyone to be able to link a game of Settlers to President Bush's foreign policy lol. Even though a lot of the things that Bush has done/said are pretty funny... :)

4)My VCD does work...kidna...yay!

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

What a way to end the day


Well, the 6 player Settlers game was really fun. It went on for a long time though, longer than expected, but eventually Andy was crowned king of Catan. Then Wen was in second, and me and Duy were tied for third, while Bao and David were tied for fifth. I really think we should play another big game of Settlers one day, it's really different from playing with just 4 ppl.

I also had a really great weekend, congrats to all the newborn ppl! :)

Anyways, I'm finally getting off my lazy butt and being productive somewhat nowadays. And also something really cool was tonight's JOY action group meeting. I didn't really know what to expect, I figured it'd be just like a WAY committee meeting, and then I'd go home with my parents who were at the church doing Tai Chi. Meeting was supposed to start at 7:30, I get to church at 7:30 and the only other ppl there were Sarah Kee, Alan Liu, Bryan, and this other girl. We listened to Alan talk about his dreams for the fellowship and stuff for a bit, then we broke off into our teams. I was the communications guy, so I got lumped in with the small group ppl - and then only ppl who were there were Betty and Rebecca Mok. We started planning and discussing stuff for a while, then eventually Bryan joined us and we hit on some really good ideas. At about 9:45, we ended our group meeting and went off to find the other groups and see how they were doing.

Later on, everyone else left, even the Tai Chi ppl and the deacons who were at the deacon meeting, and it was just me, Andrew, Sarah, Betty, and Bryan talking in a classroom in the WAY room. There was really good fellowshipping and discussion that went on that room, and we talked about a lot of areas. I felt really glad to be able to be in this talk with them, I hadn't had one of these kinda talks in a long time. Maybe about an hour later or so, we were pretty tired but still wanted to keep going, but we basically had to leave the church, so we went over to Timmy's/Wendy's and kept on talking there until around midnight. It was really enlightening and revealing being able to talk about that kinda stuff with them, even though I was never was really close Bryan or Sarah. I wouldn't have missed this for almost anything, not even CSI:Miami haha. Anyways, after getting a ride from Andrew (again), I arrived home to find both my parents asleep downstairs, with most of the lights still on and stuff...heh.

Whoa, I actually did write a lot about that meeting, though I wasn't really planning too. I had just wanted to post this up, since I hadn't been updating for a while. ->

Some funny quotes from a Glen Forest physics teacher, which were brought up by Betty and Sarah:
"This is relative velocity - there are two cars on the highway. One is stationary, and the other is travelling at 100 km/h. When the two cars get right beside each other, they're travelling at the same speed."

"You know what you guys, the reason you ask so many questions is because you don't ask enough questions!"
- Mrs. Christenson

Saturday, May 15, 2004

My new job as a gardener



The main events of yesterday involved me taking a surprise offer from Bao and deciding to take the bus to his house for the first time. It was super hot while walking around, and I missed his house the first time I walked past it 'cause a bunch of ppl were painting it and I thought it wasn't the right house! Luckily I had a bottle of water with me or I would've died of thirst.

Anyways, when I got there, it seems Duy had just woken up from a nap of some sort, and we began talking about Roy. (as in, the guy that can Blazer) apparently, Duy had been doing some testing, and found that his Blazer can kill a lot of characters easily in one hit, even if they're at 0% damage. This is especially true on stages with low ceilings like Yoshi's Island. So, after seing Bao fool around a bit while playing Burnout, we decided to play SSBM. Then Isaque came over. Eventually, I got to see effects of Blazer on light characters firsthand, as in one game, Bao was Roy, I was Mr. Game and Watch, and Duy and Isaque were playing other chars. We were playing on the aforementioned island, and I had 2 deaths at 0%, from being Blazered while I was standing on the lowest part of the stage. I also got Blazered to death a third time while I jumping near the yellow blocks. Man, that move is so omni there! Unfortunately for Bao though, the law of free-for-alls still held, and Roy didn't win.

After eating a super expensive meal of pizza, I went to watch the episodes of Full Metal Alchemists that came out after I finished school, namely 29-31. All I have to say about those were that they were GOOD. I won't say anything about the plot since it'd be too hard to explain, but basically those episodes exceeded my expectations. I thought that after 20 something episodes, the series mighit start getting boring or going downhill, but I was wrong. The series kept up with its awesome character development events, and the ending of ep. 31 made both me and Bao really want to see the next episode. Due to outsider interference though, that won't be happening until like 2006. =/

Next up was our game of Settlers. Isaque hadn't played before, but it was really easy to teach him the ropes. I was red, like usual, and third in line to place starting settlements, and I chose a spot with good ore. Duy went last, and then I looked and saw another good ore place really close to my first one, so I decided to become the 'ore king' and take that spot as well. As I said, I eventually got lucky and managed to use both an ore harbour and a 3:1 harbour to my advantage to win. Surprisingly, hardly any 8's were rolled in this game, only at most 4 development cards were ever purchased, and 2 ppl happened to roll a 2 on the same round after I had soldiered the robber onto Isaque's sheep hex. It's weird how these probabilities work out sometime. For info, see http://www.baomon.com/catan/set-may13.jpg
or visit Bao's Blog and see his post about yesterday.

Got home at around 11:30 that night, and still had a lot of stuff to do, but was too tired to do any of it. So I went to go sleepy sleepy a bit early than I usually do these days.

=============================================================================================================

Unfortunately, didn't get to wake up earlier this morning, but it's alright since I still got to do everything that I needed to do before leaving. I had to dress in Gardener's clothes and find a tool to use as a prop, since I was recruited by Theresa to play a suspect in our game of Clue or "Pastor Sharon Murdered." I was scared that I wouldn't be able to find anything, but when I went outside to my backyard (which like hasn't been touched in ages) and looked where the tools are usually kept, I found one single spade, which was good enough after a bit of cleaning. Then had to talk to Andrew to figure how I was going to get to fellowship in the first place, but for some reason the connection was really bad and we couldn't really talk well. Fortunately, we still managed to get to church (almost) on time after making a pit stop at Dixie Park, another place which I haven't been too in a really long time. And for once, I actually ordered something other than a Spaghetti with Meat Sauce. (memories of Timeless, UW ppl?) While on the ride there, I also got try out some really sweet carrot cake (thanks Auntie and Andrew!).

Anyways, the turnout at both WAY and JOY was pretty small, so I was worried that the game wouldn't really go well. When the suspects first lined up in front of everyone, everyone was saying "Alan did it, he's the only one with a weapon!" haha. Actually, the game turned out okay, though everyone cheated by asking each suspect like 10 questions at time, while they were supposed to ask one question, and then go visit someone else before they came back. Andrew pointed out though, that if they did that, then the game would've taken much longer, even for teams of 3 like we had, to finish. I think I might've forgotten something and given one group wrong info by accident too, heh.
So the murdered turned out to be Cecilia, who killed Pastor Sharon with the drumsticks in...some room which I forgot. Everyone got the right answer except for a team of two ppl...hmmm...oh well. After that game, we tried to play this weird game in teams of 8, where each team member has a word of a sentence taped to their back, and teams have to always hold hands and run around outside, trying to read the sentences of the 3 other teams while not letting their sentences be read. That was messed up, didn't really go that well, since it was dark, and many teams just stuck to staying against the walls. Later, Theresa ruled that we couldn't stay against walls, but ppl still did anyways, and no one was able to get anyone else's message. Our team came really close though. We also had used some of the suspect id tags from the previous game and stuck them on to some of word tags, to try and confuse other teams lol.
The duck files at quarter after midnight! :)

Once the games were done, it was basicallly a free time of fellowship, which was good, since we spent a lot of time talking and getting to know ppl more. Me and Andrew and Di got to meet this guy named Alex who was on our team for the second game, and we talked for a fair bit. Eventually, some ppl from WAY joined us too, and I found out that the cop who was supposed to speak to them sprained his ankle and couldn't come, so according to Huston "me and Hubert did a song and dance." haha. During the day, we also tried to figure out why Di gets called "diane" so much instead of "diana". My theory was that ppl are lazy and don't want to pronounce the extra syllable, so that's the first version of the name that comes to mind...

I had wanted to go back to Chat and Tea House tonight to play so more SSBM or Soul Calibur 2, but unfortunately not many ppl were at church and so no one wanted to do anything. Alex and the three of us ended up being some of the last ppl to leave,and so we ended up going into the sanctuary so that Alex could play on the grand piano. He's pretty good, gr. 10 piano while in gr. 9 high school. I got back home, and managed to catch about the last 15 mins of another episdoe of CSI:LV that Bao told me about on the Spike Channel. It was good, now I feel even more sorry for stupid kids who end up getting hurt 'cause they were playing Russian Roulette. (though it is pretty fun with a Roy and 2 Marios ;) )
And now I'm here, typing up these two posts and not really feeling that tired.
The only bad thing about today was that I had a really good oppourtunity this afternoon, but I ended up not taking 'cause I was feeling really hot and not that in the mood for it. But there'll be plenty of other chances, and it's not that bad anymore.

And that's the start of my weekend. Later on though, I feel like writing more posts with a point or interesting topic in them, not just "this is my day and what I did in it." That's getting kinda...really routine sometimes...heh.

Tomorrow: Ultimate 6 player Settlers showdown!

Thursday, May 13, 2004

I am the ore king! hehe...I just got lucky. Next time, it'll be someone else's turn to win. But hopefully, next time we'll be playing in a 6 player game. ;)
Was going to post more tonight, but feeling really tired at the moment, so I guess I'll sleep early for a change and do two posts tomolo..heh. For now, see here for more details. http://www.baomon.com/catan/set-may13.jpg

Another day goes by...



Well, was planning to go to look for job oppourtunities today, but woke up late, really late...at about 1 pm, and so that didn't happen. Guess I'll try again tomolo. Spent most of my day doing miscellaneous chores around the house and more reading. I'm like 3/4's of the way done all the dnd modules that are on the wizard's site now, they're still pretty interesting, though some of them are done stupidly and thus beastly long when they don't need to be. Bao, if you're ever stuck on ideas for your campaign, I could probably easily suggest to you some modules that would be easily adaptable into d20 modern. Though from the looks of what you sent me, you have enough ideas to last you a LONG time...hehe.

At one point during the day, I was just browsing around, and I found something that reminded me of Yugioh. Now, back when all the little kids were into it, I used to play it with Jon and his bros and Trevor, using their decks. It's got nothing on Magic, but I wasn't paying any money for it, and it still was fun, so I learned how to play and got to know the game somewhat. Now that I'm back at home and have a TV again, I started watching the show 'cause I usually have nothing else to do at that time, and after my trip to Untouchables on the weekend with the Tings, I kinda got interested in the game again. So I eventually went over to pojo and started browsing through the spoliers of all the sets that came out after I stopped "playing" Yugioh. (basically the beginning of second year) Some of the new cards are crazy...the power level is going up waay too fast...too many monsters now have 1900 attack for four stars, whereas before there was only one. (basically, in Magic terms, that would be equivalent to each colour getting their own versions of Savannah Lions, a 2/1 creature for W) I predict that eventually, beatdown decks will become omni powerful and own everything else in that game, unless they start making overpowered control cards too.

They've also continued the trend of having really stupid/bad names on their cards. Although it may just be due to bad translation, I don't see why it would be so hard just to proofread their card names in each set. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't feel very powerful when I control a monster named "People Running About" or "Outstanding Dog Marron" or "The Thing in the Crater". Nor do I feel really cool when I get to play cards called "Really Eternal Rest" or "Trap of Board Eraser" or "Thunder of Ruler" or "Autonomous Action Unit". I think you get the point...there are other better examples, but I've forgotten them for now. Some of the cards also have pretty humourous flavour text that I'm pretty sure wasn't intentional. For example, the flavour text of the card "Mad Dog of Darkness" reads: He used to be a normal dog who played around in a park, but was corrupted by the powers of darkness. I thought that a really cheesy way to describe this card, though it was a really good card game-wise. (Dark Beast, 4 stars, 1900 attack, 1400 defense) I had that quote on my MSN name for a while, and then at one point Howard asks me, "Are you talking about Bobo?" (David Chiou's Dog)That was really funny, 'cause first I thought he said, "Are you talking about Bobobo bobobobo...?" (The name of a really weird and comical Anime that Bao really likes) and I was thinking "whoa, he's heard of Bobobo too!?" And then I just imagined Bobo, that small little guy, as a 'Mad Dog of Darkness' and I laughed even more. :)
David, just thought you might like to know, I was going to tell you about this directly, but figured I'd just post it here. There's a card called Silpheed.

IOC-022
Silpheed
Wind
Fairy/4/1700/700
This card can only be Special Summoned by removing 1 WIND monster in your Graveyard from play. When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard as a result of battle, your opponent discards 1 card randomly from his/her hand.

and here's a link to a pic of it:
http://www.pojo.com/yu-gi-oh/cotd/2004May/06S.shtml

Later on at night, watched this AE documentary called Troy: Behind the Blockbuster, or something like that. It retold this historical account of the Battle of Troy, and had the actors from the movie commenting on the reenactments; it also had amazing CG effects. :) The focus throughout the whole thing was on Helen of Troy, whether she really existed or not, and whether or not she was to blame for the whole Trojan War and the start of the decline of the Greeks. It was pretty interesting...anyone wanna see the movie later? heh, love 'war' movies

So yeah...didn't really accomplish much today, nor this week for that matter. But today was cool, got to talk a bit with my parents, without getting into any real arguments or fights about anything. And it might not be true, but I feel like I've changed a bit after 2B...I dunno, but things suddenly started seeming a bit different this week, today espeically. It's a good change, too.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

whoops, double post...

Continuing from yesterday...



Since nothing really interesting happened today, (besides getting hooked on reading DND modules and reading like 5 in one day), I figure I'd write about the two things I said I'd talk about yesterday, and also mention a couple of other things as well. I said I'd start writing again when I woke up, but oversleeping for a long time (past noon) doesn't really make you feel good, right?

Anyways, Gunslinger Girl 12 and 13 - what a beautiful way to end the series. Episode 12 was a thrilling climax of massive action, involving heavily armed terrorists and a risky plan to use one of the gitais as decoy to foil their kidnapping attempt. There is also a strange kinda plot twist near the middle of the episode, involving the 'bad' guys. And Angelica was kinda stupid during the mission...she was the one that asked to get put on the mission in the first place too...

Anyone know where this quote comes from? Claes says it during the episode.
"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain."
At first, I thought it might be a Bible quote, but I searched online for it, and nothing came up, so now I'm stuck. =/

In episdoe 13, no real action happened, but there were a lot of dramatic and emotional moments. All/most of the girls were together during most of the episode, which was cool 'cause that hardly ever happens. There also is a great deal of character development, not just with Henrietta, but also the other girls and their trainers as well. And we get to see a cool astronomical event. :) Lastly, there's a really sad ending to the episode...can't really say too much or I'd be spoiling it, but I should've seen it coming, given the aura of sadness that was prevalent throughout most of the series. At least they left lots of possible room for a sequel, though.

About CSI:M. Bao already has posted a lot of stuff about it, and for the most part, I agree with his opinions. The second episode of yesterday was better than the first. The second two cases had a lot of twists and turns, while the first one was just kinda odd...with Federal Marshalls getting involved and whatnot. And I never even knew that those baby microphone things that the bad guy who killed Gina used even existed. All in all, I'd say I like CSI:LV more, though mainly 'cause of the characters. As I keep watching more of Miami, however, I think I might actually get to know its characters better and like them more, even though there are less of them. Horatio does seem to be pretty smart and cool, and the Caucasian female investigator seems to have an interesting past. Miami is a differnet kinda show, there's more character development in the episodes, whereas Las Vegas is almost totally centred around solving the cases. (at least in the eps I've seen.) And once CSI:New York comes out, I'll have 3 CSI shows to watch. Looking forward to it. :)

And now, for two things involving Bao, haha. So I just read recently that he got the 5-6 player expansion for Settlers. Way to go! Now we can try it next week for sure...hehe...as long as this d20 game finishes a bit earlier this time. Speaking of the d20 games, I guess I'm now officially dropping out as a player and joining Bao as assitant GM since he sent me his story outline for the next few missions. It sounds really...interesting lol. Many many different plot threads...and some cool references for those that know Bao really well. Okay, I'll stop saying stuff in case I give too much away. The thing is though, for the last campaign, when I was gming that one time, I actually had more fun than when I was playing...hmmm...

BOOO!!! to Funanimation, they just licensed Full Metal Alchemist...so now we'll have to wait "2 years" until we can see the rest of it. (past ep. 31)

I told Cecilia that I'd help her plan games for the JOY Fellowship, but I thought that they games would be taking place next next Friday, after the grocery run, and not this Friday. So now I might not be able to help them as much...Baptism is this Sunday too...though I don't really know any of the ppl who are getting dunked really well, I'll still be going.

Well...if anyone can help me think of some interesting ice breaker games, that can be played within a group of about 30 ppl with little or no props, then please tell me! And thanks!

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Power Node Linking Complete



The inspiration for the title of this entry comes from the fact that I just found the blog of an old friend - Sina. I found it through a link on some stranger's blog, which I decided to randomly browse from a link on Lowry's blog, which I found from a link on Ambrose's blog, which I found from...wait, never mind. Wow, never knew so many ppl had one of these things.

Anyways, I was going to blog about two significant things that happened to me today, and maybe more too. The two things were watching two episodes of CSI:Miami and polishing off the last two episodes of Gunslinger girls. (Both things were amazing) But, just as I sat down to blog, my stomach decided to ninja and started causing me great pain, so I had to run to the washroom. Dunno what happened, but I feel a bit better now. But now it's really late, and I really need to sleep so posting now wouldn't be giving those two topics justice. Post to be continued tomolo, when I wake up.

Until then, since I don't think anyone else is going to try the challenges, (Duy doesn't read blogs, and I know Jon doesn't anymore either, and Jeff is probably busy) I'm going to just put up the answers :P

1) Dun Dun Dun, Dah Dah Dun Dun Dun Dun! actually is my attempt to type out what the first few beats of the Melee menu theme would sound like. (The main one.) For some reason, I really started liking that track a while ago, and I got Duy to send it to me, and I still listen to it from time to time. Eventually, it got to a point that I would just refer to game by humming those first few beats whenever talking to ppl; it started with Jeff,and then I started using it with Duy and the rest of the Waterloo ppl too. The funny thing is that one day, I was at Jeff's house, and we were both talking to Vicky on MSN. Later on, we wanted to play some Melee, so I said to her, "Well, me and Jeff are going to play some Dun Dun Dun, Dah Dah Dun Dun Dun Dun! now, ttyl!" (or something like that)...and she actually understood us! hahaha...that was really unexpected. Her explanation for it was, "Well, yeah, what other games do you guys play!?" I guess she does have a point there though...

2) "A good thing to do is to use the forward B, to make them flinch, and then you do the up B and 'hiya!' and they get blasted to another dimension!!"

-Stephen Ting, said in the back of the car on the way to the mall, while talking about SSBM, obviously. More specifically, though no one really guessed this, what he was describing was one of his favourite strategies with Link. He described a bunch of battles that took place when one of his mom's friends stayed over at his house for a few days, and she brought her kids too. He was playing Melee against one of them, and was owning Kirby with Link. So, his plan was to forward B and hit them with the boomerang, when they get in a bit close, to stun them. Then, doing the up and B for spinstrike (Shyat!! or as he calls it "hiya!") would send them off "to another dimension" if they were at high enough damage. (In the words of Duy, they'd be "Spinning Door'd!"...knocked diagonally downwards.)

Wow, now that I think of it, these challenges were pretty weird...I still feel like doing more of them in the future, though.

Monday, May 10, 2004

Three Tings, Two Challenges, and One Omnifish



Today...after church...had to drive Jon Ting and his two brothers home, since their mom was busy working for this Mother's Day. Anyways, it was pretty cool: went back to that Chinese Restaurant with the AAA Supermarket beside it (Kingsley) to try and yum cha, but discovered that it was too crowded, and decided to go to The Wokker, which was near the church, instead. So we ended up driving in a really big and convoluted loop - the food was good though. Afterwards, parents decided to go to Central Parkway Mall. so of course the Jon jumped at the chance to be able to go Untouchables again, and all the rest of the kids ended up going with him. I looked at Magic stuff with his bros, while he tried to shark little kids who played Yugioh...

a while later, he decided to go down to the tournament room, which was by the Kumon place, so I followed him down since I'd never seen it before. Stephen and Matthew came along too, and always complained of dying of heat; understandable, since the room was pretty poorly ventilated, and they were wearing sweatshirts. I was watching a few of the kids play Yugioh matches against one another, and the tournament seemed to be very loosely organized, and some of the kids didn't really seem to know what they were doing. (Ex: Guy A has 2 monsters in play, Guy B has one. Guy A tries to Snatch Steal B's monster, but gets stopped by a Mystical Space Typhoon. Guy A then thinks things over for a bit, and decides to play Dark Hole, thus losing 3 cards while B only loses one - effectively giving B an Ancestral Recall. Dunno for sure, but something like that is usually a really bad move to do...) Also, Jon was watching ppl's matches, trying to get them to trade, and he was correcting some ppl a lot, especially this table of two white kids near the end of the time while we were there. He also was trying to get one of those kids to trade him his Chaos Emporer Dragon; Jon wanted it badly, and the kid said that he'd think about it after the game or something, but the kid ninjaed him and just said "I'm not trading it," after the game was over.

While we were waiting for Jon to come back up, the rest of us got money from my parents and went to go by drinks...eventually, we settled for getting bottles of pop from Shopper's Drug Mart, but were held up by an old man in front of us who was mad at the clerk 'cause he didn't notice that the man had give him a cupon. "I gave you that cupon!" x ten times. When we got back, my mom was like "you were smart for buying the drinks from there," but I had no idea why.

I would describe the d20n game more in detail, but since most ppl who would really care a lot were there or can easily get that info from other sources, I've decided not to write anything about it yet. I just hope that this week will be more productive than the last, and things will actually get resolved this week. Though, am learning the reasons behind somethings now...

Quote of the Day:
"A good thing to do is to use the forward B, to make them flinch, and then you do the up B and 'hiya!' and they get blasted to another dimension!!"

-Stephen Ting, said in the back of the car on the way to the mall

The challenges:
(3 points to anyone who can figure out what he was talking about then, or the challenge from my Saturday post :P)




Sunday, May 09, 2004

Massive Combat Session



What happened today?
1) First d20 game with Bao's campaign, lots of rocket launchering and killing and massive combat, was kinda too easy and unwieldy, the non combat characters didn't really do anything...Jason had to drop out of the whole thing, so only I, Ricky, Ambrose, Raymond, David ,and Wen came, and then David decided that he didn't really like the game :(
More on this later.
2) Afterwards, I played another game of Settlers of Catan with Bao, David, and Brose. Bao went for a wheat harbour and a settlement in the middle of 3 wheat hexes, but everyone else ended up closing him off and ninjaing him. Before I had to go, the rest of us were pretty even - Duy/David had 8 victory points, while me and Brose both had 7. But Brose still had like 3 development cards (he already had largest army and had played 2 other cards) and Duy was in a good position with longest road, and also a lot of resources. I got to go first and had many good brick producing places, 3 cities, and a brick harbour, but at one point late in the game, I got robbered 3 times in a row, and the robber was like always on one of my hexes. =/ Oh wells...I'm pretty sure that etiher Duy or Choy was going to win that game...I'll have to ask them what happened later. Settlers is a really fun game...we gotta get the expansion someday....

This day was filled with massive gameage, which is okay once in a while...heh. This weekend has been going great so far. Hopefully tomorrow won't be awkward.

Saturday, May 08, 2004

Dun Dun Dun, Dah Dah Dun Dun Dun Dun!



(hmmm...wonder if anyone will get where that title comes from....)

Not much stuff really happened today, until the night...

-I got my printer fixed, and new ink cartridge too, yay!

-turns out that the sign at Meadowvale TC that I thought said "Extreme Pho" actually said "Extreme Pita" with the ita in Pita being arranged to look it the word Pho instead. Found out when mom bought some pitas back from there for dinner

-was going to finish off Gunslinger Girls today, but only made it through one ep 'cause I kept on getting distracted...the series just keeps getting better...poor gitai though

-Andrew offered me a ride, but I declined his offer...feel kinda bad sometimes when he has to go so far out of his way to get me

-Fellowship was WAY/JOY games night...lead by Silas, Sam, Amie, Betty, and Andrew kinda...a man, what a night it was! That was soooo fun!! Even though most of the games we played were really childish and kinda weird lol :) Props go to the organizers, Andrew for asking me "are you Season" during the first game, Trevor for being a robot (ask him about his Theory 6 shirt) and everyone else for coming and making it a blast.

-afterwards, had an interesting meeting for ppl who wanted to help out with JOY during the summer, led by Alan Liu. The handout he gave out says "Will you commit to making JOY fellowship a verb, not just a noun?" At that, I was like HAHAHAHAA!!!!! in my head, but couldn't really laugh that hard in front of all those ppl. Alan noticed that I found the "wording of the statement" funny, while he was talking to us. The reason it was so funny? Well, first of all, that statement kinda doesn't really make sense,and also that's what me and a lot of friends from Waterloo have been doing recently - making nouns into verbs....ex: Arrowed! Beasted! Jack Sparrow'd! Ninjaed! and now....JOY Fellowshipped! LOL :P

-decided to probably help out in communications, since that's what I did for WAY committee in my OAC year, and also decided to help out C Mok with the grocery run in two weeks, since I don't have much to do right now, and I love planning indoor/not really active games for ppl to play

-congratulated Jeff on his first guitar accessory tutorial, but it was really hard for him to hear me due to all of the music and noise in the bg

-while hanging out with ppl after the night ended, found Jane Wang's puffer on the piano. Since her and Wilfred and Jon and etc had already left for Dixie Park, that meant that I had to go over there and give it to her. Which was perfect for me, since I wanted to go there and hang out anyways, and so it gave me an even better excuse to go this time. It was also perfect how they finally decided to go to Dixie Park, after all the confusion, and perfect how Jon phoned me from there, so I knew where they were. My mom was at church for a cell group leader's meeting, so she was able to drive me home afterwards. And I didn't have any cash on me, and they didn't take any cards, so I was asking around to borrow money from ppl. Later on, I found a Chat and Tea house card in my wallet, with only one more stamp out of eight to go. Thanks to Jon, I got Arthur to get my card stamped, and thus ended up with a free large drink - finally after having that card for like two years! God always provides ;)

*** The Coolest Thing of All (well kinda...if your name is DB or Brose haha) ***
-so I hadn't been to Chat and Tea House in Dixie Park for a long time...and when I first got in...I was like...whoa...where'd all this extra space in the back come from? Cause the only ppl there were MCBC ppl, and I looked near the rear where there were supposed to be tables and stuff, but there was only like empty space...and a tv...on close inspection, I walked to the back and saw that they were indeed playing Mario Kart Double Dash (2 players) on a PLATINUM Gamecue . Jon had told me that he was playing Double Dash the first time he called me, and I was like "from where!? they have a gamecube there now??" That's soooo awesome!! After a while, I found that they actually did have four controllers hidden away in a bag with games...and that bag also contained SUPER SMASH BROS MELEE! I was like "yes!" 'cause I was really hoping that they would have it, and it makes sense for them to have it too, since it is the ultmate party game. They also had a cool looking platinum controller.

So I got them to switch from playing Double Dash for a while, and me, Trevor, a computer player and this other guy Marco (I think...sry, forgot your name...) played a couple games. Nothing really exciting happened during those games; I won the first one with Marth by default when Trevor's Samus had wrong move syndrome and kept missiling while falling off Yoshi's Story. Other people were getting bored with Samus and wanted to get back to DD - "only pros can play Smash well." - Arthur Lui. Thus, we played only one more game after that one, which was on Venom. This game wasn't as close, after many SD's, I barely beat the comp with Captain Falcon. During both games, Marco kept playing as Yoshi, and he would away from the battle and cower somewhere, and hold shield. When someone found him, he'd yell out something like, "Wah, gum yeung doe bay nay geen doe ah?!" (Whoa, I was hiding like this and you still saw me?!) This kept happening over and over again, with many ppl getting free hits on him. The times where no one bothered to go after him, he eventually got shield stupidity 'cause his shield broke from holding it too long. =/ I'm not sure he knew what he was doing...but he seemed to be having nonetheless.

Bao and Duy and Brose and etc, if you ever read this, we've got to go down there one day and play while drinking bubble tea lol. Makes me wish that more of my school friends would come to fellowship with me haha...well, Ambrose might, and so might Jason nowadays...probably would be hard to get David or the Waterloo Bros or anyone else to come though. Oh well...it still was basically the highlight of my day...I can see myself going there a lot after fellowship/church maybe. :)

*** End Coolest Thing of All ***

So all in all, a really good day. Sarah Sparrow asked me how Awake went, but I couldn't tell her 'cause I didn't go. Everything's fine and dandy, as she would say...well, almost everything....but yeah, long day of d20 tomolo...should go sleep now. nights all!

Thursday, May 06, 2004

It's starting to become a habit again...



Oks, it's time for daily blog update. :P
Like the title implies, I'm kinda starting to blog regularly again, since it's summer and I dont' really have that much things holding me back....and some of my friends keep telling me to update...so also partially due to their encouragement, I'm blogging again. :)

Didn't really do anything special today...just looking forward to fellowship (combined JOY and WAY program, come Jason!) and d20 game over the weekend, and possibly getting a job soon. Watched more of Gunslinger Girl - man, that anime is still amazing...I'm kinda disappointed the only made it so short though. I have 3 more eps to go. Go Henrietta!

Also saw another ep of CSI today, it was a new one too. Cool stuff about a sabatoged roller coaster flying off the tracks and hitting a car, causing a dead body to fly out of the trunk. At the beginning of the episode, some kid was fooling around and decided to take off his seatbelt on the coaster, and I was like "he's sooo going to die," but he ended up living. It was the ppl on the next ride that died. And also, there was a story about how some single woman killed her 13 year old daughter because she thought the girl was trying to steal her boyfriend away from her. That was crazy...the mom was saying stuff like "I give you everything, and this is how you repay me?!" and yelling various insults at her daughter...reminds me of some other families...I know :(

favourite quotes from this episode:
=========================
Warrick (to woman's boyfriend): sir, can I have a word with you outside please?
Boyfriend: Why?
Warrick: Why not?

*later on*
Warrick: May I take a look inside your truck?
Boyfriend: Don't you need a warrant or something for that?
Warrick: Only if you deny me access.
Boyfriend: Okay...go ahead...
touche

========================

During commercial breaks, I saw a commercial that made me laugh out loud. It was this...car/tourism commercial, I think. And they were trying to promote tourism in Canada, and telling ppl to "drive it." The first bit that I found funny was that at one point, the speaker says, "From the East coast to the praries..." while talking about driving across Canada, and I'm like...what the, Canada doesn't end at the praries, you bakas. Then, at the end of the whole thing, their punch line was something like, "Drive Canada, the best country in the world!" Now that's a massively biased statement if I ever heard one! Considering that these people don't even have a good knowledge of Canada's geography, I hardly think they'd be qualified judges of whether or not it's the best country in the world. Like, for peacekeeping? Maybe we are the best. But in terms of military or economic strength, or something my cousin would love - street racing? No way. Funny commercials.

Last thing I saw on TV that I feel like mentioning, is an episode of Battlefield Investigators (on the History channel!) that talked all about how and why Napoloen failed at Waterloo. I've always been a way history buff, and I learned quite a few new things about that incident tonight. I now know what "canister shot" is. Interesting to note that back then, Napoleon's French artillery had cannons that were considered "the mother of all weapons" while nowadays, that honour would probably go to the hydrogen bomb. Or, in the case of C&C Generals, the Chinese Nuke Cannon. :P

I've also developed another habit...after running the d20 module Blood Sugar a while back, I've started to like the way each module tells kind of a mini-story. Thus, after finding out about the d20 modules and reading all of them, I started reading the normal DnD modules too. I recently started going through them alphabetically, reading at least one a day, and I'm on D now. Most of them are done pretty well, and some of them look like they could be adapted to fit a modern campaign pretty easily. Just wish that modern had all of the spells that Dnd had.

One last thing before I go....I just wanna wish a timely Happy Birthday! to my sis. Hope you had a good day...where ever you are... :)

Chinese Supermarkets are weird.



Today, I had the oppourtunity to visit a chinese supermarket somewhere in Brampton. But first, a small side story. Why was I there? The answer is that it was in the same plaza as this restaurant that my family was having an early Mother's Day dinner in. (it was Kingsley Chinese Restaurant, it sucks, don't bother trying it lol.) Anyways, in an economical move, my mom decided that we should have my cousins family give us a ride there, to save gas. So they get to our house, and my cousin Raymond is driving; he's a year younger than me, had his G2 for not even a year, and is really into cars. Right after we get in, he takes of speeding down the residential streets, going WAY too fast everytime he makes a turn. He also never signaled when he lane changed, tailgated, and always stopped just a bit short of hitting the guy in front of him. He was driving so crazily that his parents kept yelling at him to stop and slow down and etc, but he wouldn't listen. My mom couldn't talk him out of it either. All the inertia-ing was freaking out all the adults, but I just remained silent during the ride, knowing that nothing I said would've made a difference. Later on in the night, he says that he only likes driving really fast on turns, and not on straightaways, 'cause turns is "where the thrill is." To quote Trevor, "chee seen gah!" He seriously could've gotten us all in an accident tonight. But meh, I didn't really expect much less from my cousin, being selfish and arrogant like usual...weird how he's changed so much from when we were both in elementry school. I'm trying not to judge him, but it keeps getting harder and harder.

Now, about this Chinese supermarket. Firstly, you know it's a Chinese supermarket when it's called "AAA Supermarket". haha...it's not much unlike most other Chinese supermarkets, like H&H, only a bit dirtier. It was my second time there, and here's a sample of the stuff that went on this time:

- found out that they were selling brocolli in 2 different places in the store, both for the same price of 99c per head. If they're both the same price and item, why not hav them in the same place?

-one weird sign that caught my eye was one above a bunch of white and green vegetables that said "NAPA SHOT". I brought my mom over and asked her what the Chinese under it meant, and she said it said "sieu choy". Apparently, sieu choy is a kind of vegetablem (choy), and in English, it's translated into Napa. There's two different versions of Napa, the long and the short version, and this happened to be the short version, being advertised by a badly written sign lol. What made this sign funny for me was that, as I was walking by, I glanced at it and started thinking of a certain Dragonball Z character charging up a big energy blast...

-my mom was looking for red beans, among other things, so she approached one of the workers and asked them, in Cantonese, "Excuse me, where are the red beans?" When he replied "huh" in a mandarin accent, she asked him again in Mandarin and he showed her where they were. Later on, she was looking for a different kind of red beans, and stopped to ask a female employee, and the same kind of thing happened. Then, as we were about to leave the store, mom realized that she didn't have much cash left, and that these types of stores usually don't accept credit cards. So, she goes up to the nearest employee and asks, again in Cantonese, "Nae sul mmm sul card ah?" (Do you accept [credit] cards?) The employee, for some reason pulled an Anson, which is to stare blindly for a few seconds, and then look around and mumble a bit. Finally, he said something like, "ummm...uhhh..." Thinking that he also only spoke Mandarin, she asked him again in that language, but once again, he pulled another Anson. So my mom was like, "it's ok, let's just go," and as we turned to leave, the guy quickly turned to us and said in a quiet voice, "Ahh, yes, sul card, naw day sul card." (Ahh, yes, accept card, we accept card.) Unfortunately, my mom was too far away to hear him at that point, but she had enough cash anyways so it didn't matter.

oks...that part came out longer than I expected.
After getting home, I was going to watch some more Gunslinger Girl, when Bao told me of an upcoming CSI episode at 10. Since I'd hardly watched any of it, though I've played both games and really liked them, we decided to watch it "together". As in, we both watched it, and then talked about it afterwards....it was pretty nasty, with a lot of blood and dismemberment and etc. Not for the faint of heart haha. Tried to get Andrew into watching it, but he was preoccupied by other, more important matters...hehe :) Now that I know when it airs, I'll probably be watching a lot of it. I kinda wished that I had a tv with cable up in Waterloo now, so that I could watch stuff when I go back to school. Perhaps I could talk with the Waterloo Bros. about it. At least we'll each be able to have a phone next fall.

Tomorrow, is more cleaning and planning, and hopefully some resolution too...until then, cha!

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

A female who's not an Infiltrator



Okay, where was I? Stupid computers. Anyways, much thanks goes to David for his help on making gmail work for me. I tried it, and now I can read stuff! :) But I don't think I'll be using it much, since I'm already using Outlook Express for all my email needs. (Who needs 1 gig of storage space when you can use your whole hard drive with OE, right Jeff?) btw, anyone know the address of the gmail server, so that I can set up my OE to check that account as well? Thanks ya.

The main point of this post is going to be something I just started watching yesterday - Gunslinger Girl. I had already seen a bit of it with Bao and Wen and Jason during school, and I was pretty impressed, I just didn't have the time to watch it with them. I borrowed it from him later though, and I finally got around to seeing it. And now that I have, I must say that it's become one of my five favourite animes of all time, and I've only seen the first four episodes! There seems to be just enough action in each episode to advance the plot, and still satisfy action fans such as myself. The fighting and stuff is pretty realistic - well, as realistic as 14 year old girls with cybernetic implants gunning down terrorists is anyways. It's cool to see how the various gunslinger girls interact with each other, and how they each have a relationship with their own 'big brothers' that's unique. As Triela says in ep. 4 "Rico is [her brother's] tool, Henrietta is Jose's little sister....then what am I?"
Each of the girl's backgrounds also seems pretty sad, like being the sole survivor out of a mass murder and rape of your family, or being kidnapped and taken away to another country....etc. The secret agency they end up working for does "the government's dirty work" which makes them seem like both the bad guys and the good guys at the same time - though they're fighting terrorists and stuff, their orgainzation doesn't always follow the law, and sometimes innocent ppl have to be killed.
(I really found it sad that that guy [in ep. 3] had to die...won't say anything more in case I might be spoiling it for someone... those who've seen it should remember who I'm talking about.)

The story is set in Italy, and they show a lot of 'Italian' and 'European' scenery throughout the show. Which is why after watching the first bit of it, I started thinking that maybe auntie would like to see it :) After talking to Tim Kwan about it, he sounded like he'd be interested in watching it, and I figure Andrew would like it too, so maybe one day we could try and watch some of it together, since I'm pretty sure that we'll be meeting at least once this summer haha. Perhaps I could get BNao to make me a DVD copy of the series too.

Looking forward to first d20 game this weekend. And also maybe something else too; hoping for the best.