MrScaryMuffin

Lucky 1st place finish with Gothitelle at Surrey's Battle Roads Tournament - Part 3

2011-10-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

Top Four vs. Trevore Read (Bearplume)
Game 1
Trevore was essentially running a Ross structure with four Beartics as the headline attacker. I knew going into the match that it was a good match up for me, just because I believed that Gothitelle had the advantage in being able to play trainers and hit over the wall.

The first game actually turned out to be quite the chore as we both failed to set up for the first 15 minutes or so. I dropped Tropical Beach early in the game and we both made ample use of it, although I think Trevore probably came out ahead, being able to play most of his cards to set up Vileplume early and Beaching for precisely one card almost every turn.

After getting trainer locked for the first time in the entire tournament, I manually set up a Reuniclus and Gothitelle. Trevore strikes first and I made sure to punish him for it as I KO’d babies on my bench to activate my own Twins while preventing his.

With Sheer Cold in effect, I had to play out my KO’s carefully. Trevore was unfortunately forced to Sheer Cold every turn so that my fully pumped Gothitelle couldn’t one shot him. This allowed me to stack damage on Zekrom, which Outraged for the KO. Trevore only had Beartics to attack with and was forced to KO Zekrom with one of them, allowing me to return KO with the fully pumped up Gothitelle. His third Beartic reengaged the trainer lock, but I dropped Shaymin to allow me to attack with my other Gothitelle + Black Belt.

Seriously...actually, I'm cool with this one

I was now out of energies and had two more prizes to take. A failed collector showed me one more Psychic in my deck, which I later Sage’d for. Luckily, Trevore seemed to also be out of energies. His discard showed four DCEs, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to attack with just two attachments. I continually swung 90 into his Beartic, which his spread to his Gloom, Vileplume, Chansey, and Reuniclus. I held about twenty cards in my hand and was getting close to decking out. I had Jirarchi in my hand and knew that I could score both my KO’s for the win if he didn’t elect to drop the Blissey.

Even if he did drop the Blissey, I had PONT in my hand and it would probably buy enough time for me to restack damage for the Jirarchi again. However, I didn’t know if he had a Seeker available to reuse Blissey. However, this became a mute point as Trevore held out on the Blissey, most likely waiting until the last possible moment to use it, and stacked enough on Vileplume and Gloom for me to get rid of both of them with two heads on Stardust Song.

Advantage, Murray.

Game 2
After we set up, we only had 15 minutes left to play the game. I did my best to give Trevore a fair game, playing at a good pace, but not so quick that I would misplay. Trevore elects to go first and sets up Vileplume on his second turn, leaving me with a dead hand and the daunting task of setting up everything manually.

Luckily, two of his Beartics were prized and he had put himself in the position of top decking for the evolution he needed. I was Eeking every turn and trying to play whatever I could. Unfortunately, I continued to whiff on the Beach. Trevore, on the other hand, attacked into my babies with Powder Snow.
I finally get my Reuniclus up and KO my babies again with the Powder Snow damage and Twin chained for a fully pumped up Gothitelle. I KO his first fully charged (for the Beartic) Cubchoo and he pushes up the other fully charged Cubchoo. He had drew the Beartic from the free prize card that I gave him and used Sheer Cold, but I KO’d another baby and used Shaymin to allowed my other Gothitelle to KO the Beartic. With no Cubchoo ready for action and the prizes matched, Trevore had no play and I was in prime position to roll him.

Yea, we're cool too dawg

Without enough damage on the board to KO any more babies, I KO’d his offerings and enabled him to Twins for the first time in our games. However, he had to set up Beartic very slowly and I take another prize.

With the count 4-2 in my favour, time is called. With the two turns given to me, I had both KOs lined up. However, Trevore had other ideas. After I take my fifth prize, he pushes up Cubchoo and flips heads on Powder Snow to put me to sleep. I fail the sleep check and I am unable to take my final prize!
And so I’m forced to pass my turn, the third turn after time is called, and win by time out/prize count instead of a true legit win of taking all prize cards.

5-1

Top Two vs. Ricky Gao (Grudge Match!)
Game 1
It was actually funny, you see. During deck check, I called out to Ricky and said that we’ll have a rematch in the finals. Ricky pooh-pah’d my enthusiasm and said that he would probably lose to Christian as he had a bad match up against ZPST. However, Ricky managed to drop Christian to 4th place overall flawlessly and I actually get my grudge match!

My memory may be hazy, but apparently the BTCG guys will be uploading a video of the match on their youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheTeamBTCG
Ricky’s BR Report is here: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=155355

Apparently Ricky is undefeated and has been winning all the opening coin flips this tournament. True to form, he goes first. I Pichu anyways and notice that he doesn’t set up Pansear. Could it be that he’s running 1-1 and it’s prized? Ricky confirms (what a nice guy!) and proceeds to catcher up one Solosis and snipes the other off the bench. I follow up his boss move with a pretty good misplay. I rare candy Reuniclus and Twins for Gothitelle and something else. I knew I couldn’t get a Twins chain going, but I was tired and forgot that I needed a Switch to get my Reuniclus out of the active spot! Whoops.

So he promotes Cincinnos and KO’s the Reuniclus and I promote Gothitelle. I’m definitely tired here as I try to set up with Solosis again, feeling safe with the trainer lock in place, but forgetting that Yanmega just snipes it off the bench. Whoops!

This does buy me some time and I manage to catch up in prizes. Ricky is ahead in the count 2-1 and does an epic misplay of his own. He calls out “Linear Attack on Gothitelle”, tapping the active Gothitelle and I stare at him in confusion. The Judge says that it’s my option if I want to let him take it back and I felt like such a jerk as I put 40 on my Gothitelle. I apologize and Catcher up the benched Mincinno and KO it, leaving Ricky with no way to take a prize on his turn.

Advantage, Murray.

Game 2
Ricky elects to go first and attaches a DCE to his active Yanma. He takes back the move and attaches to the benched Mincinno instead and I don’t say anything. Mincinno uses Last Resort on my Pichu and Ricky scores the heads for the KO.

I communicate and I’m lucky that my other Pichu is not prized. This time Ricky drops the Pansear and I know I’m in a world of hurt. However, I don’t scoop right away, as we still had plenty of time left for the whole match. Not even when his triple KOs Pichu, Cleffa and Solosis :p I play out my entire hand and get a Gothitelle active. After top decking nothing for two turns and losing the Gothitelle, I scoop.

Deuce!

Game 3
This time I start and I burn quite a few resources to get Pichu out right off the bat. Ricky benches Pansear and I unwittingly attach an energy on Solosis by mistake. I end up burning a bit more resources to get Shaymin just so that I can put that energy in its rightful place. Ricky rattles off a few Last Resorts and gets some and fails some. This allows me to Twins into a fast set up and I end up with an amazing board with a fully charged Goth active, two benched Zekroms with 40 damage and a DCE each, and Reuniclus.

I didn’t really need to prize match as Ricky was doing well to snipe my benched babies. We end up 2-2 in prizes and I get the first KO. Unable to prevent any follow up KO, Ricky scoops.

6-1

And that’s the story of how I lucked my way to first place!

Lucky 1st place finish with Gothitelle at Surrey's Battle Roads Tournament - Part 2

2011-10-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Round 4 vs. Sam Park (Magneboar)
There were only five 3-0s left in the tournament, which meant that I was essentially sitting at the head table with people who might be top cutting. Sure enough, I get paired with another familiar face. Above me in the table were Christian and Trevore. Christian was a super keen Pokemon player who only started recently. He accompanied me to Tukwila and was inspired to build his own Zekrom deck. He had already played a BR just the day before in Redmond, WA and was doing very well this tournament. Trevore arrived on the mainland with a large group from Vancouver Island and, well, you’ll see what he’s playing below.

To my left, Ricky was downpaired and also not too happy with it. Ricky is another friend from the local league and we had actually went together to watch the Canucks, our local NHL team, open practice the day before.

I had a DCE in hand and decided that it might be worthwhile to start Zekrom instead of Solosis. Sam turns over…magneton? We laugh at how tired poor Sam was and treated it as a mulligan. I had mulligan’d once already, so I just didn’t draw an extra card.

Gothitelle got set up turn three this game and I drop the Jirarchi and Shaymin to accelerate my energy attachment enough to KO his active Reshiram. Sam laments that he didn’t use Switch for Cleffa while he had the chance. I was actually quite nervous this match as Magnezone can set up ridiculously fast off Twins. I, myself, had no real draw to speak of, but two energies were already on the field and I knew that I needed Goth active immediately while he still was stuck on basics. Luckily, he whiffed on Twins (not sure if he even ran any) and my first prize card was a catcher.

Seriously, screw this guy

When I played the catcher, Sam revealed that he wasn’t aware that Gothitelle was a one-sided trainer lock. This had led him to over invest in one Magneton, which I brought up and KO’d. I followed up with consecutive KO’s on another other Stage 1’s that I saw and Sam was unable to get anything going.

4-0

Round 5 vs. Ricky Gao (Cincinno/Ninetales/Yanmega/Simisear)
Aw man, not Ricky Gao! I could’ve been paired with Trevore, but nope. I had to play Ricky Gao. Ricky definitely is a name in Pokemon and I’m never enthusiastic to play against him.

True to form, he is well prepared against Goth and Ross decks in his Stage 1 variant. He benched Pansear off my Pichu and attempts to evolve it to Simisear on his first turn. After clearing things up with the judge, he would evolve it properly on turn two and would Flame Burst twice to KO both my Solosis on the bench.

Seriously. Screw. This. Guy.

I get Gothitelle up late, no thanks to Ricky’s constant use of Judge, and it was in risk of getting two-shotted as well. I communicated and opted to avoid dropping another Solosis and instead put up Gothita. This turned out to be the wrong play, as he focused on finishing the Gothitelle and I top deck the Rare Candy. Of course, if I dropped the Solosis, he probably would have gone for that instead. I try to charge up Gothitelle with Jirarchi and Shaymin but epically flip three tails on Stardust Song. Like a boss!

I promote Cleffa and Eek to see if I could salvage the game in anyway. I also needed to do this as both Cleffa and Pichu had 20 damage from an earlier Flame Burst and Ricky only had two prizes left (Ricky himself actually suggested the move while I basically had no idea what I could do, what a pal!). Unfortunately, Ricky Copycats into a catcher and Flame Bursts for the win.

4-1

Top Cut or Not?
Cor ultimately ends up 2-3. I noted that two other Ross/KGL players didn’t do too well either. Simon was 3-2, Garik ended 2-3, Sam fell to 3-2 and Ricky was, of course, 5-0. There were five or seven other players with 4-1 and two with 5-0. I knew that if I got into the top four, I would be just squeaking by.

Sure enough, I end up in fourth place behind Christian. Kevin Gomez, who was playing my nightmare match up of Mewplume was just behind me with about 3% of difference in resistance. I would like to thank all my friends/opponents for boosting me up into top cut! I couldn’t have made it without you!

Lucky 1st place finish with Gothitelle at Surrey's Battle Roads Tournament - Part 1

2011-10-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

After the BR at Tukwila, I took my Gothitelle deck and tweaked it slightly. The big change to the deck was the addition of a single Switch. I tried out a few other changes but most of them didn’t stick. Mostly, I swapped around the draw supports a bit and called it a day (in fact, when I was writing up the list, I was actually surprised that I was no longer running four Sage’s, but I shrugged and trusted that I must have had a good reason to do so at some point).

Saviour?

Zekrom did very well in Tukwila and has done extremely well in most other BRs. I was tempted to try it again and even went as far as to revamp my old list from the first Vancouver BR. Even though it tested well, I was still nervous. Going 2-3 with a deck previously will do that to you. Plus, I saw lots of Reshiphlosions and Stage 1’s/Donphans in the first BR, which didn’t really offer Zekrom awesome match ups across the board. Rather, it was more conducive to Goth. Thus, Goth it was!

Truth be told, I was only fearful of Mewplume decks. I had a suspicion, based on the previous BR and from league games, that two players might try Mew decks. However, I was hopeful that their poor Stage 1 and Reshiphlosion match ups would mean that I would avoid them all day, provided that I win first round and keep a good resistance.

Seriously, screw this guy

Anyways, pairings go up a bit late and I get paired up with Cor Vanderwolf, a player from my local league. Seriously? I think I played him at every tournament in Surrey (mind you, I’ve only gone to 2-3 tournaments there :p)

Round 1 vs. Cor Vanderwolf (Ross.dec –SEL +KGL)
Cor and the rest of the BTCG guys have been messing around with Ross’s deck ever since they saw him top cut at World’s this year. After Emerging Powers released, they tried out Beartic with the deck and now they were trying out a deck out/disruption strategy with Kyogre Groudon Legend.

I have a strong belief that Gothitelle has a strong advantage over Vileplume/Reuniclus decks and, unfortunately for Cor, this seems to be the case for most of the day. I start off Cleffa against his Oddish and draw into a Solosis. With a strong hand and a confident read that he would have no trainers, I elected to skip the Pichu and set up manually so that he would have less chances to set up Vileplume quickly. I Cell Cultured a second Solosis on the first turn and KO’d the Oddish on the second turn.

Cor drops the expected Twins (he had eight cards in hand, but I decided killing Oddish was worth the risk), but unfortunately one of his Oddish was prized. He attempts to get set up anyways with a Gloom on his bench but my Gothitelle gets set up and I catcher the Gloom and swung for weakness for the KO.

Cor manually sets up a Zekrom with two rainbow energies while I picked apart his bench, denying him Reuncilus and other goodies. I was fearful of his Zekrom with Black Belt but I had no damage on my side to knock out my own Pokemon to even out the prizes. Luckily, Cor whiffs with Zekrom active and scoops.

1-0

Round 2 vs. Simon Chai (Donphans and Dragons)
Another friend :(. Simon is a super friendly and uber nice guy from the Surrey area. He spends a lot of time teaching kids to playing and is very supportive. I believe he is a major contributing factor to how well the Pokemon community has grown in the area. Unfortunately, I had to face him.

Apparently Simon got into the second round by decking out another pal, Joseph, from a losing position. They discussed this openly but I wasn’t sure if Joey accidently decked himself or if Simon had some sort discard tech. I knew that I had to keep my deck size in mind throughout our game.

I start again and collector for the Pichu and some cards that I like to have in my hand. I use playground and he sets up four Phanpys and one Cleffa to back up his active Reshiram. On the next turn, I managed to Eek myself into a hand that enabled me to set up both Gothitelle and Reuniclus. Simon opts to swing into my Goth, which allowed me to KO Pichu on my bench and start my Twin chain. I believe I grabbed mostly energies with Twins.

We joked around a bit during our game, it was nice to relax a bit and chat. I said that he should name his deck Advanced Donphans and Dragons, or AD&D for short. I also noted how nice and trusting he was every time he declined to cut my deck after shuffling. He didn’t decline every time, probably about 70-80% of the time.

AD&D, the non-disorder one

I took care to catcher up any Phanpys or Donphans with two energies, as I didn’t really want to have to deal with heavy impact. However, my resources run dry finally and I had to KO the Cleffa that woke up while he had a Donphan on the bench with two fighting energies. Before I attacked, however, I Seekered up my Duosion and dropped Solosis back down so that I could damage swap and KO it. After I attacked, we were even in prizes at 3-3.

Simon then played his turn very quickly, attaching the third fighting to Donphan and dropping the Black Belt before announcing his attack. “Whoa!” I said, as I pointed out that we were even on prizes since I had graciously given him a free prize. Simon reeled back at the misplay and there wasn’t much he could do except carry out the attack. I had enough energies on my Goth to one shot the Donphan and did exactly that after moving the damage off.

With no other method to get over the 130 wall before I could grab two more prizes, Simon scoops. True to his nature, he was all praise and said that he could see me going all the way with the deck. I brushed it off and told him that I would be happy just to do better than I did in my previous tournament.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Garik Smith-Manchip (Kingdra/Yanmega)
Yet another pal! Originally I was downpaired to a person that I didn’t know. However, one of the matches from the previous round was recorded incorrectly so there was a repairing. Unfortunately, I was still downpaired! This made me a bit sad, as it meant my resistance wouldn’t be as good and there was a chance that I might miss top cut unless I X-0 the tournament.

Garik was actually the winner of the first Vancouver BR and was playing the same deck that he ran back then. With Yanmega around, I knew that I had to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, I have to make sure that he wouldn’t be able to snipe anything valuable on the bench easily. Secondly, I cannot stock up any cards in my hands due to Judge. In other words, no Twins chain.

We play down one Pokemon each and I get my third start of the day! This was a crucial start, as I turned over Solosis to his Tyrogue. Seriously, who runs Tyrogue in this format? Apparently Garik did. After dodging the donk, I communicated for a Pichu and we both fill our bench. Garik got three Horseas and two Yanmas and KO’d the Pichu with his Tyrogue. This allowed me to use Twins. I grabbed what I needed to get Gothitelle up and, instead of getting another Twins, opted to get Tropical Beach.

Even against Judges, I managed to get my Catchers and Junk Arms going and took out every Seadra I saw before finally taking out the last Horsea he had. I absorbed 70 damage every turn and Seekered a Zekrom once to wipe the damage. Garik promotes a Reshiram in an attempt to wall against me taking the last prize, but I KO’d one of my bench Pokemon and dropped a Shaymin to move some energies around and score the final KO.

Nope.

3-0

Kindle vs. Books: Which side are you on?

2011-10-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

So, I've been asked to comment on this article by Sara Barbour. It is basically an op ed on why the author prefers books over electronic/digital representations of books. If you are unfamiliar with the Kindle, watch the video review below and prepare to become uncomfortably familiar with it:

In her article, Barbour admits that she avoids the Kindle because she is afraid that she would be tempted (to use it and, possibly, replace her collection of books). She prefers books because of intangible things, such as sentimental value and "the experience of reading." So where do I stand?

Arguments for the Kindle
There are a lot of advantages to be had with eBooks and eReaders. You won't have to worry about the weight and storage of multiple books. This would probably come as a relief to most students familiar with the burden of carrying heavy backpacks.

You would be able to get books on demand, saving you the trip to the bookstore, the wait in lines, and/or the trouble of borrowing a popular and hard to find book in the library. This increased convenience can make reading a more viable option of entertainment and encourage more people to read. It's not a difficult thing to imagine: as easy as it is to flick open your iPhone and play a level in Angry Birds, you could just as easily have whipped out your Kindle and read a poem. The reduced demand for books is not a bad thing. After all, it's all in the cloud somewhere. Saving trees would only be an added bonus.

Arguments for Books
However, no matter how logical the argument is for the Kindle and other eReaders, books do indeed have that intangible appeal. This is especially true for those of us cognizant of the world before the internet and mobile devices became so engrained in our culture. My family used to take weekly trips to the library and I would often come back with a large stack of books that I could finish before next week's trip.

Even when discussing this topic with my friends, we realized that, no matter what we say in favour of the Kindle, we still had a large bookshelf at home filled with books that we would never get rid of. Again, reasons ranged from sentimental value to other unexplainable feelings. As an avid board game and CCG player, I can understand these sentiments as I almost always prefer playing face-to-face games with tactile materials.

Conclusion
In the end, it all depends. There is always some resistance whenever a new technology is introduce. It may be better in most ways, but there is always something missing. Really, I don't feel that there is a right or wrong choice in the matter, it is just up to personal preference. However, as we progress into the future, I do believe that more people will adapt the new technology and those loyal to the old ways will fade into the backdrop. Just as the telegraph gave way to the telephone and radio dramas moved on to movie adaptations, books, in their physical form, will most likely step aside for something else down the road.

Let's just hope this doesn't happen:

How to Play Like a Pro

2011-10-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

New article by yours truly up on Pokegym.net: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=155087

Here are the key points:

The Set Up
Typically, you should be seated at your table and ready to start well before the judges declare the start of the round. However, even if you're not ready, you still get two minutes to shuffle and set up at the start of the game.

Shuffling at the Start of the Game
Many player advocate "pile shuffling". To do this, just pretend that you are dealing out all of your cards face down for a six player game. Doing this helps to separate clumps of cards in ways that traditional shuffling methods do not. Additionally, if you manage to deal out your cards evenly into six pile, you will know that you have all your cards with you. Of course, it won't help if you somehow managed to lose or forget cards in multiples of six. Some players prefer to create piles of eight or even ten. Additionally, there are alternate methods of shuffling that still allows you to count your cards easily. What you do is up to you, just know where you should be ending the pile shuffle for 60 cards.

Don't Forget Your Prizes
Forgetting to put down your prizes is one big mistake that seems to always find us at moments of mental weakness. Despite your best efforts, it can still creep up on you and earning a game loss penalty is never fun. Myself, I have gotten into the habit of dealing out my hand and my prizes before I check for mulligan. However, I know that this is technically not the correct procedure and have started to form a new habit.

After drawing my initial hand of seven, I will put my deck in the active Pokemon spot. Now, if I have a starting basic, I cannot put it down without my deck getting in the way. Thus, I will pick up the deck, put down my six prizes and place the deck in its regular spot and then play down my starting Pokemon. It takes some getting used to, but if you keep doing it you'll never forget to put down your prizes, even if you're low on thinking capacity.

Mulligan
Speaking of mulligan. You should avoid declaring mulligan until after your opponent puts down their active. Of course, this is typically not a big deal, but it can make a difference for some decks. Additionally, if your opponent does inquire if you have no basics, you should answer honestly and proceed to reshuffle and redraw so to not delay the set up.

During Play
During Your Opponent's Turn
I personally prefer to think about my move on my turn and watch my opponent during their turn since what I can do on my turn will change depending on their attack. It's just less thinking and less stress this way. Leave your cards on the table so that you won't be tempted to look at them and rest your hands on your lap. Remember that it’s against the rules to lower your hand of cards under the table and beyond view. Watch your opponent's turn and make sure that they don't make any mistakes (unintentionally, of course).

Energies
When you play your energy per turn, put that energy on top of your Pokemon. Wait until you are finished with your turn before you put the energy underneath your Pokemon. This way you won't forget if you have attached an energy even during long turns. Of course, make sure that all cards remain visible! If you do forget to follow this tip and forget if you had attached this turn, count the energy already on your field and try to remember the number of turns that you have already played. Alternatively, see how many energies your opponent has on the field and compare it with yours while noting who went first.

Be sure to announce your powers! A player at Canadian Nationals this year suffered for not declaring Pachirisu's Self Generation ability when he played it down with a single energy. Don't let this be you, declare Inferno Fandango and similar abilities (see Powers and Abilities section below).

Supporters
Judges at Worlds gave warnings to players that left their Supporters next to their active Pokemon instead of discarding them immediately. As such, your local Battle Roads judge may be doing the same. When playing your Supporter for the turn, place it sideways in your discard pile so that it is perpendicular to the rest of the cards. Now you can tell immediately if you have played your Supporter yet for the turn with a glance! Straighten up your discard at the end of your turn.

Searching Your Deck
When searching through your deck (after using a card like Pokemon Collector, for example), do not drop down your Pokemon face up on your play mat. Instead, move the cards that you are thinking about retrieving to the top of your deck or put them face down far away from your hand and bench area (the spot above your active is a good spot). Only once you have thoroughly thought over your choices and picked out the Pokemon that you want should you reveal what you have grabbed and put them into your hand. Some players have been zinged when, after dropping down three Pokemon, their opponent did not permit them to change their mind and, in some case, forced the player to bench all three immediately and in order (which negated the use of some Powers as well).

If you want to be extra pro, take an extra second while going through your first deck search and try to identify what your prizes are. However, don't take too long! You should know your deck well enough to quickly identify what's been prized. Additionally, you can declump some cards that you do not want to be suck together, such as two Professor Junipers, for example. After searching and declumping, shuffle light so that you won't re-clump those cards back together. Of course, offer the cut to your opponent afterwards.

Keep Track of Resources
This is a bit of a higher level thing to keep in mind and has less to do with physically playing the game and more to do with the strategies and tactics of the game. You should regularly check your opponent's discard pile as well as your own (be sure to ask politely before reaching over to grab someone else' cards). Have an idea of what your opponent plays in their deck and what they might be able to do on their next turn. This is especially good in the current meta with all the Pokemon Catchers and Junk Arms flying around. Additionally, you should get into the habit of checking your opponent's hand size at the start of your turn. Not only is this useful for hand matching if you're playing a Yanmega Prime deck (or avoid the hand match if you're playing against one), but it's also good to making sure that nothing sketchy is going on. For example, if you're going first in a game, your opponent shouldn't have more than six cards in their hand unless you mulligan'd.

Powers and Abilities
The use of Pokemon Powers and Abilities is another thing that is easy to lose track of, especially when you have multiple Magnezone Primes on the field. When I was judging the eight-man pods at Worlds, I noticed that the Japanese players "tapped" the cards when they used its power. "Tapping" is a term from Magic: The Gathering and refers to when you turn the card sideways to indicate that it has been used. However, an issue can arise from this if you turn your active Pokemon sideways (which also indicates a special condition). Instead of turning the full 90 degrees, I recommend turning your Pokemon 45 degrees after using a once-per-turn ability.

Speaking of special conditions, as noted in the Rules Section, BW-on Abilities can still be used even if the Pokemon is affected by a special condition. This is, of course, unless the card itself specifically says otherwise. But none of the BW-on Abilities so far states as such.

As mentioned above, be sure to announce your powers. Normally judges won't make you say the full name every time. I personally prefer saying "power" and tapping the Pokemon whose power I'm using.

As a special aside, when using Reuniclus' Damage Swap ability. It's best to add up all the damage on your side of the field before manipulating the damage. This way you can be sure that you end up with the same amount that you started with.

Clean Up Phase
There is no actual Clean Up Phase in Pokemon. However, if you have been following the tips above, you will need to do the following at the end of every turn:
-Tidy discard pile to straighten your Supporters
-Move energies played this turn under your Pokemon
-Straighten and reset Pokemon whose powers you used this turn
-Put down your hand and watch your opponent

Help Build Heroblock City!

2011-10-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

Well, if you didn't know, I am one of the creators of Escapecraft 3 and the Escapecraft Dual. The Escapecraft series was one of the forerunning adventure/escape maps in Minecraft and has gained acknowledgement and praise from Notch himself.

Shortly after releasing Escapecraft 3, merlinus12 and I began the prep work required for our next big project, Heroblock City, which was to serve as a spiritual successor to the Escapecraft series. Our aspirations were big, as we sat down to plan a map that was easily ten times larger than Escapecraft 3 (which, by itself, was already imposingly large). Here is an early tour of the city:

Unfortunately (well, fortunately for him), merlinus12 found a new job and had to move, leaving him super busy and without a gaming PC for several months. However, since the beginning, we had intended Heroblock City to be a community project and I have decided to proceed with this project on my own while merlinus12 is effectively AWOL. So here we go.

Read this thread for more details: Heroblock City community build thread

Quick FAQ for HEROBLOCK CITY

What is Heroblock City?
Heroblock City is the spiritual successor to Escapecraft 3. It is a super large multiplayer map where players must work together to survive and to restore the city to its former glory.

How is it related to Escapecraft 3?
After escaping Herobrine's testing chambers, subjects find themselves in a post-apocalyptic town. There are no citizens or other survivors, but there are plenty of Herobrine's experimental monsters! Certain tasks will take you to the outskirts of town, where you may encounter remnants of Herobrine's experimental facitilies and, of course, his devious puzzle chambers.

What other tasks are there?
While there is no linear path to follow in this game, there will be clearly stated objectives, as well as clues and suggested actions that you and your fellow survivors can do. In the Town Hall, you will find evidence of a previous survivor team who had already outlined their strategy for restoring Heroblock City to a livable state. What had happened to this previous team, however, is a mystery.

What else is there to do?
Survive. Monster spawners literally line the streets and will make life very difficult for solo players every night. Stick together, find shelter and scavenge for survival material in the buildings that make up the city. In its post-apocalyptic state, Heroblock City is a barren wasteland with no trees or grass, which means you'll be hard pressed to make your own tools and heal life.

What makes HBC a Community Project?
Heroblock City is too large in scope for terrible builders like merlinus12 and I to flesh out. We're looking to our fanbase and community to help us put the background buildings into this city while we work on the story objectives, events, and puzzles of the map.

How do I start?
Go to the Heroblock City community build thread and read the first post.

Let's Tour Heroblock City! Monster mob texture pack

2011-10-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

New video is up! Check it out:

Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection: Playstation 3 Game Review

2011-09-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

Review up on a remake of a classic on Kidzworld: http://www.kidzworld.com/article/26086-ico-and-shadow-of-the-colossus-collection-playstation-3-game-review

Originally made for the Playstation 2, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were the forerunners in the "games as art" movement. Both games featured beautiful graphics and a story that provided the player with an amazing experience. Now the games have been remade for the Playstation 3, complete with updated graphics. While one two games has aged gracefully, the other has problems that have only gotten worse over time.

Ico

In this game, you play as Ico, a young boy who is trying to escape from a castle. With you is Yorda, a mysterious young girl who is being chased by shadow creatures. The features platforming, melee combat, and puzzle solving. However, while you do all of that, you must keep Yorda close by. You literally must hand hold her through entire levels.
With the majority of the game being devoted to interacting with Yorda, it is disappointing that her AI is terrible. Yorda is unable to figure out things like ladders on her own. Additionally, Yorda moves slowly and often stops for no reason, which can be extremely frustrating.

Shadow of the Colossus

In Shadow of the Colossus, you play as a man trying to bring his lost lover back to life. To do so, you must hunt down and defeat the 16 colossi that roam the land. They are not called colossus for no reason, these creatures are huge! Even from far away, they fill the screen. You must climb up on these creatures or dodge through buildings in order to reach their weak points. Every battle is epic and different than the last, making for an amazing experience.

The Collection

Overall, Shadow of the Colossus makes this collection worth your time and money. Ico, though frustrating to play, is thankfully short and has a pretty good story. Still, both games are indeed works of art and make for a great gaming experience.

Have Your Say!

Have you played either of these classic games? Are you excited for this remastered collection? Post your thoughts in the comments section below and discuss with other Kidzworld members!
Rating:
Price: $39.99
ESRB Rating: T for Teen

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers: PC Game Review

2011-09-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

Old game, but I just reviewed it for Kidzworld: http://www.kidzworld.com/article/26066-magic-the-gathering-duels-of-the-planeswalkers-2012-pc-game-review

Are you ready for the ultimate collectible card game? Duels of the Planeswalkers has arrived! Read Kidzworld's review for more details.

Magic the Gathering is one of the first collectible card games and people who liked collectible card games while growing up often will try Magic and enjoy the hobby. Magic is a worldwide phenomenon, with its own pro tour and even a weekly event called Friday Night Magic. However, with so many cards and complicated combinations, getting into Magic can be quite a challenge. Luckily, Duels of the Planeswalkers is here to help you get started!

Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast

Dueling for Beginners

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 is designed to teach people how to play Magic and get them started on the game. In the game, you get a basic deck that is already made for you and you can play against the computer in the campaign to unlock more decksm, as well as new cards that you can use to customize your current deck. There are no boosters to buy and you are limited in what you can do with your deck. If you want the full experience of Magic, including making your own deck from scratch, you can play Magic the Gathering Online or just play the actual game itself!
Instead of worrying about making the strongest deck possible, Duels of the Planeswalkers forces you to improve your skills in piloting a deck against other decks of similar strength. This way, it is playing skills that will dictate who wins the duel.

Revenge and Archenemies

Duels of the Planeswalker 2012 is an updated version of the original game that came out last year. Planeswalkers 2012 comes with additional modes, such as Revenge mode, with harder computer opponents, and Archenemy mode, where you can join forces with your friends to play against a single powerful opponent. Online matches are also possible in one-on-one and two-on-two format.

Have Your Say!

Do you like card games? Are you interested in Magic the Gathering? Post your thoughts in the comments section below and discuss with other Kidzworld members!
Rating:
Price: $9.99
ESRB Rating: T for Teen

Canadians Invade Tukwila, Washington! 4-2 Battle Roads Report - Part 2

2011-09-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

Lunch Break - Jasmine's BR Report
It seems that every time we doing a Pokemon tournament, we wind up eating Subway. This was no difference as we ended up sharing a footlong meatball sub (Happy Gilmore's favourite!) and sharing the details of our matches so far. Jasmine was running a troll deck that she called Bomberman. It was an all or nothing deck that was relatively stress free. After World's, Jasmine decided that she didn't want to play competitively anymore and had started helping out by judging the local tournaments. But since we were outside our area, I had built a "it's no big deal if I lose" deck for her.

In her first round, she unfortunately had to face off against Joey's dad, Jonathan. In this match, she T2 donked his lone Tepig and took an early win to start the day. In round two, she faced a Reshiphlosion deck and she opponent was only able to get one Typhlosion up as Jasmine set up ridiculously fast again, as the deck is prone to do. After three shotting the Typhlosion, the opponent had nothing and scooped.

Her saw her first loss of the day in her third round match against a Cincinno/Kingdra/Yanmega deck. Yanmegas proved to be a problem as it made it so that she needed to double drop her basics in order to use them. It also didn't help that Jasmine misunderstood one of her card the whole day (I didn't see this and correct her until the end of the day, when she was playing a fun game against Joey). Despite this, she had managed to catch up in prizes to 3-3 before her opponent Judge'd away her Twins and swept the rest of the game.

Round 4 vs. Terry (Reshiboar w/ Simisear)
After lunch, I sat down across the imposing figure of Terry, the PTO. I don't know why, but I'm extremely intimidated by Terry, but being nervous and anxious seems to help my concentration so I rolled with it. We both got fast set ups and Terry recognized the now-typical 130 wall trainer lock strategy and began attaching energies to his Tepig for his bad boar. He PONT'd twice as I slowly attached energies to my Gothitelle and got the Pignite but whiffed on the Emboar. At that point, he was still one energy away from being able to hit 150, but I didn't want to risk it, so I catcher'd his Pignite out, Shaymin'd the energies from my Jirarchi to my active Gothitelle, and KO'd it immediately. Terry then immediately proceeded to scoop. He had a benched Tepig but, without being able to Rare Candy, there was no real hope of hitting over that 130 wall. GG sir!

3-1

Round 5 vs. Sigilyph Snipe
What an interesting deck! This is a variant of Yanmega/Kingdra and Mandibuzz/Kingdra in that it uses Kingdra and Sigilyph's Telekinesis to KO basics on the bench. I knew that Telekinesis did not hit for weakness and felt that my Gothitelle was safe. Unfortunately, I failed to take into account the other Sigilyph from Emerging Powers. This Sigilyph had Psychic Pulse, which did 40 + 10 for each damage counter already on the Pokemon. Hitting 40 for weakness was no big deal, but I forgot that he had damage on demand from his Kingdras. Had I known, I would have promoted Zekrom a lot earlier.

After he took out my Gothitelle with all its energies, I had little opportunity to double drop Gothitas and avoid the snipe. I was finally left with just a Rare Candy'd Reuniclus and a Zekrom and no where to put the damage. My other Zekrom was prized and I knew my opponent had multiple ways to win with his Jirachi and Kingdras threatening the undercover Solosis and his Magic Trans Misdrevious being able to deal 50 with the help of his Kingdras. I played towards the option that he was less likely to see but really there was no chance. Zekroms once again hate on me for the lose!

3-2

Round 6. vs. Jasmine (Bomberman)
Jasmine ended up 3-2 for the day as well! She suffered a loss immediately after lunch against another Yanmega deck, Yanmegazone, but followed it up with a fast win against a Zoroark/Cincinno deck. I believe it's the combination of dead draws from Judge and the bench snipe that ruins her deck. That, and also not going first.

For a moment it looked like we might get re-paired, but it only affected a couple of people. We turn over our starting Pokemon and its my Zekrom vs. her Tornadus. GG

We play for fun almost immediately and this time she gets an epic start and completely rolls over my deck, dishing out 150 damage twice before I can even get set up.

4-2

In the end, I took 10th place in my third ever BR while Jasmine was 16/17th. Jonathan managed to recover spectacularly from the T2 donk in the first round and was also 4-2, taking 7th place off of his better resistance (my opponents dropped :(). Still, there were five 5-1s. Two were ZPST, two were Yanmega variants and the last was another Gothitelle but he got 5th place and didn't have a chance to try for a Victory Cup. Joey, on the other hand, took second place in Seniors (see his report here: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=154738) We end the day with some light shopping and dinner at Olive Garden and got home by 11pm.

All in all, not a bad day. Jasmine handed me a list of requests for her deck and now I have to rebuild it to her liking. I'm not sure if I'll continue running Gothitelle as it has its fair share of problems. Nonetheless, I do have a list of tweaks to make to the list for that deck. I also currently have a Mewplume, Lostgar, ZPST, and Reshiboar build in mind that I want to test out. As far as I'm concerned, Yanmegazone and Stage 1's are out of the question for me as they have autolosses that I simply do not want to lose to :p Meta doesn't seem to work that well for me and I hate mirror matches as a matter of principle. It seems like I need to either do rogue or rogue tech.

Anyways, long story short, don't be surprised if I pop in announced at another Washington state tournament in the near future with a weird deck!

Canadians Invade Tukwila, Washington! 4-2 Battle Roads Report - Part 1

2011-09-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

Last week we had our first battle roads in Vancouver and I went a terrible 2-3 with my ZPST. For whatever reason, the deck (which set up T1 or T2 90% of the time during testing) decided that it only wanted T3 and T4 set ups, which ended with me racking up a wonderful losing streak against two Reshiphlosion decks to start the day. To make the matter worse, a Kingdra/Yanmega (no Magnezone) deck, which was an autowin for me, took first place.

Deciding that the deck had failed me for the last time, I rebuilt my fragile Gothitelle deck. I was planning to run it during the next local BR in October, but then Christian mentioned that there was going to be a couple of BR events in Washington this weekend, just three hours south. Since Christian was already planning to make the trip, my wife Jasmine and I decided to tag along for the fun.

We left the house at 6am in the morning to make the trip and arrived at Tukwila with plenty of time. We ate a quick breakfast at Jollibee's, which I was familiar with from a business trip to the Philippines last winter, and bumped into a local family of Pokemon players: Joey and his father Jonathan. Joey was a top ranked Canadian player as a Junior and still did consistently well as a Senior, having earned an invite to Worlds last season and having won BR in Vancouver last week. His father Jonathan was more of a casual player, but he's no slouch, having won at least one BR and top cutted in other premier tournaments.

Terry, a Washington PTO that I met at World's last season, made an appearance as well and remembered us after a short conversation. The participant cap was a hard 50, but we were early enough to check in without worries. There was an optional deck check at the initial registration that I participated in, though not without some hesitation. The Washington organizers were pretty quick and the tournament got underway with little delay.

Round 1 vs. Ross.dec
I instantly recognized the player that I was sitting across, as he had played a warm up game against Christian and was wearing a fake mustache. I remember that he was playing a Mew/Cincinno at the time, which was pretty much an autoloss for me. Mew/Jumpluff I can handle with some bench manipulation, but Mew/Cincinno I could not. Oh well, I thought, my only goal here is to do better than I did last week. If I lose, I'll probably have plenty of chances to squeeze out three wins in this six round tournament.

We turn over our starting Pokemon and I was instantly confused as I saw a Phanphy and a benched Oddish. The Oddish made sense in a Mew/Cinncinno but the Phanphy did not. It wasn't until my opponent dropped a SEL from his hand that I realize that he wasn't playing his warm up deck, but was instead playing Ross's epic rogue, the deck that took second place at World's last season.

Suddenly, the match which I thought was an autoloss turned into a near autowin as my Gothitelle ran on the same engine but had the advantage of trainers as well as high damage output. We both avoided taking prizes to prevent the other from activating their Twins chain, but I got my lock up first with Gothitelle in the active spot. My opponent didn't seem to know how Tropical Beach worked and did not use it to draw even when he passed his turn without attacking. Unable to use Rare Candy, I simply Catcher'd any Gloom's or Reuniclus that I saw and hit for weakness to KO them. I damage swapped to KO my babies on the bench to prevent my opponent from using Twins or Black Belt, but SEL's ability to burn my active Pokemon made me worry. With his Donphan fully charged, there was a 25% chance that I would fail both outgoing and incoming burn flips and lose my active Gothitelle pumped with energies.

I had a Seeker and a Collector in my hand to open a bench spot for a Shaymin. However, I accidentally Seeker'd first and realized that I couldn't Collector for the Shaymin in the same turn. I failed the outgoing burn flip and cringed as the Gothitelle absorbed the 90 from Heavy Impact. I practically closed my eyes as I flipped for the incoming burn and breathed out in relief when I flipped heads. Safe! I Shaymin'd the Psychics over to my bench Gothitelle and retreated to attack without special conditions to worry about. After two shotting the Donphan, there was nothing that my opponent could do and I took my first victory of the day.

Afterwards, my opponent noted that he should have used Twins to grab the extra Rainbow instead of another Twins so that he could snipe my Reuniclus. It was not a move that I had considered but it was a relatively small affair for me to set up a second Reuniclus with the hand that I had at the time, so I shrugged it off as a moot point.

1-0

Round 2 vs. Mewbox w/ Crobat, Yanmega, Vileplume, and Hypno
Long matches seems to be the theme for Gothitelle, but this game was especially brutal. I hit an early drought of Twins and Energies and it took a bit longer than what I'd like to set up. My opponent was ahead by 2 or 3 prizes by the time I was ready to dish out pain. Drowzee's ability to drag out something from my bench was a bit annoying, but I got my DCE's out for fast retreat and took out Hypnos before it could stall me even more. Mew and Vileplume proved to be of little threat as my opponent had no bench space to safely set up his Vileplume and no time to See Off anything with Mew. Instead, I had to deal with Crobat's Severe Poison while making sure to spread damage on my bench so that Yanmega was unable to snipe anything valuable.

I forgot to check the time of start for the game and, with me being two prizes down, I knew that I had to play fast. Unfortunately, this led to an epic misplay as I retreated for my Zekrom and announced outrage before I Damage Swapped enough Damage to it for the KO. I asked the judge if I could take it back, but it was my opponent's choice and he obviously wouldn't let me do something that big. I facepalm'd a little a sucked it up.

Time was called on my opponent's turn, which meant that I needed to take a prize on both of my turns to force the game into sudden death. Looking at the board, I had all my KOs lined up with Gothitelle and Zekrom both being able to KO anything. I benched a second Zekrom to and Damage Swapped so that he had nothing to snipe and took the first prize. My opponent then pulled another brilliant move that I didn't see coming. He counted the DCEs in my discard and dropped a Drowzee to drag out my Reuniclus. I had no Shaymin and no other way to retreat my stranded Pokemon and was unable to take the vital second prize, so I scooped. Though the unnecessary loss was disheartening, at least I could learn from this mistake now instead of later!

1-1

Round 3 vs. Yanmegazone w/ Kingdra
Final round before lunch break! No food or drinks were allowed at the venue, so we were given around an hour to enjoy a meal half way through the day. I was suddenly sitting at the last table and I wasn't really happy about it. Oh well, suck it up soldier!

My opponent turned over Magnemite to my lone Gothita and I was a bit worried as Magnezone could easily OHKO Gothitelle. To make matters worse, he had the first turn advantage, which meant I had even less time to kill the magnetic devil before he could drop three energies.

I communicated for a Pichu and used Twins on my second turn after he KO'd my active Gothita. When I used Playground, I had another worry, I only had one Gothita left in the deck! One was KO'd and the other was prized. If he had a Catcher in hand, I was screwed. Luckily, he didn't and I Twin chained on my third turn for both Gothitelle and Reuniclus. I catchered his Horsea up and put my Gothitelle active so that he wouldn't be able to switch for Magnemite nor Rare Candy. From here I controlled the match and used all my resources to grab every Magnemite that I could find and knock it out before it became a threat. After I took out his last chance of success, my opponent scooped.

2-1

Kirby Mass Attack: Nintendo DS Game Review

2011-09-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Got a review up on Kidzworld:http://www.kidzworld.com/article/26053-kirby-mass-attack-nintendo-ds-game-review

If you like Kirby, you'll like 10 Kirbys! Kirby returns to the DS in Kirby Mass Attack. Read Kidzworld's game review for more details.

The traditional Kirby game is a side-scrolling platformer where you can use Kirby's ability to inhale and copy enemy powers to help you get through the level. Kirby Mass Attack, however, changes up the formula by presenting a new game play mechanic — one that will have you playing with only your stylus and the touch screen!

A Fraction of His Former Self

In the story for Kirby Mass Attack, Kirby was caught napping one day and was struck by a mischevious magic that split him into ten smaller and weaker Kirbys. Unable to use his powers, Kirby must rally together all of his other parts and brute force his way through each level until he can find a way to undo the spell. You get to play as Kirby's guiding heart, which is represented by the stylus on the touch screen. Using the stylus, you can guide the Kirbys through the level, throw them at objects, lift them over gaps, and command them to attack enemies.
As you defeat enemies and break open objects, you will find fruits for the Kirbys to eat. If you collect enough, you will be granted another Kirby until you have all ten! With more Kirbys you can do more things at once or you can have them all do one thing much faster. However, each individual Kirby is still fairly weak. A single hit will turn them blue and a second hit will knock them out. Luckily, you can grab KO'd Kirbys before they float away and revive them.

Ten Times the Fun

Along the way, you can collect medals and unlock lots of mini-games that feature Kirby and other characters from Popstar, such as the very fun pinball game, Brawl Ball. Overall, Kirby Mass Attack is a great game for everyone: both Kirby fans old and new.

Have Your Say!

So, what do you think? Are ten Kirbys better than one? Would you rather play a traditional Kirby game? Have your say in the comments below!
Rating:
Price: $29.99
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone

Summer Break

2011-07-25T17:00:00.001-07:00

Podcast: July 25th, 2011

Welp, I'm going to be taking a break from the podcast since I'll be busy and taking trips in August. See you all in September! Use this opportunity to catch up on some older episodes :)

Summer Break

2011-07-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Podcast:

Welp, I'm going to be taking a break from the podcast since I'll be busy and taking trips in August. See you all in September! Use this opportunity to catch up on some older episodes :)

Capcom @ Comic-con

2011-07-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 21st, 2011

Some thoughts on Capcom and the cancellations of Mega Man, Harry Potter, trilogies, and multiplayer vs. single player games.

Club Nintendo and Ultimate Marvel

2011-07-20T16:57:00.001-07:00

Podcast: July 20th, 2011

Relatively small update today, it is a slow news day after all :p Leave some comments/questions below!

Not so slow news day Tuesday, but still rushed!

2011-07-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 19th, 2011

Another short one today, but not because there was a lack of news, but because of my incredible speaking wpm.

Rusty Hearts Beta Codes (win paid trip to PAX!): http://destructoid.com/elephant/redeem_code.phtml
TF2 Retro Arcade game: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/07/team-fortress-2-looks-great-as-a-retro-arcade-game/

Comic-con Week!

2011-07-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 18th, 2011

Some stuff to look out for during this year's Comic Con in San Diego. Also, news from EA and Minecraft!

MrUnproductiveMuffin

2011-07-14T16:55:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 14th, 2011

No show tomorrow! But in this podcast, I talk about Thursdays, EA in Japan, Katamari Damacy, Zynga, Angry Birds and Popcap Games. Probably some more stuff too (Glitch, DSGL, Magic Cube draft and Zelda)

B.O. etiquette and logical Superman

2011-07-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 13th, 2011

Not much news today, so I talked about Superman! Also, PAX, netflix, and EA Flexion

Triple EA new days?

2011-07-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 12th, 2011

Typically a slow news day, but some stuff about EA today including their buyout of Pop Cap games, Origins, Battlefield 3 and more.

Free Slurpee Day!

2011-07-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 11th, 2011

Happy 7-11 everyone! Today I talk about Dark Horse Comics, Left4Dead 2, EA Origins (Battlefield 3), mosquitos, and Heroblock City!

Tomorrow is slow news day Tuesday, so leave some comments and questions for me so that I'll have something to talk about!

It's Void Rays, Void Rays...

2011-07-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 8th, 2011

Happy Friday everyone! Mad Catz is making games now, details and thoughts on Bioshock Infinite, Pac-Man 3DS, and some thoughts on life.

MrUpdateMuffin: DSGL and Heroblock City!

2011-07-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 7th, 2011

Tennis, Poker, Virtual Insurance, Patent battles, Bungie Day, and more!

http://www.bungie.net/
http://roosterteeth.com/home.php

Crystal Balls and eSports

2011-07-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 6th, 2011

Michael Patcher, industry analysis, esports, left4dead 2, the anti-streaming bill, and microsoft in Japan

Sex Sells

2011-07-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

Podcast: July 5th, 2011

Stuff about Bayonetta, Catherine, and the PS3 remake of No More Heroes. Also, Mario 3DS, Sonic, summer sales, and this:

July the 4th and more PSAs

2011-07-04T19:53:00.001-07:00

Podcast: July 4th, 2011

Sunscreen PSA, stuff about Sony, Wii U Zelda and more!

Long weekend time!

2011-06-30T16:56:00.001-07:00

Podcast: June 30th, 2011

PSP engine, Tokyo Game Show conserves power, Valve and Minecraft stuff, and a firecracker PSA.

Slow News Day Tuesday

2011-06-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 28th, 2011

It's that time of week again! But luckily I fill it in a bit with some talks about games that will help the Wii go off with a bang, some more thoughts on the second hand market for games, and *shudder* politics of the HST

How would you dump 48 girls?

2011-06-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 27th, 2011

News on Minecraft 1.7, Ducksoup TF2 server, AKB48, and Goldeneye Reloaded.

Cool cracked article on online gaming events: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-7-biggest-dick-moves-in-history-online-gaming/

Haters gonna hate

2011-06-24T16:58:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 24th, 2011

Last bit of stuff on TF2, some talk about PSN, Star Wars MMOs, and arguing on the internet.

South Korea and Harry Potter

2011-06-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 23rd, 2011

Some more news about the TF2 update, South Korea, the Nintendo eShop, why I hate JK Rowling and more!

Slow News Day...

2011-06-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 22nd, 2011

Slow news day but I still have some interesting things to talk about! Namely: TF2 update thoughts, Sonic Generations, Wii U solves what consumer problem, and how your brain and body make choices for you.

Damage Control and Sleep

2011-06-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 21st, 2011

Some repeat info on how to train your to wake up and also on spin doctoring theory. Of course, gaming news on Star Fox, Club Nintendo, Layton, Duke Nukem, TF2, LEGO Universe and a bit more.

Also, some thoughts on this guy:

Immersion and other videos

2011-06-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 20th, 2011

Some talks about Ocarina of Time and the 3DS and news about Valve and Free to play games. Also, these videos:

Don't Forget Father's Day!

2011-06-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 17th, 2011

Some discussion about this and that, including a review of Ocarina of Time 3D, notes on the Wii U and Duke Nukem. Also, thoughts on the Stanley Cup finals and the resulting riot and, finally, father's day!

Stanley Cup Finals Tonight!

2011-06-15T17:04:00.000-07:00

Watch the game first, then download the podcast: June 15th, 2011

Some thoughts on digital distribution with EA Origin coming soon and also Spiral Knights!

Plan 9 from Outer Space

2011-06-14T16:55:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 14th, 2011

Some thoughts on Duke Nukem Forever and LulzSec, as well as some discussion about the upcoming EA Sports Store and Sony Styles.

Game Six Tonight!

2011-06-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 13th, 2011

Playing Wii U in the bathroom and other problems with the new console. Also: some controversy surrounding Battlefield 3.

Eyeshield21 manga: http://www.tenmanga.com/book/Eyeshield+21.html

Mega64 Transfaring commercial:

Hockey Night in Canada

2011-06-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 10th, 2011

Not only about hockey, I recap E3 and talk a bit about PS Vita to PS3 connectivity and what this means for Wii U.

Also, this comic:

E4: End of E3

2011-06-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 9th, 2011

Is the Wii U too little too late? That and more in this episode!

My written summaries of E3:
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/25722-nintendo-e3-2011-press-conference-summary
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/25721-sony-e3-2011-press-conference-summary
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/25718-microsoft-e3-2011-press-conference-summary

Pricing Wars

2011-06-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 8th, 2011

Some insight on the console pricing wars and what they mean, along with some side notes on Karoke and what I'd do if I won the lottery.

Nintendo wins E3 again

2011-06-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 7th, 2011

So it starts...

2011-06-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 6th, 2011

Go watch hockey!!!

Clock Blockers:

Double drop weekend and Saxxy Awards

2011-06-03T19:05:00.001-07:00

Podcast: June 3rd, 2011

Go out and enjoy your weekend! Or...do TF2 stuff

http://www.teamfortress.com/saxxyawards/login.php

Handheld console war starts

2011-06-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 2nd, 2011

Don't mind the rant near the end, I think my tiredness was getting to me

Podcast can wait, go watch hockey!

2011-06-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

Podcast: June 1st, 2011

See title.

Happy Post Long Weekend!

2011-05-31T21:03:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 31st, 2011

Not much else to say, have you seen this? J.C. is awesome

A Link to the Future

2011-05-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 27th, 2011

Ok, I remember that I had to post up one thing :p but I forgot what the other thing was. Oh well! This is still awesome, enjoy!

Minecraft Update and More E3 Rumors

2011-05-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 26th, 2011

Anyways, Minecraft has updated! Go check it out! (If you want to)

Happy Hump Day!

2011-05-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 25th, 2011

Going to be reprioritizing my personal projects soon, so don't be surprised to see a few things done differently around here!

LEGO style

2011-05-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 24th, 2011

And we're back after a long weekend! Some more E3 rumors and some thoughts on LEGO and Duke Nukem Forever.

Also, this:

I'm good at predictions

2011-05-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 20th, 2011

Sorry, forgot to put this up yesterday. Also forgot to filter noise :p Still, enjoy! And wish me luck at Battleroads :)

Welcome to Rapture

2011-05-19T18:35:00.001-07:00

Podcast: May 19th, 2011

I almost make it through this one without a big gaffe :p Oh well, next time!

The Shark Club Adopts a Temporary Name and Other Controversies

2011-05-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 18th, 2011

Not much else to say, except Go Canucks Go!

Oh yea, and there is a DSGL game tonight. It will be highlander on upwards. My team isn't playing until Sunday, but that doesn't you can't watch it anyways!

On Gigabytes and Imposters

2011-05-17T16:58:00.001-07:00

Podcast: May 17th, 2011

Enjoy! In the meanwhile, I'll see if I can't get something Minecraft related up on my youtube channel :)

The Value of Popularity

2011-05-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 16th, 2011

I spend a bit talking about the value of popular players vs. players that are douches and makes for a poor gaming experience. This stems from a comment Gabe Newell made and I think it's great food for thought. Anyways, enjoy!

Ghibli Minecraft:

It's Friday, Friday...the 13th

2011-05-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 13th, 2011

Go out and enjoy your weekend!

Sorry Honey, It's Thursday

2011-05-13T11:55:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's podcast: May 12th, 2011

Sorry it's a bit late, had some computer problems.

This Autumn will be busy with conventions

2011-05-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 11th, 2011

I already forgot what I was supposed to link :p I'll just put up the one that I remember right now:
http://www.youtube.com/user/siriuscord

Cheers!

Mr Birthday Muffin

2011-05-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 10th, 2011

Yup, it's my birthday! No time to chat, I have to get out and party :D

Play Mr. Jack online: http://mrjack.hurricangames.com/
Sign up for Spy Party Beta: http://www.spyparty.com/beta-sign-up/

DUXCOM vs. Phonetic Owls tonight!

2011-05-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

Podcast is up: May 9th, 2011

I'm playing tonight in the Ducksoup Gaming League (Team Fortress 2). If you want to check it out, it's in 2.5 hours! Information here: http://www.ducksoupgaming.com/threads/tv-faq-match-stats-demo-downloads.1142/

E3 can't get here fast enough

2011-05-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 6th, 2011

It's the weekend! Go out and LIVE!

...or, you know, read a book. Whatever.

Cinco de Mayo

2011-05-05T20:42:00.000-07:00

Podcast: May 5, 2011

It's Cinco de Mayo, but you wouldn't know if from listening to my podcast :p

It's May!

2011-05-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

Podcast is up: May 2nd, 2011

No podcast for the next two days (and probably no new videos on youtube either), as I'll be out of town.

Japanese tradition vidoes (hilarious!):

Happy Weekend!

2011-04-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Podcast: April 29th, 2011

Enjoy your weekend! Be sure to get out for some vitamin D. If it's not sunny out, then spend your idle hours reading Kid Radd:
http://www.bgreco.net/kidradd.htm

Sorry for the Delay

2011-04-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

Podcast: April 28th, 2011

Yea, that's yesterday's episode :p Stupid Window's update rebooted my computer while I was in the middle of recording so I had to re-record again this morning. Enjoy!

Canucks Rule

2011-04-27T19:24:00.000-07:00

Today's podcast: April 27th, 2011

Nothing much else to say except CANUCKS RULE!

Post-Easter episode

2011-04-26T23:29:00.000-07:00

New podcast is up: April 26th, 2011

Surprisingly not too much to talk about despite such a long break. However, several big news in this episode, including the PSN hacker attack and Nintendo's confirmation of a new console and several games. Also, some exciting stuff about Escapecraft!

Gotta backstab on Spyday

2011-04-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

Forgot to put up the podcast link: April 21st, 2011

In other news, I started doing Portal 2 co-op with WingSpanTT (of Top Tier Tactics). Check it out:

Run, fat boy, run

2011-04-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

New podcast is up: April 20th, 2011

I've also posted some clips I recorded from the Vancouver Sun Run this past weekend. Ever wanted to see what my sister looked like? Check it out:

Landing on Chell's Head

2011-04-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

Today's podcast is up: April 19th, 2011

Escapecraft Dual is now available for download on the forums

I believe I also mentioned gamecareerguide.com in today's podcast as well. Enjoy!

Even though hockey is playing, Portal 2 calls for me! I've already got videos for my playthrough up:

How fast would Sonic run 10km? Depends on which Sonic I guess

2011-04-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

Podcast is up! April 18th, 2011

Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
Nerf Now (webcomic)
Mega64 (They have a new video! Appropriately: Sonic still sucks)
Halolz

Let's Make Escapecraft!

2011-04-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

Podcast is up: April 15th, 2011

Now then, I'll probably need all weekend to finish up Escapecraft and other EC related things!

Computer problems

2011-04-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

After much trouble and delay, yesterday's podcast is up: April 14th, 2011

I'll be talking about some E3 rumors and how Call of Duty may or may not have destroyed the world. Also, TF2 updates and stuff about Nintendo!

Now to get a video up...

So many distractions!

2011-04-13T18:12:00.000-07:00

Podcast is up: April 13th, 2011 (2)

Now to work on Escapecraft Dual...but NHL playoffs is so distracting!

Podcasts and Blogs and Videos, Oh my!

2011-04-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

The blog is dead, long live the blog!

If you'll notice, I haven't posted anything in YEARS. However, this will change as I'll use this blog to track my video and podcast updates. Subscribe to the RSS feed to stay on top of everything.

The first podcast episode is up! Download it here: April 13th, 2011
In this episode, I talk about the Portal 2 ARG game and the rumors of hidden announcements. I also dabble into news about Escapecraft, Nintendo, and the 3DS and wrap things up with some quick thoughts on NHL (playoffs are starting today!) and spectator sports in general.
I'll probably be tweaking with the sound quality to make the files smaller and I'll eventually switch over hosting to something that can handle lots of bandwidth.

Last part of the Badwater series is here. I'll be recording something Minecraft-y today :) Looking forward to it?

Valve opens up strange feelings within me, makes me want to gush

2009-09-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

I switched over to my formal email about half a year ago, forwarding all mail that goes to my old address to my new one and even taking the hourssss required to switch my subscriptions over to my formal account on Google Reader. Somehow I neglected to pass on writership to this account as well, but now that's that and I'm here.

I'm tempted to start using Google Docs to allow easier access to my writing, but I'm starting to get a bit worried about Google's presence in my life. True, most people could care less about my secret muffin recipe, but sometimes it's a good thing to spread yourself out on this cloud networking schema.

At the same time, I love Google. It's hard not to like a company that explicitly states "Don't be evil" as their mission statement. Google has simultaneously pushed for change while keeping their shareholders happy. Of course, they are not exempt from cutthroat competitiveness, but you love the scoundrels nonetheless.

While not everyone is unanimous in their love for all things with 100 zeroes, I strongly believe that people would be hardpressed to love Valve. (Well, aside from disregarded girlfriends and stupid redneck boycotters)

As a video game software development company, Valve has really really made a name for itself. And I do mean really. Their business sense and dedication to quality and to their fans is exemplary. The two really go hand in hand for them too, as their free (and constant) updates and Steam powered store work to prevent and discourage piracy of their software.

You can also tell that Valve is a great place to work as well. People there seem to have a great sense of humor and for no good reason, as only a few of their games (Half Life and Portal) really need stories.

Proof of point: recently a fan mocked up a pseudo update introducing a brand new class for Team Fortress 2, which I have been getting back into.

As with the fake Spy update, Valve caught wind of it. Impressed with the workmanship and the amount of thought put into the fake update, they made an official response to it in the form of a letter from Saxton Hale (funnily enough, the name of the Australian CEO is an anagram for Hot Anal Sex).

If you're wondering why I'm so subliminal today with all these parentheses, this letter is partially to blame.

Seriously, I love these guys

The Difficulty in Justifying Transit Commutes

2009-09-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

My day job requires me to drive daily to Ladner, a 20km trip. The best time I've ever gotten in my Prius is around 20-25 minutes. Average trip is typically 30-35 mins, but the longest commute I've ever had was over an hour.

Since I'm going counter traffic, the main bottleneck on my journey is the Massey Tunnel, which normally has two lanes going either way but switches to 3 lanes rush traffic and 1 lane counter flow. This means that up four lanes of traffic will need to merge into a single lane before we can squeeze through the tunnel and pop out on the other side and spread back out. It's this wait that causes the ridiculously inconsistent drive time.

If I had a car pool buddy it would make a huge difference, but unfortunately that's not an option. I can, however, take the bus. With the new Canada Line complete and the buses rerouted to take advantage of that, I can make the trip in style with one quick skytrain ride and one comfortable and stress free bus ride. One transfer and roughly 50 minutes later I'll be at work, with a few blocks of walking to add valuable steps to my day to day activities.

The only thing stopping me is the price. It costs $5 to travel three zones, which makes a round trip a daily toll of $10. A book of 10 tickets is $38 while a monthly pass is $136. A tank of gas for my Prius costs around $35 ($25-$40 depending on rates) and lasts me the whole week (and a bit) including trips to Burnaby for Kick Boxing and night-time/weekend entertainment.

I most certainly will not be using the bus on weekends or on Monday/Thursdays when I need to rush home to prepare for Kick Boxing. Other days may get scheduled down the line as well, making a monthly pass a poor purchase, especially when it is just $4 cheaper than driving the whole month. Additionally, the average commute time is worse and does not allow for me to exercise in the morning before I take off.

What I will gain, however, is freedom to do whatever I want during the commute. Assuming the average commute was 30-45 minutes, that's 5-7.5 hours a week, 20-30 hours a month. If I was working during those times and earning minimum wage, I am losing $160-$240. And I can use that time for writing, no problem. But I'll also be napping, playing games, and reading the daily paper.

So you can see, it is hard to gauge whether taking the bus to work makes sense. There is no clear winner when considering time, cost, stress, convenience. When it snows later on this year, I will definitely be taking the bus, so those 3-zone tickets I bought yesterday is not money down the drain. In the meantime, I simply don't know if I want to make this a regular habit.

That's so Gamer Guy

2009-09-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed that some of the buses in Vancouver have been sporting some hi-tech gear? I speak, of course, of the electronic ads on the exterior side that play full videoes. I saw one today at 41st and Cambie and it caught me by surprise. The display was bright and was playing a Telus clip. The resolution looked to be about the same as the large electronic signs outside of Casinos and sports stadiums in our area. I wonder if we will be seeing more them?

Speaking of ads, I have been meaning to talk about this ad campaign against homophobia (PAX recap will have to wait):

Essentially the ads aim to get people to rethink their usage of the phrase "That's so gay". Other adds in the campaign uses the jock and generic blonde with some other choice words and stereotypes.

Personally speaking, I don't feel that the ads work that well. Especially with the gamer guy one, the wording is just so confusing that you really don't get the message the first or second time around. Whether this will spark discussion or entice apathy is uncertain. Nonetheless, it's a nice idea and noble cause.

Excuse, I have to go sell a few games so that my life will seem a bit more balanced.

PAX 2009 Schedule

2009-08-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

Whoo, such a lazy bum am I. First I failed that maintaining my exercise regiment and then I slack off this blog for two weeks.

For good reason, however. I'm busy preparing for my trip and there is a lot of work to do to cover my arse during that one week.

If you want to find me during PAX, here's a rough schedule of where I'll be during the event.

Friday
10-11 Omegathon 1
12-1 HAWP
1-2 Breaking into the Game Industry the Educated Way
2:30-3 Star Trek Online Demo
3-3:30 Scribblenauts Demo
4-4:30 Rockband Beatles Demo
7-10 Hudson PAX Party @ Tap House

Saturday
10-10:30 Big Fish Games: Faunasphere Demo
11-12 Muramasa and Nostalgia Demo
12-1 Lord of the Rings, D&D Demo
2:30-3:30 Omegathon 3
4-5 Nexon Demo (Combat Arms, Dungeon Fighter Online, Dragon Nest)

Sunday
10-11 Omegathon 5
12-1 Hudson games demos
2-2:30 Hello Kitty Online Demo
5-6 Omegathon Finals

Like last year, I'm attending every Omegathon I can in hope of being an Omeganaut next year :p I've cut back on the number of panels I'm attending this year as I haven't really enjoyed them as much as I thought I would in previous years. Instead, I'll be spending more time doing media demos, walking the exhibition hall, and playing table top games.

Brilliant or Bland?

2009-08-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to decide if this is brilliant or just plain ol' vanilla bland. Don't get me wrong, I have much respect for DDB, who is a part of the largest advertising/PR conglomerate in the world. I also love vanilla ice cream.

Here's the dilemma, the ads work in drawing in attention, using alternate space, and in selling the product. However, it does nothing really for the branding of the product. While McDonald's already have a strong brand, this campaign does nothing to further it, or even reconfirm it. As such, the ad seems to fall flat. Half the response and comments towards this ad is a simple "I don't get it" or "Is that it?". Because McDonald's has such a strong personality and their brand is instilled into the very core of people's logospace, they expect more from it and from its ads.

I cannot help but think that this campaign would have been better if it was saved for something like, I don't know, a rock concert.

Get your mini-muffin updates

2009-08-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

I don't always have time to sit my lazy ass down and write something thoughtful or persuasive here on my blog. However, I always seem to have time to update my twitter and I always seem to have something spontaneous to say (though that spontaneity is sometimes mundane). Does this make me a twit?

In either case, if you're really craving some muffiny-script goodness, then follow me tweets. I'll still be updating here once every week or so, so don't fret too much!

An interesting turn in ads

2009-07-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

I noticed a few interesting trends with ads recently. Unfortunately I don't have any visual or recorded samples for you so you'll just have to close your eyes and use your imagination.

First up, the new Lotto 649 billboard ads caught my eye recently. In the past, they have always pushed a "Can you imagine?" mindset with their ads, making people think about how nice it would be to win. You could bully people that were mean to you, spend it on frivolous things, or just celebrate like crazy.

The new ads, however, moves away from a "Oh that would be nice" mood to a "I need this!" train of thought. The ad that I noticed had the word "RENT" written in a large water streak with the 649 logo on a yellow sponge wiping it away. Essentially, the image they're trying to portray here is that winning the lottery will take care of all of life's necessary bills, like rent.

It's a smart move made in the wake of the recession. People are penny pinching and may not want to spend those $2-3 on wishful thinking tickets. So, instead, the brilliant advertisers working with the national lotto opted instead for a campaign that makes the lottery look like something necessary to survive.

The other ads that got my attention were a couple of radio ads for Chrysler cars. I believe they were Columbia Chrysler and Maple Ridge Chrysler. Both ads were done using old-school ideas, similar to how the King of Floors work:

The difference was that one ad really worked while the other did not. (The King of Floors mostly work, IMHO). Naturally, with the decline in car sales in general and drastically for all American cars, adverts are necessary to reel in the buying frenzy.

The Columbia Chrysler ads uses the "We're so Crazy!" styled ads, complete with random sound effects to drive home the fact that they're "stark raving mad" and selling cars for low low prices. This ad works. The sound effects and the timing of the ad really makes it stand out from the other ads and connects the message with the consumer in a strong and definite manner.

The Maple Ridge Chrysler ads, on the other hand, fail epically. The announcer is mono-tone and drones on and on. It took immense effort for me to even remember the name of the car dealer. So much, in fact, that I cannot even recall what the selling point of the ad was, except that it had something to do with low prices and you should be excited about it. This ad fails to stand out and fails to make an impact, representing everything you can do wrong with a radio ad.

Budget advertising is something that we can look forward to for at least another year. Hopefully, more people will learn from mistakes of others in the past and do something interesting with that knowledge.

Freudian Hearing

2009-07-24T15:32:00.000-07:00

I might have talk about this before, but it's still pretty neat and funny.

I have a tendency to mishear things. More often than not, especially with actual conversation, I twist people's words around on purpose. So something like "I like it" can become "I like tits". It's not always crass, but it's always fun and serves as a great mental training for puns, which in turn is a great way to practice thinking about things from different perspectives.

However, there is just something about song lyrics that just seems to beg to be misheard. Some singers really don't know how to anunciate and it makes learning lyrics off tracks very difficult. Without printed lyrics, it would be impossible to learn a song. I can't find it now, but there was a TV commercial for a radio station once where they showed people mis-singing various pop songs.

Take a look at this song:

The line "There ain't no motive for this crime" could easily be heard as "There ain't no love before this time" which could also fit the rest of the lyrics just as well and, in fact, I prefer singing along to this song using this refrain for the first chorus and the proper lyrics for the second one.

I'm not the only one that does this. Now, it may be a bit of my playful personality rubbing off on other people, but my wonderful fiancee misheard something really hilarious in this song:

"Gotta get 'cha off my sister"
"Gotta get 'cha off my sister"

:p

Sheer Sheet Brilliance

2009-07-17T08:20:00.001-07:00

I love stuff like this

How I did it

2009-07-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

I once read somewhere that a proposal should reflect the person that is doing the proposing. That way, not only do you express your sincere feelings to the person being proposed to, that person also gets one last good look at the things that define you as a suitor. This is something that I had taken to heart.

Naturally, I'm not going to do something ridiculous that would more likely get me dumped than hitched. One must highlight their good traits, and unique ones, throughout the process. Immediately, I tossed out any notions of a big public proposal. No sports arena, no huge crowd-attracting announcement in a busy public space, no tightly choreographed musical and dance sequence:

No matter how badly I wanted to.

I had to respect the preferences of my dearest love and also create something that is well suited for her as well as myself. Jasmine had already mentioned in the past that, though sweet and nice, such public displays were not for her.

Instead, I settled for somewhat of a compromise. My idea would involve a good handful of our closest friends who would be a part of the process, but ultimately out of the way during the actual proposal.

The idea was a puzzle trail, sort of like the one that Robert Langdon follows around European cities in Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. Both Jasmine and I nurture romantic notions like messages in bottles and secret rooms hidden behind bookshelves. That sort of thing.

I've create puzzle trails for Jasmine in the past for various occassions. These usually consist of no more than five steps and I typically plan them to be completed within an hour. In the past, Jasmine had surprised me with her quick wit and have even surpassed what I thought to be a hard trail in a quarter of the time expected.

Given that, I plotted another five clue trail that would retell the story of how my relationship with Jasmine started, complete with small narration along with the clues. The trail went something like this:

-- Set up --
First, I had to get Jas started on the trail. I had previously written out all the clues and simply copy and pasted the email from the master copy and sent it. Then I called Jas and told her to check her email while I had to go and "run some errands"

I suppose this is technically the first clue, but it was an easy one. I wrote a simple riddle that would guide her to the high school where we first met (it was in grade nine math if you were wondering). One of the hardest things to do for these clues was to make the answer obvious, but just barely so. This was the first puzzle trail that required Jasmine to leave her house and, since she was driving herself, I did not want to risk her driving aimlessly around town, which is a surefire way to incur her wrath instead of invoking passion.

-- First Stop: High School --
Jasmine's work involves school and I arranged to have some of her occupationally appropriate friends wait for her at the school to hand her the clue. The clue itself was coded and Jas had to decipher it in order to know where to go next. The code is my own unique one, but it is one that Jas and I share and I had included the key in the previously mentioned email in case she forgot it. Turns out she didn't really need it.

Solving the cipher took around 10 minutes, which was within my calculations. What I didn't figure was that her friends would ask her "skill testing questions" prior to forking over the clue! This, and the conversations that followed afterwards, would delay Jas for about half an hour in total, throwing my guesstimate of one hour total for the puzzle trail out the window. Whoops!

-- Second Stop: Mutual friend's house --
Although Jasmine and I met in high school, we did not start dating until after we graduated. A major event that led to that was a chance meeting at a friend's party (a mutual friend that we didn't know was a mutual friend). This house was the second stop and other mutual friends had the next clue.

This clue had a list of co-ordinates that was meant for Jas's Go board. After meeting again at the mutual friend's house, we arranged to meet again for a game or two of Go, a game as ancient and popular as Chess. When a go stone is placed on all the co-ordinates, it would spell out the next location, which was a McDonald's, where we first ate together.

The clue was written so to almost give away the next location. I figured the go puzzle was a bit too much and had instructed the clue bearers to just give Jas the answer if she guessed correctly right then and there, saving her a trip home. However, she never guessed aloud and opted to head home to whip out the ol' Go board. Oh well, in total this clue only took 15 minutes.

-- Third Stop: McDonald's --
Jasmine's best friends were waiting here (another was back at station two) with the third clue. This clue was a cinch. All it contained was an address that she had to punch into her GPS system.

The next location was far away and I didn't want her stressed out before driving. In fact, at this point, all the clues become easier as I did not want Jas to get annoyed with the whole she-bang. If the solving time got shorter as the trail progressed, she was more likely to complete it in a speedy manner. It was approximately one hour since I called her at the start of the trail when Jasmine started making her way to Burnaby.

-- Fourth Stop: Burnaby --
I lived in Burnaby when Jas and I first started dating, which was about a 20 minute drive from Vancouver. On the day that I asked Jasmine out, she was visiting SFU, a university that was close to Burnaby and we had arranged for her to visit me at home. The first stop in Burnaby was the bus stop was the rendezvous point wherefrom Jas and I walked back to my house.

Waiting in Burnaby was my two best friends. We left pretty early on, around after Jasmine solved the first clue, in order to get a head start. We waited together at a McDonald's of our own and, after we got the call from the third station, we all went to our respective spots to wait for Jas.

The clue at the first Burnaby stop was simply a picture of us dining at Pizza Hut, where we officially had our first dinner together. All Jasmine had to do was recognize the location and head there. From the bus stop, it was only 5 blocks to the restaurant.

-- Fifth Stop: Pizza Hut --
At this point, Jas was getting a bit displeased as we were an hour and a half into the trail. The last clue handed to her here was a hand-drawn map with a route and instruction marked leading her to the final destination, the look-out point behind my old house.

-- Last Stop: The Look-out Point --
The lookout point was the place where I had originally wanted to ask Jasmine out six years ago. Instead, I got tongue-tied and ended up doing it later on that same evening in the past. We had regularly visited the location several times in the past for various occassions and, for that reason and more, I wanted it to be the place where we got engaged.

The map was fairly easy to follow. Burnaby is full of huge hills and my old house was near the top of one. From the look-out point, I could easily look down three block and see when Jas was coming up. I saw her, made sure she saw me, and went over to prepare the stereo and flowers.

When I turned around, imagine my surprise when I saw that Jasmine's car had disappeared! I had expected her to follow the route and my instructions and park in the dead-end alleyway that no one uses but she instead decided to try and circle around the lookout point in search of a parking spot. I quickly called her on the cellphone, she sounded quite grumpy on the phone, and guided her back to where I wanted her to be.

When Jas stepped out, the music played and she began to smile. I whispered my short proposal speech and brought out a temporary ring that was to serve as our engagement ring until we went out and shopped for the real one.

She said "yes", by the way.

After that, we had lunch at the Pizza Hut and I drove her car back to her house, where my car was parked just a block away. We grabbed our luggage and headed up to Whistler for the weekend to celebrate.

I had all my friends and mutual friends to thank for their patience and co-operation throughout the whole process. I originally planned to proposal a few months earlier, in April, but the timing wasn't quite right, so I waited until our sixth year anniversary to do it.

Overall it was a success. The total time it took for me to propose since the phone call at the start was two hours, about twice as long as I anticipated. Jasmine did get a bit hot under the collar, but she forgave me and I promised that I would never do it again :)

Now that this complicated plan is done, it's time for the next one to start.

Alienating Diamonds

2009-07-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

Since I got engaged this month, part of my weekends have been spent with my fiancee shopping for an engagement ring. We finally decided on one with a neat design from Spence Diamonds. It looked something like this:

I like the three stone look and Jasmine likes the hearts in the setting (which you cannot see in the image). We picked a 18K yellow gold ring and rocks that added up to exactly 1.5 carats.

Whenever people think of Spence Diamonds, they recall those annoying radio ads that everybody seems to hate. People often wonder aloud "What were they thinking?". These ads are certainly an unorthodox way of branding yourself.

However, insofar, only a small handful of people have been completely turned off from Spence so much that they do not even want to step into one of their stores. Rather, the ads are extremely effective in being retained in people's mind. When they think diamonds, they think of Spence and all the benefits and offers they have. While the ads are dodgey, the stores are utterly brilliant and professional in contrast and, along with the staff and products, are designed to impress.

It really is just a simple practice in being stand-out-unique. If they went with traditional ads, they would just blend in with all other jewellers regardless of how good their offers are. However, the annoying guy's voice just cuts through the white noise and what he says is heard and embedded in your mind.

On top of that, the awfulness of the ads have picked up a viral mode of transportation, spread by word of mouth as people share their mutual dislike of the commercials and positive impressions of the product itself.

It isn't something that can be pulled off easily or consistently. You always run the risk of alienating your customers. Therein lies the ingenuity of the Spence Diamond radio commercials. Not only did they pull it off, but they did it with great and continued success.

DO WANT

2009-07-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

This tauntaun sleeping bag is utterly amazing! The lightsaber zipper is a very nice detail that makes my inner geek explode with giddiness. I absolutely hope that they'll be able to produce these.

Oh, in other news, I got engaged last weekend. I suppose I should make a blog about that...at a later time!

I don't usually whore myself out to promote products...but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.

2009-06-29T22:32:00.000-07:00

You've probably seen these ads or heard them on the radio by now. Dos Equis' fictional spokesperson does indeed seem interesting and intriguing, almost like Sean Connery before he aged into his old and gross phase.

I may have mentioned it before, but the products that require the most advertisements and branding are those that need to differentiate itself from similar products. This is why there are a lot of ads for alcohol, clothing and perfume.

While the ads are quite neat, the branding and target demographic is quite clear with Dos Equis' ads. We can see that the most interesting person in the world is an elderly gentleman, a man of the world even. He is like George Clooney, a bachelor for life who never fails to be seen with a woman on his arm.

Indeed, one must be greyed a bit in order to accumulate the experiences that makes a person the most interesting in the world. This is what Dos Equis is aiming for: men who are perhaps past their prime, but want to believe that they are not out of the game and that their age is an advantage. Even the commercial's film quality reflect this targeting. You will note is a bit grainy and faded, like an old Bond film.

By branding itself has a sophisticated and classy drink, Dos Equis can justify a premium pricing and their customers can buy their way into an excellent first impression.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, here's a Heineken ad:

Nothing too bad at first glance, just people who really love their beer. However, this is starkly contrasted by some print ads and earlier branding attempts by Heineken. While the commercial is targeted at party lovers and frat boys, in the past Heineken has tried to appeal to a more upscale taste.

In fact, around Vancouver I have noticed a few "Carpe P.M." bus ads for Heineken. These ads obviously refers to Carpe Diem, which is latin for "seize the day" meaning the ad is telling you to "seize the afternoon". However, in order to get that, you would need a bit of an education and not just a squealie, excitable persona.

Mis-matching your branding is a bad idea, especially if your catchment is huge. If people are confused about your brand, you lose your entire target demographic since no one can decide if the beer is "them" or not. I'm not saying that all frat boys are uneducated, they are in post-secondary after all, but I am saying that some party goers are not cultured enough to get the bus ads. Which is a pity, because I really like them.

Brilliant Anti-War Ads

2009-06-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

These ads are genius-calibre. I wonder if there is a standard size poles in the area or if they modify a bunch for special locales?

Soft Skills and Video Games

2009-06-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

The video above demonstrates a hard skill that I possess. Now, I do not mean hard, as in difficult, ninja shirt fold is actually easy with some practice, I mean hard as in limited in use. Ninja shirt folding is a skill that can only be applied to folding shirts and maybe some other garments. While being able to fold shirts quickly would be handy for a, say, merchandise manager, it definitely would not be helpful at all for a plumber or project manager.

Soft skills are the opposite of hard skills. They are skills that are extremely useful no matter what job you are doing. In fact, another name for them is "transferable skills". These include: leadership skills, self-motivation, attention to detail, etc.

Surprisingly, I've found that video games are great for helping people develop many soft skills. Video games have already been shown to improve other skills, such as spatial visualization and navigation, so why not communication, foresight, and learning from mistakes?

Of course, you'll get things like short attention span, lack of focus and procrastination along with it, but if you are able to keep those things under check then you will come out ahead with a decent set of skills that you can back up with examples.

For instance, teamwork and team management is usually a biggie for manager positions. If you have ever been a raid in WOW or worked with other survivors in Left 4 Dead, then you have probably exercised those skills for countless hours.

If you took the time to think about the games you enjoy frequently, you will start to recognize all the little things that makes the difference between a good player and a poor one. And if you are able to nail down these skills with fancy business words, then you are certainly able to impress others, both in your application and one the job.

Now, I'm not saying put video games down in your resumes and cover letters. Make sure that the situation is appropriate and always back up your statements with "real" work experience anecdotes that can be confirmed by your references. At the same time, if the job is right or if an interview is going well and seems informal enough, you can use video games as an example to buff up your skills. Just make sure you take the time to explain it well and avoid leaving things to inference.

The Modern Renaissance Man

2009-06-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

We live in an interesting period of time where common sense is not that common, seemingly because of the existence of really stupid people, but also because common sense now encompasses a lot more than it ever has.

Most people around you know how to use a computer and access the internet. Those that really know how to work the search engine and information highway have access to a limitless source of knowledge that can enable them to do so much more than anyone has in the past.

As humankind's collective knowledge expands, it is natural to expect that people will specialize, afterall there is too much for a single person to know. Every community will be able to sustain itself, having different people specializing in various essential areas covering each other's backs.

However, somewhere along the way in our pursuit of knowledge, we went offtrack. Instead of specializing, we instead became jack-of-all-trades and began acquiring knowledge and experience in a multitude of areas. Think about people you know: most individuals today are proficient in several sports, at least one instrument and another language, have several hobbies, and are utter geeks about quite a few things.

In many ways we modern people are like the enlightened of the Renaissance. A true renaissance man was a philosopher, artist, scientist, inventor, poet, etc. Think of Leonardo da Vinci and the vast number of accomplishments and trials he attempted. Many motivated people, especially late adolescents and young adults, are motivated to take up personal side projects and the ilk.

The internet helps in many ways, providing a compedium of knowledge that can support that of which we already know while filling in any gaps. The internet can turn us into make-shift doctors, plumbers, even (especially?) IT techies.

It is the blessing of the modern age that we have enough time to seek and gather so much knowledge and skill, in the past, aspiring renaissance men had to seek out patron to sponsor them. Beyond that, we have to thank the global village that is the internet. Its existence alleviates the need for most of us to specialize in anything as there is always someone covering some topic. There are, of course, still people who are hyper-specialized in certain topics, and we as a global community benefit from that.

Professional Writing

2009-06-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

It's been pretty busy here on the home front. As you can see, my casual writing (aka the blog) is usually the first victim cast aside when crunch time settles in.

This weekend was my girlfriend's birthday and every day was spent with a different group of friends/family. It was tonnes of fun, but I had an Escapist article that was due on Monday. Luckily, I already had all my notes written out and organized, which was more than half the battle. I managed to squeak by this time. For the next article I'm writing for the big online magazine, which is due in two weeks, I'll be jumping on it early so that I don't have to worry anymore.

So that was my weekend. Last week was E3 and I was assigned to summarize the event. I didn't get sent over to it (maybe next year?) but there was still plenty to do. I had a queue of about 60 articles that I referenced for my own articles. The research for this alone took several hours and it was difficult to write and then edit down the word count to an acceptable level.

Freelancing is fun, I complain a lot but I love it more than anything. If possible, I would like to be able to just sit at home and write for various publications. Perhaps, if I could find time, I would finish my novel ideas and then become a professional writer for real. As it stands however, I'm wiped out after every deadline. I won't say outright that it is affecting my enthusiasm for video games and writing, but it is hard to do these things for personal enjoyment when you have a stack of related work that needs to be done.

I have my digital audio recorder and the personal blog file is flashing a 3, which means there are 3 blog ideas in there that I haven't written out yet. I met my deadline for Kidzworld pretty early this week so maybe I'll be able to tackle that and do some future posts. Early completion ftw!

State of Misinterpretation

2009-06-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

Contestant: I'll take "State of Misinterpretation" for 2000, Alex.

Trebek: Answer: You, the pimp, lost your only employee.
-bzzz-
Snoop?

Snoop: What is "I'd a ho?"

Trebek: "I had a ho" or "Idaho." That is correct.
-applause-

How Archie avoids anachronism

2009-06-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

So, apparently Archie is going to marry Veronica this fall. The media buzz around this seemingly trivial piece of information is astounding, I take my hat off to the media relations people at Archie comics that made it all happen. The news spread quickly and deep, hitting the far reaches and recesses of everybody's information network.

Word of mouth and social networks, like facebook, helped get the word out, but we must remember that certain criteria needs to be satisfied before any of this can happen.

Firstly, the news must be relevant to people's general interest. Archie, being quite iconic in North American society (you can't buy groceries without seeing an Archie comic book), is immediately identifiable and relatable, meaning people can make conversation with their friends and associates with that as a topic. Obscure topics would need to find a strong and dedicated niche group to enjoy similar widespread growth.

The next requirement is simplicity. If you remember the kid's game of telephone, you'll know that complicated phrase and difficult to describe concepts often get muddled as it goes from person to person. The message being spread here is quite simple and, again, it is thanks to the media relations people who works with the media, aka people who condense and simplify all information for easy digest.

The remaining requisites have already been mentioned: concentration, frequency, and initial impact. The last thing is controversy. The fact that Archie picked Veronica instead of Betty, the fan favourite, is sure to stir some discussion, which is a designed move to keep Archie as a topic of discussion for as long as possible. It is also a good move to draw in readers. If people are satisfied with Archie's choice, they won't bother to read how it happens, they already know the ending, or at least as much of the ending as they care to know. However, since it is Veronica, some people may read the comic in hopes that things will turn out differently.

As quickly as the news spread, the interest in it, like most pop songs, died within a few days. While most people have a soft spot for Archie from their hayday, most agree that the comic is not for them now.

Most were willing to write off the entire escapade as a non-canon entry, one that will be written off by the writers themselves in one way or another (either a dream/fantasy sequence or some contrived plot device). Archie comics follows an old tradition where the characters remain the same age constantly.

While the Simpsons are able to hide this fact well by avoiding most pop references, Archies often try to reach out to the current generation with constant references to pop culture, especially to current pop stars and trends. There was a time when Betty listened to Bruce Sprucesteen and Jughead loved the Hula Hoop.

Each generation has their own picture of Archie and friends. This is contrasted to whatever image they portray currently in the comics and often it turns older readers away, much like older parents who try too hard to show their kids that they're still "cool" and "hip".

So, as much as Archie is trying to draw in people with this so-called new development, it is more likely than not that people will forget about the whole thing or become desensitized to it by September.

Self Censorship Fun!

2009-05-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Lots of writing this week, it's almost unbelieveable. So I'll just keep this short and sweet.

The subject of swearing came up recently, last weekend in fact. For most of us, we swear inadverdently, without conscious thought. As such, it can be difficult sometimes to control ourselves when we are with formal or younger company.

Myself, I've always had this bad habit. I think it originated with my father, who favours the word 'shit', and the behaviour was reinforced by the usual media: TV, movies, books, peers, video games, etc.

I first got into quote/unquote "serious" (super emphasis ftw!) trouble for swearing in high school. During the Grade 8 walk-a-thon, my shoe got stuck in the mud and I almost tripped. Without thinking, I slipped a 'shit' in front of an elementary school teacher, who promptly reprimanded me. I ended up writing an essay for her; but, in actuality, I wrote a semi-speech about how swear words are simply words without social weight on them. Not that fancy worded, mind you, but something to that effect.

However, while the argument stands true to this day, the opposite is also true. We really do not need special words to help us express ourselves better and, in fact, due to social conditioning, swear words can sometimes do us a disservice. Instead of being taken seriously, the words distract people from the message.

Nowadays, I try to avoid swearing in all instances. Instead, I have fun with my expletives. I try trading 'schnauzer' for 'shit' and I find more satisfaction in saying it. As well, dragging on the word 'fudge' and emphasizing the annuciation of the 'dg' at the end is equally entertaining. Lastly, another fun self censorship practice I enjoy is replacing 'shit' with 'ship' in cases where it confounds or even improves the connotation (for example: I have a ship load of work to do).

While jumbling up words still distract meaning from a sentence, I only do so in jest and, thus, it doesn't really matter if anyone takes me seriously. What it does do, however, is chisel away at any unconscious habit to swear and, hopefully, it will ultimately improve my day to day oration.

Kinetic Typography

2009-05-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not an artist. I like to be creative but my artistic capacity is a bit underdeveloped. I realize that, with some practice, I may become somewhat decent but, truth be told, I'm fine with the way I am.

When I studied graphic design in university (for two semesters), typography really interested me. It presented a wonderful chance for me to be visually creative without relying on free hand graphics or even regular graphic manipulation.

I studied how to mix san serif and serif fonts together and all the little things that can make a block of text look good while still being legible. I was quite delighted when a program I made for my girlfriend's tutoring student's solo harp performance gain some minor acclaim. It is not often that people comment about spacing, font size choices, and kerning.

Typography, of course, is the arrangement of text on a page. More often than not, the graphic designer has no control over what text is meant to be on the finished work. However, the designer does have the liberty to arrange the text however he/she likes. I don't have any ads or personal sample available, but the internet has something even better: Kinetic Typography.

While normal typography can be used to make something simple and pristine, or cluttered, or hint at images, etc, kinetic typography takes the whole thing up a notch by representing the action and emotion in the words. In a way, it is trying to compensate for anything that is lost in context, connotation or denotation.

Here you can see the words fly, the disorientating shouting and the meek replies. The creator of this Kinetic Typography sample did really well to convey the pacing and gravity of the speech.

This example is a bit simpler, with the words being arranged in a way that is pleasing and artsy. It is more of an example of different layouts than an attempt at expression. Still, the overall effect is beautiful and enjoyable.

Kinetic Typography have been popping up in commercials all the time in some small way or another. However, it is prominently used here, in the F150 ads which consists of voice over, kinetic type, and some live action/CG shots of the truck.

You can see that it is not overly extravagant, but there is still a fair bit of playing around with the text. These ads succeed on several levels, the liveliness of the words on the screen keeps viewers watching and superliminally passes the advertiser's message to the consumer.

Mafia in the House Party

2009-05-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

Although my birthday was on the 10th, I had my party about a week later, on the 16th. The main reason for this was because of Mother's Day, I simply didn't want to put my guests on a spot.

In total, we had about twenty people drop by and party for awhile. Being the geek that I am, the party revolved mainly around board games and table top games. While we did run 2-4 different games at a time, there were moments when we all came together and played a massive game.

The staple massive party game seems to be Mafia, a game originating in Russia and possessing many forms and variations. We ended up playing two rounds of Mafia, also known as Werewolves, one time with a smaller group and another game with all but three guests (who showed up half way through the game).

The game is a battle between an uninformed majority and an informed minority. A quarter or a fifth of participants are randomly and secretly Mafia members (or werewolves). Usually this is determined by dealing different kinds of cards to people. After the roles have been assigned, everyone closes their eyes and then the secretive members open their eyes and meet for the first time.

After this, there is a process of nightly murders and daytime, public lynchings. The majority, called the villagers, call suspicion on various people for different reasons. The mafia members, pretending to be villagers, do the same. The villagers aim to accurate find the mafia members and lynch them through an open voting process. If there is ever a majority, then the player, mafia or villager, is dead and eliminated from the game.

The mafia, on the other hand, seek to become the majority. They do this through the manipulation of the lynching and by their nightly murders. The villagers win once they eliminate all the mafia members while the mafia wins by having their number be equal or greater than the villagers.

Some variations include special roles, such as a Psychic Seer, who can secretly see someone's allegiance by having the moderator confirm his/her guesses. There might also be a Sheriff or Doctor hidden among the villagers who can save someone if they were targetted at night.

The variation that most people are used to involves repeated nights where everyone goes through the cycle of one daytime lynching and one nighttime murder where everyone closes their eyes. This eyes close part is how the mafia members, Seer, Sheriff, etc, remain secret, with the moderator/narrator being the only person who knows.

However, this was not the original version of the game. In the original version, the only time people close their eyes was at the very beginning. Once the mafia members knew who each other were, everyone opened their eyes and the lynching began. Instead of just one lynching, there can be multiple ones: any time a majority occurred, someone died. As well, people can do an open vote to go to sleep, which is when the mafia will start their work.

Instead of having people close their eyes and having the mafia members point at their target, night time activity is done through a paper vote. Villagers simply wrote "Honest", "Villager" or something similiar while the mafia wrote the name of their target. The only time someone is murdered at night is when the mafia unanimously wrote the name of a single person.

The moderator reads the votes so that people's handwriting is concealed. It is through this vote that the villagers know how many mafia members are left to be lynched. The paper voting and need for unanimity also means that the mafia members need to find a way to communicate their target. However, these activities may draw attention, which is good for the villagers, who normally get next to no clues to go on in other version of the game.

The original version of the game features no special roles beyond Mafia and Villager. Besides being difficult to implement, the game is actually fairly balanced in the original version whereas other versions usually have a very strong mafia who are nearly guranteed a kill every night.

I think I prefer the original version over other variations. The only hassle is the paper vote. If only there was a way to pass around an electronic device that will scramble the order of the votes and then tally it automatically. Maybe I should make one...

The speed of thinking

2009-05-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if everyone expiriences this, but I've always known that my thoughts tend to move at astronomical rates. I can recall basically every scene in an entire movie in a few seconds or go over every second of a driving route in my mind, looking at all the houses and landmarks along the way, and get there in my head faster than humanly possible.

This can really mess up word association games, especially if you like to take mental two/three-steps-at-a-time like I do. In a split second, I can go from balloon to the Stanley cup (balloon->hot air balloon->Jules Verne->Around the world in 80 days->Jackie Chan movie->Jackie is inspired by Charlie Chaplin->Charlie Chaplin's moustache->playoff beard->playoff Hockey->Stanley Cup), but it's fun to do and it's great for things like math and chess as you're able to consider multiple paths at the same time.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was driving home from work. You see, I normally go under a tunnel on my way home, so the radio would go static for about 30 seconds. If there is a song playing at the time, I would usually try singing along in my head and see if I can come out of the tunnel on beat with the music.

However, no matter how hard I try to keep with the tempo, I always seem to end up about 5 seconds faster than the song. I guess that's just the nature of things.

MrScaryMuffin

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