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Melbourne, Australia 2007.05 Trip Summary

Since I have a lot of ground to cover regarding my trip to Melbourne, Australia this month, I'll start off with an outline of the trip as I remember it. I might describe some of the more personally significant things from the trip in a future post.

--- 2007.05 Trip Summary ---

May 5 (Sat)
- Kota Kinabalu International Airport
- Kuala Lumpur International Airport
- Melbourne Airport

May 6 (Sun)
- Melbourne
- Queen Victoria Market
- Princes Park, Caulfield South, Glen Eira City
- Settlers of Catan - 1st game ever!

May 7 (Mon)
- Melbourne City - 1st visit
- Minotaur
- Crown Casino

May 8 (Tue)
- Sorrento
- DFO
- take-out dinner from Hungry Jack's

May 9 (Wed)
- Cafe Sergovia
- Royal Arcade
- Dungeon of Magic
- The Games Shop - Settlers of Catan 5-6 Player Expansion, Bicycle Braille Playing Cards
- Heroes, Season 1 Episode 15: Run!

May 10 (Thu)
- Spider-Man 3 at Village Cinemas, Westfield Southland

May 11 (Fri)
- Melboune Zoo
- Bistro Vite

May 12 (Sat)
- Melbourne Aquarium
- Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne

May 13 (Sun)
- Bistro Vite
- Sunday Market at The Arts Centre
- Othello
- Crown Melbourne Jazz 2007 - Moovin' & Groovin' Orchestra
- Lord of the Fries

May 14 (Mon)
- Chadstone Shopping Center
- Borders

May 15 (Tue)
- The University of Melbourne
- lunch at KFC beside University
- Minotaur - Last Call

May 16 (Wed)
- Taco Bill
- Minotaur
- Heroes, Season 1 Episode 16: "Unexpected"

May 17 (Thu)
- Australian Hearing
- Queen Victoria Market
- Il Tempo
- Minotaur
- Koko Black - 1st visit

May 18 (Fri)
- Queen Victoria Market
- QVM food court fish-n-chips
- Koko Black
- night out

May 19 (Sat)
- Rococo, Ackland Street, St. Kilda

May 20 (Sun)
- Green Point Wines tour

May 21 (Mon)
- lunch at Subway, Swanston Street, Melbourne City
- Mind Games Melbourne - Games Quarterly Magazine #12 (includes Fishermen of Catan)
- Koko Black
- State Library of Victoria

May 22 (Tue)
- lunch at Mc Donald's, Swanston Street, Melbourne City
- State Library of Victoria
- DFO Spencer Street

May 23 (Wed)
- Healesville Sanctuary
- Australian Wildlife Health Care
- Puffing Billy Railway - Belgrave to Menzines Creek
- Emerald Fish & Chippery

May 24 (Thu)
- Toyota plant tour
- La Porchetta - North Melbourne branch

May 25 (Fri)
- Bistro Vite
- State Library of Victoria
- Mind Games Melbourne
- Academic and General Bookshop
- Koko Black
- Settlers of Catan /w Fishermen of Catan - last 3 games

May 26 (Sat)
- twin cousins' Baptism and Baptismal Celebration

May 27 (Sun)
- Melbourne Airport
- Kuala Lumpur International Airport
- back in Philippines

It Always Seems Hotter When You Get Back

Just got back from Australia. Will rest and catch-up a bit first before I start posting about the trip.

Last Week In Australia

Given that I'm making use of my time in Melbourne, Australia wisely, and that the only ocmputer I can manage to use is a dial-up, I'm not going to try and write too much about this trip on the fly. Instead, I'm going to be making some summary posts about the whole trip when I get back.

I will mention a brief on some significant stuff in the past week:
- the weather in Melboune is so erratic
- the Crown Casino is just a part of a huge entertainment complex by Crown
- the people of Melbourne are very diverse
- Koko Black serves amazing hot coco
- I found some places where you can get geek/gamer items in Melbourne
- the Victoria Market is huge

Regarding events that I wasn't able to cover back home:
- Philippine elections - but they'll probably still be counting even after I arrive
- release of Magic: The Gathering's "Future Sight" block
- Shrek 3 - I'll be lucky if this will still be in theatres when I get back, mainly due to...
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At Word's End - this one might be still around when I get back, but it might prevent me from watching Shreck 3

and most importantly...

... the official announcement of "Starcraft II"! XD ZOMFG!!!
Oh, Starcraft II, so much is expected from you...!

G'day Mates!

I managed to get access to a computer here for the meantime. It's a dial-up, so I probably won't be frequenting posts (nor other computer use) while I'm here. That's fine since it's probably better if I just enjoy my vacation away from teh computer.

I arrived here this morning, and I'll be going back home on 2007.05/28. If I manage to whip-up some posts while I'm here, you'll know.

Setting-up for Australia

The past week was rather busy in preparing for a trip to Australia.  Yep, I'm going to Australai for a few week's vacation next month (May).  Last week I was working on the initial paperwork, so this week I'm gonna be working on the plane tickets.

So basically, I didn't have time for much else.  I will mention some stuff I did last week:
- worked mostly on Guild Wars to get my Paragon "Kapitan Tiago" to the last two missions
- played some Warcraft III
- fixed some stuff on the blog
- tried to tweak the URL redirection for this blog (and failed, Blogger, [please fix this soon)
- watched Gray Matters, not my type of movie, but objectively not all that bad
- watched The Philippine Madrigal Signers at CCP with my SO (they were very good)

Future Sight Cards Listed at Gatherer

Want to know what cards will be in Future Sight? Wizards of the Coast has already updated Gatherer (the official card database) with entries of the cards that will be in Future Sight.

If the Future Sight Mini-site has been teasing you this long, perhaps you can take a look at what's actually gonna be there.

Hobbycraft Magazine, the Philippines' Newest Hobby Mag

I went to a nearby local comic/magazine/hobby to look for some back issues of Inquest when I noticed "Hobbycraft Magazine". It was a local publication from PSICOM, was cheap, was new (1st issue just this April), and it seemed to include stuff about Magic: The Gathering. Being on the lookout for good local stuff, I got myself a copy.

"Hobbycraft Magazine" focuses on various on various "hobbies" in the Western geek context, mainly toys, card games, and collectibles. It appears to be InQuest Gamer, Toyfare, and some Magic: The Gathering website articles put together in local (Philippine) context. I don't read Toyfare, so I can't comment on how similar the toy related content is, but I have been reading InQuest regularly for a while, and I can see some similarities, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Budget decks, top cards, and playtests of featured decks are some things you'll find familiar.

What i did like was the local context of it all. Card prices are in Philippine Peso, the lists don't appear to be taken from other mags but based on local usage (though I don't know how they come-up with their lists), and the decklists are based on local competitions. They also give you the who's who on the various tournaments around.

I also give them credit for the general writing quality. I have been reading a local magazine that delves almost exclusively on online games, and though the news is updated, the writing leaves a lot to be desired in terms of content. Needless to say, I stopped reading that mag. The writing in Hobbycraft, however, generally has a good amount of meat per paragraph, which allows the reader to take in quite a bit of information considering the short write-ups. The quips on their pictures are also pretty good.

Issue #1 focused on Transformers, so it isn't a surprise that most of the mag revolved around everything Autobot and Decepticon (plug: Transformers fans might want to check this out). Their toy reviews are pretty comprehensive, which is quite impressive. I wasn't too hot on their "Prime rating" (i.e. using Optimus Prime instead of stars), but otherwise, they covered a lot of ground for each item reviewed. The price is also very reasonable, even compared to the new local price for InQuest.

It ain't all perfect, tho, there are hiccups. For one, I saw some headings that slipped through editing. Also, I can't seem to tell who wrote which article. Regarding the writing, as much as I praised the density of information, that style is a sort of double edged sword. There were parts where you'd have to be in the know to understand what the author is trying to say. For the most part, this was fine with me, but it may deter some real newbies to the genre.

Given focus, the local flavor, the price, and how much information they provide for your peso, I think "Hobbycraft Magazine" is off to a good start. Aside from the editorial slips (which I hopte won't be there next time), I don't have much qualms. I don't really mind the jargon, but I hope they know which articles are for the newbies and which articles can handle the geek speak. It's the debut issue, so we'll have to see how things will be in the future. So far, though, I'm very glad I found something to read aside from InQuest.

If you're interested in Magic: The Gathering, Word of Warcraft TCG, and toys in the Philippine context, grab a copy of "Hobbycraft Magazine".

PS:

Given that the issue is about Transformers, if you're interested in what "alternative Transformers" might be like should check this out.

Hanachi-e and the Watermelon of Evil

It's so mind boggling that I just have to mention it before I get some sleep.

My SO requested me to get her either some corn or a watermelon on my way back from the province. I got her a watermelon and went to her place to give it to her before I went home. She opened the door cradling Hanachi-e (her cat). My SO was happy to see the watermelon, but Hanachi-e seemed to flinch. She snickered that maybe Hanachi-e was afraid of the watermelon, which was funny, so I lifted the watermelon a bit to check for a reaction...

... then Hanachi-e bolted away hissing!

It might make a lot of sense to Hanachi-e but it was so perplexing to me and my SO. I set the watermelon on her table and placed Hanachi-e beside it to confirm. Hanachi-e slowly crept toward it, gave it 2 sniffs, then hissed as she backed away!

Conclusion, the watermelon is eeeeevilllll!

:D

So, What Have I Been Up To Lately?

Regular visitors might notice that I'm significantly more quiet this week than last. So, what have I been up to?

Basically, this turned out to be an errand, gaming backlog, and investigation week. I've been busy doing errands and various maintenance stuff for myself and my home Related to these, I've also been preparing some paperwork (heh, for someone who ain't workin', I got a ton of paperwork on my backlog). All of these are mundane, no need to get into details.

As for the stuff I've been investigating, they are, briefly, the following:
- Xfire IM client
- PlayLinc IM client
- Great Games Experiment and MobyGames
- how to best track the books I own/read
- how to automatically add multiple social bookmarks in every post

For now, I'll just talk about Xfire and PlayLinc.

Xfire

Remembering a previous post, my thoughts wandered around the possibility of the standardized "gamertag". After looking around in related topics, I eventually ran into the Xfire IM, and I quickly realized that 1) I should have found this sooner, and 2) this is how those people at various gaming forums are posting gamertag-like signatures.

For my current state, the main issue I have with Xfire is that, well, I don't have any online pals that'll use it. I typically play with a random set of people, and I don't have a set of people who I regularly play with yet. Given this, it's not very useful for me in the IM sense.

It is, however, almost exactly the kind of time-tracker I've been looking for. In my previous office, the management has been trying out various software to track your application usage, for productivity purposes. Well, I'm not too keen on that, but something to track my gameplay would be super! Xfire does track how long you've been playing your games, and allows you to display your stats in a banner. Unfortunately, the games I play don't support stats, but other games (particularly shooters) have other stats that can be displayed.

Of course, Xfire has other features like being a game server/lobby, auto-joining on going games in games that support it, and in-game chatting with Xfire buddies. All great features. I won't be using these features soon, though. For now, the game-time tracking feature is enough reason for me to keep using Xfire. Besides, I get to contribute to the stats that tally which games are most played.

PlayLinc

In line with Xfire, I also ran into PlayLinc. Boasting some additional features and enhancements, I thought I should try it out. I ran into several disappointments in the onset, however.

For one, you choose among two (for now) installers, each with a different "theme" (aka, corporate sponsor?). Although annoying, this is quite superficial, so I let this slide. After installation, I learned that it's tied with AOL and ICQ, so it appeared that I could use my old ICQ account (and that it uses AOL/ICQ as its messaging platform). I logged in, and there were several hiccups regarding not being able to access certain servers, but I did somehow got in the app. These, I'll let slide too, as I don't use a lot of features related to server hosting, searching, etc.

What did annoy me was that, it only detected only 2 games of mine (Warcraft III and Frozen Throne). In fairness, Xfire wasn't able to detect some games of mine too (like Puzzle Pirates, Bang! Howdy, and Bookworm Adventures), but the games it didn't find were somewhat understandable (Bang! Howdy should've been found IMHO, Puzzle Pirates is heavily Java, so it probably doesn't detect Java based stuff, and Bookworm Adventures is probably under their bias). PlayLinc, however, wasn't able to detect anything except for Warcraft. Hell, it didn't even detect Guild Wars!

To add insult to injury, I played a few Warcraft games to see what it can do, and I wasn't even able to detect me playing the game, not to mention track how long I played it! Given that that's the only reason why I actually need this type of software, I decided that yes, the negative comments about PlayLinc that I read had a solid basis, and yes, I can't make use of it. I gave it some more runs in Warcraft to try and detect, but I eventually removed the app in frustration.

For now, Xfire has my support, even if I don't maximize it.

PS:
More on the other items I've been investigating at a later post.

Xfire | PlayLinc

Transformers: More Than Meets the Photoshop

If a Gameboy, an XBox 360, or My Little Pony were Autobots... what would they look like?

The people at Something Awful thought of that too, but they decided to take it further making a lot of hilarious mock-ups!

They just have to be seen to believe! View them here. Don't forget to read the text/captions in each one.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo Will Finally Get New Sprites! (and Online Play)

Love Street Fighter? I do. Capcom has been re-releasing and rehashing the old game for the past decade, which is somewhat fine with me given that they were pretty much perfect already. What annoys me is that they never seem to have upgraded the sprites at all! The last sprite upgrade came from Street Fighter III, but all newer games would use sprites from older releases. A 16 frame, relatively well detailed Chun-Li is kinda annoying to be fighting with an 8 frame Guile.

Now, we have some re-releases of "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" and "Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo" for the Xbox Live (XBL) and the Playstation Network (PSN). Both games were great, and online play is what I've been waiting for all my life. These re-releases, however will ahve something more than just adding online play:
- updated sprites
- modified gameplay

Although I'm quite excited about the modified gameplay, Capcom has already released a lot of games that mix and match "game mechanics". For now, I'm more excited to see the new sprites! The new sprites will be made by UDON (the guys who drew the Street Fighter comics in the US), whose are is pretty good.

If the online function plays well in the Philippines, it might be the excuse I've been waiting for to get myself an Xbox 360.

read more | digg story

Pet Food Recall (1Q 2007)

There was been a recall of pet foods recently in the US and Canada due to the presence of "wheat gluten". The issue is with "melamine", an ingredient in wheat gluten, which is currently under investigation for causing several dogs and cats to die. Melamine is also used in plastics and has some levels of toxicity. Although some argue that melamine has a very high tolerance level, current investigations are still following that lead in the recent pet deaths, so several manufacturers of cat and dog food (wet and dry) have begun recalls of their products which contain wheat gluten.

When my SO got wind of this, she immediately asked me to check what we've been feeding Hanachi-e (as well as other stuff I might feed Hanachi-e when she hangs out at my place). Fortunately, there were no problems. Wheat gluten is not everywhere and anywhere in cat food, so I guess we just have to read the labels before purchasing new catfood for Hanachi-e.

Until the investigation gets done, it is perhaps prudent to check what you feed your pet for wheat gluten or melamine.

ASPCA press release | About Melamine and Wheat Gluten Toxicity

Magic: The Gathering Online III (semi-open) Beta Schedule Update

Based on the official Magic Online III Launch Blog, this is the beta schedule for Magic: The Gathering Online III (MtGO III Beta):

- April 9 - FilePlanet.com will make the beta client available for non-subscribers! You'll still have to be a registered FilePlanet member, but you don't have to be a subscriber to get the beta client.
- April 11 - "Some" previous beta set testers will be invited to to join the beta, even if they are not FilePlanet members.

Apparently, as much as they want to increase load, they don't want to increase load too much, so they are controlling the floodgates. I guess this also means that this is just a "semi-public open beta" for v3. I think there most probably be a "public open beta" phase before they deploy the final system. No hints on the schedule from that as of yet.

As usual, I'll give you a heads-up when updates occur.


digg it | reddit


--- [edit] ---

Members of FilePlanet.com can now download the MtGO v3 beta. Please note the download is around 1gig, so it'll take a while.

I'm downloading my copy now! :D

Magic: The Gathering's "Future Sight" Mini-Site Is Now Up

The mini-site for Magic: The Gathering's "Future Sight" set is now up. "Future Sight" is the last set for the Time Spiral block (the previous sets in the Time Spiral block are "Time Spiral" and "Planar Chaos"). More updates to Future Sight's mini-site will be available on April 11 and April 18, 2007.

"Future Sight" is scheduled to be released on May 4, 2007.

"Future Sight" mini-site | "Future Sight" product page | digg it | reddit

April Fools at Guild Wars (2007)

As I logged in to claim my Asura mini-pet, I was surprised to find that my Crispin, my Paragon, had a sex change. This is apparently part of today's April Fools event, and it only happens in Lion's Arch, Shing Jea Monestary, and Kamadan.

Since time was running out, I proceeded to take snapshots of all my characters in their female versions.



I also witnessed snowmen and fireworks, but before I was able to position myself for a good picture, the snowmen disappeared.

Magic: The Gathering Online III Beta Slots for FilePlanet Subscribers

Do you want to help beta test the new Magic: The Gathering Online III before the open public beta? Are you a FilePlanet subscriber? Then sign-up for the MtGO III beta now!

Magic: The Gathering Online (MtGO) made a deal with FilePlanet to host the MtGO III beta, and FilePlanet is giving it's subscribers accounts to the closed beta. The promo is exclusively for FilePlanet subscribers only, so if you just signed up for the free account, I'm afraid that you ain't eligible for the promo.

There will be an open public beta coming up soon, but the schedule isn't clear yet. Stay tuned for updates regarding the open public beta.

digg it | reddit

--- [edit] ---

Update here.

Vote for Your Favorite US Postal Service Star Wars Stamp!

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will be releasing a set of Star Wars stamps in celebration of Star Wars' 30th anniversary. The stamps are scheduled to be released on May 25, 2007. Aside from having a chance to win trips to Star Wars Celebration IV (assuming you play the game on the website), you get a chance to vote for your favorite Star Wars stamp.

The USPS will have 15 stamps, but only one of the stamps will become it's own stamp sheet. Apparently, this is only the 2nd time the USPS has asked people to vote for a stamp. Voting is free, there is no membership required (they will send you an email to reduce chances duplicate voters), so why not go be part of history and and cast your vote! Voting ends sometime in May.

PS:

The stamps can be found here.
The current tally can be found here.
I voted for the "Princess Leia & R2-D2" stamp pictured below.



digg it | reddit

"Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords" Demo Review

"Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords" is basically a RPG (role-playing game). You pick a class, equip your character with stuff, take on quests, fight baddies, level-up, assign points to your stats, etc. Combat, however, is executed by playing a Bejeweled type puzzle.

Your level and equipment determine your HP (hit-points), and your class mainly determines what spells/techniques you can execute in combat. You stats affect how effective various aspects in combat, fire affect red pieces, water affects blue pieces, etc. In combat, you and your opponent take turns swapping adjacent pieces on the board to make Bejeweled style combinations. The pieces you combine determine the various aspects of combat. Damage is mainly dealt to your opponent by combining 3 or more skulls together.

The elemental pieces, in particular, provide you with "mana", which you use for casting spells or executing techniques (like dealing damage, destroying certain pieces or shifting mana, etc). Even the amount of cash you get (and experiences points also, I think) at the end of combat are affected by the pieces you play on the board.

The structure and navigation system of the main map is similar to the Tactics type games where you basically just choose where you want to go. On the way, you may encounter some baddies which you'll have to dispatch. As you go along and accumulate wealth, aside from purchasing items and equipment, you may also opt to improve your citadel (or house) to gain extras in the game, like mini-games (perhaps similar to the fairy world aspect of Breath of Fire III). The game also supports multiplayer, so you can pit your character and puzzling skill at other.

The demo only allows you to play until level 7, so I wasn't able to see the game through to the end. I'm a bit annoyed that the game is currently planned to be released only for the DS and PSP (which is strange since the demo is for the PC). Given the variety of puzzles in Puzzle Pirates, I was a bit surprised that you could only play the Bejeweled like combat. But then again, they did manage to put enough twists in the Bejewled style game to make it interesting and competitive. Before this game, I couldn't imagine how you could make Bejewled competitive, but they pulled it off nicely. Perhaps they put in some other puzzle games in the mini-games available in your citadel.

I like what I've seen in the demo, it makes me actually think about getting a DS just to play the game. Given that they have a demo for the PC, I think (and hope) they decide to release a PC version in the future. Regardless of where it's available right now, this game looks very promising. If you have a DS or PSP, this is a good game to check out. For now, I'll just keep on dreaming for a PC version.

Here are some more screen-shots:



digg it | reddit

Blogger Annoyances: Formatting Issues

I've been analyzing visiting patters of this blog, and I noticed that I get a few hits on my posts regarding the Guild Wars Asura mini-pet and Guild Wars: Eye of the North (GW:EotN). I found it peculiar that this post seems to get hits from Google, but my updated post on the topic, which has more substantial information on GW:EotN and Guild Wars 2, doesn't get any hits. In service of those who are looking for information, I added a link to the new post at the end of the old post.

In light of this discovery, I tried to use Google to check if the new post shows up. It doesn't, so it's no surprise why my older post on the matter is the only one being found and read. Regardless, it was kinda weird that the Google spiders were able to crawl the old post so quickly, but not the new post.

I tried to see what was different between the two. One glaring difference is that the old post's paragraph spacing was even all though out the post, while the new post had a different paragraph spacing before and after an unordered list I placed. I already noticed this problem when I first typed the post up, but I thought it was just a temporary glitch in Blogger's display code and that it wouldn't affect the spiders.

Being my only lead, I tried to google other posts of mine with similar inconsistent paragraph alignments. The newest one ain't in google yet, which is understandable sine the post is quite new. The older ones (previous month and older) are googleable. The strange thing is, the very next newer post after the Guild Wars update post was googleable, which means that the older post should also have been googleable by now.

For now, my conclusions are that:
- there is a bug in Blogger regarding posts where images and lists are involved
- the spiders can crawl these pages eventually
- the Blogger bug slows down the crawling process for these pages

As long as I notice that the problem occurs, I'll be doing the following:
- I'll type my lists manually (I won't use the [ul][li][/li][/ul] tags)
- if I use images, I'll remove the "div" tags that Blogger inserts around images

I won't try to fix the older posts, since they seem to be working anyway, but I did do this workaround in the new posts, and I'll probably keep doing this for a while.

Regardless if I'm right about the spiders, I do check the HTML code of my posts in Blogger's composition page before and after publishing. So, if there are any weird behaviors after publishing, and the HTML appears fine in the composition page, the problem is probably not caused by me.

We'll find out soon enough.

Can't Sleep (Verdant Gleancrawler Force)

I was planning on writing some nonsense about sarsaparilla yesterday afternoon, but it got bumped out of my schedule. Turns out, aside from the other stuff I'll mention, it kept nagging me. So now, I'll mention it: I tried a bottle of some healthy version of sarsaparillas (root beer) from a health store two days ago, and I liked it. I wanted to try it out 'coz it was in a twist-cap glass bottle, and you don't find much of that in the supermarket around here, but I was surprised when I read the labels that it was low on calories(which probably ment no sugar) and it had no caffeine! What kind of a softdrink is that?! Fortunately, it tasted pretty good. I'll get a tad more of 'em next time I pass by the store.



I decided to get myself some more stuff to enhance my existing deck at Magic: The Gathering Online. After doing some price-checking, I decided to get a set each of "Verdant Force" and "Gleancrawler". Verdant Force in particular seems to be good fattie candidate for a Thallid deck. Gleancrawler, on the other hand, well, I just thought it was cool. :P I have been considering making a dredge or dredgish deck sometime, so this might be useful there.

For some reason, I woke up around around an hour and a half ago and I couldn't stop thinking of how to make these work with my current cards at hand. The thought kept nagging me so I just gave in and tinkered around.

Some experts have mentioned that Thallid decks are bad, mainly because they are a bit slow, and I guess tournament play just doesn't wait for the thallids to do their thing. Since I just play casually, I don't mind as long as I have fun. Regardless, I have been trying to get myself out of my thallid rut, so I decided to try and come-up with something that would use these cards as a base. The deck I ended up with didn't turn out to be thallid at all.

Upon testing on solitaire, it seemed that the deck it might work, but I have some risks of mana screw (mainly from a mana drought at the start). The synergies aren't so clean yet, since mainly I'm scavenging from cards I already have, but after some games, I'll probably know what I'll need.

For now, I'll try to settle down and get some sleep again. Later, I might take another peek and do some tweaking. Hopefully, I'll come up with something decently playable.

Blogger Annoyances: Custom Domain Issues

If you have been having 404 errors or similar problems in accessing this page the past few days, it's because I just recently found a problem with the Blogger custom domain name. When I first used the custom domain name feature, both http://www.darthvid.com and http://darthvid.com worked correctly. In the past weekend, however, I just found out that http://darthvid.com doesn't work.

The problem can best be described here, and some solutions here and here. These are basically quick-fixes, though, as Google does admit there are still some problems in the feature.

I stopped using URL forwarding to make it work. I'll just wait for a real fix or until there's something interesting to try. Until then, only http://www.darthvid.com will work.

Comments on the Blue Moon (expandable card game) Rules

I already mentioned the expandable card game "Blue Moon" in a previous post. Now that I've read the game rules, I can comment a bit more about the game.

FYI, the rules and complete card list can be found at the official homepage (downloadable rules can be found in the US distributor game page). Given that this is an expandable card game, the complete card, including expansions, is just around 300++ cards, around the same size of a typical Magic: The Gathering 1st block expansion release.

The art on the cards are quite beautiful, and very consistent. Each set/precon is illustrated by one artist, so the cards of a people/set have a consistent feel. World of Warcraft: The Card Game still has better art, though.

To simplify the rules, the game revolves around getting 3 (or more) dragons to your side. This is done through a series of "fights", each fight being played by trying to trump the opposing player per turn. I think it's similar to the playstyle of The President's Game or Big Two Poker (to Filipinos, it's similar to Pusoy Dos or "super trump", if you remember that one). Each player takes turns playing cards trying to beat (or trump) the value of the opponent's last turn. When a player can't or doesn't want to out trump the opponent, the fight is lost, and you get to take a dragon or two to your side.

Turns are basically played with Character Cards, with Support Cards and/or Booster cards for enhancement (sort of like Magic's Sorceries). Booster cards modifiers for the current turn, while Support Cards are modifiers that last for the duration of the fight. The modifiers, and some of the Character Cards themselves, put versatility in the otherwise simple trumping system. There are also Leadership cards, but they seem fewer and generally has similar modification effects.

The rules do appear to be made specifically for a 1 vs 1 game. The text on the cards uses "I" for the current player, and "you" for the opponent. You quite literally read what the card says as if the current player is the one speaking. I'm not so sure that simply applying this to a multi-player game (which technically isn't supported) will allow a balanced game.

Each precon has a certain flavor or style of play. For "advanced" rules, customized decks (mixing cards from other precons) are allowed. At first, I thought that the 10 moon (a sort of indicator of a card's relative overall value) limitation would be restrictive, but the leader cards (which determine a deck construction's limitations), also have similar limitations, so perhaps it's OK.

Overall, it's a sort of simplified (non) CCG. Not as overly complex as Magic and World of Warcraft can get, but perhaps that's a strength. Or, you can consider it a complex playing card (poker) game. Since I haven't actually played it yet, I could be missing out on something here and there. Some people may dig this, others may not. Perhaps it would work better for more casual players.

Regardless, check the materials out, and if you think you'll like it, give it a try.

digg it | reddit

Massive "Guild Wars: Eye of the North" and "Guild Wars 2" Information from Guild Wars Guru Forums

To start things off, the guy/s was/were very lucky yo have gotten the May PC Gamer #161 so early. I was quite lucky myself when the Iron Giant mini-pet magazine came out early too, so I'll have to check my local magazine stores if they may have this particular issue already.

A link to the post can be found here. The information available is quite massive, even if it's just a "supplement" to the magazine article. Regardless, I agree with the guy that you should go out and get the copy of the magazine, a lot of other info can probably be gleaned from the mag, as the post is a summary, and subject to the guy who posted's interpretation.

Based on the post, and what I've been gathering so far, these are the notable things which I think won't change:

- "Guild Wars: Eye of the North" and "Guild Wars 2" will still use the no-subscription fee model
- "Guild Wars: Eye of the North" will wrap up the current Guild wars story (or at least the Prophecies story) and somehow tie-up to "Guild Wars 2"
- "Guild Wars: Eye of the North" will require at least one of the previous campaigns (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall) to play
- You cannot migrate your characters from the current campaigns to "Guild Wars 2"
- "Guild Wars 2" will have additional races

There is so much more info, but for now, the info I listed above seems stable. Who knows what they'll decide to change as feedback comes (which is probably why they're letting us know about this stuff now).

As sad as I am that you won't be able to carry over your old characters, I pretty much expected it. "Guild Wars 2" is shaping up to a something new, not an extension, and the changes in gameplay will have its own balance issues, it cannot be comparable gameplay and balance wise.

I do hope they decide to push through with their massive online world plans. I consider myself a casual player of the game, and some of their gameplay plans regarding a resettable persistent pop-in/pop-out gameplay appeals to me, not to mention the thought of hundreds of players fighting side-by-side (or against each other).

I'll probably have more comments after I get the magazine (which I hope will be soon).


read more | digg story

Magic: The Gathering Online III Initial Screen Shots and Updates

I think a lot of Magic: The Gathering Online (MtGO) players have been waiting for this update. Unfortunately, form the looks of the blog entry linked by the article, they still have quite a few issues to fix. That's fine with me, better to make sure you deploy a good working version than a buggy version.

Still, with the open beta coming soon, and with some initial screen shots, at least it indicates that they're not as far off as they could be (or at least, I hope it does).

official site | digg it | reddit

Beerkada #7

As I was going home from lunch (and while pondering if I should get myself a copy of "Blue Moon"), I decided to make a quick stop by a local bookstore, just to see if there was anything interesting. I was browsing the magazines, but I got the itch to go check out the humor section for some reason. I'm glad I did.

Apparently, the seventh compilation of the Philippine comics strip "Beerkada" is already on the shelves! I checked out the website, and it appears that the official launching for Beerkada 7 is this Saturday (But the details are sketchy, I don't know if the precise date/time/venue. I hope Lyndon or whoever updates the site makes this clear, for the sake of his website visitors).

Needless to say, I bought my copy immediately! If you're a Beerkada fan, get a copy from your local bookstore now (Philippines only, most probably)!

Blue Moon (expandable card game)

Given my current interest in card games, I've been trying to find a good card game that isn't a CCG (collectible card game) like Magic: The Gathering or World of Warcraft TCG. What interests me most about both games, aside from the game mechanics, is the deck-building part of the game. Deckbuilding is a sort of meta-game, and I seem to enjoy that phase a lot.

Unfortunately, both MtG and WoW TCG are somewhat prohibitive to me since keeping up with the meta-game evolutions and having good cards/decks (where the really interesting stuff are) costs quite a bit of money. Perhaps there is a card game out there where the deck-building meta-game is in use but it is not a CCG (hence, it has a relatively reasonable price for access to all strategic options).

I ran into "Blue Moon" as a result. Quite a few card games were mentioned, but Blue Moon was a consistent candidate. The game is 1 vs 1, and given that it's been around for some years now, additional cards are available in several precon (pre-constructed) decks/sets. It is considered as an "expandable card game" since the new precon decks released after the first two effectively are releases of new card sets. There precons, however, are already complete sets in themselves. Ergo, when a new precon is available, if you buy the new precon, you get all the cards for the new set (the precon IS the complete set). No rares, no incomplete cards.

As for the deck-building, there are rules for mixing cards from other sets to create a custom deck. My scanning of the rules seem to indicate that you can't just mix and match all cards, you'll have to have a base set and then exchange some cards in the base set as limited by the rules. Perhaps this is a game balance technique. Since I don't understand the rules yet, I cannot comment on how flexible or restrictive this is to deck-building.

Unfortunately, there are some caveats for me. Currently, the game only supports 1 vs 1. Also, I have a problem with players. The game is not easily available (unlike MtG and WoW TCG), and although I did find a store that sells the base set (which contains the Hoax and Vulca set/precon), I'm not sure there are any players around. Even if I don't have to collect rare cards, complete sets of the game won't matter if I can't play them. And for now, I don't have access to interested players.

Aside from the 1 vs 1 issue, the players issue is a locale problem. Places nearer to hobby shops that have the game might have a bit of a following for the game, so opponents might actually be feasible for you. Also, if you have friends who are willing to play, then good for you.

Given this issue, I decided to postpone purchase of the game until I can get access to players. In the meantime, I will be reading the rules and inspecting the cards. If I find the game so intriguing, I might just go ahead and get it already, and probably try to force someone to play against me in the process. :)

Redding, Digging, and a Triplejack Comeback

The past few days I've been reading around about Digg and Reddit. I've been considering promoting this blog to something more than a personal journal, so I've been looking around at what I could do. Well, it would seem that I'd have to do quite a lot if I want this to be more than a journal.

The thing is, original content is tough. There are tons of original content already out there, just finding a topic to talk about that hasn't been dealt with can be somewhat of a feat. Of course, I can always just give commentaries/opinions (don't I already?), but it does take a lot to stand out and be respectable.

For now, that's a bit too much work for me, and I am on vacation. So, I'll just stick with journaling for now.

With that, I'm just gonna mention that I had a very bad Triplejack day last Sunday, I lost more than 80% of my bankroll. Given the rough gaming week I had last week, it was a bit of a struggle not to feel down. It took a while for my professional mode to kick in: it happens, just like poker, you can't always be dealt a good hand, and even good hands can lose. So, I let it roll. I stopped playing for a while and focused on other things.

Today, I resumed play. My Warcraft got better and my Magic: The Gathering Online, though not improved, is going to get some changes based on what I've been reading (apparently, fungus decks appear to be unfavored, in spite of the fact that I currently enjoy playing it a lot).

As for my poker? I got back my lost 80% PLUS profit! I also beat my "most profitable hand" stats.

Not bad, not bad at all.

With that out of the way, I can resume my various readings for the rest of the day.

Wikipedia Booboo: Sinbad is NOT Dead!

Someone apparently decided that the actor Sinbad was no longer among the living and updated his entry on Wikipedia accordingly. The article has since been fixed, and Sinbad was nice enough to laugh it off.

Ah, the accuracies of Wikipedia. Always be careful with what you read at Wikipedia, double check before taking as fact.

read more | digg story

Xbox LIVE on the PC: Games for Windows – LIVE

Microsoft is releasing "Games for Windows - Live", which not only provides PC users with a similar service to Xbox Live, but also allows them to actually play with Xbox Live users. Imagine playing co-op missions from your PC with your buddy playing using his/her Xbox.

We knew this would come sooner or later. The "Games for Windows - Live" service will come in two membership levels, one free, one with subscription. Since most PC users are already used to playing their games for free, it would be interesting to see if people are willing to pay extra for Xbox game interoperability (other features in the paid service are already supported by some games).

official site | read more | digg story

Regardless, the concept of a gamer-tag is quite useful. I'm not sure who invented it first, but is an extension of the concept for national IDs and such.

I wonder if such a system would also produce issues that surrounds some efforts for national IDs (most prominently are the privacy related issues). The basic social context of such tags may be somewhat different for games since gamers use such systems to:

• advertise their skills in games they played
• find people with similar interests
• if keeping score is supported, allows for finding people with similar skill levels and proper match-making

Advertisers should be very happy with such efforts at consolidation, sounds like an advertising goldmine.

Regardless, I still think that interoperability between PCs and consoles are due. Regarding matchmaking, I wonder when they'll start coming up with an inter-operable standard for game matchmaking purposes...

Hmmm... more on this particular topic soon...

Random Rambling

I was supposed to meet with some friends tonight to discuss some project ideas, but the meeting was canceled, so I was left to while away my time until I meet my SO. I played Triplejack, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, and Magic: The Gathering Online most of the day. Strangely, I didn't play Guild Wars.

After the first few games, I tried being serious at playing, I mean I really tried to focus on winning, setting the fun aside. My results were mixed, but I can't really quantify that my determination improved my odds.

That disturbs me. The reason it's disturbing for me is that as much as the dream of being a professional gamer is alluring, I'm just not cut out for it. There are games where I do pretty well, better than most people, but it's just not on the pro level, even outside of tournament settings. Also, I'm too old for professional gaming.

It's funny, but the fact above actually depresses me.

Just so you won't think I wasted the whole day on these attempts are pro gaming, I did do some investment related research and I read up on the current business news. I'm slowly getting myself back into my financial mindset so I can go back to something which I can hopefully do competently, namely manage money. I gotta step up moving to investments, because being good at savings (savings is basically just an optimization problem) just won't be enough to beat inflation.

Let's hope I have better talents at growing cash.

The Big Sceen Adventures of Tintin

It appears that Dreamworks is undergoing the beginnings of a Tintin film. As of now, it isn't clear if it'll be a live action or an animated film, although I'm personally hoping that it will be an old school (ergo: 2d) form of animation.

Tintin is the creation of Belgian cartoonist Hergé (Georges Prosper Rémi). He and his dog Snowy Milou get into adventures around the world along with several recurring characters (which is somewhat ironic because at the time that Hergé pitched Tintin to publishers he had never been outside of Belgium). The comics is very popular, it has been translated into many languages and has had several animated seasons (which were all pretty well done, IMHO).

So far, I can't imagine how Tintin would be if not in 2d, but I guess it's too early to speculate on anything at this point (we don't even know if the movie will be based on an existing story or not). I hope we'll get tidbits regarding the developments on the film soon.

Letters from Iwo Jima redux

I watched "Letters from Iwo Jima" again, this time with my dad (I thought that my dad would appreciate this more than "300"). I was expecting that I wouldn't be as moved the second time around, but it turns out I was just as moved as the first time I watched. Now, however, I could afford to squint a little in the few scenes which really disturbed me.

To me, this is a sign of how well the movie was made. It's not often I'd watch a movie again, and even less often that the movie will have the same effect on me the second time.

In Pursuit of 300

It's funny that I started the weekend with a very heavy movie about the difficulties in life, and then ended it with a very fulfilled with the joy of death.

"In Pursuit of Happiness" stars Will Smith as a dad down on his luck and is putting everything on the line on a 20-1 chance of getting a stock broker job. This guy is unlucky. The movie is very good at showing how a family going broke struggles, and I really feel for Smith's character. Actually, it's been a very long time since I've been emotionally moved by a movie, and this one almost brought me to tears (ALMOST!). [spoiler start] The feel of the hardships Smith's character has to go through is almost akin to they typical pinoy "api" story, except that Smith's character doesn't rely on luck to succeed in life.[/spoiler end] This is a good film, albeit heavy, and it should be watched. Unfortunately, there is not much here for those looking for kick-@$$ action.

"300" on the other hand gives you action in spades! I'm very happy for Frank Miller, not many comic book personalities get to see their babies faithfully re-created in the big screen. Sin City was unprecedented in it's faithfulness to the comics medium, so I assumed that Frank would only allow 300 if it was at least at par. It was, and it used the new medium to deliver what Frank couldn't in it's original medium, making 300 one of the (if not THE) best translations of comic book to film ever!

It's difficult to describe 300 if you're not familiar with Frank Miller's work. The story is about the 300 Spartans who set about stopping the Persian empire from conquering Sparta (and basically the free world). Straightforward, and not quite historically accurate. What sets this apart is the ability of Frank Miller to distill the core culture and emotions, even with his factual liberties. Also Miller's literary metaphors were visualized in the comic, as one would use metaphors in words when reading a book. All his metaphors were faithfully depicted in the film, preserving Frank's original artistic vision, as well as adding a new dimension to it, mainly the dimension of motion.

Effects are top notch, fight scenes are amazing, and the artistic vision of the original was well preserved and enhanced by the medium! This is an amazing movie, and I highly recommend this to anyone over 15 and is not squeamish about the obvious gore involved in wars such as this (not to mention depicted in a stylish manner that could only be conceived first in comics).

300 is definitely not for kids and those who dislike violence. Otherwise, you're in for a helluva good time! This is one of the very best movies I've seen ever!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (OMFG!!!)

I don't know why I haven't run into this before!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a game slated for November 2007 (this year) developed by LucasArts. Apparently, it's going to be released in multiple platforms (though the PC doesn't seem to be on the list so far). It appears to be an action game set in the time line between Episode III and Episode IV.

To me, being on semi-familiar ground is great, particularly since I don't know anything before Episode I and I stopped after the Thrawn Trilogy. The setting is already pretty exciting since you get to see some of what Darth Vader has been up to since he became... well... Darth Vader. So, who do YOU play? His secret apprentice, of course!

Story wise, this is all well and good. But it's a game, so it does have to actually play well. I don't have much details on game play yet, but LucasArts seems to be doing a helluva good job at the visuals!



They teamed up with ILM and Natural Motion to create the "Digital Molecular Matter" graphics engine (DMM), and the job they did with the physics is amazing. They also made a "Euphoria" engine which models a person's behavioral and instinctive reflexes and reactions (like grabbing on to something for deal life when falling).

When I saw these demos, all I managed to say was OMFG!!!!! Those engines are astounding!!!

Then I tried my best to keep my composure. After all, they're just demos, who knows if the final product will deliver the same quality? Well, given that Metal Gear Solid 4 has the potential to be at par graphically, I think it's believable that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed can hit its graphical objectives.

So far, it seems to have everything going for it already, so I am praying that the game play will do its graphics justice.

Guild Wars Asura Mini-Pet and "Eye of the North"

Guild Wars will release a new mini-pet named Asura, and it's going to be made available via various magazines, similar to what they did with the Miniature Gray Giant. For the Philippines, it will most likely be the PC Gamer magazine from the US (May issue #161). To those wondering which of the two is the mini-pet, I think it's the small one. :P

When they did the promo for the Miniature Gray Giant, it was basically a promo for the then upcoming Nightfall campaign. Since Nightfall, we've been in the dark regarding what the campaign slated for this year would be. Perhaps Asura is another promo. Well, NCSoft gave a hint in GDC 2007. The next Guild ways could very well be called "Eye of the North", and is hinted to finish off what Prophecies started.

If everything does come full circle, what's next? Apparently, it's Guild Wars 2! If the rumors about Guild Wars 2 coming out around 2009 are correct, this should imply an engine upgrade (or perhaps several engine upgrades) to be current with the times on its release date. Since this is all too far in the future for the common folk, my only comment as of now is what they are planning to do with all the characters players have made in the current Guild Wars games...?

Anyway, those things are still too far off. I hope I somehow get into the closed betas. Anyone who's been reading this blog from its inception knows how big a Guild Wars fan I am, so I'm hoping AND expecting a lot! For now, I just gotta be on a lookout for that mini-pet mag...

--- [edit] ---

Update here.

Steve Rogers (Captain America, "normal" continuity): Dead at #25

Yes, on issue #25, Steve Rogers (Captain America in the "normal" continuity) is "dead". I'm a bit surprised that they decided to do this, given all the hoopla that happened when Superman "died". Actually, what surprised me more was how much media attention was given to the event. You'd think that after the Superman thing in 1993, we'd be quite used to comic book characters biting the dust (and returning to life). We have Jason Todd (Robin II), Jean Grey (Marvel Girl/Phoenix), even Bucky.

I'm somewhat annoyed at what they did, but reviews of the story leading up to this event say that it was actually pulled of pretty well (not counting Civil War). Given that comment, I'm very interested to know if they really did pull it off well (not to mention finding out if Civil War was actually good, I get mixed comments on this). I guess I'll just have to read 'em to find out.

This should be another controversial issue in comics history, regardless if the media coverage will die down soon or not. Besides, it might be interesting to see if anyone else takes the helm of Captain America (hey, they did it with Green Lantern, Ghost Rider, Robin, and even Batman).

Getting Your Own Domain Name: The Day You Announce Your Pressence to the World

For some reason, I woke up this morning with the drive to get my own domain name. As is obvious to those who have been visiting my blog (and made more apparent by the post below), I basically spent the whole day comparing various domain name registrars and webhost providers, deciding on what services I'd get, choosing one domain name registrar for my domain name, and setting up Blogger.com and www.darthvid.com to link up to each other. Quite a productive day for me, actually.

I hit a few snags before I got things working, mainly because the domain name registrar I used apparently made some recent changes to itself, causing the instructions written in Blogger.com to be insufficient (as of today, at least). Thankfully, I managed to figure out what was wrong when I read this post (same solution here).

Now I have some flexibility in my hands, and future radical changes to the content I decide to provide shouldn't require a change of URLs.

Now then, I got a cellphone, a blog, my own domain name, some MMOs/online games... what other current trend do I have to get myself into...? I guess I should start planning on getting a game console, a portable, and an iPod sometime soon if I want to keep up with the times.

www.darthvid.com

If you tried to access this blog, you should find yourself at the new URL (www.darthvid.com). I decided that I better start preparing for the future, and thought that a having my own domain name was in order. This should allow me greater flexibility in the future, whether it will be in changing blogs, having my own website aside from the blog, switching hosts, etc etc.

Please update your bookmarks. The site may change, but the URL should stay the same. :D

Kongreso ng Komiks (2007.02/27)

My pals and I went to the "Kongreso ng Komiks" last February 27, 2007 in Intramuros to see what's going on. We had no idea what to expect, but we were hoping to see some some sort of exhibit on what works the local people do, as well as learn some information about what's going on and where do we go from now. Unfortunately, our experience was dismal.

We arrived when a talk just started regarding the current state of the local comics industry. The presenter did show some local material we were not familiar with, but otherwise the presentation itself seemed a bit too general. It felt as though the whole presentation just said that the local comics industry is mimicking the problems of other fields like the medical field, you could almost substitute the comics mentioned with products/ services from another field and come up with the same content.

Given the topic, we were hoping that something more substantial regarding coming up with solutions would be discussed, but I guess it was not the within the scope of this presentation. An open-forum was to come afterwards, and while the host was stalling for time with very lengthly ad libs, we decided to go out and look at the exhibit.

The exhibit was nothing spectacular, although the old artwork was intriguing to see. While looking around the exhibit, however, we were told by the security guard that our car was towed! The "parking attendant" told us that if we parked in the shoulder without touching the gutter then we'd be fine. We even moved the car more to make sure we didn't touch the gutter. This exercise was apparently futile as the car was towed anyway. We are thankful for the building administration for assisting us in retrieving the car. However, let this be a warning to any who would park in Intramuros, please make sure you are parking in something that is absolutely obviously parking space! Be wary of taking the "parking attendant's word for it!

Since the car was towed, all our time was spend waiting for news regarding the car. We were not able to attend the open forum, which appeared to have finished shortly afterwards. If there was anything substantial discussed, we didn't hear it. It seemed a bit doubtful that we'd have heard anything we were expecting to given that there appeared to be nobody around that was working on the new material in circulation. You'd think that of all the people that could make a difference, it would be those who ar still in the game. From what we'd seen, the people there were mostly people who had left the game.

Another thing that annoyed us was why was this "Supreme Master Ching Hai" so prominently displayed in the signage? The image could've been used to depict or iconify "komiks", making it more obvious what the whole shebang was about! Was this person running in the coming May elections?!

After some research, I found out that she is a spiritual teacher of the Quan Yin Method of meditation. She apparently claims that she is the incarnation of God, the Buddha, and the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, and she goes around lecturing and promoting her method of meditation.

What this has to do with comics at all might take a bit of imagination to comprehend, but it is made easier when you consider that she is a philanthropist (among other things). Perhaps the enlightenment this Vietnamese has achieved has made her decide that supporting the Philippine comics industry was a proper thing to do.

We came to the conference hoping to see a glimmer of a more positive future for the Philippine comics industry. Confusing objectives, lack of support, and questionable sponsors, however, made the whole thing very depressing (even when you set aside the fact that your car was towed). I hope that the next time the Philippine "komiks" industry decides to have a conference, it would be nowhere near something like this.

I Spy with My Eye #4

#4: I'm sure this is a great company, whatever it does. I'm also pretty sure it doesn't provide rental service of the type that it's name sounds.

SketchFighter 4000 alpha

Too bad this game is only available for the Mac. "SketchFighter 4000 alpha" (whatta name :P) is a ship battle presented in a paper doodle theme. If you ever drew space-ships duking it out to pass the time while the teacher droned on and on about this gibberish or that, this game appears to make those doodles come to life!

More screen shots are available here, while you can find movie clips of the game in action in the main page.

I hope that someday this will be ported tot he PC, until then, I gotta find someone with a Mac to see this baby in action!

Letters From Iwo Jima

"Letters from Iwo Jima" is the other side of "Flags of Our Fathers", both movies by Clint Eastwood. "Flags of Our Fathers" is based on a book regarding the battle at Iwo Jima from the point of view of the Iwo Jima flag raisers. "Letters from Iwo Jima" depicts the same battle, but this time from the Japanese point of view. It is also based on letters (turned into a book?) by General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese commander in charge of defending Iwo Jima.

I liked both films, but the tone of the two films are quite different, and that is not just because they depict different sides of the same battle. "Letters from Iwo Jima" has a bit more subtlety, less in your face battles and gigantic explosions, and focuses on less people. That doesn't mean it's not very gory, however. The screenplay was written by a Japanese-American screenwriter, which probably also had a hand in the different tone.

It's difficult to say which movie is "better", the tone of both movies gives them different characters which makes them seem incomparable. Regardless, to me, it is a good film,a nd was nominated and won several awards too. Regardless if you watched "Flags of Our Fathers" (even more so if you did and liked it!), go see "Letters from Iwo Jima".

The Last King of Scotland

"The Last King of Scotland" is based on a book, the book being a mix of fact and fiction. The story revolves around a Scottish doctor who manages to become close to Idi Amin, the new president of Uganda. Idi Amin was a real person, and I'm assuming that the Scottish doctor was the work of fiction. Since I haven't read the book, I can't tell how close the movie was to the book.

The movie won several awards, which I think it deserves. Given that I'm not familiar with Ugandan culture, I can't say how accurately they depicted things, some someone did mention to me that there were some complaint's about choosing Forest Whitaker for the role of Idi Amin (which is ironic since he was nominated for and won some "best male actor" awards for this role).

Setting this aside, though, the movie was very engaging. It's also actually quite creepy in a "realistic" sense. I could feel the fear when Idi Amin gets angry, and it's just nerve wracking whenever you can't tell if he'll have someone killed.

It's historical fiction, and it's not for everyone. To me, it was very good, and I guess the awards show that perhaps I'm not alone in this opinion. If don't mind semi-historical/political flicks, you shouldn't miss this one.

MtGO: The First Five Days

When you start dreaming of adding counters to your thallids to create saprolings, thereby triggering the pumps in your Herd-Gnarrs, it might mean that you’re hooked. It might. Or perhaps you’re really just into thallids right now, like you were into Pokemon some years ago. Either way, I can’t sleep. It’s a combination of thallids and scheduler design patterns, as weird as that may sound. Before I move on to research about the latter so I’ll get sleepy again, I might as well talk a little about the former.

The first five days on MtGO have been more of an exploration on both the game itself, and the online version. I mentioned that I have never played MtG meaningfully before, so I did start practically with NIL experience. The only advantage I do have is I know how to play the basic no-frills game, which is basically akin to knowing the hand rankings and the rules of no-limit hold’em. You can play, but you won’t get far.

After getting past the absolute basics, you’ll know that deck building is probably the most important part of the game. This is actually the reason why I thought I might enjoy MtG, because I love the strategic decision making process in the planning part. As a casual player, I have the additional challenge of making a reasonable deck with limited investment. Unfortunately, given the nature of the game economics, I was pretty sure I’d waste some cash before I learn the proper ways of getting value for my money. I just hope I can keep this cost at the minimum.

I already chose a pre-constructed deck based on how I thought my personal game play was on what I’ve read. After playing with this deck a couple of times, I was slowly able to notice which cards I wanted more of and which cards didn’t help much. Given this, it was time to learn how to get the cards you need without repeatedly purchasing booster packs and crossing your fingers.

It seems expected that MtGO allows trading of cards, but finding someone who wants cards you have AND has cards you want is difficult. Fortunately, in a scheme that further allows Wizards of the Coast (WotC) to create more profit, WotC created a ticket system. Each ticket costs a dollar (US$1) and they are primarily used to enter tournaments, making them a common consumable commodity. Tickets are also tradable, meaning you can trade cards for tickets and vice versa. Given this, tickets are the de-facto currency in MtGO.

MtGO has provided an in-game means for advertising trading, selling, and buying. It’s crude, it’s basically a chat channel, but it does get the job done in hooking people up for trading.

Like any other market, it’s up to you to check out the prices of the cards you need, seeing how much people are willing to sell them and at what price. Perhaps you can surf the net a bit to get a pricing idea, but eventually, the card prices are basically market driven.

One thing to keep in mind is that tickets are integral, they have no fractional components. Some of the cards you want may be cheap and won’t even cost you a whole ticket, but they may not have the other cards you want at the price you want them. If you decide to purchase (trade) the cards, you’re essentially giving the seller a profit. The good news is that some sellers keep tabs on you, remembering the ticket fraction you weren’t able to consume with them, thereby allowing you to have “credit” with them. You can use this “credit” to reduce the costs of your next purchase. This does make things a little more reasonable, particularly if you intend on having more transactions with the person in the future.

As for my experience, my first transaction was trading 3 tickets to a person for 30 cards of my choice. I got several rare and uncommon cards, and I even got some that I did need for my deck. It may not have been a very efficient use of money, but it wasn’t a total waste either.

My next stop was what I have dubbed as “the marketplace”, which is basically the various trading chat channels. I’m not sure of WotC intended it to be this way, but there are quite a few “automated” people around. Given this, you can basically start a trade with them, browse, and decide if you want to make the purchase/trade. After doing this several times, I was able to figure out who offered the best costs for the cards I needed. Based on this, I selected one, choose the cards I deemed properly priced, and traded the corresponding number of tickets. I had “chance” of 0.01 tickets, which I intended so that I can verify if they would remember me. I tried it again with the same user, and it did remember me. I was able to purchase several rares and some uncommons with just 4 tickets (cost of one booster pack) through this, all of which were very useful for the customizations I had in mind. Now that was very good use of my money.

Now, the other decks I’d like to try out would require me to get cards which are a bit more expensive, so I have to thread more carefully. So far, though, with my recent “purchase”, I was able to customize my deck sufficiently enough that I am winning more than losing, and I’m actually having more fun playing the deck. I may still be playing in the newbie area, but I’ll enjoy this for a while before I try to spend for higher level games.