Make Things Great in Life

The 7.5 Php Minimum Fare

2012-02-14T16:07:00.000-08:00

Unlike in Davao City wherein the Jeepney fare is different for Normal passengers (8 Php) with students, disabled and elderly citizens (6.xx Php), in Cebu there is only one fare price and it is 7.50 Php at the moment.

I understand that because of lack of 50 centavos, people sometimes tend to pay 7 Php only. Most of the time drivers get 8 Php when you pay 10 pesos or any bill. Okay, I understand that they may not have 50 cents and that it would compensate for the people who paid only 7 Php as jeepney fare. Other people pay the exact amount of 7.50 Php and this is when the jeepneys have 50 centavos and they give you your exact change.

What somehow made me unhappy the other day was when I paid 20 pesos, I received 12 pesos of change. Sure, nothing wrong about that because I understand the 50 centavos may be negligible or the "conduktor" might not have 50 cents. But what I received was 2 pesos worth of 50 centavos. And so I asked myself, what is the reason they put a "Minimum Fare is 7.50" inside the jeepney? Just so that people will pay 7.50 and when they have the exact change, conduktors will still get 8 pesos?? BTW, I checked the hand of the conduktor afterwards, and I definitely saw a lot of 1 peso coins there. Tsk tsk.

Sm 2 Sm Run 2012

2012-02-12T01:13:00.001-08:00

I participated in the 12 Kilometer run earlier this morning for the Sm 2 Sm Run 2012. It was actually my first time to participate in any marathon and so I was kind of doubtful if I can make the 12 K. The thought of deciding just 3 days ago gave me very little to no preparation for this event. Before the start of the event, I kind of wished that I registered to 6K, but with the basketball and volleyball that I was doing in the last few months, I thought I can do better than 6.

When the run started for the 21K, there was a fireworks display in the SM Northwing parking lot. And so, 15 minutes later, the 12 kilometer run had to start. It rained during the whole event, I thought about not running because I might get sick but since everybody pushed through the run, so did I. I prepared myself mentally for this event and it would be a disappointment for me that the effort of waking up early and looking forward for this event would all thrown down the bin with a sheer rain :D. And so we went on. In the 12K and 21K categories, I had several officemates who participated, namely: Jervis, Raissa, Jufni, Darlene, Naomi and Kristy , and a friend Ian.

What followed was a very fun experience for me. I would like to do 12K again but this time improve on my finish time. At least I knew what to expect in these kinds of run events. When I get used to it, I might try 21K in the next events.

FNM and Xbox Kinect

2012-02-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a great day for me. I didn't have to alarm my phone at 6:30 am and so I had a very nice and long sleep. I woke up at about 9 am and began to take a bath and wash some clothes. Then I prepared my mtg deck for the Magic standard tournament for the afternoon.

Then I brought my other clothes to the laundry shop and bought one of my favorite food. Fried chicken! oh yeah! I ate lunch with raissa and watched part of an episode of a JDrama and I noticed that the "bida" was the same as my favorite JDrama Buzzer beat, and so I will definitely watch that soon, but then I had to leave for the tournament.

I played great in the tournament and finished 2nd place, but was a bit sad since the boosters packs that we opened did not have good cards and so the 1st place winner came home with an expensive card and me, as the 2nd did not get a money rare (yep! we openened 8 Dark Ascension packs and we had no mythics and just 1 money rare). Then I realized that I was pretty happy that I did not get the chance to buy a booster box this set.

Then, the highlight of the day came. Raissa, Citadel, Amiel, Cathy and other officemates went to a former officemate's birthday party (Jartman!!). The food was great! We had lechon, fish, chicken, spag and a lot more. The cakes were great too. But it also was the first time that I got to Play Xbox Kinect! I heard about it yes, but it was the first time to actually play it. The technology was really marvelous! people got used to playing the games consoles with hand controllers. Then I got to play Wii and got amused by the motion sensors in it. But Kinect is different. It detects your whole body's movement! It was a good thing that I brought an extra shirt because at the end of the night, we were all very tired and were all sweaty hehe.

My child-side aside, Kinect can detect the whole body's movement but still not the movement of detailed parts of the body like the fingers. Imagine what we can do in the technology's perspective when this technology delves into specific movements, and I know engineers are researching and developing that technology as we speak. Imagine what it can do to computing, research, medical and all aspects of our lives. Absolutely brillant!

Dark Ascension Video

2012-02-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

Hi! I just want to share this dark ascension video. All credits goes to wizards and magic:the gathering. :D

#24 Wong sidelined to rehabilitate injury.

2012-02-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

For the first time in the last 2 seasons of the AWS Basketball Association, Defending Champions for last year's sportsfest Googs guard #24 Bryan Inno Wong has been sidelined last night for a sore heel and is expected to not play for 2 weeks.

"I plan to rest my heel at the moment. I was able to run on the court a little bit yesterday but the heel started to feel sore so I continued to rest it and just became the referee for our Thursday night basketball." Wong said after thursday's game.

"I have felt the pain in my heel for several years now but usually, it only hurts after a game, then the pain goes away after a day. I feel great before every game but midway, the heel starts to sore.". One positive note though, MRI results were negative and Wong will be expected to do light exercises after a week.

February 2012 FNM Card - Despise with Picture

2012-01-31T06:10:00.000-08:00

Sweet! Although this card is not as strong as the other one mana discard spells, Despise is very strong in standard right now. With the current meta wherein creatures rule, and the release of Dark Ascension introduced a very strong Planeswalker, removing your opponent's creature or planeswalker threat can pretty much turn the game to your advantage.

Here it is, February 2012's FOIL premium card is Despise.

Black Blue Control FNM Evaluation - January 2012

2012-01-14T20:06:00.000-08:00

With the current Meta game both in online and my local store, I shifted from solar flare to UB control. By studying the Meta game last week and finding out that around 75% of the decks were using Delver of Secrets aggro (some were UW and some were UR), I was able to come up with a list that might be able to deal with these types of decks effectively.

I would like to discuss my deck techs. The first card is Curse of Death's Hold. This card might only be a $1 rare BUT this card is very good in the current Status of standard. This goes in the board in almost all aggro match-ups. This is good against token decks, as tokens basically die. This answers Moorland Haunt (this card single-handedly killed control decks) and kills the spirits. This is also good against red decks. Snapcaster mages will die the moment that they enter the battlefield. Since the meta game for our local store is mostly aggro, I placed 3x in the Main board. Yes! THREE! and looking at the decks in magic online, it seems that these will stay in my main deck for quite some time (considering Dark Ascension seems to have more tokens).

And since I am expecting more aggro match ups, a good 1st turn removal can save you tons of damages from possible Delver of Secrets and Stromkirk Nobles. Of course, in black blue decks, I think it is logical to run a set of Doom Blades nowadays. Then I run 3x Wring flesh main deck.

Then, I think my MVP or MVC (Most Valuable card ^_^) for the tournament is Despise. This card hasn't seen much play nowadays. BUT in an aggro-filled environment and the coming of Sorin, Lord of Innistrad in Dark Ascension, Despise should be a staple in black decks. This card saved me many times as it can basically remove a Mirran Crusader, or any planeswalker early on and you may be able to use Surgical Extraction to remove the threats that you can discard.

Those are my techs. You guys can actually follow my suggestions or you can basically put in Go for the Throat or Dismember based on the meta game of your local stores. I finished top 4 last FNM with a record of 2-1-1. This was the list that I ran:

Creatures:
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Grave Titan
1 Massacre Wurm

Spells:
2 Despise
4 Mana Leak
3 Dissipate
3 THink Twice
3 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Wring Flesh
4 Doom blade
2 Black Sun's Zenith

Enchantments:
3 Curse of Death's Hold

Lands:
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Darkslick Shores
7 Island
6 Swamp

Sideboard: (depends on your Meta)
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Negate
1 Despise
1 Volition Reins
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Batterskull
3 Geth's Verdict
1 Black Sun's Zenith

Matches:

Round 1 vs URb Olivia Control WIN (2-1) : 1-0
Both of us were running maindeck Curse of Death's hold for aggro but Curse basically dictated the game as the -1/-1 is very important in our match. In a matchup against control, Despise can give you the upperhand to not only remove potential threats in your opponent's hand but also give you the idea of what is in your opponent's hand. So you can have the hint to cast Grave Titan in the 6th turn because he doesn't have answers or stock counterspells in your hand to stop his spells. I won game 1 and both of us sided in Surgical Extractions to remove each other's counterspells and threats. In control match-ups, milling your opponent out is a way of winning and I needed a third Nephalia Drownyard in the sideboard, and so maybe I will add that in the next FNM (but again, I wasn't expecting control). In the third game, I was able to play 2 Nephalia drownyards and milled him out, in the process, using surgical extraction to remobve his threats like Olivia Voldaren, and Liliana of Veil.

Round 2 vs RGW Wolf-Run LOSS (0-2) : 1-1
I had no answer to Thrun (aside from black sun's zenith) and he already had Wolf-Run online so it's a total game loss. Game 2, this is when the geth's verdicts will save you. So I sided them in, added more Zenith. However, luck was not in my side in this one, I mulligan and I was playing that turn and my opening hand was not very good either but I had a removal and mana leak, so I played it. I had no luck as he didn't miss a land drop and dropped threat after threat such as Hero of Bladehold, Gideon Jura, Titan, and Thrun. I had removals and counter spells in the game but he simply had too much beaters and I wasn't able to have a single draw spell in the game.

Round 3 vs UB control DRAW (1-1) : 1-1-1
This round is pretty much fifty-fifty. And from what I have learned in the past, you need to be more patient in these match-ups. A simple advise, if you have a threat in hand, do not cast it as soon as you can. You can use despise to scout your opponent's hand and count his counter spells and removals, if you have more counterspells then you cast your biggie. In mirror-matches, what wins the game is an unanswered resolved Grave Titan OR Nephalia Drownyard. So again, I needed a third Nephalia drownyard. I was pretty confident in Nephalia wars since I had 3 Ghost quarters in the deck. I was able to mill my opponent out in game 2. We didn't have enough time to finish game 3 and so it was a draw. Just a note, in control vs control matchups, you should always remember that the one who casts a big creature (say grave titan) taps more mana than the defending player; meaning the defending player can cast more counter spells that you. So unless you are sure (or you think) you have more counterspells or an advantage, hold your threats until you opponent casts his own, the you go into counter wars, then you play your threat (that time, he has already exhausted his mana and counter spells) in the next turn.

Round 4 vs Green-White Tokens WIN (2-0) : 2-1-1
I came in prepared for this type of deck. The only problem for me was basically Mirran Crusader and Garruk Relentless. I won game 1 pretty easily since he played a hand with less lands and relied in Birds of Paradise and Avacyn Pilgrims in hand to support his mana. In game 1s with this type of deck, I basically kill the mana-producing creatures in the first few turns just to see how he reacts. If he needed that for mana, then he had lesser lands in hand. If he didn't need that for mana, then he has lesser threats in his hand since he may have more lands. Game 2, I sided in surgical extractions, additional despise and Black sun's zenith. I removed and used surgical extraction on his mirran Crusaders. The black sun's zenith and Curse of Death's hold held off his creatures. When I cast Massacre Wurm and followed with Grave Titan in the next turn, the game was over.

Thank you for your time in reading this post. Viva Pit Senyor!

Jet Lag by Simple Plan - Video and Lyrics

2012-01-12T05:51:00.000-08:00

wow I like to play this song some time. I really like to do a cover of this. Great song. I guess I need to buy a guitar already since I left my guitar in my home town.

Jet Lag by Simple Plan

What time is it where you are?
I miss you more than anything
Back at home you feel so far
Waitin' for the phone to ring
It's gettin’ lonely livin’ upside down
I don't even wanna be in this town
Tryin' to figure out the time zones makin' me crazy

You say good morning
When it's midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
And it's driving me mad
I miss you so bad
And my heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged
Heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged
Heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged

What time is it where you are?
Five more days and I'll be home
I keep your picture in my car
I hate the thought of you alone
I've been keepin' busy all the time
Just to try to keep you off my mind
Tryin' to figure out the time zones makin’ me crazy

You say good morning
When it's midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
And it's drivin' me mad
I miss you so bad
And my heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged
Heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged
Heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged
Is so jet lagged

I miss you so bad [x5]
I wanna share your horizon
I miss you so bad
And see the same sunrising
I miss you so bad
Turn the hour hand back to when you were holding me.

You say good morning
When it's midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
And it's drivin' me mad
I miss when you say good morning
But it's midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
And it's drivin' me mad
I miss you so bad
And my heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged
Heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged
Heart, heart, heart is so jetlagged
Is so jetlagged
Is so jetlagged

Dark Ascension - Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

2012-01-11T02:27:00.001-08:00

Wow! Just Wow!

I don't want to jump into conclusions this early about this card reaching to the price of Jace, the Mind Sculptor but seeing this card being spoiled today and by looking at its abilities, I can definitely say that the power-level of this card is waaaaaay too good in Standard. I wouldn't be surprised if this card will reach $50 in the early stages of its release.

Let us look on the different aspects of the card. The converted mana cost is 4! making it very playable in Standard. Recall the other 4cc planeswalkers that have very much defined the game during their own time. These other 4cc planeswalkers were Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Elspeth Knight Errant, and Ajani Vengeant. Surely Sorin, Lorf of Innistrad will be added into that list soon.

The 1st loyalty of 3 making it away from bolt range after it resolves its +1 ability (of course lightning bolt is no longer in Standard but it somehow became a benchmark for the planeswalker loyalties when it was still in standard).

+1: Put a 1/1 black Vampire creature token with lifelink onto the battlefield. The better planeswalkers have the ability to stay in the battlefield by defending itself - this made JACE, TMS (bounce effect), Elspeth (puttting blockers in the battlefield) and Garruk (beast tokens) very hard to deal with. Sorin's vampire token cannot only defend but it also has lifelink that could pretty much help you against aggro matchups late in the game.

-2: You get an emblem with "Creatures you control get +1/+0.". Always remember that emblems stack. Meaning you can have multiple emblems. And in the current game of MTG, there is no card that can remove these emblems (unless the game restarts or ends). And what is great is that these emblems boost your creatures' power and basically gives you more lifegain for Sorin's tokens via +1 ability.

-6: Destroy up to 3 target creatures and/or other planeswalkers. Return each card put into a graveyard this way to the battlefield under your control. This ability basically wins you the game. You can destroy enemy threats and gain control of them. What made this very powerful is that it can actually deal with other planeswalkers and control them to your advantage.

Just absolutely wow. If I had the choice and the resources this year, I would definitely like to get a playset of these. But of course, I also need to handle my finances well since I have a financial responsibility that I need to prioritize these coming months for my family. Hoping to get lucky in tournaments to get these!!!! - at the same time preparing myself for GP events this year.

Dark Ascension Release Party Card - Mondronen Shaman//Tovolar's Magehunter - with picture

2012-01-09T06:22:00.000-08:00

See the Dark Ascension Release Premium foil Card here.

The art is actually very scary but I like it as it actually terrifies the opponents once it flips. As a Mondronen Shaman, a 3/2 for 4 mana, it is nothing special but once it becomes Tovolar's Magehunter, it is totally a different story. It becomes a big 5/5 that punishes the opponent for 2 damage for every spell before it can flip back to human form after 2 spells.

Coming this February 3, 2012 - Mondronen Shaman//Tovolar's Magehunter - with picture.

See the Dark Ascension Pre-release Promo Card here.

Dark Ascension Pre-Release Card - Ravenous Demon//Archdemon of Greed - with picture

2012-01-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

See the Dark Ascension Pre-Release Premium foil Card here.

The art is a classic Demon with a frightening aura. But I think it looks good with the double-faced frame and the fact that it comes as a foil.

Ability-wise, it is not very enticing for me at least for Standard. But can be very strong in the Limited format.

Here it is, coming this January 28, 2012 - Ravenous Demon//Archdemon of Greed - with picture.

Click here to see the Dark Ascension Release Promo Card.

January 2012 FNM Card - Glistener Elf with Picture

2012-01-08T21:32:00.000-08:00

Wooah! This version of the glistener elf is worth collecting alongside the original one. The art is great and in my opinion loioks very much situated in the plane of Mirrodin. Glistener elf has become a staple card in Green Infect pauper that proved one of the deadly decks in pauper tournaments. This card is worth keeping and worth joining the FNMs this month.

Here it is, January 2012's Friday Night Magic premium foil card - Glistener Elf.

Happy New Year

2012-01-08T07:19:00.001-08:00

Happy New year everyone!

It was a fruitful and busy year last 2011. Although when the year ended, my blog layout was a mess for reasons that I didn't know. I took the time to fix the layout tonight and finally I fixed it.

For year 2012, I hope to have a more fruitful year and I would like to think of this year as self-improvement year. I have several new year's resolutions but all of them are leaning towards self-improvement.

I would like to improve in my work ethics, improve my programming skills, and improve my overall skills as a Research and Development Engineer in the company that I work for. I want to improve my basketball skills and improve physical fitness by doing a lot of exercises when I have the free time and work on my game everytime we have a basketball game in our company. I would also like to improve my skills in MTG since I have less time to play last year. I would like to participate in National events this year including Grand Prix tournaments. Lastly, I want to improve myself in my relationship and my friends and everyone close to me. Will also improve how I handle my finances and help my family with what we need.

Happy New Year Everyone! May we all have a great 2012!!!

...

2011-12-20T07:50:00.000-08:00

... it's going to be a silent christmas, a silent new year and a silent blank year.

My Take in Standard Solar Flare

2011-12-18T05:32:00.000-08:00

Amidst the long absence in blogging and MTG due to a very tight schedule in my work in the recent weeks, I slowly tested and revised my Solar Flare deck. As much as I liked Vengeance and Snapcaster Mage combo, I needed to cut the Sorin's Vengeance to put cards against aggro decks.

I played in the FNM last week but I finished the day terribly as my deck didn't expect too much aggro in the meta. I moved some of my counterspells into the sideboard. And these are my other changes:

My deck techs:

To have deal with early threats, I tried to put Dead Weight. This card is a good card but not as effective as Disfigure. However, in a Sun Titan Solar Flare Deck, Dead Weight can be a good card that you can reanimate with Sun Titan in the mid-game.

My second tech is Gideon Jura. I tell you, Gideon is still a beast in a deck like Solar Flare. While Gideon's specialty is against aggro, Gideon can put a great deal of pressure against control decks too with it's ability to control the board or clearing your way into an alpha strike the next turn.

Third, I played Massacre Wurm over Elesh Norn. This is because Massacre Wurm comes into the battlefield 1 turn earlier that the preator and I find the "target opponent loses 2 life for every creature you control that dies" ability of the wurm very good since it can basically win you the game against token decks. And it makes your removal a little bit better.

Lastly, Manabase! The manabase for solar flare is quite a problem right now but thanks to an article I read in magicthegathering, that in every deck that you build, you gotta have an outlook of what you want to do, and what I wanted to do is to leave 2 mana open in 2nd turn for a possible think twice, doom blade, or mana leak. And that I can basically have a turn 4 Day of Judgement to wipe the board before I can start claiming the board. I did this by maximizing the Darkslick Shores but minimizing the Seachrome coasts while removing the Nephalia Drownyard and adding Plains and Isolated Chapels. After several playtesting, I am quite happy with my manabase right now.

So this is my final list:

Lands: (26)
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Seachrome Coast
3 Isolated Chapel
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Swamp
3 Island
3 Plains

Creatures: (8)
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Sun Titan
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Grave Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Planeswalkers: (2)
1 Gideon jura
1 Karn Liberated

Other Spells: (24)
2 Dead Weight
3 Doom Blade
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Day of Judgement
4 Mana Leak
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Think Twice
2 Unburial Rites
1 White Sun's Zenith

Sidebaord: (15) (again, this depends on your meta)
1 Batterskull
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Divine Offering
2 Negate
2 Dissipate
2 Celestial Purge
1 Wurmcoil Engine

California King Bed by Rihanna

2011-12-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

Finally! The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is finally over! But I will not talk about it because the exam was more difficult that what I expected hehe. But anyway, I heard this particular song a few months ago but I did not know the title, lyrics or message of the song until this morning. I was in Jollibee across the University of San Carlos (testing site for this year's exam) eating breakfast and doing my last minute preparations for the test when the song played. I recalled that the melody was familiar and this was the song that I heard way before. Funny though, because my friend kuya Pebbles (name will be disclosed ^_^) knew the title of the song (although when you see the guy, you will not have the guts to call him Pebbles - sounds so tiny, girly or gayish) but this guy is the opposite! Anyway, I knew this morning that the song was California King Bed. I cannot believe at first that this was by Rihanna since I thought her music was different, but I guess I got too busy in my life that I didn't have updates for music anymore.

Newei, I would like to share the video. And I have attached the lyrics.

Lyrics:

Chest to chest
Nose to nose
Palm to palm
We were always just that close
Wrist to wrist
Toe to toe
Lips that felt just like the inside of a rose
So how come when I reach out my finger
It feels like more than distance between us

In this California king bed
We're ten thousand miles apart
I've been california wishing on these stars
For your heart on me
My Californa king

Eye to eye
Cheek to cheek
Side by side
You were sleeping next to me oohhh next to me
Arm in arm
Dusk to dawn
With the curtains drawn
And a little last night on these sheets
So how come when I reach out my fingers
It seems like more than distance between us

In this California king bed
We're ten thousand miles apart
I've been california wishing on these stars
For your heart on me
My Californa King

Just when I felt like giving up on us
You turned around and gave me one last touch
That made everything feel better
And even then my eyes got wetter
So confused, when I asked you if you love me
But I don't wanna seem so weak
Maybe I've been California dreaming

In this california king bed
We're ten thousand miles apart
I've been california wishing on these stars
For your heart on me
My California King
My California King

In this california king bed
We're ten thousand miles apart
I've been california wishing on these stars
For your heart on me
My California King

December 2011 FNM Card - Savage Lands with Picture

2011-12-02T21:19:00.000-08:00

This card reminds me of the good old Jund days... That was the time when I was very active in MTG wherein I tried to participate in every FNM tournament as much as I can. I played this game for 14 years, but I was in the middle of being casual and competitive. For 2012, I will try to be competitive, to participate in a National-level tournament and a world-wide tournament (Grand Prix) and experience the greatest game experience for MTG. That way, I will be contented with what I accomplished in this game.

Here it is, December 2011's Premium Friday Night Magic Card : Savage Lands.

2011 MTG Premium Happy Holidays Card - Yule Ooze

2011-12-01T05:45:00.000-08:00

We always want our family during the holidays.

Yes! It is now December and what other good way to start the month of Christmas than to introduce this year's Holiday card. Indeed, Christmas and New Year are for families, Yule Ooze also thinks so as written in its flavor text "It loves having family for dinner." - though in a different kind of way. ^_^

Magic:the Gathering Premium Happy Holidays Cards are silver-bordered cards, so they are not tournament legal cards. These special cards started back in 2006 as promo cards in the Holiday season. Although another interesting fact about these cards is that they are actually pricey! Just click the link for the prices and pictures. ^_^

2006 - Fruitcake Elemental
2007 - Gifts Given
2008 - Evil Presents
2009 - Season's Beatings
2010 - Snow Mercy

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Will posting through e-mail account still work when using a Custom Domain?

2011-11-25T19:46:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone,

When this post is successfully posted in my Innostrad: Make Things Great blog, it only means that email blogging can still work eventhough you already switched to a custom domain in your blogger account.

I will have a separate post to explain how to activate and use this feature for your blogger accounts. This is not a new feature actually, but in case you guys don't know, such a feature exists in blogger.

I was not able to use this feature though since I bought my own domain name and registered it to my blogger account..

Here goes.. along with my signature.. finger crossed...

--
以上です。よろしくおねがいします。

Best Regards,

Bryan Inno N. Wong
ブライアンイノ　ウォング
Assistant Research & Development Engineer
Development G
ADVANCED WORLD SOLUTIONS, INC.
http://www.awsys-i.com

My Christmas Wishlist

2011-11-24T05:32:00.000-08:00

I had several wishlists this Christmas. But I just took some time and had some fun by displaying 1 of my wishlist on my CPU in the workplace. This is how my CPU currently looks like...

And since that post-it on the Magic:the gathering card cannot be read, let us zoom it in a little bit.

hehe. I really hope I can get some Snapcaster Mages * as a gift! hehe I hope that Santa can hear me and that my wish will come true. ^_^

Faithless Looting - A Dark Ascension Preview

2011-11-22T07:18:00.000-08:00

As released in the Magic Arcana today, the second issue of the Magic: the Gathering comic book comes with a free card - Faithless Looting.

Like the first issue, that will hit the stores in January 2012, the second issue comes with another common card but with alternate art, the first issue coming with an alternate art Treasure Hunt. Faithless Looting is going to be in Dark Ascension (as a common), although it's going to have different art and flavor text.

For people who played in the Odyssey block, you might think this is a familiar card - yep, it has a similar ability with Careful Study (A powerful common at that time, until now), but careful study is blue and this is red, and has a flashback that may prove to be useful mid - late game. The flashback and low cost of the card can make it a great synergy with Burning vengeance and it can provide red with a mechanism to dig into the library.

Metamorphing Power Rangers

2011-11-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

I remember the days when I was still young and I always watched shows like Power Rangers and Ultraman. But life becomes tough sometimes that we are actually being super human in trying to overcome all these challenges and surviving them all, little by little, at the end of the day.

The last 2 weeks, I have been very busy catching up with my project at work and preparing for the nihongo speech this week. I was so busy that it has been a while since I posted an entry in my blog.

I had some 1 - 2 hours free time yesterday and so I decided to tweak my UB control deck. While I still lacked Snapcaster Mage copies, I tried to incorporate 2x Phyrexian Metamorphs in the main deck and it has been great for me so far. When Phantasmal Image came out in the 2012 Core Set, we seem to forget that Phyrexian Metamorph was actually a good card that seemed to be in every deck when it came out in new Phyrexia before the ZEN block rotated out. It can be cast for 3 mana (by paying 2 life) then it can copy swords and batterskulls as well as the finishers of your opponents. And it doesn't die just to any spell that can target it, unlike phantasmal image, although what really made the Phantasmal Image more optimized in the deck was its 2 converted mana cost. Phyrexian Metamorph retains its artifact state after copying something in the board thus, it does not die to Go for the Throat -- just a note.

Anyway, my deck looks like this at the moment. Feel free to comment or build this list, but I really like this deck since I am able to get many options against many types of opponents.

Bryan Inno Wong's UB Metamorphin Control -- Innistrad Version.

4 DarkSlick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Nephalia Drownyard
2 Ghost Quarter
6 Swamp
8 Island
2 Grave Titan
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Mana Leak
3 Dissipate
1 Negate
4 Think Twice
3 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Wring Flesh
3 Doom blade
1 Dismember
1 Karn Liberated
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Disperse
1 Tribute to Hunger
---

Sideboard will depend on your local store's meta. ^_^

AWS Sportsfest 2011

2011-11-06T03:34:00.000-08:00

I would like to congratulate and thank my batchmates (the organizers) for a job well done in almost 3 weeks of sports and games. You all worked very hard and you are worth mentioning in this post - Kristy Mae Caparida, Rez Piquero, Winston Tabar, Rauverid Tan and , yours truly, Bryan Inno Wong.

The AWS Sportsfest 2011 started last October 16, 2011 and finished yesterday November 5, 2011 with game schedules all throughout the dates in between. Major games included basketball, volleyball, bowling and badminton. Minor games included game of the generals (salpakan), chess, magic:the gathering (oh just kidding with this one), relays, calamansi eating contest, touchball, chinese garter, luksong tinik and many many more!

For the employees AWSol and AWSys Cebu, not including those assigned in Japan, 4 teams were formed. These teams were team Paglaum (Hope)...

team Kahayag (Brightness / Light)...

team Kinabuhi (Life)...

and team Gugma (Love)...

Major games were awarded with 10 points, 7 points, 5 points and 3 points for 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place and 4th place, respectively. While minor games were awarded with 4 points, 3 points, 2 points and 1 point. For more than 2 weeks, these teams battled their honor and hearts out to be crowned AWS Sportsfest 2011 Champions, but I will have a separate post for that as soon as the pictures are already posted.

Graveborn: Premium Deck Preview (Complete/ Full List)

2011-10-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

FINALLY!!!

After several months of waiting. We now have 5 cards previewed for Graveborn. And I tell you, these cards did not disappoint me. I will just update this decklist from time to time so that we can have a complete list. Man, a foil entomb, animate dead, buried alive and Avatar of Woe. I am really getting this. Actually, I pre-ordered already just a few minutes ago.

Call Forth the Dead.

Legions of corpses await your sinister commands. This 60-card, all-foil deck entombs, exhumes, and reanimates some of the most powerful Magic creatures from all five colors of mana. Harvest your graveyard for an assortment of these face-beaters as you walk over a field of bones to claim your victory.

Contents:

60-card premium foil deck, including 8 rare cards
Exclusive Spindown life counter
Foil deck box
Strategy insert
Magic "learn to play" guide

Deck Design and Development: David Humpherys
Release Date: November 18, 2011
MSRP: $34.99

Full List:


21 Swamp 1 Polluted Mire 1 Ebon Stronghold 1 Crystal Vein 1 Avatar of Woe 1 Crosis, the Purger 1 Inkwell Leviathan 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind 1 Terastodon 1 Verdant Force 1 Blazing Archon 2 Putrid Imp 2 Hidden Horror 1 Faceless Butcher 1 Twisted Abomination	1 Reanimate 1 Entomb 1 Zombie Infestation 1 Cabal Therapy 2 Last Rites 2 Sickening Dreams 3 Exhume 3 Duress 3 Animate Dead 2 Buried Alive 2 Diabolic Servitude 2 Dread Return

Let Us Join BC Bloggers Together

2011-10-11T08:20:00.001-07:00

Building up your blog value is a must and building a connection -- links to other bloggers is a very important thing to do in order for us to connect and share ideas with others. Thanks to BC Bloggers, bloggers may fill their blogrolls the fast and easy way.

We don’t have to beg for links once we become members of BC Bloggers. And Willing participants can join by following these easy steps:

1. Blog about BC Bloggers to encourage others to sign up and link to www.mommydiary.net. The more people joining the more links you’ll have. Don’t forget to share your post at Facebook and twitter!

2. Add BC Bloggers badge in your sidebar.

3. Add a page in your blog to show where you’ll add the BC Bloggers links. You can add it to your blog roll or existing BC Bloggers links. Then submit your details to this blog. Link collection will close on October 15, 2011 so hurry and enjoy blogging!