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First | Previous | Next | Current Monday, March 28, 2005--Today, Spring Break officially ended because I had to go to class. Darn! EE121 Discussion... Good thing Anand gave out those surveys before trying to teach. Econ 1 Lecture... E190... (lunch) Turned in my housing contract for next year... Went to the Tang Center to get my infected eyes checked, only to discover that they had no time for me to make an appointment today, so I had to reschedule to tomorrow. CS184 Lecture... Fencing... Nasty headache-->Slept early Chances are, this entry went over the 100KB limit, but eh, whatever. I'll fix it on the weekend or something. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6 Good Night! Sunday, March 27, 2005--Today, I returned to Berkeley. On this day: In 2003: I get accepted into Berkeley EECS. Now, I'm watching TV while chatting with Tiffany, Colleen, and Lei. Man, I didn't know I could multi-task like that. No wait! I can't multitask! Crap! Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5 Good Night! Saturday, March 26, 2005--Today can be listed with a few simple, um, things: Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7 Good Night! Friday, March 25, 2005--So I got around to doing homework. Just a little bit of it. Not a whole lot of it. But I'm still bored. Someone call me or IM me or eat me or something. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10 Good Night! Thursday, March 24, 2005--Here's a story for you. So a while ago, I called Kim to ask her if she wanted to hang out. She's busy, so she tells me she'd call me back. 3 hours later, she calls me back, but we can't figure anything out, so she tells me to call back the next day. The next day, I call back, and again, she's busy, so she tells me she'll call me back later. Unfortunately, I never got that call. However, it turns out that Kim really did call me back, but she just didn't get through. Heh. Yeah, I should probably get my own cell phone, huh? Anyways, today, Justin came over and we built decks out of my leftover Mirrodin cards and played. It was amusing. It also inspired me to build a new competitive deck. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 2) Total: 6 Good Night! Wednesday, March 23, 2005--Today, I visited Leland, just like last year! On this day: In 2004: I visit the Math Team. Hilarity ensues. Lei: Where is everybody? Did Dwayne scare them off already? Me: Heh, well, Joanna's here. I'm sure that means something. Joanna: Actually... *reaches for her stuff* Lei: I'm taller than Linda! Me: No you're not. Mr. Yim: Okay, you two, stand back to back, and... hey, you're both wearing heels! Mr. Yim: Linda's taller by this much (about 3 inches) Lei: No fair, her heels are higher than mine. Mr. Yim: Linda, what are you doing? Linda: These old trophies getting dirty make me feel old! Me: And you're, like, what? Seventeen? Mr. Yim: Really? I thought you were 14. Ke: You need to have more Arrogance to do this contest right. You need to have more Arrogance so that when you answer, it sounds like you know what you're doing. I mean, when it comes to math contests, Dwayne's always has Arrogance. Me: I think you mean Confidence. And today... Yim: And then there's Jazmine Tseng. She's not that smart, but she still made it into Harvard. Linda: Jazmine Tseng got into HARVARD?!? Yim: Oh, sorry, I meant Sarah Tseng. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 6) Total: 11 Good Night! Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - Addendum-- My Diablo II Ultimate Weapon Tuesday, March 22, 2005--Today, I played FF8 and worked on Dark Fiends. *yawn* Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9 Good Night! Monday, March 21, 2005--Today, I played Diablo 2. My Wulf is now level 64 and I can use my Elite Bonesnap (picture to come later), and I'm now in Hell (the difficulty, not the act). Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8 Good Night! Sunday, March 20, 2005--More slacking off during break. Sure, it sounds boring, but I'm having the most fun of my life! (Mainly because doing work is anti-fun.) Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12 On an unrelated note, apparently, my new Mono-Black Standard Legal MTG deck is actually quite powerful. (Umezawa's Jitte! w00t!) Um, Good Night! Saturday, March 19, 2005--Today, I slacked off. What can I say? I also went to Kellie's place, where me, Frank, and Kellie played on the GameCube. Other than that, there's really nothing to say. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 1) Total: 7 Good Night! Friday, March 18, 2005--E190... showing of krappy and good websites. I presented a lot of crappy xangas (all from people I don't know, btw), and presented Homestar Runner as a good website. Hehehe... And so, on my way to turn in CS150 Homework, Andrew told me the secrets of the ac97 chip, so I almost finished chkpt2 of the project, except that the volume controls are fucked. Well, I decided that since I was on break, I'd fix it 10 days from now. See you all later! w00t! Spring Break! So at home, I played Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, which isn't a bad game. It's a lot like Gauntlet Legends, which was a good game. I just wish they used the Ivalice races instead of makeing up new ones. Yuke? Lilty? What the hell are those? I also restarted FF8. It's amazing how long bossfights can be when you spend the whole time drawing out magic. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 1) Total: 5 Good Night! Thursday, March 17, 2005--Happy St. Patrick's Day! On this day: In 2004: Anyways, we finally make it to today, which I spent most of finishing EE121 homework. Econ 1 Discussion... I dropped by to turn in Problem Set 3, but otherwise skipped in favor of doing EE121 homework. CS184 Discussion... skipped in favor of doing EE121 homework. EE121 Lecture... I turned in my homework just before this class. CS150 Lecture... Today, our guest lecturer was... the TA Greg. He's better than Wawrzynek and tends to suppress his evil side when he's speaking to a large audience. Anyways, my Spring Break unofficially began today at 11am when I dropped my EE121 homework into the drop box. w00t! Spring Break! Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5 Good Night! Wednesday, March 16, 2005--Today, I learned a valuable lesson in CS150 Lab. Always always always check your Synthesis warnings. Often times, something will synthesize just fine, but it'll synthesize something you didn't intend, and the only way you will ever know is by looking at your Synthesis warnings. I also learned today that data sheets can be wrong. Damn those data sheets. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 2) Total: 6 Good Night! Tuesday, March 15, 2005--Happy Birthday Emerald Nguyen and Kristi Tsukida! Happy Ides of March! (Death day to Julius Caesar.) On this day: In 2004: (In the 7th floor lounge) Me: Tiffany! What are you doing here? Tiffany: Dwayne! What are you doing here? Me: ...okay, fair enough. In 2003: "You wanna supersize that for 35 cents?" "What happens if someone uses that line in the prostitution industry?" Again, this entry is late. It was actually posted on Thursday, and I forgot what really happened today. Except that it involved doing CS150 Checkpoint #2. It was perfectly designed, perfectly implemented, perfectly simulated, but it failed perfectly, that is, we got total silence. Anyways, long day short, I went home and slept. Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7 "Slivers are evil and slivers are sly; And if you get eaten, then no one will cry." --Mogg children's rhyme I am a sliver. Monday, March 14, 2005--Happy Pi (3.1415926) Day! Man, again, another long long long week. Well, this time, it ended on Thursday, so that's good. But man, I forgot everything that happened today. Anyways, today, in CS184, Prof O'Brien said that we could make a video game for our final project. Later, Mark S said that he had the PS2 developer's kit, so now our project is to make an FPS for the PS2. w00t! Dice Roll of the Day: (4. 2) Total: 6 Good Night! Sunday, March 13, 2005--CS150 Design and Implementation... Well, at least we know we won't have any trouble on the CS150 Project. Kwahahahahaha!! Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9 Ooh, Simpsons! Good Night! Saturday, March 12, 2005--Today was a mix of Diablo II and CS150 design. I shoulda done more with the CS150 Design and less on Diablo II, but oh well. On this day: In 2004: I meet Karen Y for the first time. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4 Good Night! Friday, March 11, 2005--The real reason why I didn't update today (and updated Saturday instead) is because I spent the whole evening playing Diablo II. Other than that, I finished my work really quickly. On this day: In 2004: E190... Our group did our presentation today. It went pretty well, except somehow, I think it went a little long. I dunno. Most of the other groups were long, though. CS150 Lab Lecture... After that, EE121 homework was quickly finished, and I stopped off by the CS184 Labs to finished some unfinished business. While I was there, people started asking me for help, which I gladly gave. Apparently, I'm well-known for the whole "chocolate bunny" fiasco... actually, not really. For dinner, I decided to go make cookies with TBP. Yes, I know cookies don't count as dinner, but it was TBP event and it was around dinner-time, so I made it my dinner. Hilarity ensued as we tried to play charades with Taboo cards. Some were next to impossible. Some were ridiculously easy. One such funny event was when Diana had to do "Throne", and managed to get the people to guess "Princess Diana", which become one of the things people repeated whenever Diana went up just for fun. Another hilarious point was when I grabbed a card, and on the green side, it said "Menopause". Fortunately, we were doing the Purple side. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 6) Total: 11 Apparently, Nadia doesn't get my dice roll (she actually reads my Journal?!?) There's basically no point to it, except that I like rolling dice. Anyways, I spent the rest of the night playing Diablo II. Check out my power weapons: Bonesnap War Club Steeldriver Martel de Fer In case you're wondering, I used Cube formulae to upgrade these uniques. They're pretty damn good. I can actually upgrade them even further. I just need a Lum and 2 Puls. Anyways, Good Night! Thursday, March 10, 2005--Slowly finishing up this long, long week. On this day: In 2004: Me: Hey, you know the movie "The Passion of Christ"? Christine: Yea. Me: Well, how about Me: "The Passion of Christine"? Christine: Hahaha! Christine: It'd be a movie about eating. That Christine... so amewsing... Econ 1 Discussion... The CS150 homework was ridiculously short. I finished the damn thing while in Econ 1 Discussion. We haven't had such a short homework since Homework #1. They weren't kidding when they said they'd make the homeworks shorter. CS184 Discussion... we went over the mudterm, which was a huge confidence booster. EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... Return to the CS150 Labs... Abhishek determined that the source of our error was some nonsensical interference from the log function, so we just hardcoded the thing instead. Now, our Checkpoint #1 works perfectly. Our goal is now to finish Checkpoint #2 next Tuesday, even though they've given us all the way until after Spring Break. No all-nighters, damn it! Then, I went fencing, because I didn't feel like doing homework all night. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10 Good Night! Wednesday, March 9, 2005--Another long day... except... it's Wednesday. I'm not supposed to have long Wednesdays. On this day: In 2003: I get fortune cookies that say, "Good news will be brought to you by mail," and "Sing and rejoice, fortune is smiling on you." Anyways, the CS184 Mudterm wasn't that bad. In fact, I dare say it was easy. As to the CS150 project, my design--after fixing some coding errors, some of which had to do with my lines coinciding with the blue lines on binder paper--the thing simulated perfectly. Unfortunately, for some odd reason, we got a bug that didn't make any sense, so we were stuck. On the bright side, everything works theoretically. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8 Later, I went to a TBP General Meeting and Mafia Night and got back really, really late. Now, to start on those problem sets. Good Night! Tuesday, March 8, 2005--More work... On this day: In 2004: Sliver Week on MTG.com Anyways, I learned a lot today. Abhishek and I went into the lab to do our CS150 project, and I ask to see his design. So he sketches something pretty sketchy on a sheet of paper, but since he claims that he's figured it out and that he's going to write the verilog, I take his word for it and let it slide. Unfortunately, when we tried to synthesize the damn thing, it doesn't work. At that point, we should have pulled ourselves away and redesigned the thing with a proper design. However, for some odd reason, we felt that we could debug it directly from the code. Eventually, the thing became so convoluted that neither me nor Abhi knew what was going on, so we just scrapped it altogether. We spent 5 hours in that lab with ZERO progress. We learned two valuable lessons: #1, never write code without a proper, well-documented design. Design documents aren't just for grade check-offs, you know? #2, if it doesn't work, debugging blind is not the best of ideas. Always debug with the big picture in mind. I spent the rest of the night redesigning Checkpoint #1 from scratch while studying for CS184 Mudterm. In addition, on Saturday, I plan to thoroughly design Checkpoint #2. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10 Good Night! Monday, March 7, 2005--Clearly, I have been very busy, since this Journal entry won't get posted until Saturday, March 12. Since I probably don't remember everything, I'll just paraphrase the important details. Anyways, I have work in just about every class except Econ. For E190, there's this group presentation that I have to prepare; for CS184, I have a project and a mudterm; for CS150, I have the project; and for EE121, I have a fuckload of homework. So yeah... I need to get to work on these things. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7 Good Night! Sunday, March 6, 2005--Mmm... Canpakes--I mean Panpakes--I mean Pancakes! That's what we had at our TBP big social today, especially those Chocolate Chip pancakes, and no not with that fake Hershey's stuff, but with real chocolate. (Disclaimer: Hershey's chocolate isn't fake per se... it's just diluted... and possibly fake, I dunno. It sure don't taste real, and I know my chocolate.) We also tried to build a pyramid. Karen was on top. There are pictures on the TBP website. Then, we climbed tries. Well, I didn't. I have a fear of heights. On this day: In 2004: Me: Do I wear my sleeve on my heart? Tiffany: Umm... isn't it the other way around? (Damn, I know, two Tiffany S's. That makes it kind of hard to distinguish between them.) In 2003: Man, the EECS servers are down, which makes it kind of hard to start my homework. Oh, well. Dice Roll of the Day: (1,2) Total: 3 Good Night! Saturday, March 5, 2005--w00t! I am officially able to program in 3D now. Here are some screens from my homework assignment: Screen 1 Screen 2 Screen 3 Wireframe Screen 1 I still have a ways to go, though. Seriously, though, from a pure aesthetic point of view, even FF4 had better graphics than this. What I need are some texture maps and stuff. Anyways, I spent some time at the library studying CS184 with Sarah Beth and her friend Jonathon (?). *gasp* Dwayne studying?!? Well, yeah, I slept through half of all the lectures, so I feared I didn't know the material well enough. Anyways, other than that Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Good Night! Friday, March 4, 2005--E190... CS150 Lab Lecture... so it begins... And also, I spent much of the morning chilling with TBP since we were doing Donuts & Bagels and accepting Candidate Packet Turn-ins. Then, I played Diablo II. Next, I will finish my CS184 project. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9 Good Night! Thursday, March 3, 2005--I meant to do more preparation for EE121, but the stories told in my classes today were just too interesting. Econ 1 Discussion... I learn even newer stuff, since Jaya decided to look forward so that we could do our homework rather than looking backward. Also, apparently in an ideal economic world, bribes happen all the time. o_O CS184 Discussion... Important review for another mudterm. EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... More preparation... EE121 Mudterm... It wasn't as hard as I had anticipated. I'll be happy if I break 70. I also ended up not going to fencing since by the time I got back from the mudterm, I was already late, and it was raining, and I just didn't feel like going. But I will be there on Monday for sure! Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6 Good Night! Wednesday, March 2, 2005--CS150 Discussion... Econ 1 Lecture... I actually learned something today. Maybe this class will be worthwhile, and by worthwhile I mean that it'll be worth more than just a humanities class. E190... (break) CS184 Lecture... On this day: In 2003: Okay, so I spent the day basically preparing for my EE121 exam tomorrow. Basically a boring day. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6 Good Night! Tuesday, March 1, 2005--Econ 1 Discussion... I slept right through this one... because it was cancelled today. EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... the project begins. I mean--the class begins. For reals now. CS150 Lab... TBP Meeting... EE121 Review Session... So it was only this weekend when my mom was telling me to always bring my jacket with me, even on hot days, because you never know how long you'll stay out and when the weather might get cold--or rainy. The stupid thing is, I knew that I'd be out until 9am today, but it was warm in the morning, warm in the afternoon, and warm at 3pm, so I dressed lightly. But after my CS150 Lab, at 6pm, it started to pour, and I wasn't dressed for rain. So I got soaked. The funny thing is, when you're in the rain for a while, eventually, it doesn't even feel cold. It just feels soothing and relaxing, and you don't really care anymore. Of course, that only lasts until you get to dry land. On this day: In 2003: TEAMS... we LOST. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 3) Total: 5 Good Night! Monday, February 28, 2005--RIP Affinity And here's a eulogy to Affinity: You were the best in your format, and pretty damn good in some of the others as well. Because of that, however, you had to die. See you in hell! Oh, wait, that was no eulogy. On this day: In 2003: EE121 Discussion... Anand was late. I was a minute away from ditching. Econ 1 Mudterm... I was 5 minutes late and therefore didn't finish. However, I'm pretty optimistic about my score. I think I'll get roughly 80%. E190... (lunchbreak) CS184 Lecture... Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 6) Total: 11 Good Night! Sunday, February 27, 2005--Today is an incredibly boring day, mainly because I did nothing except for write a 3D program and return to Berkeley. The fact that there was no "On this day" for today is another factor. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 5) Total: 9 Good Night! Saturday, February 26, 2005--So my computer is memory starved. Windows XP takes about 150 megabytes to run, Firefox takes 70 (I thought it was lightweight), AIM takes 40... and that's 260 megs right there. And I only have 256 megs! And that doesn't include my firewall or my anti-virus. So yeah, as you can see, my computer really has memory issues. It manifests itself when my computer stalls every now and then when I maximize Firefox windows. Which is why I bought 512 megs of memory and added it to my computer. It's kind of funny. The Toshiba manual says that my computer has enough memory to run today's most popular software. BULLSHIT! My computer has trouble running last year's software, let alone today's. Man, whoever at Toshiba decided that it's okay to ship computers that don't work, and then lie about it in the manuals deserves to be shot. On this day: In 2003: Miss Koyanagi: You better have Part I (78 pages) of Crime and Punishment done by tomorrow. Me: What happens if we don't... have a book? That's the story for the day--memory. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6 Good Night! Friday, February 25, 2005--E190... CS150 Lab Lecture... Me: *unscrews Tiffany's chair* Colleen: Dwayne, don't do that. *re-screws Tiffany's chair* Me: Aww, you ruin all my fun. Colleen: Yes, that's what I'm here for. On this day: In 2003: Franklin and I share our first Legions MTG boosters... I discover Slivers for the first time ever... and Mistforms, too. Anyways, I went home today and played Starfox Assault, the new Starfox for the Gamecube. Anyways, the single-player mode is all right, but it's not as good as Starfox 64, mainly because of all the "Find this target and destroy it" missions. I mean, Starfox is supposed to be an arcade-like game, and making those kinds of missions really tends to slow down the game and make it less arcade-like and more, I dunno... slow. I mean, the only "Find the target" mission they had in Starfox 64 was on Bolse, and even that was okay, since you didn't have to fight through swarms upon swarms of enemies to find a hard to locate target. The targets were right there and the game was always moving forward. Plus, Starfox 64 was just cooler in general. However, Starfox Assault has really good multiplayer. I mean, incredibly good multiplayer. If you want to play a multiplayer game with an assortment of weapons, vehicles, and battle modes (other than Mario Kart), you should get Starfox Assault. It's a good game. Anyways, I spent the rest of the night playing Starfox Assault and couldn't beat the final level. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4 Good Night! Thursday, February 24, 2005--Happy Birthday Sarah C She's 18 now. You know what that means! (That means she can vote now. What did you think I meant?) Econ 1 Discussion... again with the newspaper! CS184 Discussion... EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... Wawrzynek's first profound lecture. Of course, that's probably because I slept through the other 9. On this day: In 2004: Colleen is a giggling little girl. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Good Night! Wednesday, February 23, 2005--CS150 Discussion... Econ 1 Lecture... Nadia invited, so I sat with her in lecture today. E190... (luncbreak) CS184 Lecture... our next homework assignment is the build the basis for a first person shooter. Yay! On this day: In 2004: Also, today was the TBP Candidate meeting. Funny that they just so happen to fall on the same day, huh? Anyways, Amy was there, but only because I kept bugging her about it. Apparently, now I owe her the greensheet from the CS61c book (which I had always owed her, but now if I don't get it to her, she'll be pissed at me). However, it sounds like she's "considering" joining TBP, so it's not a hopeless cause. Me: Have you met any new people? Amy: Yeah. One. Me: Oh, Angela? I guess that's close enough. Amy: Haha, Angela's almost a person, huh? Me: ...you know I'm not very good with words. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5 Good Night! Tuesday, February 22, 2005--Yes, these entries are late. I don't even remember why. On this day: In 2003: I show up to Econ 1 Discussion but spend the whole time reading the newspaper instead... EE121 Lecture... CS150 Mudterm... trivial. Totally trivial. (lunchbreak) CS150 Lab... Abhi and I worked in parallel, but separately. Greg said he didn't recommend this, but I have no idea why. For me, teamwork is dividing up the work and working on it in parallel. I mean, this is clearly the most efficient method and one of the major ways teamwork is done in the real world. We never see two guys sitting in one cubicle coding something together. It's always divide and conquer. TBP Officer meeting... HKN Candidate meeting... this is my first HKN Candidate meeting. In my candidate semester, I had a mudterm (Physics 7C) on the same day as the candidate meeting, so I couldn't go. Last semester, I had a mudterm (EE122) on the same day as the candidate meeting, so I couldn't go. This time, the mudterm was scheduled earlier in the afternoon so I made it. It was amusing to say the least, what with Noaa's evolution icebreaker and the n00b. Me: Tracy, how have your classes been? Tracy: *shrug* Me: You don't know?!? What do you mean you don't know? Noaa: What was the question? Me: How have your classes been? Leonard: Dude, it doesn't matter what question you ask her, she'll give you the same response. Tracy, how much money do we have in HKN? Tracy: *shrug* Noaa: How did you get your job as treasurer? Tracy: *shrug* Me: What's your name? Tracy: *shrug* Crazy Tracy indeed. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4 Good Night! Monday, February 21, 2005--It's Presidents' Day, so there was no school, However, instead of taking advantage of this time to do schoolwork, I slacked off the whole day. Bad Dwayne! Bad Dwayne! (I need someone to control me... preferably someone cute.) Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10 Good Night! Sunday, February 20, 2005--Sarah invited the whole floor to her house in San Fran to hang out, so we went, me, Eunice, Michelle, Ray, Dani, and Minna. (Sarah was already in San Fran, so she just picked us up.) And Sharon was there, too. On this day: In 2004: I got my laptop. Happy Birthday, Laptop! (If I'm not mistaken, it's name is Mercury.) Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10 *yawn* Good Night! Saturday, February 19, 2005--Today was the Berkeley Fencing Tournament So I fenced Sabre today. For some odd reason, Daniel was registered, but never showed up, so he got dead last in the pools (#33). Me? I lost all of my pool bouts (because I'm a newbite), and got seeded third to last. Lucky me, I wasn't seeded #32, because then I'd have to fence Harry, and Harry is damn good. (He won 2nd prize overall.) Instead, I fenced the 2nd seed in a bout to 10 and I got 5 touches on him, so I'm happy with my result, even if I didn't win a single bout. (Actually, I had more fun at the UCSC tournament, partly because I won more, partly because I had two intense DE bouts instead of just one.) The 2nd seed ended up continuing to the finals, where he narrowly beat Harry 10-9. It was an fantastic bout. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 4) Total: 5 Good Night! Friday, February 18, 2005--Yay! It's Friday! E190... CS150 Lab Lecture... Diablo II! Okay, I'm off to play. ... ... Oh, right! Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8 Good Night! Thursday, February 17, 2005--So... sleepy... Econ 1 Discussion... I only showed up to turn in my Problem Set. Unfortunately, I had some EE121 Homework to finish, so I did. CS184 Discussion... skipped in favor of sleep. Since I was northside because I had to turn in my EE121 Homework, I ended up sleeping in the IEEE office. Why IEEE? I have no idea. The door was open, so I went in side. And soon fell asleep. EE121 Lecture... I decided it was a good idea to attend this lecture since Gastpar's notes are best taken when in person. Unfortunately, I kept falling asleep. At one point, Tanya had to wake me up. CS150 Lecture... I went to class for two reasons, and one of them was the quiz. Since I wasn't planning on listening to lecture anyway (seriously, CS150 Lecture is useless), I fell asleep and told Tiffany to wake me up in time for the quiz. Man, you know what it feels like when someone wakes you up from a deep sleep? It feels like you got pulled from another world. Now, I guess it's not fair for em to say that, since I've never been pulled in from other worlds before, but I like that comparison. I left early after the quiz in favor of sleep. Why did I want to sleep so bad? So I could go fencing! Yes, fencing has higher priority over homework. (No actually, it doesn't. I don't have any real homework due until next thursday. And no, Econ doesn't count as real homework.) Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 6) Total: 11 Good Night! Wednesday, February 16, 2005--Why is this entry late? Because I spent the whole night doing homework due Thursday. Why did I have so much homework due Thursday? Because I spent 3 hours doing CS150 Homework with Tiffany that's due Friday. But I can't blame Tiffany, because it was really my own decision to stick around and finish the CS150 Homework (even if she did persuade me a little... and by a little, I actually mean a lot.) On this day: In 2003: Me: If you're lucky, Justin will show you his Phyrexian Dreadnoughts. Franklin: Wait, if I'm unlucky? Me: Yes, if you're unlucky, he'll show your his Phyrexian Dreadnoughts... in battle. (Later that day, Bernard got unlucky.) CS150 Discussion... Econ 1 Lecture... E190... (lunchbreak) CS184 Lecture... Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 1) Total: 3 That's all there is to it. Good Night! Tuesday, February 15, 2005--Man, I have such a bruise on my arm from fencing yesterday. Ah, well, it's all part of the game, really. Plus, I need to wear better gear. I'm actually under-armed. I don't have an under-arm protector. Econ 1 Discussion... During my short break, I discovered that the CS150 Homework is problems from the book. ARGH! I don't even have a book. Man, now I have to borrow from Carise or Tiffany or Colleen or somebody... EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... operation borrow book is a no-go. I also made a bad judgement call when I decided to walk across campus to get some food from the GBC. Not only was I soaked, but so was my food. I also made a bad judgement call when I put my soda in my pocket. Apparently, as I was walking, the impact from my footsteps shook up my soda so that when I opened it, it exploded. Lucky for me I was nowhere near the computers. Too bad it wasn't in Soda Hall, or else that would have been hilarious! CS150 Lab... TBP Meeting... Today, Diana decides to do this thing where you write your name on a piece of paper and pass it around and people write nice things so that you get "warm fuzzies". Someone wrote "Karen likes you" on mine. Now obviously, that's a joke, but I thought it was amusing. I believe it was written by a TBPrankster who reads my website, most likely the same person who posts in my guestbook every time I mention Karen. Of course, I'd like to believe that I know my readership--all 3 of the people--and there's no such person on my readership. So now I'm totally confused, but amused, but confused. And bemused. It's too rainy for me to go get dinner. Man, I'm so hungry... Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4 Wow, long entry today. Good Night! Monday, February 14, 2005--Happy Valentine's Day to that special lady! EE121 Discussion... Econ 1 Lecture... Man, Prof Olney keeps sending us e-mails about how Econ 1 is "Fast. Very Fast." Seriously, compared to the Econ class I took in high school, Econ 1 is slow. Very slow. Stupidly slow. The class is a joke! I mean, seriously, the only reason I can see people might remotely have trouble with Econ 1 is because they're humanities majors and therefore can't do analysis worth shit. E190... (lunchbreak) CS184 Lecture... I'm having trouble staying awake in this class. I think we need more cute girls in CS184. Really. Anyways, today is not very eventful. I went fencing... and... that's about it... Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10 Good Night! Oh, wait... Sunday, February 13, 2005--Today, I did a bit of homework, I did some work for the TBP website (my changes are mere maintenance--nearly invisible in that huge website), and slacked off. On this day: In 2004: In 2005: Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7 G'nite! Saturday, February 12, 2005--I know this is kind of early, but I thought I'd post now before I forget. Basically, the only thing that happened today was that there was supposed to be a Triple Betrayers draft, except only 3 people showed up, and 4 is the bare minimum. So we didn't have a booster draft. I ended up buying a Fat Pack and started opening the boosters (Fat Pack comes with 6 boosters). Interesting cards include: a boatload of Horobi's Whisper (I'll start selling off my spares now), another Hidetsugu, some Frostlings" and Bile Urchins (ooh, a Mogg Fanatic), Genju of the Falls, another Shuriken, another Goryo's Vengeance, Toshiro Umezawa, Blazing Shoal, a foil Psychic Spear, Higure, Genju of the Fields, and Tomorrow. Also, the Fat pack comes with a foil basic land (I got a Forest), and a random foil (I got a Hundred-Talon Strike). Other than that, I played some Diablo II. If anything else happens, I'll post an addendum. Otherwise, Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 1) Total: 6 Friday, February 11, 2005 - Addendum--This is to post that today, for the first time ever, I played Diablo II Act 5 and I beat Diablo II Act 5. It was pretty easy... Shenk the Overseer, Nihlathak, the Ancients, Baal, they were all easy. Now, Lister the Tormenter and his Minions of Destruction gave me a bit of trouble, where by "a bit of trouble", I mean that I had to drink some potions and make strategic retreats. Friday, February 11, 2005--E190... (lunch) CS150 Lab Lecture... Diablo 2... I'm going to go play some more, after this dice roll: Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2 Good Night! Thursday, February 10, 2005--Econ 1 Discussion... CS184 Discussion... EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... Yeah, it was quite a boring day today. The highlight of the day, however, was this episode of the Simpsons that I never saw before: Hehe... Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2 Good Night! Wednesday, February 9, 2005--Happy Chinese New Year! CS150 Discussion... again, Colleen had an elegant solution to a problem that I didn't. Econ 1 Lecture... E190... (lunchbreak) CS184 Lecture... So then, I played the piano for Carise. I think I struck a chord with her. (Haha!) Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6 Good Night! Tuesday, February 8, 2005--Econ 1 Discussion... (break) EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... which reminds me, I need to talk to Alex J. (break) CS150 Lab... TBP officer meeting... And the highlight of the day--Justin found me a Steeldriver in Diablo II, which is one of the best normal unique mauls in the game. In fact, it's better than many of the elite standard mauls. (Of course, most of the mauls you find in Hell will not be standard, but even then, it's hard to come by a good damage bonus.) So yeah, it has a level requirement of 29, but I was only at level 26, so this spurred me to go play Diablo II to gain 3 levels to wear this amazing weapon. However, I was in Normal Act 4, and at my level, you just don't get good experience without a lot of work. I managed to get up to level 27, but I decided to go take down Diablo (that plus Justin telling me that we could take him down at our levels) so I could get to act 5 which has, supposedly, higher level monsters. In any case, I fought Diablo at level 27 and won, dying only once (that is actually fighting the demon, not hiding in a corner and letting someone else do the work), so now I have achieved an all-time low record of level 27 for beating Diablo. Of course, I did it with Justin's help, but he's at level 25. Too bad I never made it to level 29, so I still have yet to equip the Steeldriver. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 1) Total: 6 I should sleep now. It's getting late. Good Night! Monday, February 7, 2005--EE121 Discussion... Econ 1 Lecture... for some odd reason, I couldn't find Sharon today. E190... (luncbreak) CS184 Lecture... for some reason, I was sleepy... probably because of the lack of sleep I had last night. Man, I should sleep more, huh? Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3 Good Night! Sunday, February 6, 2005--Man, I played a lot of Diablo II this weekend. Perhaps too much. I need someone to control me and keep me from wasting my time on unimportant things. So, um... yeah... Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7 Good Night! Saturday, February 5, 2005--I game too much. I think I'll go game some more. On this day: In 2004: Alan: Wow... that was impressive... impressive in how fast you lost. I thought you said your little kitties raped his slivers. In 2003: I discover that soda is the only thing that tastes good when you're sick. So I played Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories - Reverse/Rebirth today and I beat the damn thing. Yeah, it only took one day. Anyways, this is what I wrote on Avalanche Online, reproduced here in spoiler text for your benefit: *KH:CoM*So anyways, I started KH:CoM Reverse/Rebirth just today. Oh, and I also beat it just today. Here are my final gameplay stats (as of the last save point before the final boss): Level 41 Time: 05:39:38 Yep, as you can see, R/R is SHORT. Part of it is because you can't customize your deck, partially because you don't need to spend any time getting treasures or Moogle Points (which took up a lot of time in Sora's story... unless you were the kind of guy who liked to rush the game), and partially because R/R is just short. Most of the worlds have NO cutscenes and only 1 story bossfight. Now, for my thoughts on Reverse/Rebirth: DECKBUILDING (or lack thereof) - Where Sora's story was about strategy, R/R was about tactics. In many of the worlds, you'd be given a sub-par deck and expected to adapt to it. This is in contrast to Sora's story where you could be the crappiest player in the world, but if you build the right deck, you can take down anything. Thankfully, most of the hard boss fights (although not for THE hardest bossfight) were in the Castle Oblivion overworld, where you had a good deck. Personally, I liked this variant. It made the game more interesting (as well as more difficult). DARK MODE - Simply put, Dark Mode is THE MOST overrated aspect of R/R. I went through the entire game without getting a single Dark Points bonus. One of the main reasons is that you actually have to TRY to get Dark Mode to trigger, and--especially in the worlds with the crappy decks--the passive strategy of waiting for the monster to attack first, then breaking, simply doesn't work. (In general, card breaks never work. It's always better to use an aggressive strategy.) Sure, Dark Mode is helpful when it does manage to trigger, but it's not worth slowing down your strategy just to get it. Sleights are overrated anyway. (Sleights have ALWAYS been overrated. The only time I ever used them was when I was trying to thin my deck of crap cards by stocking up cards--the sleights were just an unfortunate side effect.) Second of all, when you do get into Dark Mode, 8 DP is plenty. In most of the battles where I've gotten Dark Mode, I was able to finish the battle without reverting. Some of you might now argue that more DP is good so you can take more hits without falling out of Dark Mode. Well, not really. Each hit takes away 5 DP from your meter, and you can get 2 DP every time you pick the DP bonus. So you'd need 2.5 DP bonuses to get an extra hit in Dark Mode. However, those same 2.5 bonuses could be used to get you 37.5 HP, which certainly more than one hit. (Well, maybe not against Lexaeus, but he's not that hard anyway.) And trust me, HP is important since you don't have any reloadable healing sources, unlike in Sora's story. Lastly, often times, Dark Mode actually INTERFERES with my tactics. When you actually get into Dark Mode, the last card (or stocked cards) you use WILL HAVE NO EFFECT. This is a problem if you're trying to use a Mickey card to heal, and it breaks an enemy's card, and you go into Dark Mode, AND YOU DON'T GET THE HEAL. This is especially problematic toward the end of the game when you have to use stocks to prevent your Mickeys from being broken, because when you stock, you tend to gain about 10 or so DP, and taking into account the natural Dark meter rising from all the card breaking that happens when you start hacking and slashing at the bosses, the stocked Mickey has a good chance of bringing you into Dark Mode, and you never get that valuable heal. In addition, when you actually go into Dark Mode, you stop for a moment, and during this small half-second delay, the boss will usually get a few hits on you. (ESPECIALLY, the final boss, who has some pretty fast attacks.) Also, when you fall out of Dark Mode, the delay is even longer, so in many cases, Dark Mode = free hits from the boss. Granted, Dark Mode was a good idea and all, but it would have been viable if only the developers had tweaked some numbers, like a better DP bonus or a shorter penalty for taking damage while in Dark Mode, or if they had made it so that you don't go into Dark Mode until AFTER the last card's effect. However, the way they implemented Dark Mode made it more of a liability than an ability. No wonder Riku fears it. STORY - It wasn't as deep as Sora's story (I guess the developers spent most of their time in the real game and less time in the bonus feature), but it was still pretty interesting. The real benefit of Riku's story is that you get to meet the man in the red turban, who is NOT Ansem despite what all the rumor mills are saying (unless he is, in which case the developers have really fucked up THAT plot element). It's kind of morbid, though, what with most of the characters dying--some of whom I kinda wanted to see in KH2. So yeah, that's my spiel on Reverse/Rebirth. Overall, it was good, but there were a few minor flaws.*KH:CoM* So yeah, that was the gist of my day... a game review. I game too much, just like Cari! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7 Good Knight! Friday, February 4, 2005--I vaguely remember waking up late today and chatting with Cari over AIM. On this day: In 2003: E190... On my way to lunch, I ran into Cari on the road. CS150 Lab Lecture... funny, the only time I was supposed to see Cari (I wonder if Cari reads this boring old blog. That would be cool. Except then I'd have to clean up some of the garbage. Whoa! This is a weird place to put a parenthetical statement.) today, I didn't see her. So instead, I sat with Tiffany. (I know too many Tiffanies. Tiffanies? Tiffanys? I'll have to ask Tiffany... one of them... all of them... something...) So I went home today and started a new Diablo II char, the Blessed Hammer Paladin, aka the Hammerdin. And I was killing that good shit all night long. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8 Good Night! Thursday, February 3, 2005--On my way to Econ 1 Discussion, I ran into Sharon, who's also in my discussion, but she wanted to go fetch her friend so we parted... CS184 Discussion... EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... Wawrzynek made so many mistakes on his slide. I've decided that he's worse than Garcia as a lecturer. Then again, compared to everyone, Garcia's the best lecturer... unless you put him in the same room as Guy Boo. On this day: In 2004: I dream that Mark has a really hot sister who's name is not Julie. In 2003: Anyways, I tried to set up C++ with OpenGL on my computer. I finally caved and installed Visual C++. *shrug*. Anyways, fencing later tonight (join us!), so see you later. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6 Good Night! Wednesday, February 2, 2005--CS150 Discussion... Andrew pretty much gave away the answer to the challenge problem... how disappointing. Econ 1 Lecture... E190... (break) CS184 Lecture... 3D! Yay! On this day: In 2003: I find the "I Love You" virus on my computer. Wow... I'm so far ahead on my homework, it's not even funny. Oh wait, it is. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10 Good Night! Tuesday, February 1, 2005--Econ 1 Discussion... (break) EE121 Lecture... we were in a new room today. I like it better. CS150 Lecture... Tiffany sat in front of me, and at one point, I leaned forward and rested on the back of her seat. Abhi: Dude, if she leans back... Lunch at GBC before finishing the lab super-early... HKN Member meeting... apparently, Tina is left-handed, just like Princess Tina! TBP Officer meeting... On this day: In 2003: Regional Science Bowl - "They're called LEOnids. Where else would you expect them to come from than LEO?" Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8 Good Night! Monday, January 31, 2005--EE121 Discussion... Econ 1 Lecture... E190... CS184 Lecture... we saw some cool computer generated shit. Fencing... Tired... On this day: In 2003: Franklin and I shatter the Rubix Cube while cheating. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7 Good Night! Friday, January 28, 2005 to January 30, 2005 - TBP Retreat-- Mindy: Dwayne! Where have you been? Me: I went skiiing with TBP at Tahoe. For some odd reason, I always spell skiiing with three i's. It's funny. I always mean to put 2, then I subconsciously add "-ing", and I end up with 3 i's. Heh, just now, I was trying to type it with 3 i's, and I put 4 instead. Oops! Sking. Skiing. Skiiing. Skiiiing. Anyways... (Friday) Happy Birthday Stephanie H! E190... CS150 Lab Lecture... Then, after some arrangements and packing, we were off to Tahoe. Parthi picked me and Alex up (in a stick-shift). We were supposed to leave at 3pm, but we needed to pick up tire chains and ended up arriving later than some of the people who left after us. One amusing incident: We missed the turn to get to our lodging, so we decided to turn onto another road and make a U-turn. Unfortunately, this road was steep and icy, so we slid down and couldn't get back up. Then, we spent half an hour trying to install tire chains in freezing weather. After figuring out how to get them on, we drove to our lodging, only to realize that we had lost a tire chain on the way, so we drove all the way back to find it. Fortunately, it wasn't too far away, but we were going in front-left wheel drive! (Saturday) On this day: In 2003: "There was nothing going on between me and Tiffany." "Are you sure?" Today, we went to Kirkwood, where I had snowboarding lessons. I suck at snowboarding, though. Compared to skiiing, it's so much harder to control. Thankfully, I understand the theory behind it, now. I just need to practice. Next, we had the retreat Officer meeting, which was within 15 minutes of breaking the record for longest meeting ever (4 hours-ish?). I wanted to break the record, but Princess Diana didn't want to, and since she's president, we cut the meeting short. Robert [Petroski]: I'm going to pull a Robert [Hennesey] and say some stuff that might be a bit unpopular. (Sunday)On this day: In 2003: So today was basically re-arranging ourselves so that we could go home. We had to clean out the refridgerator, so I offered to finish the Mint ice cream. After all, we couldn't take it with us. So yeah, I did my part for TBP. (We also had a group photo where I basically froze my knees, but that's incidental.) Me: Does anyone have a flamethrower? I need to defrost my knees. Interestingly enough, we went to a place in Davis called Murder Burger for lunch. Except that they had to rename themselves "Redrum Burger" for reasons that I am not 100% aware of. (Yes, I know that's not grammatically correct. This is not English class. I have good grammar. I just choose to not use it.) Anyways, now I'm back. I need to catch up on the online stuff that I miss. Also, I'm sore from snowboarding yesterday. ...Damn! Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12 Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6 Good Night! Thursday, January 27, 2005--w00t! I have the full collection of The Black Mages. Econ 1 Discussion... CS184 Discussion... OpenGL... soon... EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... Man... what a boring day! Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4 Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - Addendum-- Happy Birthday, Kellie! Wednesday, January 26, 2005--CS150 Discussion... except for some reason, our TA thought it was at 10 instead of at 9, so he showed up 45 minutes late. Needless to say, it was amusing. Oh, and Melody is in my discussion. Econ 1 Lecture... it's funny, Prof Olney uses the opposite conventions as Mr. Jamil. Instead of "Diminishing Returns", she says "Increasing Costs", and instead of "Supply and Demand", she says "Demand and Supply". Anyways, I think Jamil was a more thorough teacher for the subject, but then again, Jamil has 5 hours a week while Olney has only 2, so she's already at a handicap. E190... we met at the Career fair because... just because... I decided to look around since I was there, but I wasn't really interested until I ran into Cryptic Studios (the guys who make City of Heroes). It was amusing, to say the least. Too bad I already have an internship for the summer. (Lunchbreak...) CS184 Lecture... Affine Transforms! I slack off too much... or do I? Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 1) Total: 7 Good Night! I've run out of things to parody Tuesday, January 25, 2005--Econ 1 Discussion... EE121 Lecture... CS150 Lecture... Wow... what a boring day... CS150 Lab... apparently, they didn't completely set up the computers, so when I got to the last part of the lab and pointed out that something went weird, my TA went into a swearing frenzy after realizing that he had to go and fix all 70 computers. I waited for about an hour because I was afraid that he wasn't in the mood to check people off. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 3) Total: 5 Good Night! Monkday, January 24, 2005--I had only 5 hours of sleep last night, mainly because I was up playing. Silly me. EE121 Discussion... it seems that I understand how to do the probability, but I'm not very good at writing it out mathematically rigorously. Econ 1 Lecture... Sarah didn't show up because she had a scheduling snafu, so I sat with Sharon, Jackie, and anonymous girl. E190... We're doing resumes now! Too bad I already have a half-decent resume. Maybe now I can make a three-quarters-decent resume. (Lunch...) CS184 Lecture... Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4 I've decided that the best course of action is to forget that she ever existed. She probably won't even notice. Note that I'm being purposely vague so that when I look back on my journal next year, I won't rememeber who I'm talking about, and that'll be a good thing. MTG Mood Meter: Erase Anyways, Good Night! Son Day, January 23, 2005--Today was mostly playing MTG, mainly trying out a Ninja deck (which was too mana inefficient) and rebuilding my old Son of Darkness Deck. (Alan's version was called Psycho of Darkness or something like that.) Now, when you build a cleric deck, you have a massive card pool to work with, so I ended up running lots of 2-of's instead of 4-of's since I didn't know which cards were better than which. After running a few tests, I gradually discovered what was good and what was bad. It seems that black is good for the Dark Supplicant, kill cards, and Oversold Cemeteries (the biggest reason why I'm a big black player now), whereas white is good for defense, damage prevention, and protection. Also, thankfully, this is one of the most mana efficient decks I have ever built, with a mana curve not only starting at one, but it's mostly one-drops, a few 2-drops, and 3-drops at the max. I also played some Diablo II. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6 Good Night! Slattern Day, January 22, 2005-- Betrayers of Kamigawa Pre-release today! (The regular entry will be an addendum for today... if anything happens at all.) So today, I woke up early to go to the early morning session of the pre-release because the club--namely Philip and Albert--was going early morning. That and since Matchplay moved the pre-release to Oakland Marriot, we could just take the BART instead of driving to Palo Alto. Good thing, too, since it's a lot more convenient to BART than to drive. Oh, and the promo card was an Ink-Eyes. For the first time, I noticed that the promo cards have alternate artwork. I liked the original Ink-Eyes artwork, though. Anyways, when I got my cards (1 Kamigawa Tournament pack and 3 Betrayers boosters), I quickly discovered that I was seriously lacking in removal. Hell, I only had 1 Rend Flesh, and that was it. At first, I considered playing other colors, but in the time constraints, I decided that I should stick with the archetype that I know best and ended up playing red-black anyway. To make up for the lack of removal, I grabbed anything that could vaguely be considered removal--Frostwielder, Hankyu, Nine-Ringed Bo, Shuriken, and even Ben-Ben. It turns out, of course, that running Ben-Ben was a mistake, since he can only be used to kill attacking creatures, and that really sucks, but I never drew him in any of my games, and I never figured this out until after the event was done with. Oh, well. Also, it turned out Hankyu was much too slow, so I threw that out also. Then, I splashed some blue to add more ninjas and a really good blue card. Here is my deck in its final form (note that I still have Ben-Ben, because after the final round, I didn't bother switching him out): 8xMountains 7xSwamps 3xIslands Goblin Cohort Blademane Baku Ronin Houndmaster Brutal Deceiver Ogre Recluse Ben-Ben Fumiko Frostwielder Frost Ogre Bile Urchin Nezumi Bone-Reader Skullsnatcher Wicked Akuba Rend Flesh Thief of Hope Takenuma Bleeder Okiba-Gang Shinobi 2xMistblade Shinobi Shimmering Glasskite Shuriken Nine-Ringed Bo Other interesting cards in my draft pool included: Kitsune Mystic, Shell of the Last Kappa, Goryo's Vengeance, Slumbering Tora, Callow Jushi, a foil Vine Kami, and a foil Scaled Hulk. So in my first round, I went up against a guy who's name I don't remember. He played blue, black, and white, I believe, and made use of Kabuto Moth for great defensive plays. In the first game, I learned the power of Frostwielder, as it often times made my opponent not want to block my 3 power (or potentially 3 power) attackers. Also in the first game, he sacrificed a Soratami to get out the Patron of the Moon, but I managed to bounce it with the Mistblade. For the next few turns, I beat him down, wondering why he never replayed the Patron. Then, the turn before I won, I realized that he didn't have the mana--he had used Offering to get it out the first time. The second game was similar to the first--he opened with a Kabuto Moth, but this time I had the Nine-Ringed Bo instead of the Frostwielder. Eventually, he got out the Patron again, but somehow I managed to play around it, narrowly beating him for the win. And all this from a deck that I thought was sub-par. He was a good player. Record: 1-0 Interlude: Philip lost the first round and Albert won. In my second round, I went up against a dude named Carl. He played red-green. The first game, my opening hand had no mountains--which is bad, because my deck relies on a lot of red. I mulliganed down to 6--no land at all--then down to 5. Unfortunately, it also didn't have mountains, but at that point, I was willing to risk it based on my Swamp and my Island. Unfortunately, I didn't get my mountain for about 5 turns. Needless to say, I lost. In the second game, Carl got out Jugan. Needless to say, I lost the second game. Record: 1-1 Interlude: Philip lost the second round and Albert won. In my third round, I went up against a kid named Vince who had the exact deck that I wanted to play. He was playing red-black and had a shitload of removal. Gahh!!! Fortunately, he didn't seem that good of a dueler. I mean, at one point, I attacked with my Skullsnatcher into his Nezumi Shortfang, and he blocked! I mean, Shortfang is worth more than that. You don't trade Shortfang for an inferior creature... unless you have a backup plan... and he obviously didn't since I trounced him. Second game, he managed to pull a win somehow (I believe I was mana-flooded), but third game, I finished him off. Record: 2-1 Interlude: Philip finally won one, but with his record of 1-2, he was guaranteed not to have prizes, so he went home early. Albert, on the other hand, finally lost one. In my fourth round, I went up against a dude named Daming, who promptly offered a draw. I eagerly accepted. Then, we decided to play a quick game for fun. He won pretty easily with some combat tricks that I had originally underrated (ie, Indomitable Will). Good thing I accepted that draw. Final Record: 2-1-1 Interlude: Albert's opponent wanted to split the boosters 4-2, so they played, and Albert won quite handily, it seems. So I win 3 boosters. Interesting cards include: Hidetsugu, Umezawa's Jitte (Albert has stories about this card), Hokori, Jetting Glasskite, a foil Ribbons of the Reikai, another Shimmering Glasskite, another Bile Urchin, Blessing of Leeches (free regeneration!), Ninja of the Deep Hours, First Volley, and two Horobi's Whisper (this is what I needed in my sealed deck!). However, I traded my Hokori, Slumbering Tora, Goryo's Vengeance, and an old Through the Breach to Daming for an Uyo, Iname, Death Aspect, Isao, and Shizuko. I dunno if it was a fair trade, since Betrayers prices haven't stabilized yet, but I certainly didn't want the cards I traded away, so I guess I'm happy. (4 rares for 4 rares.) Plus, Through the Breach isn't worth much anwyay. All in all, I had a lot of fun. Especially the ninjas. Anyways, I'm getting hungry now. I'm going to go eat dinner. Hmm... I should get Cari to play MTG. 20-sided Dice Roll of the Day: 11 Good Night for now. Frightday, January 21, 2005--E190 Lecture... ended early today. I got inducted into a group of all J's. (Lunchbreak... and I saw the HKNers getting ready to leave for their retreat.) CS150 Lab Lecture... the lab was really, really nice... but I still refuse to live there. Played some LoD... I wish Cari were still gaming... of course, if she were, I wouldn't be able to play my druid. Still, that barely makes up for it. On this day: In 2004: Maria becomes audible. Well, tomorrow is the pre-release. The club wants to go early, so I'm a have to sleep early if I want to wake early. Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8 The Third Day, January 20, 2005--Econ 1 Discussion... Sharon, Sarah's friend, is now in my discussion section. To quote Sarah, "ah... nifty". CS184 Discussion... it's a weird room, and we were let out early because there's little, if any, material covered today. EE121 Lecture... we learned about Entropy in communications. It's funny. You can express something with only 0.8 bits if you compress it good. CS150 Lecture... Abhishek convinced me to leave early, because it was all review of stuff we knew well... kinda like when I convinced him to leave early back in EE20 because it was complex numbers that we both already knew. Returned my Econ 1 book... I don't need it. It's Econ 1! Dinner with Kim... I'm surprised she didn't cancel at the last second or something. All in all, it was good. That's Kim for you! (I wouldn't be me if I didn't use that line.) Fencing... I need to get back in shape. Minjung's hair is now black. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9 Good Night, everyone! When's Day, January 19, 2005--CS150 Discussion had not started, so I slept in... by about 30 minutes. Econ 1 Lecture... I sat with Sarah, because Sarah is cool. Also, I saw Nadia in my class. E190 Lecture... apparently, there's some weird snafu with scheduling, but I'm in the class no problem. Lunch with Cari... because Cari is cool. CS184... Lots of people are in this class, too, but not as many as in EE121 and CS150. Abhi and I are going on a Diablo II: Lord of Destruction game-a-thon. If you want to join, IM us. The more the merrier. Preferably, you should play a caster to balance out our party/non-existent clan. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5 Good Night! True's Day, January 18, 2005--Happy Birthday Joyce L! First day of classes today! Econ 1 Discussion... not much happened, really. The GSI kept saying the class would be hard, but I hear otherwise. Although... I do have homework due already. Damn! EE121 Lecture... wow, so many people that I know. There were the Leung twins, Sahand, Tanya, Robert from TBP, and even Daisy! Oh, and Gastpar was teaching that class. Gastpar is cool. CS150 Lecture... wow, even more people that I know. Daisy again, William, Abhi (of course, I already knew that), Melody, Vince and his friends, Cari, Tiffany, half of the Leung twins (Stephanie, if I'm not mistaken), and... and... that's all I can remember. Stupid Tracy... Speaking of Tracy, I was tempted not to let her in for the TBP meeting today, but I did anyway, possibly because if I didn't, somebody else would and it'd defeat the whole purpose of me not letting her in. Why am I being so mean to her? Oh, right, that's why. Also, I've resolved not to buy books for my technical classes unless I absolutely, positively have to. It'll save me lots of money! On this day: In 2004: We let our fish go into mercury-poisoned Almaden lake... isn't that like sentencing them to their deahts? Nah, they're invincible. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 4) Total: 8 Oh, yeah, Daisy's worse than Tracy. Oh, and Karen deserves a mention... just to see if that anonymous poster in my guestbook is still around. Good Night! Moonday, January 17, 2005--Today, Guillermo (roommate) came back and Sarah came back (yay), and I saw Minjung coming out of the bathroom with a bathrobe or something. I asked when she got back and she said today, although given her track record... Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 4) Total: 8 Good Night! Stunday, January 16, 2005--Slowly, people are returning to the dorms. Life will soon resume in this desolate place. Otherwise, nothing happened today. On this day: In 2004: In FF7, I get the date with Yuffie... of course, I didn't name her Yuffie. Watching the Simpsons: Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7 Good Night! Shatterday, January 15, 2005--I did mainly 2 things today: 1. I made another tutorial for Java multimedia programming. 2. I tried to improve my AI for Solar Vengeance... and succeeded! ...but only by tweaking a few constants. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7 Oh, and Sarah the Hedgehog was online today! Yay! Very Good Night! Friggin' Day, January 14, 2005--Lunch with Joyce at Xroads. Didn't know they were serving brunch on Friday. What a waste... what a waste... On this day: In 2003: The Fairy Dream... in this world, fairies fly around. Instead of little insect wings, they have brown bird wings. If you catch one, you're supposed to get good fortune, get rich and have your dreams come true and stuff. A poor little boy waves his hand, trying to catch this one fairy that flies by, but he misses. Somehow, the fairy flies into his arm, injures herself, and lands in his hands. The fairy has a broken wing. She's moaning in pain. Instead of asking for his riches, the little boy decides to take care of the fairy, help her until her wing gets better... it was quite a touching dream... Oh, and Bernard easily kicked my ass in Solar Vengeance. (The site is back up, by the way.) Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6 Good Night! Thursday, January 13, 2005--I came back to Berkeley today. It's so lonely... and cold... Why did I come back so early, you ask? Well, it's partially because of my foolishness and partially because I made an arrangement to meet someone here, and therefore, I need to physically be here to meet that person. (Wow, how vague and confusing.) So far, the only people I've seen up here are Danielle, Gina, Dorie, and Vivian the Health Worker. Two lights just turned on in one of the new halls. Wada, I think it was called. Wada and Towle. Sounds like a swimming pool or something. Anyways, I've been playing Solar Vengeance, but due to a snafu with the ISP, the Silicon Commander Games website is down. In the meantime, I challenge anyone to a game of SV. I've been practicing. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 1) Total: 3 Wow, some one just yelled "FUCK!" really loud outside. Good Night! Windsday, January 12, 2005--More Front Mission 4... but I think I'll take a break from that now in favor of Solar Vengeance. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7 Short entry. (Dwayne is bored.) Good Night! Two's Day, January 11, 2005--I went to the dentist today. Also, I've been playing Front Mission 4. It's an interesting game, although a bit on the slow side. (Compare with FFTactics, where most enemies--and allies--can be killed in one or two hits.) On this day: In 2004: I beat FF2. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9 Goof Night! Moneyday, January 10, 2005--I was expecting a package today, so I checked the mail. And a package did indeed arrive. But it wasn't the package I expected. (I wanted the new Black Mages CD. Instead, Front Mission 4 arrived.) Front Mission 4 turns out to be an interesting game, though. It's like a mech version of FFTactics. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Nood Gight! Someday, January 9, 2005--Ninjas! Everywhere! Betrayers of Kamigawa previews have begun! (Yay!) Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5 For some random reason, I feel like mentioning Kim. Food Night! Splatterday, January 8, 2005--I was inspired by my brother's chess-playing. Now, I can't beat him personally, so I decided to make a machine that could. ...then, I got bored of it. Then, I went to Bernard & Kellie's, where I did some stuff, watched some TV, and implemented a feature into my game that Kellie requested. It took all of 15 minutes (maybe less). Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11 Gourd Night! Fry Day, January 7, 2005--Today, I visited the Math Team. Me: *hands Lei some probability problems I wrote up* Lei: Eww, probability. Why did you write more of these? Me: I like probability. I'm a gambler. Lei: You need a hobby. Me: Yeah, gambling. Apparently, the Math Team has finally started its plan to teach middle schoolers. Lei makes a good teacher. She's good with words. I'm only good with numbers. Oh, and I saw Connie and Evelyn there. It was amusing. And, um... that's about it. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 2) Total: 8 No more weird anagrams of Good Night! Thor's Day, January 6, 2005--Today, I beat KH:CoM. My thoughts will be posted (quoted from what I put on Avalanche Online). *CoM*"One note before I continue on: I wasn't aware until about half an hour ago that KH:CoM hasn't been released in Europe there. For those Europeans who are reading this (that's very unlikely, unless there's a European who likes reading spoilers... even though I'm not using any... but just to be safe). So yeah... I beat KH:CoM just today. It took me 19:25:07 according to my last save file, and I was at level 60. I haven't beaten Rebirth/Reverse yet. (Hell, I haven't even started on it, but I'm looking forward to it.) My review is below. SOUND/MUSIC It's the GBA, and Sound Quality is at its worst. That said, the soundtrack is pretty good just the same. Granted, a lot of music from the original KH was re-used, but that only makes sense since a lot of the worlds from KH were re-used (more on this later). There were also a lot of new tracks, including new boss battle music and music for new worlds (non-Disney ones, btw). STORYLINE CoM had a LOT better storyline than the original. Of course, the original KH had basically no plot whatsoever, so it's not hard to outdo it in that category. While not as sophisticated as the story in FFTactics or Xenogears to name a few, CoM's storyline is pretty good. GAMEPLAY This is where CoM really shines. The new battle system is pretty innovative and fun to work with. At first, it seems really simple, but it takes a lot of experience to truly master. (And no, experience does NOT mean doing research online. I built and re-built my deck so many times after getting my ass kicked during boss fights.) Also, the using map cards to build the world map and create new dungeons is pretty cool, too. Granted, it takes away the fun in exploring, but it makes up for that by adding a new dimension to the game's structure--namely, we have to watch what cards we use in order to make the game advance as smoothly as possible. OVERALL Sure, it's 2D, but CoM is vastly better than the original, both in story and in gameplay. Especially in gameplay. If you like the original KH, action RPGs, and/or card games, then you should get KH:CoM immediately. And if you live in Europe, then wait until March ('cause that's when it gets released in Europe). THEN get KH:CoM."*CoM* Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 5) Total: 9 Doth Going! Wendyday, January 5, 2005--Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories... It's funny... you don't actually find out what the name means until late in the game. I'm almost done now. I'll finish it tomorrow (hopefully the final boss isn't a bitch) and post my thoughts. Until then, I'll just say that if you like action RPGs, innovative new battle systems, and/or card games, you should try KH: CoM. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2 Wow... double 1's twice in a row. What are the odds of that. Mindy: 1 out of 1296. Me: I didn't mean it literally! Go Thin Dog! Tuesday, January 4, 2005--So I decided to watch the Orange Bowl - USC vs OU today. It sucked. From what I can tell, the game ended sometime during 2nd quarter, roughly corresponding to when my mom came home with Round Table Pizza. By half-time, USC was leading 38-10. I stopped watching after 3rd quarter, 'cause there was only a 1 in a million chance that OU could pull off a win after USC was leading 48-10. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2 Also, I've been playing the Sims and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories lately. Goth Dingo! Monday, January 3, 2005--I found out today that even the Morphling Deck can be broken. Apparently. I'm just not that good of a control player. Justin's Gob-Bidding deck beat me twice. On this day: In 2004: I beat FFX-2. (Yuna: "I don't like your plan. It sucks.") In 2003: I ditched the Math Team Ice Skating thingie... oops... Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8 Don't Go Hig! Sunday, January 2, 2005--Today's entry is about nothing. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8 Diggothon! Saturday, January 1, 2005 - Addendum--Last night, I dreamt that me and a friend (I think it was an anonymous friend) were characters in World of Warcraft (that is, characters in the game, not people playing the game), and we were these Orcish swordsmen, except we were human, or something, and we were using fencing sabres, except they were sharp. So we went into this Undead held ghost mansion, and I run into these two ghost/undead things (but they were solid), and I'm like, "Don't come any closer." But one of them comes closer, and I freak out and I cut her across the chest with my sabre. Fortunately, she's a ghost and being cut across the chest does practically nothing to her (except for some reason, it left a mark... these ghosts were pretty solid for some reason). At that point, I recognize the ghost that I cut as Angela Wu, and I'm like, "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you." But she's not hurt much because she's a ghost. Yeah, weird dreams indeed. Saturday, January 1, 2005-- Happy New Year!!! And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming... Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11 !tghiN dooG Friday, December 31, 2004--So there was a party at my place today. It was for a bunch of family friends, including the Hos, the Lius, and the Liangs. There was lots of poker and Mario Party involved. Me (to Vivian): How much do you charge? Franklin: Do you know how wrong that sounds? Me: Only if you take it very very out of context. This isn't Thailand, you know. Unfortunately, I forget the context. On this day: In 2002: "Old man in! Old man in!" "Old man out! Old man out!" Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Good New Year's Eve! Thursday, December 30, 2004--Cal vs Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl today. I didn't watch it. It was on ESPN, and I didn't have cable. And Cal lost. D'oh! I'll have to ask Sarah what happened. Sarah: Our special teams suck. We dropped the ball again! (NOTE: I don't know if that's true. I haven't had a chance to talk to Sarah yet.) Fortunately, the Orange Bowl will be on a regular channel, so I can cheer against USC. I mean, U$C. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Good Night! Wednesday, December 29, 2004--Yay! God is back! Now, all we need is for the person who likes it when I post about Karen to return and ARW and we'll have a complete set! Speaking of god, I think this is the perfect time to post god's most famous quote (from my guestbook). Name: GOD!!! E-mail: GOD!!! Website URL: GOD!!! Message (comments and suggestions): nope she [god's mother] said I am a smart little girl! Yes, apparently god is a little girl. Anyways, I was summoned for jury duty today, so I went to the courthouse and waited a bit less than an hour only to find out that they didn't need my services this year. Damn. Oh, well, it could be worse. They could a made me sit through a whole trial for many days in a row, and I'd have effectively lost my break, so it's all good. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10 Okaie, Good Night! Tuesday, December 28, 2004--*yawn* Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7 On this day: In 2002: I beat FFX. Cute Night! Monday, December 27, 2004--I remember slacking off today. That's all. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7 Wow... so uneventful... Good Night! Sunday, December 26, 2004--Back to the good old I-don't-remember-what-happened-because-it-wasn't-very-memorable type entry. On this day: In 2003: The birth of my Red-Green Sliver Beatdown deck. So we saw The House of Flying Daggers, a movie starring Zhang Ziyi. *spoiler*Like in all the other Zhang Ziyi movies, she dies*spoiler* Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 2) Total: 6 G00d N1ght! Saturday, December 25, 2004--Merry Christmas! Today, from about 1 in the afternoon until late into the night, we had a party at Vivian and Robin's place. Highlights include: Me: Let's play Monopoly! Vivian: But we don't have Monopoly. Me: Go open your present! Playing Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in multiplayer mode and discovering the joys of the Death Ball. Me: Let's play Monopoly! Vivian: But we don't have Monopoly. Me: Go open your present! Robin is still silent... no wait, that's a bad thing. But she'll talk in sign language, though. (After about 20 more times) Me: Let's play Monopoly! Vivian: But we don't have Monopoly. Me: Go open your present! Vivian: Ohhh! Is it Monopoly? Franklin: *sarcastically* No, it's a puppy. Me: (How long has Vivian been so ditzy?) Jeffrey: (What, you mean like a blonde?) And then we played Monopoly... MTG Mood Meter: Infernal Spawn of Evil Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6 Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night! Friday, December 24, 2004--Christmas Eve... Friday... I don't remember a goddamn thing. On this day: In 2002: I get accepted to CalTech... it was my "Christmas gift". Oh, wait, I vaguely recall playing Diablo 2 with Cari today... as well as starting a bit of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 5) Total: 9 Good Night! Thursday, December 23, 2004--Slack-off day... you'll be happy to know what I've been working on... when it's time to reveal it. On an unrelated note, today, my mom's friend took her kid to my place to get some help in Chem AP. How boring... Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 2) Total: 6 G'night! Wednesday, December 22, 2004--Slack-off day... Maybe I should *make* something happen, like call a cute girl or something. (I wonder if she reads my blog... I know she's read it before... oh, shit!) Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4 Viltris: define cute ZolaOnAOL: cute adj cut*er, cut*est 1 : CLEVER, SHREWD 2 : daintily attractive : PRETTY How insightful... Good Night! Tuesday, December 21, 2004--My final final... Music 26ac... with Kim... I pwned it and left early, even though it was considered late, because although we were given 3 hours, Brinner planned for the test to only take 2, and I took 2.5 hours, so I dunno if that's slow or fast. All I do know was I didn't have to think about any of the questions. I either knew them, or I didn't. (More often than not, I knew them.) And also, since I pre-wrote my essays, I didn't have to think about it, just remembered what I wrote and get it from my brain to my hand to my paper. But Kim and Leeann both took longer then me... So, I went home. Yay! And I played Diablo 2 with Cari. Yay! Zzz... Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4 Apparently, a bunch of chicks pooled their monies together and bought Franklin a GameCube for Christmas. Yay! Good Night! Monday, December 20, 2004 - Addendum--Last night, I had a dream where me and these 2 other guys were professional swordsmen and we had to fight some badguys in our house. And then we ran into Spiderman, but it turned out to be an imposter (I cut his mask off). It was a punk instead of a nerd. Incidentally, his name was Matt Place, same as the guy who joked about there being a 6th color in MTG on MagicTheGathering.com. (Incidentally, I keep wanting to say Minjung the Gathering for some reason.) Monday, December 20, 2004--Today consisted of "studying" for "Music 26ac"... which reminds me of Kim... Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6 God Knight! Sunday, December 19, 2004--Today consisted of "studying" for "Music 26ac"... which reminds me of Kim... Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11 gud nite Saturday, December 18, 2004--Happy Birthday Stacie & Stephanie! On this day: In 2003: The birth of the SVBrain Rydia. I slacked off for most of today. It was all in preparation for... EE120 Final! The limiting factor this time was my brain, but it wasn't too bad. I'll be happy if I get an A. Hmm... apparently by this day a year ago, I'd have been home already... damn! Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 4) Total: 7 g00d [\]1g[-]7!!1! |
