Personal Dork Assistant

Selling Out?

Noticed a couple of pop movies by arty directors lately. Was really surprised to find out that The School of Rock's director, Richard Linklater, also directed Waking Life. I mean, School of Rock got some nice reviews, but it's still a pretty formulaic movie in the end. It's not even Before Sunrise far as plots go, much less Waking Life. At least all the reviews were universal in concluding that even if it's a formulaic "family" movie, it's a formula done right, and there's definitely something to be said for that

Found out that the Coen Brothers directed Intolerable Cruelty, thanks to Tivo's auto-downloaded trailer showcase. Hey, I'm all for any excuse to dress up Catherine Zeta-Jones and make her look hot. Would make a palatable date-movie. Um, if I had a date, that is.

All Kinds of Wrong

Random news courtesy of The Obscure Store:

20-year-old man burglarizing an apartment pried open a tackle box and found nude photos of young girls, including his little sister.

At least the burglar had the balls to turn himself into police in order to nail the guy with the kiddie pics, a registered sex offender.

I'm not as big a fan of Krispy Kreme as some, but it's sad to see other donut chains shoot themselves in the foot in the foot attempting to compete. Dunkin' Donuts has discontinued their original cruller, becoming a "victim of changing technologies and improved dough mixtures," i.e. the braided pastries can't be mass-produced by machines. Because, you know, everyone prefers machine-produced dough products to hand-made.

Then there's Condoleeza Rice, a.k.a. The Unsticker. Or perhaps her new title should be American Information Minister, based on this newspaper interview.

"It has been a difficult weekend," said Condoleezza Rice. "But it's not a surprise that the same people who oppressed their fellow Iraqis on behalf of Saddam Hussein are still trying to stop progress for Iraqi citizens. The more progress we make, the more desperate they're going to get."

This was after a weekend in which an Assistant Defense Secretary Wolfowitz was shot at with a McGuyver'ed multiple-rocket launcher in the most heavily fortified hotel in Baghdad. Right after a Blackhawk helicopter was nailed with an RPG in the area where Wolfowitz was visiting earlier, too. You think they were hunting for some big game? At least Condi didn't try to push her agenda after this week's wave of suicide bombings, just in time for Ramadan. And who needs jury-rigged RPG-launchers when you can shoot off some real Katyushas? I'm sure the Iraqi guerillas are feeling real desperate now that they took down an Abrams tank, doing just enough damage to nudge the number of post-war US dead beyond the number of deaths during the "official" phase of the war.

No Fire, But

The air outside just turned a horrible shade of gray-brown. Seriously, it's almost like a sudden solar eclipse in the way the sunlight just got gobbled up. The wind must've shifted directions again. The fire isn't threatening San Diego proper anymore, but it's definitely still raging in the dried brush of east county. The folks up on Palomar won't be getting much of a view tonight.

Less Fire

It doesn't look like the fire is going to get west of the 805, thank goodness. So I can unpack my Magic cards, the collectible DVD boxsets, and the desert island CDs. Oh, and the extra underwear, too. Still plenty of burning going on in east-county, though, and the sky turned from blue to gray in a hurry as the wind started to blow smoke in our direction with the sunrise. Actually called uncle in Diamond Bar to see about going up there to get away from the icky air for a day or two (all the schools and unis are shut down anyway), but they're getting a lot of smoke and ash, too, since they're almost directly downwind of the fires in the San Gabriel mountains. So it's back to the wet washtowel over the face and air purifier running 24/7. Good time to clean out the Tivo, anyway. I'm getting tired of avoiding ads on CBS just so I wouldn't catch a Survivor spoiler in the promos.

More Fire

I-805 is now shut down from I-8 to the I-5 merge, which means that I-5 is the only north-south artery still open in San Diego. They're recommending that people stay home unless ordered to evacuate. No imminent danger here, but I'm not about to go anywhere either, as I-5 is absolutely jammed from downtown SD all the way north to at least Carlsbad (the online traffic report doesn't go any further). The fire has jumped Highway 52 (10 lanes!) and creeping towards Clairemont Mesa Blvd. (and 99 Ranch Market!). We're not even leading the national news, as the fires in San Bernardino County have been even more devastating, as wildfires that would've burnt just wilderness a few years ago are now taking out new homes and subdivisions.

Ashes are collecting in the swimming pool outside. The air is still thick with the smell of smoke, and other nasty combustion compounds. I'm breathing through a wet towel to block out some of the bad stuff in the air. Put a wet towel in front of the air purifier intake, too. Watch the Niners game on a small window on a corner of the screen as the Fox station mostly stuck to the news. The Niners lose, too. Great.

Ominous

Enjoyed my extra hour of sleep and woke up to gray skies. Went outside and noticed that the gray sky isn't from a lingering marine layer, but from a thick haze of smoke coming in from the east. Smell of smoke was in the air, and the sun was reduced to a dull, orange blob. The wind was whipping up and it felt like an unnatural wind, air being sucked into some distant flames. Turned on the TV and found out that the flames weren't so distant after all. It started in Ramona, on the edge of the North County suburbs, and had been burning all night. Vicious Santa Ana winds had already whipped up huge fires in Los Angeles. Now the strong, dry winds were blowing the flames south and west... hey that's right up my alley. Turn on the TV and see reporters stationed on Miramar Blvd and I-15. That's really not far from where I am. Close the windows and turn the air purifier up on high.

Start packing a few things when the fire reached south to Highway 52 and still creeping west, too. The reporters bailed out at I-15 and headed west. There were talks of a final stand at I-805. Some nice houses are going up in flames. I-15 is basically all off-limits from I-8 to Highway 56. 52 is closed at 805, which I pass by practically every week. Basically, if the fire hops west past the 805, I am outta here.

At the Apple Store UTC, 6:45PM

Found out that Friday Night Magic started at 5:30 when I called at 5:26, so here I am instead. There's a line, maybe a hundred folks ahead of me, which isn't totally insane compared to other openings, but then there's another 75 minutes until open.

7:50
Killed time by beating some more Warioware mini-games. The employees marched along the line of people raising enthusiathm by shouting "Panther! Panther!" as one of them filmed with a DV camera. Even a cool retail job is still a retail job. The line was stretching out behind me across the food court, at least three times the length of the line ahead of me, so it was worth standing in line.

8:00
The door finally opened to cheers, mostly from the staff, but still. Didn't quite squeeze into the store with the first wave, but then they decided that they can cram a few more sardines into the can and let a few more of us in. We got Panther dog-tags as we walked in. Dog-tags? Cheaper than T-shirts, I guess. They did have a 10%-off sale on everything with Panther purchase. Eyed the 40 GB iPod for a second, but only a second. Did grab an iSight. Or rather, I got in (a long and growing every second) the checkout line and asked one of the (many) store staffers to grab an iSight for me. iChat AV might be the Killer App to tempt dad to upgrade his Smurf G3, so we're going to need at least one camera anyway.

8:45
Took forever to check out and finally found out why it was taking so long. The checkout girls were asking a million questions about registration, etc., when there were a million people waiting in line inside and outside the store. Even when I declined she had to fiddle with the iMac (possibly the world's most expensive POS terminal) to enter something or another. They probably drummed the spiel into her during training and it's fine for regular conditions, but hurry it up for tonight already. Looked into OS X alternatives to dad's favorite games. Now, if you're going to put "Mah Jong" on the box, make your damn game plays a real game of MahJong and not some bastardized tile-matching game. Fuckers.

Got the free grand-opening T-shirt on the way out. It's a nice Hanes Beefy-T, but the XL size is just a little bit too big. I guess I can hit the weights to fill out the shoulders a bit. Not much I can do about the length, though. The line was still stretching across the food court when I left, maybe another 2-300 people. So conservatively the store had at least 500+ customers the first night, each of whom probably bought at least a copy of Panther, and not a few of them had bigger boxes, too. We'll see if they keep it up, or not.

Got Panther installed and burned a copy for Sam. The new OS is definitely snappier, although it would've been nice to have that without paying for two upgrades in the process. There's no technical barriers to copying the CDs, unlike Windows. But I'm not feeling too guilty about it as we'll probably be dropping some $K's on a new computer soon. I think AAPL would take that tradeoff any day. There's something to be said for vertical integration.

Geek Dilemma

What to do on a Friday night? Hit Friday Night Magic for the first Mirrodin-legal Type 2 tournament? Or go to the Grand Opening of an Apple Store down the street, for a free T-shirt and the Panther intro? I can really use another Dawn Elemental for my Magic deck, but it's playable as it is. On the other hand, I don't really need another oversized XL T-shirt, and I certainly don't need to be running out to hand more money to Apple. I can use another pair of jeans, though, as long as I'm at the mall anyway.

Colorized

Pulled some new $20 bills out of the ATM. Folks were impressed by the new bills. Or perhaps they were impressed by the fact that I was handing them money.

Laboring

Southern California supermarket workers are on strike, primarily for their health care benefits. As a former member of the United Auto Workers, I'm happy to support my union brothers by staying away from Ralphs and Vons. Still gotta eat, though, so there's 99 Ranch Market with their non-union ethnic employees, Whole Earth Foods with their non-union, non-ethnic employees (with the prices to compensate for the cute white checkout girls), and the farmers' market with no employees at all. Hit Target, too, to pick up some Ziploc reusable containers that I needed because I left all the Rubbermaid containers at home. Ralphs' Double Coupon policy would've came in handy, though.

The supermarkets' excuse for breaking off contract talks was the threat of WalMart SuperCenters and their low (labor) costs. I'm sure the CFOs are horrified at the thought of $17.90 per hour for a grocery worker. Heck, most regular folks are probably horrified at the thought of a grocery clerk making anything close to $20 an hour, not to mention health benefits. After all, the free market dictates that anyone who can't afford health insurance should just die already. The union is probably going to lose on this one, anyway, as nobody will sympathize with overpaid bag boys when their own jobs are under pressure. Clearly everyone would be much happier if all the employees were paid like WalMart associates. It'll be like Communism without all the perks.

It's... Tall

Add up:

• Taiwan building standards
• The island's location in an earthquake zone
• The world's tallest skyscraper

Point of national pride, or disaster waiting to happen? You decide. It won't even be the world's tallest building for all that long, as the Shanghai World Financial Center is due to take over that title in 2004. Taiwan getting overshadowed by the mainland? Seems to be the standard story lately.

A Good Question

The Obscure Store asks: Is there anybody out there who isn't addicted to Internet porn?

He now jokes about the Internet as “the vortex of self-hatred” because of how it can turn mere diversion into a self-destructive act: “I’ll have a ton of papers to grade, but instead I’ll be like, Let’s jerk off to the Internet first . So I go online, but then I despise myself. I look up, and my computer says I’ve been online for 47 minutes and I’m like, What the hell have I been doing?! ”

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Even with all the supposed ease of it all, I believe that porn is still an inefficient market. There's still too many sites to sort through, each with their annoying ads and endless popup windows. Not exactly something you'd want to hand your credit card to. Of course, there's free downloads out there, but then the signal-to-noise drops badly. Some of the free stuff out there could earn money by making people pay to not see it. Or you can try to get into the whole irc-swapping scene, but that's a little bit too hardcore-perverted-geek for the audience described in the article. Too bad we can't have the Apple Porn Emporium or something analogous to the iTunes Music Store. Would be good for the stock price, anyway.

Space Oddities

Didn't want to jinx things by talking about it early, just in case 楊利偉 turned into a charcoal briquette on entry or something, because the success of a space mission totally depends on my superstitions. Anyway, China's first manned space mission was a success, mostly because it produced plenty of propaganda footage where the good soldier stiffly recited his carefully scripted lines from low earth orbit. Meanwhile, the launch of a new crew for the International Space Station was pretty much ignored by the media. So the ISS isn't even doing its job as a publicity draw. The Slashdot reaction was the usual kooky mix of psycho nationalism and geeky techno-lust.

Everyone knows that this is mostly a publicity stunt, but that's not to say that nothing was accomplished scientifically. Kung-pao chicken, in space!

The one thing that bugs me is the insistance on calling the guy a taikonaut. Now, either go all the way and use the full Chinese term tai-kon-ren (太空人), or just use the English term "astronaut" already.

An American Hero

Jared's 15 minutes are still ticking away. Helps that big-city newspapers have lots of pages to fill on Sundays and need some human interest stories. Something sunnier than stories about maimed Marines back from Iraq.

It is a quintessentially American success story, in which the formerly shy, fat kid from Indiana has attained near rock-star status as Jared the Subway Guy. He's not George Clooney sexy or Tiger Woods athletic. It's a more subtle thing, an off-the-rack, couch-potato allure that any one of us could possess.

The look is as all-American as Wal-Mart: khaki pants, checked shirt, white athletic socks, close-cropped curly hair and wire-rim glasses a size too small for the face. And he, Mr. Ordinary, is rich and famous.

Jared Fogle is our attainable dream.

I guess it helps that he's not allowed to eat at any other fast-food restaurants due to his promotion contract with Subway. Talk about healthy fast food, I gave the McDonalds' salad a chance. Ever since the local Koo Koo Roo closed down I've been looking for a decent and fast chicken Caesar salad. It wasn't too awful. The cherries tomatoes were a little bland, and the lettuce tasted more like mutant iceberg than romaine. Dressing was on the side in a super-sized ketchup packet, so I cut back on the fat content a little bit. Couldn't resist an order of fries to go with the salad, though (hey, a potato's a vegetable, right?), and the salad probably wasn't that healthy anyway. Plus the order ended up being $6.18 without a drink, which was just ridiculous. Sad to see not even the awesome purchasing power of Mickey Ds can make fresh veggies as cheap and available as mass-slaughtered beef. At least they're trying.

Pro Tour Amsterdam Qualifier, Costa Mesa

Got up early Saturday morning to head up to the Woman's Club for the PTQ and Grand Prix Kansas City Trial tournaments. Had a good time at the Mirrodin Prerelease, so I figure I'd give Mirrodin sealed-deck a shot in a more serious tournament. Also stayed up late to figure out a shopping list at the dealer tables. The release of a new large set is always the best time to get back into Type 2, and I'm willing to try any format where white weenie is good. Had a list for mono-black control, too, but it needed an awful lot of expensive rares. White control decks were out of the question, with Exalted Angels going for $15 and Eternal Dragons going for $12. Thought cousin Alan might be interested in checking out the scene, but he had a two-hour SAT-prep class he had to go to.

The Grand Prix Trial was suppose to start after round three of the PTQ, so I figure that unless I was at 3-0 or 2-1 with a great deck I would just drop and play in the GPT with hopefully less intimidating opponents. There were 77 people playing in the PTQ. The problem with the high-level tournaments is that you have to go through the whole deck-registration and deck-swap ordeal. Alphabetizing and recording cards is not a fun way to start the day. Although the foil Chrome Mox got the buzz going in the crowd as we wondered who would get the $50 bill. Well, it wasn't me. Got a strange sealed deck, with lots of duplicates. I didn't mind though, since I had doubles of Electrostatic Bolt and Pyrite Spellbomb, plus an Arrest and I splashed in black for Terror and Irradiate. My creature base was a little iffy (white fliers and red haste guys, but no beef), and only one Shatter as real artifact removal, but I figured that I had so many creature kill that I could get by, especially since everyone tends to run creature-light in Mirrodin limited anyway.

PTQ Round 1, Brett S.
I've seen him play at Costa Mesa for as long as I've gone to the tournaments there. Solid opponent to start the day. Was playing 17 lands in a 41 cards deck, one less than my usual. Of course, I drew no Mountains until the last turn of game 1, all the while holding two Electrostatic Bolts in my hand, plus a red creature or two. Pure white weenie is not a good strategy in Mirrodin sealed. Did have a Swamp and got a Terror opening hand, but of course he ran me over with big artifact creatures, which the Bolt would've killed but Terror couldn't.

Got to play in the second game, as I got my removal and the lands to cast them. A Viridian Longbow turned my weenies into pingers and held him off so I could save my spot removal for the big threats. His Fireshrieker was a dangerous piece of equipment if he kept a creature on the board, but I cleaned his side of the board and then dropped my Vulshok Battlemaster, which temporarily stole his Fireshrieker and double-striked him for six and put me ahead to stay.

Decided to play for tempo in the third game and used a lot of removal early to get damage through, but my weenies weren't a fast enough clock and he played a Mirror Golem which was Protected From Creatures. That plus the Fireshrieker meant that he started smacking me for six a turn, and I went 20-14-8-2-lose, just as time was called for the round.

PTQ Round 2, Kia
Oh well, I've come back from round 1 losses before and done okay. He dropped a second turn Sun Droplet and I figured that I had an easy round. Who plays life gain, especially slow life gain? It sure dragged the game out, though, since he could gain two life each round (one on his upkeep and one on mine), so I had to hit him for at least three each and every round if I ever want to make progress. I thought I was pretty clever in baiting him into attacking with his first-turn Auriok Transfixer (a great one-drop in the format) and nailing it with a surprise Raise the Alarm. Didn't feel as smart when I thought the coast was clear for my hasty Vulshok Berserker only to see him Raise the Alarm to take out the Berserker (one of the few guys in my deck with power > 2). Luckily he didn't have any bombs to put pressure on me as the game dragged on, except for a Mirror Golem for which I had the answer in Irradiate. Also got 2 x Pyrite Spellbombs, my Soldier Replica, and a Bolt for everyone else. Finally, eventually, and painfully I built up a big enough army to overwhelm the Sun Droplet and kill him off. The game took up most of the time in the round, though. Thankfully I rolled him in the second game as I drew Raise the Alarm, both E. Bolts, Arrest, Shatter, and the Terror. The final insult was when I killed off all his creatures and then dropped the Battlemaster, which let me draw cards off of his Mask of Memory. Now that's card advantage.

PTQ Round 3, Si
Didn't recognize the Vietnamese guy, but he was there hanging out with another CM regular, so he couldn't be too terrible. His deck sure wasn't terrible. I played a second turn Leonine Skyhunter and hit him for two every single turn in the air. He just kept dropping equipment: Fireshrieker, Bonesplitter, and Vulshok Battlegear, which totaled up to +5/+3, double-strike to any creature lucky enough to stick on the board. Killed everything for as long as I had the goods, but I ran out of gas and couldn't find another guy besides the Skyhunter to do more damage. Had one last chance when he was at 6 and I was at 8 and he attacked with everybody to take me down to 1 after some tricky blocking. I had the Skyhunter and the Vulshok Berserker in hand, but that only added up to five points of damage no matter how I did the math. Second game was more of a fair battle. As he got a bit of slower start and I could keep the board clear for the Berserker and fliers to sneak through for consistent damage. He was building up to the big Golems backed with equipment, though, and he played a Skyhunter Patrol that would've shut down my air attack if I didn't have the clutch Terror to clear the way and outrace him. Third game was anti-climactic, as I only had Plains when I had two Bolts, Shatter, and Terror all in hand.

Well, at least it wasn't a tough call to drop out of the PTQ at 1-2. The tight three-game match meant that I didn't have any downtime before the GPT started. Good thing I brought a Clif Bar. Only 21 people in the GPT, but for some reason we have to play five rounds to cut to the top-eight. At least it means that a mediocre 3-2 record should get one into the top-8 Rochester draft. Only top-4 get prizes, though, which is a bummer. Pulled another R/W deck, but a bit more balanced this time. Still had my Bolt and Arrest, but this time I had a Spikeshot Goblin, the MVP of this format, and some solid pieces of equipment.

GPT Round 1, Ben
He had some green beef, including a Troll Ascetic, but I dropped a third-turn Slith Ascendant which grew to a 3/3 before he could stop the madness with the Tel-Jilad Archers. However, the Spikeshot Goblin joined the party with Vulshok Gauntlets. So I could equip the Goblin to hit for five to the dome, then swap the gauntlets to a ground blocker while letting the Goblin untap. That's some good.

Got another third-turn Goblin drop, which annoyed him a little bit. Had to be content with pinging him for one each turn for four turns as I had to hold the ground. Sped up the clock a little bit when I got the Auriok Bladewarden to give the Spikeshot a +1 boost each turn to double its ping damage. He could be patient with one point a turn but not two, so he started to swing back for a couple points here and there. He didn't leave enough back, though, and a timely Bolt allowed me to swing for seven in one turn. He alpha-striked me back to take me down to 9, but by then I could re-stabilize on the ground and finish him off with Goblin direct-damage.

GPT Round 2, Ali
Good player with a good deck is a dangerous combo. Not that I put up much of a fight first game as I put down three pieces of Equipment but couldn't find a creature to save my life. Literally. In the second game, he got out a Nim Lasher and equipped it with a Mask of Memory. The flying Nim got bigger with each artifact he played. I tried to play countermeasures (Spikeshot Goblin, Slith Ascendant, Skyhunter Patrol), but the card advantage from the Mask meant that he had answers every time. Oh well, at least I had some time to do some shopping at the dealer tables.

GPT Round 3, ?
He had fast mana with Myrs, some big and beefy creatures, and a nice piece of equipment in Loxodon Warhammer. But I had the Spikeshot Goblin and the Skyhunter Patrol. Armed with the Vulshok Gauntlets, I could either attack for six with the flying kitties, or shoot down a creature for five with the Spikeshot. He couldn't draw any creature kill before the combo did him in.

He gets the nuts draw with 2 Myrs ramping to a Solemn Simulacrum. All the mana meant that he could make an Altar of Shadows way before anyone should be able to. I had an opening to eat the Altar with my Goblin Replica but I was a moron and played another creature to try to outrace the Altar instead. Do you know how hard it is to play around an artifact that kills one of your creatures every turn? I was forced to go on the attack as it was use-them-or-lose-them, but the Altar activations tied up his mana, and I had equipment on the table so that I could still sneak damage through with my leftover weenies. He was just about to clean out my side of the table and take control when I used Grab the Reins' Fling ability to do the final bit of damage. The deck definitely had to cooperate for me to pull that one out.

GPT Round 4, Jason
Only drew white mana for most of game one and couldn't hold off his big green horde. Pecked away with fliers in game two. Had to switch the Gauntlets back and forth between my fliers for offense and ground creatures for defense. The no-untap clause meant that I left myself open for counterattacks when I swing with a Gauntlet-equipped creature, so I had to be real careful in who and when to equip. Managed to outrace him by one point, but we only had three minutes for game three. Decided to play for it and I had the perfect draw. Third turn Slith Ascendant, fourth turn Skyhunter Patrol, fifth turn Spikeshot Goblin. But time was up and I didn't have enough time for the Slith to get big. Came up one turn short of finishing him off. If I had the win I could've intentionally drew the last round and get into top-8, but now I have to play and win to make it.

GPT Round 5, Eugene
He was 3-1 and hoping to intentionally draw, and wasn't happy that he got paired down vs. somebody who had to play. His mood didn't get much better when he had to double-mulligan down to five cards. He missed his second land drop, and by the time he top-decked a land I already had the Slith Ascendant up and running away from him. The Skyhunter joined the party and finished him off before he could stabilize. In the second game, he dropped a first-turn Pyrite Spellbomb, but didn't have red mana for a few turns, which allowed my Auriok Transfixer to sneak through and grab a couple of cards with Mask of Memory. Finally got my Vulshok Gauntlets + Leonine Den-Guard combo to get in one smack with the 6/6 no-tap card-advantage (thanks to the Mask) monster. He was about all I had, though, as he had a horde of huge Golems and things, equipped with a Fireshrieker and Vulshok Battlegear. He alpha-striked to wipe out my most of my chump blockers, leaving himself open to my equipped Den-Guard, but he was still at 13 life and poised to kill me next turn. However, the Mask cards from last turn got me my Grab the Reins. So I could attack with the Den-Guard and Transfixer (which had been staying back to tap his attackers) for seven, and Grab the pumped Den-Guard to hit him for the final damage. He was pissed, but his friends were happy since they could now drive to get some food before the top-8 draft, which he was still in-line for, even if I probably took a big bite out of his rating.

It was about 9:30 PM by then, and only the drafters from the PTQ and the GPT and their friends were still around. The dealer went around for last-call, and I bought some packs that Alan wanted, since there was no guarantee that I would win a round in the draft and get prize packs. The top-8 was about half random guys like me, and half good players, most of whom hadn't really seen Mirrodin cards yet. I had a pretty crappy draft, even considering that it's the first time I've Rochester drafted at a serious tournament. I liked the R/W thing I had going in the sealed tourneys, but that plan went down the tubes in a hurry as Ali to my left picked heavily white to start. Consciously wanted to make sure I get enough creatures, so I picked up some blue-favoring artifact creatures like Wizard Replica and Cobalt Golem. Also got into green with two Tel-Jilad Archers. Got a couple of Annuls and other counterspells like Override and Assert Authority. A couple of Yotian Soldiers to hold the ground, and a Neurok Spy for evasion. You notice that none of these guys have more than 2 power. And in a format full of dangerous artifacts and creatures, I had no creature or artifact kill at all aside from the counterspells. Also couldn't resist some rare-drafting, as I picked up a Chrome Mox as a third pick (hey, it was like a 20-dollar bill sitting on the table) and a Second Sunrise for my WW deck.

GPT Draft Quarterfinals, Eric
My plan, and it wasn't much of one, was to try to peck away with fliers while try to slow down their ground attack with Yotians and Archers and hold back a counterspell or two for their bombs. Eric had a R/G deck, going for the speed. I, um, was not. With all the counters I had, I had to be careful with spending mana, trading life for time, and how to maximize my blocks when I was outgunned on the ground most of the time. I had the Neurok Spy going and a Cobalt Golem in the first game, but his Malachite Golem was big enough to crush my Yotians and I couldn't outrace. The second game was an agonizing affair. Archers and Yotians kept him off my back, but the only offense I had was a third-turn unblockable Neurok Spy. I figured he must have a bolt or something in there to take him out eventually, but I wasn't going to stop swinging until he did. So his life went 20-19-16-14-12-10-8-4-2-0. Nope, he never found the answer.

That game took forever, and the semifinals were already starting on the other side of the bracket. Started on the third game and was content to let his weenies ping me for a couple of turns as I built up. Then the judge informed us that we only had five minutes left in the round. Time limit in the playoffs? But we were tied at one game a piece, so what happens when we time out in the third game? Life total is the tiebreak? Of course, I find this out after I declined blocking to put me down at 16-15. I found an Archer to stabilize the ground, but I still needed to get some damage through. Thankfully the Cobalt Golem showed up just in time and he took to the air to deliver the beats in time to put me comfortably ahead in life as time ran out.

GPT Semifinals, Mark
Thankfully, I was on the easy side of the bracket, as the good players tore each other up on the other side. Not to say that Mark was a bad player, just that he's a little kid and it was getting past 11PM and his friends were urging him to hurry the fuck up. I wasn't in any condition to play fast, though, as I was just land-shy enough to have to consider the mana implications of each move, especially since I was drawing every single blue trick in my deck. A super-clutch Annul in response to his Oblivion Stone set the tone. A Wandering Sentry showed me his hand full of Golems. Counter a couple with the Override and the Assert Authority, traded the Sentry for another one, and the coup de grace was the Domineer for his Malachite, which allowed me to smash for eight in one turn alongside his new friends. Had to block with the Golem after that (two-for-one goodness), but the fliers showed up to finish him off. Was hoping to follow the same blueprint in the second game, but he was having none of that. Held off as long as I could with my ground blockers, but I couldn't put enough pressure on him and he built up enough mana for the Wurmskin Forger that made his Malachites just big enough to trample past everything I have.

I got a good start in the third game, with early Wizard Replica and Neurok Spy doing unblockable damage while my low-power, high-toughness guys (Yotians, Archers, Lumengrid Warden) stalled the ground. That plan went out the window when he played the Molder Slug. Luckily I had a couple of Myrs to take the fall while I got in a last few points with my fliers, and he had to throw away his army of arty critters, too. I made a terrible mistake and swung with the Spy after all his artifacts were eaten by the Slug, forgetting that the Spy is unblockable only when the opponent controlled an artifact. He was waiting for the Slug to take out my Replica and make the Spy blockable, but they'd taken him down to 3 life before the smoke cleared and all that remained was the Slug and my 1/3 Warden. I still had 14 life, and he decided not to swing with the Slug, hoping to draw another fatty to put me away. I was in top-deck mode, too, although I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for. A counterspell gave me a little more time, and the deck delivered up the Somber Hoverguard. A non-artifact, flying creature with 3 power. Sweet. Mark couldn't find the answer and the Hoverguard delivered the final blow.

A couple of MVPs that didn't get mentioned before: the Silver Myr was super useful, especially since they count double for my counterspells (forcing opponents to pay more for Override, and simultaneously provide mana and reduce the casting cost of Assert Authority). Since I didn't have real creature removal, the Œther Spellbomb's bounce ability was critical in gaining tempo in the damage race, especially against Mark and his Dragon Blood.

Eugene from Round 5 had blew through the other bracket. The main prize for the GPT was a three-round bye in Grand Prix Kansas City. Now, I like Mirrodin limited, but I wasn't going to fly to KC to play. Eugene wanted the byes bad, and I was happy to let him have it in exchange for an even split of the prize packs. He had a much, much better deck than I did, he beat better opponents, and it was getting near midnight. All in all it was a good way to finish the day. Took my 24 packs and headed down Harbor Blvd. to find a gas station and hit the 405. I was exhausted and hungry (tally for the day: one large vanilla latte, one apple danish, one Clif Bar), so I gave uncle a call from the gas station. Luckily they were still up, so I only had to drive 15 minutes to their place instead of 80 minutes back to San Diego. Gave Alan his four packs and he managed to snatch an Empyrial Plate and a foil Leonine Sun Standard. Pretty good percentage. Found an Oblivion Stone, my own Empyrial Plate, and two Chalice of the Voids, among other things. Gave Alan as many commons as he wanted, as many uncommons as I could spare, and whatever randomly useful rares that were extra in my binder (Nev's Disk, Armageddon, etc.). Slept over for the night and stayed around to watch the Raiders lose (and lose ugly: 19 penalties?) on TV before heading south.

Move On

Saw the offer from 1and1.com on the Penny Arcade forums. Three years of professional webhosting for free? Way too good to be true, right? I usually never go for these freebie offers since the catch is almost way more trouble than it's worth, but I'm getting pretty tired of paying $10 a month to the entity formerly known as CTS for a lousy email address and crappy personal webhosting. Did a little research and found that at least the company isn't a small fly-by-night operation, but didn't we decide that giving stuff away for free isn't a great business model? They don't even ask for a credit card up front, so there really wasn't a catch, far as I could tell. Signed up for an account and jumped through a few hoops (a computer calls you to give you a PIN to complete the process), but I was up and running by the end of the afternoon. Sure, the control panel webpages were terribly slow, and I'm probably crammed onto the same machine as 189037101 other accounts, but all the features are there, and I got Movable Type up and running lickety-split, which is a good way to shake out all the hosting features (database, scripting, and so on). No emacs in the shell, but I guess if everyone on the server all were running emacs we'd bring the machine to its knees. Had to put up with vi for a while before I decided to give joe a try. It's not emacs, but it's close enough.

Imported all my Blogger entries into Movable Type without too much trouble, and found a web statistics package to parse the access logs. Had to install a CPAN package to get the XML-RPC features going on MT, but now I can edit the weblog via the OS X goodness of Kung-Log instead of editing via crappy browser interfaces. It was suprisingly painless to get everything going, but then I'm a sooper-genius (at editing text config files). I can see why $99 a year for .Mac isn't totally ridiculous, given the ease-of-use for basic tasks. They're even giving away iBlog, if you rather click a button than wrestl with CGI scripts. I still have to wrestle with MT's CSS templates. To bring back the lime-green goodness of the original layout, if nothing else.

Futzing with all these open-source and free software packages was a glaring reminder of the 80-20 rule. Movable Type produces remarkably pretty and robust output right out of the box. There's solid instructions for installation, importing entries from other systems, and support forums that'll answer questions. But you're still wrestling with Perl scripts, file and folder executable permissions, editing config files by hand (using vi, blech) to put in proper Unix filepaths and other necessary incantations. And in the end, the fucking weblog still doesn't show up. Of course, that guy is a moron, when I look through my Condescending Nerd Glasses, but even the friendly and helpful nerds don't see that the process wasn't that easy, even if it was. At least the Movable Type developers are smart enough to try to monetize the morons of the world. Most open-source developers can't even be bothered. Who's the moron then?

Now to think of a clever name for my website... Even if s87667177.onlinehome.us does sound kinda catchy, in its own way.

Woo Hoo

Descending

As Slashdot has become more popular, inevitably the quality of the average poster (on a site supposed "for nerds") decreases. Some of them are a little slow, some can be a little strange, and some are just plain lame. But at least one could expect them to be able to install Linux (which just involves popping in a CD nowadays, but still), read a few geeky webcomics, you know, at least pretend to be smarter than the average bear. Sure, there were idiots and trolls, but they were confined to the comments section and could be down-moderated out of view. But now even the editors have succumbed to the moron-icity and published a query from this dipshit:

A basic slot strategy is to move from one machine to another, and play machines in certain areas of the casino floor to improve your odds. With the ticket system, It seems all too easy for someone to build a system to track a player from one machine to another, giving the house the ability to kill the player's (already slim) edge. If a machine knows how much you've already won as soon as you sit down, do you think it will give you good odds?

Strategery? For slot machines? I just can't imagine the stupidity necessary for anyone to believe that they can beat the house pulling the one-armed-bandit. I guess I shouldn't complain too much, since these people subsidize the comps we get in Vegas, kinda like how the lower-bracket folks keep voting for tax cuts.

Loose

• Gray Davis loses, within 30 seconds after the polls closed the news outlets were already calling the election based on the overwhelming tracking polls
• Bustamante loses, even though he could've been the first Hispanic governor in heavily Hispanic state and couldn't get over 50% with his peeps.
• The A's lose (three straight after leading 2-0, the ninth series-clinching game in a row they've lost), which means The Sports Guy will be insufferable for another month.
• The Raiders lose, on a last-second field goal by possibly the worst team in football.
• The Giants lose when the tying run was thrown out at the plate for the last out.

All I'm saying is that the Sharks better be good this year because there's not much inspiring stuff to watch on TV. Except maybe Joe Millionaire 2, now with dumb Euro-chicks instead of dumb American chicks. Or there's always anime (sounds like Adult Swim's picked up the second year of Inu Yasha, due next year), and run a race in F-Zero GX without bumping into walls.

Holy Moly

It's no secret that I waste way too much time on the IntarWeb. It's useful for casual information on just about anything, and I pick up a lot of useless knowledge that way, but it's like a blue whale feeding on krill. You have to filter through a lot of crap for the useful nuggets. So it's a bit of a shock to see a hugely detailed treatise stuffed into a single webpage, talking about... Thailand prostitutes, of all things. It's a generally clear-eyed, slightly cynical view of the scene, warning the farang (a.k.a. gaijin or lao-wai) about the pitfalls and acknowledging its unsavory aspects while giving advice about how to get one's rocks off cheaply. The only problems I had with the piece is how he complains about people (e.g. Japanese tourists) overpaying and driving up prices (used to be 500 baht a night, now it's more like 1000 and up), even as he quotes rising tourist numbers. It's called "supply and demand", buddy. And he's banged how many cheap Thai whores and he won't spell out "fuck" on his webpage? Oh, and there's the usual complaints:

• With the West becoming more and more politically correct, many Western men consider farang females to be brash, opinionated and downright arrogant when compared with their more feminine, Thai counterparts. It really does seem that Western women want equal "rights" — but without equal responsibility. Many Western men claim that however you compare it, Thai women come up trumps when compared with Western women.
  
• Unfortunately, Thais are classic liars and frankly, you can't have a meaningful relationship with a liar. Thais simply do not seem to value honesty like Westerners do, and the Asian notion of face is FAR more important to them. This whole loss of face thing really gets in the way of things and makes people lie so much — due to fear of losing face.

But that's the usual spiel from Asian expats, each of whom seems to feel that he's the only honest man in a sea of deceitful yellow faces.

Just Wrong

New Krispy Kreme stores have been drawing big crowds all over the place. Is it possible to take expansion too far? The first KK store in Europe, complete with donut-making machine is going into the Food Halls in the basement of Harrods. Not to say that the donuts aren't good enough for the Food Halls (the whole place mostly caters to the tourists anyway), but it'll be a little jarring to see.

Total Recall

In California, when the Field Poll says you're cooked, you're cooked. Various loonies still think that some chickenshit "scandals" are going to drag down Arnold's support rates. Hell, they probably help his numbers more than they hurt. Brings in those disaffected voters, you know. It hardly matters what Arnold thinks anyway, he'll have plenty of "advisors" to make policy for him. Just throw the big name out there and look good for the camera.

Michael Lewis (a.k.a. Mr. Moneyball) has a piece in the New York Times Magazine dissecting the recall election. He nicely captures the sunny nihilism that's very SoCal, the heart of the recall territory.

Got an email from uncle to forward to mom to clear up some tax matters.

Checked with Kathy/CPA office about tax impact on K-1. Here are the findings:

1. K-1 income is part of ordinary income. 2003 Federal Tax rates dropped as follows:

        

2002	2003	rate drop
27%	25%	2%
30%	28%	2%
35%	33%	2%
38.6%	35%	3.6%

For example: if your tax bracket were 38.6% in year 2002, there is 3.6% drop in year 2003 and your federal tax bracket is 35% under the same amount of income in these two years.

State income tax rate did not have changes from last year.

2. Long term capital gains rates of 20% and 10% are lowered to 15% and 5%, respectively, effective for sales and exchanges on or after May 5, 2003. In your case, your long term capital gains of year 2003 (transaction date after 5/5/03) is 15%.

Short-term capital gains (those from securities held for less than one year) will be taxed at the ordinary income rate.

I hope the above info will help. For details, please consult with your CPA directly.

Sucks that K-1 income doesn't count for the dividend-tax cut. I guess if you didn't know that the rich benefit the most from the tax cut, the big cut to the top bracket is a boot to the head to remind you. Especially since the cut applies to all income from 100K (or wherever the top-bracket starts) to infinity (and beyond). Helps with those short-term capital gains, too.

Don't Bother

$70,000 a year equals subsistance for a family of four in the Bay Area. Not good news for the average American, considering that poverty rates rose last year, and median househould income fell to $42,409. I guess you can scrape by if you forego health insurance. I mean, it's nice to have plenty of artisanal breadmakers in the neighborhood, but a man can't live on organic bread and heirloom tomatoes alone. Actually you probably could, if you wash it down with some soy milk for the proteins.