Disclaimer on Freakishness

End Countdown Rant #8 I'm not a freakish person who's always on the top of the class. I'm only ahead of Yam by a miserable tenth of a mark, if that's a mark at all. Sure, I'm good at economics, I'll admit to that. I'll, however, admit that what happened last semester was freakish. For the oblivious, last semester, I got full marks for my microeconomics mid-semester exam. You know what's worse? The lecturers were actually combing through the few scripts that got full marks like hell trying to take a few marks off.

This time, I thought I'd be able to lay low, since I felt my command of macroeconomics was inferior to the more nerdy people in class. (I'm talking about the true freaks that can score nearly 80-90% in midterms. For Management! We have what must be one of the worst lecturers in my course. Of course, Yam just revealed to me that the Marketing lecturer is worse. Of course, I think the Management lecturer takes the cake for being the most boring.)

Then, our Economics lecturer revealed to us in our tutorials that the top few people will have their names printed on the results list. She told us that she would arrange the results according to merit. I went "Oh, shit!" in class when she announced that. My low profile would now be absolutely at the top in her list.

For something like what would have been the whole tutorial, she kept mentioning my name. It was annoying. Then, when she realised that I was in her tutorial, she went yay, because two of the top three were in her tutorial classes. Like Yam, I prefer to remain unnoticed by my lecturers. I should be the unseen, the unknown, the invisible. Unfortunately, I can't be a retard with where I want to go. I need results good enough to make it into the University of Melbourne, Australian National University or Macquarie University to do Actuarial Science. You can't just waltz in those universities doing a supremely difficult course with substandard grades. And of course, that usually means you can't keep a low profile.

You know what the irony of the Economics marks are? The top three people for the midterms were probably the people who paid the least attention in class. The three of us generally sat down and chatted with our friends for the most part. Are we freakish? I don't know. I would have to say we aren't. I believe the true freaks are those who get those crazy 99.7s from SAM. :D

Signing out. ;)

Magic the Gathering Turbo

(This is taken from an old post from the original Random Ideas blog. It is now an archive, but will never be forgotten. This deck was the most fun deck I've ever played, and probably the most entertaining, since it usually goes from zero to total overrun in one turn. :D The Onslaught block has since been rotated out, and while this deck was never played in a tournament (due to my exams). Therefore, some comments about it being Standard-legal refer to the month of July 2004) Originally published on cfgt2001.blogspot.com on the 22nd of July, 2004. Hyperlinks updated.

One day, I saw a really fun game progression in one of Mark Gottlieb's articles. It was a Standard deck that was actually quite scary. I was laughing my head off looking at the deck. Of course, it had a serious weakness, but I could live with that. I was so enticed by the crazy idea I actually built the deck to the new Mycosynth Golem.

Turn 1: artifact land Turn 2: artifact land, Talisman, Serum Visions Turn 3: artifact land, Fabricate for whatever is missing Turn 4: artifact land, a 10-mana Mycosynth Golem (you have 5 artifacts, so it costs 5), Composite Golem (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 10 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Triskelion (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 10 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Fabricate for Darksteel Colossus, Darksteel Colossus (free!), mana burn for 2, go.

Now, instead of doing that, because Mycosynth Golem now costs 11 mana, I did this: (I've hyperlinked the first occurence of each card.)

Turn 1: artifact land Turn 2: artifact land, Pentad Prism, Talisman of Dominance, Serum Visions Turn 3: artifact land, Fabricate for whatever is missing turn 4: artifact land, Mycosynth Golem, Composite Golem (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 11 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 11 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Fabricate for Darksteel Colossus, Darksteel Colossus (free!).

(If you're wondering what happens, I literally put down about 10 HUGE creatures for free, and (thanks to Sundering Titan) remove about two to three of my opponents lands.) OK, everything looks the same for now right? Here the change I made to the deck that just made life a little more painful, and makes playing this deck a little more viable without the perfect hand.

turn 4 (continued): 2 mana left in mana pool, Mass Hysteria, mana burn for 1. Attack with: 2 Mycosynth Golem 2 Platinum Angel 2 Sundering Titan 1 Darksteel Colossus

OK, I'm actually undermining what actually happens. I played once with Yam, and I got it off only on turn 7, but with the following to attack with: 3 Mycosynth Golem 4 Platinum Angel 3 Sundering Titan 1 Composite Golem (If you're wondering, I was playing the deck without a Darksteel Colossus, it was at home. :D I deemed it too valuable. If I did, Yam would probably be screaming already :D) He blocked off 4 creatures, but the remaining 5 dealt 20 damage, killing him instantly as we both laughed at how close it was: I was at 1 life when I defeated him. Talk about close calls. Of course, I actually casted a Platinum Angel when I was at 3 life, so... not really that close. :P When I finished him off: Note this: he had no lands in play anymore. :D I destroyed every plains and island he had, and I wasn't playing basic lands.

Now, what does the game look like now? Damn freakin' ugly. Playing this deck, I realised what tourneys felt like. Solitaire games with two people playing. :D That's the story of a Ravagerless Affinity deck. I'm probably going to keep this as one of my most prized decks, being able to instill some fun into watching about 10 creatures come into play for free. I don't think I'll be able to play at the Grand Prix this weekend. If I do, I hope the deck gets some notice, because I don't think anyone is playing it, yet. The deck is worth a lot though, having a four Platinum Angels, four Fabricates, four Mycosynth Golems and four Sundering Titans. But then again, who could argue that having four Platinum Angels isn't good? No one you're against can win until they get rid of it. Hehe. Oh yeah, it doesn't work so well in multiplayer unless you have two players by your side countering everything that threatens your two key cards: Mycosynth Golem and Rush of Knowledge. Oh yeah, since you're actually playing so many spells per turn, you could add quite some pain to the deck with a certain card with Storm that costs 5 mana to play. I'm still contemplating that card as it's Standard-legal, and can make sure NOTHING blocks your way. :D

New Category - New Focus

There's a new category now. It's called Magic: the Gathering. I've decided that I like Magic: the Gathering enough to write articles on it. Don't expect articles often, but do expect them to be fun and light. My first new article for this category will actually be on the March bannings in Standard - probably going to be remembered in history as the most powerful bannings in Standard ever - whacking 7 commons and 1 rare out of the running. For now, I've put my favourite deck in the limelight. It'll be the first article in the category, and once my assignments are done - time for me to try explaining why stuff got banned. Of course, I still don't understand why they banned Ravager. Ravager is innocent! :D

Today is My Birthday!

Today is my birthday. (OK, so what's new...) If you noticed when I changed the site in March, I also removed my age from the author description from *age* student to diploma student. Actually - that's not exactly true, I'm in my second year of my diploma, but the first year of my degree - sort of. I'm now a year older. Am I more mature compared to a year ago? Not really. I've actually regressed in a less mature form. I'm so bloody bored with college lectures and tutorials (what do you do when 75% of all your classes are repeats of foundation year?). All my friends and I seem to do in lectures and tutorials really really often: talk, chat, complain about lecturers, make fun of them, splash odd comments and just act bored and disruptive. You know what my favourite past time is during lectures? Reading text books. Believe it. It's THAT BORING. Reading text books is more engrossing than listening to what the lecturer has to say about supply and demand, taxes, incentives, T-accounts, flexible budgets, how to draw graphs.

It's like pure torture sitting in class. I'm actually supposed to be doing the finishing touches for my Macroeconomics assignment. I'm supposed to be writing the last round of my assignment commenting on some obscure graph. I actually also have an Accounting assignment to do which I'm currently working on as I toil on this post. And yes, my brain is multi-threading. It's like thinking about this and that without me wanting to think it. And btw, I just finished Half-Life 2. I replayed it in its full glory with 4xAA 4xAF, everything set to high but reflections. The graphics still rock. Now, all I have to do is find some time to play Devil May Cry 3.

Oh well, what a birthday I'm having. Time to go. See you guys in a bit.

The Truth Behind This Blog

comment :{ This was an April's Fool's Day joke. Do not take this seriously. I am not a Migrisa ascend. Even if I were, I can't help you ascend. "Rule No.1: No higher shall help a lower ascend."} OK, most readers of this blog and those who know me probably only know me as a normal college student, living in this place called Bandar Utama and I'm from this planet called Earth. You would also know that I'm trying to get into an Australian university so that I can do Actuarial Science and so on. Well, today, it's time to tell you the truth.

:D Ready?

OK, now about me. I am an ascended being from another dimension. My world is called Migrisa (roughly translated from the pronounciation). My race is known as the Kito. I come from roughly 20000 years in the future. I have come to this world as a human being out of curiosity as I have to what is known as the First World and the Last World. Being an ascended being mean I am a rather timeless being, despite that fact, it is not know whether I can die or not, but this human body will die.

When did I come to Earth? It was actually only about 6 years ago. The previous inhabitant of this body was driven off when this body was struck by lightning six years ago. I took this opportunity to enter it, and attempt to salvage the remainder. Being successful, I managed to simply use this body. However, the lightning strike erased most of the previous memories of this host body, causing me to lack memories of anything that had happened roughly more than 1 year before that.

I grew bored with this world in less than a few months. The mundane and insiginificant events leading up to this point in my 'life' have been pretty boring. I've decided to stay until this body reaches 25 years of age, then I'll look about for new worlds, of course, that is if I am allowed to leave. The other ascended have not agreed to my short bout here, as they have said it may corrupt me - and they will have to sort of 'cleanse' me by me staying until this body dies. LOL - doesn't matter now - does it? :D