rei's Odd Habits When Studying

While it's not really odd, since I think so many of us students do it, but I think most of our parents will easily find this odd. 1. Listening to loud or noisy music while studying. 2. Chatting with friends while studying. 3. Watching TV while studying. 4. Typing out assignments while eating, snacking, drinking, talking on the phone, PSP gaming, making trips to the kitchen, dunking biscuits into a hot drink, and so on.... 5. Pen spinning. 6. Constantly checking your e-mail even though you know nothing is there. (Occasionally, someone might pass you tips, you'd never know. 7. Not write out your assignment/homework until about a week (or even hours) before its due. 8. Sit around doing nothing. (actually you are deep in thought, but you look like you are actually flying around into dream land) 9. Burn the midnight oil. (Even if you didn't have to.) 10. Write out blog posts like this about odd things you do. (which aren't really odd) 11. Watch anime. 12. Watch TV shows. 13. Watch movies. 14. Watch... your watch. (or clock, or PDA, or phone, or - I think you get the point) 15. Take 12 hours to do what would have taken you ordinarily 1 hour to complete. 16. Start clearing your desk, which hasn't been cleared for like the last half a year, when your assignment is due tomorrow. 17. Start clearing (similarly) your room, apartment, toilet, cabinet, closet or bed. 18. 'Suffer' from insomnia due to anxiety for the day after tomorrow's exam paper. (and playing... let's say DotA during this period) 19. Begin to hack your PC, PSP, XBox, GameCube, Wii or anything you can think of just because you don't feel like doing work. 20. Attempt to optimize your BitTorrent download because you think the max bandwidth of your Internet connection isn't high enough. 21. (and the list goes on....)

Believe it or not, the above work took me 1 day and 14 hours from me reading the question to me writing a 3 paragraph answer.

(On another note, this happens to be post number 404 in WordPress - and my camera is actually pretty good at taking photos, contrary to my belief.)

A Look into cfgt's Cupboard of Tricks

I know you can see the mess of cables there. I'm not a very neat person to begin with when it comes to cables. I fully intended to use a shorter cable instead of the blue one, but that got lent out a few days ago. :P

Among the cables are: 2 CAT5e cables with RJ45 heads, 2 power adapters, 1 plug converter, 1 XBox controller and 1 XBox AV cable (needed for it to boot without FRAGging (flashing red and green)).

The XBox is a fully working LAMP and SAMBA server, running Torrentflux so that I can move my laptop around (and out of) the house without fear of having missed so many hours of torrenting. :D It still does work as an ordinary XBox, and yes it still plays games. :D

Another thing in the picture is a NETGEAR WGR614 wireless router. While it is a router, I am currently just using it as a wireless switch because my Netcomm NB5 modem comes with a router feature. (I believe in separation of power, or what most people might call spreading the load - whatever.)

And that's only one shelf in the cupboard. Anyone want to venture a guess into what else is in it?

Settling Down in a New Place

Honestly speaking, it's taking pretty long to get comfortable in my new place. I've set up my torrentflux xbox, my modem, wireless router and my speakers and printers up. However, I still lack a damn fridge. :( I still don't really have much to say. I intended to take plenty of photos of the place, but at the end of it I haven't taken any photos and don't really care. At some point, u238 will do it, so I don't think I should do it redundantly with my much weaker camera.

On another note, I've acquired a Wii Remote... to use as a remote. :D

(I'll try to make one post per week, if possible. For now, I'm trying to find a job. If you happen to know of one suitable for me in Melbourne, please do tell. :P)

Beware - I Live

Muahaahaha - I'm baaaack. :D My internet is finally online - and I'm finally going to begin leeching off the internet again. Expect no posts until I actually get my table. :(

Why I Think 60 Cards is Not Always the Magic Number

People always talk 60 cards this, and 60 cards that. Heck - even I say so. The truth? You don't always have to follow this rule, even if you think it is like the greatest sin a Magic deckbuilder can commit. However, sadly - it is true for online tabletop games optimised for Magic. Often, you find that the shuffler doesn't work so well when your deck is anywhere above 60 cards (even a single card is enough to find yourself having to mulligan like free), but when it comes to a 60 card deck, I'd say mulliganing becomes about a 10% affair (unless you really built a highly draw dependent deck, or are playing your worst matchup). In real life, people tend to argue a better number for decks is 61. (of course, we have the conservative group talking about 60, but that's irrelevant). I tend to agree - especially for non-combo decks. Strangely enough, 61 is a really good number. In real life, you do tend to randomize it better somehow. Many people attribute this to the fact that the deck can no longer be cut exactly in half - and such interleaving does reduce randomization within the deck.

However, that's not why I like it. I like it because it creates the most peculiar land-to-spells ratio. Just as switching out lands with spells and vice versa can change your mana situation complete, so can that additional card. In times when you find that your land is not enough - and putting more gives you too many - the simple act of adding another land to make your deck bigger might give your deck that magic land ratio. The one where it never gets mana-screwed, color-screwed, or any kind of funny land term you can think of. So yes, there are times when that extra land - WILL - save your ass. (of course, this applies for spells too!)

Then, we have the 62 card deck. I can't say I approve of this size, because it lacks the merit of uneven shuffling, but it is another number that works well with heavy mana acceleration. I use this number in my Mycosynth Golem deck - but no others so far. I do not believe that it is a very good, number - after all, what good can that extra 2 cards be? I won't dismiss it as a really good way to get to those ideal land ratios - but to stuff in extra cards - I'd say that's a real no-no.

After that, we have the greater numbers of 63 and 64. If you hit these numbers, chances are your deck's consistency will be hit badly. If it happens to be a quick aggresive deck, no problem - but control decks (besides those full of counterspells) and combo decks (and even Zoo decks - decks with a curve of creature at certain mana points, usually 1,2,5 and 6) will feel the pinch at this point from the lower consistency. When your deck needs to pull that Pyroclasm, Wrath of God, infinite mana combo, or even Enduring Ideal - you will know that the pain here is great. You will find yourself taking more damage, taking longer to put together your combo pieces and taking longer to draw that finisher card.

A great exception to the 60 card decks are decks built with a special purpose. Battle of Wits decks usually run 250 cards - and cry hard when Traumatized, especially if the deck isn't full of killer spells - which it often is. A deck running plenty of card drawing out of neccesity (such as for card advantage), especially in counterspell decks, might benefit greatly from a larger deck. The best advice, however, is simple: do not succumb to the temptation to put every card you thought might be good.

My next Magic post will probably about choosing which cards to cut! :P