Not So Much of a Broken Plot Device

I recently purchased the book, Nuclear Hoodie to show my support for the Broken Plot Device webcomic and its talented creator who is an independant web artist. It arrived in the mail over the weekend and I was very pleased to be able to hold it in my hands before my trip.


Yup, that is one glossy cover. hehe

The series itself is very well done. The story & humor are great. The characters are unique and the artwork is consistently good. I find myself looking forward to its twice-a-week updates all the time. This has replaced Penny Arcade as my all-time favourite webcomic.

I ordered the Artist Edition of the book so I got to request for a character drawing. I asked for Inix, the dragon mystic. How cute!

Halo Legends Anime

Halo is getting an anime! I was like really happyface when the news was first announced. Now there is a trailer for it as well.



The series will consist of 7 shorts produced by several Japanese studios: The BONES, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation.

Halo has such a rich universe and backstory with tons of interesting characters. That's a lot of source material right there to base an anime on. Despite the fact that they are standalone shorts (and possibly not heavy on plot), I am still excited at how the anime will turn out.

The action sequences in the trailer reminded me of Gundam. Even more strangely, the characters in this screenshot look like they were taken out of an episode of Gundam SEED (ZAFT uniform lol).


Excuse me, you've got your Gundam in my Halo.

Cracking Open my Box of M10

For the first time ever in a TCG, I actually felt like I got my money's worth from opening a booster box.

Rares from my box of M10 + 1 booster from White Starter deck
Total: 38 rares (36 rares + 1 foil rare and 1 extra)


Ball Lightning x3 (OMGWTFBBQ)
Drowned Catacombs x2 (B/U land)
Rootbound Crag (R/G land)
Glacial Fortress (B/W land)
Elvish Archdruid
Baneslayer Angel
Birds of Paradise
Pithing Needle
Great Sable Stag
Twincast
Darksteel Colossus
Royal Assassin
Gargoyle Castle
Howling Mine
Ant Queen (foil)
Hypnotic Specter
Protean Hydra
Mind Shatter
Guardian Seraph
Traumatize
Clone
Coat of Arms
Earthquake
Might of Oaks
Chandra Nalaar
Djinn of Wishes
Open the Vaults
Warp World
Lurking Predators
Mind Spring x2
Underworld Dreams
Nightmare
Shivan Dragon
Mirror of Fate

---------------------------------------------------------
A good mix of good rares and crap rares. haha.

BlazBlue - Calamity Trigger -

Music: -Ao- iconoclast by KOTOKO
(Though I somehow prefer the simpler Arcade opening. haha)

BlazBlue is awesome. I never expected it to be this good. Currently maining Ragna and he plays like Sol Badguy.

Th 2D high-definition graphics are gorgeous. Daisuke Ishiwatari's rock/metal music still kicks ass. The game has a small cast of 12 characters but each is extremely diverse and play very differently. The gameplay system/mechanics is highly reminicent of GG-XX but it's just so much better.

What makes BlazBlue stand out is its great netcode and robust online multiplayer features. Arc System Works really went all out here and it really shows. There is stat-tracking, leaderboards, 6-player lobbies (winner stays, loser rotates) and even the ability to save/download replays.

Despite all that, there is one thing that annoys me: balance. You'd think that, with a small cast, Arc Systems would have realized during testing that v-13 (Nu) is overpowered and playing against her is an exercise in frustration. I think they based Nu-13 on Amuro Ray's Nu-Gundam (heck, her alternate DLC color is proof of this) . "Ike, Fin Funnel!" *pewpewpew*

I am keeping my fingers for a balance patch. Or BlazBlue XX #Reload Slash Accent Core. Then maybe we'll get a Robo-Jin as well (lol).

Somehow, I am beginning to miss this as well.

It's classic!

Magic the Gathering: M10 Pre-Release

I attended the M:TG Core Set 2010 (aka M10) pre-release at Suntec yesterday. I managed to contact Kelvin Soh who met me at the event itself. Saw a lot of familiar faces such as the old AMK MTG guys (most notably Reno!) and even some old VS System players.

I realized that this is actually the first sanctioned M:TG event I have ever attended! haha.

After opening my six packs, I went with a Black-Red deck because I got some pretty good commons/uncommons and these two:


For my four matches, I went like:
1-2 L , 1-2 L , 2-0 W , 1-2 L
At least I played decently and did not get 2-0'ed. Such close matches. Meh.

I was most delighted to pull an Honor of the Pure from the one pack I won.

White Weenie for the win.

Sunday was supposed to be rest day but I somehow got dragged by Raccon to play some more M10 sealed in Pasir Ris. Meh!

Some People Change...

A friend asked me out for dinner today. It has been many months since we last spoke so I was rather delighted. He told me that he had left his job. It kinda made me think that he chose to have dinner near Geylang because... well, maybe he wanted some drinks and some *ahem* interaction with the opposite sex.

So I met him after work and we settled down at a nearby coffee shop.

And then he tried to pull some MLM shit on me.

Turns out that his office was in the vicinity.

I refused as politely as I could but he tried to psycho me for an hour. He pulled the "don't you trust me? I'm your friend!" schtick but I was completely immune. Such things don't work on me.

He was rather persistant despite me dropping a lot of hints that he was crossing well over my comfort zone. Last thing I remembered doing was getting up, cursing out loud, banging my fist on the table and leaving.

The night was ruined. What was supposed to be a night of fun and catching-up turned into nothing but business and sales pitches. I was very, very disappointed.

Weather Forecast: Boring Weeks Ahead

I have been feeling very tired of working life lately. Even the weekends don't seem long enough to be fun anymore.

Oh, well. I got my Hong Kong trip at the end of the month to look forward to. I am excited and a little nervous at the same time. Excited at the fact that it will be a fun & refreshing escape from my routine work life. Nervous at the fact that I have not taken a plane in a long, long time and there is also the global H1N1 scare.

Whatever the case, I just hope the end of the month comes soon so I can spend a couple days away from work.

I started getting back into Magic: The Gathering again. I spent the past two weekends drafting and hunting for cards. I can't believe I am spending $10++ on pieces of cardboard again. I just feel somewhat disappointed that I can only play cards on weekends. Gone are the days when I have free time to play cards on late weekday nights and cab home.

When I am not thinking about card games, I'm playing BlazBlue on the Xbox 360. The game is awesome and far exceeded my expectations. And I didn't even put any tokens into it in the arcades. It's truly a well-designed and polished fighting game. I'll probably blog more about it when I've spent more time with it.