"A Day Unlike Any Other"

The Avengers Sneak Preview was on Sunday. At first, I was planning not to go and just stay home to wait for the mobilization to happen. However, I was so convinced by so many people (Himura, Miya, Shoujing, even Chris) that there would be absolutely no mobilization during this NDP period that I just decided to go.

I've always had problems waking up early for all the VS events so far, but this was the first time that I managed to get up at 9 am and reach Suntec at 10 am. The Sneak Peek was supposed to start at 9 am and I thought I was early. To my surprise, they were already on their 5th flight even though it was only an hour after the start time. It just showed how popular this event was. Technokia and JokerZ were there early, too. I went to sign up and we sat around and chatted. Reno was excitedly telling all his friends that he cracked two money rares in his sealed (Hulk and Avengers Assmebled).

At around 10:30 am, my phone suddenly rang and I saw an unfamiliar number. I answered the call and realized that I have been mobilized. I quickly called my Mum since she said that she would help give me a ride in the event of a mobilization. I then went to the counter and asked the TO Julian if I could get a refund or something. He told me that I could opt to drop out and leave with all the boosters and goodies, which was exactly what I did. I had my choice of either the play mat, shirt or deck case, and I went for the deck case since I missed getting one during the Green Lantern Sneak Peek.

After I was done, my Mum drove me home. I had all my equipment ready from the night before so all I had to do was get changed and go. Since the Mob time was at 10:30 am, I had to report within 4 hours, but of course, the earlier everyone gets there, the faster we will be dismissed.

We left home at around 11:30 pm. My reservist camp was at Sungei Gedong; I have no idea where that was, but it was probably somewhere in the extreme West end of Singapore since the papers mentioned Boon Lay MRT Station. (Ah, living in the East is such a sucky thing.) The journey was super duper long. When we were near the camp, the roads began to widen and there were trees all around with no buildings in sight. The journey took nearly an hour and we arrived at Sungei Gedong camp at around 12:30 pm. We were directed by road marshals to a civilian carpark. I got off there and boarded a 3-tonner with other people that drove us into the camp. Most of the men were surprised when we realized that tonner had seatbelts like the ones you'd find on a plane. The interior of the tonner now had padding, too. Looks like safety was the 'in' thing now; no more banging your head against the hard wall or falling face-first into the floor whenever the tonner hit a bump in the road.

Once we arrived at the reporting point, I scanned my card and signed my attendance. Then we were told to sit around and wait till we were allowed to be dismissed. Alright, that didn't sound too bad. At least we didn't have an inspection or have to draw arms or anything. I just sat on the ground and disturbed all my friends with my SMS to past the time. Most of the men around me were older guys and spoke in various dialects; there were obviously not of my generation. I wonder why was I the only young guy there. (Was I even young? Well, no one there seemed to speak English.) All I knew was that a few guys were pointing out how 'on' I was because I was the only one there who brought his SBO in addition to his field pack. Hey, the papers did say full battle order. I feel like I've been cheated! Grrr.

After around an hour of waiting, we were finally released at 1:30 pm. I guess they were waiting for a certain percentage of people to report first. We then waited for around 20 minutes for the tonner to take us back to the civilian car park. My Mum was there waiting for me because I SMS'ed her when the thing was over. It was another long ride and I reached home at around 3:00 pm.

I showered and surfed the net a bit. My Mum said that she was free for the rest of the day and offered to take me out if I wanted to. I jumped on the offer and she drove me back to Suntec at 5:00 pm to continue where I left off in the morning. hehe.

Everyone else I knew were there already. I joined the last flight of the day and cracked opened my packs. The stuff I had were pretty okay; I'd be happy if I could keep them. I had a few multiples and even had 3 copies of a particular pump card. It was rare to get so many multiples in draft. But then we swapped decks and I ended up with uber crap. Deck construction took very long, and we finally began the first round at 6:00 pm.

My first round was against WanXin aka Xiaomei. At first, she had the upper hand with a better board, but She-Hulk: Gamma Bombshell saved me 10 life thanks to her invulnerability on turns 5 and 6, allowing me the lead in endurance points and surviving to turn 7. Xiamei accidentally put her 7-drop without Range into her back row (I also didn't realize it or else I may have told her during the formation step), so I stunned all her small guys, leaving her in the negatives and ended my turn to win. Our match was the first to finish, so I went to walk around and idle.

The 2nd round began. I was up against a guy named Anthony. He was unbelievably quiet and didn't clearly announce whenever he passed, making me repeatedly ask him if I could make my move (He probably think I am rude, but it's better than both people staring at each other, waiting for something to happen.) On turn 4, I had Quicksilver and Warbird. I team-attacked into his 4-drop, sending it back to his hand, realizing how powerful Warbird was. He chose to stun-back Warbird, so Quicksilver readied and went for his 3-drop. Wow. On turn 5, he recasted his 4-drop and went for all my guys with his pumps. On turn 6, I missed my drop and recruited another 5-drop, but he had more pumps to finish me off. I revealed that I had 2 team-ups and all-Reservist characters in my resource row. I didn't drew any other plot twists for this game.

As usual, I was the first to finish my game. I walked around and realized that this was taking far too long. Most of the games were going past the 30 min time limit but I think the judges all had their hands full. Come on, I understand that this is a new set so everyone had to read the cards, but all those guys probably joined 2-3 flights already; they couldn't be slower than me.

Kyo started calling me and this was when I realized it was taking too long. I was feeling tired since it was a hectic day and it was near 8 pm already. I was also rather pissed that everyone who wore VS shirts got free extra boosters (I was wearing my VS shirt in the morning, but not now).Since there were no more prizes to redeem (deck cases and play mats were long gone) and I had no incentive to play my crappy sealed deck, I decided to just drop out and shared a cab with Akira and Amerell to AMK to meet Kyo.

At AMK, we had dinner at KFC. I finally decided to order chicken since I haven't tried it in a very long time. However, the chicken tasted strange; it had some sort of fishy smell. I hope it wasn't bad or something. All I knew was that the fishy after-taste lingered in my mouth for the rest of the night.

After dinner, we returned to Chris' shop, chatted a bit and looked at the new cards we got. Then we called it a day. This has been one of my most packed Sundays and I am so glad now that my recall manning is over. Wee.

It's Coming!

It's Friday and everything has been quiet. I guess there is a very high chance that the mobilization will take place during the weekend, most probably Saturday. However, there are people like Himura who told me that they might not mobilize at all, since it would be dumb to disrupt the NDP rehearsals that are taking place every weekend (just about everyone I know in NS is getting their weekends burnt over this; poor them).

Oh, well. We'll see how it goes. Then I can get this stupid thing over & done with. wee.

On Saturday, I shall wait till around dinner time and then I might go out when it is possibly safe enough to do so.

Mobilization Week - Boring

My recall manning period started this week and will last till next Tuesday. I was actually hoping that they would mobilize on a weekday but after talking to Miya and Shoujing, it seems that they will most possibly do it on a weekend (something about having to compensate hundreds of working people if they are pulled away from their jobs on weekdays).

I decided to stay home this week and not go out unless it is in the evening (I don't think they will mobilize at night). As for my weekends, I shall probably do the same as well, though I think there is a very high chance it'd be on Saturday.

I am already prepared to let my weekend get burnt, so if anyone dares asks me out on Saturday or Sunday for whatever reasons other than army-related, I'm gonna flare up and hurl verbal assaults at them. But if the thing happens before the weekend, then of course, I'll be free to go out.

In the meantime, I have been staying home, watching anime/cartoons, reading comics, and playing my Nintendo DS. My TV is always on while I wait for the dreaded codewords to flash (mine is "Clear Route" or "Central Figure", in case anyone wants to play 'spot the codewords', too).

Food, VS and Raw Deal

Food!!!

On Thursday, I arranged to have dinner with Amerell. I was in the mood for western food or Italian and he was a rather big eater, too, so it was easy to get him out. We met at City Hall and went to eat at the Cafe Cartel. He recommended the place because he had worked there before. I ordered chicken cutlet, and went for the 'free flow' bread counter. I saw long loaves of fresh golden bread and they immediately reminded me of Yakitate Japan. However, that thought was driven away when I took a bite and realized that it was hard to chew and tasted like, well, plain bread. Too bad.

VS!!!

On Saturday, we had our first VS Hobby League. We held it at Chaosmag's house because he had a computer and it was a good place to avoid the undesirable people (Mr. Lup-It comes to mind). There were 9 of us and it was a lot of fun. I lent my decks out this time so that we can hit the target participants, but hopefully I won't be doing it again in future cos' it is very troublesome. Just too bad it lasted very long because this was our first time. I hope to have more of such things in future.

Raw Deal!!!

On Sunday, I went to AMK to watch Miya, Shoujing and Darius play at the Raw Deal tournament. I was mainly trying to see what were the more popular cards used in everyone's decks. I was thinking of building a 2nd deck already, but I can't decide what to play next; Raw Deal was a lot more addictive than I expected. The decks were all different enough to warrant building more than just one deck. So much for my '1 deck per TCG' policy.

Nothing to Report

Hmm. I didn't do much this week.

Aside from staying home and checking out the daily Avengers previews at Metagame, I downloaded the Apprentice-like M:TG Workstation from VS-League.net to try out. It is rather nice. Gotta love the laser-pointer arrows.

I found more comics to download. It looks like I am on a 'youth' theme and downloaded the Teen Titans and Young Avengers.

I also received a reminder phonecall that my recall manning period starts next week. I'm gonna be like those guys who wait for the army logo & codewords to flash on the television. It's really bad; I've already forgotten to tie my bootlaces or fold my uniform. And my reservist camp is all the way in Boon Lay. Evil.

The DM Tournament was Screwed Up

I went to Grandlink to watch the Yu-Gi-Oh tournament today. It was a bad mistake and I got super-duper pissed off as a result. How does one get pissed? Let me count the ways. (Though it is actually sorta a self-inflicted thing, so yeah, it is my fault.)

- I saw Adrian, the VS head judge who dissed me when I asked about the Level 2 Judge exam last weekend. What the heck was he doing here? Never mind, I got pissed.
Piss-o-meter: +10

- I saw the moronic CCK guy who organizes VS tournaments. I will never forget his "forgot to bring your balls?" remark when me & my friends politely turn down his offer to join their weekly VS tournament. And what is he doing here? Running a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament? With tons of CCK 'tards? What the hell?!
Piss-o-meter: +20

- The night before the tournament, I spent time putting little price tags on my cards so that it would be easier for me to sell them. I priced all my cards at my usual 'friendly' prices, but then I cleanly forgot that I will be facing all manner of brats/morons/asshats when I step out of my forum into the 'real world' of DM. When I saw all the ill-mannered morons crowding around my album, passing moronic wiseguy remarks (some of them thought that I didn't know the real price of my cards and tried to con me by trading crap), I was seriously hesitating whether to just close shop straightaway. But dozens of people have already marveled at my album, so I had to sell the cards lest make everything think I was trying to be an ass. Lesson learnt (that will stick with me for life): Don't sell cards cheap to freakin' retards who don't deserve it.
Piss-o-meter: +100 (#*$&!)

- After that, I thought I could ease off by watching the rest of the tournament. Oh, what is this? No one can enter the tournament area? You mean, I came here to watch a glorious event and I can't enter that exclusive hellhole of a tournament area? This never happens in VS PCQs (okay, I have been spoilt by VS, so sue me). Thanks to all the noisy pricks who always interrupts DM tournament matches and wreak havoc in all the previous JJ tournaments; now even legit people like me can't even watch the damn thing. I came to Grandlink today to stare at the wall and sit on the floor like a freakin' beggar.
Piss-o-meter: +50

- Oh, wait. Jeffrey told me that on the day that I asked Adrian about the Level 2 Judge exam, a guy and his mum (yes, mum) also approached him about the judge exam. He must have thought I was just another joker like that person. Okay, I am not so angry anymore, but he shouldn't have blasted me like that.
Piss-o-meter: -5 (ah, blue! wee)

- Okay, it was near the end of the tournament. I was about to leave, then what is this? I saw Mister "Forgot to Bring your Balls" sitting inside the room playing VS with... *gasp* an outsider!!! (It was some guy who was chatting with Himura when I arrived.) What the hell? He chases me away when I tried to talk to Orchi at the doorway (I didn't even have one foot into the room), and he gets to let his 'special friends' in? Bravo, Mr. "Forgot Your Balls". Bravo, JJ.
Piss-o-meter: +20

Yes, I got totally pissed today. No more JJ tournaments for me in future.

- Oh, yes. I read Akira's blog and learnt how retarded some of the top 8 finalists are. That's it.
Piss-o-meter: +10 (I can't believe it, the thing is over and I still can get pissed.)

JJ. Tournaments. Just. Plain. Suck.

Oh, well. I hope everyone enjoyed reading this. I try to turn every unhappy thing that happens to me into a satirical joke. It's more fun than plain sulking.

I am a thief! Well, sorta.

*gasp* I missed my Friday update. *Cheats and changes the entry date to Friday.*

On Thursday, I went to AMK to meet Amerell for 'one last time' before his exams. I say 'one last time' because he tells me that, after that day, he will not leave his house or come online anymore till his exams were over. It's a little crazy, but I guess he is hardworking.

Along the way, I dropped by at Kinokuniya. It has been a long time since I have been there. I waltzed over to the comics section and saw Marvel Adventures comics. The comics were for kids, but the Spiderman and Magneto cards inside were the real deal. However, the cover of both looks said that the cards were only packaged in select issues. I was afraid of buying the books only to find that the cards were not inside. I grabbed a few issues and walked around the store when them under my arm, while secreting prying the wrapping off. Fortunately, all comics had the freebie cards, so I quickly made my purchase and left. hehe

I arrived at AMK in the evening. I met up with Amerell and we had dinner at the Taiwanese restaurant on the 2nd storey of Jubilee. While ordering our meals, the waitress didn't seem to understand what I was staying. Only when Amerell repeated what I said in Chinese that she nodded her head and went away. Okay, I didn't know that the Taiwanese restaurant was actually run by Taiwanese staff.

Sitting in Front of the Computer

The VS 10k in Singapore is now over. I kinda regret not joining it because getting into top 64 would not have been an impossible task since there were only around 90 participants. That extended art "Have a Blast" would've been nice to round up my play set. I had gained nothing from the event at all since I did not get to sit for the Level 2 Judge exam. It was a lose-lose situation for me. Anyway, I looked at the top 8 player profiles at Metagame and I saw a number of familiar faces. However, I never did expect the age group for VS to be so old; most were in their 20s and a few in their 30s. (It's just like what the seller said on Saturday; VS lacks a younger crowd.) Oh, yes, everyone should check out that Michael Chew guy's photo; I can't stop laughing at it. Okay, I have decided: Perhaps a couple years down the road, when I actually get better at VS and make it to the top 8 of a 10k, I will strike a crazy hilarious pose like that in front of the cameras so that everyone will have something to remember me by.

Oh, well. I haven't been downloading any new anime for quite a while. I wonder where have they all gone. I guess there isn't much for me to look forward to since the only ongoing anime that I religiously follow is Yakitate Japan. I have given up on my Initial D download since it has been two weeks without any significant improvements in download speed. I started digging out some of my older anime VCDs to watch. I went with Wild Knights Gulkeeva, an old & obscure Sunrise anime about a group of beast-people (*heart*) and some teenagers fight off an invasion from another dimension. It's weird old stuff which adheres to the old 'monster of the day' routine. I was kinda surprised when I realized that the character designer was Hisashi Hirai, who also does Gundam SEED; I couldn't really tell cos', well, this anime is like ten years old. I guess after I am done with this, I'll go watch Outlaw Stars again.

While surfing the VSRealms forums today, they had one of those "you know you play too much if..." topics. One of the replies was: "you start reading comics again", which was very true in my case. I sorta found myself running out of them to read, too. I seemed to have read all the major Ultimate titles already and started downloading other random things to read, such as Green Lantern Rebirth (which wraps up the Hal Jordan/Parallax storyline) and House of M. House of M is another one of those weird storylines again; the Scarlet Witch's reality-altering powers has gone berserk once more, rewriting the entire Marvel history as we know it. It is said that, when this saga ends, everything will carry on from the damage/changes that she has caused. It sounds all messy & lame to me, but at least the Ultimate titles won't be affected and, dear god, please don't let it affect continuity in the VS TCG. So far, some of the changes kinda tick me off. Mutants now rule the world under the House of Magnus (which is cool). Peter Parker is a scientist and a professional actor and wrestler. The Fantastic Four never existed (they'd better be alive after the saga by hook or crook), and in their place are the Fearsome Four, consisting of Doom (who is a metal-man *gasp*; like the movie), Valeria (Victor's love), Kristoff and 'The It' (a monster that can't speak). This feels rather odd, considering the fact that I've just watched the Fantastic Four movie last Friday and they were pretty much alive and happening. That's the comic book industry for you.

Speaking of comics, there was a documentary about comics at night on Central and I watched it. It talked about how 'Golden Age' comics evolved from the '40s as anti-war propaganda (Captain American beating up the Nazis), followed by their downfall in the '50s. Then Stan Lee came along and created the Fantastic Four and Spiderman (who strayed from the 'perfect hero' formula, since he had a lot of personal problems and had people hating him). It was pretty entertaining & informative; I'll probably catch the next instalment next Wednesday to see if the show leads up to the '90s and present-day comics.

A Very Packed Weekend

This was one of the most busy weekends I have ever in quite a while.

-= Saturday =-

Today was the day of Singapore's very first VS 10k. As usual, I cannot wake up early (it starts at 10 am), so I arrived there at 11 am. My true purpose was only to take the Level 2 Rules Certification exam anyway. The room was crowded; there was close to 90 people playing in the event. Strangely, this was the first time I have seen a VS tournament without much of an audience; I was the only guy standing there, walking around, doing my own thing. I saw two guys sitting at a long table with several albums laid out. I realized that the man owned a card store in Yishun and began going through his stuff. I saw several cards at crazy low prices (especially the EAs) and when I saw that I wanted quite a lot of stuff, I left to find an ATM machine to withdraw money.

By the time I returned, the room was full of busy players who were making the best of the time between rounds to do some buying/trading. Unfortunately for me, they invaded that Yishun seller's album and took most of the stuff that I wanted to buy. Darn, I should've at least asked him to reserve some for me. I didn't think it would be like this, especially since ten minutes ago, I was the one & only person standing around. Oh, well. It was crowded, so I went to sit down and returned later again when the next round began and I was the only free guy again. I had no other company, so I chatted with the Yishun shop guy. He said that he started selling VS a very long time ago; back when Garth was only $5 and he had 60+ Savage Beatdowns. He also added that, although VS is a good game, the bad thing about it is the lack of a younger play crowd. The VS community are mostly young adults (18 years & over), and from a business standpoint, younger players make up the bulk of the gaming population so VS isn't a lucrative business since the young ones don't play the game.

While going through more of the seller's album, one of the judges passed by. His name tag had "Adrian" printed on it, and I remembered Uncle Chris mentioning that he was the guy overseeing all VS operations in Singapore. I felt this might be a good time to ask about the judge exam. I pardoned myself and asked the Adrian guy for any details of the level 2 certification that he could tell me. Somehow, he didn't react in the way I expected.

"If you want to take the level 2 exam, you must first be well prepared for it," He replied in a rather condescending manner. "It is a very difficult exam that tests your knowledge on the more advanced rulings of the game . You should go study the VS Comprehensive Rules PDF first." I didn't like the way he was putting me down, so I blurted out, "Yes, I have been studying it before I came." He was treating me like some joker who was there to waste his time by coming unprepared to take the test just for the heck of it. He continued, "When I said 'study' the Comprehensive Rules, I mean, really study; as if it were for a big exam at school. Like I said, it is truly very difficult; like taking the DCI exam for Magic: The Gathering. But if you are still interested anyway, go give your name to that Caucasian guy. We'll probably hold it today if we have time, but more likely tomorrow."

After being lectured like that for no reason, I felt fed up and didn't feel like taking the level 2 exam anymore. I actually felt I was kind of ready. I had adequate personal experience from playing the game. I have read & understood most of the VS Comprehensive Rules and I was the sort who could reason rulings out so long as I can read the text. It was just too bad that the Adrian guy was too stuck-up to give me a chance. Perhaps I'll take the test elsewhere when he is not the one in charge; maybe like the Malaysian 10k or something.

The Yishun shop-owner nearby heard our conversation (it was hard not to pay attention since I was the only guy who was not playing in the 10k). When Adrian walked away, he took out a pen & paper, "You want to be a judge? How about you give me your contact information? I am looking for people to run tournaments for me." It was a very kind offer after being blasted by Adrian and I felt kind of flattered, but I feel that my allegiances are with AMK, so I politely turned him down, giving some other excuse.

Since I was done at the tournament, I left for AMK.

At AMK, I played VS with Kyo & friends, and then drafted Raw Deal with Miya, Darius and Shoujing at night. It will probably be the only time I can draft Raw Deal because drafting requires buying a starter and it is just nice the new ones were out. It was quite a demoralizing draft for me; in both my matches, I only managed to play 2-3 cards before I lost. I just didn't know what cards to pick during the draft, I guess.

When the shop was about to close, Miya's friend arrived and they bought bought a DS. Miya even bought a DS game and a GBA game. This was the first time I have seen Miyamoto spend so much on goodies for himself. hehe.

I went home later and prepared the necessary things for Sunday's graduation day.

-= Sunday =-

I woke up at noontime and prepared my things to go. I was actually kind of irritated; I didn't want to attend the Commencement in the first place; it was my parents who wanted me to.

I arrived at the Universtiy Cultural Centre at 2 pm, went to change into my graduation gown (the mortar board was heavy and gave me a headache), and went to get sitted. After that, the graduands just applauded whenever someone went on stage. I checked the program sheet and noted around 800+ graduands. That was a lot of clapping to do. Some guys behind me whispering suggested that they might have recorded some claps beforehand to play. At the end of it all, we were invited to refreshments outside, but the hall was packed full of students and their friends & family. I had a few quick photo shoots with some of my old friends before I left with my Mum. I changed in the car while she fetched me to AMK.

At AMK, I played cards as usual and whacked Raw Deal with Andy and Miyamoto at night. I managed to get enough cards to make a newbie deck and that was it for Sunday.

Fantastic Friday

I went to AMK today to watch the Fantastic Four with everyone else. We decided on the 9 pm show so that Brainy and Bahamut could make it. It was quite a tight schedule for me because my weekend is going to be very packed and I didn't want to wait another week to watch it (there is the VS 10k tournament on Saturday and Sunday is my graduation day).

I reached AMK at around 4 pm and was rather disappointed that no one came early. I spent some time looking at the new Raw Deal expansion, Survivor Series 3, and bought a few packs for fun. I guess I might make a simple budget deck for this game just to play with the few people whom I know

The first soul that I saw for the day was Fengokill, who arrived at 6 pm. He was on his way to CCK. It was around dinner time, so Andy asked me if I wanted to accompany him to KFC. I didn't realize that KFC has been re-opened and combined with Pizza Hut (only for home delivery, I think). I tagged along and had a quick Shrooms burger dinner.

After a while, everyone started showing up and I was not so bored anymore. We went to catch the movie on time (those who haven't paid for the tickets yet, please do~). The Fantastic Four was an okay movie. As usual, the story is very much different from the original, which is understandable. The four heroes were portrayed pretty well and the humor was nicely done, but Dr. Doom was quite a let down. Victor Von Doom is a modern-day, wealthy, money-grubbing businessman who owns a large, thriving company. And Dr. Doom wasn't a disfigured guy in a suit; he was *gasp* a metal-man! The plot was a typical superhero affair. Overall, it was pretty alright, though I think I have been spoilt by the too-cool-for-words Batman Begins.

After the movie, I went home and Uncle Chris got online. He asked me if I could shut down the FunZ Centre forum. I was a little surprised at the request. A few days back, he was telling me that he was troubled a lot by the present situation of the forum. He said that the arguments/flames were becoming very unsightly, and some morons have signed up only to promote their own stores via the private messaging system. And so, I shut it down. I was personally beginning to hate the FunZ Centre forum to the extent that I did not even want to look at it anymore. Everyone ignores the rules I have typed up (signatures were always a freakin' irritating problem) and the Yu-Gi-Oh section was filled with so many crap posts that I wished I could close every single thread. Well, it's all gone now and I am pretty much as thankful as Chris is.

Oh, well. I continued my reading of the official VS System Comprehensive Rules to prepare for the Level 2 Rules certification exam on Saturday. I hope I'll be able to pass it as it will probably be a very memorable & noteworthy accomplishment for me in any card game thus far.

Out on a Weekday

On Tueday, I went to AMK. It was quite an unlikely choice of day to go there since Monday (being Youth Day) would've been better. But Amerell and Miyamoto both asked me out on that day so it was a great way to pass the time.

I arrived AMK rather late. Miyamoto was supposed to show me how Raw Deal is played, but I ended up playing VS with Amerell while Miya played with Darius. There was another guy there who was learning to play VS. He was a kid that I have seen a few times at the shop; he was usually quite noisy when I see him play DM, but at least he was okay while we played VS. He built a deck using the Fantastic Four/Doom starter and a Mutant Nation deck using the cards he got from boosters (surprisingly, he had a lot of usable rares which included Sabretooth). I tried my Fantastic Fun today and didn't know what the heck I was doing for most of my games. There were too many options to contemplate while I set up for my victory condition (or at least, I think I was doing it right). I'll try it a few more weeks and see it grows on me. Hope I just didn't blow my money on another '30-minute deck'.

Miyamoto had to go at dinner time and passed me 5 Raw Deal rule books before he left. I had a quick dinner at Sumo House with Amerell and Darius, and they left soon after, too. (Argh, weekday outings are so short.)

When I got home at night, I started downloading more comics to read since my anime download had been pathetically slow. I got Ultimate X-Men this time to pass the time, and between reading downloaded issues, I read through the Raw Deal rules and surfed the official site. It seems fairly easy to pick up, even though most cards seem to have like 8 lines of game text. It's an interesting little game that I will keep an eye on in the meantime. I might foresee myself drafting it.

Movies, Comics, Buffet

I went to AMK on Saturday to watch War of the Worlds. It was quite an okay movie. The scenes were really intense and I was on the edge of my seat for a great deal of the movie. After Tom Cruise managed to take down the first alien pod, I thought it would be a good time to go to the washroom. I noticed that the cleaners were already waiting by the door; it meant that the movie was coming to an end! The ending was very abrupt. The aliens just lost the war, even though they were terrorizing the world effortlessly for the entire movie. It was quite a downer; to think I was dying to find out how the humans would win.

I also went to buy a CD-RW to try burning stuff on my computer. At first, I thought 700 MB per CD was a lot, but then I realized it can only hold like 3 anime episodes per CD. It adds up to a lot when burning entire collections. Like a kid with his new toy, I tried burning files, deleting them, and over-writing them over again. I decided to burn some of the comics I have downloaded to lend to Amerell since he had been lending me his X-Men, X-Men Evolution and Spiderman animated series to watch.

On Sunday, I had a dinner outing with my old NUS classmates in the evening. In the meantime, I went to AMK in the afternoon, hoping that Amerell would turn up as promised, but he didn't!!! He followed Jeffrey and friends to CharKwayTeow for a VS tournament! Oh, well, I got to watch Miyamoto play in Uncle's Raw Deal tournament (which will be held on every Sunday for the month of July).

I have no idea what Raw Deal is about, except that it has like a million game mechanics, making it very complicated for onlookers to watch. I saw Miya played one match outside the store against this rather roundish opponent. He was speaking in Chinese (possibly not a local) and was very, very rude and arrogant throughout the game. Miya couldn't stand him and also replied with some Chinese 'trash talk' of his own. Every time that guy played something, he'd go (in Chinese), "I am very sure you've got nothing to counter this." He did that quite a few times and was proving to be one big asshat. I was rooting for Miya inside, but I think he was at a disadvantage; there was no way I could tell who was leading (there was no field build-up for me to compare), but based on hand size alone, I feared for Miya cos' he had only 2 cards as opposed to the guy's constant 7 cards or more. Finally, the guy played a card and again said his "I am sure you cannot do anything about this". Miya looked through some of his cards and said, "Wait, I think I do." Then the guy went, "Are you very sure? I know there is nothing you can do." Miya played a card in response and did counter his move. The look on the guy's face was priceless. However, he was speechless for a while before he replied, "Oooh, that card! Yeah, I was trying to force that card out from you." *sigh* He's so full of shit. Anyway, I hung around till it was near evening. I had to leave for my dinner outing soon, so I borrowed a pen & paper and left a little note for Amerell. It had a "I hate you!" on it, with plenty of unhappy faces scribbled all over. hehe.

I arrived at Somerset at around 6 pm. My dinner outing would be at the Phoenix Hotel. I met all my old project groupmates. Most of them had already found jobs. The buffet started at 6:30 pm, and I went around eagerly with my plate in hand. I was well prepared for this since I had skipped my lunch. I had several rounds of curry chicken, chicken rice and beefballs, followed by corn soup, cake, and finally ice-cream. I must've drank more than 10 glasses of water to wash down the food, and by the end of it, I had quite a bad stomachache. I went to the washroom around four times, but it still felt bad. After dinner, the rest went to do some window shopping while I excused myself and went home. The buffet costed $30+ per head, but because we used the money we earned from completing the survey on my final project, it reduced the cost so much that each person only had to pay $11. It was very worthwhile, even though I ended up with a bad tummy.

I reached home at around 10 pm and went to lie on the bed. I was kinda making up for lack of sleep from the day before. I woke up at midnight and chat with some of the guys before I slept.