Wednesday, April 30, 2003--Ah, the USAMO... It continues today...
However, before the USAMO was the Senior Panoramic Portrait. For the informal version, I gave my evil face--big eyes + big smile, the one where I look insane.
Then, I played a quick MTG duel against Justin. No details remembered.
Then, I did the USAMO, part 2. 4.5 hours, 3 more questions. The first question was brutal. I had to BS an answer for that one. The second one, I made a reasonable attempt, but it had a big hole in it. I had no way of proving that the function had smoothing. The third question, I thought I had a reasonable proof for it, but then, it turned out that I had messed up somewhere in my algorithm, and I didn't have time to write a new one, so I submitted my flawed answer, flaw and all.
Eh, that USAMO was hard, but at least I made it in. That was my goal for this year, and I have a goal fulfilled.
So then, I walk into 6th period about a minute late.
Me (as I interrupt, walking through the door): Sorry...
(Everyone else laughs or something.)
Also...
Me: Tiffany, your hair is so long!
Tiffany: Yeah, apparently, that's what happens when I don't cut it.
Right...
After school, I dueled with Denis in MTG. His deck's hella fast. He gets out land to get out mana artifacts, which lets him get out mana hella fast. Then, he plays a spell that forces all players to sacrifice 4 lands, but he doesn't care, because he has his mana artifacts. He creamed me with his ultimate mana flow.
I also remember creaming Justin today with my superior mana flow. I got out a ward Sliver in 5 turns, and that's all that matters. Then, I got bad mana flow during another game, and thus, creamed.
Today, I saw Christine Wu at my Viola lessons.
Hmm... It seems that after that is the end of the day. There is nothing left for me to discuss. Nothing except that today I applied for housing at Berkellie.
Dice Roll of the Day: 3 + 1 = 4
Life is overwhelming... Justin is cynical and bitter. Sarah Tseng remains Sarah Tseng. I have no idea what that is.
Good Night!
Tuesday, April 29, 2003--Ah, the USAMO... It begins today...
However, before the USAMO was a Math 78 class, which I went to.
Then, it was the USAMO. I had to briefly invade Miss Yamamoto's room to find out where I was supposed to go. Contrary to Linda's beliefs, Diane did not kick me, prolly because she was too busy doing her CAT6, which I'm sure "insulted her intelligence".
Speaking of Diane, Jason was right. All I had to do was show her some compassion and she stopped being hateful toward me. Still, there's something about her eyes that them... unnerving to look at. I'm sorry, Diane, if I'm unable to look at you whenever we meet in the halls.
I finally took the USAMO. Ironically, the third question was the one that I solved first, which Simon said that guys at our level (which includes both me and him even though he far exceeds my level) would be unable to do. He didn't do it. Anyways, for the second question, I wrote a nice, solid proof. For the first question, I wrote a reasonable argument, but it was a little unstable. For the 2nd problem, I wrote pure bullshit.
So there it was, 4.5 hours of super-advanced mathematics in the form of 3 simple, but complicated, questions.
It finished at 2pm. Then, I went to Koyanagi's class, in which nothing happened.
After school was the Math Team meeting. Franklin said that everytime he shows up to a Math Team meeting, we don't do math. We always end up doing math when he's not at a Math Team meeting. So Franklin shows up to the Math Team meeting today. We didn't do Math. Instead, we discussed how do divide the winnings from the BAMM. Then, we discussed the Math Team Captaincy, and it's open to everyone except me, Linda, and Won, because we're seniors and we won't be here next year.
After that, I went over a Bayes Theorem problem with Joanna.
At home, I upgraded my Slivers deck. The number of Slivers has increased from 16 to 23. However, the number of other spells I have went down from 16 to 9. However, I know its an improvement, because my Toxin Sliver creamed Franklin a few times.
Then, after dinner at Round Table (which is far inferior to Domino's, by the way), I went online and did stuff, which included a discussion about proxies and playing Justin's perverted game, which I decided not to play anymore.
Joanna was online tonight. I talked to her. She apparently knows who I asked to Senior Ball, and I already knew she was good friends with who I asked to Senior Ball, so she's off-limits. Have to respect her, you know (where "her" does not refer to Joanna)?
Ahh... Geocities is being a bitch again, so I can't update. This was written in notepad and delivered to Geocities ex post facto.
Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 2 = 4
I'm in a dilemma now. More about it later. It'll all blow over before Friday. I feel sorry for her, I really do. Damn myself! Why do I have to be who I have to be?
Don't worry. Come Friday, it'll all be over.
Thus, I say, "Good Night!"
Monday, April 28, 2003--I have succumbed to peer pressure! I have finally created a Xanga account, but it's only for posting comments on other people's Xangas. It's all explained on my Xanga, which I aptly named The Dark Fiend Outpost. I still firmly believe that why have a xanga when I can have a website.
Anyway, today, school resumes after the 10-day break. However, because there's CAT6 testing this whole week, I don't have to come to school until 11am. Thus, in the morning, I spent my time finishing up the LMC Solutions Guide, but when I tried to print, my printer ran out of ink. Darn. So I rushed to school (at about 10:15) to try to hijack a computer and a printer (with permission of course), but there were none available, since CAT6 testing took up all the rooms. So instead, I watched Justin, Alan, Jon, and... I forget... play Magic while listening to Andrew and Simon play their guitars.
During first period, I hijacked Mr. Yim's computer and printed out 3 copies of the LMC Solutions Guide. I left one in Mr. Yim's room. I was planning on giving one to the MAH team and the third to Joanna's team.
In second period, Jason listened to part of my piece. He said it was very Castlevania-ish, very video-game like. Then, when I asked Stacie if she would like to hear it, she politely declined. Then, when I asked Stephanie if she would like to hear it, unlike her twin, she said, "As a matter of fact... yeah." And she listened to it. She commented, "It's very dark and evil-sounding." I replied, "It's meant to be." Heh, how intriguing. How intriguing indeed.
I talked with the wind today. She has a really nice voice...
Anyway, during lunch, I managed to hand off the LMC Solutions Guides to both Joanna and Stephanie, so my mission was complete. Then, I went to Woo's room to play Magic. Ryan, Mark, Justin, Alan, and Jon all showed up, so we played a massive 3v3, with me, Jon, and Alan on one team and Mark, Ryan, and Justin on the other. Haha, Ryan had bad mana flow, so he couldn't burn much stuff. Mark couldn't withstand the power of my Slivers. Anything that Justin played, either Alan or Jon would counter, except one time, where I countered it because I could. Heh, at one point, Justin played his 0/0 Mortivore. Whoops! Eventually, we had them beat 77 to 1--that's more than a perfect game. Then, the bell rang, but we had a guarantee win anyways.
Hmm... nothing happened for the rest of the day. Oh, well.
Wait... after school, the Music Theory AP was cancelled because Christine told everyone not to come. Being the responsible one, I didn't listen, but class was still cancelled anyway, since no one came.
Instead, I dueled against Daniel--Slivers VS Slivers. He beat me with his 2xBrood Sliver rush and basically out-Slivered me to death. Oh, well. What the hell.
Going home, I read more Catch-22. Then, I went to the SJYS rehearsal at Castillero. These guys came to quell our fears about SARS in Japan--there is no SARS in Japan. There are no reports of it, etc. Naturally, I agreed, because Japan is too industrialized to have SARS. "And America isn't?" Well, Japan has better technology than America. That and, there are too many tourists in America, so they go somewhere and get SARS. All the SARS cases in America have been from people who visited Southeast Asia or were in contact with people who visited Southeast Asia. Other than that, the rehearsal wasn't all that eventful.
That brings me to the now.
Anyway, here's a story for you:
My dad: Hey, Dwayne, do you like to go site-seeing?
Me: No, I like doing stuff, not seeing stuff.
Dad: How about if a pretty girl invites you to go site-seeing with her?
Me: Of course I'd go!
Dad: But I thought you liked doing stuff? What is there for you to do?
At that point, Franklin and I look at each other and burst into laughter. It's a true story, I swear to god! Fuck you, god! It happened about a week ago, or so.
Now, it's time for the thing everybody's been waiting for!
Dice Roll of the Day: 5 + 5 = 10
Ah, it's good to be back in school. I didn't miss learning, but I missed everything else about it. It's good to be with the people that I cherish, but don't cherish enough to hang out with during break... Um... Damn, that really got messed up.
I talked with the wind today. She has a really nice voice. She has a really nice voice indeed...
Good Night!
Sunday, April 27, 2003--For some reason, Geocities has been very unresponsive to me lately. I'd click the "Save" button and it would do nothing for an entire half hour. Thus, if I update very sporadically from now on, don't blame me. Blame Geocities and their new-found lack of quality service.
Anyway, my day began with some Kingdom Hearts.
*KH*I tried Hercules Cup. Cloud was 4th seed, and I beat him, making extensive use of Guard to block his Sonic Blade. Beating him I got the Metal Chocobo keyblade, which has incredibly long range and an attack power of 10 (strongest damn keyblade I've ever seen; stronger than Franklin's best keyblade, I dare say), but it reduces Max MP by 1. What does it matter? I gave up the wand a long, long time ago anyway. Unfortunately, I got killed by Hercules (1st seed), but it wasn't a complete waste. The Metal Chocobo alone made it all worth it. Also, the experience was sure helpful. I'll try again next weekend.*KH*
However, before I could take another shot, I had to go to KFC for lunch.
At KFC, I got my arm torn open by the soda machine. I was reaching up for a straw, and somehow, my arm hit the corner of the Pepsi dispensor and I accidentally knocked off the cover, but the process, I got a big gash on my arm, which is now covered up by a little blue bandaid that I always forget about. I hope it doesn't soak up water like the last one did, because when it does, it gets my skin all weird and putrid.
So then, I drove myself to Stanford for the SFBA-ARML meeting, and I showed up half an hour early. After hanging around outside, I went back in, still about 10 minutes early, but by that time, there were people in there. I'm doing quite well. Progress shows that I'll make it right back into the A team again. I also found out that I'm not as useless on proofs as I thought I was. I don't know... everyone there expects me to be on the A team again, but for some reason, I feel like I'm still struggling to achieve that position.
Coming home, I ate dinner, then started work on the Solutions Guide to the LMC. Stephanie gets one, Joanna gets one, and Mr. Yim gets one.
Then, I went online and did stuff. Hopefully, Geocities will be up enough for you to read this entry, but there are no guarantees whatsoever.
Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 5 = 11
On an unrelated note, I think Little Rabbit has stopped hating me... or has stopped acting like she hates me, whichever applies to the current theory. We can talk on AIM without any trace of animosity, and apparently, I think too much, which, as she assumes I've read, is a bad thing.
Also...
Viltris: you have a xanga now?
Bernard (censored his real SN): it was not supposed to be official
Viltris: everyone's getting xangas now
Bernard: but then people started posting comments on it
Viltris: what's wrong with good old HTML
Viltris: ?
Bernard: like i said
Viltris: HTML plus good ld geocities guestbook
Bernard: the purpose of my creating it
Bernard: was to enable to post comments on other people's xangas
Viltris: lol
Viltris: the irony
Viltris: i'll make a xanga
Viltris: and in my first and only entry
Bernard: direct it to your page
Viltris: "This is my first and only entry. The sole purpose of my creating a xanga is to put comments on OTHER PEOPLE's xangas, so don't expect me to post again."
Viltris: and then
Bernard: a link to the DFS
Viltris: people will start posting comments like "oh, come on, dwayne, post stuff in your xanga. otherwise its no fun"
Viltris: and then i post a second post that says "ARGH! If you want to read my journal, just go to The Dark Fiend Sanctuary."
Viltris: and then people will start complaining
Viltris: 'cause they like the xanga
Viltris: and then i'll just starting having the xanga as a mirror journal or something
Viltris: and it'll be so ridiculously redundant
Bernard: haha
I think I've talked myself to death... not literally. So now, I shall leave you and wish you Good Night! If you are from Leland and are not a senior, good luck on your CAT6. If you are from Leland and are indeed a senior, have fun with your pseudo-extended Spring Break. If you are not from Leland... just have fun. And did I mention Good Night?
Saturday, April 26, 2003--Today is the BAMM (Bay Area Math Meet), so I wake up at 6:30 am, so that I can start driving at 7am, so that I can arrive at Mr. Yim's house at 7:30am, so that we can arrive at USF (for the BAMM) at 8:30am.
There were three teams: the Leland A (or Leland Captains) team consisting of Ke, Linda, and me; the Leland B (or Leland MAH) team consisting of Mike, Lei, and Steph; and the Leland C team (we couldn't agree on a name) consisting of Joanna, Eric, and Won. The first 2 rounds were qualifier rounds, and we got seeded 5th (even though we tied with the 4th seed). Leland B got 17th seed or so, and Leland C got 15th seed or so. Ironically, Leland C did better than Leland B.
For the Test of Ingenuity, I answered 13 out of 15 and I got 1 wrong, giving me a score of 11.75. I don't know why, but last year, I got a score of 12 and made 2nd place, second only to Inna Zakarevich (sp?) who graduated. Theoretically, 11.75 should get me a top prize. However, I got tied for 3rd place, while 3 guys got tied for 2nd place, and Johnathon Lowd got a perfect score. What the heck? What happened there?
During the third round, we creamed Athenian B. Unfortunately, both Leland B and Leland C lost out. We later found out that they were doing cryptology as the "loser event" or the "non-winner event". Whenever I use one term, Mr. Yim always uses the other for some reason.
During the 4th round, I scored 5 consecutive answers in a row. Then when I scored a 6th point, they said that I had said I had answered it after time was up, but she never called time. She took the point aside and decided we could dispute it later. Then, somehow, the other guys got 6 in a row. However, for the final question, I got it right, I had my hand on the bell and was about to ring it, but then she called time, but then I said the answer and got it right. Eh, eventually, Paul Zeitz gave us that first point that we won but didn't. Then, Paul Zeitz gave us a tie-breaker question, and I won it with 1 swift motion, so we were back in the running.
In the 5th round (the Quarter-Finals), we went up against Alameda A, the team that beat Leland B, so it was a revenge match. We avenged them quite well, and apparently I told each of the MAH team, as did Linda and Ke, so they were told at least 9 times in all. Whoops!
Somehow, our seed forced us to go against Homestead B, the champions of last year, basically famous people.
Me: Well, Simon, it looks like we're not meeting in the Finals after all.
Simon (from Homestead): Yeah, that's because we're meeting in the Semi-Finals.
During the match, a large crowd of people entered in to spectate, but Linda is apparently claustrophobic, so we got half of them thrown out. Poor spectators, but hey, I think a competitor's well-being is more important that spectators! Besides, the semi-finals weren't meant to be spectated by so many in such a small room.
In any case, we got creamed, but (since 4-5 questions today we had seen on our BAMM practices, we knew the answer) the last question was a question I clearly remembered the form and technique to, so long before he finished reading the question, I had the answer. As soon as he finished the question, I rang in and gave the answer, impressing even Simon. "Whoa! That was fast!" We still lost 9-2, though, possibly because I could not see that A was not B, so I thought the answer was C. It was on the overhead and I wasn't wearing my good glasses. (I almost missed a squared on an overhead problem.)
Me: Oh well, if I had to lose, at least it was to a famous and well-respected team like you guys, who were champions last year.
Homestead ended up winning the final round, creaming Davis 10-0. Ke reasoned that since we did better against Homestead than Davis, we're the real second-best team, but oh well. Technically, we got seeded higher than Davis, you know?
Oh, and the 6 $25 gift certificates we won cannot be divided evenly among 9 people, unless "you order soup" according to Paul Zeitz.
Upon going home, Mr. Yim, Linda, Ke, and I had a very intriguing discussion about... things... in general... phone numbers and girls... yeah...
Getting home, I ate dinner and saw the ending to Terminator 2, which, for some reason, I never saw before. Then, I played Kingdom Hearts.
*KH*I beat Oogie Boogie. Oogie Boogie's second form is hella annoying, because you have to search for and destroy all those purple globes. Still, it was quite easy. I beat him (both his forms) on my first try.
The Peter Pan world is hella short. I beat it within an hour and a half, I do believe. I also upgraded my Gummi Ship. Now, it's hella loaded with weapons.*KH*
After that, I came online, where I did some honor dueling and worked on my website. For some reason, Geocities is being slow to me.
Hmm...
There's not much more to say.
Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 3 = 4
Heh, I can't stop hearing Avril Lavigne's Complicated in my head. Ech... it happens. Songs get stuck in people's heads.
In any case, the night was a good (as was the day, but that's unimportant), so I'll say Good Night!
Friday, April 25, 2003--As we speak (err... as I type), I'm playing Sabotage Open Rush against Bernard on ItsYourTurn.com. Heh, I challenge any of you to a game of Sabotage or any of its variations! My IYT.com name is Viltris (as usual).
Speaking of online gaming services, I decided to quit Star Kingdoms. I got bored of it already.
Back to the topic of Sabotage on ItsYourTurn.com, I'm the Mini-Sabotage Champ of the August 2000 Main #1 Tournament. Very intriguing, I think...
Anyway, my day began with another round of studying. I had to seriously slow down on my review/view of Electromagnetics. It's been a while, and that stuff is not all that basic to me anymore.
In the meantime, Catch-22 just grows more and more ridiculous.
Franklin: A guy called for you while you were at McDonald's. He left his name and phone number and told you to call him back.
Me: Sag Bamdos?
Franklin: I dunno if that's his name. I couldn't hear it.
Me: I'll call him later.
Later that day...
Me (on the phone): What was that? I couldn't here you... Oh... Not interested... Sorry, I couldn't hear you... Not interested... Sorry, I couldn't hear you... Sorry, I couldn't hear you... Sorry, I couldn't hear you... Not interested... Goodbye! (hangs up) Franklin? It was Sargeant Bamdos. He was a military recruiter.
Franklin: Oh, whoops!
Me: DUMBASS!!!
Yes, a very interesting story indeed.
In the evening, I did work on my Warcraft III scenario. Then, I watched the Simpsons and had some dinner.
Now, I am now, and I played some Sabotage against Bernard and updated my website. Yes, you are reading about my writing this sentence. Then I wrote, "Then I wrote, 'Then I wrote, "Then I wrote..."'" Let's not continue that infinite recursion.
Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 6 = 7
Wow! My first roll of a 7. That means I'm lucky. However, a roll of a 7 also means I have to do something out of the ordinary. It's a new rule. Alan should put a "Dice Roll o f the Day" thing on his website.
Why would she give me her phone number if she doesn't want me to call her? Conclusion: At some point of time between her giving me her phone number and now, she wanted me to call her. Hmm... What if she still does? Damn it!
Anyways... I think I'm obligated to end this now and say "Good Night!"
Thursday, April 24, 2003--Heh, the day began off rather boring...
After eating breakfast and the like, I studied for my AP tests, then read Catch-22 some more. Catch-22 is insane. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny, and that's what makes it funny.
In the evening, I worked on my Warcraft III scenario, ate dinner, and watched the Simpsons. Then, I came upstairs to do my online junk.
Now, for the slightly more interesting part of the day. I dueled Franklin in Magic the Gathering. The first game I won because the Crystalline Sliver I played (that he couldn't counter), so he couldn't steal any of my Slivers. After seeing how he couldn't break me, he promptly forfeited. Mental note to self: Buy 2 Crystalline Slivers at Superstars and replace my Ward Slivers.
During the second duel, Franklin stole a bunch of my Slivers, and I lost to overwhelming force. I don't know why, but the Essence Sliver and the Synapse Sliver seem to come up a lot.
During the third duel, I had a relatively weak opening draw. Lots of stuff happened early game, but I don't remember so clearly as to what it was. Eventually, Franklin got out his Glarecaster and stole my Synapse Sliver. Then, he played another Chromeshell Crab face down (presumably) and unsummoned the one he just used. He also managed to Faceless Butcher my Ward Sliver. I was feeling pessimistic at my chances for victory. Then, I drew Ashnod's Altar. At that moment, I also had a Heartstone on the field and a Riptide Shapeshifter. It was Franklin's turn, and he had tapped out to play something that I don't remember, so at the end of his turn, I promptly sacrificed my Riptide Shapeshifter to bring out the Sliver Queen. Then, on my turn, I played Ashnod's Altar. Since Franklin was tapped out, I knew he wouldn't counter. Then, I played my second Ward Sliver and called protection from blue, to guarantee that he wouldn't steal any of my Slivers. Then, I pumped out infinite Slivers. Franklin's turn again, and he saw that he had no "fantastic play" to save his behind, so he forfeited. Heh, sweet! This is the second time ever that I've pulled off the Infinite Slivers combo (third time if you count the time Alan forfeited just before it happened) and the first time I've done it in a 1v1 game (second if you count the time Alan forfeited just before it happened).
And that was about 5 minutes before this posting.
Oh, and I am apparently talking to Jasmine as we... uhh... as I write this.
Anyways...
Dice Roll of the Day: 5 + 5 = 10
Oh, one more thing. Alan made this:
He also submitted this card to the Leland Set for Magic: The Gathering:
Charger Statue - Cost: 9
Artifact Creature - Knight Legend (LS)
Charger Statue can block more than one attacker.
3: Charger Statue gains +1/+0 until end of turn.
Tap, sacrifice Charger Statue: Bury attacking creature Charger Statue blocks.
Cycling 4
If at any time Charger Statue is in your graveyard, you may sacrifice an artifact to return Charger Statue to your hand.
"That statue sucks... it's so crappy." - Leland Student
1/9
Well, nothing more to say, except "Good Night!"
So... uhh... Good Night!
Wednesday, April 23, 2003--Today, I had to wake up at 8 in order to have enough awakening in me to get to the Math Team extra practice at 9, so I went.
At Leland, while walking through the tennis courts to get to Mr. Yim's room, I saw Sherry, Peter, Mike, and some other guy playing tennis. Sherry was wearing a sleeveless shirt, despite the fact that the weather was quite cold. Then again, she is playing tennis. Then again, she's not all that athletic. Then again, she might be more athletic than me. Then again, probably not.
So, waiting in front of Mr. Yim's room was Lei, who showed up first, even though Mr. Yim thought she would show up last. Everyone started piling in after that. Then, Lei went off to try to drag Mike from the tennis courts, but Mike refused to come because "he was winning". Then, Linda left and dragged Mike to the Math Team practice, and it was good.
Incidently, after the meeting finished, I saw Amy playing tennis in the tennis courts.
After lunch, I stopped by at the library and checked out Catch-22. It's quite an interesting and ridiculous book.
Later in the day, I continued work on my Warcraft III scenario. Then, I ate dinner, watched the Simpsons, and came online to do stuff.
Hmm... That sounds like my whole day. That also sounds like a rather short entry. Hmm... How amusing.
Oh, well...
Dice Roll of the Day: 3 + 5 = 8
On an unrelated note, yes she's still at the top of my list...
Ah, yes, 'tis a Lovely Night, a Sweet Night...
Good Night!
Tuesday, April 22, 2003--Anyways, today, I had already made plans to go eat lunch and hang out with friends. First, I drove my brother to Justin's house to meet the rest of the gang, which consisted of Justin, Alan, Mark, and Ryan. First, we played an unfinished game of Emperor (Magic variation), and I was the Emperor, but we soon had to leave. We zoomed off to the Palace BBQ Buffet, which I have mentioned before. Those Koreans... Did I ever mention that my favorite Korean girl is... Screw it. You wouldn't be interested in my favorite Korean girl, althought I certainly would. That's why she's my favorite! What am I talking about? Oh, right...
End random Korean girl tangent...
So anyways, as Justin, Mark, and Ryan pack themselves into Justin's mom's car, I drive off and Alan follows me GTA style because he was too lazy to read his map. Heh, despite going what Alan calls the "wrong way", we got there before Justin did. Anyways, during the lunch, I specifically said that the eggrolls and meatballs I ate were not innuendos, since you know how Alan and Justin like to turn everything into an innuendo. Oh, and to rehash what I said, "If a ghoul can cannibalize on raw meat, why can't I?" Anyways, during the lunch, lots of perverted jokes were passed around. We talked about Korean people--since we're in a Korean BBQ restaurant--and I did mention that althought Lizzie is still my favorite Korean, I no longer have any feelings for her. Wait a minute...
Anyways, after lunch, we stopped by at Superstars, but I went left instead of right, so I got there last. Alan bought over $100 worth of cards. Then, we crashed Justin's house again.
While Ryan, Mark, and Justin built their decks somewhere else, Alan built his 180 card deck with only 4 creatures (all Cognivores, by the way) and dueled me. I decided to pity him so I chose not to attack him when I could have killed him. However, I had the Heartstone, Ashnod's Altar, and a Riptide Shapeshifter on the field when Alan decided to forfeit, ending the game just short of an infinite Slivers combo. Alan then cut out 2 of every card from his deck, like a reverse Noah or something, then dueled me again. Again I creamed him, although I do not remember how.
After that, we played another game of Emperor. Justin and I were on one team, with Justin (Undead + Phage) as Emperor, me (Sliver Fury) Left General, and Alan (Cognivores) Right General. On the opposite team, Mark (the Healer) was Emperor, Ryan (Mr. Burns) was Left General, and Franklin (Counter/Control) was Right General. First off, I had to go first, but I started pretty well. Alan and Ryan started playing right away, but I wasn't paying much attention to that side of the field--I was too busy about my own side. Anyways, I was beating down Franklin. Then, he got out the Seasinger and took one of my Winged Slivers. Then, I was afraid. Then, Mark sent him a Serra Angel and everything started going insane. Franklin sent in his Angel on a suicide attack ("No!" Mark shouts) and cleared out my entire Sliver Army. Shortly afterwards, Alan gets burned to death by Ryan. Then, I inform Justin that he should have sent me his Royal Assassin roughly 10 turns ago.
Me: Damn, I'm completely defenseless.
Justin: I'd send you something, but he'd probably steal it with his Seasinger.
Me: He can't steal it if his Seasinger's dead!
Justin: Well, what would you kill it with?
Me: I dunno, Terror? Hopefully. Hey, don't you have that Royal Assassin.
Justin: Dude, he's out of range.
Me: Then send it to me. I kill the Seasinger.
Justin: Dude, if I send the Royal Assassin to you, he'll just take control of it.
Me: Not if I use the Assassin to kill the Seasinger.
Justin: You idiot! Summoning sickness.
Me: No, because after you send him to me on your turn. Then, it's my turn and he won't have summoning sickness.
Justin: Oh, right, why didn't you tell me earlier?
Me: I thought you knew.
Justin: Argh! I'm such an idiot!
Yeah, if only Justin had sent me the Royal Assassin earlier, I could have cleared through Franklin a lot faster and threatened Mark, thereby forcing Ryan to spread out his forces and thus, Justin would have survived longer. Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention? I killed Franklin with Justin's swampwalkers. Then, as I'm trying to attack Mark (he used Reverse Damage twice in a row, then drew a third one), Ryan burns Justin to death. Heh, good game.
Then, I had to go home.
Once at home, I did a lot of studying for my AP tests.
Hmm... that seems to be the entire story for today. There is one more thing, though.
Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 2 = 4
Hmm... anyways...
I wish...
Good Night!
Monday, April 21, 2003--Alan supposedly found the Easter Eggs, but he failed to follow directions and didn't include in his e-mail the location of the 13 Eggs. However, Bernard, who found the Eggs later, did follow directions, so I have no choice but to give Bernard the prize. Soon, he'll get a blurb on the front page, and I'll take the Eggs down. Tough luck, Alan, but if people don't give credit for not following directions in real life, I guess its only fair that I don't give you credit. Hey, at least I mentioned your name, and plus, the prize ain't worth anything, so what does it matter?
Anyways, after waking up today, I did quite a lot studying for the AP tests. I also worked on my Warcraft III scenario and did a miniscule amount of work done on Dark Fiends. I would have worked more on Dark Fiends, but Franklin interrupted me and insisted that I played Magic with him. Seriously, if I'm not productive, I can blame a huge part of it on Franklin for distracting me all the time.
Anyways, during one duel, Franklin had horrible mana flow, but I spared him by choosing not to attack when he had 2 Life left. Instead, I sac'ed my Riptide Shapeshifter (Riptide Shoplifter?) to get our my Sliver Queen, then played Coalition Victory to win.
In another duel, I had 3 Muscle Slivers, Volrath's stronghold, a Forest, an Island, and a Winged Sliver as my opening hand. With those card (and after drawing a swamp later), I creamed Franklin. Mass Muscle Slivers + a Winged Sliver = ownage.
In another duel, after I got out my Sliver Queen and used up all my mana to create Sliver tokens and attacked with the Sliver Queen, Franklin was like, "Dwayne, you tapped out. I play Vengeance on your Sliver Queen." Fortunately, I had Ashnod's Altar our, so I merely sac'ed one of my tokens to the Altar to get 2 mana, which I used to regenerate the Queen. (I also had a Clot Sliver out.)
I don't remember whether or not it was the same duel or not, but what happened was, Franklin tried to use Ashnod's Altar on my Sliver Queen, making her an artifact creature. Then, he followed up with Divine Offering. I merely used 2 Mana to regenerate my Sliver Queen.
In the evening, I had to go to the SJYS rehearsal. Lizzie wasn't at rehearsal today, and I later learned that it was because she went to LA. Heh, okay...
Coming home, I had some insane conversations on AIM. I don't remember what they were about, but they were insane.
So that's my story...
Dice Roll of the Day: 5 + 6 = 11
...Good Night!
I miss her already...
Sunday, April 20, 2003--Easter
Since today's Easter, I'm going to have an online Easter Egg Hunt. I have hidden 13 Easter Eggs on across my website. Each Easter Egg is hidden text in the form of "Easter Egg #x: word". When you collect all the words and put them in order, you get a sentence--nothing in particular, just a random sentence I wrote. Whoever is the first person to send me an e-mail with the locations on of all 13 Easter Eggs and the sentence they form gets recognition and they will get their name and a quote and whatever posted on my front page. Good luck with the hunt!
Anyways, today, I woke up and played Kingdom Hearts. I did some work on my Gummi Ship, then I went to Halloween Town, but didn't finish it.
After lunch, I drove myself to Stanford where we had the ARML practice. Stephanie showed up, but she "didn't have time to tie up her hair", so it was hanging free. It made her look different. Speaking of the ARML, I need to get those forms filled out and such!
On my way home from the ARML practice, I stopped by at McDonald's and bought food to take home for Franklin and I to eat. Then, I played some more Kingdom Hearts, and I think I'm almost at the boss of Halloween Town, but I'm not sure.
Now, I'm updating my website and such, and this marks the end of the day. There's just one loose end to tie up...
Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 6 = 8
Anyways, Good Night!
Saturday, April 19, 2003--Shortly after waking up and eating breakfast and stuff like that, I played some more Kingdom Hearts. In just today, I cleared the entire Little Mermaid scenario, then finished up a tournament at the Hercules Coliseum.
Heh, on an unrelated note, it's Diane Ko's birthday today. During the evening, I said Happy Birthday to her, and she seemed more pleased than upset. That's proof that she doesn't hate me...
Anyways, after lunch, I borrowed two of Franklin's decks and we played a Emperor (a 6-player Magic variation) except we each controlled 3 decks and played it with only 2 players. Fortunately for me, his Control/Counter deck (Franklin's right-side general) had bad mana flow, so it was easy to kill it off with my left-side general (the Beast deck). Then, Franklin started pumping out masses of Centaur tokens with his Centaur glade with his emperor (using the Phage deck). He passed most of them to his left-side general (his Elf deck) against my right-side general (the Black/White deck) and overwhelmed it, so I made a quick retreat. All the while, my right-side general had sent his Starlight Invoker to my emperor and I eventually made it up to 45 Life. All the while, Franklin managed to get out Phage. His Elf deck killed the Black/White deck. Then, I managed to get out the infinite slivers combo, and Franklin just forfeited after that. It was a pretty wicked victory.
Then, I hopped on over to Ryan's house where I played with the Frozen Throne Beta and played Magic against others.
Playing Frozen Throne, I played a 2v2 game where I lost. Then, I played a 1v1 game where I was rushed so fast, it wasn't even funny. Yeah, I'm not all that great in Warcraft III.
I creamed Justin a few times with my upgraded Slivers, especially since I had some anti-air defense now. However, Justin shortly borrowed Ryan's burns, then added in some of his own cards and 2 Dragons (1 Shivan, 1 Volcanic) and made a 40 card deck on the spot. Ironically, that improvised 40 card burn deck was incredibly effective. Its goal (like many other burn decks) is to burn a guy to death before you die. I lost to it so many times it wasn't even funny! There was this one duel where toward the end, Ryan had 1 Life and I had 4, and he didn't have enough burns to kill me in one hit. I drew a creature and played it. Ryan drew a Lightning Bolt and killed my creature. I drew another creature, and Ryan drew an Incinerate and killed it. It kept going for a few turns--I'd draw creatures and play them and Ryan would draw burns and destroy him, lest my monsters attack and kill him. Then, Ryan drew a Fireball and killed me.
Mark was playing Age of Empires while we were playing Magic. Those britons speak weird. "Yay?" "Yay!"
After dinner, I came here, to the place that I call the internet and surfed some, then updated some.
Well, anyways, I have nothing more to say...
Except go register at BuddyZoo.com! It's a really cool program and its simple and easy to use.
Well, anyways, I have nothing more to say...
Wait!
Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 5 = 6
Well, anyways, now I really have nothing more to say...
Of course, that doesn't include the good old Good Night!
Friday, April 18, 2003--Woot! Spring Break!
Today, my brother and I went to Superstars in the morning to buy new cards. Unfortunately, we showed up 5 minutes before the opening time and so had to wait a while for the guy to come. However, when he came, I gave him my list and he started hunting down those cards for me.
It wasn't the usual guy who's an expert in Magic the Gathering, so he took quite a long time to get out all our cards. It took him about half an hour to go through my list and about half an hour more to go through Franklin's list.
Basically, I bought the Slivers I needed and some support cards for my deck. I also got a deck box (with Planeshift artwork) and 75 sleeves. Heh, I'm out of money now.
Franklin's such a lucky mustard. Today, he got the Mirari and the Mox Diamond in his boosters!
After eating some Japanese cuisine, I went home and reconstructed my deck. Then, I dueled Franklin some and beat him 2 out of 3 times, where my one loss was due to bad mana flow. Franklin says that my improved deck is "quite scary"...
After that, I looked at Wizards.com and read about Magic the Gathering, including some articles on why crappy cards are created and why some crappy cards are rares.
After dinner from McDonald's, I played Kingdom Hearts a bit and cleared Monstro.
Now, I'm updating my website. Looks like that's all there is to tell.
Dice Roll of the Day: 5 + 3 = 8
*yawn* Good Night!
I challenge you to a duel!
Thursday, April 17, 2003--It was all just a big misunderstanding. Thank goodness! ...or so I hope...
Today was the Math 78 Midterm. I messed up a few times, but I caught my errors before I turned in my test, so it's all good.
Second period...
Third period was a party. I said I was going to bring "death and taxes ...for certain," but no one wanted any. Heh, neither did I. Anyway, I tried a little bit of everything. The rice was way too sweet and ended up making me nauseous.
Fourth period...
At lunch was the final day of the LMC. We're now reduced to only 2 teams. Well, I always said this team contest was an experiment, and, to put it in optimistic terms, the experiment was not a complete success. For next year, if I were to do it again, I think it should be just a single round. Instead of people signing up with their teams, we're just going to have people come, and the questions should be harder than the Single Round questions, but easier than the Team Round questions. Also, for the questions, there should be a Baye's Theorem problem, a dice game problem, a number theory problem, and a infinite thingie problem.
Fifth period...
Sixth period...
Finally, Spring Break has begun! I'm free! Free!
Anyways, when I got home, I played some more Kingdom Hearts. I completed the entire Aladdin scenario today. The thing about Kingdom Hearts is that although each world is short, the game is kind of long--it consists of more than 8 worlds.
I've forgotten to do this for a while...
Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 3 = 4
Now, I'm here online updating my website, doing my thing. Heh, looks like that will be all for tonight. After this, I'm probably going to go on the long-delayed Dark Fiends, but untill then, take care of yourself and Good Night!
Can I call you during Sprink Break?
Wednesday, April 16, 2003--"I am your love and your hate. I am your pleasure and your pain. I am the suffering of all humanity. And in order to end all this suffering, in order to finally bring some Justice, I must destroy this sinful world."
--Viltris Kindell, the 2nd King of Hell
Anyways, Miss Yamamoto is excited that I qualified for the USAMO because she hasn't been able to send a student in many years.
During first period, I got bored of dueling MTG with Justin, but it was interesting to hear who got what scores on the MAH qualifying test #1. I personally hope that Joanna, my "student", makes it in first place.
In second period, we had a quiz, but Mr. Peterson gave us the wrong one, so he had to come back and find the correct one for us. Lucky (on unlucky, depending) for us, he was right there on campus (but busy with other work) to locate that quiz for us.
In third period, our stock presentation went all right. Canon ruled. "The printer's so cheap if it breaks down and you buy a new one, its nothing to you." Hey, it's true!
I also borrowed a ribbon from Neha. It's opposite day today (guys and girls switch clothing), so I planned on wearing a ribbon in my hair. Unfortunately, the ribbon didn't fit in my hair, so I ended up taking off the ribbon. Speaking of opposite days, all the girls dressed up as guys looked like punk thugs and all the guys dressed as girls... well, cross-dressing is messed up. Ribbons are one thing. Guys wearing dresses are another.
Fourth period, when Roske left the room, Christine and Lironn started drawing on the overhead. It was good art. Then, Roske came back and erased it. What a waste of art! Tiffany Wilkus (as does Mr. Roske) says, "What a waste of ink!" Then, Christine and Lironn then erased the (never used) white board and began producing artwork on that. However, since the white board is, like, 20 times bigger than the overheard, it's going to take up a lot of pen ink.
During lunch was the LMC Relay Round. Heh, although the Relay Round has the easiest questions, its probably the hardest because its an all or nothing deal. If even one guy misses a question, odds are, the final answer will be wrong. Only the MAH Coalition and Joanna's team showed up today. Alan said that his entire team forfeits. Well, they had team coordination problems anyway...
In 5th period, there was this one problem involving flags and shit that I had to figure out what was going on. Eventually it was fixed and was cast off my hands, though. Ah, running errands. That's what being a TA is all about. Wandering the empty hallways during class.
In 6th period, Miss Koyanagi was gone, but she instructed the sub to give us a time writing on a short story about Japanese-Canadian internment during World War II. I thought this essay was a lot easier than yesterday's.
Before going home today, I had to give a make-up LMC Single Round.
Viola lessons... Then, I went online to do stuff.
Music has always been an excellent source of solace for me when depressed. I listened to a lot of music today at home. It's good. Heh, I couldn't stop listening to FF6's For Rachel. Interestingly, talking to Lei online about the LMC also seems to have taken my mind off the troubles of life.
In any case, that's about it for today. I don't feel like talking anymore. Leave me alone!
Heh, just joking around. You can come and go as you please, but I'm going to stop now and say Good Night!
Tuesday, April 15, 2003--Sorry I didn't updates. I was so busy last night that I forgot about this. Sorry.
Tie day today. I wore a tie. Pretty soon, I got so used to it that I forgot I was wearing it. Heh!
Anyways, during 0/1 period, Math 78 was cut short by a teacher evaluation we had to do. Justin said, "This class lacks entertainment value," and "Mr. Langlois is a cool guy. Give him a raise or something."
Second period, Mr. Peterson has to go update the school's website or something, so we had a sub.
Third period, no! Please don't let there be a stock presentation tomorrow!
Fourth period...
At lunch was the Leland Math Competition Single Round I. Another team joined the race, and it included Vivian Chu and . . . I forget. While everyone was complaining about how hard yesterday's was, everyone was saying how easy today's was in comparison. Heh! Just like last year, I somehow started off with hardest test. Hey, at least this year, I put more thought into my questions.
Fifth period...
In 6th period, Koyanagi gave us a poetry timed writing. I think I did okay, except that I badly misinterpretted the poems. Whoops!
After school, Andrew Matsuoka made up his share of the Team Round. Justin and Alan's team had only 2 people, so I let them slip this time and let Andrew have time to finish it up. However, in the end, it didn't seem matter.
For some reason, Joanna dragged Connie to the Math Team meeting today, probably because there wasn't going to be a meeting tomorrow at lunch.
Quote of the meeting: "I failed to realize that 5 was also 10 divided by 2." I said that, of course.
By the way, it is official! I made it to the USAMO! Woohoo! The cutoff score was 226. My score was 233.5. That one lucky guess I made on the AIME made all the difference. Woohoo!
Then, I went online to meet with Justin to do the stock research. We ended up choosing Canon, which we thought was a pretty good pick. All our stock picks are weird, but good. Weird is spelled weird.
Anyway, there's stuff that's needed to be done and things to do, and events that I have to take care of. Actually, I just need to go to sleep. *yawn* Good Night!
Monday, April 14, 2003--Where my wisdom tooth is growing out, there's a loose piece of gum (as in flesh gum, not chewing gum) hanging with only one side attached, just swinging there. It's kind of freaky. I can't just tear it off, because there are still nerves and blood vessels attached.
*waits for audience to finish vomiting*
Okay, so anyways, today, at first period in Miss Yamamoto's room, I played some MTG duels against Justin. I have no recollection of what happened.
Second period...
Third period...
In 4th period Chem AP, we basically did nothing, so Justin, Jason, and I got a pass to go the library. Then, Justin and I went to the benches outside the library and dueled until lunchtime. During one duel, we switched decks, and Justin killed me using a Sliver Queen rush. (5 turns, 5 lands, Sliver Queen!) See, that's the power of my Sliver deck!
At lunch was the Leland Math Competition Team Round. 3 and a half teams showed up. I say half because half the people on Justin's team didn't show up. The scores were as expected--people could get the easy problems, but not the hard ones. Obviously...
5th period...
In 6th period, Miss Koyanagi gave us a practice English AP Multiple Choice test. Because the system got screwed up, our class gets a different test than the other 2 classes, and the one we got included an entire short story that we already read and analyzed. Sweet!
After school, I went to Music Theory AP class and did some Music Theory AP practice. I need to practice dictation.
After school, I finished making the answer key to the LMC Team Round and I did a little bit of studying for Chem AP.
I went to orchestra rehearsal, which was, thankfully, at Castillero. Among the events there was one memorable conversation.
Me: (to Emma) Oh, [group] pictures are out. (Emma looks at me) Oh, right, I'm not in the picture.
Emma: Why not?
Me: I wasn't there when the picture was taken.
Emma: Oh.
Me: Actually, not only was I not there for the picture, I wasn't there for the concert.
Emma: Oh, that's too bad. It was a good concert. Yair was conducting.
(Both of us laugh.)
That's all for today. After coming home, I ended up doing my normal online stuff before going to bed.
Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 5 = 6
Ah, Good Night!
Heh, some of the stuff I said in my April Fool's entry is actually coming true. What irony!
Sunday, April 13, 2003--*yawn* Anyways, after waking up today and doing my normal morning stuff, I finish my homework. Since I'm eons ahead of my homework schedule, I figure that it would be wise to start studying for the AP tests, so I did.
Anyways, shortly afterwards, I had lunch at McDonald's (beef=good!) and then I went to the ARML Practice. Once in the parking lot, I saw Stephanie Y walking over to the building, so I caught up with her and walked her there. It's her first time there, so I tried to encourage her--she's one of my best students, with Joanna being the other. (Joanna didn't go today.)
Anyways, while I was at the ARML practice, I made this wonderful proof. It was so elegant and correct. Stephanie was impressed by it, but then again, she is a 9th grader. I don't mean any offense. After all, ever since Stanford, I vowed to start treating Stephanie as one of the elite, which I have. She's a good girl.
There was this other question about icosahedrons which I answered in like 5 seconds after reading teh question. Even Ted Alper was impressed by my speed, and he's one of the coaches. It's not really that big, though. I'm very good at picturing icosahedrons, and this problem simply requires you to be able to see an icosahedron.
Alper: Well, the complement of an icosahedron is a dodecahedron, so if you pick paths along faces...
Me: I'm not good at visualizing dodecahedrons.
Alper: But you can visualize an icosahedron.
Me: Actually, yeah.
I don't know why, but for me, icosahedrons have alwasy been relatively easy to visualize. I think it's the pentagons that make the dodecahedron hard. Sorry if all these polyhedra have confused you. This is 3D geometry I'm talking about, in case you are interested (which I doubt).
After driving home, I played a game that I haven't played in a long, long time--Kingdom Hearts.
*KH*I fought the Opposite Armor, it took me 2 tries, but only because on the first try, I had no potions equipped and when I tried to use Cure magic, I was too slow and got hit and died. Other than that, once I had a proper Potion flow, the Opposite Armor was easy. Using Dodge Roll to dodge his big cannon is fun. "Wait... NOW! Whoops, he missed me, but he hit Goofy instead." Hehehe!*KH*
Ah, well, that's all the Kingdom Hearts fun I had time for today. After that, I went back to studying for the AP Tests while testing Franklin on his Japanese.
Then, I went online--checked my e-mail, visited forums, updated my website, that kind of stuff. I had some really interesting conversations with Justin, while I was there.
Dice Roll of the Day: 5 + 5 = 10
In any case, I ought to go to sleep now. Good Night!
Saturday, April 12, 2003--I didn't go to Cal Day because my mom said that Jenn's mom said that it was useless. Besides, I've already decided on Berkeley, so I don't need to visit their campus (and participate in some useless junk events) to convince me, you know?
I went to Chinese School today, where we did some stuff.
After Chinese School, at home, I worked on my Warcraft III scenario. It's coming out all right, but slowly!
I played some MTG duels against Franklin, and he's got some fatal decks. Damn, man!
Then, I went to the Chinese School Teacher Appreciation Night. It was pretty cool. The music was interesting and the food was good. I also played several MTG duels there against Justin. I utterly creamed Justin the first 3 duels. On one of them, I was afraid I would lose, but I managed to pull off a win some how. For the 4th duel, Justin won, using Nightmare to kill me. He says its the first time he's won with Nightmare. After that, we switched decks and dueled with each other's deck. It was quite amusing. I played the Ornithopter and the Scathe Zombies, which Justin quickly Pacified. Incidently, every time Justin Pacified something, I played something bigger. I played Crovax, which Justin Pacified. Then, I played a Sengir, which Justin Pacified! He got out all 4 of his Pacifisms so damn quickly. Lucky for me, I was able to play Nightmare next, and Justin was out of Pacifisms. I was able to summon out another Sengir vampire, which I used to utter crush Justin. We started a 6th duel, but we didn't have time to get very far into it.
So here I am at home updating my online journal.
Dice Roll of the Day: 3 + 2 = 5 AGAIN
Argh! Stupid me! I messed it up again! Now I'm going to have to go fix it, if it's not too late. Wish me luck!
And I wish you a Good Night!
Friday, April 11, 2003--"Everyday, I look forward to when I can see you, and everyday, after I see you, I look forward to when I can see you again..."
Anyways, some stuff happened yesterday that I forgot to write about. Franklin made a new red/green deck, which I creamed several times with my Slivers. Also, I managed to get up to 53 Life at one point. Test of Endurance, yo! Too bad I don't have that card.
Anyways, today during first period, Justin and I go to the tables outside the library to duel. After Ryan blows me up with his goblins, we're joined by some other people, and we play a 2v2, me and this other guy (the Sliver Coalition) versus Justin and Ryan. Ryan beat us with his burns. He's got so many god-damn burns! Then, we played a 5 way FFA with only 10 Life because we only had 10 minutes left to play. I had bad mana flow, and thus, died first, thanks to Ryan's burns!
Second period...
In third period, our presentation on Washington Post went very well, I think. However, for some reason, I am unable to buy WPO at Weath-Lab.com.
Fourth period...
At lunch was the Leland Math Club Pizza Party. I ate 4 small slices of Round Table Pizza while partially having an intellectual conversation with Joanna and Stephanie. Anyways, what I don't like about Round Table Pizza is that their pizza is so damn hard to chew through ("chew through", not "chu through") and that they don't put enough sauce on the pizzas. Joanna likes Round Table, though, but I like Domino's.
Fifth period...
I think I might have scared her. That was an uneasy smile...
Sixth period...
After school, I played FF5.
*5*Woohoo! I beat Shinryu and Omega. Shinryu took me 2 tries. On the first try, although I absorbed his Tidal Wave attack with my Coral Rings, a turn later, he used Blizzard, which wiped me out. Thus, I equipped 2 of my characters with Ice Shields and tried again. This time, though, I didn't need them. After Shinryu's initial Tidal Wave (which I absorbed), his subsequent attacks, a good 3-4 attacks, all failed. I don't know what happened, but I pressed my advantaged and !Sshotted Shinryu to death and was rewarded with Ragnarok for my efforts.
Omega, on the other hand, was damn hard. First of all, if you use !Sshot on him, he counters with 4 powerful spells. Any physical attack not using !Sshot misses. His Reflec makes black magic worthless, and summons do virtually nothing to him. Thus, I realized that whatever my strategy was, I needed to use Sshot, but I already tried that and got beaten down several times. I considered using Sshot in conjunction with Sword Magic because Omega, with his weakness to Lightning, would die quickly when hit with !Sshot Bolt3 Sword. However, if I give my characters !Sshot and sword magic, I won't have any room for White Magic, which I seriously need. However, after browsing through GameFAQS, I came across something that said to just use one character with sword magic and !Sshot. That way, your other three characters can be used as support--white magic and the like. Why didn't I think of that? Quickly, I used that in my strategy to fight Omega. No, I didn't rip his strategy. I just borrowed that one small part. I had no Blue Magic and I soon found out that I didn't have time for Time Magic, so I skipped the turn of the Bare who had time magic and summons. This brought me to my White Mages faster, and these few seconds actually did make a difference for my survival. The thing is, I need 3 turns to beat Omega--one to cast Bolt3 on my sword, another to attack, a third to attack again and kill. However, Omega does so much damage that I don't know if I'll survive those three turns. Also, after I did the combo the first time, Omega did his four-pronged counter, and I had to struggle to get back on my feet and fight back. In the end, I had to use Phoenix to revive a character. In FF5, unlike other FF's, Phoenix only revives one character, not all. In FF5, Phoenix costs almost twice as much as Arise (Life2) and even heals Omega when used against him. However, if I hadn't used Phoenix, my White Mage would have been forced to cast Arise, thereby taking away a turn he needed badly to heal. Also, those delayed seconds in waiting for my White Mage to be ready to revive my fallen characters could easily have cost me the battle, since Omega is so damn fast and powerful. Still, I managed to beat Omega, but it took me so many tries.
Blue Magic is overrated. Everyone's saying how you "need" Big Guard or whatever it's called, but I never got it and I still beat Omega and Shinryu just fine at Level 47. Sure, it is useful, but it won't hurt you that much to go without it.
Time Magic is also overrated. The only useful time spells I found were Telepo(rt) and Float. Most enemies are immune to Slow, and those who are are usually weak enough so I don't need it. Also, why use Haste when I can use Winged Shoes?
Just for the sake of completeness X-Death again. Once again, when I brought Neo X-Death to his last body part, it got scary, with it casting Meteo all the time. At one point, I had my White Mages reviving each other as one would die every turn, even though all my characters were wearing Winged Shoes. I didn't think I would make it, but by some miracle, I got up and kicked Neo X-Death's butt.
Oh, and the ending really does change depending on who's alive at the end of the battle with Neo X-Death. I think I still like the "best" ending best, with all 4 characters alive and Krile writing the letter.
Oh, and my time at the final save point after beating Shinryu and Omega and everything was 38:38.*5*
Ah, I've completed FF5. I'm done with it for now. I might come back to it in the future, but first, I want to finish KH.
And now, it's time for...
Dice Roll of the Day: 3 + 2 = 5
I said I would right the Dice Horoscope for 2, didn't I?
If you rolled a 2... You seem to be having bad luck today. Times like these make you feel pessimistic, but you have to keep things in perspective. Be optimistic--rolling a 2 is one of the rarest events in the world, and at least it's still positive. Focus on the positive things in life, and things will get better. I will be surprised if you roll a 2 again tomorrow.
Anyways... Good Night! Good Night to all my sorrow!
Thursday, April 10, 2003--Tragic... today, she told me that she couldn't go to the Senior Ball because her parents wouldn't let her. Looks like I'll be improving my MTG deck after all. Looking at it optimistically, though, it still turned out all right. After all, it's not rejection--far from it. She said "Sure" when I asked her. I don't know why, but it's changed everything--who I am, what I do. I don't know why she said "Yes". What's going on between us? Are we just friends, or have you gone beyond that, only hesitation holding us back? Or did she say "Yes" out of pride. I don't know why, but I'm going to find out, but I'm not going to push anything. My answers will come as they will, and I hope I get the answer I'm searching for, the answer I've been searching for ever since I first picked up the dice and began playing the game of Love.
Anyway, on a brighter note, last night, my dad was watching Jerry Springer for reasons unknown. About 20 minutes into the show, he says, "This show is so violent." I reply, "Why are you watching it?" and he changes the channel.
Yesterday at 4th period...
Roske: If anyone gets a 5 on the AP test, it'll have nothing to do with me.
Dwayne: I'll be sure to quote you on that.
Roske: You go right ahead, because it's true!
True story!
Anyways, I showed up late to Math 78, but I still aced the quiz. However, for the third (last, and hardest) question, I had to use my own self-taught, unorthodox, but valid, technique in order solve it. Still, though, a correct answer is a correct answer.
2nd period...
3rd period...
Oh, apparently, we've captured Baghdad, and the Kurds are kicking butt in the North. The end (of Saddam's reign of terror) is ending, and soon will begin Bush's new reign of terr...ific management! (That was a Simpson's reference, by the way.)
When I walked into fourth period, there was a balloon over my seat.
Me: Where am I supposed to sit and how?
Roske: Right there and carefully!
So I sit around the balloon, being very careful not to touch it.
At lunch, the Japanese Directed Study was cancelled because Fukui-sensei had a meeting to go to.
So instead, I went to play MTG with Justin and Alan. Alan used my deck, I used Justin's deck, and Justin used Alan's deck. Justin was the first to die because "Alan's deck sucks". We ran out of time, so I don't really know who would have won, but in my hand, I had 2 Breeding Pits, a Crovax, and Lord of the Pit, and an Ihsan's Shade--powerful creatures.
5th period...
6th period... we discussed Heart of Darkness, and I kicked butt! Wait a minute...
After school, I went straight home and did some homework for a while, then went online to update my website and related news like that. Anyways, it looks like the story is almost ended for today. Oh!
Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 5 = 6
This is a new event for my website. Roll your dice and post the results on your website and compare. Someone (anyone, I don't care who) should write a horoscope-like thing for these dice roll. Either that, or we can all contribute. I'll write one for 2, but not today.
Ah, don't worry about me. It turned out better than I had hoped. I'll be fine. I'll be fine. No regrets...
Thus I say to you, Good Night!
Wednesday, April 9, 2003--My posts are getting repetitve, aren't they? Whatever...
First period, getting bored with playing against the same Justin who uses the same Undead deck using the same Sliver deck. I need some variety...
Unfortunately, if I go to Senior Ball, I won't have money to upgrade my deck.
Andrew (I think): So you're not going to Senior Ball?
Me: No, I'm not buy new cards for my deck.
Second period...
Third period...
Fourth period...
At lunch, there was a Math Team meeting. More practice BAMM problems. Hmm... I think some of the people at the Math Team have some very non math related reasons for being there. I won't name any names, but if they don't want to do math anymore, I'd gladly let them quit the team, just as long as we keep all the skilled people, such as the MAH Coalition. Speaking of the MAH Coalition, I gave Steph the ARML 1994 Team Round for practice. (I gave the Individual Round questions to Joanna yesterday.)
Fifth period...
Sixth period...
Hmm... very little happened at school today. Or is it because I'm so distracted by all this Senior Ball business...?
Anways, after school, I took a nap before going to my Viola Lessons. Then, it was homework, watching TV, and updating my website.
Ech, not much happens anymore. These things come in a sinusoidal wave, you know? (reference to old post, I don't remember which one...)
So anyways, Good Night...
Tuesday, April 8, 2003--First period... Langlois goes over homework...
Second period... I delivered the orchestration the orchestra guy. Thankfully, the 1st Violins can handle the 4 measures or so that get up into 5th position. Hopefully, the Violists can handle those 4 bars of 3rd position I gave them...
Third period... The Econ test was today. I think I did okay...
Fourth period...
During lunch, I took the CAML and got a 5. I missed a problem because I failed to notice that 2003/4006 = a number plus a half...
Fifth period...
Sixth period...
After school, I went to the Math Team meeting. For some reason, Justin decided to take off his shirt and hang in the room shirtless. (I think that reason was overheating...) Anyways...
Me: Justin, put on your shirt.
Justin: Hey, at least I'm not a girl. Wait... (checks his chest) Yep, I'm not a girl.
Me: If you were a girl, do you think I'd be asking you to put your shirt on?
I gave the ARML practice problems to Joanna, then we did some practice BAMM questions.
When I got home... well, all hell broke loose. The internet was really screwing up, so I had to fuddle it a few times. Then, I'm trying to work on the Heart of Darkness assignments. In the meantime, our stock group picked The Washington Post Company as our stock. It's hella better than NYTimes.
Happy times are today...
So anyways, here I am, on the internet, updating my website, waiting for... nothing.
Good Night!
Monday, April 7, 2003--I've learned never to let life make you too pessimistic. No matter how bad something seems, there's always a good to it. No matter how much pain you experience, there's always pleasure. No matter how many tragedies occur, there's always a happy ending waiting for you at the end. I am satisfied. Today, I rolled the dice and won...
So anyways, first period... Justin waits in Miss Yamamoto's room for Ryan to show up with his borrowed exploding deck. In the meantime, I graffiti the whiteboard with "I, Garland, will knock you all down." Ryan never showed up.
Second period...
Third period...
Fourth period... Haha! This is one time I hoped that the dice roll would not be in my favor. Then again, why did I even roll at all? 'Tis a strange question. Caught off guard, I heard...
At lunch, Alan, Justin, Ryan, and I dueled a 4-way FFA. I had horrible mana flow, and Alan and Justin decided to focus fire on me, so I died pretty quickly. Ryan died second, thanks to Alan's flying fairies. However, just before he died, Ryan played, as an Instant, 3 Lightning Bolts, using them to kill of Justin. It was insane. We call it the Thundaga Offensive, named after the 3rd-level Lightning spell in Final Fantasy.
In 5th period, I finished the orchestration of Superman, but I couldn't find the orchestra teacher guy anywhere. Oh, well. I'll give it to him tomorrow.
6th period...
After school, we took an AP Music Theory practice test. I didn't realize how difficult those things are. I mean, they make you listen to excerpts from symphonies and expect you to get all that info and answer 10 questions from only few plays of the excerpt. Plus, the questions are tricky as they are, because its hard to hear stuff like that.
After Music Theory AP class, I hung out after school at the Magic tables, waiting for my brother to play his one game (which ended up taking an hour). I also discussed strategies and stuff with the other guys there. Nick says that my Maro deck is "too small. It'll work on maybe some of those guys, but it won't work on me." No shit! He'd just block my 4 20/20 Maro and my 25/25 Multani with 50,000 Sliver Tokens.
At home, I quickly cleaned out my binder and then finished Heart of Darkness. The book wasn't that bad. At least it was short, so I didn't have to suffer too long. That and it was better than Billy Budd, which was god awful!
After that, I went to SJYS rehearsal, where we had sectionals, which means guided practice for me, and then we rehearsed Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I mastered Rhapsody 2 years ago, but then I forgot how to play it. Oh, well. I'll just have to re-learn it.
Also, Franklin persuaded me to rejoin Star Kingdoms. It's a fun game, except that unless you follow strict strategy, you're going to suck, and that if you wanna be good, you have to spend practically all your time on it. A casual player won't get very high on the high score list, but at least he can survive. I'm a casual player. I play to survive, but it's going to be way too easy to survive, like it was all the times before.
Anyway, here I am now, updating my website. I have to go now. I have things to do, and miles to go before I sleep. (Actually, my bed is only 2 feet away from here.)
Good Night!
When I look back on the events of today, I can't help but smile...
Sunday, April 6, 2003--I woke up and spent lots of time reading Heart of Darkness for English class. Lucky for me its only 78 pages. Unlucky for me, Miss Koyanagi wants us to have it read by Tuesday. Uh-oh!
So anyways, I went to the ARML practice at Stanford and gave a ride to Ke to get there. When we arrived, Hanju was already there, and we formed the Leland Coalition for the Relay Round. I really hope Joanna, Stephanie, and the rest of the gang can make it next time. In any case, I got a 6 out of 8 on the practice individual round.
After the ARML practice was more Heart of Darkness. I did manage to find time to update my website, but... ech...
Good Night!
If anything else that's major happens tonight, I'll be sure to post an addendum.
And CG Krile is now on my desktop.
Saturday, April 5, 2003 - Addendum--This entire addendum is about my beating FF5, by the way, so if you're not interested, don't bother reading the rest of this addendum.
*5*Finally, I've mastered all the Jobs I need: Monk for HP bonus, Black Mage for MP bonus, Chemist for its Medicine Ability, Summoners for Golem and Carbuncle, Time Mages for Haste and Slow, Ninjas for 2-swords, and Hunters for !Sshot.
I made all 4 of my characters Bares and gave them all !Sshot, and I have half of them Time magic and the other half Summons. On 2 of them, I equipped Winged Shoes (auto-haste relics) and on the other 2, I equipped Wall Rings (auto-refelct relics). Then, I fought X-Death--my second attempt. I soon found out that Slow doesn't work on either of his forms, so I relied mainly on Carbuncle and Golem for defense. For offense, I had my characters using !Sshot the whole time, beating X-Death down with my 8 best weapons, which happen to be Excalibur, Holy Lance, Masamune, the Brave Blade (yes, the Brave Blade was still my 4th best weapon, interestingly enough), 2 Enchanters, Defender, and Sasuke, in that order. I had to rely on the Chemist Medicine ability for Healing because my Carbuncle with his reflect made using White Magic to heal nearly impossible. This is what cost me the fight, because I couldn't heal fast enough. However, I did manage to take out 3 of Neo X-Death's parts, but his 4th part started casting Meteo on my a whole bunch, and I was wiped out.
Apparently, Neo X-Death has 2 or 3 decoy parts which if I use !Sshot, I might randomly attack them and waste a few attacks. Thus, I realized that after I killed off 2 of X-Death's parts, I would have to use Fight instead of !Sshot, because Fight always targets a real part. However, Fight does about half the total damamge !Sshot does.
For my third try, I replaced a Summon and a Time Magic with White Magic and replaced my Wall Rings with Protect Rings (auto-regen rings). This time, I used Haste 2 and Golem and threw out Slow and Carbuncle. Now, I could use White Magic, which made healing a lot easier. Heh, the only attack X-Death had that could really touch me was Ultra Gust, which takes away about 1600 HP from all characters, and each of my characters had about 3000. Now that I could heal faster, it wasn't a problem anymore. Still, things got scary when I reduced him to one part again and he started using Meteo a whole bunch. Still, I managed to pull it off, and Neo X-Death was dead.
You know, Phoenix works differently in FF5. In FF7 and FF9, it revives all fallen characters. However, in FF5, it only revives one character, and you have to target it. For my second try, I didn't know this and I accidentally targeted Phoenix on a living character. I think that made a big difference. In fact, that happened a few moments before Neo X-Death pummeled Krile and killed her, ending the game.
Anyway, I watched the ending, which was really nice. It seems to me that the FF6 ending was based off the FF5 ending--they're both good. The FF5 ending also has a beautiful mix of the Final Fantasy Theme. The FMW ending was kind of cool, showing 3D versions of some previous scenes in the game. What was really cool was when they showed summoning Bahamut to attack Omega.
Anyway, when I killed Neo X-Death, all my characters were alive. I heard it makes a difference in the ending, so I know I got the "real" ending.
Heh, when I beat the game, they showed me my character stats. All my characters were at Level 46, making this my lowest level FF.
All my characters had learned around 60 abilities.
At the final save point, the time was 35:56, making this my second fastest FF, not counting all that time I spent retracing my steps when I died. (My fastest FF was FF4-easytype, which only took me 20 hours, but I was at Level 55 when I beat it.)*5*
Heh, I'm almost done with FF5. I still have to beat Shinryu and Omega. They are to FF5 as Ruby and Emerald are to FF7. They're gonna be damn hard. I'm gonna have to work on strategies to beat them. I heard they don't have as much life as all of X-Death combined, but they do hella more damage.
Anyway, that's all on my FF5 progress report. Now, I bid you Good Night for reals!
Saturday, April 5, 2003--This morning, I did some work on Dark Fiends Chapter 21. If I have enough free time, it'll be finished very shortly. However, that's a big "if".
At Chinese School, a lot of people didn't show up, so we spent time turning in our photos for the Chinese School Graduation Book. (Our teacher showed us last year's graduation book, which includes Cindy...) Then, we spent time listening to and analyzing some Chinese rap. Apparently, that guy's not an evil rapper. He's promoting Confucianism.
After coming home from lunch at KFC, I played lots and lots of FF5.
*5*I did some more training, working on my jobs. I need more power to beat X-Death.
By the way, I found an item that makes the Monk better than the Ninja: The KaiserKnuckle. If you equip a KaiserKnuckle on most classes, it barely has any effect on attack power. However, if you equip it on a Monk, it boosts its attack power by 50%. Now, my Monks do more damage than my Ninjas, plus Monks have more HP. This makes Monk the single best unmodified character class.
Also, there's an enemy in the final area called the Mover. They attack in packs of 3, and everytime they attack, they switch positions, so its hard to focus fire on them. They used to always run away on me before I could kill one. Now, I can kill one before time runs out, but for some reason, they regenerate. Interesting...
Here's a picture of Gilgamesh's True Form:
He's got 8 arms! Two of these arms hold a sword. One hand holds some throwing daggers. A fourth hand holds an axe. A fifth hand holds a halberd. A sixth hand holds a mace. The last two hands are empty, and he apparently uses them barefisted monk-style!*5*
Well, that's pretty much it. After eating dumplings for dinner, I came up here and updated my website. I'm gonna play FF5 some more now.
Good Night!
Friday, April 4, 2003--Made photocopies of our stock report at the Library with Jen... dueled Justin in MTG... 2nd period...
Third period Econ, we had our stock presentation. As I've already said, we did Wal-Mart, and I made the following quotes:
"You know Wal-Mart has to be a good stock if two other groups besides us wanted to get it. Well, lucky for us, we snagged it early on."
"Wal-Mart is 771% bigger than Target and 1586% bigger than Costco. Wal-Mart makes 330% more money that Target and 1042% more money that Costco. Wow! Big numbers!"
4th period...
At lunch, we did some more BAMM practice with me alone versus the MAH team. I even let them answer first, then snagged the answer when they missed it. Now they know how I felt when my team went up against Gabriel Carroll 2 years ago. It was an absolute slaughter. He didn't even have to try!
5th period...
In 6th period, I wrote a poem with the magnet words, stringing together words that sounded good together...
"the gorgeous moon
she says its true
to knife behind
my languid time"
Me: Now, I have to figure out what this means.
Andrew: Weren't you supposed to do that before you wrote the poem?
Finally, I'm home free! Happy Friday, everyone!
So at home, I continue work on the Warcraft III scenario that I'm planning. It's not a frivolous scenario this time...
So after eating dinner at McDonald's and then doing crap, I bring myself back here, to my website, where everything begins, then ends. Good Night! Good Night to all! Good Night especially to that person to whom I always especially say Good Night!
Thursday, April 3, 2003--Ech... It feels like so much happened today, because I can't seem to recall the details. Maybe I'm just pre-occupied.
Well, nothing much happened until 4th period.
Christine: Hey Dwayne, do you like Sharon?
Me: (after a brief pause where I try to comprehend what she's saying) I... am not going to answer that question.
Christine: That means you do like her.
Argh! Stop it! Just the very suggestion of the idea has very strange effects in my head. I don't care whether you believe that I do or that I don't. My mind is a very delicate object. Give it one wrong push, and things start sliding and slipping everywhere, and I fall dangerously close to insanity.
...do any of my readers go to the SJYS?
Today's Japanese class was cancelled on account of the teacher being on the phone for 20 minutes and that Maria and Cindy had to leave. Unfortunately, they appointed me to tell Fukui-sensei, so I was stuck waiting there for 2/3 of lunch. I did eat my lunch, though.
In 6th period, we started Heart of Darkness. I heard that it's going to be pretty bad.
Heh, at home, after taking a nap, doing a little, homework, and eating dinner, I went online.
Alan and I had a pretty bizarre conversation. It started out pretty normal. We were talking about webcomics, then Leland girls, then video games. Then, we got to discussing who has more HTML skills, and we agreed that we both had more HTML skills compared to all those people use use programs to generate their websites. I'm not going to name any names... We also agreed that people who try to replace content with flashy visual effects... Well, they don't have good websites. My website's not very flashy, but its 100% content, and that's what matters to me. Then again, people have different opinions. Some people watch movies for the special effects. Others watch movies for the plot and acting and all. My website is more about plot and acting than it is about special effects, if you get the analogy.
After that, we had a politically charged debate about the war, which somehow transitioned into a discussion on why I think extracurriculars at Leland corrupt our students. I said that Leland Speech & Debate, treated like a religion at our school, is one of the worst examples of this corruption. I also conceded that the Math Team was susceptible to this corruption. Its because that, at all the serious extracurriculars, there will be tons of people who go so that they can put it on their college applications, and that they don't really care about the actually activity their in. I ended up blaming everything on the college application process. I'll get you more details later, but I'm planning on writing an article for the school paper about this. I want to stir up some controversy, because life without conflict is boring. If Diane Ko is going to hate me after this, so be it. Let her come.
That last part, the war and extracurriculars, they took up so much time that I was completely distracted from everything else. That is a bad thing because distractions are bad.
After that, the night degenerated into sleep. I will be going now. Good Night!
Wednesday, April 2, 2003--Today, Justin dueled me in the morning at Miss Yamamoto's room. Heh, I need to improve my deck. I've already planned out each and every card in my new Sliver Deck. I'm including only the bare essentials, then I'm doubling up on the more important cards to make them more likely. Anyway, it seems that Justin's dueling prowess is increasing.
Speaking of dueling, there was something I forgot to include in the real entry for yesterday. During lunch, Alan, Justin, and I were having a 3-way free-for-all. At one point, Justin plays the Breeding Pit so he can make sacrifices to Lord of the Pit. His exact words: "I play Breeding Pit to feed the Lord." Hmm... Feeding God, eh? Later, he attacks me with his Lord of the Pit. "Okay, Dwayne, I end you!" "No, I mana-burn myself." "All right, then Alan, I end you!" And with that, Justin won. It turns out that if I had let Justin kill me normally, thus forcing him to wait until next turn to kill Alan, he still would have killed Alan, so it didn't make much of a difference. Heh, its kind of funny how we use Mana Burn as ritual suicide.
In a duel today, 1st period, Yamamoto's room, Justin played Lord of the Pit and I played my Sliver Queen. It was the first confrontation between 2 giants, our 2 7/7 creatures. However, since the Lord of the Pit has flying, he has the advantage, and thats how Justin won.
In 2nd period of today, Mr. Rodriguez (or so I was told) asked me to orchestrate "Superman" for our school's string orchestra. He warned me, however, that the violists and cellists suck. Also, I sure as hell hope his violinists are comfortable on E-string 3rd position, because I'm planning on have a lot of it.
Today at third period, Jen, Beth, Justin, and I gathered to discuss our stocks. As we were talking, Yily interjects...
Yily: Wait, what stock are you doing?
Jen: Wal-Mart.
Yily: But... my group's doing Wal-Mart.
Jen: Yeah, well, our group has already finished the write-up, right Dwayne?
Me: Yeah, everything's already written up.
Jen: Yeah, so we're keeping it.
Yily: (submissively) Oh, okay.
Sorry, Yily! Do forgive me!
At lunch, I went to the Math Meeting. The MAH team went up against the Mixed team for the BAMM practice of that day. The MAH team got creamed by Jonathon Lo (aka, JLo) who, supposedly, has a language barrier to his math. The irony!
I also told Connie about the events the day before, about Ke and I going one on one and about "We lost Joanna!" "What does it matter?"
Nothing else seems to have happened today. All I remember at home was getting creamed by Franklin in Magic the Gathering, going to Viola lessons, eating pizza, and updating my website.
Heh! Talking to Justin on AIM, he fell for the fake entry yesterday. "Bah! 'Tis only Connie, a freshman!" "Hahaha! Keep reading. It gets better. And then, you get to the best part." "LOL! Dude, I totally believed you."
Oh, and it turns out that 8-bit Theater ending which I found out 2 days ago was indeed an April Fools' prank. So many people fell for it, including myself, but only because he specifically said he wasn't, which turned out to be the cornerstone of the whole prank. That and the fake "new comic series" were vital to the conning power of the prank.
Heh! Incidentally, a deceptive game is called a con, and the inspiration for the prank I pulled yesterday was a girl named Connie. Interesting.
Well, that's all the pertinent data for today, I do believe. (Where's the impertinent data, those rude things?)
So, I say to you tonight, "Good Night!"
Tuesday, April 1, 2003--Today was quite an interesting day.
During 2nd period, I had Stacie listen to my song. She had some positive comments about it. I think she liked it a lot--I mean, it is a good song and all. I hope she recommends it to Cindy.
Later, between 5th and 6th periods, I caught up with Connie Chu.
Yeah, it's about time that I reveal this secret... I think I'm in love with her--Connie, that is. I don't know why. She's just... irresistable. I can't stop thinking about her anymore. She's always on my mind, ya know? I haven't felt this way since Jasmine last year, Cindy, Iwen, and Sarah 2 years ago, and Nadia 3 years ago. Incidentally, they were all 9th-graders during their respective eras.
So anyways, I caught up with Connie and asked her to the Senior Ball. She said yes. It turns out she really liked me, too. It probably has to do with how I say "Hi" to her everyday, and how I talk to her a lot (and unlike Cindy, she talks to me a lot, too), and how I told her she was cute during the end of semester Math Team party, and how she and I have basically grown so close over these past 7 months.
Yeah, but despite my joy, I know have to worry about parents and making sure I can actually get to Senior Ball. Anyways, I gave her a quick hug and told her I'd call her later and I dashed over to 6th period English.
Heh, after that with Connie, everything else seems faded in comparison. I think after school, at the Math Meeting, Franklin was pissed, and Joanna was a little upset, but it didn't really matter to me anymore. After practicing like I normally would, we went home.
At home, Franklin gave me an ultimatum, insisting that I break things off with Connie. When I rejected his ultimatum, he decided that we should settle it in an 2-out-of-3 MTG duel series, that if he won, I'd have to break it off with Connie, but if I won, he'd let me be. I laughed and said I would duel him for fun, but I made no promises. Still, the way we played the duels, it was almost as if I had accepted his challenge.
During the first duel, Franklin had bad mana-flow. He mulliganed, but that didn't help him much. By the time he had enough mana, I had a few decent Slivers in play, including the Essence Sliver and the Brood Sliver. I quickly beat him down, gaining more and more Life and sliver tokens in the process.
During our second duel, Franklin got off to a good start, countering a few of my first Slivers, leaving me wide open for attack the first few turns, which he took advantage of. By the time I had some decent Slivers on the field, he had a good sized airforce out, as well as his Swampwalking Moor Fiends. He easily evaded my blockers and killed me that game.
During the third and final duel--the score was 1 to 1--I had a good begining, summoning several Plated and Muscle Slivers in the beginning. I managed to Pacify a few of his flying Creatures while I was at it. Then, I got out my Essence Sliver, and while pounding Franklin down, I managed to keep my Life out. However, Franklin then pulled out his Mind Games and started using it to tap my monsters to prevent them from attacking, thereby throwing the game into stalemate. Shortly afterwards, when the score was 24 to 6 in my favor, Franklin managed to play Time Stretch. At that point, he had his Phantom Beast and Wind Drake, 3/3 and 2/2 respectively, both flying, and he hit me for 5, bring me down to 19. Then, he summoned a Sengir Vampire, the black 4/4 flying creature. On the next turn, using his air force, he did 9 damage to me, bringing me down to 10. He then attacked me again on the next turn, bringing me down to 1. On my turn, he decided to mock my by using the line I had used on him during our first duel today, "Unless you have some fantastic play, you lose next turn," he said. On the field, I had nothing left but my Essence Sliver and my Muscle Sliver, as a result from his pounding away with land forces before the Time Stretch. In my hand was just Updraft. Then, I drew the Sliver Queen. Smiling, I told Franklin, "Actually, I do have a fantastic play." With that, I quickly summoned the Sliver Queen. Then, on Franklin's turn, he attacked me with his 3-man airforce again. Quickly, I played Updraft to make my Sliver Queen fly. I blocked the Sengir Vampire, destroying it. Also, thanks to my Essence Sliver, I was able to drain 7 Life to balance out the remaining 5 damage, so I had a net gain of 2 Life, bringing me up to 3 Life. After that, on my turn, because Updraft allows me to draw 2 cards next turn, I drew, and I drew Mage's Guile and Shifting Sliver. Quickly, I played the Shifting Sliver. Then, I attacked with the Queen. Franklin tries to use Mind Games on my Queen, but I use the Mage's Guile, preventing him from doing so. There's nothing for him to do now, because the Shifting Sliver makes the Queen unblockable. The attack goes through. Because Franklin had only 6 Life and because the Queen deals 8 damage (including the power bonus from the Muscle Sliver), it was more than enough to wipe away Franklin's Life. Draining away 8 Life, that brought me up to 11, so I won 11 to -2.
Yeah, so after that, I had won 2 out of 3 games. Although technically, we didn't agree to anything, Franklin decided get off my case and let me have Connie, he said that I proved myself by beating his challenge even though we technically didn't agree on it.
Well, all's well that ends well.
Good Night!
. . . . . . . . .
April Fools'!
Heh, it is April Fools' Day, you know? And all those events in the fake entry above are all... fake. How did I have you believing me there, anyway?
Anyway, now for the real events of my day.
First thing's first, the first interesting that happened today was not in 2nd period, not between 5th and 6th period, but after school, at the Math Team meeting. We were practicing for the BAMM and so polarized ourselves into two teams--the Mainlanders and the Islanders. Eventually, it degenerated into Ke VS Me. He creamed me the first round, but I creamed him the second round, but overall, he won by 2 points. It's kind of funny. During the 2nd round, Justin said that we were kicking ass. However, it turned out the score was tied 2 to 2. "We're kicking butt, 2 to 2!"
ANyways, shortly before the end of the second round, Joanna had to leave. Mr. Yim then said that we had two questions to go, and that these two questions would determine the winner. I said, "We lost Joanna." Franklin says, "What does it matter?" It's not that Joanna sucks--she's actually pretty good--it's more that Ke and I are so experienced that we're the only ones that really matter. Actually, Kristi was a very helpful ally, but she's gone...
After that, the day was rather dull. Not much happened. Our stock group did agree on a stock, though. Jen, Beth, and I agreed on Wal-Mart and did our heavy research.
Anyway, that's the end of today's story...
But the final joke's on you, reader. This post was never posted on April 1st. Geocities was down that night. By the time this post was posted, it will already be 12 o'clock midnight beginning April 3rd.
But one thing that is legit is "Good Night!"