Reason for delay - Failure by Transport of London

As for many (if any of you) are wondering why I took forever to post another essay like reply in this blog is simply due to the inefficiency of the London Transport network. Yes guys this is another rant about how the money grubbing rich folks are sucking the life outta us. Let me bore you with a tale of dissapointment, anger, hate and suffering (credits go to the writers of Star Wars Ep 1)

Woke up at 6.15 for my 10.00 class. Why so early? simple really, I do not have a Student travel pass because even though i've sent the request form a week ago they still tell me they have yet to receive it. Thus this means I have to pay full price for a travel card which is 31.80 GBP per week. That is way too much. Why didn't I do it earlier? Simple really. I could have appplied online but their website does not allow (solo) cards and only accepts Mastercard, Visa etc. How about the paper route? Also another simple explaination. When I went to Uni 1 month before my card expired I was told that they have ran out of the Student card request forms. "When can I get a form then?" I asked without even the inkling of annoyance. "We only get the forms when your term starts" they said. Woo hoo .. meaning I'll have to use the bus (Which is a 4 hour jouney from my place to Uni ... Absolutely the best way to travel now ain't it?"

On wards to this present day. I woke up at 615 and rushed to leave at 630. Got to the ticket station near my place and was told "Sorry but the Transport network is down, you can't buy your bus pass here" I was slighly annoyed at that but never mind because I personally know the shopkeeper and its not his fault (Its Transport of London). So off I went paying 0.80 gbp one way to the local train station. Qued up and after 5 minutes was told "No we don't sell bus passes". By this time it was 703, almost impossible for me to make it on to the 10am class. So i said "give me a one day travel card". Cost was 8.40 . Now this is the price for the "peek travel hours" Can someone please explain me to me how the hell can 7am be peek when there was hardly anyone on the train to Waterloo ? Even school kids don't wake up this early. Fact is I've seen kids running around pass 9.30am (which co-incidentally is when its 'Off-Peek'). So This means that if I travel at 5am (which is when 'some' of the rail network starts, I pay more than when everyone else is going on at the same time which what 'normal' people will call peek?)

Anyway besides that, I left on my train to Waterloo. As I pass the ticket tills guards were pushing people around saying that "Richmond has a suspended District line and Silverlink services) So leaving the only the train (thankfully). Now here comes something nasty. I overheard the guard advising some of the passengers as to how to get to some of the Silverlink stations. "The only way you can go there is via the Waterloo train and changing at Clapham Junction". Now I know this isn't true because instead of paying some crazy fee to make it to Clapham Junction and back, you just have to pay 0.8gbp at the buses and make it there in half the time since its not even in Zone 1. This is an absolute rip off and I would have stood up for the passenger if he wasn't already yelling at the guard (I fully support you).

Getting off at Waterloo it appears that more underground services are delayed thanks to various signal failures and engineering works. I still somehow manage to make it to my destination via the ever trusty bus services. I even made it early enough to write this blog from the Uni computer labs.

So at the end of the day all I want to say is that if you are coming to London. Please do not expect public transport to run like Japan and Geneva. If you wanna make it on time to some place, I suggest you go there the day before, camp outside with a pokey sticky and maybe, just maybe if they haven't change the meeting point, you'll make it on time. Good bye and good day.

-Transmission from Denggi-

The British Motorshow was nothing short of awesome! Looking at the latest cars from around the world is nothing short of Pornography. Sitting in the latest Jaguars and grabbing the steering of a Ford Focus ST .... I was a kid in a candy shop. The only annoying thing was that most of the supercars including my dream car (Shelby Daytona -Drool-) were stuck behind velvet ropes and guarded by a group of old security guards. What's the use of a motorshow if you cannot touch or sit in these marvels of engineering and masters of environmental devastation? I suppose the women at the show give some sort of comfort. Wearing the most skimpy of clothing, it was a day filled with testostorone producing influences abound. (Yes its sexist. But in a patriacal society; and me being a man, i don't really care).

As for the pictures I promised you guys? I did have a bucket full of them, but I sent some of them to a website in Malaysia. He has yet to upload them onto his site thus leaving me the task of slowly uploading them onto photobucket. I will eventually do it when I'm back at college, but till then you will have to use your imagination :P

Will try to keep updates more frequent. Till then.

-Transmission Out-

Mechanical Love

Cars are evil. Yes you heard me, cars are evil! Most are pieces of metal combined together with nuts and bolts by low paid workers in poor counties which are then sold by car marques for 10 times the price is cost to make them. They cost money to maintain and what’s worse is that their value depreciates over the years. Even if you try to modify it in some way, the value will still drop as people will only consider these minor improvements as extras. But yet, I still love them.

Everyone remember their first car. For me it was a Perodua Kembara, a mini 4x4 that was much too tall and threatens to kill all occupants daring enough to corner at speeds pass 30kmph. Yet for me, it was a dream come true. Late night trips and the ability to go out anywhere I wanted to was simply indescribable, which is probably why I still and always will droll over new cars. Everything from simple city runners (Proton Savvy), to the ultimate in motoring monarchy (Bugatti Veyron).

So whilst I wait around London for my bus that was 4 minutes late, I couldn’t help but notice this HUGE monstrosity which is the Hummer H2, O2 Stretch Limo. To Greenpeace, this is a horrid fuel guzzling movable automaton that is bigger than 4 average London parking lots. To them it’s Dr Frankenstein all over again. But as for all the other motoring enthusiast like myself, we just tap our fingers together and evilly say “Excellent”.




So why the sudden interest in cars again you all ask? Well I’m just pumping myself up for the ‘British International Motor Show’. More gleaming bodies of metal confined in an enclosed area available for the perverted eyes of people like me “Muahahah”. So stay tuned for further updates.

Summer Is Officially Here

The days are longer and football fever has swept the nation. England has passed through the early stages of the World Cup and has managed to avoid facing Germany in the next match. Wayne Rooney is back on his feet and Jeremy Clarkson is currently chilling somewhere with his latest 207 complaining about the new taxes on various items.

All in all a lot of things have happened since I last blogged. I must admit seeing my page after almost a month, it has become as run down as a '20 year old Atap House'. And for this I apologise. I have been busy at work and serving the 'Great' British public. Providing them with the very important element of alcohol to fuel their ever growing liver diseases and of course fags to keep up their cool image.

So to spice things up a bit, I’ll use what the media does, talk about sex. Yes, it has been reported that the UK has the most porno channels in Europe. That’s right folks, they beat Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland, and believe it not France. How can the British with all their ‘Upper Class’ high society attitudes drop down to these levels of debauchery. That and the alarming rise of ‘Dogging’ cases (having sexual intercourse out in the open) has literary shown that Britain has gone to the dogs. No doubt with this summer heat there are only to be more cases.

The officials have noted this rise and have taken advantage of the ferocious sexual appetite by increasing the taxes on condoms. Hell, if even 50% of the people use condoms that’s about a few million pounds in earnings. Obviously this lead to a huge uproar by the public arguing that this would just result in more teenage pregnancy and why should they tax people for wanting to practice safe sex and help control the already huge number of unwanted pregnancies. As usual the government caved and the whole of Britain rejoiced.

Millions of people celebrated that night

So now with everyone happy, the famous condom machines that are littered all over Britain are once again filled with a multitude of cheaper condoms. That and of course painkillers. After all, when you fight so hard to get something like cheaper condoms to make your partner agree to opening up her legs and spread eagle, the last thing you want is her complaining about a headache right?

What do I pick? what do I pick?

In the middle of the Night

I know I've been busy writing a lot about Magic the Gathering (c) and I know most of you have absolutely no idea what I'm writing about. So besides writing another boring article about overpriced peices of cardboard (and there are many more to come), I've decided to show some night shots over the River Thames.





I know this post is hardly what you would call informative but I'm just itching to try out Vid blogging so this is a movie of a peice of modern art on display next to the river. Supposed to be created by a journalist to show violence in the media.

MTG Update - Extended Tournament - Deck Domain (Part 3)

With the second match over in a few minutes, I was actually feeling good (compared to what I felt like after the first round). So since it was over so quickly, I decided to pop about and look at how my friends were doing in their match ups. Right behind me was Tino and Alex. Tino playing a slightly tweeked from standard ‘Izzet’ deck and Alex playing a modified ‘Zoo’ deck. Tino had just won 2-0 and was just chilling till the next match.

Izzet’s strategy was beatdown/control burn deck. By using its insane spells that replicate and replicate to create more copies, they over whelm the opponents with 5 copies of each spells (due to replicate), more threats than any player can deal with. But there is a weakness. The mana required for replication is insanely high if you want to reap the benefits. So land destruction = death. Another fact is that with the amount of burn spells there is very little space of counter magic leaving me relatively safe when its casting my killer cards.

Zoo’s strategy is pure creature beatdown. With cheap casting cost cards like Watchwolf and Kird Ape’s, the ‘Zoo’ player can have 5 creatures by turn 3. In the current metagame environment, there is no deck that can deal with that many creatures which is why this deck managed a top8 in Honolulu. Pumping them with cards like Moldervine Cloaks and the deadly Umezawa’s Jitte, turn 7-8 kills are pretty normal. Unfortunately the weakness they have is similar to all beat down decks. If you can slow their advances, they will eventually run out of threats by the mid game and their creatures will be nothing more than mindless minions on the table.

Suddenly, tournament organizer calls out “Daniel vs Tino”. Needless to say we were both shocked. I knew his deck relatively well since I’ve had matches with it before and I knew his threats. Unfortunately for me, he knew mine as well. We sat down like civilized men, shook hands, and got out game face on.

Match 3

I knew I was quite evenly matched in this one. Due to his reliance on spells more than creatures, most if not all my defences are completely useless against him. But I could not sideboard anything out in the first match meaning that I’ll be at a serious disadvantage. Still I pushed forward and reminiscent of the Japanese cartoon ‘Yugioh’, ‘I trust in the heart of the card’ (utter bullshit).

Opening hand = 2 Forest, Swamp, Harrow, Collective Restrains, Cromatic Sphere, Tribal Flames

Turn 1 – 5 was just land dropping for me but because of his annoying fliers that kept hitting me for the 3 turns I was down to 15. It didn’t help that he had Pryomatics replicated 3 times directed at me. Turn 6 got me a Collective Restrains and slowled down my opponent a slight bit. Sadly it came too late, with all the damage I had taken I was down to 9 life and him still at 20. Short on cards I Allied Strategy to draw 5 cards and was tapped out. This was a mistake I won’t live to regret and was eventually hit for 3 from a replicate and another 7 from Wee Dragonauts.

Replicate is Evil against control decks

A flying common? Its amazing for the cost

Round 1 Domian 0 – 1 Izzet

My opponent was just laughing non stop and was obviously very pleased with himself but I had had more important things on my mind. I sided out my Collective Restraints for Oblivion Stones and an extra Void. This time I knew I had to counter Wee Dragonauts. I cannot counter replicate because according to Wizard’s rules (Replicate counts as a separate spell all together. Countering the first spell doesn’t counter the rest).

As usually Domain style, I was beaten down to 14 before I got Collective Restrains on turn 4. I had to hold out and slowly rid him of his threats, and on turn 8 cast a Legacy Weapon.

Ah my Precious

My opponent was obviously stunned because he had some slight mana screwed problems leaving him at a very vulnerable 3 lands. It was his turn and decided to pass. I should have know that something was wrong at this point. But I still preceded to use Legacy’s ability to remove one of his lands. Ability on stack, targeting his only island and suddenly RUDELY interrupted by a Reroute targeting my LEGACY WEAPON!

Of all the things that could happen

Removed from the game before I could even use it! Damn was I pissed at that move seeing that I had a counterspell in my hand. If that didn’t hurt enough, he seemed to have found a new stash of mana and was slowly proceding to lay lands and break my Collective Restrain. I had to slow him down and cast two Chromatic Sphere and using them to cast Allied Strategy proceded to draw 7 cards deep to find my Global Ruin’s. I was again replicated again during his turn reducing my life total to a shaky 5 life. I cast’ Global Ruin’s and blew all his lands and dreams to kingdom come. *Evil laughter ensues*

One of the ultimate kill cards

Now that I’ve gain back the control of the board I made some 5 1/1 flying tokens via Ordered Migration and started to chip away at his life total while casting Overgrown Estate therefore protecting my life total. At 5 life he conceded.

Round 2 Domain 1 – 1 Izzet

Now with that freakish smile wiped off his face, I was finally back in the game. Making sure I do not fall for that cheap Reroute trick again, I was hellbent on blowingup all his permanent before he could ever get a threat out.

Turn 1-12 was pretty much Collective restrains and 3 Oblivion Stones. I was not getting any threat cards and get getting ‘land grabbers’ But turn 15 I had emptied my entire deck of its 21 lands. What’s worse was that his mana base was growing again (huge threat of an uncounterble replicate). Void came at a good time and I named “2” ripping out most of his replicate spells and managed to save myself a few turns at least. Void again the next turn naming 3 and removing some more replicate spells and a couple of Wee Dragonaut. However the main problem was that after casting 2 Global Ruin’s most of my lands and My opponents were in the graveyard leaving my top-decked Goblin Trenches almost useless.

Last chance, with time running out and only 6 lands in play with an Overgrown Estate with 4 life, I was desperate to find a game winner (my opponent is still at 20 btw). I top-decked a Yawgmoth’s Agenda. This ripped open a game winning situation. I had acess to all 4 of my counterspells, I could recast my 2 global ruins, my 2 oblivion stones and my 2 Collective Restrain’s, but the best thing of all was that I had access to my dead lands!.

Believe it or not, there is just one copy in my deck

3^rd and final Global Ruins came back to play, destroying all his lands this late in the game meant death for my opponent. I cast my Globin Trenches and finally started beating down him with 2 new tokens every turn (due to lands from my graveyard). With him at 6 life, he was definitely going to die and with my 4 counterspells still in my graveyard I was laughing all the way. I shall kill thou!

Then the Judge came and said time was over and that was that. A BLOODY DRAW ….. BAH

Round 3 Domain 1 – 1 Izzet

MTG Update - Extended Tournament - Deck Domain (Part 2)

I really wasn’t looking forward to the second match-up in the extended tourney after that disappointing defeat. Somehow I figured that with such a vulnerable mana-base in the domain deck, it is going to be very difficult to beat the majority of mono/dual coloured decks. Yet I still had to stuggle on. Next opponent, Tracy.

Tracy’s deck is nothing short of a monster. 156 cards in total, it was probably doomed from the start. Seeing that at lest 40% had to be lands, that’s60 cards of non-threats. The games were very straight forward but since I’m compiling a complete report, I’ll just go ahead and give you guys the low down.

Match Two

This was going to be a mirror match with the first as both decks used snakes and Sosuke’s Summons to make lots of snake tokens. I must say thought that I was very amazed that my Opponent managed to survive 4 round without a single hitch with his land drops. However it was a short match.

Turn 1-5

156 card deck (hereby known as ‘Monster’) was slowly gathering lands and more snakes while I raced around the clock to gather lands and by turn 5 dropped Collective Restrains with domain in play. Turn 7 and Legacy weapon took centre stage. Slowly but surely I eliminated every single land my opponent had and by turn 14 with no lands in play and me having 5 1/1 flying tokens, he conceded.

Round 1 Domain 1 – 0 Monster

Monster’s player was getting seriously pissed and I could see why. His deck was obviously just a joke and joined the tourney to have fun, mine wasn’t. Quite easy seeing that I’m going to win the match but still Magic is a ruthless game and I don’t see any reason why I should be nice to him.

This game didn’t start off as well as I thought it would because my Collective Restrains just didn’t come up at all and by turn 8 I was getting beaten down to 8 life with my opponent still at 20. I had no choice but to blow his dreams up in his face with 8 mana, I cast and blew an Oblivion Stone. Destroying all his hopes I some how managed to find a Collective Restrains and a Goblin Trenches. Things just got worse for Tracy as I top-decked a Global Ruins and blew his lands while getting myself tokens. Faced with just 2 1/1, I chipped away at his life points while countering his few threats and finally winning in 5 minutes.

Round 2 Domain 2 – 0 Monster

Now I’m not that bad of a guy so I got him a beer as consolation J. Hey, playing Magic is fun and not a chore.

Not as good as Pernicious Deed but its cheaper in terms of Price.
Always good for the budget gamer