Adrian's Blog(?)

Break? What break?

Yes I'm bored.

I don't know what to do in these long stretches of free time so I decided what the heck.

The 'break' I refer to does not mean 'break time' or time off, like recess or lunch break in school or in the workplace. Its more of succeeding, lucking out, winning, in the context of catching a good break like in showbiz when an actor/actress lands a major role and it becomes his or her big break careerwise.

I however can't manage to get one these days. All the effort you put in to the things you do to accomplish your most desired and vital goals, all the shit you go through to get what you want and need, and yet you still fall. You go above and beyond your limits, you go out of your niche, you do everything in your power so your dream gets the chance to come true, you seem so sure and all but still you fail. No matter how hard you look at it, analyze all the details, where you went wrong and what to improve on, you will get the same answer each and everytime...NO..

From there all the frustrations start to sink in, clawing out at your sanity piece by agonizing piece, slowly drifting towards oblivion. You crumble down on your knees, cry like theres no tomorrow, in one fell swoop all your hopes and dreams are shattered by a single word...NO..

People tell you to move on, to let go and start anew. Its not that simple. You find other avenues of distraction to try and forget about it, but its temporary, fleeting like the glimpses of hope you once saw on trying to accomplish your goal. Then you get frustrated again. Silly but trust me, its true. Things start to go out of hand, nothing seems to go your way. You fall deeper into sadness and agony. Sleep will be hard to come by and you will start to grow weak. You fail to see the good in life anymore and you begin to think about ceasing. Ceasing to care, to nurture, to work, to have fun, to enjoy life, to live, to exist..darker things abound but you get the point.

Fortunately you can't dare do all those grim things, you just think about it. And since you can't do it you feel more helpless and hopeless. You start to be in denial and enter alternate routes to catching a break, but you know your chances are slim and your efforts futile. You think of schemes to get a better chance, but even you yourself don't think its going to work.

And yet you continue. You continue to hope, to dream of the possibilities of what might have been. You seek out your friends to get support, but when your the one in need there seems to be less of them around. But who can blame them, they got their own issues to deal with.

Today I continue to dwell on the breaks I have lost. I still go for other things, new things worth discovering. But when the break you missed is the most important thing in your life, how can you tell me to move on? Call me deluded or whatever, but still I will pursue. If you offer support though I will gladly accept it, anything I can for that matter.

To those that read thanks for taking the time. To those who can relate feel free to speak your mind, anyone else may do so as well. Have a nice day...

A Simple Case of Too Much Time on Your Hands..

*Sigh*

The Deck Victorious!

In its very first tournament the tribute deck ran like a well-oiled machine, plowing its through the finals until it was beaten by "Ghost Dad". I finished 2nd that night and was quite proud of myself. In its second tournament, the tribute deck was 3-1, beaten only by a blue white aggro deck packing Umezawa's Jitte, and I went on to become Champ. My initial observations of the deck after its first two tournaments is that it is more of a control deck than it is an aggro deck as I previously thought. It can also handle Gruul(so far) without any trouble except in the early game. The deck can also handle control decks but has a hard time stopping combo decks(heartbeat) from going off. Despite its record the deck still needs some tweaking. But right now I can relax and be proud of my brainchild.ü

"The Deck": A Tribute

The original "The Deck" was a deck filled with the best cards of its time. Most of the cards in that deck were ones that gave the player tremendous card advantage. This made the deck such an engine that it dominated the early tournament scene. Because of its insane card drawing capabilities it was able to draw key spells to answer any, if not all, threats that it faced. Cards like ancestral recall, time twister, brain geyser and demonic tutor would allow it to draw control cards like wrath of god, balance, and mind twist among others to disrupt or decimate the opponents side of the board. Oh by the way the deck also had access to cards like black lotus and the moxen to power out the devastating spells that it has on its arsenal earlier than the average deck.
But unfortunately for "The Deck", most of its components are either banned, restricted or have rotated out of standard. Magic: the Gathering however is an evolving game. Cards back then tended to degenerate because of the lack of playtesting in the part of the R & D. So with its evolution cards became narrower and yet more specialized, and so decks were more focused on particular strategies. "The Deck" is a very unorthodoxed deck by todays standards. But back then it worked. It was the deck to beat in its era.
Right now Ravnica block presented us with various goodies from each guild that have type 1 potential. Cards like lightning helix, putrefy and voidslime just scream out to the players to be added to their type 1 decks. The new dual lands also gave type players opportunities to not play basic lands in their decks thus making their decks more efficient in mana fixing. With all the powerful cards (in todays standards) Ravnica block presents us with, I cant help but want to play all the guilds. But that was almost impossible to do for me because of the lack rotation of sufficient cards in my area.
But then it hit me! What if I cram all the good cards in a single deck? Much like the deck "Good Stuff" wherein  it had no specific strategy but  to lay down good creatures that it could cast while also having access to top notch defense cards. But the deck I had in mind would not be able to do that consistently. Because of the vast number of what I consider to be good cards in ravnica block the only way I could use all of them in one deck was to play a single copy of each card.
Then I remembered "The Deck" of old. Its structure was pretty much like the deck I had in mind, clunky with broken card counts. But there are far more differences than there are similarities. My deck didn't have mana acceleration, has more creatures, and a lot more colorful among others. But still upon the nearing of its completion I came to realize that my creation of this deck is more of a tribute to "The Deck", the very first dominating deck in Magic, than it is merely a casual fun or even ravnica block constructed deck.
Though it is not yet complete in any way or aspect imaginable, here is a highly accurate decklist which may even end up as the final version. As you can tell from looking at the list below this deck looks to be really inconsistent and very hard to handle. But once it gets going it is very hard to stop because of the high quality of cards it has in its arsenal. So now here it is, the tribute to "The Deck"!!

Creatures(17)                          Spells(18)
1 Watchwolf                           1 Congregation at Dawn
1 Moroii                                 1 Lightning Helix
1 Trygon Predator                   1 Putrefy
1 Hellhole Rats                        1 Mortify
1 Sky Hussar                           1 Savage Twister
1 Firemane Angel                    1 Electrolyze
1 Graveshell Scarab                 1 Invoke the Firemind
1 Vulturous Zombie                  1 Voidslime
1 Dimir Cutpurse                     1 Hit//Run
1 Loxodon Heirarch                 1 Supply//Demand
1 Rumbling Slum                     1 Rise//Fall
1 Burning Tree-Shaman           1 Trial//Error   
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind      1 Pure//Simple
1 Angel of Despair                  1 Hide//Seek
1 Windreaver                         1 Crime//Punishment
1 Pride of the Clouds              1 Odds//Ends
1 Rakdos Augermage              1 Research//Development
Artifacts(1)                            1 Bound//Determined
1 Muse Vessel                           
Lands(24)
1 Adarkar Wastes                    1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Battlefield Forge                  1 Sacred Foundry
1 Brushland                               1 Temple Garden
1 Caves of Koilos                     1 Godless Shrine
1 Karplussan Forest                1 Stomping Ground
1 Llanowar Wastes                  1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Shivan Reef                            1 Steam Vents
1 Sulfurous Springs                 1 Blood Crypt
1 Underground River              1 Watery Grave
1 Yavimaya Coast                    1 Breeding Pool
4 Pillar of the Paruns
Sideboard(15)
3 Lightning Helix
3 Putrefy
3 Mortify
3 Electrolyze
3 Savage Twister

Comments:
Sideboard needs more consideration. Not a single match yet.

Cards to be considered:
Simic Sky Swallower
Ghost Council of Orzhova
Plaxcaster Frogling
Conjurer's Ban
Glare of Subdual
Jagged Poppet
Boros Swiftblade
Giant Solifuge
Avatar of Discord
Shadow of Doubt
Signets
Guildmages

Three Evils(Embodied in Love and Shadow)

Across the floor in the hand of where we drove the drill
a cautious ear to the mouth of your confession
think of all the things we put him through
in the face of his god would he tell the truth?

still recorded were the words that dribbled out his kiss
when eyes go blind in this man of what could once become
sever the limbs off his torso in sleep
and burn what remains so the world may now see
no longer...will we wait for your answers
back to the hell where you've come from
think of all the times you've once had
write them in a letter that says goodbye

you'll listen to reason while you're face down in the dirt
you'll stomach the hurt and break for him here just how much he's worth

slowly discarded were the remains of his lonely youth
among the alley where the dwellers scare to notice
picture a young boy in pieces and streets with leveled malfunctions
no name to be called redeemer
We'll fix him restore him...with the love is no other
think of all the things you did before
write them in a letter that says reborn

you'll listen to reason while you're face down in the dirt
you'll stomach the hurt and break for him here just how much he's worth

following you across the interstate walking away...I'll fire on
following you across the interstate walking away...I'll fire on
following you across the interstate walking away...I'll fire on

on the wrong way out
on the causeway to neverwhere
on the wrong way out
on the causeway to neverwhere
on the wrong way out
on the causeway to neverwhere

dear my friends in the time we've spent forever after beyond this when will our nightmare ever end?
dear my friends in the time we've spent forever after beyond this when will our nightmare ever end?

pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...(forever you will) forever you will learn

pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...(forever you will) forever you will learn

pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...(forever you will) forever you will learn

pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...(forever you will) forever you will learn

by: Coheed and Cambria

Decent Days and Nights

This is a brand new problem, a problem without any clues
If you know the clues it's easy to get through

But you look confused and you don't know what to do
It's hard to get an answer when you havent got a clue
If you work it out tell me what you find

If the least you can do is show some restraint
Then the most you can do is get carried away

But you look confused and you don't know what to do
Say what you see, what you like
If you work it out tell me what you find
We can have a few decent days and nights

If you're meant to be here and you want to be late
The best thing you can do is get lost on the way

I can see that you look confused and you don't know what to do
Say what you see, what you like
If you work it out tell me what you find
We can have a few decent days and nights

If you want to make a guess you should know it's not a game
'cause you'll never get a chance to make another guess again

This is a brand new problem, a problem without any clues
If you know the clues it's easy to get through

But you look confused and you don't know what to do
It's hard to get an answer when you havent got a clue
If you want to make a guess you should know it's not a game
'cause you'll never get a chance to make another guess again
If you work it out tell me what you find

Bye Bye Beatiful, Coheed and Cambria praise

No other band has made me feel the way I do while listening to their music. Its so...magical! I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way about their music, but I don't know anyone in Davao who actually knows about them(well except for a few close friends). So here's hoping that I might shed some light to Davaoenyos about this amazing band. Their music is progressive. It is based on their sci-fi comic book series(theres only two that I know though). But dont let that assume that it's just some silly soundtrack similar to those of Disney flicks. Their music is full of emotion, their vocalist's high pitched voice blends very well with the instruments(pardon my lack of knowledge on rock lingo) and is very melodic and pleasing to hear. Their songs are really quite unique. With each track they are somehow narrating bits and peices of their comic book's story, which in my opinion is making it so unique from other bands' music. The only other artist I know of that has this kind of progressive style is Daft Punk, but only in the videos since most of his/their? music is techno. This kind of style has also made their song construction a bit unorthodoxed. Their lyrics are somewhat bizaare, unorganized, different. But this is what makes them so great, their unique style. Some naysayers believe that they are different because their focus on storytelling has hampered their songwritting. But this was in their earlier days. Now their being different is their biggest strength. This song is I'm about to post is entitled "The Light and The Glass", a whopping nine minutes long. This is a pretty emotional song and my favorite song from them so far. Hope you enjoy it. Tell me what you think by the way.ü.

"The Light and the Glass"

by: Coheed and Cambria (formerly Shabutie)

Slowly the pen touches paper in the guidance of the words that you write
memories roll in of the things you once did
and who you had shared them with is somebody thinking of you
did I bother telling you this with the words that cross teeth and jump lips
a poor choice of words in wanting to tell you anything
but words don't come with ease they're forever my hurt
would it really matter if you were to count the days left with your hands
your focus secure and the loves you left well
smiles staged in photographs here until...

you left the light on
theres a chance I might have tripped girl
you were there to hold on

ignoring the words of your obnoxious little brother
kill or be killed spilled the words from your mother

I'll lay awake for a while
I'll leave the light on a while

you couldn't last a lifetime caught between here and the days of it
carving her name across your arm with every wish it's hit or miss her
I told you so I measure distance in lines departing the rest of my life
but you had better things to do...liar

if you'd get put to sleep, like an old dog you're better off, should you get put to sleep
I've been cautious with the words I extend
allow this year before the world starts to end

your father's dead he passed in his sleep, and I woke to the sounds of her crying

pray for us all...my dearest apollo I'll be burning star 4

Blog???WTF???

What the hell is a blog? I know it's a web log and all, but what I want to know is why the hell is it so popular? What the hell is it for?  I don't want to bother myself by searching the net about what a blog is but I'm so damn bored, still two weeks before classes starts, I haven't even watched star wars yet.  And by the way what's so popular about posting your thoughts in a blog? In my opinion, blogging is pretty much the same as a diary, which was and probably still popular today among young people, but without the sense of privacy that a regular diary would present. I'm beginning to see a pattern here, popular... public diary...trend...yes I see it clearly now. Most people(me including) crave attention. That's probably it, but in all honesty I dont mean that as a bad thing. For all we know people just want to share their thoughts in their blogs so they can get feedback that might be of some use to them. All in all blogging is just another instrument in which a person can openly express his/her thoughts and have a better chance of getting the desired feedback from more people than in any other way. But alas, that's just me, what do you think.ü