Minecraft Boredom

Last time I mentioned anything about Minecraft, I had started a new world for the sake of experiencing updates, and I never uploaded any pictures.

Here's the update:

Here's my tree farm. the efficiency of the torches to the seedlings aren't perfect, but it gets the job done. The amount of wood and charcoal I have now is insane. 

In one of the updates, they made it so that you could turn wood into charcoal at a forge. So there's really no point in running around trying to find coal anymore. Also, I personally found that wooden houses had a certain charm to them, so that gave me all the more reason to make a tree farm. In fact, in just about every world I start, I plan to make a tree farm. It's just that essential.

At Home

At 2nd base

I realized that my booster cart systems kept stopping an I couldn't figure out why. After some quick google searches, I found out that when you step outside of a certain chunk range, the chunk that the minecarts were in get reset and stop moving. So I did some more google searching and came across someone's minecart booster system that worked best with a lever. I tried implementing it the same system with a button, but since the button stops giving power after a split second, I never achieved satisfactory results. And so, back to google again I discovered the Door Booster after some time and it was perfect. It was a little time consuming, but i really like how it works and I plan to use door boosters for all of my minecart systems in future worlds. I found the tutorial here:

Fail river

 Okay so, I discovered in this world some pretty sweet cliffs. I had envisioned a world full of tall cliffs with waterfalls and a river beneath. And then I wanted the cliffs to have wooden houses, and then canals/caves inside the cliffs to connect the house. Like a city inside the cliffs. Then with the world covered in water, I wanted to set up some nice wooden walkways threading around the base of the cliffs hovering just above the water. Unfortunately this project failed miserably. In the above picture you can see that I tried flooding the ground with water, but it was extremely time consuming and the uneven ground made the water look rough and aggressive. Not quite the calm soothing river I expected.. You can also see part of the bridge I started to build, but it was a lost cause. In the below picture you can see I tried blindly building a house on the nearest cliff, but that didn't quite work out the way I expected it to. To make the houses decently big enough to fit furniture and decorations it would have to be like twice the size of the little wooden box I've got going on the cliff up there. Plus I had no idea how tall I wanted the house to be as opposed to the size of its base. Obviously it would've been much better if I had planned everything out on a piece of graph paper first. Architects always gotta make them blue prints! It's amazing what kinds of real life skills one can put into Minecraft. Architecture, engineering, and a few other things I can't think of right now.  

Fail house

But anywho.. I a few weeks after abandoning my initial project, I discovered a video on youtube, where this guy built a portal to the Nether, then built a portal within his Nether to emerge somewhere totally random on his main world again. Where he emerged he discovered a half built house and a few other random projects along with torches he didn't place, and a bunch of boxes and items. It looked like a world somebody started and then never finished, except within some other dude's world! I thought the video was absolutely fascinating and wanted to experience something like that for myself. An sooo-

I built a portal..

..which came to this side.

Here's what the Nether looks like

I kept coming close to dying in the Nether so I had to set the difficulty to peaceful mode in order to safely explore the Nether. I kinda felt like I was cheating the game on the inside, but oh well at least I got to explore the Nether. I made the above picture larger so you can see. On the left half of the picture you can sort of see a long bridge I built. You might no be able to tell, but it forks out so that one side goes left and the other goes right. The bridge was originally designed to have a railroad placed there, but I didn't have enough iron to cover both bridges completely. It just wasn't worth it. Okay quick fact: a step in the Nether is the equivalent to 8 steps in the normal world. So I went really far off into the Nether, made a portal somewhere to the left and another somewhere to the right. They both took me to boring places in the middle of nowhere. It's not even worth putting pictures of them up.

After I finished exploring the Nether and not finding anything exciting I thought, now what? The week after, my crave for Minecraft dwindled to almost nothing. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, because Minecraft is so addicting, it consumes all my time, but it's terribly fun.

Unfortunately, it is now yet another week later and I have a couple new project ideas in mind, in a brand new world. I'll save all that for another blog post.

Super Self-Indulgent Weekend

Okay so, I had a 4 day weekend just last last weekend (Feb 18th Fri - Feb 21st Mon). That weekend was thee MOST self indulgent weekend EVER. Or at least in a while..

Prologue.. A friend of mine had a car with an oil leak. It needed a new cylinder head gasket, which is a pretty big job. Even though it needed the work really bad, she continued to drive it until everything went BAD. No offense to her or anything, I probably would've done the same. The water pump froze, cracked, and shredded the timing belt. All the coolant practically leaked out faster than it could be poured in, and with the deficiency of oil, the engine obviously overheated causing two valves to get bent. Having to replace the valves is no joke! It ended up being a two week job costing almost $1000. To be honest I'm not sure if that's supposed to be confidential or not, but it's not like anyone reads my blog anyways... What made matters the worst was that winter is coming to an end and spring is quickly approaching. Mother nature decided to pour a bucket over Fremont for practically the entire two weeks, so we had to lug the dead car into our garage.
Ultimately, the job wasn't THAT bad, but I have to say, it was on my mind constantly. For some reason, the entire week I felt unnecessarily stressed. I don't remember what sort of school work I had going on, but SOMETHING was stressing me out and I couldn't figure out what. I didn't even realize I was stressed at first, but as the week progress, I just kept feeling mad. Like REALLY mad for no particular reason. My mom was stressing over my stress, as I would bang the piano keys over my frustration of sucking at playing. It was childish, but I was just really pissed for some reason, and I needed to knock it off right away.

My dad and I finished the car on friday the 18th. And as soon as we finished, I BOOKED straight for the local card store. Hobbies make for good escape, and that's exactly what I was doing. I drafted that night and did a pretty bad job, but as long as I was playing cards it made me happy. It was my first time drafting MB/SoM/SoM.

The following day, I decided to check a new card store that opened recently in Castro Valley called Ronin Games and Hobbies. But then I decided to draft there for fun on a whim. The place is very customer oriented, so they supply based on what the customers want. Since they're new they don't have very many singles of any card game, but they do supply quite a number of card games: Magic, Yugioh, Pokemon, Legend of the Five Rings, Vampire, etc. I wanted to draft Pokemon, but the pokemon tournaments aren't run by the store, so it's really unstable. So I drafted Magic instead. Since Mirrodin Besieged released just recently, all the customers wanted to draft triple MB, without Scars of Mirrodin. I thought it would be pretty fun, but it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to..

Here I typed this to a friend on facebook:

On a random sidenote 
I drafted yesterday at Ronin Games and Hobbies in Castro Valley (not too far from foothill/mission blvd). They JUST reopened recently. Their old store used be called Epic I think (but I could be totally wrong). Since the place just opened, they don't have enough supply to do pack per match or anything, but they're very customer oriented. They draft with whatever packs the customers want to draft with, which are mostly high school kids. So lately all they've been doing is Besieged Besieged Besieged. Sounded interesting to me so I gave it a shot. Half of the people there didn't know how to REALLY draft if you know what I mean. So you got kids taking Shriekhorns and going nuts over Spine of Ish Sah's and whatnot.. We drafted in like a 10 or 12 man pod too.. 
Anyways, my first pack had the blue Zenith, but I dunno.. I dunno how good it is, so I took Spread the Sickness instead and forced infect. I ended up with 2 Rot Wolfs, 2 spread the Sickness, 2 Flesh-eater Imps, 2 Lead the Stampede, 2 Copper Carapaces, 2 Blightwidows, 2 Scourge Servants, Viridian Corrupter, Go for the Throat, and I was PASSED Phyrexian Hydra AND Inkmoth Nexus... I seriously thought my deck was nuts. 
The problem was that Rot Wolf was my cheapest guy. Unless I got turn 1 inkmoth nexus, my deck was super slow. I got my ass handed to me (0-2) by my first opponent who went boros battlecry. It bothered me because he had a bunch of those white 1/1 metalcraft guys and barely any artifacts, and played masters call at sorcery speed, and still outran me. But then again I was slightly mana screwed in both games, but only slightly (game 1 I kept hand full of swamps and mostly green cards, game two I had 1 forest and a bunch of a double green cards the entire game). But then for the rest of the night I proceeded to 2-0 everyone else I played and ended up going 3-1. Third place netted me 2 zendikar boosters (because they had a lot of excess zendikar boosters I assume, but I aint complaining. I could go for another fetchland anyday). Unfortunately they had poop rares haha. At least I have another beastmaster ascension for Ernest now! 
And soooo I learned that infect can still be good in MB/MB/MB, but without plague stinger and blight mamba and whatnot, its a LOT slower, and battlecry outruns it pretty hard. But then again I'm not sure what we would be drafting tomorrow, so its up to you guys.

Oh yeah, Ronin Games is pretty big on L5R, and they're really big on Pokemon. They actually have pokemon drafts there can you believe that? It's just like magic drafting too. 

Oh yeah, yugioh made a draft format recently too. It's the weirdest thing, you make a 20 card deck..

Anyways, on another random sidenote:
I whimsically did another draft at Superstars today (sunday), since I had to go there to pick up my $90 Besieged box. They were having vintage for mox and type 2 for a box with $10 drafts inbetween, and I just HAPPENED to be the 8th person to sign up when I walked through the door. The reason I really wanted to do it was because I saw 3 kids sign up for the drafts. Like.. LITERALLY kids. Maybe 7 or 8 years old? One looked to be 12-ish. I know that's kinda shady of me to think I can enter a draft with noobs- ..errr kids.. But it was just for fun, right? I didn't sit next to them anyways. It was MB/SoM/Som, pack per match win, and 3 rounds, so the prize payout was a little better than at Ronin Games. 
In the first pack, I was taking mostly red cards (2 burn the impures and slagstorm SWEET), and some green cards (hoping to get some dinosaurs in SoM). I noticed I was passing some pretty good white cards (creatures AND removal), so I figured, "Okay I'll force my left to go white, and cut all the red so pack two looks nice" Unfortunately white kept wheeling! So I grabbed 2 Master Calls in 13 and 14th pick... Then for the rest of the draft I was being passed hella white... Just comes to show how horrible I am with signals... I actually read online somewhere that white is actually under-drafted in Besieged, so you can take advantage of that. I also read somewhere that Ichorwell Spring is like 2nd pick worthy... But anyways, the dude next to me passed Mimic Vat in pack 2 and I was like WTF??? I was also passed 2 Galvanic Blasts and 2 Arrests, it was crazy..
In the first round I played against one of the kids. It was hilarious. This was the 12 year old kid. He seemed kind of retarded. Not mentally retarded, but like "slow". The way he handled his cards and placed them on the table. And he would read to me super slowly exactly what every single card did. "Okaaay uhh... I tap ooone. Inkmoth Nexus becomes a-a-a 1/1 B-blinkmoth arrrtifact creature with...... flying unti-" 
"OKAY I'm at one poison counter, my turn???" I butted in. I didn't want to be a jerk, but I could see the dude sitting next to me cracking up. 
Turns out he drafted every single rare he saw. Inkmoth was his only infect card. Carnifax demon never hit the board. He, for some reason, decided to Prototype Portal his Venser's Journal, and managed to get Painful Quandary out in both games. But hey whatever floats his boat, right? I stayed as polite as I could. One of the other kids was playing a 60 card mono red deck (and artifacts). He took every single red and artifact card he saw apparently, whether it was good or not, and played it. And he beat the 3rd kid, so I have no idea what his deck looked like. 
What was even crazier was that the kids ruined the draft. It was bothersome for everyone else but I didn't really care. In pack 3 I was handed a pack of 6 cards, then another pack of 6 cards, and I was like "what...?". Then a few picks later, I was handed a pack of 1 card and then 3 cards. At that point I was like "UUUUHHHH....... Guys......" Hahaha.

I don't think you're gonna care much about this (and I could be wrong of course), but it might affect what combination of packs we draft with tomorrow:
I noticed that besieged has significantly less artifacts than scars. So if its MB/MB/MB, you're probably not gonna get metalcraft, but it's easy to get Battlecry, and infect is slower. If its MB/MB/SoM, then its still hard to get metalcraft and battlecry is a tiny bit harder, but infect gets a little better. But when it's MB/SoM/SoM, it's a LOT easier to get metalcraft (and harder to get battlecry of course), and infect is definitely faster.

So the drafters at Ronin Games weren't as good as the people I'm used to drafting with, but Mirrodin Besieged is unbalanced without the other two SoM packs. And based off that message you can tell I drafted the following day at Superstars in San Jose too. The above message pretty much sums it up. Basically, since I was expecting like $500 from the job we did on the car, I decided to go out and blow some cash that weekend. I preordered a box of the new Mirrodin Besieged set, so that's where the bulk of my money went, but when I stopped by at Super Stars on Sunday, I suddenly decided to draft for no reason. 3 days in a row I drafted. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of money spent as well. I was out all weekend playing cards...

Anyways, on Monday, it was President's day, so my friend invited me to come out drafting with him and his friends using his own booster packs he had saved up from winning other drafts. We were going to meet up at Tapioca Express and draft there, maybe have a drink or something, then go to Madfish next door for some Happy Hour sushi goodness. That would have totally made my day! Unfortunately all of his friends had things to do, or work. So my chance of drafting 4 days in a row went splat shortly after waking up, but as the day progressed I could feel a sort of weight coming back. Something pressing down on me gradually heavier and heavier. That's when it hit me. The stress was coming back. After spending my entire weekend playing cards, all of my responsibilities and obligations had been left unchecked. Homework, upcoming tests, chores, etc; all the basic stuff. Now it might not sound like much, but after doing something you enjoy for an entire weekend, being plunged back into reality the following day leaves a bit of a shameful feeling..

Although I have to say, that week wasn't as stressful as the week before. Honestly I don't know why I stress in the first place, the school work isn't all that bad at all. I just need to learn to man-up. Seems like all my inner self wants is fun, but isn't most other people like that too? I guess I'm just not very good at controlling it.

Once Again, No Time to Blog

It always feels like years pass before I write another blog, when it really turns out being a few weeks. I'm supposed to be writing an essay right now unfortunately so I can't be at this for too long. There's a lot to talk to about, and I wish I could have written about everything that happened when they happened, but I think I might have to resort to having just one fat update of my life when I finally get the chance to blog. Sounds boring to me, but I suppose it's better than nothing. Okay back to the essay..

Get Out Of My Classroom

"I want you to drop this class."

Ever since high school, I've developed this bad habit of falling asleep in class. There's rarely ever a time where I fall asleep anywhere else. Because of my tendency to just fall asleep whenever during any given class had my 12th grade English teacher thinking I was narcoleptic. She was kidding of course. Some fellow classmates even came up with the idea that I have the ability to learn in my sleep, since I somehow fall asleep in class almost everyday, yet maintain my grades. Obviously I can't learn in my sleep, and honestly I do stay awake for a fair amount of the time; Just with my eyes closed. Often times I wake up for 7 seconds to write down the new notes before closing my eyes again. I'm going off track here.. 

Basically, I fell asleep in Psychology class today- as you're probably suspecting- just like any other day. It has only been a few weeks of this semester so far so it really hasn't been that long, but I think it's safe to say falling asleep in Psychology has become a routine. Why? Why do I sleep in Psychology? Misjudgment. I misjudged my teacher. Every Tuesday and Thursday my first two classes are English and Psychology. Not that I should be sleeping in any class (and there are obvious solutions to this), but I force myself to stay awake in my early English class which leads me to falling asleep in Psychology, the following class. The reason why I said I misjudged my teacher was because I thought he was the kind of teacher who didn't care. He even said at the beginning of the semester something about not caring what we do because it's our own grade. Perhaps I'm thinking the wrong teacher? But this guy totally gives off that sort of aura. I even asked him on the first day of class, "Do you want us to bring our textbooks to class?" and his response was, "I don't care, do what you want" *chuckles* *then half the class behind me chuckles* Was it a stupid question? But anyways, I felt that sleeping would be okay on his terms. 

There are some teachers out there who don't care whether you sleep or not. I like those kinds of teachers because they let your grades do the talking. My math teacher is exactly like that. He, surprisingly enough, seems to like to me. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I was the only one in Trigonometry class last semester that had 101% in the class? I'm not trying to brag of course, and that Trigonometry class felt that of a high school level math class. But what I'm trying to say is, I like his style of teaching, it works effectively on me (considering my performance in his class, aside form the sleeping), and he doesn't mind me sleeping. Now I'm not trying to say every teacher should be like that, or the same for that matter, but I'm just trying to say that there are some teachers out there like that. 

Now my psychology teacher on the other hand, clearly after today, does not like sleeping students. In fact most teachers don't. To be honest, I wouldn't like it either as a teacher. Does that make me a hypocrite? I don't know. But whatever, I digress. I was tired enough to lay my head on my desk rather then rest my cheek on my hand with my my elbow upright and my eyes closed. Like I mentioned earlier, I awoke every couple minutes to take in the new notes, so I definitely have all the notes. You might be thinking, "Well, yeah, but you missed the lecture." You are indeed right, however I have multiple friends in that class to refer to and the textbook at home of course. Does that make sleeping okay? No it doesn't, but as long as I can ace the class, I'm still happy, regardless of whether I slept through each lecture or not. 

But anyways, after class my teacher pointed to me and said (pretty loudly) that he wanted to see me after class. It was obvious what he wanted to see me for. He answered to students' questions after class as I patiently waited. He waited until the classroom was empty before he went off on me. I guess he wanted to yell at me that bad. Had he told me in a normal voice during class, I would have preferred that over him yelling at me in private, but whatever floats his boat. He said I sleep in EVERY class period. Really though, that's false, I've been awake for the past two class sessions, and definitely at the beginning of the semester, and possibly some other random days. Plus I don't sleep for the ENTIRE class session, but it's clearly a weak argument and pushing any further on the fact would only make my situation worse. At times like this you really gotta suck your teacher's dick. It wasn't really that hard of a battle though. He simply demanded that I drop his class and said that there are people missing desks and paying attention, while I'm sleeping and taking up space. He felt like we were wasting each other's time. I told him that I had all the notes, but he didn't care. Quite a stubborn guy I must say, but not surprising for a whit- err.. I mean American. 

Now lets take a different angle really quick. Why were there student without desks? Because the teacher took in more students than his class could handle. A bad thing? No, it's hard to find classes these days, so he's being awfully generous to let them in. Why were those students in those chairs? Because they arrived to class ten minutes late. So is it entirely my fault that I'm wasting time and space? I personally don't think so. But I still feel ashamed for I did. Really, I'm supposed to be changing from my high school days.. 

And so, I switched to dick sucking mode. "Can I have a second chance?" I asked 5 or 6 times. "What makes you think you deserve it?!" My instructor asked. "I won't sleep anymore.." I said. I felt like a child being lectured by his father for breaking a house rule. Still that wasn't enough though. After a bit of argument he said, "How do you think you'll do on the test next thursday?" "I'm going to do well on it," I firmly responded. And once more after that, "So can I please have a second chance?" I asked. The teacher was clearly mad, but it didn't look like he wasn't going to give me a second chance, so I was fairly confident. I just needed to smile, nod, agree with everything said, and agree with every challenge he offered. Our little discussion concluded with him declaring, "If you fall asleep one more time, I'm going to stop the class and point out to you, 'GET OUT OF MY CLASSROOM' you got that?! For the rest of the semester!! GOT IT?!" I nodded and accepted it. What else am I supposed to do? I then promised to do the exact opposite of what he suspected I would do. The teacher then chuckled and sarcastically said, "We'll see about that." I wasn't surprised. I've heard that line more times than I could count back in high school. 

I wish I had the writing ability to bring out the true emotion of our conversation because it was pretty intense. I recall making previous posts of complaints regarding other quarrels I've gotten into with other instructors in college, but I think I'm starting to understand them a little more. So should I blame my psychology teacher for the amount of disrespect he showed me today? No. It's my fault too.

===

It's a shame too because it's Chinese New Years, I wore a lot of red today for good luck. I expected today to be a good day. I literally came home with my ankle cramping because I hit almost EVERY single red light on the way home. It was terribly frustrating; all that shifting and whatnot. And I have a really heavy clutch in my car too! But what's the point in complaining? That's what blogging is for. I need to release my emotions here, then go do what I planned to do to take my mind off of it. I have to say the simultaneous feeling of anger, sorrow, and guilt is really discomforting, but this teacher thing is merely temporary and as long as I can prove myself, everything will be just fine. I just need to keep my head up! I'm going to go wash my car, clean my room(s), and pick up around the house. I'll even help my mom cook dinner tonight haha. Today is supposed to mark a new beginning, so hopefully tomorrow turns out much better.

Killing Time

Happy New Year! It's Chinese New Years today! In celebration of it, I'm wearing red for good luck, and I'm going to clean my room (according to wikipedia) to wipe away the bad luck of last year. I've got a lot of work to do when I get home today!

I'm just sitting in the library right now, super bored. I'm just trying to kill time I suppose. I'm talking to some guy I just met, and getting to know him. He's a really nice guy! I've been eating these interesting bags of dried noodles. It's like when you take top ramen, crush it all up, and then pour the broth powder into it. It's making me thursty though.. Plus each bag is like $2.50.. Interesting to eat, but a little over my budget for a snack of that size.

I've been practicing a lot of piano lately, but mainly sight reading. I noticed that when I spend a lot of time sight reading, I start to get kinda iffy with all of the songs I have memorized. Sounds like the most obvious solution would be to practice sight reading AND practice memorized songs in the same session, yet I still struggle to do so successfully.. Oh well!

I've been pretty addicted to Minecraft lately, but I've hit a roadblock. There are these amazingly huge cliffs in my world and I wanted to flood the ground in water, then build wooden bridges everywhere. Then I wanted to put wooden houses on all the cliffs and dig canals inside the cliffs connecting the houses. It would be like a city amongst cliffs hovering above a world flooded in water with wooden bridges everywhere. The vision I had in mind was perfect, but when it finally came down to it, it proved to be a LOT more challenging than I thought to be. Flooding the ground is extremely difficult. Having to constantly refill my buckets and pour water on uneven ground was tedious. The uneven ground made my river look retarded and a lot less pleasant than I expected it to be. I'm even considering cleaning up the water then spending hours flattening out the dirt ground with shovels. But I have a bad attention span so I thought I'd try building a house. I climbed my way up one of the cliffs and started randomly placing wood. The house didn't turn quite the way I expected it to look.. I guess I'm going to need some graph paper and a hell of a lot more planning for this one.

I couldn't stop thinking about last weekend's sealed Magic tournament so I definitely plan to go again this Saturday. Hopefully I'll be able to go. Speaking of Magic, my cube is almost finished and I'm even thinking about adding cards to it! I'm actually looking for people to play with now. I almost have four people to play with. Seems like a long shot, but if I can actually convince them to find time out of their day to play magic with me that would be really fun.

It's Been a While (or at least it feels like it)

I don't know the rate at which most other people update their blogs, but it's been almost a month since I've blogged about anything worthwhile. To me, it feels like it's been forever since I blogged. I don't have any particular passion for blogging, but it does leave off a good feeling to just write about stuff. I just happen to have some free time on my hands right  now.

Okay so... What is it.. February? Let's see...

I'm into my spring semester of my freshman year at community college now. One step closer to making big bucks I suppose. I'm just trying to keep my head up about it. I'm taking 15 or 16 units I think (math, english, science, and psychology). I planned out my schedule quite well this time around. My classes are more compact, and my break times are pretty good. I start school (mon-thu) at 9:00am and get out at 2:35pm each day. It's like high school all over again. Mondays are like my cushion day. Just my day to slowly get back into gear after each 3-day weekend. Only two classes and a nice three hour break. In my previous semester, three hours would be considered lengthy, but here, I take advantage of it in a way that I can utilize it for catching up on homework, sleep, or anything else that might require attention. The rest of the days are nicely compact (with an hour and a half break on tue/thu). I can definitely say that my classes are much more difficult this time around, but still fairly easy. Speaking of which, I got 1 B last semester! The one time I thought I was actually going to land a 4.0 for the first time in my entire life, I get a B in a measly 1 unit class.. I see a pattern here. Did you know that I have never once played a song on the piano without making a single mistake before in my life? I'm just not one who strives for perfection I guess.

I still take kung fu classes every Tuesday and Thursday, and they're still as fun and challenging as ever. I actually tested for my next belt recently, so I'm pretty excited about that. I was doing a bo-staff form before, and I'm doing some complicated hand form now. I actually have the video of my bo-staff form on facebook, but only certain people can see it. I'm still not confident enough to release that kind of stuff to the public.

I applied for four positions at the local Safeway online the other day. Just off of a whim.. My mom suggested that I apply for Trader Joe's too so I can get her sweet deals on their unique selection of groceries. Actually, before I applied for Safeway, I took a quick trip to the record store in Old Niles down the street from my house. Unfortunately, the place is so small, the owner didn't need employees. Plus it would be too pricey for him to have one anyways. He instead redirected me to the recently opened record store on Fremont Blvd, but that place was even smaller, and I faced the same result. You're probably thinking, "Why a record store? You won't make any money there." Well, to be honest at this point, I just need a small job that will make me some gas money. I've been desperately living off of the money I make from helping my dad fix cars. I guess you could say I really haven't been trying at all to find a job, and I agree. The consequences for what I've done (or more rather, have not done) have become evident. I eat out less (which is good in a sense), play magic less (also good), and just go out less period. Putting it simply, I'm being forced to do what I've never been even remotely close to being capable of achieving: Saving money. Hopefully it rubs off on me in the future..

Just recently, I got this thing called GERD. It stands for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disorder (AKA Acid Reflux). Basically, the sphincter at the bottom of one esophagus loses the ability to close properly after swallowing food. Since it can't close all the way, stomach acid ninja's its way back up the esophagus leaving an excruciating burning pain somewhere between the stomach and the chest, hence the name acid reflux. It's caused by really poor eating habits apparently. For example, eating large meals once or twice a day rather than eating 5-6 small meals a day. Or eating a big meal before sleeping. Apparently, fried foods, fatty foods, spicy foods, acidic fruits, carbonated drinks, caffeine, and chocolate aggravate GERD. I honestly don't know what I did to cause it but I think I know. I generally have bad eating habits period. They tend to get worse on non-school days. During winter break, I would stay up until 6 in the morning, wake up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, eat a giant meal at 7 or 8pm when my mom would get home from work, then eat a snack sometime between midnight and 4 in the morning again before sleeping at 6. On one particular day, I went out to Iguanas (home of the Burritozilla) and got myself a burrito so spicy, that it actually hurt. It was a big burrito too! When I got home, I passed out from lack of sleep and food coma and took a two-hour nap. Unfortunately, it was right after I ate that burrito, so I woke up with an awfully painful stomach ache. The following day, I took a trip the the mall and bought one of those giant trays of Mongolian bbq noodles. I made it extra spicy and it was delicious, but I noticed that each time I swallowed, it left a strangely discomforting pain in my chest. The following day, EVERYTHING I swallowed hurt. After a decent amount of google research, I confirmed that it was GERD and tried my best to heal it by changing my eating habits. In the beginning, it hurt so bad, I was literally dieting. Salad, pretzels, crackers, bread, whatever was easy to consume. All I drank was water for the entire week. I made sure to eat extremely small meals every hour to be as easy on my stomach as possible. Tums, H2 blockers, and whatever other forms of antacids I could get my hands on just weren't cutting it for some reason, so five days later, I finally gave in and took a trip to the doctors. Unfortunately, all she told me was everything I had already read on the internet, and then recommended some different form of OTC drugs called PPI (proton pump inhibitors). I actually didn't start taking the PPI's until 2 or 3 days later because I had to drive to LA with my dad to fetch a car my sister broke. When I finally did take my first PPI pill though, I felt brand new. It was too good to be true for that one little pill to achieve something that numerous other forms of antacids couldn't achieve over the course of an entire day. I personally think it was a combination of the pill and my new eating habits that made me feel better. In fact I'm still taking the PPI pills now and I'm almost done with my two-week thingymajigger of taking those things. Hopefully those eating habits will rub off on me just as much I hope for my spending habits  to change as well.

Last time I posted anything about magic I went 4-0 in a draft right? Well I went to two sealed tournaments recently. The first one was a 10 dollar sealed in San Jose which I managed to go 4-0 in as well. Netted me 10 booster packs! I went to the prerelease of the new set, Mirrodin Besieged last Saturday and went 3-0-1. I actually could have gone 4-0 (because I won), but both my opponent and I agreed to tie so we would receive and equal amount of booster packs. This time I received 7. Am I on a lucky streak or is it safe to say I'm getting better at Magic??

Just last Sunday I finally replaced the timing belt (and components related to it) on my beloved Eclipse! I swear the teeth was literally falling off of the counter balance belt. It's a good thing we replaced it! We also replaced the valve cover gasket because there was oil leaking. We unfortunately discovered that there was a crack/hole in my valve cover, so we plugged it with a temporary fix and planned to purchase a new one later.

I found out that all of the updates that occur in Minecraft don't apply to older worlds, so newer worlds need to be made in order to experience ALL of the updates. It's a shame that I have to end my world from the Alpha stages of the game, it feels like I put so much effort in it. Oh well, my experience in my old world has passed onto my new world so I am able to work much more quickly and efficiently. I made a decent sized underground tree farm, and discovered some pretty huge dungeons. The cliffs in my new world are huge, so I have a big project idea in mind. I'll post pictures later when I get the chance.

Well that's all the updates I can think of for now. My writing ability is terrible, I think I changed tense like 70 times. Hopefully I find some opportunities to blog a little more.

Too Lazy to Blog

It's been a long time since I've blogged about anything. Or at least it feels like it's been a long time. A lot of things have happened too! But I'm too lazy to blog right now. I think it's just a phase though. I'll be back and blogging soon enough!