Progamer to Programmer

Saturday, September 29, 2007

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I don't know what I'm chasing.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Tourney Win

My current DoTA team won a tournament last Friday. I found this win to be the most satisfying one so far because:


  • We came from a long hiatus. During this break, a lot of other teams had the chance to build up their reputation as 'good' DoTA teams. There was a lot of speculation on whether we would be able to win.

  • We used an unconventional lineup that contained Omniknight and Leshrac. Unlike previous tournaments, where we'd bring lineups from Manila, this one was developed in-house. I find it remarkable that a lot of players are now studying the use of those 2 heroes.

  • Our newest, (and who many would consider to be the weakest) player Butch displayed skills that were not to be expected of him. A highlight would be doing a Guardian Angel at the exact moment that the enemy Faceless Void did a Chronosphere. The Omniknight's hands were raised and frozen within the Chronosphere, but the enemy was not able to do any damage.



I'm very happy with my current team. I like the regularly scheduled practices that we have started to hold. I like seeing us grow in skills individually and as a team. I like the fact that we aren't afraid to experiment with different lineups and strategies. I hope that this tourney win is only a herald of things to come.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

XD

I dropped by the used book store yesterday after paying the bills, and hit the mother lode! I walked away with the following books:


  • The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander (I've always wanted to read this one, but never got the opportunity)

  • The Call of the Wild by Jack Londer (The compliment to White Fang; one of my favorite books as a kid)

  • The Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card (No need to explain :)

  • Pawns Prevail by Douglas Niles (Douglas Niles wrote the Moonshae trilogy, a Forgotten Realms book I read during high school. I picked it up because it was there!)

  • Shadowplay by Nigel Findley (This is a random Shadowrun book. I also picked it up because it was there)



The good part is the amazingly low price I got for all these books. I paid a total of (take a guess if you want) 142 Php! Incredible. I wonder how that bookstore stays in business. They still had a couple of David Eddings books on the shelf; I probably should have gotten more, but decided to leave some for the next guy. I'm happy enough as it is! XD

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People seemed to enjoy the random link of last blog post more than the blog post itself, so here's another cool link (thanks to Coilnovaswarm) - http://urealms.wittywizard.com.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Music Vids

Let me post some videos of songs which I like. I'd rather simply embed the songs themselves, but can't seem to find a site that allows you to embed them past the 30-second 'song sample' limit.

The first is my favorite from Enigma's A Posteriori album. I would designate it as the "Ballad"-ish type song of the album. The instruments evoke a haunting atmosphere which fit with the mournful, searching lyrics of the song. I think part of why I like this song is because of its positioning in the album - it comes in the later half of the album, and seems to herald its end. The song also uses some elements which were introduced earlier, and help to narrate the song's story.





The video itself is unofficial - but I'm still impressed at the effort taken to making it. It has an amateurish feel to it (or maybe that's just me being stirred by the word 'unofficial').


The other song I'm going to post is I Want Tomorrow by Enya. This is my favorite Enya song. This song was part of Enya's debut album; I find it surprising that she never made a song in a similar style to this one. The video is weird. It has this part where Enya's eyes glow with an evil light and she makes a car explode! O_O



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Also, let me post a link to a comic that I recently discovered. The cultural references and humor of this strip are definitely win material. Check http://xkcd.com/