CE L5R + other things that are on my mind

I've been playing test game after test game and it took me a while to understand how CE works. Force is key, which hasn't been true in forever, there is no kill, and send home is the only proactive battle action. Except there is still kill, you just have to be running certain decks to take advantage of it. Shugenja can kill, Kensai can kill, and range attacks. All in all the game is really damn boring. I have been pretty bi-polar about CE since it was announced, first i quit L5R, then i was all psyched for it, and now I just don't care any more. Today i was supposed to go to my first L5R tourney since Gen Con, so basically 11 months. I bailed for no reason. Ellen had given me permission, she was all set to make other plans, and for the life of me I couldn't work up the desire to drive to dream wizards to play. Today was my epiphany, L5R is now boring, no deck, clan, or play style could honestly change my mind at this stage. *shrug* and for the life of me, I still can't seem to care. I'll try honor next, maybe if I play a total shit-bag ass deck I'll actually like the game, not overly hopeful.

Summer Movies have been real hit or miss, Star Trek, which were it a person i would have sex with it, or let it have sex with me, but i would know that it would way too good for me and could totally get a better guy... or woman. Transformers 2 was pretty much an abomination to the concept of story structure and plot. Shia Lebouf(sp?) was pretty cool, but the whole story made no sense. Hangovers was hilarious, i laughed till it hurt, Bruno was likewise hilarious. I pretty much refuse to see Harry Potter, because i haven't really like any movies except the 4th one, so I'm just done with it. GI Joe will be the next movie that lets me down, honestly I am really excited for it, but its hard to think it will be more than just mindless action.

I think I'm just in a pissy mood so I'm done for now.

p.s FOOTBALL!!!!!! I'm so excited, right now i make my bold predictions for the season. San Diego wins the Super Bowl. Redskins go 10-6 make the playoffs but don't make the NFC championship. Devin Thomas breaks out and is a star. Jason Campbell proves all the damn nay-sayers wrong, is amazing and guts Management for dissing him.

p.s.s I get to be in Mike's wedding party! I'm so gay!

Warmachine mkII first glance reveiws

Ok so the power level of the game is plummeting. The things that used to be crushingly powerful are now much more tame.

I will start with the good so i can later rant on and on about the things that annoy me.

Cryx Warcasters seemed to keep their overall bad ass feel. They all kept their best abilities. Denny's Feat, Everything Asphyxious does, Goreshade kept soul gate and mage blight, the nerfed Cloak, but its still great. Skarre got a much needed nerf to the skarre bomb but otherwise is pretty much the exact same. The cav is Def 14, the heavy jacks are just amazing, more mat and more p+s. The whole feel of the game is changing but a lot of the little things i used to love are still there.

Ok... now for the bad.

Casters:
The Coven: they suck! i understand that they were too good as they were, but the change to conjunction was enough, don't take away their only means of killing casters by dropping the POW of their only offensive spell! Now they literally have no uses. they could never handle a lot of troops now they just can't handle anything.
E-Skarre: Why the hell does Nemo get the keep his ability to uber allocate focus, but E-Skarre loses her. she is a freakin pre-cog! but she can't retract focus anymore, like she needed a nerf she always sucked.
Terminus: they changed ravager... not sure why i would use the new one. the old one was amazing but a double edged sword. giving a jack thresher is pretty weak especially since the main jack i would use it on (Harrower) already has it.

Jacks: Way too freakin expensive for an arc node. no stat boosts so they still die like crazy but now i have to pay more for them. makes no damn sense. Also i was promised that models that used to suck would get a boost so i would have some sort of desire to use them. My defilers and Reaper will still NEVER hit the table. (reach isn't enough, +2 range on the defiler is solving the wrong friggin problem)

Units: Biles are really freaking expensive. Soul Hunters are pretty lame. no brutal charge, no impact hits, only speed 8, and no longer ignore free strikes, so yeah Cryx is back to having the worst cav again... i miss having good cav already.

I'm actually done right there, writing this is making me really hate MKII and i don't want to hate it yet. i want to play it and then decide how much i hate it. but i am really really unhappy now that i have had a chance to put my thoughts on... something (paper?) Unless they seriously fix some things, i think MKII will be a really boring ass way to play warmachine.

Ummm. today?

i haven't posted in a while so i felt like it was time to write a little bit. i have decided to stop fixing my grammar at least for today's post. i don't have much to talk about but i here are a few things i got going on

I'm poor. the damn government is supposed to send me a check for the home care i've been doing but so far i have a lot of hours and $2.43 in my checking account. come on barrack your writing checks to everyone else. oh thats right i can do political commentary too... but generally i won't.

So Gilbert Arenas came back saturday and really had a great game. 15 points 10 assists, after not playing for almost a year is pretty damn good. I'm very excited about next season. with a little luck we will get the first overall pick and be able insert Blake Griffin right into our rotation. Also Tapscott... its been fun and your a really great guy, but we just feel like we need a coach to coach our team. seriously, i head avery johnson is looking for work.

I have a warmachine tournament this weekend. hopefully it will be a great send off for MKI. I'm going to take a list that is basically cheating. i'm going to bring a pillow so i can catch some ZZzz's between rounds. I don't think its possible for me to lose with this list, but who knows. if someone kills my Cav or both my heavies i will indeed be boned.

Pretty sure thats it for today. i'm really hungry

St. Patty's Day

Well anyone who actually reads this would most likely know I'm Irish. Now I do realize I'm kidding myself by assuming anyone reads this so... on with the blogging!

It the first time since I was 18 that I haven't been drunk on St. Patties Day. I just didn't feel the need to drink tonight, plus I was pretty far from home and knew I was the driver for the evening. I can only hope my ancestors forgive my egregious error. Anyways I had a blast tonight. Which brings me to the real reason I'm writing this blog. Battle Star Galactica the Board Game!

So much fun to play. You are either a human or a cylon, but in the manner of the new show no one knows who is actually a cylon. For the first time I got to be a big bad Cylon. And damn was it fun. I rocked the espionage so that when a conversation of who couldn't possibly be a cylon came up i was the only name thrown forward. Then with the game on the line, I tanked the humans, and killed them off, causing the Cylons to achieve their victory. I was very pleased as was Mike who happened to be the other cylon.

Also since i;ve been wanting to write it for a while now: Watchmen was a great movie. I have a theory though that in order to actually enjoy it you have to have read the comic. But either way, I liked it and will buy it.

Cooking Channel

It may sound weird but I find myself addicted to this channel. I always like cooking, most of my recipes are pretty basic, cook up some chicken or steak add rice and that's about it. But I really try to broaden my horizons. Its a really fun channel to watch though, I don't think I could every really recreate these dishes, but that's not really the point. But i do get some pretty sweet ideas. I think its time for me to broaden my cooking spectrum to include ribs. I mean seriously who doesn't like ribs. The problem is I never pay enough attention to cook the meals they show on this channel. Like right now the lady is making ribs and instead of watching I'm writing this.

Oh and because I just saw it I feel like I need to comment on it. Olive Garden as the absolute worst advertisement department in the world. Every commercial looks fake and the actors are so cheesy and forced. Come on nobody is that cheery and that happy just because they get unlimited salad and bread sticks. It's not that they aren't delicious, I love those break sticks. But my god every time i watch those ads I just want to punch a kitten. Not really I love my kittens.

Oh yeah

Since my passion really is the Redskins, i wanted to talk about free agency a little bit.

So the big three siginings: Derrick Dockery, Deangelo Hall, Albert Haynsnworth.

Dockery is returning after a two year hiatus with the bills. His presence will shore up the left side, along with Samuels they should easily keep Campbell safe and manhandle any defenders allowing Portis some room to run.

Hall is a risk in my book. But i think the skins system will fit him very well. If he can get at least 8 picks this year and not get burned regularly by receivers he will be well worth his pay check. 8 picks or 6 with 2 returned for a TD.

Big Albert Haynsworth: This is quite a signing. Yes i do believe he will instantly make our defense go from a perrenial top 5 to competing with Pittsburgh and Baltimore for best in the league. With his presence we should be able to finally get pressure on the opposing QB and force a turn over or two every game. But he isn't an every down player and its been said that he won't give it his all. I like a true naive believer will shun those naysayers and hope that with the addition of this big guy we will be catapulted into an elite defensive unit.

Losses:

Sean Springs: Sad to see him go, but i have to say it would have been my decision too. He is a great guy and I wish him a lot of luck in New England. Especially guarding T.O. those two just can't shake each other.

Marcus Washington: Same thing as with Springs. The whole left in this slot will be tough to fill. I'd like to see H.B Blades step up, but I'm just not sure he is ready.

Jason Taylor: Ugh, what a waste. Still he would have been great on a line with Big A, Griffin, and Carter.

Demetric Evans: I was really hoping we would re-sign him. He was starting to come into his own with the team.

With the loss of Taylor and Evans the right side DE is a seriously gaping whole in our defense. Add in the loss of Washington and the whole right wide of the front 7 is weak. We will need to shore that up in the draft is my thought. Hopefully we can draft a DE or an OLB in the first round.

Back to Blogging

Most of my blogs to this point have been me rambling on and on. And on occasion I have used this as a more positive outlet for my feelings or frustrations. Either way I feel like this is as good a place as any to write out my thoughts on sports and I guess life in general. So on to start sports.

I watched the caps game tonight. I won't try to say I have always been a huge fan of the team. It’s only recently that I have started to follow them. I always prefer the home teams, but hockey just never held my interest the way football does. But with once Ovechkin showed up I started to follow the team. I must say it’s a lot of fun to watch your team play when you have the best player in the league on your side. I know a lot of people don't really care for Ovy, but I like to think its just jealousy. I do understand that he is quite a personality and some may frown upon his antics, but there is a huge difference between his antics and the all about me personality of a guy like T.O. So on to the game. Every time the caps play the fliers I always assume its going to be a loss. I never feel like we match up to them well. Tonight honestly felt like it would be the same way. But man did they come out and play with a lot of intensity. It was a nice win, and showed that the caps can really play defense as well as solid offense. Ovy's goal was sweet too.

In my own tiny realm of sports I went bowling tonight. I've been trying to learn how to hook the ball instead of just throwing it as hard as I can down the lane and hoping something good will occur. And tonight it really felt for the first time like I was able to get some consistency in my ball. I ended up with a 133, 123, 82, and a 115. The 82 game was pretty poor I had two spares and something in the area of 5 gutters on my first ball. My tenth frame went gutter spare gutter. But the important thing was I didn't get discouraged and was able to finish with a 100+ game. And now my arm is really tired, generally I don't play 4 games.

As for life, spring break is really boring. My brother is in a nursing home for 8 more days, so I don't have him to keep my occupied, my side-kick is in Baton Rouge so he's out, and everyone else is at work. This might be my worst spring break ever, or I'm being melodramatic. Either way, it is nice to sleep until 11 or 12 every day.

I got my copy of Metamorphosis this week. The book is pretty amazing. I was very disappointed by the fact that the Circle lost every fight once again, but by this point I have grown to accept it as inevitability. Seeing my name in the credits was probably the best part of the book.

I guess that will rap this up for now, my goal is to make at least one post a week. Maybe more I feel like I have something to say.