Dave's Personal Blog

Drafting The Dark

dastels — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:38:28 +0000

Josh & I Winston drafted 12 packs of The Dark.

Ya. The Dark. Draft. It was fun.

I started off in Blue, snagging all the pirate ships I could find. I quickly dropped that due to the rich blackness that was available. And so I moved into black & green, ending up with a solid BG deck:

Land (1)

Maze of Ith

Basic Land (16)

10 Swamp
6 Forest

Creatures (10)

Sorceries (6)

Instants (1)

1 Marsh Gas

Enchantments (5)

Artifacts (1)

1 Wand of Ith

Josh went WU. I believe we played 3 games with me winning all 3 handily. The Fallen is completely NUTS! Get him out fast, make sure he connects then it’s free damage the rest of the game. So are Murk Dwellers … 4 damage if they get through. And Word of Binding makes sure they get through.

GP Oakland

dastels — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:29:09 +0000

This weekend was Grand Prix Oakland. A GP a quick train ride away. So it was an easy choice to drop by for a while on Saturday.

I spent most of my time there today catching up with some old friends and picking up some cards I had been looking for.

I did take the time to get a draft in. My first pack had Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. It seemed good… heavy red is always fun. Splashing black is seldom a bad idea. Well, not too much black goodness was forthcoming but there were some decent blue cards, so i figured red with a blue splash. Pack 2 gave me Hellkite Charger… tasty! With the red I picked from the Zendikar packs, I was solidly in red by the time we got to the pack of Worldwake. The red just kept on coming: 3 Skitter of Lizards, 2 Claws of Valakut, and so on. I ended up with enough good playables (IMO) to build a mono red deck. That played well with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, Claws of Valakut, and Spire Barrage. Here’s the list I settled on:

Basic Lands (14)

14 Mountain

Lands (2)

Creatures (11)

Sorceries (4)

Instants (1)

1 Unstable Footing

Enchantments (4)

Artifacts (4)

Round one was a fairly solid win for me against a RB deck. In game one I was down to 2 life before my Hellkite Charger came online and commenced the burnanating. Game 2 saw my life total being chipped away 20-18-17-10, at which point my deck took off and dropped him from 20 to 8 in one turn. My opponent quickly did the math, and.. GG.

Round two was against a U deck: Fire against water. He took the first game, while handily took the second. Game three saw me unable to do much other than get hit by his fliers, until he finally did the leathal damage.

One memorable play was dealing the final point of damage by playing a kicked Deathforge Shaman.

11 Creatures is a bit light, and I could have played a Tuktuk Grunts in place of the Zektar Shrine Expedition, although being the only ally I had it was on the pricy side.

In any event, the draft was fun and I was pleased with how well I did given that it was my first Zendikar block draft and my first time seeing Worldwake cards (I couldn’t make it to the prerelease this time, haven’t gotten product yet, and didn’t even look at the spoilers).

Apartment wishlist satisfied

dastels — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:46:02 +0000

It’s been a while since my last post here. It’s been busy. I’ve been busy with life & all that. I’ve been getting back into the iPhoneOS development, especially in light of the iPad announcement, and I’ve started a cooking/foodie blog at daveastels.com.

In my last post I listed my wants for a place in San Francisco. In a delightful twist of irony, a friend posted that she was looking for a new roommate. I joked with her that is was, indeed, somewhat amusing that we posted what were essentially mirror posts on the same day. I thought little more of this until a mutual friend suggested that we seriously consider sharing her place. A week later and I’d started moving in.

Things are going great. The neighborhood rocks: BART, MUNI, corner green grocers, convenience/liquor store, coffee shops, taquerias, and even a gourmet ice cream shop. All within an easy walk. The condo is fabulous. The roommate is incredible. Did I mention that I have a 26 minute door to door commute now!

Apartment wishlist

dastels — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:45:52 +0000

So… I’m getting really tired of commuting up the peninsula daily. It’s a drag and worse on weekends. Pretty much all my friends are in the city. So… I need to move my ass up there. I figure I’ll see if I can leverage the collective power of my SF peeps. Here’s what I’m looking for:

kitchen:
- granite counters and lots of them
- gas range
- microwave optional and really, even not wanted
nice-ish neighborhood
convenient for public transit and biking to/from SOMA
nice view
new & modern
a bit of counter in the bathroom
generous wall space for my desk & bookcases
moderate sized living/dining area
roomy bedroom
laundry in unit or even in building

About 800 sq.ft. seems to be what I’m after (I’m in a 770 sq.ft. place now… and don’t really want to downsize).

Price is somewhat open. <=2000/mth preferably. One caveat is that there can’t be a credit check, as I have no US credit history… being on a cash-only basis since I moved here. I’ve been fucked over by that little detail at the last minute once already.

I don’t know if I can get what I want at the price I want in S.F. I know I can in Chicago, but I also know the cost of living difference.

Xmas French Toast

dastels — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 21:22:40 +0000

Since I got appreciative comments on my tweet of my Christmas brunch (including offers of semi-nudity), I figured I’d blog about it.

Here’s the end result:

I made the apple topping first:

2 Honeycrisp apples (more if you want to, you know, make more of it)
butter
some sort of sugar
scotch

Core & peel the apples. Slice thinly. Heat a skillet to low-med. Melt a generous amount of butter in said warm skillet. Add the apples. Cook slowly, stirring occasionally until they are soft. Add sugary goodness. I used honey, but would have used brown sugar if I’d had some. Cook a bit more. Add some scotch (unlike the toast batter (later) I’d stick with scotch here for that lovely butterscotchy flavor you get). I used about an ounce. Continue cooking until the apples are browned & slightly caramelized. Keep warm.

Then the french toast itself:

sliced, dayish old French Bread
eggs
eggnog
scotch

As I was just cooking for myself and the egg nog is think & rich already, I used just one egg. Beat the egg into ‘nog (I don’t know how much… enough… maybe a cup). Mix in some scotch. I think it gluged twice. With your skillet hot (low-med), soak a piece of bread on both sides in the egg mixture. Fry to perfection. Repeat.

Serve topped with the apples, a handful of pecans, and a dust of cinnamon. Feel free to add a dust of powdered sugar and/or whipped cream as you like.

Enjoy! I know I did.

Note: I used scotch because a) I really like scotch, b) the bourdon I have it too good not to sip straight up, and c) I didn’t think to buy any rum to have over xmas.

EDH Angels

dastels — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:44:10 +0000

I just got this sleeved up and am ready to test it.

My plan was to call it “Holier Than Thou”, but at least over the holidays, I’ve dubbed it “Angels We Have Heard On High”.

The Curve looks good. Lots of life gain & damage prevention in the 1-4 slots, heavy at 4. Then the angels start showing up.. plenty at 5, a few at six and a showing at 7, 8, & 9.

I picked Reya Dawnbringer for the general, mainly for her recurring resurrection effect. Sure she costs 9 to play (the first time) but you likely won’t have many angels in the graveyard until turn 10 anyway.

I built the deck using plains from Urza’s Saga, 8 of each art. The images of Serra’s Realm are a natural fit for the theme of the deck.

General (1)

1 Reya Dawnbringer

Basic Land (32)

32 Plains

Land (8)

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Creatures (28)

Artifacts (1)

1 Senseis Divining Top

Enchantments (11)

Sorceries (7)

Instants (11)

The approach is simple: early game fog and life-gain effects. Sweepers to control the board. Angels to beat with, and a few ways to resurrect them. A bit of pump thrown in for good measure.

Just a note. The deck looks way nicer than is shown above. As I said, I used Urza’s Saga plains. Also, all cards are original printings (except for the WoG)… it just a sweet looking deck.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Some hardware hacking

dastels — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:32:04 +0000

I did my first simple hardware project in a long time yesterday. I spent a good chunk of my high school years and immediately after with a soldering iron. Since then, not so much. I recently picked one up and have plans to design & build guitar effects units.

The first project was simple, and accomplished 2 goals:

The USB cable to hook my guitar to my iMac (for Garageband) was really stiff and annoying to use. I wanted a way to use a standard guitar cable.

Having the audio output connection on the back of the iMac is a royal pain in the ass. It wasn’t such a problem before, but now that I’m practicing with headphones, it is. I wanted to be able to move between my external speakers and headphones with a flick of a switch. It would also be nice to have a 1/4″ headphone jack

With these goals in mind, I headed to Fry’s for the requisite bits & pieces. After drilling out the project box, I had:

This project was pretty trivial. Just a housing and some wiring. A good re-starter project. Anyway, here’s with the wiring completed:

And the final unit securely in place on the underside of the front edge of my desk:

I have more ambitious projects planned

It Might Get Loud

dastels — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:53:35 +0000

I’ve been eagerly looking forward to this movie since first hearing about it sometime in the summer.

From the press kit:

Rarely can a film penetrate the glamorous surface of rock legends. It Might Get Loud tells the personal stories, in their own words, of three generations of electric guitar virtuosos – The Edge (U2), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), and Jack White (The White Stripes). It reveals how each developed his unique sound and style of playing favorite instruments, guitars both found and invented. Concentrating on the artist’s musical rebellion, traveling with him to influential locations, provoking rare discussion as to how and why he writes and plays, this film lets you witness intimate moments and hear new music from each artist. The movie revolves around a day when Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge first met and sat down together to share their stories, teach and play.

I have a hard time expressing how excellent and inspiring I’ve found this movie. Three of the most innovative, influential guitarists of their time, or maybe even of all time. Just wow.

If you like electric guitar (i.e. you’re white, apparently), or The Edge/U2, or Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin, or Jack White/White Stripes etc., see this movie! Use headphones if your in an apartment or don’t have a home theatre system.. and LET IT GET LOUD.

It’s recently available on DVD and iTunes. [apparently, while on iTiunes now, it's not on disk until Dec 22]

New Guitar

dastels — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:05:12 +0000

I finally succumbed and bought myself a new guitar. Between feeling the itch for many months, having friends that play, and being blown away by “It Might Get Loud“, I decided the time was right. Merry Christmas to me.

Here it is. Fender Standard Stratocaster, HSS (a humbucker at the bridge), brown sunburst finish and a rosewood fretboard. It feels as good as it looks. To quote Jimmy Page “It’s like a woman, you have to caress it like a woman.”

EDH Artifacts

dastels — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:54:07 +0000

Here’s a fun deck I’ve just gotten into good shape.

General (1)

1 Karn, Silver Golem

Land (39)

Mana Artifacts (7)

Creatures (16)

Equipment (18)

Artifacts (19)

The main core idea is to get some creatures out, slap a pile of equipment on them and bash.

Karn can make extra, beefy attackers. I’ve used an animated Gilded Lotus as a 5/5 attacker when I didn’t need those 3 mana.

Arena of the Ancients is especially handy to lock down your opponent’s general, as you seldom want to attack with karn. It does duty as a 3/3 attacker as well.