alexgndl

Haven't been around as much lately, posting-wise. I've still been lurking pretty regularly, but I've been busy with other stuff. For the last year or so I've been working as a freelance writer for all sorts of people, and really wanted to start writing fiction.
 
So I wanted to post what I've been working on for the last month and a half for everyone's enjoyment: Orphans
 
It's a web serial/novel I plan to update once a week, maybe twice going into the future. It's got martial arts, and stuff! Check it out, leave a like, comment, and subscribe or something like that. Tell me what I'm doing wrong and how my story killed your dog, I can take it as much as I tend to dish it out, you won't hurt me (too bad).

I find it incredible that the last time we had a good Standard, Return to Ravnica had just rotated.  And now that Ravnica's back, standard is good again.  

Another day, another Masters set that nobody asked for. This time, with a MSRP of US $13.99 per pack! And if you buy a box (MSRP of US $335ish, although it'll 100% be higher) you get a single super rare masterpiece! How amazing!
 
Honestly though, fuck this set. Modern Masters 1 was honestly amazing, and it's just gone downhill ever since. I thought that MM17 was a step in the right direction, but obviously not.

Another day, another Masters set that nobody asked for. This time, with a MSRP of US $13.99 per pack! And if you buy a box (MSRP of US $335ish, although it'll 100% be higher) you get a single super rare masterpiece! How amazing!
 
Honestly though, fuck this set. Modern Masters 1 was honestly amazing, and it's just gone downhill ever since. I thought that MM17 was a step in the right direction, but obviously not.

I'll give you triple Innistrad draft over Commander, but for the most part I'm not a huge drafter.  Triple-INN was just the best draft set of all time though.  And as the guy who had a large part in escalating my group's Commander to singleton legacy...sorry.

So just when I thought that Wizards was going to turn it around with Dominaria, when we were on the upswing, they go and pull the dumbest fucking stunt I think I've ever seen them do.
 
So this is a card that got leaked last week, to pretty decent reviews from the EDH crowd.

Look! It's a Boros commander (typically the weakest color combination in EDH) that doesn't care about the combat step! And it's a rare! We can finally do something besides turn cards sideways in Boros!
 
Except good luck getting one of these cards because it's the buy a box promo AND YOU CAN ONLY GET THIS CARD FROM BUYING A BOX.  It's not going to be in any boosters, it's not going to be in intro packs or anything.  No.  The only way you can get this card is to drop roughly $100 on a box and pray that your LGS both has copies of this card left in stock (because it's going to be an insanely limited print run of these bad boys) and they haven't just kept all the promos so that they can sell them at marked up prices.  Oh and if that weren't bad enough, you have to buy the box before the prerelease weekend to get one.  Because printing a super limited card isn't enough, they have to go and timegate it too.  I'm fucking pissed about this, this is such a bad precedent and I hope Wizards gets so many angry letters about this because frankly it's absolutely unacceptable.

Corvette, after seeing Tree of Redemption get spoiled as one of the final mythics, I'm inclined to agree with you.  This set is pretty garbage.  The watermarks are awesome though, and I hope they keep it up in the future.

Happy new year all of you
 
No matter what you're doing witb your life, whether you're bettering the world squeezing moisture off leaves to feed starving African children or waking up to play videogames all day, just make sure you're happy to wake up every morning
 
Even if this forum is dead I wish you all the best and I mean it

There is no plausible reason why Mario + Rabbids is as good as it is. What a fantastic game.

Dwarf Inquisitor (Monster Tactician)/Paladin (Stonelord) with the Versatile Summon Monster (Chthonic) feat and the Deep Guardian trait.  Everything you summon is made of rock, you have a pet made of rock, you are made of rock, you're a Paladin who can still dump CHA, you're the Dwarfiest Dwarf to ever Dwarf.

What part of
do you not understand, Caveson?
It's not "months" of saving, it's almost always years. If it takes you mere months to save up enough cash to move to a new fucking state, you're obviously not doing that bad in life to begin with.

I'm going to be extremely blunt - and in doing so be an asshole - but I don't give a damn about your father's story and I sure as hell didn't ask for it. Because it's exactly the same kind of bullshit that I've been hearing everywhere else about why "The left just wants everything handed to them" "Millennials are so entitled" "Kids these days want the world for nothing". It's always "My parents grew up poor, but they worked and reaped the benefits of their hard work and blah blah blah blah blah" with words like "personal responsibility", "dedication", and "determination". Caveson, you're not this bloody stupid, the entire environment of the United States was vastly different than what it is now, it's why your father was able to actually accomplish that. I don't give a damn what you believe, lack of money is precisely the reason to not move, coming from someone who is currently in a situation where moving is impossible due to financial reasons, you're looking through Red, White, and Blue filtered lenses.
Thanks for dropping the pretenses.
Fuck the "Free Market".
Actually, this more falls into "The internet is a utility - akin to electricity, water, gas, etc. - and should therefore be treated as such instead of letting corporations have unabated control over the internet", nowhere did I ever mention the internet as a "right".
Except the states won't be able handle it!
The moment a state - and, let's face it, it's going to be California - attempts to actually enact and enforce their own form of Net Neutrality, one of the major ISPs is going to sue that state. And the courts will have no choice but to side with the company because if the FCC repealed Net Neutrality, that means they obviously intended for corporations to be able to do what they're going to do, and therefore the states have no right to try to stop them. 
It's better than the complete clusterfuck you're asking for.
You're assuming a lot about what kind of pricing they're going to offer. Things that use less bandwidth will not necessarily cost an appreciable amount less, and you'll still potentially be making internet access unaffordable for people who regularly use the internet for both "low-bandwidth" and "high-bandwidth" purposes.
Gee, gotta love how you immediately jump to some kind of negative assumption of me just because you can't think of a reason so I must be lazy and don't want to do any work.

I've already been impacted by differing standards across state lines. Technically I failed the 10th grade according to Georgia's standards, even though by Florida's standards I passed. In the grand scheme of things, it's rather insignificant - that could be said about just about anything - but I remember seriously questioning how and why the standards of education varied enough just across a single state border.

The reason I'm making this argument is because the United States has hardly changed over the decades, even centuries. We're still trying to govern on a system that worked perfectly okay in the US' infancy and for some time after its formation. But we've grown tremendously since then, we're now 50 states and ~323 million people strong. Our system of governing has been showing cracks and faults for decades now, and yet, year by year, the wedges keep being driven deeper and we keep adding more wedges. At some point - be it in the near or distant future - those wedges are going to get hammered all the way through the foundations and everything's going to crumble. 2016 was a rather brilliant display of how the low the general landscape the US has reached.
You can't always say no to a corporation. For example, I don't really like doing my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, they're not the greatest company. But there's no place around me that has prices as low as theirs, or a wide enough selection of goods my family either needs or would be willing to buy. There's a Publix closer to my house, but they're typically more expensive on just about everything my family needs and uses. There's an ALDI somewhere around here, but it's far enough out and out of the way enough that we'd be spending every potential penny we saved on gas. So I bite my tongue and get my groceries from Wal-Mart, because they're cheaper and we can save that money in case something happens. Corporations don't need to outright force you to buy their products, they can still get you to buy their stuff in a number of indirect ways.

And I'd thank you to not make such generalizing statements about my life when you know nothing about it. Disconnecting from the internet entirely would likely drive me to suicide - I'm an introvert and suffer from anxiety, I don't want to go out and meet with people, I dislike being alone in large crowds, so I don't want to go "experience the real world", whatever the fuck that means, and certainly not for any lengthy period of time - the "simpler things" in my life are chatting and gaming with friends I've made across the globe online. I don't have "my friend"s outside of the internet anymore - I don't have anyone I can call up or text and say "Let's hang out" or "Mind if I come over?" - I have "our friend"s, and even then I see them about once a month now. As edgy as it sounds, I don't have anything out there for me aside from some leisurely stuff I can't do at home. As pathetic as it sounds, my life is online. I already suffer from depression and feelings of loneliness, I don't need my one connection I feel the most comfortable with fucked with by some greedy conglomerate that's only interested in money I don't have.

So I bought a Switch a couple of weeks ago, along with Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, a couple of smaller games, and as of today, Rocket League and Skyrim.  This is by far the best console I have ever played.  I never thought that something would drag me away from sweet, sweet PC gaming, but Nintendo has done it.  I freaking love this thing.

So I bought a Switch a couple of weeks ago, along with Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, a couple of smaller games, and as of today, Rocket League and Skyrim.  This is by far the best console I have ever played.  I never thought that something would drag me away from sweet, sweet PC gaming, but Nintendo has done it.  I freaking love this thing.

So I bought a Switch a couple of weeks ago, along with Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, a couple of smaller games, and as of today, Rocket League and Skyrim.  This is by far the best console I have ever played.  I never thought that something would drag me away from sweet, sweet PC gaming, but Nintendo has done it.  I freaking love this thing.

On top of that, cards from other TCGs are banned from Constructed to begin with.
 
But if we're using cards from YGO to win, just use this. 

For a second I read the system as Fatal and was just absolutely horrified.

They revealed a new guy named Bard, whose ult is a targeted area where everyone inside it, friend or for, is Zhonyas'd. This guy has so much trolly "I'm helping!" potential it's insane.

Man, rereading this thread is pretty funny.  We were all so hyped for Dragon's Maze.  Raz also thought that M14 slivers were like...the best thing ever.  It's also funny watching us all slowly become EDH players.  I never did make that Brion Stoutarm deck...
 
EDIT: Raz, you called Dack Fayden absolutely terrible when he was spoiled.  Just thought you should know.

So I'm in New York City for the weekend, and I went to this big store today called Forbidden Planet.  Bought 2 packs of Eternal Masters, because it's the first place I had seen them since the set released.  Pulled a Sylvan Library and Mana Crypt.  It was a pretty good day.

So I'm in New York City for the weekend, and I went to this big store today called Forbidden Planet.  Bought 2 packs of Eternal Masters, because it's the first place I had seen them since the set released.  Pulled a Sylvan Library and Mana Crypt.  It was a pretty good day.

The assumption that our concept of racism by definition is hating everyone and wanting to "give those fucking niggers their due" is also in some respects a straw man argument. You can be racist without having to be some kind of genocidal clan member caricature because systematic racism manifests itself in a multitude of extremely subtle ways and it's easy to buy into it in ways we don't even think about.
 
For instance, telling a black person they're well spoken because you assumed they wouldn't be
 
or making assumptions about the character of Mexican immigrants that you might not make about the character of European immigrants
 
or like, wholeheartedly believing you're in some kind of protracted race war taking place on a global scale in which everyone who isn't part of your ethnic is coming to destroy your way of life

Well this has been an interesting discussion...I really hope raison's trolling there because goddamn, dude.  Also, slight comment on the "we're gonna become Brazil" comment you made there-isn't the current government pretty conservative?  Because I'm pretty sure they recently impeached the left-leaning president and replaced her with a really conservative government.  So wouldn't you WANT the US to be more like Brazil at this point?
 
 
Anyways, it seems like a lot of Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and my boy Chuck Schumer, are really rallying for Keith Ellison for the new head of the DNC.  I never had heard of him, but he seems pretty legit to be honest-I think he would be a good candidate to try and pull the Democrats further left of center, which is where you could argue they're at right now.  Plus, he's a black muslim, which I'm sure will endear him to people like...well, I guess people like our buddy Raison.

i think you dropped this raison:
 

The last thing I'll say is, well yeah. Maybe for you. But I guarantee you there are people who have already lost their lives indirectly just because of this guy becoming president. Hate crimes went up by 80% when Brexit happened. It'll be worse here.
 
Already read about 3 shootouts in the last 2 days, one half an hour from where I live. People are dying and will die as a result of a racist president emboldening the other racists in the country. They have their initiative and people will suffer. But it's okay, because life'll go on for you I guess. It's not the end of the world for you maybe, but a lot of LGBT people, and minorities in general are terrified out of their fucking minds.
 
The only reason I'm not afraid to leave my own god damn house is because I live in an extremely Hispanic dense area. If I were in any bible belt state I would not step out of my god damn house out of fear. So there you go. We'll keep moving forward, but at what cost. There is no world where people should have to fear for their lives because a presidential candidate has been elected.
 
Also I'm just gonna go ahead and also mention Mike Pence is a human being who probably shouldn't exist. That's all I got.