AiriZel: Thoughts

I told myself that I’d keep a blog starting this past year with all my thoughts. And well, I’ve done it! And although this post was originally supposed to have been posted a week ago, Strep throat and New Years activities disagreed with that time table.

So here are some statistics. I have 88 posted blog posts with 15 additional blog posts saved on an external from South Kore (they’ll be posted eventually). This blog is now over a year old.

Things that have happened since I started this blog:

Obama became president, I graduated high school, I got into Yale College, I went to Korea, I started playing poker, the PureMTGO Freed from the Real podcast was started (and is still going strong), Haruhi season 2 started and ended (I’m currently on episode 12. Started yesterday haha), I moved my reachable address to Yale, Facebook had privacy issues, Twitter still has no business model (and may never), with Avatar, the 3D medium of watching movies has become more readily accepted, and I turned 18.

These are a variety of things that happened and honestly, there are more things that happened than that even. Anthony Platon got a girlfriend for example. I severed ties with some of my high school friends (tis the college process I suppose). Taylor Swift became really big. So much happened this past year and more the past decade.

So now, what’s on my mind going forward? Well, I’ve been watching hours of Haruhi on the plane back to Yale so my one resolution is to for as much as possible follow this:

“Feelings of love are just a temporary lapse in judgment. Like a kind of mental illness.”

That’s forefront in my mind right now. I feel like my search for happiness and love is getting in the way of progress. So enough of that. Back to the hard rigor of life.

Not sure if there’s anything else really. One change I’d like to announce is that my hosting has changed from Vlexo to VlexoFree. These guys have always been amazing to me and continue to be.

I’d really like to send a New Years thanks to my good friend Erik Friborg. Without him, the Freed from the Real podcast would not be in existence right now. I’m really glad that he agreed to do the podcast with me because as a result I not only saw the creation of a podcast, I also gained an invaluable friend in him.

Also shoutouts to AJ (the necessary British character), Mike Janssen (thanks for all the technical help and filling in time to time. Also congrats on your marriage man), and Joshua Claytor (who despite having yet been on the podcast, continues to give his full support).

I’ll have a thank you post soon (I think).

Happy New Year

-Sebastian

Ah. The first serious post on this blog in the last couple of weeks. They’ve been pretty busy and I feel I’ve been neglecting this blog a tad. But fear not, my little blackbook has been very apt in the “oh my god I have a thoguht I need to write it down so I don’t forget” department. So I do have thoughts written down on paper somewhere. I guess if I’m bored I can post some of them onto this blog.

Anyway, the podcast has been doing really well lately. The number of hits the podcast is getting is up and I feel that the content of the podcast is getting better and more streamlined. Originally my brainchild, I feel the best idea I had was to bring Erik into the fold. That guy is a beast! He keeps up with everything and makes podcasting so much easier with his awesome host abilities. Cannot thank him enough. He was and continues to be an essential part of the podcast development, as we bounce ideas off of each other and figure out what should go in and what should go out (case in point: this week’s podcast may have a section where I talk about the decks I’m playing. It won’t have a section of me talking about how I got into the University of Chicago).

So everyone should definitely go listen to Freed from the Real. It goes up either Monday or Tuesday night, depending on how Joshua is feeling (and how fast I finish editing).

As for prom, I figured I’d answer a few questions. Yes I am going to prom. Yes I do have a date. Yes this may be unexpected, but I expect to have a lot of fun. As for the details, I’m still looking for a group of people to go in a limo with and I’m still trying to figure out how I can make it a more special day for my date (and by default for myself).Prom is the pinnacle of a lot of people’s lives and I’m 100% sure it won’t be the pinnacle of mine. That said, I want to make sure that it works out for my date ^_^.

Lastly, I must talk about pokemon. Yes Pokemon. For some reason (IE Leo Simkin) a good number of my close friends have become serious pokemon TCG players.

Seriously. No joke.

Considering how much work and play I do with Magic the Gathering, I feel inclined to let them have their fun with the game. The game itself isn’t that bad, although I feel there are inherent problems with the mechanics. I’ve mentioned that I’d be very willing to teach them how to play magic (and in fact built two beginner type decks for two of them), but my collection compared to others is really small (I only opened 3 boxes so far and the rest of my cards are from drafts and trades). If anyone has any suggestions about turning these Pokemon players into magic players (because we all know which one is a better game), do tell! I’m definitely interested in hearing about it.

College decisions continue through next week. Once everything is done I’ll definitely have a comprehensive post about what the hell I did these past 6 months in my quest to get into a great college.

-Sebastian

Alright! So after a brief hiatus (caused by my debate schedule, the Superbowl, and the heavy snow that kept Erik off the internet), Freed from the Real, formerly known as PureMTGO Podcast has entered its 3rd (second published) edition and is currently featured on the website.

Moreover, I’ve finally installed stats! I’ve been meaning to track the stats of my website and so I finally got it installed yesterday, so now I can track what’s happening in terms of my site traffic. So far, since I installed it at 11PM yesterday, I’ve gotten 12 hits (and one google hit from facepalm. haha).

Lastly, I’ve been working on my programming projects! I thought I’d update everyone that as of right now, I’m still engaging in doing programming projects off of Craiglist, but I’ll also take requests directly to my e-mail. Contact me either via my e-mail or this blog if you require coding services. I can do most webcoding, but I’ll also come up with a more comprehensive list of coding I can do in the relative future.

Now I need to get home so later!

-Sebastian

As I speak, the opening draft videos for Rune Drafting #4 are going up. I hate waiting for uploads to finish, so I figured I will leave my desktop on over night as it uploads both parts of my draft onto youtube.

I just thought I’d update all of you on what’s happening at PureMTGO in terms of my tenure there and the future of the site in general.

Personally, I’ll be continuing to produce Rune’s Ramblings and Rune Drafting articles for the website, which will generally feature my general musings and ramblings about Magic, Rambling focusing on more of the constructed side of things, and drafting focusing on the limited side of things. A third project that is currently in the works is a PureMTGO podcast that I would be a mainstay host of. The podcast is going to be some good fun and I think it’ll definitely take off once we get the structure and hosts down (Joshua and Erik, if you’re reading this, you two better be there with me!!)

Alright, in terms of the website itself, I’ve been getting a fair amount of mail and PMs on MODO in regards to the site’s properties and structure. My fellow writer and friend jamuraa is working on the new website, and I’ve been assured that it’ll be done within a week or so. I can’t wait, it’s going to be smooth and stable and a lot of awesome.

So the future of PureMTGO is pretty bright, and all things considered, it seems that my stay with the website seems pretty concrete right now.

And that’s it for this topic!

-Sebastian