MTG Salvation

For most players with little tournament experience, it's very easy to underestimate the importance of the mulligan. In fact, a lot of players treat the Paris mulligan as if it were the same as the old all-land/no-land mulligan rule, or even the same as common casual mulligan rules (0, 1, 6, or 7 lands; or free mulligans whenever you want). But veteran tournament players know just how different the Paris mulligan is, and they know that the mulligan decision is yet another critical skill they need to master.

Pretty slick mashup of Haruhi and Evangelion: youtube

Some very creative editing there - I'm impressed! (though I'm not a video editing expert at all, so it's not too hard to impress me)

I haven't really been following anime mashups... what else out there is good?

You all know how much I love commercials in Japan. They really are not afraid to have some fun.

Check out these milk ads by the Japan Dairy Council: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aamgK7fHfdM

Does it get any better than this? It is awesome on soooo many levels.

Genghis Khan

By the way, does anyone know the name of the group? I'm pretty sure they're German (or of some origin with a closely related Germanic language).

I went to the SXSW Japan Nite show last night at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood. I had to leave early, but it was an awesome lineup, with Asakusa Jinta, The 50 Kaitenz, ORESKABAND, and of course, GO!GO!7188. Pistol Valve was okay, but I'm holding my verdict until I get a chance to listen to the CD. I ended up missing HY at the end.

Rather than copy/paste my write-up, I'll just link to my post on my other blog: link

Also, since I really feel like promoting ORESKABAND, go check out some of their clips on Youtube.

Anyone else go to one of the Japan Nite shows?

Some guys in Japan put together this short clip. Two otakus are approached by two other guys who start bullying them, which leads to an awesome Final Fantasy battle sequence

Otaku Fight

Youtube link

The best one is DJ-sensei.

Some of the others may be confusing if you don't know Japanese culture (since they're mostly parodies), but I think one can still at least appreciate the randomness.

A lot of things look very cool when filmed in slow motion. Especially water balloons.

link 1
link 2

I'm sure there's plenty of this stuff out there. Anyone know any other interesting slow motion videos?

In this article originally published April 18, 2006, fadeblue encourages a bit of cross-training by learning lessons from another famous card game. This article was also voted as April 2006's Article of the Month.

Since I'm kind of into design (appreciating it, not actually doing it), I thought I'd share this: http://www.glumbert.com/media/foldingchair

Very creative design for a chair, and it seems to work very well. I'm not sure what it would feel like to sit on, though.

Check out this video! Pretty good editing for what was involved, but the best part is that it's a piece of my childhood! Sigh... what ever happened to my Hot Wheels...

Today, I figured I'd just share some videos my friends showed me recently.

The first one is a commercial in Korea, another testament to the fact that advertising in other countries seems to be much more creative than in the U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0pxmi52C0U

The second is a clip from one of my favorite Japanese variety shows, "Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!!" hosted by the comedy duo Downtown. This clip is from a segment known as Silent Library, where the participants play a batsu (penalty) game while trying to stay quiet inside a library. On this one, former K-1 champion Ernesto Hoost is a guest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdgdBOTUSqg

I'm in a hurry, so I don't really have time to write a whole lot, but I thought I'd share this fun link: Pictaps

You can draw your own stick-figure type character and watch it dance around! You can also take a look at figures that other people have recently created. Neat idea!

I'd recently been considering writing articles for MTGS again, and then I happened to see one my Magic Theory articles reposted as a Classic. Now I'm wondering whether I should continue with that series...

If I do go back into writing, I'm likely to either do Part VIII of the Theory series, or the "61 Cards" article I had been planning to do for a while. Any opinions on which one I should do first? Does anyone even care?

In this article originally published Feb. 28, 2006, fadeblue takes a look beyond the basics of card advantage and extends an oft-misunderstood concept into the virtual realm.