... in which the Fool celebrates Independence Day

Or... rather, what's left of it.

Technically, Independence Day for us was yesterday, Sunday June 12. The only reason that I'm celebrating it today, is because our current leader of the state tends to announce some days to be "non-working holidays" so that "people can spend more time with their loved ones". In general, if a regular holiday falls on a weekend, you can expect either the Friday preceding it, or the Monday succeeding it will become a holiday.

Sure its a neat way of giving quality holidays to people. And personally, I don't complain about the policy. Except today feels, strange. We have review classes, and the Canon people have work. Its a holiday, why would people have work? But I guess, companies can decide if they want to have work or not, so long as they pay their employees for it.

As usual, I'm in a net cafe, that means there are all sorts of people just beside me doing their stuff. This time though, I'm in Greenhills (with their ungodly net cafe costs, 50php or so an hour???) and people around me are playing online games like NBA 2005, and Mu (as compared to chatting on ym with a webcam, or in one instance, browsing porn). I get distracted by the people as they play (one of the kids actually poked his head into my cubicle just to ask which key was missing from his keyboard, the windows key) and sometimes, I tend to watch them play too. This is more interesting than trying to peek at other people as they chat away with people.

Yes, I do peek over other people's shoulders. Its not my fault if I can peek over your shoulder, because well, I have sharp eyes (yeah right). I don't really mind what in the world the person beside me is doing. I just can't stop my curiosity sometimes, and I really need to see what's happening.

Right now for example, someone is playing Gunbound (an online game similar to Worms) beside me. He's using a weapon that I haven't seen before, something that looks like an ice missile, and sad to say, well, he's being clobbered. But I don't say anything to him, I just keep that stuff to myself, I'm just an observer after all. The other guys beside me are playing Mu (an online game not dissimilar to RO) and well, they're trying to level up by killing monsters all around them. Except that they're mobbing the monsters, and some players either misinterpret it as monsters trying to mob him, or its an easy opportunity to level up.

And I just keep on peeking every now and then. Its not really a bad habit. Its something to do as well. Like, um, immersing myself in a culture. Yeah, thats it.

Well, speaking of playing online, I tend to notice that a lot of online players I've observed have this "mob" mentality. Where they either mob all the monsters towards them without telling other players onscreen what they're doing (hence thinking that if other players shoot at the monsters following them, that they're being greedy for kills), or they tend to make jerks of themselves by attacking monsters that are being attacked by other people. I don't know why, but there's nothing difficult with typing a question and asking if they need help, right? The greediness of such players just... disgusts me.

Because when I was playing such games, I was never as greedy as they were. The games for me were just a pastime, and whether I could level up fast enough was never a problem. I didn't care (much) that I was gaining levels at a much slower rate than my friends. It was all a pastime for me, because at those times, I would rather write and browse than play (and besides, playing RO at those times were a nightmare, with all the lag back then). I never got to understand why people would need to steal your kills because I never had to do it.

I guess some people are either just that desperate, or just big jerks. Whatever.

Anyway, I made a Sinister Syndicate (Spider-man enemies) and an Emerald Enemies (Green Lantern enemies) deck last Saturday. The idea was to kill the opponent either on the fifth or the sixth turn. With mass damage capabilities from both teams, it was a hoot to play, regularly bringning oppnonents down to less than 20 life. The problem was finishing it. Because it was team-up deck, there are some problems with having to team up the teams before finishing up the job on turn 5. Sometimes, I would not be able to hit my curve (missing my key characters on each turn), other times, I would just not be able to kill my oppnonet quickly because I lack fire power. But just seeing the expression on my opponent's face as they think whether they'd die or live after the turn was priceless (except for Dan Jacobsen). I myself didn't know if I was going to last past the turn or not. It was a really fun deck, but I don't think it would be good to use in serious competitions yet.

And I haven't watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith yet, as I said I would. Still haven't found the time, but I think I won't be missing Batman Begins this week... hopefully. I could've watched last Saturday, when I spent some time in WalterMart, Makati. Instead, I played Exalted with some other RPG guys then. I didn't even know (yeah right) that there was a movie theater there. When I saw the theater (it was, um, just behind me), I was already midway through my game and I didn't find the time to watch it anymore.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Anyway, I'm going back to browsing for the next few minutes.