Nhan-Fiction Note: Love Live! School Idol Project is a really cute anime!

What is your vibe today?

What fuels your actions and thoughts? Are you being helped or hindered by your vibe?

We are all prone to letting everything affect our vibe in some fashion.

It can be a good thing. And just as easily, things can go south and turn vile at the drop of a dime.

“We all abide by the vibe we create for ourselves.”

But ultimately, you, individually, have the most influence on how your vibe shapes itself, day in and day out.

For far too long, I have allowed myself to be shackled, restrained and limited by my own vibe. I allowed my fears and negative thoughts to anchor my passions and potential in place, when in reality I am capable of so much more when I just give myself a chance.

But starting now, right this instance, I want this all to stop. No more! No longer shall I be confined and trapped by own mental barriers. This imprisonment of my spirit and zeal has run its course.

It is time I set myself free.

“We all abide by the vibe we create for ourselves.”

Free yourself.

Find the things in life that you love and let those be the catalysts toward developing and maintaining a healthy, ideal vibe.

Free yourself.

You are your own worst enemy at times. Be heroic and find the courage to deal with the personal bouts with doubt.

Free yourself.

Live. Feel inspired. Feel empowered. Feel LIKE YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO DO WHEN YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO IT.

“We all abide by the vibe we create for ourselves.”

Reblogged from twohp's adventures in the League of Legends:

When I first got into Magic: the Gathering awhile back, Sleep has always found its way into a deck slot at some point.
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A relatively simple card, Sleep has been a key reason why I can emerge victorious in my games of Magic. I particularly like how the card art shows Mr. Horse getting some quality, dreaming time as well.

When I draw Sleep around mid game or late game, it opens up options for defensive or offensive plays.

When I am in a pinch, I can buy myself some time by forcing all of my opponent’s creatures to catch some Z’s. As they are snoozing in la la land, I can prepare a counterattack. Alternatively, I can cripple my opponent’s creatures and then swing in for devastating damage, which is essentially a win condition in its own way. It is a bit of a ghetto method of nabbing victory, but hey – it gets the job done.

Now, moving on to another blue card I love to have on in hand in my sideboard is Ætherize. Also, I think the card art is extremely cool.
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Converted Mana Cost: 4

Types: Instant

Card Text: Return all attacking creatures to their owner’s hand.

Flavor Text: “You can come back once you’ve learned some manners—and figured out how to reconstitute your physical forms.”

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I love this card a lot. Though strictly for defensive purposes, being able to bounce back your opponent’s alpha strike can set them back quite a bit if they are not ready for an Ætherize trap. This card is particularly potent during the critical moments of mid or late game where all-in maneuvers are more commonplace.

It is like, “I declare an attack with everything.” And then I respond, “Ætherize. Return all of those attacking creatures to your hand.”

My opponent then gives me that awkward stare as they begin to pick up all their attacking creatures. In this case, seeing your opponent fill up their hand with so many cards is a good thing.

Ætherize is amazing against the right deck. Aggro-centered decks, beware! I can at least say, “Come at me!” when I have this handy-dandy card to stop an army and then some.

Nhan-Fiction Note: As described in yesterday’s post, I am attempting to make each day of the week have some kind of “scheduled” post theme to go along with the other random stuff I post. For today, I will be starting the Showstopper series for Wednesday.

I watch all kinds of different shows, so I guess it is good that I talk about some of the things I like. Also, please note that some of the videos shown below do contain swearing. Just for your information.
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Gordon Ramsay is my favorite celebrity chef in the world. I will always take his word when it comes to the culinary arts.

I also am a huge fan of one of his signature shows called Kitchen Nightmares. I have seen every episode for both the UK and American versions of the TV program. There is something about restaurants that appeal to me. I have always been fascinated by the inner workings of the food service industry, from how the servers take your order to how a restaurant’s kitchen service “line“ is set up to create (hopefully) tasty dishes for the customers.

The premise of Kitchen Nightmares, of course, involves Ramsay checking out a failing restaurant to analyze and devise a plan of attack at saving the business.

The show follows a consistent structure in most cases: a restaurant is drowning in debt and is in need of dire help, Ramsay comes into the restaurant and starts to pick apart the restaurant’s shortcomings (bad food, hideous decor, inept management and so forth), Ramsay has to convince the owner(s) of the failing restaurant to change, the relaunch/restaurant renovation occurs next and then everything (presumably) looks like the given restaurant is back on track toward success.

Despite a lot of episodes being very similar, I still find myself very entertained by this show.

In fact, one of my dreams is to open a restaurant someday. However, as much as I would like to, I am also aware of how hard it is to make a restaurant work, let alone develop it to a point where it becomes profitable and lucrative to sustain itself.

Restaurants are a tough business, after all. I think shows like Kitchen Nightmares accurately portray the naive qualities that some wannabe restaurateurs awkwardly possess. I am honestly dumbfounded that some of these owners could somehow get ahold of that much money to start their business ventures in the first place (did they dupe the banks or something?).

More importantly, the restaurateurs being shocked at the difficulty of keeping a restaurant afloat really baffle me. You cannot expect to build a serious food joint without some research and experience, or so one would think. It just really seems like many of these struggling business owners on Kitchen Nightmares just opened a restaurant on a whim without understanding the seriousness of their commitment. You cannot be lazy with a restaurant and expect to succeed.

And even after Ramsay goes the whole nine yards for so many restaurants, ultimately, a lot of them end up closing. And some are foolish enough to blame Ramsay for it.

What? If anything, he gives these places a second chance at life. How is it his fault when the restaurant owners do very stupid things like revert back to their old, unappealing menus that were not bringing in the guests?

But I digress.

A lot of the restaurants showcased on this show are often hanging on by a thread in the first place. So with or without Ramsay’s help, some of these businesses had their days numbered, regardless. It goes to show how tough and ruthless this business is if you are not prepared for it.
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FIVE THOUGHTS
Below are five random aspects about the restaurants portrayed on Kitchen Nightmares that stand out to me the most. In no particular order of significance.

1. You are selling food. If your restaurant is not doing well, something is probably wrong with the products and items you are serving.

“Our food is wonderful. Our food is good.” Right, and that is why you are on a show called Kitchen Nightmares?

People go to a restaurant to eat. If they do not like the food you are making for them, chances are they will not be coming back. They will tell others that your food sucks and that leads to less potential customers.

Is this such a difficult concept to grasp? Restaurants sell food. If your food cannot surpass the taste of a microwaved TV dinner you could find in a supermarket, then you are in deep trouble. Is your food palate not working? Do you lack taste buds to figure out how bad your food is?

Sell better food and perhaps your restaurant can stand a chance. Have an emphasis for fresh and high-quality ingredients. Hire a great staff of cooks/chefs to work their magic in the kitchen. FOOD = A RESTAURANT’S PROFIT ON A PLATE!

2. Customers are a restaurant’s lifeblood. Your business needs them to survive.
Good food is nothing without great service. A potentially amazing meal can be ruined easily by a shoddy, dining experience. I expect restaurants to treat their customers with the respect they deserve.

Customers pay the bills. Without them, your restaurant has no one to cook or serve for, meaning you can be out of business in no time. Each waiter and waitress should be attentive and on-point with anyone they serve (personally, I don’t like overly enthusiastic servers who smother you and try too hard). The kitchen staff should always be trying to pump out delicious dishes in a timely manner for customers to enjoy.

It is common sense. The customer is always right in this industry (at least in their minds).

3. It starts at the top – poor management creates a terrible infrastructure for success. 
Without proper management, the negative effects for a restaurant take their toll over time. Staff members can end up neglecting their duties, so things like basic cleaning and whatnot become ignored.

If the staff members are not being managed to do their jobs properly, then a restaurant will surely suffer. You need great management to make sure all staff members carry out their respective duties. Otherwise, it becomes the blind leading the blind … into bankruptcy for your business.

4. Any untrustworthy staff member is toxic.
Like honestly, does any business really want a bad staff member? Sure, the correct answer would be no, and yet Kitchen Nightmares sure has a knack for showing a business with all kinds of questionable employees. For some reason, instead of canning them when they get a chance, a lot of failing restaurants still decide to keep them on their payroll.

Despite being caught doing things like stealing, being disrespectful to other coworkers/customers or heaven forbid something worse, I have noticed that really crappy restaurant owners on this show refuse to fire these cancerous staff members.

Bad employees are deadweight and need to be removed from your business on the double.

5. What makes your restaurant stand out? What is your niche/hook?
Restaurants oversaturate the market in a struggling economy. People have less money to spend on eating out in general. If potential customers do decide to eat out, why should they choose your place when there are literally a gazillion other eateries out there?

It is clear on Kitchen Nightmares that a lot of restaurants may lack that “oomph” to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Like, look … I don’t expect a restaurant to go nuts with some kind of out-of-the-box gimmick all the time to stand out, but when you come across the same kind song and dance with a given restaurant type (spaghetti and meatballs at an Italian restaurant, for instance), it can quickly propel a restaurant toward being in the dime-a-dozen category real fast.

No matter what it is, a restaurant needs to be special at something. Perhaps your business makes the best burger in town? Or maybe your place sells the freshest seafood?

Otherwise, if your business does not offer something worthwhile, I can bet a random, rival business will be able to impress. Competition is fierce. It is sink or swim in this industry.

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So yeah, I do not claim to be an expert on restaurant science or anything, but I do possess a passion of sorts for a restaurant’s business dynamics. I think a lot of it is doing many random things well. It can be something as simple as making sure a customer’s soup comes out hot or making sure their water glasses are always topped off. It is not rocket science. The restaurant industry is all about customer service while selling food and drinks.

Kitchen Nightmares is an awesome show for foodies/casual restaurant goers alike.

Also, Chef Gordon Ramsay is a culinary god.

Nhan-Fiction Note: Hi there.

As part of my attempt at making this blog function with more consistency, I will be designating certain days of the week with “scheduled” topics and specific themes. For instance, Sunday just happened to be the day I was writing Random Kanji Knowledge posts, so I will make the kanji topics Sunday’s main spiel from here on out.

Of course, I do not intend to make every designated post about Japanese-related themes all the time, and I still want to publish random posts whenever things come to mind. I already have an everyday rule of posting at least one thing each day.

So far, it is looking like:

Sunday: Random Kanji Knowledge.
Monday: Champion rant/critique for “League of Legends.”
Tuesday: Happy Haiku (as the title of this blog post points out).
Wednesday to Saturday: TBD. I will just select things as I see fit.

Nothing is really set in stone, but I really would like to shoot for more consistent posting throughout the week. Plus, it would encourage me to step up my game as a writer.
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Anyway, it’s time for the first Happy Haiku for this blog site. Some key elements to keep in mind:

• I plan on writing out these haiku poems in Japanese (with translations of course).
• I do not claim to be a master poet who didn’t really know it.
• These haiku poems will probably lean toward “positive” themes and tones.
• In general, I will try to adhere to the 5-7-5 syllable count for a traditional haiku. HOWEVER, technically speaking, you are supposed to count certain things as extra beats (e.g. Tokyo would register as four syllables total because of the long vowels).
• As a result, if I happen to break a syllable count here and there, it should be OK if I can string together a decent haiku. Even some classic haiku poems have broken the syllable count. Basically, I will argue that if some fancy haiku poems out there break the rules, then I should be allowed to do so as well.

So with that stuff out of the way, let’s move on to today’s haiku about patience.

Haiku
大丈夫
もっと待ちなさい
日が来るよ

Romaji
Daijoubu
Motto machi nasai
Hi ga kuru yo

English Translation
It’s all right
Wait a bit further
The (important) day will come!

I have been going through various champions to adjust my Fantastic 15 character pool, and Syndra has been my go-to gal for a while now. She is actually very fun to play once you get the hang of her unique play style and various nuances.

Though very unpopular as a champion choice, especially among mages, I believe Syndra has some genuinely cool aspects to her design that appeals to my “Johnny nature.” People are going to look down on you for picking Syndra, but you can have the last laugh when they are taking a ball bombardment to the face.

Truth be told, I was not a fan of Syndra when she was released. I was not excited about her design, and who could blame me? Syndra was a “broken” character for all the wrong reasons.

Plagued with annoying bugs and quality-of-life issues upon her initial debut into the League, Syndra never really took off as a character. And even after some slight buffs and adjustments throughout patches, hardly anyone wants to play this lady baller.

I am sure a lot of people forget that Syndra even exists in the game at times. Though mired in obscurity, Syndra to me is a hidden gem among LoL’s giant roster of champions. Once you get past her learning curve, Syndra can really wow both friend and foe alike with her capabilities.
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The Power of Potential
Syndra’s kit is very magical.

• A unique passive.
• It grants each of Syndra’s abilities an extra boost when they are leveled up to max rank.
• Unfortunately, this means you do not really have an innate passive until you are at least level nine.

• Syndra’s main ability.
• The balls she creates are paramount to Syndra’s entire kit.
• Interesting mechanic.

• A fun and wacky skill.
• You can use this to grab Dark Sphere balls and other random things like enemy minions and pets.
• Throwing things at people is very thrilling.

• Knockback move with a cone-shaped area of effect.
• You can launch any Dark Sphere within range to turn them into evil pinballs of death.
• Awkward range makes this ability very skill-dependent on the player.

• A potentially powerful ability.
• Capable of taking down someone from full life if used correctly.
• It also requires some setup from the player’s part to ensure the damage cap is reached.

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Five Random Pros of Syndra

1. Excellent farming capabilities.
2. Plays genuinely “different” from other champions in the game, giving her a very unique feel.
3. When you use her abilities effectively, it is very satisfying as a player.
4. With proper precision and finesse, Syndra can attack from afar while still being out of harm’s way.
5. This is a subtle pro, but Syndra has hands down one of the best auto-attack animations in the game. It is very easy to last hit with it.

Five Random Cons of Syndra

1. Learning curve. You cannot turn your brain on auto-pilot with Syndra like some other characters. You actually have to “think” about your abilities (skill placement, zoning and so forth) to some degree.
2. Spell spamming eats up a lot of mana for Syndra, so you always have to make sure you have plenty of the blue stuff to work with at all times.
3. Though cool on paper, Syndra’s innate passive essentially means you are running around with no innate passive for the first half of the game.
4. Syndra requires you to work a lot harder to yield anything worthwhile. She can be powerful, but she defeats her opponents in a very stylized manner compared to other mages.
5. Syndra is VERY item-dependent, at least more so, compared to other mages. She needs more items to be effective. If you get a game where you are falling behind in terms of gold and items, it is very noticeable. You will feel extremely weak.

Five Random Ideas to Improve Syndra as a Whole

1. Syndra’s spells could use slightly cheaper mana values (but only by a little bit).
2. I would suggest changing Transcendent in some fashion, but that would probably take Syndra into a god tier and make her possibly overpowered.
3. I kind of wish you could throw allied minions and pets with Force of Will, but I realize that would open up the chance to troll your lane opponent by taking away last hit opportunities for them.
4. Scatter the Weak could use a better area of effect (both before and after the Transcendent improvement).
5. I think Syndra’s skills could do a touch more damage, or perhaps even slightly buffed ability power ratios would be nice.

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A Tossup?
So, is Syndra a good or bad character? Well, I think she leans more toward being a good champion for LoL in her own ways, but she is difficult to play “properly.” As opposed to crushing your opponents outright, you need to master Syndra’s skills and quirks just to stand a chance of attaining any success with her.

I am still trying to refine and improve my understanding of Syndra’s mechanics. An important element I always shoot for whenever I want to get competent with any given champion in LoL is to reach that point where I “stop thinking” and rely more on raw instincts. This is always ideal.

Hesitation is a common reason why some people underperform with their characters. The less I have to think about where I need to place a Dark Sphere or where I need to throw something at my opponent at a certain spot, the better off I will be because I can make bigger plays at a moment’s notice.

You want to get to that point where you can combo your abilities like clockwork, where everything just becomes routine. This is when players can become extremely competent with their champion, so I want to make Syndra into one of my Ace characters eventually.

Syndra may not be top tier at the moment, but I find her very entertaining to use. I have developed quite a liking to her play style and character design. Even her power-hungry voice lines (voice set is below) are starting to grow on me. My only real regret stems from how I never gave Syndra much of a chance until recently. I truly wish I had picked her up much sooner for my champion arsenal.

SO MUCH UNTAPPED POWER!

Random Kanji Knowledge time! First off, a happy 母の日 (Mother’s Day) to you all!

母, which can be pronounced “haha” and has different readings when combined with other things (such as お母さん okaasan), means mom of course. The kanji itself refers to a woman’s breasts (my sensei back in high school told us to remember it as a lady lying down on her side), a common symbol for motherhood.

We all have an important mom/mother/mama/mommy figure in our lives.

We owe a lot to our mothers for taking care of us for so many years, so be sure to make this day truly special as best as you can for them, OK?

The stroke order for “mother” is shown below.

Have a wonderful 母の日, everyone!