NASCAR Fantasy Live: Daytona in July

Just a quick update on how my NASCAR Fantasy Live team did at Daytona last Sunday (well, Monday, actually). I didn't actually watch the race because I had to be up bright and early for work at 7 the next morning.

My picks were Harvick, Cassill, Truex, Kyle Busch, and Mears. It appears that Truex wrecked in one of the early big ones. I'd say his luck is running out, if I believed in that sort of thing. His past two finishes have been horrid, yes, but they were due to wrecks that weren't really his own fault, so we'll just have to see if he can stay out of trouble this weekend at Kentucky and hopefully still have speed.

My other drivers were all around at the finish. Kyle Busch was lucky to be there, as he hit the wall pretty good earlier in the race, but was good enough to stay in the pack apparently. I believe all of my drivers finished in the top-20, except Truex, who finished in the 30s. Still, that was only good enough for 180 fantasy points, which was 49th in my league for the race. I dropped down to 9th overall in my league, and down to the 96th percentile.

Next time, I will get back to some Pokemon, and describe my somewhat rogue Trevenant-Malamar-Black Kyurem standard deck on PTCGO which is somehow getting more wins than losses!

Rise of Berk, again

I first downloaded the Rise of Berk app a little over two weeks ago. At that time, I made the mistake of not connecting the game on my phone with Facebook. I later realized that I could play the game on Facebook also, instead of just on my phone. This seemed appealing to me because I was beginning to worry about the battery life on my phone (it turns out that my battery was draining because due to my charger, and not the phone, battery, or game at all).

I soon realized that the game on Facebook was not the same as the one on my phone because I had not connected my phone app to Facebook. I figured that was okay; I could simply have two Berks. However, when I went back to play the app on my phone, I was met by Hiccup's "This is Berk," like what happens when the game starts over. Apparently, I had lost my week-and-a-half of hard, Viking labor. Oh well.

I decided to re-download the game yesterday, having no qualms about connecting to Facebook immediately so I could play on my browser if I so desired.

This is Berk.

I feel like I've already almost caught up to where I was the first time around. The main difference is I haven't yet got to where I can fight the raiders, which is okay because I don't really like that aspect of the game. I feel like it's supposed to be a little strategy-based, but I don't see much strategy, other than timing when to place the dragons (as well as where), and when to use catapults. Perhaps that is the strategy, and it will get more complicated as the game progresses. 

Here are the four dragons I have on Berk right now:

Dragons: rawr.

The game essentially starts you off with the Monstrous Nightmare. I've added the Gronckle and the two Terrible Terrors. I have a couple others in the hangar, but I think these four are all I need for now to get the necessary fish and wood. I try not to keep more than one of the same kind of dragon (ignore the two Terrors). 

I'll keep you updated when I capture more dragons or reach any milestones. Right now Hiccup and Toothless are off on a 3 hour mission searching for... something. Hopefully something a little more important than 400 fish, which is what they brought last time they returned..

Double Crisis!

The other day I received some Double Crisis cards I got through Amazon. I ordered two of the 4-pack blisters: one each of Team Aqua & Team Magma.



The blisters came with some interesting inserts. For example, each had a checklist of the Double Crisis set, which had some special instructions on the other side.





I was able to pull most of the cards in the 34-card set (not including holo versions). My most interesting pull was Team Magma's Groudon-EX, seen here in a photo shot with a potato chip:



I'm not sure of the viability of any of these cards yet. I'll have to take a better look at them to find out!

NASCAR Fantasy Live: Sonoma

Another of my interests happens to be NASCAR. This year I've tried my best to keep up with NASCAR Fantasy Live, the sport's very own fantasy game. I think I've been doing quite well, at least, up until Sonoma.

My five picks for this race were A.J. Allmendinger, Martin Truex, Jr., Casey Mears, Michael McDowell, & Kyle Busch. Allmendinger won a road course last year & was on the pole for this race, while Kyle Busch showed speed in practice, as did Mears & McDowell, who tend to do pretty well on road courses. Truex has been on my roster for a while, & seemed to be doing well wherever he races. For my bonus points, I chose Allmendinger as the race winner, and Chevy. Of course, every single one of my drivers had trouble and finished outside of the Top-30, except for the race winner.

Go figure.

I ended up finishing 96th out of my league of 100 with -8.5 points. Yes, it would have been better had I decided that my fantasy posse of racers and I were not meant for road courses and played pool all day instead. These results dropped me down to 8th in league rankings (I believe I was in 3rd last week), and down to 9148th overall, where I think I was somewhere in the 3000-5500th range last week.

Better luck next week, because of course Daytona never holds any surprises at all...

My Roaring Skies set.

Today I went through & finished an Excel document which lists all the different Pokemon cards I have.

I only started collecting around March of this year, so I don't have all that big of a collection yet. My most complete collection is Roaring Skies, which came out just about the time that I began to purchase packs in stores. I usually buy the 3-pack blisters with a Promo card. I made the mistake of buying too many blisters & getting too many doubles. Which all the doubles I was getting, I figured I had more cards than I actually do.

In reality, I am missing 40 cards from this set, not including the various holo cards of which there are also normal prints. Here are the cards I am currently missing:

8. Dustox - rare
15. Talonflame - rare
17. Articuno - rare
23. Zapdos - rare
26. Thundurus EX - EX rare
31. Banette - rare
32. Banette - rare
33. Deoxys - Holo rare
34. Gallade EX - EX rare
40. Absol - Holo rare
45. Togekiss - rare
46. Togekiss - Holo rare
52. Dragonite - Holo rare
57. Salamence - Holo rare
58. Latios X - EX rare
59. M Latios EX - EX rare
60. Rayquaza EX - EX rare
61. M Rayquaza EX - EX rare
63. Reshiram - Holo rare
64. Zekrom - Holo rare
69. Skarmory - rare
72. Swellow - Holo rare
74. Altaria - rare
76. M Rayquaza EX - EX rare
77. Shaymin EX - EX rare
84. Healing Scarf - uncommon
89. Sky Field - uncommon
98. Thundrus EX - Ultra Rare
99. Gallade EX - ultra rare
100. M Gallade EX - ultra rare
101. Latios EX - ultra rare
102. M Latios EX - ultra rare
103. Hydreigon EX - ultra rare
104. Rayquaza EX - ultra rare
105. M Rayquaza EX - ultra rare
106. Shaymin EX - ultra rare
107. Wally - ultra rare
108. Winona - ultra rare
109. Energy Switch - secret rare
110. VS Seeker - secret rare

As you can see, most of the cards I still need are some form of Rare, except for the two Uncommon Supporters. All of the other cards from Roaring Skies that I have, I gained through purchase, except for 3 common/uncommon cards I traded from someone on Reddit /r/pkmntcgtrades . I'll try to update on this blog when I get any new cards. My goal is to complete the set before the Ancient Origins comes out in August. 

Introduction

Hello to all who read this,


This... is Berk(mon).

This is my official introduction to the world of Blogging. Well, not really. I have several other blogs which have not been kept up to date. This one will be different! Well, maybe.

As for content, I intend on writing about several of my interests or hobbies. Currently, these include - in order of interest - Pokemon TCG (physical & online), How to Train Your Dragon, U.S. stamps, & coins. Initially I'll keep my personal life out of it, unless it gets really interesting really soon.

Thanks for reading & welcome to Berkmon!