I've had a lot on my plate recently and I need a place to vent =( There's no point to this blog really. It's just a blog of recent events in my life.
Some of you know that I go to the University of Waterloo and that I'm in a co-op program. Well, thanks to the shitty economy, many people had trouble finding a job, including me.
Eventually, I managed to find a part-time job as a tutor at an academy but it turns out the university screwed up and I can't get my co-op credit with part-time work. There was a 30 hours/week minimum requirement that was overlooked when the job was posted on the university website. So I felt even more stressed at the prospect of having to find a new full time job in a short time window.
I suppose I was very lucky to get a call for an interview the day before I found out that I couldn't get my co-op credit from the tutoring job. It was a Junior Business Analyst job for a big energy company. I had initially turned down the interview because I thought I was gonna get my credit but called back the next day, had the interview an hour later, and got the job offer about 5 hours after. So all-in-all, it worked out ok... right? Sort of.
Amidst my stressful job-hunting, I had signed up for a distance ed course (intro to psych), a professional development course (mandatory for co-op students), the first act sci exam (P Exam -- paid $200 to register for this beast), and private tutoring for a friend's brother. This was all under the assumption that I'll be working part time and have a lot of free time to do all these things.
Now, I'm working full time, I have my act sci exam next Monday, and I need to do homework for those two courses I'm taking, as well as spend 5-6 hours a week tutoring. I'm feeling so overwhelmed right now, I don't even know what to do. I have too much on my plate. I promised myself (i.e. write on my msn name) that I won't play sc until the end of my exam but even today, I came back from work, took a nap because I was so tired, ate dinner, and went to tutoring. I came back home at 11:30 -- having to wake up at 7 for work and I haven't done any studying at all. Hopefully it'll all work out and I pass the exam without too much difficulty. Lots of work ahead for me before that though.
My goal is to reach & maintain C before the end of the summer
Is it just me or do a lot of D+ Protoss players do really stupid stuff to try and get away with them? ~_~;; I had one guy taking his 3rd before nat and then taking the other main on Tau Cross. I guess they're trying really stupid stuff since lower level people don't scout as well.
If any C-/C Z or P players want to practice, let me know as well. I'm mG.infinity & infinity21 on iccup
So I'm thinking of buying the Logitech G25 mostly for playing games and partially to get acquainted with driving manual. Now, I plan on getting a manual car in 3 years when I graduate. My primary concern is that I might get bad habits (whatever they may be) from using a racing wheel in sims for a lengthy period of time.
I heard live for speed is pretty realistic as simulations go so I'm planning on playing that. I'd be glad to hear any other recommendations.
I know driving a real car is better for learning but I'm not really in a situation to spend that much time & money atm so that's unfortunately not an option.
tl;dr Will I pick up bad habits from playing racing sims if I use a racing wheel?
wow... I can't believe what just fucking happened my housemates and I were doing 1v3 team melee (we do this quite often).
Today, I noticed that they knew everything that I was doing (countering reaver drop, etc.) so I checked the replay and they were using fucking OBLIVION. Like WHAT THE FUCK
I'm so appalled that I don't even know what to say. I basically went off on them and told them to fuck off...
Since this blog lacks material, I'll throw in a poll: Poll: What should I do? (Vote): Forgive them (Vote): Never speak to them again
Are there any good laptop vendors that ship to Canada? I'm looking for decent performance with good battery life and the price range is $1000~$2000. Preferably around $1500 with shipping+tax. I'll have about $3500 to spend after I take out the cost for tuition, food & housing for university so I guess $3k would be the absolute max but I really don't want to go there.
The Dell I have right now has a really flimsy case and it's starting to give out after less than 2 years. I'm not looking to buy one immediately. Just sometime in the next 4 months or so (before I go back to uni).
So to be more specific, the things I'm looking for are (in no specific order):
Long lasting battery (to take with me to lectures)
min. 2gHz CPU
Decent dedicated graphics card (no more integrated! T_T)
sturdy case
15.4 inches -- no more, no less ^^
somewhat stylish; not like the generic Dell case that I have now D:
RAM's not so important because I can just take out the 2GB from my Dell.
I tried to configure an Alienware but I couldn't get it below 2k lol
So if anyone knows good websites I can casually browse through in the next three to four months, please share
I'm invoking the power of TL that is a vast sea of knowledge. Next week, I'm going to karaoke with a girl I like along with a bunch of friends. What are some good songs to sing for karaoke? Both male & females songs are okay for me as well.
Basically I'm looking for two types of songs: exciting, party songs that everyone knows and enjoys singing along and slower, more romantic(?) songs. Possibly some popular duets?
Here is a quick list of songs I made but I barely know any music so it's quite limited, methinks.
I started playing iccup casually like many others. I went 1-2 in my first three games. I thought "oh well, I got a little unlucky, that's all. Little did I know what I had in store for me for the next while.
The next game was TvT. I faced a D- player called lopes2000. For the record, I suck at TvT. He dropped me and put me at a huge disadvantage early on in the game. I tried to fight back but he eventually switched to BCs and I lost a long, drawn-out 46 min TvT. That was the start of my losing streak.
Then I met this guy named Bobber whose main was T but he played as Zerg against me. He was quite good and mannered. I lost 3 games in a row then he made melee games for me because he kept raping me lol. Despite taking only one game out of five from him, I had a lot of fun.
However, I was constantly frustrated at myself because it felt like I was getting completely outplayed psychologically. I guess he could read into the mind of a Terran player, being one himself. However, even in the game I won, I had a huge lead initially but I couldn't finish him off and he somehow kept making units even though I was confident that he had no mining resources. But the gayness of the Science Vessel eventually won out at the end and I took the game from him.
Then I faced SeaSouL, a Protoss player. I got off to an okay start and then had a lot of success midgame. I pushed him to his base but decided to chill there and grab an expo instead of going for the kill. From there on, I'm not really sure what happened but he kept pumping units and I could not keep up with his unit production. I sat there helplessly as the game drifted away from my hands. After that game, I had to take a break because I knew I would try some stupid cheese that won't work the next game. By this point, I was at 764 points. Something I thought I'd never see.
Fast forward to today, I played against this D- Protoss called ML.Ayax. It was pretty obivous that he doesn't like to play straight-up games. First a gas rush then he DT rushed me lol. Oddly enough, after I typed gg, he decided to leave the game before me. Not sure why he did that. Second game, he went proxy reavers right outside of my base on Longinus. I'm too unfamiliar with these maps and defending cheesy strats like that because I don't have much experience with them. So put them both together and I lose automatically. >_<;
Due to my rank, I started playing some D- people and so I got a couple of free games. First was against this Zerg who went 1 hatch mutas. I didn't have much trouble taking him out before his mutas came out.
Second game was against another Zerg named Nau who went really low-econ and made me cancel my fast CC. It was 10 lings against 2 medics and 5 marines with no stim. Although I probably could've defended it with good micro, I did't want to risk anything and played it safe by rebuilding above the ramp. He tried some weird timing attack that failed miserably due to the awesomeness of the Terran Stim Pack. He had 16 Zerglings, 2 Hydralisks and I had 2 Medics, 2 Firebats, and 6 Marines. It was a breeze from there and I just fooled around for a while until he typed out. If you're reading this Nau, make more Drones :D
The next game was once again against a Zerg and he went 2 hatch lair with his second hatch being on his ramp so he could build a sunken colony. Very odd build. I thought he'd be going Mutalisks because he only had a Spire but then he decided he wanted Scourges. So he did a late Lurker build that was not very effective. And I was able to win easily tanks to his aggressive opening that didn't accomplish anything.
All in all, I think I learned few things about myself: 1. I suck at TvP 2. I got better at TvZ 3. My early game sucks 4. My mid game is okay 5. My late game is... non-existent 6. I don't have enough balls to go for the kill. I prefer to starve people out than to 1a2a3a4a5a6a7a8a9a the opponent's base.
The way I usually win games is as follows: I do a passable opening game where I'm not at a significant disadvantage --> I gain a big advantage mid game by positioning my units, micro, etc. --> I try to hold the advantage by taking expos and dragging the game along but not attack the opponent --> opponent gets tired of playing a losing game and leaves.
I think I'd improve significantly if I work on more solid builds for early game and improve my late-game. I still need to work on my macro. I think that's why I get run over late game. I tend to ignore my macro while I'm trying to get an advantage in mid game. So even if I win battles, I lose the war.
This turned out to be a lot longer than I initially thought would be. My iccup profile
Some interesting statistics (all played as Terran)
By map:
Python 4-2 Luna 0-1 Longinus 1-2 (should be 0-3 but ML.Ayax left before me) Blue Storm 0-3 Gaia 1-0
By Race:
vs. Terran 0-1 vs. Zerg 4-4 vs. Protoss 2-3 (should be 1-4)
Total 6-8 (should be 5-9)
This shows that map familiarity is quite important in playing StarCraft. ^^
I'm looking for a decent (C or higher, I guess?) Terran players who's willing to mentor me. Every one of my mentors so far have been Zerg.. heh. You don't necessarily have to be Terran -- just have a decent understanding of the Terran match-ups. Stuff I'm looking for: watch & analyse replays, tips on certain MUs (most interested in TvZ atm), and help me improve in general.
