Flow.of.soul's Blog

So right now I'm 6 feet tall and I weight 193 pounds and I really want to start working out. Right now my goals are to weight 170 pounds and be able to do 50 pushups in a row and 75 crunches in a row.

Currently, I'm doing cardio on an elliptical machine 3 times a week for 40 minutes and I'm burning ~550 calories per session. Also, I have cut out deserts from my diet such as cookies and cake, and have replaced them with small portions of dried fruit, nuts, and 100 calorie bags of popcorn. Just by doing this I have lost 1.5 pounds in 10 days which I feel is a great start.

The problem I'm having right now is that I want to gain a respectable amount of muscle (I don't want to be completely body builder ripped, but I don't want to be a stick either) but I'm not able to go to the gym 6 days a week, only the three I am currently doing now. After doing some reading I think I am able to do a basic body weight strength workout at home doing exercises like pushups and crunches. However, I have a couple questions that I was hoping somebody on TL could help me with.

What exercises should I do for a basic full body workout? I have 1 pound to 5 pound dumbbells but those are pretty small amounts of weight, also I don't have something I can do pullups on.

How do I make sure I am not creating any muscle imbalances? I'm mostly concerned about balancing the muscles used in pushups and the lower back muscles so that I do not increase my chances of injury.

Also, any tips about working out are welcome!

There are new parts I am considering after further research and thanks to feedback on this blog. Please check the new build on page 2!



So I'm wanting to build my first computer and I am in need of some assistance to make sure I am getting the most out of my money. Right now my budget is $600 tops and there is no wiggle room. While it is a small budget I want to be able to keep the majority of the parts for when I feel there is a time to upgrade. Here I have a listed of parts I am considering buying that have been compiled from lists on sites such as Maximum PC and Toms Hardware.

CPU: Intel Pentium E6300 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - $83.99

Motherboard: MSI P43 Neo3-F LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - $84.99 ($10 Mail in Rebate)

Videocard: VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB $139.99

RAM: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - $29.99

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $84.99

DVD Drive: LG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache IDE 22X DVD±R DVD Burner

PSU: Antec earthwatts EA500 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 - $74.99

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel , SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $49.99

Total: $573.92
Shipping: $21.98
Shipped: $595.90
After Rebates: $585.90

Assuming that the PSU is good enough for the GPU, I really like this set up because it allows me to eventually upgrade to 4gbs of ram and my processor up to a Core 2 Quad processor. The GPU is also a HUGE set up from the Nvidia GeForce Go 7300 that I have been using for the past two years (using my laptop as my main computer). Have the fail rates of 1TB drives decreased? Last time I was looking into buying a TB drive the fail rate was really high, around 20%. Is it better for me to go with a 720gb drive because it would be cheaper and I would not have to worry about it failing as much? Also how many GBs is that after its been formatted?

Also I have a question about using a game controller on my PC. As a huge RPG fan I would like to play Suikoden 2 and Valkyrie Profile but in order to actually buy those games I would be spending $150+ which is absurd since they would be used. So I'm thinking about emulating them but I hate playing console games with my keyboard, it just doesn't work for me. So I have thought of two option: one, finding a bluetooth usb thing so that I can use my wii virtual console controller, or two, I can buy an adapter for the my ps2 controller. After looking around I saw that the ps2 adapters people have bought are really flaky so has anybody used one of these before and how was your experience? Also for people that emulate games, do you just stick with the keyboard or use some other controller?

Thanks for any help I get, its really appreciated!

"Stork's PvT is so ridiculous, if he grabs an advantage, he does not let it go. Period." - SuperJongMan

1v1 Record
PvT: 101W-51L (66.45%)
PvZ: 71W-62L (53.38%)
PvP: 79W-53L (59.85%)
Overall: 251W-166L (60.19%)
Statistics from TLPD

This is an updated replay pack from dementus' Stork replay pack to include patches 1.15 and 1.16. All replays from patches 1.10 to 1.14 have been directly taken from the dementus' replay pack so if you already have it just drag in the new 1.15 and 1.16 replays. There are 44 replays from patches 1.15 to 1.16 making the whole replay pack 99 replays!

Today I was downloading alot of recent Stork replays and I decided to update the replay pack I have so that everybody else on TL could enjoy some more recent games of one of my favorite Protoss players, Stork! These added replays include games against Bisu, Kal, Jaedong, Flash, and Beserker, as well as notable foreigners such as IdrA, White-Ra, F91, and Castro.

I have verified these replays to the best of my ability based upon Stork's APM (usually 230ish to 280ish) and his hotkeys from replays during patch 1.14. If there are any fakes or some players are labeled incorrectly please post in this thread and I will edit it into the OP. Also if there are some replays that I have left out from any of the patches please post a link of them in here and I will update the replay pack.

In order to watch older replays before the current patch refer to Taiche's awesome utility thread.

Thanks to YGosu, Teamliquid Replay Section, Reps.ru, and YaoYuan for hosting the individual replays that are contained within this pack. Enjoy!

Download Links:
Megaupload
Mediafire
YouSendIt

If people enjoy this I might update other Protoss replay packs such as Bisu or BeSt so if anybody is interested in those post in this blog.

So probably a month or so ago I started practicing PvZ on iCCup and it was the only matchup I played. While my other matchups (PvP and PvT) were both had solid D ranks, my PvZ was definitely D-. Once in a while I would win a couple games and get back to D, only to be shot down once again to D-. Out of frustration I stopped practicing the matchup and even started dodging it while I spent time trying to learn how protoss is supposed to win against zerg.

This past week I was forced to practice PvZ because I am playing a zerg player (mannerMan) in the Liquid Kickball League. Its nice to say that this time I had good results!



I really think the only reason that I have been able to get to D+ with my PvZ is because I have become more familiar with zerg build orders and, most importantly, I've started scouting a lot more. When it comes to zerg cheesing, PvZ is a very reactionary matchup. Questions such as, where do I place my cannons? and do I form my two first HT? all depend on what the zerg is doing. What sucks though is if zerg is good at denying scouting, you have to prepare for everything and you usually dont have the resources to do that. For me the hardest thing to distinguish is whether my opponent is goind two hatch hydra or two hatch muta if they have defined scounting. I get into a position where I know that zerg is cheesing, but I dont know which one to defend against. Having one storm instead of an archon makes such a big difference when defending 2 hatch hydra its really annoying to have to commit to one defense or the other.

Question

I didn't really feel like this question is really necessary to be in the strategy forum so I'm putting it here. So how do I distinguish a two hatch muta build from a two hatch hydra build? I have a replay here (sorry its mediafire, I have no clue where to upload it since RepDepot is down) where my opponent blocked his chock with drones so that my probe could not get in. So, I knew he was doing a cheese build but I didn't know if it was two hatch muta or two hatch hydra. Should I have known that it was two hatch muta because he didn't have hydras already, or, because his zerglings did not have speed and get got that early gas?

Did I get banned from iCCup or DOES BLIZZARD ACTUALLY KNOW I AM TRYING TO ACCESS A PIRATE SERVER!?!

I hope I didn't get banned from iCCup for no reason, that would suck so much.

So as of now I have played roughly 400 games on iCCup (cant wait in the next few months to play 1000 games so I can finally fulfill the advice that alot of people give out ) To be honest I am probably a solid D+ player right now, but I'm having this mental block where I am do not think I am ready to start playing D+ players. I can fairly easily reach D+ within 15 to 20 games on iCCup but once I do that I usually just switch back to a different account and get to D+ again. This is mainly because I can't beat a terran army once late game occurs and I have a rough time against zerg in general. I am very confident in my PvP though which is probably because it was the first match up I practiced on iCCup and have probably played 200 games of PvP out of the 400.

PvP

I was having alot of trouble when I started playing Destination since it was the MOTW. I then studied alot of Destination VODs and found that most progammers go for a fast expo when they have about 2 zealots and 3 to 5 dragoons. I just copied this opening and my PvP win rate has dramatically increased because of it. I just follow it up with observers, get a forge with +1 attack going, and then tech to Templar tech and get templar with storm ASAP. Seems to be working out great. I've also been putting four dragoons in the back of base in case of reaver harass and I place a observer/probe outside my opponents natural. That way, when I know he is moving out, I just bring the dragoons back to my main army.

I think alot of D Protoss players (probably the vast majority of D players in general) do not realize that some strategies work alot better then others on certain maps. Most protosses just do a plain reaver build or the bisu build (yes there is the PvP bisu build)and dont realize that on Destination your opponent is able to easily defend against reaver builds because of those two bridge that force dragoons to go one by one.

PvT

I have not studied his match up as much as PvP or PvZ, so I usually get crushed in the mid to late game. This is the match up I will be studying now, since I have basically gotten all my wins from the 10/15 rush. However, when I did the 10/15 build on Tau Cross it seemed to be too big of a map to use the build on. Anybody care to tell me whether I am right or wrong?

PvZ

I tried to do the speedlot archon push but it seems like my timing is always off on this build so I am going to have to practice it alot. I decided to try and use the +1 speedlot push since it is pretty suitable for my 130 apm since I can't constantly watch my DTs and corsairs without have no macro. I think out of the four to five games that I have used this build I have won all of them from either my initial push or being able to snipe the third hatchery and then run home, get alot of goons, get storm with observers and crush the zerg with my second push.

iCCup Complaint

I hate when somebody joins your game and is like:

Somenoob: hi
Somenoob go
Somenoob: ??

within the course of less then 5 seconds before they have picked their race. ITS LIKE JESUS SLOW THE FUCK DOWN YOU JUST JOINED!!!! This and people constantly asking "from?" in every single game pisses me off alot, its just so annoying. Other then that iCCup is awesome except for some of their admins being less then ideal.

Just out of curiosity has anybody done the same thing where they get to a new rank but instead of laddering at that rank switch to another account and then get that same rank again? I've probably gotten to D+ four or five times but I have not laddered on that rank at all.

So sometime today I came up with an idea for a build for PvP since I was bored. I wasn't sure if this should go in the strategy forum so I decided to put it here. After thinking about it alot more I am actually starting to think it might be viable. To get my thoughts straight I wrote out a bunch of stuff on a piece of paper.

Objective: The objective of this build is to deal massive damage to the enemy protoss with speed zealots and dragoons with +1 attack before the opponent gets templar with storms. During the attack you would ideally take your third base

Army Composition: A handful of speedlots (probably 8-12) and as many dragoons as possible. The idea of the speedlots is that speelots + dragoons are greater then dragoons, speedlots are harder to micro against, and they can flank the enemy's army while the dragoons attack.

Why +1 Attack?: The +1 attack is not necessarily for the zealots but rather for the dragoons. With +1 dragoons kill other dragoons in 9 shots instead of 11, compared to zealots which kill dragoons in 12 hits instead of 13. While in early mid-game when the dragoon count is less then 10 +1 is not viable, 12 dragoons with +1 attack is equal to the force of 15 dragoons which pays for the forge and the +1 upgrade.

Opening Build: Since this is a macro intensive build based around upgrades so 3 gate goon with observers would probably be the best.

Possible Weaknesses: There is no harassment in this build before the timing attack (when +1 attack and legs finish at the same time) unlike normal reaver or DT builds. If your opponent kills alot of probes early on it will be extremely hard to catch up.

I attempted to free style this build after the three gate goon was done, and both times I lost because of speed shuttle reaver harass. Here are the replays if anybody is interested.



Speed shuttles are so powerful on Neo Medusa



Any constructive criticism is appreciated. Even if this is not viable I am still going to continue to try it and perfect the forge timing. If anybody is interested in order to get the +1 and zealot legs to finish at the same time you need to warp in the forge, start +1, and then shortly after warp in the citadel and start legs ASAP.

So yeah I just played combat-ex and sadly I lost since I am only D and I fucked up my build order while chatting . Turns out Combat-Ex used the rank that he win abused to (C+) and selling it to some "kid". Thought I might share the replay and the text included if anybody is interested.

http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=16835

Its too bad that I can't report his BM cause I kind of encouraged it :-/

After losing alot on iCCup I have finnally determined that I have two major problems: number one, my macro is pretty bad, and I need to spend my money more. The second, the most important thing in my opinion, is that I do not have enough "game sense" or basically I do not understand each match up very well. I have learned a build order for each match up but once I get to the mid and late game my minerals start to pile up and my APM drops, when in the mid-game I believe it should be rising.

I have been watching alot of VODs but after reading Chill's Guide about the Self-Guided Road to Improvement I realized that I do not analysis them at all, I just watch them mindlessly. So I have decided to start analyzing VODs and I'm post them on my blog because this is just going to be my observations, and since I'm only a D/D+ level Protoss these definitely do not belong in the strategy forum. After reading these please feel free to post if you agree or disagree with my analysis, and any constructive criticism is appreciated.

So I decided to start with PvP because this is my middle of the road match up. I'm better at it then PvZ but its not as good as my PvT. Also, I will be using a type of point system that Chill described in his thread just so I can somehow keep track of who is ahead. So with that lets move on to the first VOD I decided to analyze.

JangBi vs Pure on Destination


VOD

This is the second televised match of PvP that was ever played on Destination (the first one being a proxy vs proxy match during the second season of the GomTV Classic). There is not really a reason why I chose this VOD, it was the first standard game ever played on Destination and I did not want to analyze a more recent VOD that I had already seen.

+ Show Spoiler [Match Recap] +