studying for lsat?? OO;

Clint Eastwood is such an amazing director, holy shit. All his recently directed movies have been so amazing, most recently Gran Turino, which is the best movie I've seen all year and probably one of my all time favorites now.

- Gran Turino
- Changeling
- Flags of Our Fathers
- Letters from Iwo Jima
- Million Dollar Baby
- Mystic River

kjdsfkjdshfskd , so good. It's a shame he's so old because he has really become something special, I hope he continues directing for many years to come.

====!! WARNING LONG POST !! ====
This is going to be really long, probably random, or whatever else. Since I'm in a really sort of sad, reflective mood, I got to thinking about all this stuff and decided to write it all down. Might be an interesting read for some, and it would be interesting to hear other people's stories.

====!! WARNING LONG POST !! ====

This blog is sort of inspired from this thread at GG.net and got me thinking "why do I play/bother with this game?" . I mean, I obviously know the answer and have of course spent many hours thinking about it - I mean, something has to keep a person coming back to the game day in and day out.

Anyways, my motivation or the "why" for BW takes three forms for me:

1) Actually playing the game.

At the end of Summer 2005 my aspirations of becoming a top level gamer ended. I played my WCG Local qualifier, got 2nd and advanced to regionals. I had to play Froz and Cypressman and only 1st place would end up advancing to the finals. Froz won, and I got third (technically second since Cypress wasn't a citizen so didn't really qualify, but admins let him play anyways!). So being one place away from making the finals, that was pretty much it. The year after I joined academic decathlon and took 6 AP classes, applying for college, etc... so I stopped entirely for 3-4 months, and just never really picked up the game again with the intent of playing competitively.

I still play and practice for LAN tournaments with the intent of playing solidly and entertaining and having some good results, but that comes from the competitiveness in me. If it's not a LAN tournament, I play the game to have fun. I'm at a skill level where I can hop on ICCUP and play entertaining games with people. I enjoy the challenge of playing, and being able to play at a fairly decent level to produce games that are entertaining both to play, and to watch later on.

For the most part (except this year), I've actually played about 150-200 ICCUP games each season spread around several accounts, but I'm never really playing to practice or improve, just playing to have fun and enjoy the skill level I already have.

The game is and probably will always be extremely fun and challenging for me, so I play it.

2) "Managing"

After my break from BW in 2006 or w/e I realized that others in my team were able to put forth way more time and dedication than me to actually improve on their game, so I started to contribute in other ways to still help the team, which is why I started leading it. I started small, just setting up clanwars for us to play, then eventually got leadership of the team.

I take my duties and responsibilities managing my team, or doing my admin work very seriously. Sure, I am not a pro-gamer in Korea, and for the most part have not gotten paid to be doing what I do, but I approach it with a professional attitude because I believe in the future of eSports in North America and I'd like to be involved in the next generation here, and Starcraft is the beginning. Also, I don't know about anyone else but I like to use things and skills I learn through this game and apply them to real life. For instance, leadership and management skills that I've learned through leading LighT, etc, have helped me in real life as well.

So, I'm hoping that my time spent in this capacity will pay off down the road through gaming and life itself, and it's always a rewarding feeling being the leader of something and impacting other people. Sappy as it sounds stuff like Aerials calling me his BW dad (<3 paul) make my time spent as a leader worthwhile. I thought to myself, this must be what it feels like when a parent sees their kids go off to college (when Shad and Aerials joined ToT)...

3) The real life aspect

Primarily through LighT, I've been able to meet a lot of people. I'd say that if I actually lived close to some of them, we'd be like best friends. In 2006 I knew a lot of LighT were going to WCG Canada and I decided to invest some money that I had saved up throughout high school to make a trip to finally meet these people that I had known for so long. There are so many great people I've met in real life through BW, and so many more I want to meet... I'm going to change up direction now because my mind is wandering and just say some things about the people I've met.

- SchiSm[LighT]: I've known him since I was 15 years old (I'm 21 now). Since I started BW again in 2003 and joined my first team called WiN], we've been in every single team together. When that team died, we didn't want to lose touch so we made our own team, and when that died I joined NW_ and he came with me, and when that died I joined LighT and he came with me... We used to practice a lot back in the day, and I'd be able to take games from him 50/50 even through 2005... He has a deeper understanding of the game than any person I know except for maybe Day[9], and he became the best Canadian terran and probably one of the best foreigners if he had enough motivation to get his name out there.

When I heard WCG Canada 2006 was in Montreal, the chance to meet him was my primary motivation for actually going. Not only is he one of my best BW friends, but he's an awesome guy in real life too, and I hope to keep getting chances to see him in the coming years.

- Bandit[LighT] - We were in NW_ together, and I joined LighT slightly after he did. We became really close because we became leaders together and talked quite a bit on MSN. He was officially the first LighT member I met, at the airport in Montreal (he landed two hours after I did). He was always better than me, but we had some epic games after he would come back from a year of inactivity, and for about a week I'd be able to hold my own against him. Bandit is probably the best player I have ever known, and it's pretty sad he never got the recognition he deserved.

He was the only one to beat, let alone take games from Testie at WCG Canada in 2006, and after a year of inactivity, he was able to beat a super-active A+ IefNaij at WCG Canada in 2007, and take the silver medal. He doesn't play BW much any more, but he is still one of the coolest people I have ever known, especially for his ability to have a perfect balance between gaming, school, and a social life.

- Hap[LighT] : The best BW friend I've never met (but will meet some day). I feel like I can't even describe in words how cool Hap is, and we made a pact to visit each other one day when the economy picks up.

- Aerials : I knew him way before LighT, when he tried to get me into his team 1FaM before I joined NW_. For some reason or another, we stayed friends even though I ended up not joining his team. When the time came, I repaid the favor by letting him into LighT when his team died, even though he was pretty newbie back then (1-0 PGT ezeeze). Since he joined we became better friends and I finally got to meet him in 2007 and again this past summer, and probably again soon enough. He became one of my best BW friends, and became a pretty damn good player almost overnight it seems, I still don't really know how he did it.

- Louder[LighT] : Pretty much the only thing NooKS did while in LighT before completely quitting was telling me to let Louder onto the team. Being nice, I said yes even though I had never heard of Louder other than being the leader of HnR . Not only did he become a really good gamer again, but also a really good friend.

Even though I haven't known him as long as I have known the other people listed above, I've probably talked to him more than all of them combined, and meeting him three months ago was a real treat. He's someone I admire in many ways, having been a successful leader of a once great team, and being able to balance his gaming with a career and family is pretty commendable. Other than that, he's one of most intelligent people I've met on BW too.

- Freaky[LighT] is like my brother from another mother, although culturally ignorant people might think my above statement was true, we'd historically be more likely to kill each other than be brothers.. but ya.

... moving on to non team people ...

Cypressman! I've only met him at LAN events, and first back when he was actively playing he was (and still is) insanely good. He bashed me out of every LAN and WCG offline event I played, but he's still one of the cooler BW people I've ever met. Especially being able to be crazy good while never playing is pretty awesome too- must be the Korean genes.

Day[9] : I met him first at the SoCal LAN in 2005 but he probably doesn't remember, but met him again at the ones in 2007. He was also on my USA B team, and I'd call him every weekend at 10 am to wake him up to play nation wars. But really I've had a lot of really great talks with him on AIM and on the crazy ass car ride getting lost 3049583490 times trying to find the TL dinner at BJ's. He's a great guy and really funny, which makes talking to him pretty awesome 100% of the time.

Quesadilla : Another really cool guy I met at the SoCal LAN's, who just really loves BW and overall really cool.

G5 ! We used to have a lot of bad blood online but then we met and I realized that he's a really cool guy (hopefully reciprocal), and I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. So ya, Eric is a really stand up guy and I think that doesn't get recognized enough.

anyways too much rambling, there are many more people I could name... but I'll end it here.

share your own stories, why you play this game, what keeps the BW clock ticking for you, who are your best friends and why, what cool people have you met, etc!

1) J.A Adande tries to make every fucking article he writes interlaced with random social issues / commentary. Stop fucking doing that and write about basketball. Relating Atlanta's 6-0 start to Iowa / New Hampshire primary = NO GOOD.

2) Mark Stein in his power rankings.

STOP FUCKING SAYING THE COMMITTEE (OF ONE). JEEEEEEEEEEESUS christ that is not funny after 3 years of saying it every week.

AHHAHA COMMITTEE OF ONE THATS SO FUNNY BECAUSE A COMMITTEE IS USUALLY MORE THAN ONE PERSON LOL BUT YOURS IS A ONE MAN COMMITTEE OMG IRONY!

anyways. end rant.

some facts:
- we've been going out for around 2 years, 3 months. we broke up last year in December and were broken up for 6 months, got back together in June, everything seems to have been going fine.

- I live in San Diego, she lives in Pennsylvania (we see each other about once every two months when we're both in school)

- I don't drink

So...

One of the really cool things about my gf that I really liked when we first started going out is that she was not a fan of drinking, she got drunk once in our first 1.5 years, had a hangover and felt so shitty she pretty much didn't drink again after that. After we got back together I discovered that she had become a fan of drinking. I don't drink (as I said above), and I don't necessarily have anything against people who do, because "everyone" does it, etc, but coming from someone who was really against drinking (which I really liked) who became someone who was now a fan of drinking bothered me. I voiced my concern to her and she said how when she was in a relationship she was totally different, etc etc, and wouldn't really do that stuff.

Fastforward, I know she's been drinking from time to time while at school, I can probably count about 3-4 times she's gotten drunk to some degree (not really crazy drunk, but enough to have a bit of a hangover I guess?) which definitely has bothered me some, anyways. I went to visit her this past weekend, and on Monday she was in class and I was waiting in her car because we had to go to the airport right after so I could fly back home, and I saw that she left her phone there. Me being curious I thought to myself "hey let's check out her text messages!"

Lo and behold, I see two texts from some guy, and then a string of text messages between her and her best friend talking about something that led me to believe that she might have cheated on me with this guy. It wasn't anything explicitly that said she cheated on me, but set off some big warning signs. I then thought back to the past few weeks and realized I recognized the name... this was a friend of hers who she had went to hang out with two weeks prior.

I thought back to that night (another side note, I have a very very good memory) and remembered that the next day she had told me that she had had a little to drink and was taking the bus back to her car to then drive home.

So I remembered that, and I began to think (on the flight home), she probably got drunk and cheated on me with this guy and felt really shitty about it and tried to cover it up and pretend it didn't happen. But then I thought some more and I remembered that on that night I had texted her around 3 am (her time) and she had told me she was going to be on her way home. So then I figured, maybe she didn't cheat on me and it might have been something else.

So fastforward again to today when I decided to bring this up to her, since she had exams all week I didn't want to stress her out. So I asked her who this guy was and she said "oh he's just this friend from school who I hung out with a few weeks ago, remember?" and so I asked her something along the lines of "do you have anything to say about this" or something, and I told her about what I found in her phone. And then she told me the story - she apparently went to hang out with him, got really drunk, and slept over at his house (in his room, apparently). She insists that nothing happened, although he might have tried something?

So I take from this: 1) she had lied to me that night about going home, 2) she didn't tell me she had gotten drunk, 3) she never mentioned that something like that had happened and apparently was just intending on pretending it didn't happen.

So I'm very upset for various reasons, mainly because I'm a firm believer in honesty, telling the truth is 3434589374897% the most most important thing to me, and she lied to me... and the fact that she got drunk and led her into a situation where she may have cheated on me (even though she says she didn't, and I'm REALLY inclined to believe her but I still have some doubts). Some of the text messages from her friend lead me to maybe not believe what she's telling me.

I feel like maybe I am being a bit unreasonable to want to break up with her because of this, I mean drinking is a really common thing and whatnot, so maybe I'm just being too weird about it but I REALLY am not comfortable with that, especially being 3000 miles away makes things a bit difficult to imagine (sitting at home and knowing she's out drinking is a bit disconcerting), although I know she rarely goes overboard with drinking. And the fact that when we were talking she had told me that she never tells me when she drinks because she knows I don't like it and doesn't want to upset me... which just bugs me even more because she's being dishonest.

I dunno, am I being weird in wanting to break up with her because of something like this? She doesn't see it as a huge deal, but I do... I feel like she's betrayed my trust by lying to me and is really defensive about drinking (which I would NEVER ask her to stop drinking for me, but it's just something I don't think I can accept)... ? O_O!

gimme some feedback because I'm sort of in limbo.

so ya I'm completely fucking broke. well, not completely... I have about $50 to my name right now. for whatever reason my loan for school is delayed, and I won't get my paycheck from work until Oct 10th.

that means, 1) I can't pay my tuition 2) I can't pay my rent or bills 3) I can only afford one more tank of gas (which will last me another week) and 4) I have no money to buy textbooks.

this leads me to my next point:

I'm broke, and I school just started last week, and I've got to read three chapters of my International Law class by Monday, don't have the textbook - and can't afford it ($70). You can maybe guess what happens from there. I thought it would be a good idea steal the book.

I've stolen a few things in my life, some candy here and there, a book once, and a shirt once - I guess most everyone has stolen stuff at least once in their lives. Needless to say, I felt like shit every time I've done it, but this time I actually did it because I am broke as fuck as opposed to being a dumb kid.

I walked into the book store this afternoon and immediately I got a bad feeling, not many people were in there, employees all around, etc. I thought to myself "just turn around and leave it's not worth it." But, being the retard that I am, I proceed to find a place where there's nobody around, slip the book in my bag, purchase a few notebooks and a pen, and leave.

I figure everything is going smoothly, I'm out of the bookstore and walking in a hallway by the food court when two guys come up to me. One of them flashes his badge and says I need to come with him.

Long story short, they take me up to the super secret office shit of the bookstore write me up, get my statement, and tell me that the dean will handle it, etc.

So I feel like shit right now, not really because I fear the punishment... I'm a pretty good student with good standing (3.8 gpa and involved in school activities and shit) so I'm fairly certain that I'll just get a slap on the wrist... its not as if I robbed a bank or anything. But, I just can't stop myself from feeling really terrible as if all the guilt from stuff I had previously stolen built up and subconsciously I wanted to get caught so I walked right into a trap essentially - went through with it even though I KNEW it would be a bad idea.

Blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns...nist=adande_ja&page=adande-080918

I hate when the ESPN writers (mostly Adande and Jamele Hill or w/e the fuck her name is) try to write about social issues. It's really damn annoying - taking Josh Howard's retarded comment and talking about how it tells us something about "the racial divide" in this country. STFU and stick to sports.

*end rant*

*isclaimer: Posting this as a blog just to avoid any kind of drama that might occur. If you don't have anything nice to say about me or LighT, don't post here... just posting this to inform anyone who might be interested. Thanks**

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

For the first time ever, team LighT is going to be having a recruitment tournament. We are at a stage where we are almost ready to close the doors of recruitment for quite a long time, and before we take that step, we want to give EVERYONE an opportunity to have a shot at joining. This tournament will give a chance for everyone who's thought about joining, or ever been remotely interested a shot at getting a trial membership for LighT.

A little bit about us...

We have been around since about 2001/2002 and been going strong for many many years. We have grown into a highly competitive and skilled North American based team. We compete in WGTCL Division 1, BWCL Division 1, ICCUP CL Division 2, Massacres League, and Yankee League. We have had strong performances at WCG USA and WCG Canada in past years. We are a highly active team, always having more games played (total) than any other teams five seasons running. If you are a skilled player and are looking for an environment of friends and skilled players, and are looking to break into the competitive foreign scene - this is your chance to do so.

Who Can Play...

Anybody is available to sign up and play this, as long as you can show up the day and time of the tournament.

Time, Date, Place

Sunday September 14th , Starting at 21 CET (3pm EST, 12pm PST). op Team-LighT @ ICCUP.

The obligatory goals thread at the start of the ICCUP Season.... I'll start off:


- I finished last season C+ / C (2 wins away from C+ 2v2 FUCK) ... I was in Canada last days of the season, didn't get a chance to bash some nubs for my C+ in 2v2...



Goal for Season 6...

B- 1v1 / C+ 2v2 .... I would aim for B- / B- , but school starts in 1 month for me, and I"ll be working full time starting tomorrow until school starts, so honestly, I doubt my ability to manage to hit double B- , but I was able to reach 4850 2v2 last season in about 40 games, so I'll probably be able to manage C+ in that... I really want to cross the B- threshold, just because I've never been able to do it before.

Also a more specific goal, improve my PvZ and PvP. My PvT is really strong (70% winrate at C+ last season)... but my PvZ and PvP were both below 45% (clearly these are my weaknesses).

So... either if I play 3409584309 PvT's, or fix my PvZ and PvP, B- shouldn't be too much of a monumental task.

ZOMGGGG I've reached C+ 1v1 (and will reach C+ 2v2 tomorrow!) - mission accomplished. I'm pretty pleased with myself, this is the highest rank on a ladder I've ever got... never been able to pass the C+ barricade, but I've only ever even reached it twice before (once on PGT, and then in the first season of ICCUP or so). Actually, C+ 2v2 is the highest I've gone as well - basically, I've never passed C+ on a ladder.

I guess I'm so pleased because by almost everyone's account, ICCUP this season is the most difficult it's ever been, so I feel good about my C+. Also at this stage I feel like it's really easy to identify my weaknesses.

Summed up: My PvZ sucks (42% winrate), my PvP sucks (39% winrate), and my PvT is real good (almost 70% winrate). Now I suppose I need to work through PvZ and PvP.

Yeee so uh, I'm not sure if I want to try and push for B- 1v1 ... the season ends next week I think, and I'll be in Canada all weekend and not really be able to ladder, so I've got Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday essentially to try and get 900 points. Not sure if that will be possible. Also please I went 9-3 to get my C+ today.

go me PPPP

1) Edward Norton got robbed out of 2 Oscars IMO. His performance in American History X was absolutely amazing, as was his performance in Primal Fear (especially considering that was his debut film). T______T!

2) Daniel Day-Lewis got robbed in Gangs of New York. His portrayal of the Butcher is one of the best/most complete performances of a character I've ever seen... in my opinion, Adrien Brody got it because voters were sympathetic to the whole Holocaust deal rather than his performance being truly amazing.

3) Johnny Depp and George Clooney should NOT have gotten nominations for Sweeny Todd and Michael Clayton, respectively... seriously wtf was that?

4) I didn't realize Dustin Hoffman had gotten so many awards / nominations.

That's it for now, and yes I realize these are all academy award related... I was just looking up shit right now about it.