FOR THE SWARM

Entirely random update here, for anyone who happens to play Zerg on Starcraft 2.

Vs. Terran: Banelings and Mutalisks. Send in the Mutas first to drop any siege tanks defending the enemy base's entrance, then roll in and melt all their units and missile turrets with Banes. then clean up the buildings with your Mutalisks. If the first wave of Bane/Muta doesn't get the job done, quickly make another wave and try again.

Vs. Protoss: This is the only race that gives me a lot of trouble. Best advice I can give is to use Roaches and Hydralisks. Send a wave of ten or twelve units ASAP and keep the pressure on the enemy base with larger and larger waves. Don't let them horde up on stalkers and zealots or you're dead.

Vs. Zerg: If you're in the bronze league, chances are they'll 6pool zergling rush you. Just attack move (hotkey A) past the zerglings with all of your drones, and you're guaranteed to win. Then build up defenses, tech up to pretty much anything, and win. If you're facing a REAL zerg player, tech to fully upgraded Hydralisks ASAP. Then follow the usual growing waves strategy.

Hope that helps some of my fellow Zerg users. If you're a better player than me, feel free to critique and correct in the comments.

Welcome to college, punk

So I've entrenched myself in college now, and I've reached the point of the year where I'm making essays and speeches left and right. I just wrapped up one for Expository writing about how mentally fragmented the internet's made me, and considering the depressed-hipster theme of my blog I thought I'd post it here.

We were playing an online strategy game called Starcraft 2. My opponent, the random person I had been paired up against online was charging my army with his horde of generic space marines. He was cocky-- he sent me a cliche'd taunt as the battle begun. I responded immediately. "I AM GOING TO POOP IN YOUR BUTT, SO THAT NEXT TIME YOU TAKE A SHIT, MINE WILL COME OUT FIRST. AND I WILL HAVE BEATEN YOU AGAIN." He didn't have any retort to that (and coincidentally lost the battle.)
Perhaps like most people, my online personality doesn't quite correspond with my real life personality. On Facebook and social sites in general, I'm sarcastic and cocky; more-so than in public, at least. In video games, however, I with resemble some kind of hybrid between the Joker and a rabid dog. I take an odd pleasure out of coming up with insane taunts, insults, and occasionally compliments to throw at random people in video games. I've never cared much for winning in itself, but I strive for it anyway; I enjoy any excuse to fling little slices of psychosis at my opponents. I consider it a small victory to see an enemy player pause for a moment after reading "I WILL BREAK YOU IN HALF AND KILL BOTH PIECES" in a game's chat box. After a few years of this shenanigans in video games, I've developed a kind of crazy persona online. Anyone who plays with me often has learned to expect Doc Walrus (my online name for everything) to babble like a lunatic all the time.

My friends get their fun out of the chaos, too. My roommates and I play as a team on Starcraft 2, and practice every other night or so. If I have a good line, I can hear them laughing in their rooms. Every once in a while, someone online takes my e-psychosis personally, and the 3 of us on our team compete to see who can make our opponent angrier. It isn't out of cruelty or ill will, we just enjoy the game-- sometimes at other people's expense. It's closer to trash talking between sports teams than an actual argument; nobody loses sleep over offending someone online. Despite our love of trash-talking, we aren't the best team in our league (which is coincidentally the lowest league in Starcraft 2's hierarchy) but whenever we win, we make sure the enemy noticed.
This is a sharp contrast to who I am in reality. I'm soft-spoken, polite, and intelligent with a strange sense of humor and no fashion sense to speak of. I might be a bit of an arrogant douche, but aside from that, I don't come off as "some kind of hybrid between the Joker and a rabid dog." I enjoy being nice to people, and try to avoid offending anyone. With my odd sense of humor, this makes my video game self seem even more hilarious to me. Humor seems to be the one thing connecting [real name] and Doc Walrus, and sometimes I think it's an interesting topic to think about. If I'm not busy threatening to punch all of someone's blood out online, that is.

While this pseudo-multiple-personality-insanity is my current identity-related situation, it's only been the case for a couple years. As a freshman in high school, I was a meek little stereotypical nerd through all mediums of communication. I was afraid of girls, overweight, lazy, the whole eight-and-a-half yards (I was too lazy for nine at the time.) I had no real sense of humor, just spouting out stupid quotes from Anime or "Invader Zim", and this obviously didn't help me socially. Things looked hopeless for me until I stumbled upon a great and terrible place on the internet-- 4chan.

Now, nobody rational would ever look into 4chan on their own time, and I discourage it. 4chan was an image-board on the corner of the internet where the only rule tying the place together was "Don't post anything illegal." this madhouse of random people--all forced to be nameless and faceless, as one big pile of anonymous posters-- introduced me to a different view of the world. They rambled about politics, made jokes, hacked other sites, and raised hell in general. The first major social experiences in my life were in this virtual maelstrom. I took on the charmingly twisted sense of humor that "Anonymous" shared, took advice from them and learned from their collective mistakes in life. I learned there to grow up and take care of myself. Both my Doc Walrus and [real name] were shaped by that chaotic place, and for all its faults it will remain a sacred place to me. Not exactly anyone else's idea of a 'sacred place,' but it suits me fine.

It's always sunny in Hell.

I've been thinking a lot lately. I see this is becoming a habit lately, so I dropped this disgustingly purple page onto the Webernets to store my thoughts (and be judged for them.)

Anyway, the thinking. I've been a hateful, cynical semi-monster for the grand majority of my life. I have always envied good people, and I've always kind of wanted to be better. This seems closer these days, but my optimism isn't yet the topic here.

I've put too much stock into the news, in other people's opinions. People froth at the mouth, gagging on the waves of insults and hate coursing out of them. I agreed; Muslims are savages, christians are rapists, rap's for trailer trash, japan is morally a wasteland, the President is satan himself. I've been thinking a lot lately. Most of the world judges most of the world on hearsay, rumors, and lies. Even when you think for yourself, sometimes you get caught in someone else's web of thought. I see myself cutting my way through all that lately.

I've been invested in strange things lately. Exercise, obscure russian video games, depression, seraphims, and bro puns. Fitting in. My high school career's looking like it's lost too much of a poor supply of motivation. I have friends because it's normal, for the most part; I'd otherwise be a polite stranger to everyone. I'm pushing myself into a different train of thought.

I adore pessimism, I always have. And walruses, but I digress. Optimism, however, has seeped through the cracks forming in cynicism. Places, people, ideas, everything's a little brighter, slightly less depraved to me lately. And I'm trying to encourage that, turn it into a habit. I've still noted almost daily that I often feel like I'm in hell; maybe I can get a tan while I'm here.