Learning Still

My week of supply watching has gone well.  Not great, but okay.  I’m getting blocked less and less.  One thing that set me back a bit, but I think will help a lot more in the long run, was turning off the sound error messages.  I can’t hear the “Need More Overlords” anymore.  It took some time to get used to, which shows how much I was using it as a trigger to make overlords.  But since turning it off, I’m down to one or two blocks when I’m not paying attention in a game.  Some games I can go without getting blocked.  I’m going to just keep focusing on it.  Really watch it this week.  I did get distracted with some game issues like build orders and the like, but I really want to get this ingrained to the point where I instinctively look at it all the time.

Watching a Day9 daily routinely has been fun and instructive.  I learn something new from each one.  His video of coaching djWheat was very helpful in showing me how I should be playing.  In particular the not looking at what I’m doing.  Hands and eyes should work independently of each other.  I started trying to do this, and play slower.  “Oh, he’s attacking?  Wait, I have to put these drones into the gas.”  It’s little lessons like these that I think will help me a great deal over the long run.  If nothing else, it’s increasing my game sense, which can only help.  I’m going to keep the schedule of watching one every other day.

Coming up on three months now, of my Starcraft II year, and  I can already see some of the benefits of this in other aspects of my life.  I watch a lot less television now.  I still catch the good stuff with my DVR (Breaking Bad, Daily Show, True Blood- not as many goofy Fairies this season as I thought, and I mean that literally not as a slur), but it’s no longer on constantly in the background from the time I get home until I go to sleep.  I have tried, in the past, to do this on my own, but never got it to stick.  I don’t know exactly when television started to take up so much of my time and thoughts, but it is stupid to watch so much (cue Ooompa-Loompas).

I used to read a lot more, and with the addition of Starcraft and subtraction of a lot of television, I’ve gotten back into it gradually .  In the past three months I’ve probably read five books (Ready Player One is my favorite so far- geeky, funny, a quick read), which is probably two or three more than I would have read awhile ago, but still four or so less than way back when.  If that makes any sense.  All in all, a positive to me.

Video game wise, other than Starcraft II, I hadn’t played anything for the first two months.  A complete black out of all other games.  And then, Deus Ex: HR came out and I wanted to see what my new computer could do (I really did overbuild for Starcraft II.  I could’ve done with half the computer I have now, but I’m still really happy with it).  Whilst on Steam playing that game, I saw that The Witcher 2 came out in August.  I got it and played some of that game, which reminded me of having so much fun with the first few hours of the first Witcher.  I never actually played much of that game because my then computer was a little too slow for it.  It was the first computer I built myself (I still have it.  Is that strange?), and was reaching the end of it’s usefulness when The Witcher came out.  I was given a Mac after that, and never had much luck gaming on it.  Anyways, I decided to start over completely with the first Witcher and am having a blast.  The point of all this, and I’m sorry to have blabbed so much, is that I’m still playing despite how annoyed I get with it at times.  Usually, playing something that challenges me would end up in me quitting and moving on to something else.  I mean, opening a door, four guys jump on me and I’m dead in five seconds is one example of frustrating.  Having no other saves but one from 30 minutes prior to that, is another (and completely my own damn fault).   And while this isn’t that big of a deal, it is a nice reminder that I am bit by bit being changed by my year of Starcraft.

I also want to add that the other things I am doing are not replacing Starcraft in my life.  In addition to the two hours a day, I have not missed a day of turning almost all of the links purple on Screddit (I’m in the middle on text only Screddit.  The discussions about things like hydras and ZvZ games are awesome and I have seen very few of those on there before, at least as in depth as they are going now.  But it seems kind of false to force that on a whole community.  Like I said, in the middle so I’m not worried about it either way.) and have been watching a lot more streams lately.  I sat for a couple hours the other day watching Destiny, CombatEX and some other dude play the Insane AI.  It wasn’t about the game they were playing so much, but about being part of the community of people.  They were talking about the teams, other players, and the general ephemera around Starcraft II.  And then I got to watch Idra play and commentate.  I really enjoyed that and hope to see more. He’s still the guy I root for in the tournaments, so hearing what he thinks as he plays is great.

So it’s not like Starcraft II is fading from view, but more finding a natural place in the order of my life.  Wake up, check Screddit.  Go to work, check Screddit at lunch.  Come home, watch a show (if anything good) or a stream until I’m ready to start playing.  Afterwards, play some games and/or read.  I may be pushing the blog to the side a bit, but, hey, that’s nothing new, right?  Hopefully this giant tome will sate the readers for a couple of days.  Perhaps I should only do a blog post on my day of watching a daily for an hour and playing for one hour.  I’ll try.  Again, I’ll try.

And now that I’ve spent over an hour on my day off writing this, I think I’ll go play some more Witcher.

Goodnight and GLHR.