So I got my laptop.. it’s pretty nice. Very slick. Some minor complaints like a bunch of yahoo stuff being integrated into the desktop (which I haven’t figured out how to get rid of). I didn’t think 15.4″ would be so big.. but then again I’m sure I would probably complain about 14.1″ being too small :p

I had a hard time deciding on what mouse to buy. I was considering another Diamondback.. but I don’t really like how it’s ambidextrous.. makes the right side buttons really hard to use.

So then Tim recommended Logitech VX Revolution.. but I decided against it cause it’s wireless.

In the end I ordered Logitech Mini Optical Soccer edition on Darren’s recommendation.. kinda basic mouse but small and cheap :p Plus Bisu[Shield] (last year’s top Starcraft prize money winner) uses it.

I ordered it from this cheap scammish site with low ratings though.. but it’s supposed to be “new” so hopefully no problems..

PGL is starting to give me a pretty big headache. So yeah I didn’t get any of the gosu teams I was aiming for but I didn’t let that bug me too much.. you can still have a nice league w/o top teams. FFS though I hate dealing with these noobs who can’t schedule on time, can’t submit lineups correctly.. it’s like WOW I’m turning into mr. angry admin.

OK rant off.

You can register for the ESWC USA Qualification online here. The registration fee is $10, with a 32 person limit. It looks like the format is a tournament bracket single elimination best-of-three until semifinals when it will turn into double elimination.

So that means 16 of the 32 participants will have paid $10 to lose one best of three match. I’m hoping with luck I won’t be one of them, haha.

View the current player list here. Pending means they haven’t paid the $10 yet. Big names currently include Mr. Dennis Chan aka Shortround, Nikolaus “srs.sonkie” Cassidy, and Nicholas “ShrieK’ Whittier. Honorable mentions include (going down alphabetically now) CrunCher, Yane or “werdnaajt”, Balance, ShiKaKa, Slayer, CaFFeiNe, Revelations, TechnoBoy, HULK, and yours truly. I don’t recognize the rest of the names. Beyblade is also on the pending list.

In other news, Aesthetic11 send me some stuff. Find out more over at PGL.

Game one was on Terenas Stand. I scouted with a footman and found him creeping to level 2 with blademaster. I’m thinking, “great. I can creep the mercenary camp and a green for level 3 and tower rush with mercs.” So that’s what I did.

A couple things to watch for:

1) I used the wand of mana stealing on the green wizard creep. This is a great way to refill up on some of your Archmage’s mana after summoning water elementals to creep with. The wand of mana stealing item is otherwise not very good versus blademaster or other heroes anyway.

2) I sold my Town Portal for dust and boots.

Game two was on Lost Temple. This game the orc spawns next to my natural gold mine so I chose not to fast expand. Instead I teched to casters and Mountain King before putting up a tier 2 expo.

A few things to watch for:

1) At the very start, I sort of waited on the ramp next to my natural a little before going down to creep it. I was thinking that maybe his Blademaster would think I decided not to creep the gold mine creep camp and would go try to find me at the greens in the center instead. I had heard of some German human player doing this against FoCuS (I didn’t actually watch the game), but yeah, maybe it’s worth trying?

2) As usual, I close off my base at the beginning leaving no entrances for grunts or heroes.

3) You might notice I use my Mountain King’s storm bolt and thunder clap to creep a lot. I actually learned this from watching Storm vs ToD on Turtle Rock for WC3L finals ages ago. It is really worth using the mana to creep faster.

4) Notice my tier 2 creep pattern. I don’t creep all the camps that are next to each other.. but I go for the starting spawn location gold mines, the goblin shops and lab. These camps can drop very good items as well as tomes of experience. They are just much more worth your walking time and creeping time on Lost Temple.

played 3 games with chase… lost all 3… aaaaah

wish me luck :p

meh wc sux

a source tells me the legendary shortround has signed up for the usa wcg pacific qualifier. maybe he’s gonna make a comeback and take #1 usa :D I think he just needs to prepare for sonkie, and then really no one else can stop him, right? I don’t see him losing mirror to longwalk

TowerPowerNerf did a video response for SK to the latest patch news. It’s hilarious, check it out over at SK.

Finally got it.. but the thing is paypal is reversing the transaction because Regroup never responded to the claim on paypal… so…

I think I will mail them a check, but in a month of course. (Although cashing an American check might be costly lol..)

In other news, I ordered a notebook.

Here are the specs:

- HP Pavilion dv6700t Entertainment CTO NB
- Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T8100 (2.10 GHz, 3 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
- 15.4″ WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
- 3GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- 50% OFF 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS – For Core 2 Duo Processors
- HP Imprint Finish (Radiance) + Webcam + Microphone
- Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection and Bluetooth(TM)
- 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
- Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
- No TV Tuner w/remote control
- One 6 Cell and One 12 Cell Lithium Ion Batteries
- Microsoft(R) Works 9.0

What I should have done is have team managers create their own team profile in a public-postable forum and then move it to team profiles forum t.t

Oh well, NEXT TIME

Head over to WCG USA and register for the qualifier.

It looks like for each of the 4 regoins they are having 3 qualifiers at different times???

Anyway, I’m the only one signed up to all 3 Pacifics for Warcraft 3 right now.

so yeah there was a question in human strat forum on wcreplays.com on breakers and focus firing.

generally with breakers you always want to focus fire something even in high food count battles. if you’re skilled and can handle it you can have 2 groups of units each focusing a different unit, but if you just focus 1 unit you can’t go too wrong either.

here’s a trick: in medium food early tier 2 fights, I’ll have like heroes + footies + maybe some breakers in group 1 and then in group 2 I will have 3+ breakers and water elemental and waypoint up a couple priests (shift-action to waypoint. in this case it would be shift-right click or shift -a click on the priests).

try it! it works pretty well in early tier 2 fights when you have priests and a few breakers.

if you wanna get really advanced, you can leave the water elemental out of the 2nd group and just not group it. when you get a chance tell the water elemental to attack a nearby priest or whatever. (this is because waters are slow and you don’t want them running around not attacking)