Nick - Starcraft

I think too often we fall into the trap of thinking that we know everything about a certain subject. We become so confident in our opinion that we forget to keep an open mind. I am firmly of the opinion that the only way to be right most of the time is to be completely open minded. To be willing to listen to the evidence or the opinion of someone else. To recognize that oftentimes humility is the only way to achieve understanding.

This is why I have chosen today to write about something of which I have no semblance of understanding.

God only knows what is happening in this picture. Well, god and Michael Vilim down the hall. Michael is crazy awesome at Starcraft. I really enjoy watching him play it, even though I usually have no idea what is going on.

Here is how I understand Starcraft to work: it's an extremely fast-paced game where you build some guys, and then you make your guys fight the other guy's guys. And, uh, sometimes there are forcefields? Also, Starcraft players like to use their own words that they make up. Here are some of them:

gg: This means good game. You say it when you're about to give up or beat somebody.
gl hl: I don't know what this means, but people say it at the beginning of matches all the time. I'm pretty sure Michael has explained it to me at least ten times.
Zerg Rush: I didn't really know what this meant, but I hear Michael say it all the time in a panicked voice, so I typed it into Google to get the picture at the top of this post.
DT: I'm told it stands for "Dark Templar," which apparently can fly around and are hard to find?

Michael owning some noobs.

Michael won the last Starcraft tournament at our dorm. He also set up and ran the first one. For the final match, we had a giant TV screen set up in a room full of people and we live broadcasted the match. Michael let me co-commentate with him. I want you to briefly picture me co-commentating a game of Starcraft. I imagine it was very similar to me co-commentating a basketball game.

Here's how that match went: Michael would explain what was going on, and then I would make open-ended blanket statements. Like, "it looks like he's employing an interesting strategy. We'll see how this develops later in the match," or, "this could spell trouble for his opponent if he doesn't do something about it."

I have also tried to play exactly one game of Starcraft in my life. I decided that I wanted air power, so I just built a bunch of airship factories. I started churning out airships called "Medivacs" until I had a whole fleet in my base. And then I waited for my opponent to attack.

As it turns out, Medivacs are only healing units. It was brutal. Never has a less effective air force been assembled.

-Nick.

Nick - Protector of the Weak!

You know Gyarados, right? If you don't, bear with me, I'll stop talking about Pokemon in a sec.

Anyway, Gyarados makes Pokemon games easy. He has monstrous attack power, solid defenses on all counts, and only really fears the electric type. To top it all off, you can get him relatively early in the game because he evolves at level 20. After that, he's a machine. He crushes anything in your path.

And that is why he is boring.

Because every time I'm too good at something, I get bored of it. My favorite pokemon is always the one that is cool, but not that good. This way, I accomplish two things:
1. I am challenged.
And 2. I feel like I'm doing things in my own style. (ie, like I'm better than other people.)

This principle of preferring weakness rather than strength comes back to haunt me in every video game I play, but it carries over to other stuff too.

In Golden Sun 2, I didn't care that I had super strong characters I could use; I wanted to use Ivan, because I like him. He died quickly all the time, but for some reason my attachment to him only grew stronger as it became clear things weren't going to work out. Fire Emblem was a similar story, but infinitely more painful because of how frustrating that game is.

This isn't just a trait that flairs up in video games, though that seems to be where it's most prominent. If I'm at the gym in Champaign and there's a guy who doesn't know what he's doing, I feel an immediate attachment to him. By being uncomfortable and out of his element, he has shown his weakness. And this leads me to believe we are destined to be friends.

I can only conclude that nature done screwed up and gave me a maternal instinct. Curse you, nature, and all of your doings!

Basically the point is that I choose to surround myself with weakness. I guess that explains my friends!


Zing!

-Nick.