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Is StarCraft II for You?

12/27/2014

Mom: “Hey, what are you doing down there?”

Son: “Mom, I got map control in my head and I‘m scouting for the Terran armies. Same old.

Mom: “You’re a Zerg, right? Better keep at it, Polt clears six figures a year.”

Son, no nerd: jolts. But only for a sec, because mom and he “know” Polt. They know the 26-year old South Korean, who also goes by the name Choi Seong Hun, is allowed to live in the States because he excels at Starcraft II. Polt in 2013 was ranked 4th in the World Championship Series (WCS) is a terrific “Terran” player, makes buckets of money doing it, and has some of his more er, enthusiastic, fans extolling: “Polt for President – though granted, to be ranked number one like “Bomber” another South Korean, who also goes by the name Choi Ji Sung - is a far bigger bauble than being the President of “cc” Command Center USA.

So, see, our son here is not a space cadet. He’s simply a Reaper-Hellion-Eager-Beaver Polt wannabe.

Polt practices six to eight hours daily, a harder toil than citizens anywhere, save for slot players at Las Vegas, bear. His game is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) affair against an on-line opponent who is trying to overpower and destroy him. One aficionado described it as “Chess at a million miles per hour.”

Basically, Starcraft II imitates all that is good about life: you’ve got your cult setting that deals in mores with scores of militaristic theatrics; you’ve got your incomprehensible idioms, grasping greediness, and a hurry-hurry attitude, with all of that souped up in a winner-take-all mentality. GL HF. END SARCASM FONT.

Terran is one of three races in this game. It, apparently, is a human race, unlike the futuristic Protoss race or the primal Zerg bunch. You’ll need to know right-click and left click and drag because your starting-off six workers must get “stuff.” This game, even though spacey – within its parameters – is about income and money, or at least, in part, about minerals and Vespene Gas.

That gas and those minerals are gathered by your workers to build units and buildings. Get another worker (SCV) or two, because, after all, you have eight mineral patches to be harvested. There’s an icon for SCV creating and training. But like the salary cap so common with players on earthly sports, like the NFL, Starcraft II has a supply cap that limits the numbers of SCV’s available. And don’t confuse rally points in Starcraft with come-from-behind surges to victory in real life. The former are vectors that instruct new SCV’s where to go.

And for Terran, SCV’s must build more and more supply depots, which will increase your supply cap, which will increase your chances to build more workers.

Got it? Kinda sounds like the nursery rhyme: the wheels on the bus go round and round...

To be a star in Starcraft II, you gotta understand the big picture “Macro” aims of building your army and income. (How you move your units, the nitty-gritty, is “Micro.”)

The big and small, tall and short, far and wide of it, is to play in the America World Championship series, now in its third season. It’s complete with announcers who sports-lexicon talk of grudge matches, personal pride, rounds of 16, matches, sponsors, strategies, swarms, angst – and anticipation.

To the newbie, watching an announced match is confounding and confusing. An announcer says the Roach ban comes in pretty early...so-and-so builds the same old way every start...and the points amassed for each player constantly change - but it’s hard to see how, or understand why.

But we all understand suspension and bans. Players cheat and hack in Starcraft II, resulting, in this case, of over 5,000 of them being penalized. Still, many who are cheated blame the creator, Blizzard Entertainment, for not doing more to make a level playing field. They feel gypped, buying the product.

Just how much does Starcraft cost? If you’re a soft touch when it comes to a, no pun intended, blizzard of Starcraft paraphernalia, stop.

Otherwise you’ll drain your wallet buying that new logoed wallet, art book, keyboard, Hoodie, poster, T-shirt, and Terran Space Marine Sideshow Figure...

How much did Starcraft II cost Blizzard to make? They won’t say. Though they will say they spent 100 million on their “World of Warcraft” game... As for Starcraft II’s popularity as a video game – well, in day one it sold a million units. As of July 2013 it has sold 5,155,000 units.

‘Cept Starcraft, though popular, ain’t perfect. It didn’t need to swap interceptor for their word, ceptor. Ceptor is a strike-craft. Not to worry Starcraft, we’re not going to go all M4/MMMM on you. That is, we aren’t going to sic our widow mines, marines, marauders, and medivacs on Blizzard Entertainment President, Mike Morhaime.

Wanna be the best in SC II? Here’s what you’ll need in your bag of tricks: Patience, effective analysis, consistent practice, an honest appraisal of your performances, a leveraging of your best skills from your field of expertise into SC, a willingness to practice alone and watch VOD’s, a methodology to work on your mechanics, and an ability to bring passion to everything you do.

In this sense, truly, Starcraft II imitates all that is good about life.

Finally, you might want to have (or perhaps not, if you’ve a family to feed, or other addictions to satiate) this mindset, as put by one pro gamer: “I can’t imagine my life without Starcraft.”

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Floor Hockey War - and Pieces

12/20/2014

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She wanted to Cross Face Chicken Wing the goof because of his uncalled for cheap-shot body check. She settled for tossing her stick. This is war. Floor hockey war.

And clearly, floor hockey is for feisty females who are tempted to grapple and apply submission holds. Our friend’s nickname is Bertuzzi – named after NHLer Todd Bertuzzi who concussed Steve Moore. She also adores Don Cherry...

Truly, girls love this sport and some play in multiple leagues and in multiple nights weekly, to satiate their fitness and fun floor hockey fix. “Bertuzzi” not only regaled us with the Chicken Wing ding story she revealed purplish bruises and red welts – those, and the mental scars, are what she takes out of this sport.

You need shins for floor hockey. Shins and chins, and grins. All win, the game is great to play if you can repress and forget the accidental or intentional whacks to those shins, which won’t be easy because, other than the goaltenders, nobody – at least in some leagues - seems to wear pads or protection of any kind. (Although we didn’t look closely in the private parts areas.) Other leagues do make gloves, helmets and face guards mandatory…

In the interests of gender participation and parity at least one female per team must be on the floor, terrorizing others, whether it be on a 3 on 3, 4 on 4, or 5 on 5 situation. For the latter, two females must be on the floor. With a goalie as one position it’s easy to see why players get gassed – and that’s why substitutions are allowed – to prevent lungs from bursting. And females often have to play the whole game if they’re the only one on their team. Substitutes have to sign an on-line waiver - never a good sign. You want to surf in the ocean? Sign the waiver because, after all, you’re tooling around in a shark’s hometown, but what kind of monsters do the waiver’s deal with in floor hockey, outside of the sap late-hit losers?

Speaking of losers (let’s leave the waiver mumbo-jumbo be) there are no Garth-Snow goalies allowed to corrupt things with colossally oversized shoulder pads like Garth’s – or leg ones. The latter must not be taller than 34 “or wider than 11.5 “. The hockey sticks must use plastic blades, to protect the floors one suspects, but that doesn’t mean that a slash, hook, or, god-forbid a spear, wouldn’t hurt.

One fantastic feature of the sport is that all of the gym, with the exception of the area under the benches, is considered “live.” Another fine factor is that balls don’t roll down the road or get squashed by cars like they do in street-hockey. (And the nerve of cars to use thoroughfares for driving. Terrible.) Also, the weather is always temperate inside with no snow banks to lose the ball in. But tempers rise indoors when normal players have to put up with the histrionics and ersatz heroics - the antics - of numb-skull dolts who have decided their miserable lives would be best brought up to scratch by using recreational league sports as the ramp to get their going-pro quest back on track.

Gyms, however, have corners. To avoid smashing someone into one, the player closest to the ball must be allowed a stick length (and three seconds or so) to make a play. With no helmets or other protection, players are sitting ducks and are at the mercy of opponents being stand-up, abide-by-the-situations-stipulations, sorts...Now, if you’ve a screw loose and stickhandle your way into a corner, you can be crowded, but not checked...

Unlike ice hockey where a goalie can come well-out of the crease to “play the angles” a goalie here must keep a foot in the crease at all times. And nor can your goalie be a whacker-hacker-cheap-shot-artist-NY-Islanders-Billy-Smith thwacker type. Leave criminal behavior where it rightly belongs, in school parking lots, under bleachers, in washrooms, or in the classroom when a substitute teacher is in control.

Where were we? Oh, yes - decorum. Like curling, players are supposed to “call themselves out” if they’ve violated rules, a refreshing facet that major league baseball, with cheating in its DNA, should adopt. Hand passes and sliding, for example, are not allowed. The GC, or Games Coordinator, is the big cheese running things and high sticking could run you into a misconduct penalty.

From misconduct to elite conduct: you’ve mastered passing, shooting, deking, and stick handling, now set your sights on the top-notch level international stage. Zug, Switzerland, is site to the World Ball Hockey Championship in June 2015 for men and women teams. Three stadiums will host the over 20 participant countries and 600+ athletes.

Back to the lower levels for a moment. In “Bertuzzi’s” floor hockey league - there is something called “Spirit Points.” These are, officially, awarded for good sportsmanship but wussy teams play soft in the hope that the other team will give them a spirit point, even if their hockey skills stink. So a team well behaved could come out ahead, even if the score was tied at game’s end.

Enough of that. In the final analysis floor hockey offers not only competition, but camaraderie, testing not only one’s stamina, but trying one’s skills. It’s easy to understand, sure - but it’s sure hard to play well. And while it is inexpensive to play, it is precious to those who play it.

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How not to gain 100 pounds at Christmas

12/13/2014

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Let’s not gain 200 instead, that’s a bad joke, but let’s summon all the loathing we can muster for those truly fortunate - reprehensible - folks who can scarf down tons of food and never gain a pound/kilogram. Should such slim, strong, svelte-with-no-sweat souls, blessed by genetics and endowed with blind luck, be allowed to live? Yes? Hmmm.

Can we at least shun them, shoosh them? Yes? All right!

Phew. Now that they’re gone and now that we’ve put bitterness aside, let us discuss the best ways to not gain a ton during Christmastime.

First, the misconceptions.

You’d think that being a lousy chef yourself, or being from a family of terrible cooks, might help. No great eats to feast upon, right? Wrong. Unless you are dirt poor and boiling pebbles pretending they’re lentils, you’ll be ordering in. Not a good solution. Learn how to cook at least passably, palatably, so you eat for sustenance, not enjoyment.

Think that eating a case of carrots or a bushel of broccoli before you go Christmas gormandizing will curb the craving for sweets?

It won’t. Remember childhood, when we’d tell the parents that we couldn’t spoon a mouthful more of dinner, no, no, no, but that we had a separate, special, appetite compartment for dessert?

That hasn’t changed.

Second, the prescriptions.

At least try the leash. Lash yourself to the kitchen sink or the grandfather clock if you must go out, if only to prevent you from reaching all those cakes and cookies, cleverly showcased on pedestal china trays.

Perhaps (except you didn’t read it here and we never said it anywhere) instead of hitting the table, you hit the bar, getting stewed, not in the stew, but in the sauce, belting out Saaanta Closh Chritsblass carousles. Granted, you won’t lose a calorie but you may lose a few friends or family members, and that may be a plus.

What may work best is to go to a place where Christmas isn’t celebrated, like on the dark side of the moon. But, in missing favorite festivities - you’ll freak, get frightened and fire up an emotional eating binge to compensate. So that won’t work. Shoulda slotted this under misconceptions.

Life is cruel. How, pray tell, can we maintain discipline and dedication to fitness over fatness, a laudable goal assuredly, when righteous self-control is tempted by the devilishly glorious smells of Christmas cooking – and your mate, wearing the lampshade, is passing you “special brownies” from Colorado?

Try this “workaround” to beat back Christmas corpulence. Move mirrors. Or better yet, crack them so when you look at yourself you’ll see ridges. You’ll think you’re a ripped lad or lass.

Or command the one-in-every family geek-nerd-techno-whiz to take a break from hacking into the Pentagon and command them to do something useful for a change: re-calibrate the digital weight scales.

Further, beg that family smarty pants who, when not reorienting missile flight paths or reorienting the pathways of brainwaves, to whip up a program to either neutralize or remove those taste buds and have them tell us, while they are at it, why we are so cravenly enslaved to those taste buds in the first place.

What about this as a solution? Would buying a pet as a Christmas present help? It’s certainly a diversion. But looking at - and smelling that - pet food is gross, which will make the Christmas goodies all the more appealing. So don’t gamble on the new-gerbil gambit...Besides, you’ll end up taking the gerbil for walks when the kids get bored with it…

OK. This solution will work. Somewhat. Play table hockey. For 15 minutes. You’ll lose a few calories and gain boasting rights as you dash up the stairs telling everybody that you just clobbered your five-year-old nephew. (That the nephew can’t see over the table is entirely beside the point.)

Skating on some thin ice now, if you’ve delightedly downed some Bûche de Noël Chocolat, Pfeffernüsse Cookies, Struffoli, RISGRYNSGRÖT, Kourabiedes, and Chrusciki - it means, you’ve been on a Christmas traditional-treats tasting tour through France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Greece, and Poland. Stop being so popular and rich. Stop being invited to so many sumptuous repasts. Of course if your life is a whirlwind tour of gourmet galas, perhaps carrying a few extra thousand pounds, kilos, or stone isn’t the worst thing in the world...

Here’s a tip we all can do. Be picky about candies and sweets. That is, don’t pick ‘em all.

Or, try this: You know those little entrees and desserts that are served with little sticks? Well, for every tidbit you take, take that now naked stick and put each one in a different pocket. Those little skin pricks will painfully remind you of your feastly-beastly habits.

Don’t wanna go there? Ok.

If all of the above hasn’t worked there is one drastic remedy – and no we aren’t talking the lap-band procedure remedy - that could work. One could become an atheist.

If, however, the familial opprobrium will be a cross too difficult to bear for you in your atheist strait-jacket shtick, instead of overly worrying about your weight shift during Christmas, be concerned yes, care, yes – but, you know what, do this: let none of the joys of this magical time be overlooked.

Carry on, and make merry this Merry Christmas ‘cause a happy person is a healthy person, no matter what the scale shows.

Look at Santa Claus.

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Ski Jumping equals eagles soaring!

12/6/2014

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If you want them soaring off a skyscraper, start them young. About a 64 story building with a 12- year old should do it. And they’ll get ‘looking good’ points for a great jump, to boot!

Are we talking spectacular suicides? Nope, ski jumping. Norwegians excel at it, and Japanese are good at it, and America's Sarah Hendrickson was world champ in 2013. And while all jumpers float, beneath that elfin aerial existence are some finely conditioned athletes. Geez, they gotta trudge about 180 stairs just to get to the departure level.

(And this year’s Four Hills Tournament – the Mecca for ski jumper departures – takes place from Dec 29th to Jan 6th.)

The jumpers train all year round for what is roughly a 20 second, 650 foot leap, off that equivalent 64 story building. Wind plays a huge part. Ski jumpers want to jump into a head wind. Gives them extra lift. The ride, too, is easier to control which helps them earn points with the judges. No matter that the “in-run” track they ski down before they soar into the sky looks impossibly narrow to navigate, but they navigate it nicely, with shoulders front, arms straight back, hands held back tight against the body. That body is clothed in a slightly loose suit, which also helps with lift. Practice incorporating squats, plyometrics, and imitation training jumps (usually into the arms of a coach) helps build that form. The form, at the precise moment of takeoff, has the skis immediately take a “V” shape, thanks to cocking of the ankles, with tips wide and heels close. The “V” style really overtook the parallel ski style of flight – in distance, if not style, in the early 1990’s.

The aforementioned plyometrics training, wherein “shock” to the body comes due to muscular eccentric contraction in landing and concentric contraction in jumping has come in handy, not only for ski jumpers but for short dunkers too. Brandon Todd is 5’5” plyometrics devotee who can stuff the basketball down.

Now, Carina Vogt, come down from your ladder, natural high, ski jump altitude, and Olympian pantheon pedestal. Take a bow. You are, of course, the first woman to win the women’s ski jump Olympic Gold Medal. The Sochi Olympics was the first for women’s ski jumping. (The men have been at it, Olympically, since 1924.) We have many questions of course for you, Carina, but the main one is who decided the color coordination for your gold medal ceremonies clothing?

Now that our eyes have stopped revolving…have you, Carina, finally stopped trembling? After all, you had never won a World Cup event before your once-in-a-lifetime Russian roulette ski jumping victory.

Quite a far cry from favored Sara Takanashi of Japan. She readily admits nerves got the better of her at Sochi. She finished fourth and this after winning 10 of 13 World Cups. But remember that though World Cup events are lofty – they don’t get the massive media attention as do Olympics, so no wonder even seasoned and successful athletes blow a gasket on the biggest stage, now and then.

And watch out for that first seasonal jump in the snow. Norwegian ski jumper Phillip Sjoeen splattered during his maiden voyage this season. Fortunately, he wasn’t seriously hurt, other than for his pride, perhaps. But watching the jumpers ‘save’ their bodies while in air, arms pedaling vigorously to get their feet under them, to prevent harrowing crashes, is almost as impressive to watch as is a record jump. Of course sickening falls, as Ulf Findeisen of old East Germany experienced, do happen.

For those of us too scared to soar (or smash) there is an online version of the sport. Called Ski Jump Mania “you can live the life of a ski jumper…and set new hill records on famous ski jumping hills…” Sign me up…

And if I was a female, American, with grits and guts - I’d sign up with the “Fly Girls” program. Basically it’s not only a bridge, but a feeder program, epitomized by the monthly long development camp held at Utah Olympic Park between club level jumpers aged 12 to 16 and the national team jumpers.

But, generally, no matter what country you’re from if you’re a tyke, usually for the first couple of years, you’ll jump off little hills. Once the young feet are wet, then the big hills are next.

The best body shape for ski jumpers, men or women? Thin and light. But with height, and wind, and ski lengths all a factor in performance, there is a complicated method to ensure that those light as a feather don’t use super long skis – because they’ll fly forever and win every event hands down, that is, if they ever were to land. One guy who never seems to land is Swiss star, Simon Ammann. Watch his jumps. See how perfectly still his body, with his head nearly touching his ski tips, is while in flight. He won four Olympic gold medals. And here’s a platinum performance world-record ski jump by Norway’s Johan Remen Evensen. He flew ¼ kilometer or 808 feet back in 2011. Just landed now. Just kidding.

But we are not kidding when we say colorful, graceful, artful, and delightful are the best descriptions of ski jumping, although thrilling and chilling will aptly depict it too. All of us who watch it secretly wish we had the nerve to try it. The jumpers are as beautiful as eagles and as stately in appearance but, hey have to say, they’ve got a better looking flight – young or old - to boot!

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Is StarCraft II for You?

Floor Hockey War - and Pieces

How not to gain 100 pounds at Christmas

Ski Jumping equals eagles soaring!

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