First, there IS a valid point in the tagboard. We don't really answer much... but like I said in the dotasg forums, if you want real answers, msn me or drop me a mail. I think I've answered about all the queries asked on mail or MSN, but there are some things I won't post on public domain. We still appreciate all the people defending us though.

For the record, we did not pull out of TFL, and had no warning at all. We are hoping that we can get back into TFL, and perhaps even with a roster change (my plans currently include getting xqr, dN* and micronology players in, though they haven't been informed yet and I'll await TFL's response before doing anything).

Now, I don't flame on forums, and at the most I'm rhetorical or sacarstic. However, I have absolutely no qualms flaming on this blog. Here's an entire post quoted in verbatim (or whatever the term is) from the Dota-Allstars.com forums.

streetrock14:
"AntShark, as a fellow Singaporean, your whinings and excuses disgust me.

First of all, you should INFORM people (admins and fans alike) about the delay in your matches, yes. Yes, make a post HERE or something. Don't go saying...oh I busy this and that, then oops I got booted with no warning. YOU take the initiative to tell people, instead of the other way round.

I read the forum everyday, and not once did Zenith post anything. We needed Metro to tell us YOU don't have time to play. Have you heard of the word "RESPONSIBILITY" before?

And whats this crap about LAN tournaments taking up the WHOLE weekend? U mean Zenith plays LAN 48 hours over Saturday and Sunday? 1 hour also cannot find? Like Metro said and I agree, u signed up for TFL, jolly well make sure your TEAM got the time to play it. So you have IGC, fine. So what? U win it. So what? Big deal when you've shamed Singapore in the international scene.

Be more of a man and maybe you might be given a second chance."

Of which I won't reply to in the D-A forums, but I find it amusing enough to reply to here.

Dear streetrock14,

You are correct to say that we do not LAN 48 hours over Saturday and Sunday. We definitely had an hour or two to squeeze in. Being superhuman that you are, I'm sure that unlike us mere mortals, you never considered that we had to use that time to sleep or eat.

Naturally you also, understandably, have forgotten that the other team has to sleep and eat as well. We are humbled by your almightiness but pray that you will understand and account for the weakness of us as mortals.

In your almightiness, ye who do not perceive time as an obstacle, perhaps my worthless self should remind you that us mortals in Earth live in separate timezones and sometimes have difficulties being available at the same time because while others are awake, others are also asleep. Thou who is ever-prosperous, might fail to grasp that concept.

I am eternally humbled by your care and concern, forgive me for not being able to discern that you were ever-watching, for I assumed that arrangements with the other team would be enough. I did not perceive that making a thread stating "oh zenith is busy everyone should know hohoho" would be something I should do. Forgive me for not having your infinite wisdom. I mean, just because other teams don't post anything about them being busy or anything doesn't mean we shouldn't follow suit. Oh no, we are surely important enough in your presence to have to update you on our status every week.

Of course in your infinite ability, you would think IGC is completely unimportant and winning it would be completely worthless. O thou who has infinite potential, do consider that us mortals in our finite life have our own piorities that, in our less than infite wisdom, might differ from yours. Perhaps in your immaterial being you want us to choose to play one TFL match rather than fight local teams for $2000.

O thou man of man, most manly of all, teach this foolish one how to be man and get a second chance. You have been kind enough to show us our wrongdoings. We beg of thee, teach us more. Being so man, teach us your ways of being MAN-NER.

Wow I didn't actually flame.

6

IGC was probably the best local competition I've had in a long time. We didn't bulldoze through any team without at least putting in some effort. The game against Micronology was probably the closest win we have pulled in a tournament game.

The prelims weren't that hard, to be honest. It was massively fun though to pull off our 5-fatman combination against Tammy, and then fastpush against Disc. Those are strats we might someday out of the blue pull out when other people least expect it.

First order of the final day of IGC was a game against Wrath*. They attempted to pull off a Doom + Medusa on us, and got foiled by us pulling a Bristleback on them. I've also never seen so many people rush for Linken's Sphere in such a short time. Both me (Warlock) and Tofu (QoP) rushed for Linken's Sphere as our first major item. I think I got it up in around 20 minutes.

That game left me feeling somewhat untouchable. I managed to walk away from most battles with barely a scratch on me, not by anything I did, simply because no one wanted to aim me. It feels eerie when your teammates leave the battle with an inch of health on their healthbar and you realise no one has bothered trying to attack you. Except for the one where they wasted like 3 ultimates on me alone and in doing so gave my team the perfect chance to wipe them.

If you notice the thread by ice to ban Bristleback, it's totally serious, and partially because of this game. He was gallavanting at bottom lane when suddenly EVERY SINGLE HERO from their side came up and proceeded to lay down EVERY SINGLE ULTIMATE on him. Epicenter, Doom, Macropyre, Purge etc. What does he do? He turns his back and makes them all half HP, and runs around. By the end of the massive spam, he's still around half HP. I mean, he was withstanding spam in the entire duration it took us to not just go from mid lane to bottom lane, but to also wipe all the creeps in the mid lane (we thought he was not rescue-able). Afterwards, as one should know, a half HP Bristleback and his full team up against a team that has no more spells really isn't much of a fight.

I think it was this game where ice pulled off the fountain guard. It's where the Bristleback stands with his back facing the enemy fountain, and all 5 heroes don't dare come out. Or something like that.

Then we went up against team Wudi, who had the chance to pull QoP Bristleback back on us. They sort of forgot about lane control though, resulting in Bristleback soloing mid (and actually doing decently against Tofu). Unfortunately, they sort of couldn't farm anything much, so we won.

I'm keeping those two games really short because I intend to keep the focus on the next two matches.

So up we went to the semi-finals against Micronology, already knowing fully well that they were going to QoP BB first, planning to pull a Bear later since Bear does reasonably well against them, and since we had Warlock we could aim for a fast push while QoP and BB were unfarmed. Lo and behold, they choose Bear on their 3rd pick, screwing our plan over.

Well, we did Omniknight 2nd pick. On hindsight this was actually a really good pick. We would not want to be fighting an Omni BB, and the dN* match should show you why. The final drafts are something you probably have never seen before in a semi-finals game, but probably will be seeing a lot more of from now on.

They had QoP Bristleback Bear Veno KOTL against our Warlock Omniknight RK LightningRevenant Enigma. The battle plan was clear from the start. Win lane control with superior lane control draft, get a fast dagger on Enigma, push in with repelled Enigma and Razor, use GA to win and end the game as quickly as possible.

The plan didn't screw up along the way. It just crumbled from the start. KOTL BB was an insane lane, ruining the trilaning RK Enigma Omni (though admittedly this isn't exactly the best trilane in the world). Warlock against QoP was looking to be rather good, before the Venomancer came and screwed things up badly. He basically camped to drive me out of XP range, letting the QoP farm, while not gaining any XP himself. True altruism. Luckily, I somehow pulled some crazy farm hack early game and even after dying at level 4, managed to get a voidstone to last out top lane.

The bright side though, was that there was not much on their side to control Tofu from farming. A fast radiance from the LR gave us a fighting chance, while LuX managed to get his dagger up also.

When their major items are up, Bear with Treads Radiance, QoP with Skadi, and BB with Vanguard Heart, they decide to push. They mostly have a 3 man team at this point, because KOTL and Veno have been just running around helping that they are nothing but food. Nevertheless, those 3 overfarmed heroes can pretty much run through our entire underfarmed team. Well placed GA, Blackhole, and Infernal though, manage to fend them off. We don't really win the first few battles, but it gives us time to catch up on farming while they are getting organised. Euls up also disables the Bear from most major battles while I farm for my items, and ice's rk, though having a ridiculously slow start, seems to be farming better now.

Tofu of course, is farming like a madman.

One major factor is that even though the KOTL got a diffusal blade, he was using it to purge Guardian Angel and God's Strength, not my infernal. Ladies and Gentlemen, Infernal is still a freaking pain in the neck if you let it roam around the battlefield untouched. To illustrate, at a major battle outside Roshan, I drop Infernal and in the process of the very disorganised battle, with Blackholes, split heroes, and whatsnot, manage to QUADRUPLE KILL with an Infernal. Heh.

Much credit to our Omniknight too, who has really sweet Guardian Angel castings. More on our Omniknight player later.

At a certain point, Tofu gets really pumped, and we decide to push them back. Repelled Enigma keeps them back while Tofu harrasses the tower. Repel then switches to Tofu so he gets free hits off on their tower. Tower goes down really quickly.

Their farming perhaps is distributed a little too evenly among their 3 late gamers now. At this point, I could probably 1v1 any of their late gamers. They have a lot of HP, are really difficult to take down, but lack a bit in the damage department, so Tofu easily stands up to all 3 of them. He rips through their team repeatedly, and we win in one of the more draggy games in this compe, where for a rather long period of time we were actually losing, just holding back and gaining what advantage we could.

Then in comes dN*, who pull off Warlock Pugna DP Zeus Visage on us. We counter with KOTL BB Omni QoP and POTM.

Lanings are surprisingly weak for us. Tofu gets pwned at top lane, and LuX and GPS with POTM Omni are losing bottom as well. Luckily, ice and me, with KOTL BB, lay a lot of own in the middle lane.

Then they start their expected push. Towers fall, mistakes are made, but for the most part KOTL with the help of Omni's repelled Bristleback easily defend wave after wave, until we make a mistake or I run out of mana (meh, KOTL isn't that much of a mana fountain when you have to keep 3 heroes fully charged). This leaves Tofu a free lane to farm, and LuX also farms rather safely against the Visage.

Tofu and Lux sort of blow a bit. Some sort of myopia takes over their heroes where they can't seem to hit any spells. Wave flies in the wrong direction, and arrow seems to weave artfully through the enemy heroes, but to LuX's credit, he's the only POTM I've seen who knows when to cast his ultimate.

But so much for that. We're all still farming a lot more than them, seeing as how they're busy just smashing towers and failing while we have most of all 3 lanes being farmed. I'm happily enjoying just waving every creep wave that comes in, a luxury you don't usually engage in unless your opponent in turn clears your creep waves for you and pushes their creeps back. It's a rather slow and steady farm. I get a diffusal up quickly, followed by Euls, and then Agahnim, and it seems all so quickly because I'm farming in a position where I'm never actually in any danger at all. I end the game with 1-0 btw, no idea who the poor person is who got killed by a KOTL.

To cut a long story short, we hold off their push for BB, QoP, and POTM to get imba. Their underfarmed heroes can't really do anything against us. They try to salvage the game by thronerushing us though, but honestly it wasn't exactly a close game like some might make it out to be ^^. They took down about 1 tower while we took down the entire set of 2 protecters and a Tree.

For the most middle two games of the final day, we were actually using GPS' inter-school teammate (and my ex-classmate) to replace him. He turned out to be surprisingly good, unfortunately probably better than GPS. Especially in the Micronology game, it doesn't matter that he had a bad ratio, but he did all the engagements right (especially for an Omniknight) and didn't get caught in an engagement or before a push. That really, was what we needed him for, and all we needed him for. Feeding is one thing, and lack of farming is one thing, but getting caught before an engagement or screwing up engagements is really what can cause games to be lost. Plus we don't really need another farmer, so he was perfect in the team.

Pity he isn't interested in playing competitively.

To end this, I shall present...


An ode to Tammy Tang (by Ant and Pinksheep)

Through the twilight trod Tammy,
Thinking "tis this techies' treachery"
Tammy Tang though transformed to Tammy tank,
‘Twas tragically thrashed by techies.


Perhaps we shall wait till the next stanza where we introduce the tantalizing Tofuboi?

Hey All! its been awhile since i made a post. Seriously miss all u guys back there. mm. Australia's a land full of new adventures. But also full of weird people and stuffs, well for me at least. Their shops actually close at 5 pm and school ends at 3. that pretty much cancels out where i can go. Just went to the Blue Mountains and i actually did some driving! The best part was that my parents would start screaming everytime i begin to approach near a passing car, and throughout the 1 hour journey.! But the view of the mountains is really worth the while going. its just calm and peaceful. something u can seldom find in Singapore. But of course i would rather be back in where i belong. Tho, the worse thing here is whenever u go to a restaurent or a cafe, they tend to put things like "Singapore Laska " , " Singapore Curry Chicken " . And when u actually test it. Its like. " omg u call that curry? " About the dota scene here , well , Australia's too big a place for u to move around freely and finding good lanshops and stuff. But the dota scene here isn't as huge as what it is compared to Singapore. Their competitions here are still held in 3v3s. Still. They do have some decent teams here in Australia such as iM , SGS ( which i think is a chinese team ) , and TKS. Aight. It gets dark here at 5 pm now. its gonna get even darker during winter. Thats all i gotta say for now. Cya all soon!.

hi all!

asterisk* is looking for teams to train online/lan. if you are interested to play a match with us, post a comment in this format..

Team Name: (if its a group of friends, state so.)
Preferred timing: (date, day, time etc)
Lan/Online: (if lan, venue.)
Email(MSN):
Contact number: (its ok if you dont want to give.)
Others: (whatever you'll like to say)

just post it in the "comment" at the bottom of this post. requests on the tagboard will be ignored. we will get back to you asap.

thanks! (:

"Who would have known, that beneath that fierce exterior lay a soft and sensitive side" ...

It has never ceased to amaze me how you can pick up your ally's ironwood branch in base, drop it 1 second later, and get disqualified.

I'm looking forward to the day where someone gets DQed for speaking in all chat.

For the record, I've always maintained the stand that DQing for something that doesn't affect the outcome of the game even one bit is stupid beyond measure. It's just that after hearing about an incident where someone passed Roshan's Aegis after Roshaning and getting DQed, I realised that I didn't even question the circumstances and accepted without question that the marshalls actually WILL DO those things without question since they have done it so often, and that's when I figured that something was definitely wrong.

I still haven't played Panda. I haven't forgot, but it's just not a phase I'm at yet.

In response to Tammy's chain-blog thing, I'm supposed to list 6 things other people perceive to be weird about me. I don't usually perceive anything to be weird though, it usually falls into either 'annoying', 'impressive', 'curious', or 'disgusting'. Everything listed here, people probably know about already, otherwise I wouldn't list them. Hurhur. Not on public domain thanks.

1) Sometimes during conversation I move my hands far too much for absolutely no reason to no effect except to be distracting.
2) I rarely address people by their names or even nicks unless I make a concious effort to or am rather familiar with them.
3) I talk to myself.
4) I don't look people in the eye very often when talking.
5) I look down when walking sometimes.
6) Most of the girls I know are already happily attached.

post IGC at high
took part in a mixed team with virus, kero, slyvanna and caocao. first round was made alot harder by cao's draft! sly's qop kept dying to the doom, cao's enigma was also unable to function against so many disablers. and i went farming sandk rather than bsing sandk. we played 1-1-3, the 3 of us in bottom lane being enigma rk and sandk, enig and i daggered up by 20mins, its... OK for a 3 person lane, but not really that great.
we won after 1hr28mins.
thd zeus doom skeleking medusa<< inflict
vs
rk qop sandking warlock enigma << team random (us)
**
second round we somehow beat all the odds to face zenith on their first round. the amazing 8% chance to meet them, and its us.
us - obsidiandestroyer zeus qop wl visage
5 melee draft - centaur tiny treant pudge doom
i dont wanna elaborate much...
kero wl gets FBed by lux's pudge
ice's doom attains scepter in 20mins + perse
quote of the match has to be from tofu
"eh... now eye of the forest got cooldown ah?"
[ cos i kept eating them with tangos. lol! ]

***
and i still dont know how i got into mym.
brackets
dotasg thread on teams signed up

i'd like to announce that cynthia aka wanderz has officially left asterisk* for the dN girls team. we wish her all the best in and with her new team, and we look forward to a better, more vibrant gaming scene for the girls here.
there have been rumours of an all gals dota challenge... so stay tuned to see if it materialises.
***
for the interested parties,
there are 3all gals teams up right now, inclusive of asterisk* -
dn consists of : gongzu, sherica, lingzi, cynthia and jiayi. (interesting to note that there are 3 ex-X3M gals here)
as for the new rEv0 gals team : hime, kimchi, daph, valerie and huayan.

I somehow forgot about Tormented Soul and Slithereen Guard, and here we have a large portion of the grid ticked off already. I have covered quite a lot of ground since the start of the logging. Now the backlog is SA, NA, LR, Veno, BB, Silencer, Doom, LoA, Treant, Bane, Rhasta, ES, Zeus, QoP, Prophet, THD, Alchemist, TS and Slardar.



As promised, here is more stuff of what Ant can't do:

5) Recover. Chances are that if I do badly early game, I'm pretty much screwed for the rest of the game. It's times like these where I have to really bank on the rest of my team to hopefully be farmed up enough to pull off a 4v5. Most of the time it happens though, since the enemy team is hopefully too busy keeping me down to stop them from farming. It actually works for me sometimes, when the enemy team is too busy killing Tofu and eventually gets pwned by virtue of me being overfarmed.

6) Clear team alone. Perhaps it's a combination of the rest of the factors, but when outnumbered, no matter how low HP the enemy is, I have a tendency to get microed. Most of the time, faced alone with a low HP mass of 5 heroes who have used all their spells, the most I can do is take out 1 or 2 of them and force the rest to retreat. Mostly I guess this is because I always try to be part of the engagement and use my most crucial spells (i.e. ultimates) there, so I have none left to finish off enemies after a battle.

Number 6 actually can be put in the next list, which is a list of stuff Ant can't do yet but hopes to be able to do in the near future:

1) Backstab. I'm working on this. I used to be completely unable to backstab at all, and it usually resulted in me being underfarmed everytime I tried to backstab. I've sort of worked out a good balance between farming and roaming around though, and I guess even though my backstabbing timing isn't too good, at least I know how to make the most of a failed backstab. I still can't backstab well early game though, mainly because I'm too cowardly to tank the tower. Still, I have problems balancing helping other lanes and helping my own lane, and leaving a lane at the wrong time means my teammate at that lane has serious lane control issues. Plus I have no idea how to help a teammate who is stuck in a lane where I alone can't backstab. Calling for backup to backstab is a problem for me.

2) Maphack. I actually tried tracking movements of the enemy team for a while, but it got a little too difficult. Right now though, I can sort of predict which lanes are safe to farm, and which enemy hero is farming alone and which will be backed up. Plus, I find it's rather useful to always be aware of crucial backstabbing heroes such as VS or Veno, and if I remember to track them usually I can almost always avoid backstabs. Unfortunately, sometimes I get overly paranoid and don't farm a lane because there's a miniscule chance that the enemy might be waiting there, although often they aren't. Plus, I have a problem with teams where 5 heroes simply vanish off the minimap. It's really something that I can work on, I simply have be a little more alert, and conciously process this information constantly until it becomes a habit. Partial human maphack is possible!

i have discovered...

ANT'S TWIN!

SA, NA, Lightning Revenent, Venomancer, will be added on to the backlog, along with Bristleback, Silencer, Doom Bringer, Lord of Avernus, Treant Protector, Bane Elemental, Shadow Shaman, Earthshaker, Lord of Olympia, Queen of Pain, Prophet, Twin-Headed Dragon, and Goblin Alchemist.

That makes 37 heroes. Whoosh. Almost halfway there. I probably would be playing more if I wasn't so obsessed with playing Enchantress almost every single game.

Really, it's a lovely hero. It can solo, it can support, it can do well farmed or not farmed, it's notoriously difficult to take down, it can do both early and late game. Et cetera. Of course, there's always the problem that it has absolutely no AoE whatsoever, making it considerably less useful and considerably a slower farmer (for neutralling especially, and the low base damage and attack speed compounds this. Impetusing neutrals is just a little too wasteful).

I do agree that it IS kind of weird that people would reject the opportunity to be part of a larger more experienced pool of players just because of the stigma that one gets by not being the "first team". I'll leave it at that because I seriously am in no position to and can't actually consider any of the factors involved to comment any more.

I've decided to dedicate this post to doing a little self assessment, and perhaps be proud of what I've actually improved at.

What Ant can do:

1) Throw single spells effectively in engagements. Past that however, it starts to get screwy. I guess I sort of had this all along. I can plan and find out the best situation to cast ONE spell ONCE in an engagement, mostly ultimates. It started out with Chain Frost, and then went on to Warlock's Infernal, and even Doom later on. I guess I can sort of get good Epicentres in too, but I stay off Sandking for reasons such as everything other than Epicentre kind of misses.

2) Follow instructions. Verbal instructions followed very quickly. You wouldn't believe how slow some people are at doing so. The sad consequence of this of course is that it results in blind faith sometimes and a little mistrust after you blindly follow a command, but meh, I trust my teammates. Mostly. I've sort of developed a mind of my own, but I've also learnt that do or die, no matter what your instincts tell you, always follow what LuX says INSTANTLY.

3) Last hit. I guess it can be said for most other competitive players, but I can safely say that I've never been in a situation where the opponent can completely shut down my farming or denying by out last-hitting me all the time, safe for some absurd base damage difference situations in which case most of the time I can drive the opponent away. I HAVE however, been able to totally shut off an opponent's farming and denying by simply constantly out last-hitting him all the time. That being said though, I still ain't as good as Tofu - gotta give some credit to him, he simply has one of the best last-hit timings I've ever seen. As we all know too, last-hitting is rarely ever the deciding factor in lane control.

4) Not get caught stupidly. I play very safe, most of the time, other than a few moments when I decide to just charge in for fun. I guess it's mostly from being a first piority swap target. Most of the time in early or mid game, I play heroes that are required in the large clashes to be alive to cast one crucial spell, like Chain Frost or Infernal. I usually farm by virtue of not dying.

Now we move on to what Ant can't do. For sleep's sake I shall only list half of them, or less:

1) Hit AoE ground-targeted spells. Like I said, I've missed every AoE spell in the book that requires you to target the ground, the smaller AoE ones on a much more regular basis. Part of the reason I don't QoP is because there's this thing about missing Sonic Wave... and I miss carrion swam, impale, nether blast (I actually miss this more than I hit), you name it, I've missed it. Did I tell you about the time I missed Infernal?

2) Farm OMFGGODLIKEFAST under pressure. Mostly because I don't take risks, and also because I somehow or other can't KS. Yet another reason why I don't QoP. My QoP has a regular Skadi timing of 35 minutes. ALL the time. Not too fast, not too slow. You are NOT going to see a 20+ minute Skadi on my QoP, simply because I don't take the risks required to get those essential kills required to farm that fast. It's because of this that my late game farming is rather horrible. In reality, the chance that you're going to be caught if all 3 lanes are pushed up and you're farming one of them, isn't really that high if your team is competent enough. However, I simply have a phobia of farming late game when the entire enemy team is in the fog.

3) Ward. I can only ward for myself. Most of the time, I simply can't maintain ward control in the map. It's really beyond me how people can constantly up wards, and at the places where the enemy heroes will always seem to pass too at that particular few minutes in the game.

4) Command. I'm good at following orders, but giving them is a different story. I don't know if I'm bad at it, but I simply DON'T. There's a little self-confidence issue here, and I simply don't have the confidence or the courage to take responsibility for commanding my team into a make or break situation. Then again, I haven't really tried, and haven't really had the need to. In fact, the only time I do give out instructions is when my team or a teammate is really blowing, in which case it's mostly more of whining than commanding. Otherwise, I give "friendly suggestions".

There's much more to cover, like farming in lag, backstabbing well, sensing wards, etc. etc. but sleep is important now because I can actually get it.

I also notice that I tend to take my hero logs in phases. I'll be trying a particular kind of hero for a while for a few heroes, then move on to another kind for a few heroes, and on and on. Oh well, I need to think of a way to keep logging to one or two paragraphs max. Then it'll be much faster to clear. I really, really, want to get it done, just so I can look back at it when I'm finished and see whether I've changed my thoughts about anything, and see how limited I really am.

well... i'm not a computer whizz and i'm not a pro tracker... but... well... you all tell me what this means ok...?
nicks and ip's of the various posters on the tag board:
x6. YoDa 218.212.110.237
XDT. chu 218.212.110.237
HiTM0Mi 218.212.110.237
[00:02:59] * Dns resolving 218.212.110.237
-
[00:02:59] * Dns resolved 218.212.110.237 to cm237.sigma110.maxonline.com.sg

not intending to ban the ip, cos its interesting to see jealous punks try to flame... ^^
and its even funnier to note that none of the zenith members have bothered to reply.

some belated photos of the trials held on saturday at Gaming Giants:-

from left to right

a very happy lux, 2 unknown ppl, jovi aka Rftrue, ice, (standing) dawn and shan, bryan, christine, yann, ken.

from left to right:

(seated) - bryan, lingzi, CASS (in bold cos wan demanded i add her in cos i missed her out. lol.) kelly, kimchi, cynthia aka wanderz, d4wn

(standing) - ken, shan aka flawed, dawn aka pinksheep, zilch, tammy aka furryfish, the same 2 unknown nerds.
***

for the record, zilch and i weren't laughing at kelly, although it may seem so. i was whispering something into his ear behind the paper and he was laughing at what i was saying. i cant remember what it was about... but likely to be about mac or something. lol! he wasnt even looking at her or her screen. OR MAYBE HE WAS!

^^"

***

very egames feel to the place, imo. 6 computers per row makes for a pretty interesting layout, think 5v5's with 1 at the side for the gf/bf to playo2jamsurfinternet etc.

Our LAN sponsors
Gaming Giants Amateur's League Ladder [GGALL] – DOTA ALLSTARS

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A MATCH, YOU MIGHT AS WELL JOIN THIS LADDER!

Chances for teams who want to train for competitions and at the same time win a little prize for themselves. This is a mini league for teams who love playing draft matches on LAN.

1. Free registration at the counter.
2. Minimum of 5 teams for league to kick off

3. Each league ends weekly, Team with MOST victories will be the declared winner. Note that teams are allowed to play as many matches they want to.

4. As this is an amateur's league, there are no limitations to how many matches Team A can play against Team B.

5. A league cannot be played in just one match, a minimum of 7 wins each week is required.

6. A minimum of 3 different opponents must be played each week.

7. Winner of Each week will win $150 cash prize.

Matches played via LAN in Gaming Giants

-Teams will arrange for their own opponents and call GG to book for their comps.
-A walkover is not considered a win.
-Each match will have to last for at least 30 minutes.
-Any team who is walked-over more than twice will be removed from the league.
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-LAN fees still apply.
-Teams are reminded to book in advance if they wish to play during weekends in case GG has no comps available. Advance bookings will be given away after 15 minutes.

*Matches are subject to house rules. GG.

asterisk recruitment results:

dear all,
first, i'd like to thank all the girls who have bothered to come down for our trials. for those not selected, i wish you all the best in your future teams and gaming career. if there was anything that you were not happy about during the trials, do voice it out so that we can improve on it the next time round. its the first time we're doing recruitment, so i hope you all had as much fun as we did. at the very least, it was a valuable opportunity to get to know the other girls in the community.
secondly, i'd like to welcome d4wn` to our team and to X3M. d4wn` will be subbing for us from june onwards when shan aka flawed mia's for her Alevels.
d4wn` will also be heading our second girls team if it materialises.
currently shortlisted are
-astatine aka maria
-lingzi aka kelly, who has yet to confirm her status with us.
our 2 other shortlisted candidates hy aka christine and kimchi have declined our invitation to remain in the second girls team, and we wish them all the best! =) its been a great time playing with you all.
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once again, i'd like to thank X3M for their support through the trials, GG for their sponsorship and free lan hours during the trial, and the various people who have been around giving valuable comments.

The state of the nation! Or team zenith! Or something...

Our population seems to be stable and ideal at the moment, though our workforce seems to be ageing. Our government is exploring policies to handle any population problems that might arise in the future.

With regard to trade, the opening up of our market has led to much more resources from overseas being available, and much more demand from overseas for our goods as well. Unfortunately, the presence of a huge tax known as "lag" makes trading overseas still not a very attractive option.

Our local market seems to not be doing too well either. There is a lack of quality goods in the local market, most of them only being available to consumers in the black market. As a result, there is little constructive competition among our companies.

Local production is at an all time low, as there has been a drastic drop in the average number of working hours. Ministry of Manpower advises an increase in productive efficiency instead, seeing as how the number of working hours seems very difficult to change.

As a result of expanding our market, foreign relations are still unstable. There is a large amount of speculation as to our standing with other countries, but this should all settle down just given a bit of time. Foreign policy should adopt a state of nonchalance.

Our local researchers are still as innovative as ever. Restrictions in ability however, have led to some fields of research being understaffed. The ministry is taking immediate and drastic action to retrain and educate the population so that there will be an increase in occupational mobility. Specialists who are trained in one field are advised to work part time as trainers to train staff for positions that are in demand by the economy.

There is also much to be desired from our law and order department. The general populace is essentially rejecting law and order from being enforced, and the police are doing nothing about it. Our ministry is advising that law and order be maintained by the people instead, and can cut spending and stress from managing law and order, seeing as how the budget is being wasted anyway.

And thus that's the end of this very short state of the nation, err... team... speech.