As much excitement as I had while writing my first CGS blog, I write this final blog with an even greater level of sadness. Having played in CGS Season 2 alongside such an incredible team, the experience was even more enjoyable than I had imagined.

I will miss living in LA this summer with my friends. I will miss the practice rooms, the van rides to and from the studio, playing poker until 3AM, and the unnecessarily early team meetings. I will miss going out and celebrating wins with the team after our matches on late night runs to In N Out or Applepan. I will even miss losing, and how it brought us together and pushed us to work even harder for our next match. While it was very cool to have made a salary from CGS, I would have played for free if that's what it came down to because of all of the small things that made it so much fun.

At the moment, I do not know what my CS future holds for me. It'll be hard to take a step backward to just playing local tournaments and online leagues after having experienced a CGS season. Though it now seems pretty anti-climatic, tonight is our Pro-Am finals match versus the Optx. I am going to try my hardest to win this match, as it possibly could be the last finals match I will ever play in my life, and I'd like nothing more than to go out with a W.

So lately I've kind of had this obsession with vampires. Well, not really an obsession, but I just read the whole Twilight series in about a week, which is a four part book series about vampires that comes out as a movie a few weeks from now. To further my vampire interest, my roommate got me started on watching this new HBO series called True Blood, which is also about vampires, and has an eerily similar storyline to Twilight.

Anyhow, this Friday I have to register for classes for my spring semester, so I decided today to begin putting together my schedule. I already had a pretty good idea of what I want to take, but there are still a few classes that I have to take for my general education requirements that I have quite a few options for. Generally my method of selecting general education classes goes like this: 1) Pick a class 2) Does it fit in my schedule 3) Look up that professor on ratemyprofessors.com 4) Is the class interesting? 5) Is the professor easy? Yes-> Take Class, No-> Find Different Class

Usually it takes a while to find something that works for me, but today, I think I found the jackpot. While browsing through classes that satisfied the literature requirement, I found this:

LIT 248 - The Vampire in Literature and Film

I had to do a double take, because I couldn't believe there was actually a class dedicated to vampires. I looked up the class on ratemyprofessors: Average Easiness: 4.4/5. Like I said before...jackpot.

A whole semester on vampires....ahahahahahahahahahahhaha

John McCain sent me a text message at 3:33 this afternoon. I was a little surprised John had my number. This is what hiss text said:

Barack Hussein Obama is so arrogant he is playing basketball as we speak and throwing an early victory party tonight...

I wasn't sure what this had to do with anything.

Anyhow, last week I went downtown to vote early so I wouldn't have to deal with the lines of people today. However, it turned out to be just as bad anyhow.

My roommate and I drove down together. When we got there both parking garages in the area were completely full. We happened to get lucky, because just as I was about to pull away, right in front of the building someone pulled out of their spot and I took it. However, it was a metered spot with only a 25 minute limit, and I was pretty sure it was going to take longer than that to vote. I put my quarters in then went in to vote.

The entire time while waiting in line I kept thinking about how I was going to get a parking ticket. Then I thought, "you know what, if they give me a parking ticket because I came in to vote and there were no other spots available, that is GOING TO MAKE ME VERY ANGRY".

The whole process took about two hours, and as I walked out of the room, I was looking for my roommate who had already finished. I didn't see him right away so I went out to see if he was waiting by the car - he wasn't there, but I was relieved to see that I had not gotten a parking ticket on my windshield. I walked back inside to try to find him, and after a couple minutes he showed up (he was waiting by the exit, but I walked out the entrance...oops). So we walked out to my car, and then I saw a PARKING ENFORCER standing at the back of my car WRITING UP A TICKET!!!

I ran up to him yelling, "Nonono....I was in there voting....I'm leaving now,"

He paused for a minute looking at me with his ticket pad in one hand and pen in the other. "All right, you're good," he said and he let me off and walked away.

In the end, democracy prevailed over parking tickets.

Congratulations Juansource member venkman on winning the Antec Three Hundred Gamer Case! I will contact you for your information so I can send you your prize.

Soon I will be releasing a schedule for another round of prizes to be raffled off for the next few months, so be sure to check back often!

Congratulations Juansource member rou on winning the Amazon.com $25 Gift Card! I will send you an e-mail tommorrow so that you can claim your prize.

Sorry to all those who didn't win, but remember the next one for the Antec Case will be held on November 1st.

Also, tomorrow Mustang's commentary on de_season will be released. Furthermore expect a de_season video article on Tuesday, and Heatwave/Misty's de_dust2 commentary on Wednesday.

Have a good weekend!

Lately I've spent a lot of time in the computer lab because I've had several big programs I've had to work on for my computer science classes. Being a CS major, I meet a lot of "interesting" people in my classes. While in the computer lab, I've been able to observe some of them in their natural habitat.

Last week, I saw two older foreign guys in the lab working on a project together. I wasn't sure what they were working on, but it must've been pretty hard, because every time they got something to work, they would shout at each other in another language, stand up, and give each other high fives. It was basically a touchdown celebration for programmers. They did their mini-celebration probably a dozen times during the two hour span I was in there, LOL. Enthusiastic programming, I like that.

Yesterday, a guy came into the lab and sat down at the computer next to me. I figured, like everybody else in the lab, he had come to work on homework. Nope, not this guy. He INSTANTLY loaded up starcraft and began microing away. I could tell when he was about to lose because he would grumble loudly at his monitor, lol.

I can just imagine me playing CS at the lab, shouting at my monitor with everybody staring at me, lol...

Today, someone who I've seen before in one of my classes from last semester came into the lab and sat down at a computer at the end of the row. He logs into his account and then pulls up his program to begin working on. Before starting, he pulls his ipod out from his backpack, pops his earbuds in his ears, cranks the volume all the way up, and then begins to blast "The Final Countdown". Keep in mind, I am several seats away from him, and he is using earbuds, but I can still clearly hear what song is playing. For the half hour that I was there, he must've played the song at least six times.

I guess The Final Countdown must give him programming inspiration. Maybe I should try doing that when I get stuck.

DUH DUH DAH DUHhh, DUH DUH DAH DAH DAHhh

Congratulations to JuanSource member silhouette004 for winning today's raffle.

You have won an Antec SpotCool System Cooler and an Antec MX-1 Harddrive Enclosure. I will send you an e-mail regarding further details about receiving your prizes.

Sorry to all who didn't win, but you all still have opportunities to win the next two raffles.

I'm happy to announce, that over these next two months I've decided that I will host a few raffles for Premium Members for a chance to win some free swag. Here are the prizes and dates of when the raffle will take place.

October 1, 2008
Antec SpotCool System Cooler
Antec MX-1 Harddrive Enclosures
(These two products will be raffled together)
For US subscribers only

October 18, 2008 (because it is my 21st Birthday)
Amazon $25 Gift Card
For INTERNATIONAL subscribers only

November 1, 2008
Antec Three Hundred Gamer Case
For US subscribers only

Note, the only thing you need to do in order to be eligible for the raffle prizes is be a Premium Member at the time of the raffle. On the date of the raffle, I will post the name of the winner on the front page, and will send you an e-mail in order for you to confirm your address.

Furthermore, as requested, I am aiming to coincide content updates with the CAL map of the week. Today, I posted a new de_inferno commentary of 3D versus Complexity - so if you haven't watched it yet, go check it out. While Strike and Fire content has been requested, it is very difficult to for me to find high level demos on those maps, though I will do my best to continue searching. As for this week, here is the planned schedule of content to be released.

Today, September 22 de_inferno 3D vs. Complexity commentary by me

Wednesday, September 24 de_inferno Video Article

Thursday, September 25 de_contra commentary by badapples

Monday, September 29 de_nuke Video Article

If you have any other questions, please feel free to post them in the thread, or send me a private message.