By combining two days into one post, I’ll be able to catch up to today and be back on schedule for blogging!

I mentioned in my last post that I fell asleep without setting an alarm (on purpose). It was very nice to sleep in, and I woke up around 1 of my own volition. Hungry, I walked down all the way to Barclays Center, about a dozen blocks from home. I saw Luscious, which happened to be the sandwhich shop that Nick and I went to on our way to Punderdome. I got an Italian sandwich and sat outside, but the wifi wasn’t very fast, so I packed up and went home.

About 3/4 of the way home, I realized that I hadn’t paid for my sandwich! So, I walked back and paid. On the way, though, I noticed a little coffee shop called Venticinque, which seemed nice and sold iced chai. So I sat there for about three hours and worked on a résumé for my résumé service, and watched… Dreamhack? WCS? I’m not even sure anymore. I watched some StarCraft 2.

I then got a hankering to play some SC2. But! There are no tables at the house! So I tried to play on the floor, on the couch, on the kitchen counter. Nope. So I took the bus in to Manhattan and sat at Hacker School until about 2am, playing StarCraft and looking up strategies for the LAN the next day.

Took the train home and went to sleep. I still can’t figure out which trains are local/express when. I’m beginning to think it’s random.

This morning (It’s today, now!) I woke up around 10, and took the R into Manhattan, where I caught the 7 into Flushing. (lol flushing lol okay I’m done). There was a mom and kid across from me who started chewing gum, both making smacking noises for five stops or so. That kind of thing doesn’t really bother me but it was amusing that they both did it. The kid dropping the wrapper on his way out bothered me though. I’m really trying to get over my visceral reaction to littering, since the city is pretty much entirely man-made anyway. I can understand being angry about finding trash in wilderness, but NYC is pretty much as far away from wilderness as one can get. Still, I have an almost physical reaction to people dropping trash, so it might take me a while to get over that.

For anyone wondering, that’s the #1 reason for my near-hatred of people who smoke. I have been known to yell at people who drop their cigarette butts on the ground in front of me. Not in NYC, so that’s… an improvement, if you look at it that way? Also I can’t stand being around people who smoke because it makes my eyes itch. Your freedom stops where someone else’s freedom begins. Do they have a right to smell like smoke or do I have a right to fresh air?

I arrived at the Cybercraft internet cafe around noon, which is when the tournament had been posted to start, but there wasn’t really anyone there. I bought a membership at the cafe and bought into the tournament ($35 total, which wasn’t too bad, considering New York). The main thing that weirded me out was that there was no music playing at the cafe, so it was just the clicking of mice and keyboards. Eventually the cafe started filling up, though, and I found myself sitting right next to none other than Axslav! He’s a professional caster and ex-pro player, and we chatted about new york and stuff. He’s pretty well known in the SC2 scene though, so it was super cool to get to chat with him – and play against him for a match! He destroyed me, of course.

I lost 2-0 and 2-0 in the tournament (results here – I am “Revx”). Someone (not a hardcore gamer, by the sound of it) asked, “Why do non-pros even show up, if they know there are going to be pros here?) Answer: Because it was still an awesome experience, and I got a lot better by playing against and watching matches by people who are a lot better than me.

I also met Yuna, one of the translators and organizers for Clarity Gaming (based in Long Island). She was super nice and chatted with me about Clarity for a while, as well as just general talk about the area. I really enjoyed being able to hang out with people who really have a hand in eSports in such an informal atmosphere. I might have nerded out a bit on Axslav a bit, though, so if you’re reading this, I’m sorry for being a fanboy.

Caught the train home around 6 and didn’t get here until 9, mainly due to getting lost in Brooklyn (I went north when I should have gone south). I spent the time chatting with my dad, though (happy fathers’ day!), so that was good.

Now I’m just blogging and derping around on the internet. Gonna head to bed soon – I’m tired from gaming all day, and ready to get back to programming tomorrow. Well, or more gaming.

As I noted today, programming and pro gaming are only a few letters apart…

From Brooklyn,

–Erty

p.s. Photos from the concert on Friday!