Here's some more reading material for you

Well damn, I was kind of hoping that someone would have updated during my absence so I would finally have something to read, but it appears I may go another month without a substantial update from anyone. Props to Davis for actually updating, but not only was it a very short post, I was there while the content was being said. I've said my piece now, I'll just explain how this post is going to work, then I'll get on with it since it will probably be longer than usual (hopefully not actually twice as long). I'm going to go through the week leading up to the trip as quickly as I can. After that, I'm going to do a section on the trip, then I'll do my week since then. At the end of it all, I'll lay down my opinion on the SC2 Beta thus far.

Monday:
I guess when I left off, I was just doing the Dylarian Shipyards in Brood War. I've come a long way since then as I am now on the final mission (I even did the bonus one). That is going to be a pain, but I must beat it without cheats. Band was boring because our songs are still pretty sucky. We are in the process of cutting out tunes that we don't want to do for the concert since we always pick way too many. Fortunately, a Leroy Anderson tune got cut (I was very happy at that), but our best song got cut as well as two movements from our second best song. Only 4 rehearsals left plus Victoria though, so I can tough it out.

Tuesday:
I got ridiculously ahead on homework so that I wouldn't have to worry about it the following week. After that, I must have played a lot of SC2 since I didn't have the beta then and I have to account for doing so many missions somehow.

Wednesday:
I learned that I was able to get beta from gamestop, so I told Steven about it when he signed on. No sooner did I tell him that he wanted to go, so we did. The beta was in the process of being reset, so it was super glitchy. We did get in a couple games with Peter though, so that was cool.

Thursday:
The beta was still glitchy. It was very disappointing. I got in a couple games though. After a while, I gave up and did some BW.

Friday:
Steven and I got a couple 2v2s in, but he had to go for some reason, so I did my placement matches for 1v1. The first was TvR which became TvT in which I won by contstantly dropping the guy and forcing him into his nat where I pushed into it from both sides. The second match was TvZ and I won by punishing the guy for using a greedy build order and he never recovered. The third game was TvP and I thought I was going to lose, but I totally pwned the guy because he was teching to immortals and I had a buttload of marauders by then. The fourth game was a TvT in which the guy put a barracks in my base. Unable to kill his SCV (it's a lot harder!), I settled for just using my military units because they came out before his since he walked all the way to my base. After forcing him to retreat the barracks, I had no trouble rolling over him and felt it necessary to tell him off for trying that as I beat him down. The last match was a TvP in which it seemed like I would lose early. I had to pull half my mineral line to kill a cannon rush, but somehow I stayed ahead of him. Thank God for mules I guess. I pushed in with a huge group of marauders and took him down easily. He had a lot of stalkers that were covered by zealots. I had no problem with the zealots because I was able to micro my concussive shots to make it easier to get all the stalkers down. Going 5/5, I got seeded into platinum division where I proceeded to get my ass handed to me thoroughly and repeatedly. Fortunately, it has been reset since then so I won't be in platinum again.

Saturday:
Steven and I finished our 2v2 placement matches and got put into platinum. We actually were able to hold our own that day keeping over .500 the whole day. It was really fun and a good challenge.

The Trip:
On Sunday, I got up and headed down to my Grandma's house in Vancouver and met her for lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, which is a pretty awesome Zoopa-like restaurant. After that, I did some odd jobs around my Grandma's house that she couldn't do, then we went to dinner, then came back and we watched the Invention of Lying, which was kind of funny.

On Monday, I got up and took an online test for Biology, then packed up and left for Portland. I got there in plenty of time and got to explore the hotel. We stayed at the Jupiter hotel which is like a remade motel that's pretty cool actually. They even gave us a free condom in the room! I was rooming with Steve from the trumpet section, which was a good decision because our room was quiet enough to get sleep and we got to sleep and wake up at decent hours. Also, he had a lot of DVDs, so we got to watch some good movies in our downtime since our hotel was too far away from downtown Portland to do anything. The first night in the studio was spent unpacking, setting up, and doing sound checks. There was a very attractive lady there that was helping adjust the mics and putting down tape to mark where the trumpets stood. When she was taping by my feet, it was very distracting having her grab my feet and having her head down by my balls, I had to stop playing as she did it. Fortunately, I was not the only trumpet player that found her distracting when she did that. That night after the rehearsal, me and Steve ordered a surprisingly large pizza and ate most of it while watching "Pirates of Silicon Valley" about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as they were starting out.

On Tuesday, we had our first long day. We actually got through one more than half of our songs, which was pretty surprising. We almost had a one take wonder, but we wanted to get it tighter, so we did a couple more takes. For lunch, the trumpet section minus the lead trumpet got thai food. It was okay. That night, Steve and I were using the GPS in the car to search for restaurants, but after 5 choices that turned out not to exist, we just drove along one street until we found a place. We came across this German restaurant where we had really good food. I had a sausage trio and for dessert a piece of flourless chocolate cake which was as thick as the sausages. The next morning, I still felt like I hadn't digested all that, I was amazed I didn't barf in my sleep. We watched Tron before going to bed. We also watched an episode of Babylon 5, which I might start watching once I finish a couple other shows.

On Wednesday, we got in our other big day of rehearsals. For lunch, Steve and I wanted barbeque, but upon searching, we discovered Portland was notoriously shitty at barbecue. The guy running the studio overheard us though and pointed us down the street for what turned out to be really good barbeque. The good barbeque food came into my system and told the German food "God damnit, this is America and we digest our food!" which was helpful in not making me feel like I was going to barf into the trumpet the rest of the day. That night, Steve and I and Erik went looking for a game store that turned out to be closed. After that, we spent about 40 minutes looking for food, but deciding to go back to that barbeque place, which was a good decision since it gave me a chance to try something else on the menu. After dinner, we did a bit more recording and on our last song, we got our only one take wonder of the week. We were all ready to go and it was good enough, so we left it at one take and were pretty proud of ourselves.

On Thursday, Steve and I were planning on going to the Monette factory to try mouthpieces, but they bumped our appointment for the third time, so we decided we didn't really want to go since we were kind of mad at them for repeatedly cancelling our appointments without telling us. After listening to the unmixed songs, we all decided it was good enough and everyone split off. I took Steven (Davis knows him from Central) back in my car and got back to Shoreline in good time. That night, I just hung around the house doing some French homework.

After I got back:
On Friday, I only had one class which was nice because we had a movie and then got out. I tried to play somt SC2 with Steven that night, but it didn't work because we were not playing so hot. To be fair, it had been a while. I spent most of the night doing some Starcraft Brood War.

Saturday:
I spent the morning doing Fable 2, then we went to the Mariners game because dad scored really cheap tickets. It was a decent game that nobody really should have won in the end because both teams had so many slipups. After that, I played more Brood War.

Sunday:
We met Grandpa for lunch at Costco, then took him home and got him settled there before leaving. That afternoon, dad and I finished making the game area in the garage. We played some darts to determine who bought slurpees and I lost in a really close game. I like having a dartboard because darts is fun and I'm somewhat good at it. Now I have a place to practice and get better.

Today:
This post has been being made for a while now and I have been up to random stuff like homework and conversations while making it. We continued the movie in French this morning, then had an improv day in jazz band, which was fun.

Guild Wars:
Before I forget, I wanted to put this out there. Steven recently decided he is not getting GW2 for reasons that I find very reasonable. Since he was the one I played with the most, I decided I will likely not get it. I have decided that I am waiting to hear more about Star Wars: The Old Republic now. If they have a pay system like Guild Wars, I am getting that game without a second thought. If they charge a monthly fee, I will not get it. If I get ToR, I will not get Guild Wars. If I do not, I might get Guild Wars, but only if people get it and will actually play it often(so I might wind up not getting it, haha).

SC2:
While I was making this post, it was announced that SC2 drops on July 27, so mark you calendars. I also just found out Davis is still considering whether to get it to which I forcefully told him he was just kidding. Another thing I found today was Keir retired from recreational Starcraft while I was gone. I hope he comes back like Brett Favre for SC2. The beta for SC2 shows really good promise for the game. It looks like the campaign and the multiplayer will have a lot of differences, especially in terms of units. It's going to be more like AoE3 for the campaign, which is pretty cool. I saw some campaign demos on TL that make it look really neat. As for multiplayer, it's pretty great. I'm loving every minute of playing it and I can't wait to start up again tomorrow. Today, I'm going to get really ahead on homework again so I have the rest of the week to enjoy it. Battle.net 2.0 is also really good in some ways and lacking in some others. The social aspect is much worse, but the ladder system and generally what you can do and track with it is really good. I hope that everyone decides to get SC2 so we can keep the clan playing together for years to come. If you guys don't get it, at least promise we'll play the original starcraft for all time. We gotta have some videogames we can all play when we have our 1/1/37 party in 27 years.

Until next week, peace out.