LoL: Ashe

Dabbled in a little non-Soraka the past few nights, as we were without either of our typical AD fellows for a while. Of course, Neil had to be a troll and pick Soraka as soon as my back was turned! I don't begrudge anyone to play Soraka, I suppose. It's a relaxing way to play the game, and my personal favorite. But Neil plays her as battle-Soraka, and I just can't get on that bandwagon.

I'm not the best AD carry in the world, as I've discussed previously. I usually leave it to Xian, who froths at the mouth every moment to see someone's hopes and dreams destroyed.

It makes for a super good assassin, and a terribly scary spy in TF2. Me and Lin, we like to facilitate the success of others, and save lives. The only way I can convince myself to play a carry at all, is by telling myself that I can save lives by murdering every single person on the other team, as fast as possible. This, unfortunately, does not make me better at last hitting.

Anyhow, we had reasonable success, but I'll assume it wasn't me as much as it was the other people in my party, stepping up their game because there was no healer, and the fact that there's 5 people's worth of damage/tanking in teamfights, instead of 4 people and a Soraka. The one extra stun/initiate is very helpful as well. I usually have a pretty solid arrow, but I have my off games. One game I managed to miss with nearly every one, just barely grazing every single member of the other team. Disheartening. Anyway, I was owned solo versus Jarvan/Ashe top lane in one miserable game that ended at 20min surrender, and then owned with a Taric babysitting me against a Miss Fortune/Lux lane, and then promptly played an excellent game with a Taric versus a Jarvan/Miss Fortune lane in the very next game. I want to say that the first Taric was too aggressive and got us killed, but the second was super aggressive and nearly got us killed - in the end, as I may have said before, my fate seems to rest entirely on the (somewhat unpredictable) skill of the other team, and not my own.

Today: Positive Outlook

Debriefing from Executive Decisions: After obtaining my chair and putting myself in "The Thinker" pose, I came up with a timeline. It was just like on those cop shows, where they draw out a timeline with the pictures and the evidence pinned up on it? Like that.

Naturally, it turned out that this was not 'planned enough', and things generally ran late and/or didn't go as planned. Not that everyone had a horrible time, they seemed alright, and besides, it seemed to me that even if I had nailed down everything, things wouldn't have turned out perfectly anyhow. I think that raises more questions about the resolution itself more than my execution of it. We can't propose to finalize all events before they happen, especially when so many other people are involved.

Today I'm going to keep a Positive Outlook.

Being negative is no crime, I do enjoy me some (hopefully harmless) complaining about things, as it helps to pass the time in entertaining fashion. What we'll want to keep in mind is the kind and depth of negativity we're putting out into the world. Too much and too often puts your listeners in a bad place, for no real productive purpose. I suppose the old adage of "if you've got nothing good to say, don't say anything at all" may hold some merit. Pure negativity isn't often constructive or educational or even entertaining.

It's not going to be hard for me, compared to some of the people I know, I'm incredibly positive all the time, so there will be two corollaries. First, it will be a difficult thing indeed to create a group dynamic of positiveness. Having a positive outlook simply does not, in my experience, rub off on those who are naturally negative. I will have to think on that. Second, perhaps it is possible to overdo a positive attitude. I will need to be 'positive', without being 'complacent'.

Today: Executive Decisions

Debriefing from Cleaning: One can never really finish cleaning, philosophically speaking. But this is pretty literal - I didn't get done. It IS better than when we started, and that's got to count for a lot, if I may say so.

Today I'm going to make some Executive Decisions.

Big group gathering this weekend, and it's going to be up to me to take charge this time. Order people around. Make sure things are secured. Captain this ship and boldly go, etc. etc.

It's time (maybe well past time) to get this party organized. But there's always the tricky undersides to captaining a crew - who will resent which decisions, and what kinds of decisions are stepping over my boundaries as Captain? It will take some serious pondering.

And maybe an executive-style chair to ponder in. I think that may be the first order of business.

Today: Clean

Debriefing from Give People a Chance: Failure! Xian just told me a story about some stupid people, and my only reaction was: "stop telling me these stories and just set those people on fire, already." So.... definitely no progress there. (Even if Xian agreed with me!! Then again, he has a reputation for setting folks on fire. He's a little bit avoided at work, if you know what I mean...)

I did have a good day of Poker Face, though. I had one of those epic work meetings that lasted 4 hours, and went straight through lunch. My head hurt, my stomach growled, and the topic wasn't even relevant to me, but I put on the best blank, attentive face you ever did see and gutted through. So, not bad, if I say so myself.

Today, I'm going to Clean.

Because damn it all, it is awful up in here.