999VLR: Day 1 (spoilers)

You wake up locked in a room.  Really, given the history of the game, this shouldn't surprise you.  You're immediately partnered with a girl named Phi, your name is Sigma.  Cute.  The proctor of the extremely Saw-like game is a projected bunny on a screen that talks, and calls itself an AI by the name of Zero Jr. (since Zero Sr. would be the gamemaster, and the one who created Zero Jr. to proctor the game.  Zero Jr. flat out tells us that its creator is masquerading as one of the nine players of this, the latest Nonary Game).  Going over rules and controls and "how did I get here" and "who are you" and "what is this watch on my wrist" takes seemingly forever, since you already know that you're not going to get any actually helpful answers, and let's just escape this tiny room already.  I guess that's just my recent re-play of the original 999 kicking in there.

Room is easily escaped, except now each room has a safe with two passcodes, one that opens and gives you the key to leave, and one that will open to give you a golden file of information.  Usually the second passcode is more difficult to find, and though I poked and poked at the room, I couldn't figure out how to get the second passcode and had to leave the room without it.  For now.  I assume I'll be coming back.

Outside, we find ourselves in a creepy warehouse, complete with creepy message written in blood (or red paint, they never actually said which) on the wall.  Zero Jr. has a projection screen on the wall where he explains more rules: the nine door right next to him is the only exit, only people with more than 9 bracelet points can go through, it will only open once, if you break rules, the bracelet injects you with poison and you die, etc etc.  It's really very complicated, I'll explain in more detail if necessary later.

The other people playing the game are:
Alice and Clover, both from the previous 999 game
Tenmyouji, an old man, and apparently his grandson Quark
Dio, some kind of circus ringleader
Luna, conservatively dressed typical meek girl
and K, requisite memory-erased large fellow, strangely completely encased in armor that he can't remove, and we cannot see his face.

Right off the bat the suspicion is high, not about the other players, but about the game.  Nan notices and complains that my character, Sigma, isn't voiced, while everyone else is.  He's aggravated, of course, because he's spectating, and only hears blocks of silence when my character is supposed to be talking.  It raises a flag, along with some comments by the other people in the game.  I think even my character is not who he thinks he is, or at least, does not appear or sound the way he thinks he does.  Sigma thinks he's a 20-something year old college guy who was kidnapped on Christmas day, 2028, but now that the doubt has been cast, it could be any year, and Sigma could be old by now.  This is reinforced a bit later when they find some cold-sleep chambers that could store bodies indefinitely.

The players are divided into color schemes and either pairs or solos, and compelled through something called 'chromatic doors' that correspond to colors.  Using real RGB here, so red-green-blue, and then magenta-cyan-yellow for mixes.  Regardless, it boils down to picking one of the three doors: magenta, cyan, or yellow.  For this playthrough I chose yellow. After escaping the subsequent room, all players return to the original tiny rooms to play the secondary game that Zero Jr. calls the Ambidex Game.  Basically it's Prisoner's Dilemma, where you choose to either Ally or Betray the player(s) you went through the colored door with.  Since Phi is part of my 'pair', we must vote as a unit and either receive or be docked points together. (+3 if betraying an ally, +2 both ally, 0 both betray, -2 get betrayed)  She launches into a long explanation of why game theory says you should always choose Betray, but I know game theory too, lady.  If your default is Betray, then sure, your points don't ever go down, but nobody's points ever go up, either.  Although zero bracelet points supposedly means death, no one's getting out of here if nobody ever chooses Ally.  So I over-ride her objections and choose Ally.  Of course our partner/opponent Alice chooses Betray, and we're down to 1 bracelet point (everyone started with 3).  Another round of this could kill us.  Phi is displeased.

Clover and K voted to betray Tenmyouji
Dio and Quark allied with Luna

All bracelet colors and pairings shuffled so we had new partners.  The next set of doors is down an elevator on Floor B, but we have quite a bit of time before they open, so everyone elects to do some thorough searching of all the available rooms, which are now unlocked.

999: Virtue's Last Reward, Start

I bet if I look back at my own review of 999: 9 Persons 9 Hours 9 Doors, it'll sound like I was lambasting it for victory being totally arbitrary.  But if you can get over that hurdle - if you can wrap your head around the fact that it's not even about victory (maybe it would help if you have unlimited time to put into the game), then the story is one of the most beautiful slow-blooming flowers you can have in this video game world of ours.

Aside: have we been reduced to low-grade story expectations?  Are we eating the equivalent of dog food, and telling ourselves it's okay because the graphics are nice and shooting people is fun?  If you're not satisfied with that, don't give up hope yet.  Dragging the story out of 999 (either one) is painfully slow, compared to other video games, but (cliche time) the difficulty makes you appreciate it all the more.  If you ARE satisfied with the story you're getting from other games, then 999 will be nothing but an endless whirlpool of punishment.  That's what I was getting at with my original post.  There's definitely a type of gamer who will have nothing but rage at the way the story unfolds over endless iterations over which you have no control.

Good news, though.  The second 999, Virtue's Last Reward, allows you jump to any point unlocked in the story, at any time.  If you make a choice and reach a dead end, simply click open the flow chart and select the branch point where you made that choice, and make the other choice.  Simple as that.  No more restarting from the beginning if you don't want, and all parts you've seen or heard before can be fast-forwarded through with impunity.  That makes things faster and more sensible right off the bat.  Now that I can SEE the possibilities, though, it looks like there are no less than 24 (!) different endings to this game, and I still don't know which one I need to do first to unlock the others.  At least, when I do find the unlocking parts, I can head right to the end of the other branches and immediately keep pushing forward.  In addition, none of the escapes have to be performed twice, because you can always enter the final passcode to waltz straight out of a room, without going through any of the motions - all passcodes you've found are permanently saved in the archive files.

Also, story portions are voiced in English and Japanese.  That's valuable.

A third gold star is given for increasing the puzzle difficulty.  The last game had somewhat token escape rooms - find five pieces of paper in the room and put them together, voila.  This one has much more legit puzzles, and way less hand holding.  There's an easy mode, for those who aren't old veterans like myself, but I hear some endings can't be achieved if you use easy mode, so no way I'm touching that.

So, mechanics are all looking good.  Time to get into the story.  Rest of posts will have spoilers.

7 Days to Die: Evolved

Woah, slacked off on posts, and in that interim we evolved from cocoon husks at 7 days to die to fully armed bad-asses.  It was hard earned, don't let me cheapen it by skipping to the end of the story, here.  Days went by.  Servers were restarted.  We slowly carved out a hidden base inside the bowels of the earth, only to have it stunningly collapse on our heads along with the thousands of zombies that spawned directly above us.  We restarted and restarted into that vast wasteland, until, exactly like Edge of Tomorrow (a movie for those who don't understand the video game learning curve), we spawned naked into the wilderness, and within minutes had shelter, fire, weapons, and armor.  The characters haven't evolved, we, the players, have learned every aspect necessary to our survival by trial and error.  It feels good.  We feel competent.  Now we wish there was a story to actually uncover with our hard-won survival skills, but I don't think there is.  Maybe I will try and write one and lobby for it's inclusion, something as simple as finding scraps of journals or working radios at the far reaches of the map.

We'll try a random map, once time permits again, and will wait for the next evolution of the game.

7 Days to Die: Day 2

Ok, a VERY brief glance at a couple newbie guides to 7dtd assures us that what we want to be building first is a sleeping bag, so we can respawn in one place.  That seems like a great idea.  Now, I just need a bunch of cotton.   Good news is, you can just grab up cotton plants from where-ever they are growing - no harvesting or chopping or anything.  Bad news, cotton is pretty scarce in some of the locations.

After finding enough cotton and slowly assembling cloth fragments and then sleeping bags (and then subsequently losing all that hard work by picking up the sleeping bag and dying with it in my inventory while trying to move it to a new location), the new challenge is building a real shelter.  Because just crouching down at night and hoping to not attract the attention of running, glow-eyed zombies seems like a pretty bad apocalypse plan.

We finally figure out that the stone axes are sufficient for chopping down medium-sized trees to get those wood planks the game keeps hinting at, it just takes some significant chopping to get one down.  I assembled a rudimentary... square of wood frames, but they're see-through, and zombies still rush at me at night, and several things become apparent: 1) there's no hiding from zombies? 2) wood frames are super breakable by zombies, and 3) when there's nothing supporting a wood frame, the whole lot of it falls and breaks apart!  Sucks.  Time to do some more reading up and maybe restart the server.

7 Days to Die: Day 1

Day 1, as in, the first day that I played it.  In-game, actually I think three days went by.
In the spirit of the game, neither Xian nor I read any walk throughs or guides.  It's an apocalypse simulator, and let's hurl ourselves in there and just figure it out as the apocalypse intended.

So we're just mostly-naked husks wandering around ruins and wilderness.  We have no idea where the other person is, and have to sit around experimenting with the controls just to figure out how to move around, crouch, etc.  I loot everything that can be clicked on and find.... a bunch of junk, seemingly.  Well, the thing I searched was labeled "smelly garbage" so, not like I had high expectations.

Zombies appear at the peripheries of my vision-limit, shambling around aimlessly.  When I crouch, I can see that they apparently have no interest in me, currently.  That changes quickly when I come across an empty building.  I move from 'sensed' to 'hunted' and quickly abandon the building search plan to book it back to empty wilderness.  A sign nearby proclaims it's a campground.  What a great idea.  Except it's overrun by zombie dogs.  How awful, in retrospect.

Death respawns me randomly somewhere else on the map.  It's snowing here, but I don't know if I take extra damage or what.  I hike out of the snowy area to another area and immediately start taking phantom damage and die.  Xian posits that I was standing in a poisonous swamp or something similar, but I had no warning or visual cues that it was.

All these deaths are reducing my maximum health?  Not really understood just yet.  We finally figure out that the green arrows on the compass are pointing at each other, and the blue backpacks are pointing at our corpse and dropped items, but respawning can happen in a vastly different area of the map, and it can take more than the cycle of the day to traverse the distance.  At night, the zombies really want to get you, and can now run.  There's no way to hide or survive.  Xian has fashioned a crude stone axe from some rocks and plant fibers, but it may be time to look around for some preliminary information.

Escape Rooms: General Advice

Advice for when you find yourself with nothing to do

• Go through the entire room and open/overturn everything (even if someone's already done it!)
• Big furniture?  Go ahead.  If they didn't want you to move it, they would have nailed it down
• Books: flip through every one - are there markings, notations, hidden slips of paper in the jackets, dog ears?  Is it a reference book that matches up to a code? 
• Paintings: Look behind, look inside (if nobody stops you), look at what's depicted on the painting
• Tables: Look in, on, under.  Open the drawers and then look on the underside of those drawers.  Which drawers cannot be opened?  What do they need in order to be opened? 
• Cupboards: Check in, check each shelf, check UNDER each shelf, check the very top if you can reach
• Carpets: Floor is fair game!  Peel it back where you can, look under
• Walls: look for writing, look behind objects, look low and high
• Ceilings: look up! Check the lighting, check for writing
• When doing any of the above, what am I looking for? 
• Anything that's out of place, has a handwritten clue on it, a code to decipher, anything.  If it can be picked up, take it to a place where you can consolidate all the clues

Advice for solving puzzles

• Some puzzles can be solved as they are, but a lot of them will need extra clues, and it's up to you to match the clues together, even if they're all over the room.  That's when consolidation and note taking will help.
• For example: one clue will read: "yellow house + white horse = ____".  That's not solvable as it is.  But somewhere else in the room, you can bet there's a yellow house with maybe a number written on it, you see where I'm going with this?  If a clue doesn't look solvable with the information you have at hand, you need to go out and get more.
• Ok, I have a ton of puzzles and a ton of "keys" that should go with puzzles.  How do I match them up? 
• There should be a clue in the flavor text - or at least some indicator somewhere!  Let's say you have a locked chest.  Is there anything written on the chest?  Is anything in that text emphasized, different colored, capitalized?  Maybe it's trying to give you a hint.  No words?  Maybe there's a lock that can only be unlocked with letters, or shapes, or directions.   Example: it's a directional lock, now you know what you're looking for.  A series of directional inputs.  Look through your "keys" (a pile of clues that aren't puzzles themselves).  Do any of them say something like "NEWS"?  That's a series of directional inputs!  Try it! 
• Most clues and puzzles won't be used twice.  That's not a guarantee!  But it's likely that you can set aside both the puzzles and the clues you've already used in a separate area from the ones that have yet to be used. 

Escape Rooms: Rule #2

Rule 2 is going to sound a lot like Rule 1, and that's fine - Rule 1 is super super important.

Escape rooms can get a little hectic, I should warn you if you've never been in one.  Creating a single room with enough puzzles to involve 12 people at once is going to involve several different things going on at once.  Add in counting down clocks and any other environment distractions (see: roaming zombie from last post) and you have a recipe for post-apocalyptic chaos.  So here's something you may forget in the babble of 12 voices all yelling questions and answers at each other at once:

RULE #2: COMMUNICATE EVERYTHING

It seems obvious in hindsight, and when you're looking forward to participating, you don't think to yourself, "I'm going to find the answers and then just keep my mouth shut."  But when many people are all talking urgently to one another, you might find yourself forgetting to contribute what you know, or not knowing who to communicate it to.  Here are several ideas to make sure all info is spread to all parties.

General Tip: Just Keep Talking
If your mouth isn't flapping, I'm going to go ahead and say you're probably playing this game wrong.  Sorry to all those strong-and-silent types, but silence isn't going to get anyone out of a locked room with 11 other people.  Don't got anything to say about the puzzle at hand?  Feel free to make commentary about the room at large, or ask if anyone's solved this bit or that bit, or announce you're going to search something else again.  Silence is tantamount to sabotage in a situation like this.

Example: My friends and I are running around the room grabbing items, opening drawers, solving puzzles, and whatnot.  We were solving a room where the majority of people were in my group, and one small group of strangers got stuck with us.  Most of those strangers didn't want to step outside their comfort zone and interrupt a group that chattering among themselves, but thank goodness one of them did.  She tapped me on the shoulder and said, "did you notice that the sign over there has some stuff on the back?"  And that was exactly what I needed.

Specific Tip: The Secretary
At least one person must be the focus of all this information - that's just the most efficient way to play it.  Two is fine.  If you really want, tell your information to every single person in the room one at a time, but it doesn't seem like the most efficient way.  In all of the escape room's I've played, they provide a clipboard and a scratch piece of paper, as well as a few pens.  Whoever has a clipboard has nominated themselves as the repository for all the information in the room.  If no one has picked up that clipboard, go ahead and nominate yourself (as long as your handwriting is legible to at least you). Note down everything you see or hear as neatly as possible, especially codes.  Long hints don't need to be written down verbatim, but it might be helpful to note down where they are, so you don't forget to look at them again.

Escape Rooms: Rule #1

So you've gotten yourself signed up for a In-Real-Life Room Escape game, eh?  Don't panic.  I'll tell you exactly what to do if you want to be helpful and escape.  If... you somehow don't want to be helpful in escaping a room, maybe you should reconsider paying money to be locked in a room?

RULE #1: DO SOMETHING, GODDAMMIT

This is the ultimate rule of room escape in a collaborative environment.  Please, please, please.  Do not think to yourself "well I'm not very smart I'll just sit here in the corner and hope we escape."  No.  For the love of all that is holy, NO.  The people who make these puzzle rooms literally do so to entertain a certain number of people, and usually make it challenging enough for that number.  If they let in 12 people at once, you can be sure they expect all 12 people to be doing something at all times, and if they are not, you cannot win.  Trust me, a handful of people utterly cannot win these events alone - there's simply too much to do in too little time for that to be possible.  Look, you don't even need to solve anything, just don't stand there helpless-like.  Look around, turn things over, open drawers, read signs, take down paintings, look behind dressers, try to lift things, flip through books, talk out loud about clues.  (I will accept inane side commentary like: "I wonder what this clock is for.")  Absolutely anything is better than a carbonite version of you, taking up the space of a person who could have been helping instead.

Bad example: We played a game recently where we had to escape a room, but the the twist was: there was also a zombie in the room, trying to eat us.  The zombie had a limited range (dictated by some shackles) but there were plenty of clues and puzzles within its reach.  We had to jury-rig this or that, or fish something out of a cage, and had no other option but to drop the rod and run away when the zombie started to come our direction (you can't fight the zombie, and any touch is game over).  I asked the people on the other side of the room to distract the zombie, but they chose instead to cower in a corner out of its reach, not doing (or solving) anything at all, so it was forced to keep coming for us.  Distracting the zombie didn't take any special skills or smarts or athletic prowess.  Just a will to help out.  Don't be these people.  They could have literally been eaten by the zombie and been more helpful.  At least it would have been kept busy for a few seconds.  As it was, we had to sacrifice one of our own friends, an actively helping person, to stop puzzling and take the responsibility of distracting the zombie.  Out of the recommended 12 people, there were 3 useless statues, 1-2 people for zombie distracting, and only 4-5 people at any time actually solving puzzles.  It made it needlessly difficult.

Good example: Friend #1 had solved a piece of paper which referenced, let's say in this case (to avoid spoilers) a yellow house.  I had no idea what yellow house was supposed to mean.  No one we showed the paper to had any idea.  But we kept showing the paper to every single person in the room while they were running around, and eventually, Friend #2 knew what we were talking about.  Because while we had been heads down over the paper, Friend #2 wasn't idle.  He was surveying all the photos and newspaper clippings and books.  He remembered that there was a yellow house pictured in one of the photo frames, and that was the key to unlocking the puzzle.  None of us would have caught that if he hadn't been active and kept his eyes and ears open.

TO REITERATE: Do not stand by and think you're useless.  You are only useless if you're standing by.  It's better to ask a total stranger: "did you see the numbers written here?" or "did you already solve this puzzle?" or "did you already use this clue?" than to sit on that information, thinking the other people in the room already know about it.  Your fellow escapers won't be offended if you bring them repeat information, and it doesn't take them almost any time to answer these kinds of questions.  They won't be offended if you poke your head in on them looking at a puzzle, and they won't be offended if you re-search a drawer or cabinet again.  People miss things, the atmosphere can be a little hectic, don't be afraid to participate in any way you can.  Trust me, it's MUCH more offensive to sit around and waste a space inside the room.

NA LCS Playoff: CRS vs CLS Quarterfinals

--- Game 1 ---
Crs Bans: Vayne, Zed, Kha'Zix
CLG Bans: Tristana, Alistar, Corki
Crs: Nidalee, Nocturne, Syndra, Lucian, Zilean
CLG: Lulu, Nunu, Kog'Maw, Twitch, Thresh
Unusual team comps from both sides?  You think that it's something that CLG brought back from Korea, but then they let the Nidalee get away from them.

--- Game 2 ---
Crs Bans: Vyne, Twitch, Alistar
CLG Bans: Tristana, Corki, Kog'Maw
Crs: Nidalee, Nunu, Syndra, Jinx, Braum
CLG: Maokai, Kha'Zix, Ryze, Lucian, Zilean
CLG lets Crs have the Nidalee again, but lane-swaps to try and keep Quas down, but no.

--- Game 3 ---
Crs Bans: Vayne, Twitch, Alistar
CLG Bans: Tristana, Syndra, Nidalee
Crs: MaoKai, Nunu, Yasuo, Corki, Zilean
CLG: Lulu, Evelyn, Ryze, Kog'Maw, Nami
Okay, now CLG has banned Nidalee, but their comp is still unusual.

NA LCS Playoffs: DIG v TSM Quarterfinals

Reminder - they have a Roku channel now for VODs, so get yourself some snacks and settle in for eons of watching LCS if you've got one.

EU playoffs was pretty dull, what I caught of it, so I'll quickly sum up NA playoffs and then get to the rest of the vods.  It'll be brief, but you'll know what to watch.

DIGNITAS VS TSM, QUARTERFINAL

--- GAME 1 ---
TSM bans: Nidalee, Lulu, Ryze
DIG bans: Zed, Nunu, Alistar
TSM: Maokai, Lee Sin, Syndra, Kog'Maw
DIG: Nasus, Kha'Zix, Zigs, Corki, Thresh
This one is quite interesting, especially at the very end.  It's another great showcase for ZionSpartan; he's had a few of those.

--- GAME 2 ---
TSM bans: Nidalee, Ryze, Lulu
DIG bans: Zed, Lee Sin, Alistar
TSM: Maokai, Elise, Syndra, Lucian Nami
DIG: Dr. Mundo, Nunu, Zigs, Kog'Maw, Thresh
This one was quite long, due to DIG getting behind early and then ever-so-slowly digging their way out of a gold deficit.  DIG gets it all the way back to even, then there was another wacky base race at the end very similar to game 1... Crazy times. 

--- GAME 3 ---
TSM bans: Nidalee, Zigs, Ryze
DIG bans: Zed, Lee Sin, Alistar
TSM: Lulu, Nunu, Orianna, Tristana, Nami
DIG: Maokai, Kha'Zix, Ahri, Lucian, Braum
TSM gets rid of the Zigs long-range tower defense and then plays Protect the Tristana.  Wildturtle gets god-like damage by the end and there's no stopping him.

--- GAME 4 ---
TSM bans: Nidalee, Zigs, Ryze
DIG bans: Zed, Lee Sin, Alistar
TSM: Lulu, Nunu, Syndra, Lucian, Nami
DIG: Olaf, Kha'Zix, Xerath, Corki, Thresh
In all of these games, there's been a 'cheese' - well I wouldn't go so far as to call it a cheese, but there's been a 'gimmick' at the very least, and I'm pretty surprised that the bans in the next game never reflected that.  Maybe I'm really falling out of touch with the science behind bans.  But, despite not banning Nasus in game 2, DIG never played it again, and have instead opted for a new gimmick: Olaf / Xerath.  Nasus was successful and TSM never came up with an answer, why not give him another go?

EU LCS W8D3 (Spoilers)

--- ALL vs GMB ---
It's been a long super-week, and Kha'zix, Kassadin, and LeBlanc were all banned, so you can forgive me if my attention started to stray when ALL started to lose this game.  Froggen was on Lulu, after all, and not only is that largely un-entertaining to watch, GMB is also virtually a sure thing once they've carved out even the smallest of advantages.  But this is one of the only examples on record of how to come back against GMB, even if ALL wasn't actually all that down in gold.

--- SK vs ROC ---
Pretty non-risk filled game.  You could probably guess that from Lulu mid and Kayle support.

--- MIL vs SHC ---
This is your chance to see some Olaf top and Zilean support.  Also, SHC just doesn't look dominant anymore, and MIL has somehow gotten their act together?

--- FNC vs SK ---
Another fine upset for SK, who actually look like a valid team now.  Gotta love EU, where all the teams can just end up tied at the end of the season.

--- SHC vs CW ---
As we have seen before, Amazing on Lee Sin is a surprisingly terrifying prospect.

EU LCS W8D1-D2 (Spoilers)

--- CW vs FNC ---
Ugh, the worst for me, since I hate Lulu mid and Annie support.  And somehow, they still win.  Someone make this trend go away.

--- ROC vs GMB ---
The battle for all the first places.  A very good one, Deman was shrieking at them for nearly a solid half hour at the end.  Great plays, too.  I think, in the end, though, that Gambit shouldn't have tried to fight after they grabbed that last baron.  Just back off, let it heal you up, come back stronger.

--- SK vs MIL ---
Relatively even game, but not all that exciting - low kills.  Boo Lulu/Annie!  Not a big fan of Zigs/Evelyn, either.

--- SHC vs ALL ---
Wow, that was a boring game.  Usually when the team you're rooting for wins, at least it's a 'good' game.  But no, despite this, it was amazingly boring, like SHC was slowly giving ground and giving ground, and then realized too late there was no comeback left to mount.

--- ROC vs MIL ---
This first place vs last place, and ROC is running that mid-Mord again.  Two huge pauses early in the game, fast forward to the 45 min mark.  There's a fight at the 17:30 mark in-game, which is pretty cool, and makes you grateful that EU and NA just like to YOLO it and stay in the fight until they win or die.  Have you ever watched the OGN?  Their 5v5 engages become a whole lot of disengage and run away, really quick.  Maybe it's smarter to live and fight another day, but 5v5 fights are just more entertaining when champs throw their lives away.  Also, you gotta love an upset of that caliber!

--- GMB vs SK ---
Alex on LeBlanc, yup, this one went how you would expect.

--- CW vs ALL ---
I'm rooting for ALL, of course, but nowadays I'm also rooting against Annie support and for Nid mid.  It's selfish, and I hope you do it too: what works in LCS affects what we, the rest of LoL players, see in soloQ.  Good game for me in that case, Shook is always effective on Elise, and Froggen's mid Nid makes the rest of us Nidalees look smart.

--- FNC vs SHC ---
xPeke on LeBlanc and Soaz on Malphite, whee.  SHC didn't really show up, so I actually wonder what took so long for FNC to close it out.

--- GMB vs CW ----
Alex gets Kassadin.  You'll have to watch the separate video they have of picks and bans to find out how that one happened.  But regardless of how or why, you know what it means.  Also, I've mentioned at least twice now that I don't like Annie support, and Edward is obviously the only exception to that rule, because Edward doesn't really play as a support.  That's part of the reason why Gambit either snowballs furiously to a win, or to a horrible loss.

--- ALL vs ROC ---
ALL won of course (Kassadin to Froggen, wtf), but the vid seems to be missing from the youtube playlist...  Doesn't everyone love how Wickd is the only one who plays Irelia ever?

--- MIL vs FNC ---
Much more exciting with no Lulu or Annie on the map.  LeBlanc  and Zed are all about go in and get someone, or die trying.

NA LCS W7D1-D2 (Spoilers)

Watch out for that preshow.  I know you probably skip it to get straight to the games, but they interview Doublelift and Aphromoo, that's always full of 'oh, snap!' moments.  Do you not love Doublelift?  Come on!  He's either a more awesome version of you, or a more uncensored version of any sports star.  Like, for once getting an unfiltered, honest answer out of Peyton Manning: "What do you think of the Manning bowl?" "Well, we would always throw Eli up against walls by his underwear, so no, I'm not worried."  Also, since a player named Sheep has joined the league, this is Phreak's first opportunity to go nuts with the puns.  Even if you hate puns (like me), you will definitely be impressed by Kobe, who does not smack anyone, even though he's within arms reach of Phreak most of the time.

--- C9 vs XDG ---
If you haven't been paying attention, XDG made another switch, taking Zuna full circle back to his original role.  I'm kinda glad it worked out for them; he's better as an ADC than anything else he's tried.  The new support, Sheep, is good.  They hinted at something unpleasant with their last support's departure, and that's always sad to hear.  In other news, Lemonnation was caught fruit-handed on stage, where no food is allowed.  An orange and a banana were confiscated, and am I the only crazy one that wants some hard-hitting investigative journalism on this issue?  Where did this fruit come from?  Why did C9 lose after it was confiscated?  Why did he have an orange, if his name is LEMONnation?  Questions.

--- CLG vs CRS ---
Do you ever watch these games, maybe live, and think during picks and bans: "This is over, please skip me to the end."?  Maybe even in ban phase, you could call this - Crs let LeBlanc through to Link, who was MVP last week.

--- Dig vs TSM ---
Reggie is temporarily back mid, subbing for Bjergsen, and it's basically old times: a roll against Dig.

--- CST vs EG ---
Another game where you couldn't say what exactly went wrong for EG, or what CST was doing so much better, but they were clearly ahead, start to finish.  Me, I don't believe in support Annie.

--- C9 vs TSM ---
Reggie is on LeBlanc, but you don't get to see him do anything good with her.  C9 is legendary for their team fight phase, but they were already ahead by lane phase, so nobody looked good on TSM, of course.

--- EG vs Dig ---
EG brings out Top Yasuo, in case you haven't seen that before.  It seems to be going well with the jungle Panth early on, but the game becomes a very back and forth affair, and EG lives up to what we thought about them: high level individual play, but no end-game plan or clear direction in team fights.  Hope that is either untrue, or changes, for EG's sake.

--- XDG vs CLG ---
Wow, this one was quick.  CLG is massive ahead before 20 minutes and just toys with XDG for the remainder.  Lulu mid was a bad idea against Link, Mancloud.  Sheep was good on Morgana support, though.

--- Crs vs CST ---
Nice try, banning Jax, Nid, and Leblanc, Crs.  Shiphtur just takes Ahri and dodges around Voyboy's Gragas.  There's a long game pause early on, so speed ahead to nearly the hour-mark of the vid, where you will see a terribly sad flash by Wizfuzin, attempting to block the Cait ult, but he totally overshoots the mark, and Ace in the Hole whizzes behind him to kill Daydreamin. Nice game again from CST, they always look so dominant when they start winning.

EU LCS W7D1-D2 (Spoilers)

--- ALL vs FNC ---
ALL does a thing where they lock in Lulu first, and then wait to see what xPeke will pick mid into Lulu, then pick something else mid and let Nyph support Lulu.  Also, Wickd goes back to Irelia, and tries to lvl 1 jump on someone with her.  When that doesn't work, he just teleports back to top lane before he loses any cs.  There's a kind of amazing Karthus ult that takes down Rekkles, even though it doesn't look like it's going to.  Rekkles didn't even barrier.  ALL wrap this one up pretty neatly.

--- SK vs SHC ---
It seems that SK's lineup is brutal: Renekton, Panth, Nid, Vayne, Annie.  Once they use their combo, or Nid starts massively damaging with spears, you wonder why all these picks got through.  Beer goggles for champions, I guess.  Win-goggles.  Panth will channel his ult, and just as it becomes visible to the enemy team, Annie slams Tibbers down in the center, so the target takes max damage from the Grand Skyfall.  They blow up SHC's bot lane multiple times with this move.

--- MIL vs GMB ---
It was closer early on than I expected, after MIL chose Swain mid and Elise top.  Did you just hear the slightly muffled derisive laughter of five Russians?  Yup.  At the end, Deficio deadpans: "And Diamond has Manamune.  On Aatrox.  Really, Darian?  Really?"

--- ROC vs CW ---
Leblanc top, Zigs mid, Morgana support?  Really, ROC?  Has that been working for you in scrims?  Because I'm not sure how that's sensible.

--- FNC vs GMB ---
I just criticized the triple-AP lineup, but Fnatic makes it work with Lulu top and Nidalee mid.  Maybe because they've been playing it longer, maybe because they just got ahead really early and never let up the advantage.  They started their losing streak with Gambit, and they ended it with Gambit.  After losing to every other team in league, wow!

--- CW vs MIL ---
A high level show of Lee Sin skills by CW's Amazing, but otherwise a pretty standard game.

--- ALL vs SK ---
ALL gets down at about the 10-15 min mark, and never gets their act together to get back in it, though it keeps looking like they will.  Just another case of that inevitable snowball.

--- SHC vs ROC ---
Mostly dull.

The Voice: The Drinking Game

Disclaimer: Probably you don't want to actually play this game.  You will get so drunk, it is not even funny.  Maybe just play it as a bingo-style game.

CATEGORY 1: Job
The job has to be something utterly crap.  The kind of job that if someone on the street told you that's what they did, the first thing you might say is: "But you're waiting for something else, right?"  No, really.  If you don't believe me, well, you've probably not been paying attention, and you will see when I start listing some examples.
- Utterly crap (e.g. work for family business, waiter, bartender, store attendant)
- Floating from music gig to music gig
- Supported by parents / In school
- Says the words: "But my real dream is to pursue music full-time"
- Indicates how money is tight and The Voice is a "really big opportunity that I need right now"

CATEGORY 2: History
Bonus points if they start with the words: "Music has always been a part of my life." Because that is a cliche too enormous to be ignored.  Music has been a part of everyone's life.  It's really hard to not have music in your life, dudes.
- Mentions being really into sports.  Maybe you don't know Meyers-Briggs typology like I do, but SP's make up nearly 100% of musicians and sports stars.  Don't think your 'almost MLB-career' makes you special, dude.  Every one of these musicians has the same history.
- Drugs or alcohol abuse candidly confessed to
- Unexpected pregnancy and subsequent "life-changing" parenthood experience.  See above note on SP's.
- Has been dropped by a music label already once
- Mentions a recent death in the family, and how they have to win The Voice, "for them"

CATEGORY 3: Appearance
We're looking for significant alterations and unique stylings here.
- Tattoos
- Excess piercings
- Hair coloring / Long hair for guys
- Silly headgear / hairstyle
- Wacky outfit

CATEGORY 4: Support Network
For some reason, everyone mentions support network.  And this usually falls into the broad categories of "My family totally supports me in my dream," and "my family doesn't get it and The Voice is the last chance before they make me go to graduate school"
- My family totally supports me in my dream
- My family doesn't support me at all
- The Voice is my last chance.  If I don't get on a team, I'll have to go to (something else)
- Family member a professional musician
- Carson calls someone using the very obvious Sprint Samsung tablet OR starts crying during confessional when talking about support network

How I met your mother: spoilers

I didn't get to post before the other stuff I predicted, so I'll post this time.  Looks to me that the mother dies. That's why he tells stories later in life, she's been gone since the kids were small.

NA LCS: W6D2 (Spoilers)

--- C9 vs EG ---
Boo hoo, boring C9 roll-face.  Most impressive move from EG: Snoopeh's interview 30 seconds post-game.  That is one classy dude that we may all aspire to be like.  Don't believe me?  What, exactly, would any of us say into a microphone after getting beat up in the face in LoL?  Yeah that's what I thought.  Even in the pre-game interview with Dyrus, when Phreak asked him how the loss from the previous day was being digested, Dyrus was still bitter about it, and couldn't say much more than how much things sucked, in his ever-present Dyrus way. Snoopeh, on the other hand, is clear, articulate, and even educational.  We all learned something from that loss.

--- TSM vs Crs ---
Zac is back, but TSM proves plain better at team fight.  I'm not sure who is calling the shots now - Xspecial?  Bjergsen?  But their focus in team fights is obviously better than Crs's.  It looks a lot like Crs is running around in the fight going "what are we doing?" while TSM is just mowing people down steadily.

--- CST vs CLG ---
Quick aside: Leblanc was shown early by CST, and I was talking to my friend who has mained Leblanc for a long time now.  Of all champs, the most frustrating for him to lane against is Galio, so I was rooting for that.   Do you remember Galio?  He had a lot of MR and poke, and an awesome engage.  I don't know about his ratios anymore, but his kit was solid.  But I suppose Vayne, Alistar, and Orianna, are all comfort champs for CLG.
The game went exactly as I expected after watching picks and bans.  Too much comfort for CLG - Dexter was even on Elise.  Steady mow-down.  Is it worth watching the whole game to hear Phreak yell: "BALL DELIVERY COW"?

--- Dig vs XDG ---
Usually I like these teams, but they banned out the most entertaining champs right off the bat: LeBlanc, Pantheon, Lee Sin, Kassadin, Elise, Annie.  And as soon as the Lulu pick comes out for XDG, I have serious misgivings.  They are proven right.  XDG gets run over.  Important thing to note: Zuna's tendency to get too far out was bad as an ADC, and is still bad as a support.

--- SGD vs BCM ---
Three more great games, full of crazy fights at every turn.  They've finally hit a sweet spot of teams being closely equal in skill, but not so professional as to avoid team fights.  You know what I'm talking about?  Pro teams know that chaotic team fights come down to more luck than skill, and they avoid them.  Even in big mash ups, they disengage quickly and cleanly.  Non-pro level teams will just stick in a fight until they win or go out in a blaze of glory, much like the rest of us in soloQ.  It's just like football - at pros, there's a lot of subtle maneuvering and planning and defense.  In college, it's much more a crazy pile of chaos and scoring and superb-looking individual plays.
More new picks out of the collegiate scene, thank goodness.  I can't even recall the last time I saw Kassadin v Zed in the mid lane.  
Game two features a Blitzcrank on BCM, so it's even more of a don't-look-away kind of game.  And, Kobe makes the Kha'Zix noise at the end.
Game three has support Blitz v support Veigar, when was the last time you saw that.

NA LCS W6D1 (Spoilers)

--- Dignitas vs Evil Geniuses ---
I recommend this game ... if you enjoy enormous beatdowns.  It was good live, because the audience didn't know it was coming until it was too late.  Neither did Dignitas, I guess!  During picks and bans (which, if you're like me, you skip a lot of the time in the vod's) EG showed Thresh and Gragas picks early.  Dig responded with Zigs and Trundle, but then EG moved Gragas to top lane and took Zed.  Zed vs Zigs midlane just snowballed really fast in EG's favor, and everything collapsed from there.

--- TSM vs CST ---
Early entertainment by both teams - nothing to lose or gain for them, I guess, being so far apart in the standings.  The voting public gave CST only 6% chance to win, so they're basically playing with house money and so there was silly-bordering-on-ludicrous early engagement and jungle invade.  Do not try that at home, kids.
Anyhow, great game of early fights, they're everywhere.  These days, you see a lot of disengaging and poke-comps from EU and OGN.  Not the good old US-of-A.  All in, all the time.  Just fight until you die.  It's more entertaining, at least.  As CST pulls ahead in a few of these fights, the chants of "TSM!  TSM!  TSM!" fade away into awkward silence, punctuated by the two or three staunch CST supporters shouting encouragement.
A interesting game full of greater-than-usual excitement, all the way to the end.  Highly recommended.

--- C9 vs CRS ---
This one went more as you would expect.  A roll-face in favor of C9.

--- CLG vs XDG ---
This one was also a roll.  CLG looked really solid, or maybe it was the last-minute switchup in XDG, moving Zuna to the support role.  These two teams are moving in opposite directions, luckily for CLG fans.

--- BCM vs QM ---
Actually, these were pretty good games.  And it went to a third match in best of three.

--- SD vs UB ---
SD kind of dominated both games, but the second game ran Teemo top, so that is always worth a watch.  Global taunt is apparently still a thing!  I repeat if you're not paying attention: There was a SuperTeemo top lane in the second game of this matchup, and he DOMINATED.  There was this amazing double kill at one point that you will not want to miss.

Random Observation: How I Met Your Mother

Season 7, episode entitled "Tailgate".  Sandy Rivers is hosting a new years eve show and Robin is trying to produce.  As he gets drunker and more incoherent, the ticker at the bottom of the screen scrolls along, and starts to get funny:
"Cold front is headed towards New York City; storm watch in effect"
"New Year's Eve traffic at an all time high"
"Wow, he's totally wasted! Can we really keep airing this?"
"This is bad... Feel free to switch over to Seacrest, everybody."

TNG Musings: Hyrule Emblem

I don't rewatch the episode "Final Mission" very often.  It's not one of those super rewatchable ones.  But I was cycling through episodes on Netflix and managed to get all the way through it for once in a long time.
Near the end of the episode, when Picard is down for the count, Wesley is talking to him about... something.  My attention strayed to a canister in the background.  The golden Hyrule symbol is clearly printed on it.  I wonder...