We're All Addicts Here
Yesterday I talked to John for a little while about my weight training, and he said that now that I'm doing three sets on each of the exercises I'm doing, that I should start moving the weights up. So this morning I did that.
The early returns are that I'll be moving the weight up on the leg and chest exercises relatively quickly, but the arm, shoulder and back exercises will go more slowly, as they seem to be much more challenging. On the plus side, I am starting to actually feel some of my muscles developing, again, mainly in the legs right now - probably a byproduct of having done all that biking last year.
I've also noticed that a bunch of people from my floor of the building where I work are in the health club at roughly the same time. Bruce, a manager in another branch of my department, is usually leaving around the time I arrive. In fact, this morning I said to him, "I count it a victory when I get in here before 9:00", and he responded, "I count it a victory when I'm out of here by 9:00!"
There's also Kelly, a developer on Bruce's team, and Michael, another QAer in my department, who usually arrives a little later than me. And there's a fellow whose name I don't yet know who works in the other department at the other end of the floor. Since the club mostly empties out around 9 am, our floor just about takes the place over for the next hour.
The admin person who set it up also bought a bunch of toys for the event - a myriad of water pistols. She obviously knows us too well, as quite a few people got wet over the next hour or so. Later on I was talking to Bruce and Tom, a water gun in my hand, and Tom said something that made Bruce tell me to squirt him. So I did. Bruce then ruminated for a while about the awful power he wields that he could get me to do that, and he concluded that I shouldn't just follow orders, but should stand up and be my own person.
So I said, "okay", and squirted him!
Bruce wrestled the gun away from me at that point.
This was the first really social event for the department that I'd been to, and it gave me a better handle on some of the personalities on the team, which is good. It helped me warm up to a couple of people I'd had trouble relating to.
Thursday it was basically just me and Tom and Ben. I'm not exactly a master at the game, but I'm at a higher skill level than they are. We played three games of them-against-me, and I won the two where I played the race I'm most familiar with (the Protoss), and lost (after a struggle) the game where I played a less-familiar race (the Zerg). Afterwards, Tom went home and I went out to Florentines - a decent-but-not-impressive pasta restaurant - and deconstructed the game. There's an awful lot of complexity both in the "technology" available to a player and in the strategies and counter-strategies to use, and I told Ben about some of the approaches he could use to counter my offenses, and some basic offensive strategies he should practice himself. (He and Tom mainly play the Terrans right now.)
To his credit, though, Ben is picking up the game extremely quickly. His biggest flaw at the moment is the one that took me quite a while to overcome (and which I'm still not so good at): He doesn't get out and explore and expand quickly enough, which leaves him prey to the aggressively expansionist players. One of the games I won was won because I seized most of the resources on the map early, and pumped out enough units to defend them.
Friday after the party, Ben and Tom and I went back to play some more, and we played a 5-person game with Miguel and other-Ben, who's a developer on Bruce's team (I think; actually, I'm not entirely sure what he works on). Other-Ben is extremely good at Starcraft, better than I am, although the differences are not that great. Probably they're great enough that he could beat me regularly if we played against each other.
Our first game was me and other-Ben against Miguel, Tom and Ben, and we all played the Terrans, who are the 'basic' race in the game, but also perhaps the hardest to play. Ben and Miguel put up a good fight, but I got in enough practice with my use of Siege Tanks that we were able to shut them down. (Siege Tank strategy is a key point that all have to work on. I've been learning that the tutorial scenarios are quite good for practicing this technique.)
Afterwards, Tom and Miguel went home, and the two Bens and I played a few games of us against multiple computer players. The computer is very good at basic tactics, but not so good with general strategy. The trick is that multiple computer players will band together against us and act as one, so we have to watch each others' back. We handled a couple of 3-on-3 games fairly well, and finished the night with a 3-on-4 game which was a real struggle, but we won. I was the subject of repeated, almost overwhelming computer assaults, but I managed to stay alive and contributed fairly well to our final victory.
I pooped out around 10:30, but the two Bens kept playing after I left. Wonder how late they stayed?
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