E-Sports: Not your Mama's sports

As the London Olympics begin, I began to consider if I would ever see Street Fighter or any other highly competitive video game competed for a gold medal. Then quickly I realized if chess doesn't get in, there is no chance in hell any video game will feel the warmth of the olympic fire.

But with leagues like MLG, events like Evo, and games with the professional following of Starcraft 2, I don't belive there is really any need to compete with actual sports. Because its not. Its a place where your only limited by the your time invested and finger dexterity from being a pro. Where you may know just as much if not more than the player playing of a ceratin Dan vs Blanka matchup because of a annoying kid you played online or at an arcade. Its where you can go on youtube and discover new technology in the form of a high traffic and advantageous CounterStrike map route or learn from the best by seeing exactly what they are seeing in matches on youtube, twitch archives, and MLG VODs.

As of right now I'm preparing for a Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown tournament and some Tekken 6 and Soul Calibur 5 casuals. If I stick with it and play people that can help me learn, before I know it I could be at the Grand Finals of EVO playing Fuudo for a championship next year. Guess we'll find out.

What happened to the love?

Today, my mother and myself spent most of the day together, with the fairly simple agenda of getting groceries and picking up my brother from work afterward. I dreaded every second of it.

After dropping of my brother at work, she enters the house expecting me to be ready by the time of her return (A reasonable request, I'll admit). But being the rather lazy person I am, I never bothered leaving my bed, thusly resulting in her yelling my lack of effort as "wasting her gas" (a rather unreasonable and non-sensical response). But little did I know this would the first of many mom-centric incidents of the day, among which include phone snatching, discussion of my weight/body shape, and a personal favorite of mine, unwarented face touching. But, one event caught my attention for most of the day.

My mom and sister have been fighting on and off for a few years, but things seem to have intensified drastically during my first year of college, for reasons I am not quite clear of. My mom seems to have tried to show an olive branch of sorts by asking visit her during the wait to pick-up my brother from work. Yet as we approached the aparment building, she refused to leave the car, blaming it my mom's explicit hatred of steps due her well documented knee problems. As I entered my sister's apartment, despite my best efforts without my mother, I explained the current situation and my mom's desire to head to our final destination of Ikea now. And after abit of small talk I was rushed out (possibly in fear my mom may leave me with her to take the hour drive back to my home and back, but still rather rude). There is wrong here splattered on all sides of this argument, but sadly, this is over a mother-daughter beef that should have never lasted this long.

But as we were grocery shopping, post-argument about the handeling of this situation, I was enchanted by two encounters with a, while noisy, fairly friendly family. Their near sitcom-esque family dialog seemed to be the polar opposite of the past 3 hours of my life. While my mom seemed kinda annoyed by their antics, I was left to wonder when did out family go wrong and loose that magic. They seemed to be in church clothes. Maybe that's why. They also have both parents. That could be it. But at some point, something went wrong, with my normal family dynamic slowly falling out of the sky.

So I ask one simple question: What happened to the love?

OK Seriously this time

Almost 2 years since I've written for this blog. I think that's just cause for a reintroduction even though odds are you got to this page through me if anyone reads it at all. Name's Ronald Strong. Not so fresh out of my first year of college, but I'll get to that again some other time.

Anyone that's been visiting hoping for something, I'm sorry to dissapoint you for this long but that's about to change very quickly. I am currently planning on writting a game script and design document for this idea that has been floating in my head for a while. In hopes of improving my writting skill, I want to publish a post on a regular basis; possibly weekly but more often for now since my time is free in lack or a job or schooling for the moment (Once again, I come back to that). This will pretty much be my mind dump for anything hopefully interesting for the general public. But for now...

Peace,
Ronald "Serving Hot Dogs like Oscar Mayer" Strong