When two whales fight, its the shrimp who are the ones who get hurt….

You may be wondering what relevance this has.

Its the new war thats starting between GOMTV and MLG. 

As far as I can see, its not an intentional war, but evidence has shown that GOMTV are now less willing to alter schedules to allow players to play in both. This has been shown by the last minute flight change for those players in code A after MLG Arena.

Now one can true to cast the blame on someone. But that would be silly.

But it does raise a re-occurring issue now in e-sports.

Scheduling by e-sports organisations is generally sub par. We are getting announcements of announcements more than we are getting facts that allow management to schedule things in the most efficient way. As I have previously complained, scheduling effects costs, invites, budgets and practice schedules. If you are going to release your schedule 1 week before the fact, I have a very strong will to bite your face off. Thats just stupid and unfair to all the players involved and organisations who are paying the bucks to make your event successful, by feeding, housing and maintaining the players, sometimes even paying for them to reach your event. So why can’t you do the players the justice of having a clear cut schedule for the entire event, league and season so that the players and management can adjust.

The reason I am voicing this issue is because its become a pain in the ass justifying everything to people when it wasn’t in the initial budget. Its also pretty gross to watch severely jet lagged players. 

Some would argue “thats your job”, well…. Its an e-sports thing. It doesn’t happen often in other industries and justifying e-sports is a very difficult thing. Especially when you are forced to go way over budget because of other peoples poor scheduling. 

The blame game can go in many vicious cycles so I won’t point any fingers at the people I blame for the scheduling issues.

All I can ask is that you guys man up and fix your game. Stop announcing announcements of announcements. If you have an event coming up, list it, schedule it and stop making it a pain in the ass for those trying to manage teams as well as those others who are trying to run events.

Thats it for todays rant.

<3 FXOBoss

Its 4:44 am in Narita Hilton. I am jet lagged as hell, bored, and managed to fix my DNS settings so I can log into the internet.

A lovely gentleman by the name of @nycfurby messaged me about my blog and transparency. It got me thinking about some mistakes people have made in the starcraft 2 industry which are being fixed by some. Here are a list of what I think some of them are.

- Those who tried to get in for the quick bucks got in too big too fast. Their growth happened towards the beginning of their career and not the end.

- Formats are generally terrible. The formats are starting to change for the better

- Prize money has been inconsistent and live events have only just started paying major stipends/expenses paid

- Inviting PR over skill and not a balanced mix (slowly sorting itself out)

- Using venues that are expensive for international guests, but still expect those guests to pay. Sometimes upwards of $200 per night for hotel rooms. You shouldn’t invite players to events if you are going to expect them to pay this type of money for a hotel room. You should have a decent cheaper option available at least.

- Booking expensive venues that will never work due to location, law and travel costs. Did you know that holding a major event in San fran or New York is cheaper than vegas if you do it right? The flights are also 500-1000 dollars per person cheaper and better/cheaper hotel options. Viewership would be the same if not better in the first mentioned locations. So other than hype? Why vegas?

- Events do not announce their dates until its too late. Although its possible to last minute rush bookings and make things happen, it is evident that proper planning does not exist in major live tournaments. Giving someone 2 months or less to plan, book, adjust budget, seek support etc etc etc. Teams run on a budget and its impossible to budget properly if someone does not announce events well in advance.

Thats all I am going to list for now. A lot of these things are starting to change for the better, with the tail-enders lagging behind (tail enders is a cricket word). 

Perhaps we all could use a little better planning and organisation skills and stop rushing things like tomorrow is the last day of the world.

<3 FXOBoSs

What can I say. You all saw it. MLG Arena was a complete success. 

Such a success that I actually believe that the competition model is more appropriate than the championship model.

Sure, you don’t get the thousands of fans in the one spot, but you also get a more efficiently run event with only a few unavoidable issues.

Now perhaps you are a fan of the players and are ready to beat me up about how its shit that there isn’t an opportunity to meet players at the Arena format events. It is quite sad, and the Korean players definitely didn’t like the lack of attention, however, if e-sports is going to prosper then this type of event is much more relevant, cost efficient and easy to run than a championship style event.

I guess the argument can be that profitability trumps human interaction. In this day and age, and at the current state of the sc2 community, profitability should be the one thing that comes first. Making sure that events can at least self sustain should be the number one priority right now.

Perhaps you are an event organiser running events and struggling to find the cash to run your events. It might be time to look at things from a new perspective and re-consider the business or business model you are approaching. Cutting your losses early is usually better than waiting until its too late.

Anywho, I promised Sundance and Lee that I will attend the next Arena event providing there are FXO players qualified. Heres hoping.

It was a lovely format for the players and managers and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I also enjoyed watching the games in HD the quality was great and the casters did an amazing job 99.99% of the time. I believe Rob was laughing at himself at one stage which is the 0.01% but I will cut him some slack and not judge :)

I have a 13 hour flight to Tokyo and 20 hour lay over to go before I get to Malaysia.

I have alot of ideas that I will be looking to start the ball on and also have alot of work to do in the months ahead.

On behalf of the management and players, I would like to Thank the MLG crew for being so accommodating and kind, and wish them all the best on their next event in Columbus.

<3 FXOBoSs

Its been a relatively eventful trip so far.

Yesterday morning I went to breakfast/lunch with Nestea DRG Losira Leenock and MVP. DRG paid (I tried but he wouldn’t let me) and I ate vegetarian dumplings. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise these dumplings would be the bane of my existance.

Anyway, soon after the breakfast/lunch, Leenock and I did a little sight seeing. First we went to the top of the empire state building. I got accused of being a terrorist and they yelled at me pretty rudely to stop using my video camera. I mean what? Really? Everyone else has a video camera, why not me? Meh, I got a bit of footage but not really too much. Leenock took some pictures and obviously is afraid of heights. When we got to the 80th floor there was a huge line up, so we had the option of walking 6 floors or waiting in line. We took the walking option, and leenock all but died on the way up the poor guy. 

After the empire state building we took a walk to Time square. On the way, we bumped into some old friends of mine….. ELMO and Cookie monster. I have video of leenock and pictures of leenock with Elmo and Cookie monster, I was impressed that he didnt seem to realise what or who they were. 

We got to timesquare and 2 people doing some broadway how were walking around dressed as monsters with a shopping cart, one of them screamed at Leenock and he screamed from fright, I laughed my ass off but unfortunately I did not get it on camera. It was freaking freezing cold as the wind had picked up and it appears I have minor frost bite on my neck.

I return Leenock to the MLG offices and I went back to the hotel to throw up for 3 hours. I got back to the office about 10 minutes after the Oz Leenock match. Leenock was visibly exhausted and Oz fell asleep in the lounge soon after. I feel sorry for the Korean guys who are jet lagged and tired. Oz was sick on the first day from oily food so the conditions aren’t that great.

I am also under the impression the Koreans are not enjoying the fact that there is no huge crowd. I am not 100% sure why this is, probably the stardom side of things.

Anywho, after the HUK vs Oz match I walk back to the hotel to try and sleep. 

Its now 7 33 am, I have been awake for 3 hours and im not really tired. I am extremely keen for a bagel though.

I haven’t got too much video footage on this trip for a mixture of reasons. I feel a bit slack, but I’ll make up for it some how.

Hopefully the final day will be good.

<3 FXOBoSs

I arrived at JFK at 6pm. The weather was miserable, but not so cold thankfully as I forgot to bring any winter clothes. I quickly jumped in a cab with a nigerian cab driver and took the 1.5 hour journey through traffic to my hotel at 88 Madison avenue.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I am greeted by a cheerful African American concierge who proceeds to help me in everyway, I check into my hotel, which is pretty awesome, then proceed to get ready to see all the peeps at MLG Arena.

So, I thought that he address for MLG offices was 33rd and 3rd. I am not sure why, and my PC ran out of battery when I got to the hotel. So I risked it and walked in the drizzle to 33rd and 3rd only to find out how horribly wrong that address was. It was pretty cold so my nose seems to have frost bite from the wind and my lips are chapped. At this stage, I still had my video camera with me and its night time (around 8pm) so I walk back to the hotel to hopefully get some way to charge my PC so I can find the address of MLG offices.

Fortunately for me, the hotel carries travel adapters and proceeded to let me use one in order to allow me to charge my laptop (thank god).

Brent Ruiz from ESFI gets me the MLG office address and I quickly rush down stairs to walk to 3 park avenue south. 

This time, I didn’t bring my video camera, as I had some funny looks from some guys on the corner and wasn’t really in the mood for any drama. So forgive me for not filming anything.

Upon arriving at MLG offices I see that here is a construction project going on with the building, so I am less than thrilled at the venue, but having lived in Greece I know that sometimes the external vision of a building can be deceiving. Rightfully so.

When I get to the 32nd floor I am greeted by 2 people whom I needed to give my name to as I was ‘on the list’ and I walk in. The first person I meet is…..Sundance.

Now I hadn’t seen the stream from MLG yet, as I had spent the last 48 hours travelling so all I had was messages on skype telling me details. I had everyone telling me its not worth $20.

So I repeated what people had told me to Sundance realising later that it was a mistake.

After watching not only the awesome matches (demuslim vs nestea) and the production quality which was decent (Minus poor jet lagged tasteless looking cross eyed on the stream but thats not his fault hes tired), so its totally worth the $20. I think this argument can be thrown out now and starcraft 2 (not e-sports in general) can move on from crying about the PPV model. Although, I still said to Lee from MLG that $20 is a bit steep, I can appreciate the fact that the PPV model works if the content is worth it. Which it has been.

Anywho, I managed to shake hands with Huk (thankfully he didnt recognise me) and said hi to Naniwa who hates me (I understand) and proceeded to chat with slasher, Lee, Thegunrun, Axslav, all the korean players and translators.

I also managed to chug 2 NOS during this time, which made my left leg shake but all in the name of fun.

It got relatively late and around midnight, myself, Reis, MKP, MC, STC, Oz and Leenock all went to a Korean place for dinner (i cant remember the name or address) for some good food. Haksu (Oz) had been sick earlier due to the oil in pizza so he wasn’t feeling well enough for real new york food. We settled for Korean and it was relatively decent, and only 108 bucks for all of us. 

I then walk back to my hotel around 2 am and fall asleep.

Its now 7:10 am when I am writing this.

Today Leenock, Oz and I are going on a small tour of new york whilst they have some downtime (they dont play until 6). Hopefully MLG Lee, Sundance and I will get to catch up in private for a bit if business talk this evening. I also have to buy slasher dinner (god bless his soul). 

Today, I will have the video camera, for the city tour especially. Our itinerary will be central park, times square, and empire state building. If time permits tomorrow, we will go to see the brooklyn bridge and wallstreet. I would take them to the statue of liberty but it takes all day to do that and I don’t know if we will have the time.

See you on camera, jetlagged and goggle eyed.

<3 FXOBoSs

I tried to edit my last blog to fix a punctuation mistake. And it deleted half of it :(

I will try to fix it when I get to USA

Some would say I am fortunate enough to be able to not think of money before comfort. I appreciate that completely. So after arriving in Narita Airport I went straight to the day bed place and booked one for 6 hours of undisturbed shut eye.

Oh yes, the shut eye sustains me. 

So for the 6 hours of shut eye, I paid 180 US dollars. I didn’t do the conversion until it was too late to think about. Normally I wouldn’t pay so much but oh well.

A few interesting things I have observed in Japan.

Firstly, chocolate covered potato chips. I swear these things are the future! Why don’t they have these in Australia or Malaysia? They are so damn good.

Its basically a ruffled potato chip, covered in chocolate

Incase you didn’t know. I am on my way to New York from Kuala Lumpur to help out/have fun at/manage my players at, MLG Arena. 

Instead of booking the standard business class quickest efficient flight. I decided I would book an economy flight to be on the same flight as Leenock and Oz.. I already screwed that up by booking an overnight flight to Japan, so I get to New York the next day. That’ll teach me to do my assistants job won’t it.

Anyway, so far I haven’t left Kuala Lumpur, infact, expecting heavy traffic I left home early to make sure I was on time to the Airport. I arrived 1 hour 45 minutes earlier than I should have. 

Now, I may dramatize some aspects of my journey because I am a known drama queen (I mean, nothing else is really interesting  in my life), be sure to bare with me as I tell a tale of a journey. An e-sports journey. And the things observed on the journey.

As I was saying, I still haven’t left the airport for Narita Airport. And already the psychotic episodes that are the observed occurances of my life, have started. 

At KLIA (KL Airport) you must take a train from the main terminal to the terminal where the flights leave from. So I quickly go through immigration and get on that train so that I don’t have any issues later on when there is a higher number of people busting to get on that train. I get off the train and immediately need to go to the bathroom. I take 2 steps into the bathroom and …………. What the hell, a security guard (of all people) is peeing in the urinal, with HIS PANTS OFF. Me being me, and immune to any act of sex, violence, nudity and drug use, I giggle and say “nice ass”.. I mean what else am I supposed to say to a security guard? I swear I said it sarcastically, and with a hugely sarcastic tone. I even rolled my eyes when I said it, and you know what his reaction was? 

“IM NOT GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!” In the highest pitched shriek I have ever heard. Honestly, I do not know what he could have possibly done to cause the need to be pissing nude in an airport bathroom, but whatever it was had the poor guy on edge.

After his shriek my response was “thats nice, but you are the one nude in the mens toilet”. 

I will probably forever wonder what the hell happened to cause him to do something so stupid. But its just an everyday event in my “colourful” life. 

Anyways, after this little episode, I decided to walk on to the gate and wait for 3 hours (thankfully there is a power point for me to plug my laptop into). 

There is now 45 minutes to go until boarding and I appear to have a stalker. I am not sure whether he is an FXOpen customer or what because I am wearing an FXOpen shirt, and he has been staring at me for a good 2 hours.

He’s about 150kg 6ft 2 and with a long mustache like Giuseppe. I hope that he doesn’t sit anywhere near me on the flight.

Anyways, if I end up getting kidnapped, I was the guy in seat 51 H with an FXOpen e-Sports shirt on. If you don’t hear from me again be sure to alert the authorities.

I have my video camera with me, and still haven’t filmed anything. I don’t know why, I guess its the time of the day (10pm). I hopefully will drag the camera out in Narita Airport (I have a 12 hour layover, sigh!). I will also try to talk to some Japanese folk on camera when I get there should I find anyone willing.

Anyways, see you all in 7-8 hours.

<3 FXOBoSs

Dear Government,

You are the cause of my insomnia. You are the cause of my heartbreak. You are the reason I fear for our history.

Over time Greece has been one of the most significant countries in the world. We have countless historic stories, artifacts and some of the most amazing places in the world. Yet the greedy, incompetent, CORRUPT members of parliament have managed to bring everything to collapse.

And now, in 2012, wealthy members of the community are talking about renting the Acropolis for social events? WHAT? You have no other solution to earn money? 

Perhaps take a pay cut? That might help. Learn what its like to live at close to poverty levels. When I lived in Greece, I did. 

Perhaps you forgot exactly who our people are and what we represent. Greeks have always been strong, smart people. They can take the brunt of their mistakes but will fight when its not their fault. Are you forgetting our history?

Perhaps you should think back to the second world war when the Greeks drove out the Germans against all odds. We celebrate that day every year. 

It is time to stop accepting the bailouts. Default. Start again fresh. 

Greece was never meant to be in the Eurozone anyway. The economy is not built to benefit due to the high price of the currency, I worked in Tourism in Athens, and I assure you that when the Euro came, THINGS WENT BAD.

I assure you that if Greece remained on the Drachma, things would be alot different today.

So, go back to the Drachma. Be who we are supposed to be and stop trying to be something that we are not.

The public is strong enough to start again. After all, we have done it time and time again throughout the course of history.

Your acceptance of bailout money is the equivalent to Martingale Theory on the Roulette tables. Eventually, there will be no more money left to spend.

Sincerely,

Joshua Dentrinos

(Greek citizen)

Today has been a hectic day. Marry Poppins once said it best. That when you are feeling down or drained, you should remember your favourite things.

So here are a few of my favourite things in order of which I favour the most.

These are a few of my favourite things…. 

I missed snowboarding this year, so disappointed. Hopefully I can get to Australia in winter to go to perisher for some snow fun.

What are some of your favourite things?

<3 FXOBoSs