Say "don't take 1v1s" and run like a shitlord. It would've taken literally seconds to just back up and wait for the incoming other scout to 2v1 with ease but instead scout A decided to bot. By healing scout A you are robbing them of the chance to receive the negative reinforcement of death, and will then likely see the same 1v1 happen again in the future to the detriment of your whole career and team.

Thank *you* Lou, sorry I couldn't come through for you very often; organizing and producing casts is a major undertaking and you should be proud of your work.

:(

^ I went for a nice bike ride.

I figured they'd almost immediately movie CP3 out of OKC like within the next few days, but then I saw how toxic his contract is (like 134 mil, left on a 34 year old). I wonder where he'll end up. OKC is going to wind up with 10 spots+ in the first round lol.

This is why Sheepy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-online-secrets/201607/youre-not-really-friends-internet-celebrity

Whoever is doing marketing for Paul George is a genius because so far he hasn't been worth what teams have given for him in general.

I honestly hate watching Westbrook play, but I do applaud his loyalty to a small market team. I doubt the market for him will be hot - A. he's super expensive. B. He's older for his style of play. C. He's a ball dominating possession black hole. But somebody may take a chance on it. The stupidest thing I've seen written so far is that the Rockets might want him - I would watch that just to see Chris Paul, James Harden, and RW physically fight each other for possession of the ball.

Also the Demarcus Cousins signing with GS for a HUGE pay cut, and then basically table scraps in LA just now shows that the kings made a *damn* smart deal on getting rid of him years ago. Basically their whole franchise now is built off of that trade, and if they had stuck with their franchise guy they'd have nothing.

I will miss Darren Collison. This will also be the first time in human history that it might be fun to watch a Clippers game. It's going to be pretty damn hard to score on them consistently and that's exciting.

Strangely, people are really hinky here about the Brogdon deal and its level of perceived courtesy to the Bucks. Also kinda funny that he threw shade specifically at the Nets for their offer practices.

Honestly, one of the weirdest things I've seen this off season is the TJ Warren deal. The Suns had, what looks to be a fine player who can score just entering his prime, on a cheapo contract, that they spent 5 years cultivating, and they send him to Indiana at their own expense. There's even reports that initially the Pacers front office didn't respond to the offer because they thought it was a joke.

Additional weird facts:

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were briefly teammates on the Pacers, technically. The Pacers traded Kawhi for George Hill drafting him specifically for that trade.

TJ Warren and Doug McDermott were, in 2014, the two highest scoring (by PPG) players in college basketball, and are now teammates on the Pacers.

The Pacers have a long history of signing people with similar names. George Hill, Paul George, and that other Hill guy whose name I forget (Solomon Hill). We now have 3 TJs on the team - TJ Warren, TJ McConnel, and TJ Leaf. Saying "hey TJ" in practice is going to be deeply confusing.

The community has sustained multiple leagues at a time on several occasions. This is nothing unusual. The period of time we've had over the last couple years here alone has sustained multiple leagues with RGL, UGC, existing alongside ESEA - not to mention other projects that pop up periodically.

The player base even supported CEVO and ESEA in addition to UGC/HL existing alongside one another for at least 2 seasons, and likely could have continued to do so if it weren't for CEVO's rule problems.

And here we are at long last.

I called back that fellow from the President's office to complain. It gave me a switchboard so I had no idea who to call, so I called regular customer service. I talked to a young lady who informed me that my trouble ticket was still open and was marked executive, and that the reason the problem wasn't solved on Friday, was because it was marked that I had a dog and a gate and they couldn't gain access. That was funny because I haven't had a gate on my property in ~5 years, and my dog has been dead for nearly 1 year. So, I ask if she could figure out when they might be there so I could make arrangements to have somebody at my house in advance. Thankfully, my mother is retired and has sat around waiting for them rather than me - as the 6 or so times they've been out to the house during work hours would've likely resulted in my termination had I called them all off. She informs me that the trouble ticket is open, and that she will call around to figure it out, but that since the ticket is open she can't give me exact information. Well, after a 20 minute wait, she calls me back, and informs me that the ticket is still open, but she doesn't know when anybody will be out *and hangs up on me*

So, I call the supervisor and ask for a "call back" at 1 PM. They call me back at 1 PM, but the automatic call function informs me that I am 92nd in line and they will have to put me on hold. Being as I'm at work, I hang up. I call the regular customer service line again. I get a guy this time after 30 minutes of waiting who informs me that the ticket is all the things the previous lady described and that we *should* have somebody at the house on Wednesday.

Great I think. So I get all my shit set up. They text me and inform me that the guy will be at my house from noon to 4 to fix my internet. Great! Well, I decide I'm going to be home since it's intern season and my 22 year old intern can *probably* hold in my stead for 4 hours while I figure out wtf is going on. So, I wait at home. At noon sharp, the guy pulls up. He informs me that the company has decided that the AT&T tower can't be fixed at all on their own and I'll have to either do without or go back to DSL, and that they have an executive order to reinstall my DSL that I had previously despite the previous tech telling me that wasn't possible and would require a 3 month wait. He hooks up two wires, fiddles in my phone box, and now I have 8 meg down 1 meg up service and the tech left after no more than 10 minutes. This is also far superior to the DSL service I was receiving just a few months ago on the same line.

At least I have internet again. And it's free for 7 months.

An update.

So, I contacted the office of the President (of Frontier) and received an update that a crew would be out Tuesday to work on the situation. They did show up and they stayed at my house from 9:30 AM to 4 PM at which time they told me the internet would come back on shortly and that they would be back the next day to check. The internet never came back on, nor did they return to check if it did. I check the website and, yet again, my trouble ticket is marked closed. So, I call back in wait 25 minutes to talk to somebody, get them, and set up yet another trouble ticket that requires a technician's visit.

I then get a personal call from some fellow representing the president of Frontier. I explained to him that I have been driving into my office to use internet on a fairly regular basis (how I am posting this) as it turns out my mobile data went really fast when it's the exclusive source of all internet service. He seemed aghast that it had taken over a month to resolve this issue, and promised that he would speak to the people on the ground here about the issue. I mentioned that I had contacted a competitor who's fiber optic cable is hanging from a pole about 1/2-3/4 mile from my home, and said I had deeply considered trying to negotiate with them to drag it to my residence. He said he didn't think that would be necessary, and offered me 5 months of free service - 1 for the month I haven't gotten, and 4 others for the trouble of having to drive around to use internet and promised that they would have it fixed by Friday. I now have, in total, 7 months of free internet service, assuming it ever works again.

I get a text from Frontier that my pending trouble ticket was marked closed, and a new trouble ticket had opened, and that Frontier would send a technician before 4 PM. No call, no show, then I get another text at 4:00 saying that a tech would be at the house before 8 PM. No call, no show, still no internet :/ on the bright side, my trouble ticket is still open. Today officially marks 30 days with no internet service, I should write a hippy blog about what all I've learned "disconnecting" for such a time.

I accidentally killed myself in Granary 2nd spawn because I hit the wrong keybind during a match.

So, I'm mainly writing this to vent and it's offtopic so there's that. Otherwise, hopefully it will provide a good laugh at my expense.

When I finished university 9 years ago, I was forced to get off cable and move over to DSL because of where I wound up living. This astoundingly effective internet option provided me with 2.7 mbs download and .7 mbs upload for the low low price of 40$/month with Frontier. There are no other options besides cell-phone carrier hotspots, or satellite. I maintained my youtube channel and playing/casting on that, eventually becoming frustrated with the fact that it could take up to 24+ hours to upload a single 10 minute video that consisted mostly of images which lead to me stopping the upload routine.

My overall strategy here was to call Frontier roughly once every 3 months to ask them if there were any other options for internet in my area. Typically the only time they said yes was if the person on the other end didn't realize where I lived or was misinformed. This goes on for years. Until this last December, they inform me that indeed they had finally done some infrastructure upgrades in my area and could offer me 25/mbs down and 10 mbs up service at a *lower* price than I was paying for DSL. They confirm this is real, I am very excited.

They install the new broadband internet, and it works great for a single day, and then goes out. It would intermittently come back for a few hours at a time, but for the most part would be down for days at a time. I called technical support several times as I noticed my trouble ticket being cancelled without any action being performed, so I'd have to call back in and reaffirm that nothing had been done. So, finally after a two week wait, a tech is supposed to come to my house. They never call me or show up. At the end of this I accrue credit for 2 months of free service.

I call and complain further about my plight, am told there will be a tech out in another week. So, a third week passes with no internet, and then the fateful day comes of.... nothing again. Call and complain again, attempt to report Frontier to the BBB only to be informed by the BBB that they no longer accept complaints relating to the only ISP in my area because they never respond to complaints from the BBB.

Finally, I'm told a tech will be out in two days. He fucks up and calls me from his PERSONAL cell phone to confirm what time he'll be there. Again, I've taken now a third day off work, and he fails to show up when he told me he would, so I call his personal phone again, and again, and again, and again. He finally answers and agrees to visit in an hour. The internet is finally fixed.

This solution lasted until April, when it broke again, and it was out for a solid two weeks - again another two week wait, but the tech finally showed up. This particular one informed me that any time the system sets an appointment before 10 AM they will always miss it because nobody even comes into the office until 10. Reassuring.

Now that solution lasted until May 25th, I have not had internet since. I'm actually coming into work to use the internet there on a fairly regular basis. A 3 week wait for a tech to show up. I called and asked if I could just have my shitty DSL back only to be informed that said shitty DSL service is now overloaded and can't accept any more customers and that there was a 3 month waiting list to even get it hooked up again. The tech shows up after a 3 week wait, works for approximately 20 minutes, blames me for the internet not working (I performed a factory reset on the router assuming 2 weeks without internet couldn't fuck it any worse), and then they discover that me, and the entire western portion of my rural township (several hundred people) are in fact without internet, and have been for three weeks, because the tower through which their cables run was struck by lightning, but that said tower is owned by AT&T so they can't touch it, and that's that I guess.

Note, some years ago, I was without internet for around a week because a tree fell on some of the internet infrastructure out here and nobody noticed lol. So, I'm enjoying living in that real early 1990s experience here and likely will be doing so for several weeks to come :(. Fuck Frontier.

I imagine you've already checked, but just in case. Sometimes if the sensor gets really jittery and things get weird it's because there is a hair on the lens.

I posted this here in the regular TF2 forum due to the relationship with TF2 generally speaking.

So, 8 months ago I was enrolled through my workplace in a "leadership development" course which I graduated this Tuesday. The goal of the course was to foster relationships within my region (11 counties) and to foster "leadership characteristics" and other fluff like that, along with a service project.

As the course progressed I came to realize very quickly that most of what the course was teaching me, I had already been forced to learn through my time as a team leader in Tf2. For the briefest history possible I was a maincaller/team leader ~2010-2013 or so, and then I started to hand that role gradually over to other players as the meta strongly shifted away form having medics call in that way. But most of the day-to-day operation of the team fell on me until I joined Dheroes, and then I would periodically take the mantle back up. I thought perhaps ya'll would be interested in a few basic things that were discussed heavily in the course which directly apply to being an effective leader when it comes to TF2, or really anything. I got a good laugh out of the course because a hat based video game had already taught me most of what the course had to offer for free.

Here are some highlights:

- Being "present" and avoiding auto-pilot when you talk to people. I can't underscore enough how important it was to really value the time you spend with your teammates when you play and practice (if the objective is to be really good). There were lots of situations where people felt stepped on or abused because I wasn't paying attention to them, especially early on.

- Realizing that you have a group of diverse people all of whom have a different core objective - even when that objective looks the same as yours. "Winning" is usually the objective of a team, but what winning actually looks like can differ drastically from player to player and if you allow yourself to ignore that you're a bad leader.

- Being an example. I got Kermit to scrim I think in part because all of us showed up diligently. He didn't even really scrim before LAN.

- Consistent temperament so that your subordinates can "read you". Everybody has had that. You show up for scrims and somebody is just randomly in a crappy mood. It messes everything up. I honestly sucked at this too lots of time.

- Fairness and impartiality with rules. My own teams were night and day from Dheroes where I had never clearly set out what sorts of behaviors could lead to a player being cut or even what we looked for in other players, whereas all of that was explicitly laid out on Dheroes, and the culture of that particular team was very clearly outlined. Later on we would have the team of death in IM where I cut players because the universe literally tried to kill them, but that was a firm rule nonetheless.

- To seek counsel when you deal with a person's expertise. This is the #1 biggest takeaway I learned in tf2 and unfortunately killed several teams I played on because I didn't learn the lesson until too late. If you tell your scout or Rikachu you think they should do x, and they protest, *you* don't know better than they do, and if you insist that you do it's going to take them out of the game.

- To strive to allow your subordinates to express their individuality so long as the final product isn't affected. Yeah, your idiot roamer wanting to go spy at random is annoying, but you have to let him do it every now and again because its part of fostering trust and goodwill. But if they do random stupid stuff that is too much the other 5 people on the team suffer.

- Conduct and performance expectations should be issued in advance. This is a huge one for TF2. Discussing as a team what the objective of the team is in advance and making sure all 6 people on the team know what it is that the "leader" expects. Serious team? Scrims? etc etc.

- Praise accomplishments. I honestly really sucked at this at first too. When you're constantly looking for ways to improve you can get stuck in looking *only* for what your team is doing incorrectly. I learned right away from our young roamer Iarerobot that if I praised his good plays he always came back and played far better after.

- Prove that you can do. As a medic I learned really quickly that I would be a lot more respected by my teammates if I showed that I was attempting to git gud at soldier, demo, or scout and MGE'd with them or did some other activity in the same vein so as to show that I wasn't just chillin' waiting to follow them with a heal beam.

So there you have it. 8 months of leadership courses and how the lessons they taught us were all taught to me earlier by TF2. Have you found similar things to be true for yourself in that this crazy hat game taught you valuable real world skills that people pay to learn?