The guy who currently runs Newbie Mixes has taken a step back, so they've been on hiatus for a couple of weeks. Keep an eye out, they should be starting again soon, possibly as early as this weekend.

You just happened along the competitive scene at a mildly inopportune time, as the top players are gearing up for playoffs and the offseason is approaching. Don't lose hope yet, as things will ramp up before too long. For now, continue to watch competitive games to see how things work in a 6v6 (or 9v9 if that's what you're interested in) environment, and keep on playing. Have you tried tf2lobby.com? It's not ideal by any means, but it's at least slightly more organized than a pub and sometimes you'll actually end up playing a decent game.

If you think you're ready for it (i.e. you have a solid grasp of the competitive TF2 metagame) you can also add up in #tf2mix on IRC. I believe there's a guide on how to do that around here somewhere. Let me get back to you on that.

Additionally, I know there are a couple of steam PUG groups left that offer lower level PUGs that don't require IRC to get into. PwrPugs is one group that has a similar skill level to tf2lobby and generally better communication. PwrPugs run almost every afternoon, depending on who's around to run them. You can join that group here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Pwrpugs . They send out announcements when PUGs are starting and all you have to do at that point is hop into the mumble server (provided at the steam group page).

If you want more help, feel free to add me http://steamcommunity.com/id/o_w_l/ and I'd be happy to answer your questions more directly.

I like playing sniper in DM servers to practice surfing rockets, since they're the closest in terms of speed and health to medic.

shooting people is just a side bonus

If something were to be hosted in chicago (or Indianapolis, which although much more boring, is much cheaper and more easily accessible) I'd be there in an instant. As it is, I'll probably never make it to a LAN, which is disappointing.

The only time I've seen someone who didn't like one of your casts is when I showed this match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJvtXaLXjAE to a few friends who play TF2 in pubs regularly but don't play competitively.

Their main complaint was that they understand the concept of the classes pretty well and have a good grasp on how the flow of TF2 works (even though their experience is only in pubs) and your winding explanations of things interrupted a lot of cool stuff that happened on the screen. IIRC, that's like the deepest you've ever gone into explaining the tf2 metagame in a cast, so I don't think it's a continuing thing.

So maybe you're not the most attractive caster to the subset of people who pretty much fully understand the game of TF2 but haven't gotten into the competitive scene? I love watching your casts and wouldn't want you to change them to be more 'professional'. Sometimes you go onto tangents that are ultimately pretty pointless but most of the time they're funny so I don't mind when you occasionally don't call something that happens. I suppose you could get rid of this problem by planning out a take (and planning anecdotes/explanations for stalemates/dead time) before actually casting, but I don't expect anyone to spend that much time just to cast a TF2 match.

In summary, keep on doing what you're doing, because doing anything else would take an unnecessary amount of time.

you could use the esea or ugc 6s whitelist, the latter of which I believe is available for download on the UGC site.

Then you could move from there to tweak certain items (mantreads, other 'troll' weapons, etc) based on recommendation

this is probably the best description of him I've heard. That can work for a lot of teams, and not so much for others.

Screwball definitely has the skill to play in IM. He just needs to find a team that will fit his mentality.

solid mid-open scout. Very knowledgeable about the game.

this is tempting, it's like 5 hours from me. Anyone at Purdue or in Chicago wanna ride up with me and split gas or something?

https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/tutorials/programming-basics

knock yourself out.

what in the actual heck

It was a match, and it wasn't leaky's fault in the least. This should have literally no bearing on him finding an open team to play on.

We've found a pocket, and we're looking for more scouts! Filipinos will be given preferred treatment.

if you'd just ignore the two sperglords arguing over useless things and add me up to try out on scout that'd be super cool.

I've played in pwr pugs with dode and he's a super cool dude. Redban is a beast demo, and burton is a funny guy. Definitely a team to consider if you're still looking.

redban has the pipes, man. really good demo, I'd pick him up quick if I were you.