Everything I am posting here, I am posting onto my blog. It's still a work in progress though so I won't be posting the link until maybe tomorrow when I can work on it more.

Background:

Sup duders! My name is Nick Clement. My username/handle/tag is Covalent.234 on the NA region. I'm a newbie little Starcraft 2 player that has decided to start streaming some SC2 in hopes of improving. I found out about SC through streams (Destiny's in particular) and became hooked. This was back in early March 2011. I used my birthday money to buy myself a computer to actually run SC as I was primarily a console gamer at the time. After spending $600 for everything, I went back to college and just kind of didn't play any SC. For some reason I just couldn't bring myself to play on the ladder. I switched to playing LoL and didn't think too much about anything else.

After my school's semester ended, I kept thinking about playing but never brought myself to do it. I just watched streams more and more. The next time I started playing was July when I got more computer hardware (thanks to my new job). I still played maybe three games in all. Later that month, I started streaming for my first time after meeting some friends on TeamLiquid (<3). I learned the joy of streaming very quickly (and that you get more viewers when you are drunk). This motivated me to play a bit more but ultimately I kept watching streams.

I ended up going to MLG Raleigh with a friend of mine and felt inspired by one player (LiquidHerO) and decided I would do what it takes to get better and eventually compete in MLG (shooting for Columbus). For some reason, I was still afraid of laddering. I eventually lost my inspiration and didn't really play.

TILL NOW! Dun dun dun!

I had this great idea to just suck it up and play. I want to share my experience with all of you while using my day to day thoughts to see how I'm progressing as a player and psychologically. I'm hoping the more I play, I will conquer my ladder anxiety and eventually improve in skill level while meeting new friends to enjoy this game I love oh so much. Each day that I play, I will say my record, how I felt during my games (possibly just a general overview instead of per game), what I feel I'm lacking gameplay wise, what I'm having a hard time with, so on and so forth.

tl;dr

I have ladder anxiety that has caused the days I have played to be scattered over the past months. This blog will act as a motivator and a journal for my thoughts and gameplay.

My stream is http://www.twitch.tv/covalent. Be sure to follow me! I will be trying to stream at least 10 hours of week and possibly play more than that.

Day 1

Seeing as this is my first write up and I'm tired, I am just going to continue this tomorrow. I went 2-3 today. I can't figure out FFE building placement on some maps. Caused me to lose a game that I should've won. PvP seems to be my worst match up. I 3 Gate Robo every match because I really know nothing else but I don't have that down. I'm just going to keep playing games and not worry about build orders right now. I'm just having a harder time as Protoss than I had as Zerg (it seems). I just don't know the race too well. Is there a specific way to place my buildings (simcity)? I'll figure this out eventually.

Day 2

So today I went 9 - 4! Woo! I actually didn't know I did that well until I actually looked back at my match history! I felt like I was actually losing a lot but I guess not. :D I would like to thank Thule for helping me out via skype. He's a total nerd baller!

The first game I lost was to mass Zealots. I even scouted it but just wasn't sure what to do. He arrived at my base with four Zealots to my two at six minutes.

The second game I lost was against a Protoss that took two ninja expansions. I never knew about them and he was just massin up them Void Rays :\

The third game I lost was to a Protoss on 4 bases with mass Void Rays and a Mothership (along with a bunch of ground units). If I would've scouted better this game, I probably could've tried to push before he reached critical mass of Void Rays. I also did not know about one of his bases.

The last game I lost to a 1 1 Marine/Marauder push with combat shields and conc shell. It came at about 11 minutes. I'm not really sure how I would beat that at the time being. I think if I had a few sentries and tried to keep him off my ramp, I could've gotten units to hold him off but I was just low on units from the start.

Now none of this is in depth as to why I lost, just giving a general overview.

I was proud of myself one game though. I held off a Zealot rush :) I think I did more tonight to impress myself, but again, I'm tired while typing this up so I don't remember much of the games I played.

Day 3

Only played a few games today just cause I was doing stuff with the family. They were against a friend of mine whose Starcraft he just started playing (maybe 10-15 games played) lags his computer during any game beat me during every game I played. I'm completely demoralized. Maybe I'm just making dumb mistakes because I'm so tired? Idk... Goodnight

End of Week.

I've come to the conclusion that I just cannot play after work during the week. I'm too damn tired and force myself to stay awake already. Also, sorry for lack fo updates. I get off around 10 PM EST or so tomorrow night so I'll be playing after then!

Forcing myself to play today. I get off work at 4.

This is going to be a very short blog. 
 
I know most of you have played Trials HD. If you haven't, good for you. You blood pressure is probably normal :) 
 
But for those who have know how addicting and infuriating it can be. Of course, you do get a sense of self satisfaction when you finally beat that track you have been trying on for so long! 
 
So I picked this up last December or so. Holy fuck was it so much fun. And addicting. Way too damn addicting. Well I was so pissed at the game after playing it for a month and not beating the extreme tracks that I just said "fuck it" and decided it wasn't worth my time. It's kind of like that girlfriend who teases you yet won't give it up. You just push her away because she's nothing but frustrating. 
 
Anyway, I decided to give it another try just yesterday. I slaved over it for hours last night to get one of my last tracks. Today, I finally beat Inferno II after maybe an hour and a half. I think I lucked out, to be honest. But the satisfaction of finally getting the "Demon on Wheels" achievement made me so ecstatic. More than I ever thought I would get over a silly game, nonetheless, silly achievement. 
 
Why is it that we get so excited over something so trivial? Regardless if it is trivial or not, I like the self satisfaction I get from video games when I finally achieve a goal or pass something so ridiculously hard. I guess that is what keeps me playing. Though it gets me nowhere in the world, I continue to play video games because it makes me happy. That's all that matters right? 
 
Now I'm gonna try the "Marathon" achievement. Maybe I'll finally S Rank Trials HD.

Not too sure what to blog about so I'll cheat and get the quest but I'll be sure to put up blogs later on.