Fighting, Revisited

I made a post a few days ago about a friend who resorted to violence to punish someone he thought did the wrong thing, and I've thought about it quite a bit since then.

I have changed my stance. The problem with my friend's reaction is that it leaves the other person no time to explain. He saw something, and reacted to it. The problem with this is that he doesn't know the entire story. He may have seen the last minute of something that had been on-going for the last hour. Perhaps the man in question had seen the woman make a hateful comment towards someone else while they were on the train together, and this was his way of getting revenge in his own small way. Who knows?

When you talk something out, at least you give people the chance to explain themselves. The only problem with this is that if the person really was a scumbag, they're probably going to lie about what happened, and unless you want to start calling witnesses and set up a courtroom outside the train station, you are unlikely to ever uncover the real version of events.

But I would like to think that most people would do the decent thing and either apologise, or double down, start spouting hateful remarks, and reveal themselves as an asshole to everyone around.

So while I still admire my friend for doing something to step up, I disagree with his choice of action. But hopefully if I ever see something like that in the future, I will have the courage to step up and do something about it myself.

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Short post today as I went back and finished off that Newbee vs Liquid write-up. That might be my longest post, at over 4000 words.

Making the News

I got home too late yesterday and wasn't able to get the photo I wanted to get on the way home, so Lazy Fiction Friday has become Slothful Story Saturday.

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Samantha rested against the tree trunk, glad she managed to secure such a good vantage point - easy to see anyone approaching, but concealed enough that nobody should see her. She forced herself to stay still, just in case her movements gave away her position.

The South Square Stabber had been all over the news for the past six weeks. There were only three deaths so far, over a period of about seven months, but with the last death being the son-in-law of prominent media mogul Johan Poklowski, every edition of the Morning Post had featured at least two pages dedicated to the ongoing investigation, much to the consternation of the local police force.

Samantha herself had followed the coverage eagerly, in an almost sadistic way. You're not supposed to be curious about this kind of stuff, but Matthew Poklowski was notorious for being an asshole. Every journalism student in the city had had a brush with him at some point, and he revelled in the fact that he could have his pick of the eager, young female journalism students. Schadenfreude. That was the word she was thinking of. Pleasure from someone else's pain.

The police are yet to arrest anyone, and if the newspapers are to be believed, they're too busy trying to find their own feet to even consider looking for the killer. But Samantha new better than to read the papers. There were many online forums where people were speculating on the killer's motives. The three victims didn't have much in common.

Katerina Montoya, 58, mother of two children. Her husband was an accountant, and she had stayed at home to raise the children. She had a lot of spare time now that her children had left home, so one of them had convinced her to start a food blog, detailing how to cook the traditional South American dishes that had enriched their childhood. Her death had shocked the local Latino community, and her the readers of her somewhat popular blog, but in a couple of weeks, had faded away.

The second victim, Tim Michaelson, 23, was an arts student, studying part time, and working part time on his YouTube channel, where he uploaded videos of himself playing various video games. His death was considered odd at the time, as his friends and fans found it strange that he would be out at South Square on the day of the release of Darkness Rises 3, the sequel that had been in production for more than seven years, but the constant anonymous tips from his fans led to the police releasing an official statement saying they were looking into it.

The only thing linking the three victims was the location and the MO: all three bodies had been found in South Square Park, a single slash against their necks, and then three stabs in the chest, left, right and centre. The nuttier of the conspiracy theorists began to guess that the attacks were related to religion: the father, the son and the holy spirit, ignoring the fact that the neck was slashed, not the face.

Samantha continued waiting. South Square Park was closed off in the month following the death of Poklowski, but the day after it re-opened, there were tents set-up with kids camping out in the park. #survivedSouthSquare started trending on Instagram. Samantha rolled her eyes in disgust. Parents petitioned for protection from the local police, but after a couple of weeks without anything happening, people figured that there was safety in numbers. The crowds had died down, but there were still people camping out. Idiots.

Photos of the crime scene had been posted online to the different forums, and Samantha had picked up on one of the more frequent posters: izElectro. A browse through his posting history revealed that he had a Twitter account where he reported on the events of the local sporting clubs. Though Sam felt that the word "reporting" was too strong for what he did. In her opinion, Twitter, blogs and Instagram were the writing tools for those who couldn't write. They relied on being the first ones with the news, and it didn't matter that the content had poor grammar, spelling or even form. It was just a matter of putting it out there, adding some photos of girls in skimpy clothing, slapping on a stupid title like, "Things the government doesn't want you to know!" and you could call yourself a writer.

Meanwhile, actual writers, like herself, were struggling to find work as newspapers and magazines were moving online, and those easy-to-read, shallow articles were a lot more popular than the real hard-hitting news. Click here to read about 5 ways the journalism industry is dying!!!

She knew izElectro would be out here again tonight. He seemed to know more about the killings than anything else listed in the investigation. Perhaps he shared her morbid fascination with the events. She had gleaned from his online presence that he lived alone, was roughly in his late twenties or early thirties, worked in the central business district, in the financial industry. He had made a post detailing his theory that the kills weren't even in South Square Park, but happened elsewhere and the bodies were moved. None of the other media sources had suggested anything like that, but it could be that the police had figured that out, and withheld that information to try and separate a real lead from a false one.

He wasn't going to be in a tent with the idiot teens, as she knew he wouldn't be able to stay out too late since he had to get up for work the next day. She had found a picture of him from a FINSIA conference five years ago, so she had a vague idea of what he looked like. So she continued to wait.

It was quarter to ten when she finally spotted him. He was scarily close to her position, snapping photos of the nearby trees and the grass. Just how much did he know?

She shifted from her resting position and crept towards him. "izElectro?"

He jumped up in shock and turned around to the sound of the voice. "Umm... hi. Who are you?"

"'SS_Hunter' I know, probably not the best name, but all the good names were taken." she chuckled.

"Oh! I love reading your posts. What do you think about my theory about the kill site?"

"I think you might be on to something. I've actually been looking around, and I think I might have a potential location. Want to see?"

"Sure!"

She led him out of a park, to a nearby warehouse. The dirty windows were like pockmarks on the walls, ruining the smooth facade, and making it look even more eerie in the moonlight.. "I was thinking this is probably it. There used to be be an abattoir here, but the factory moved. Perfect place to kill people. The blood stays hidden."

"Good thinking." he said as he turned towards her.

"So how did you figure out the kill site wasn't in the park? Do you have an inside source in the police force?"

He laughed. "No, it's probably just too many episodes of CSI." He retrieved his phone from his pocket and began to take some photos of the exterior.

Sam was surprised at the feeling of disappointment. For a moment, she had been hopeful of finding a kindred spirit. "The place isn't even locked. Let's take a look inside!"

The two of them walked through the unlocked entrance and Sam switched on her torch, panning the light around the interior. Her investigative partner gasped. "Wow, this place is huge! It looked so small from the outside." He headed towards one of the bloodstained walls and began taking photos. "This seems too fresh to have been from when this was an abattoir."

"Really? How can you tell?" Sam's head perked up again.

"Oh, I have no idea, it just sounds like something they'd say on TV." And again, her hopes were dashed. The two of them wandered around the warehouse in silence, the only sounds were their footsteps and the quiet camera shutter sound of the phone.

One more chance, she thought to herself.

"You would think they would have painted over the bloodstains when this was converted into a warehouse." he said. "I can't imagine coming into work and seeing this every day."

He's getting warmer.

"You're right." she nodded in agreement.

He suddenly stopped. "That's weird. These are offices. But the bloodstains continue."

Sam shined her torch on the walls and bent over for a closer look.  I don't remember this being here... She spun around quickly. Her "partner" held a large chef's knife in his hand, the torchlight reflected against it and made shadows against the wall as he rotated it side-to-side.

"Part time chef?" she asked, coolly.

"South Square Stabber." came the response.

"No. You're not."

"I'm not.... But I could be."

Sam face wrinkled in confusion. "I don't understand."

"You were sloppy with Poklowski. If I was able to find this place, then it won't be long before the police do, if they haven't already."

"So what do you want?"

"We kill again. More accurately, I kill again, when you have a clear alibi."

"And why do you want to do this?"

"I'm never getting promoted. My boss isn't going to retire for years, and he's never getting promoted either."

"Are you kidding? This isn't some Agatha Christie novel. How do I know I can trust you?"

"I can probably stab you right now before you get your own knife out of your bag. But I won't. You need me as much as I need you."

"So what's the plan? You kill someone while I'm overseas, and in return, I kill your boss?"

"Something like that, yes."

"OK. Well, I guess I don't really have a choice. I have my next target in mind. Meet me at the McDonald's near the Ikon building at 3PM tomorrow, and we'll go somewhere and exchange details. Don't write anything down. Don't record anything in your phone. Delete the photos you took of this place."

"No. Those photos are my back-up, in case you don't hold up your side of the bargain. They've all been backed up to Google Photos, and I have them synching to another account, so even if you delete them from my phone, you won't delete them from that account."

"Makes sense."

"Also, I think it would be best if you kill my boss first, as an act of faith."

"Makes sense." she repeated.

"I'm glad we could come to an agreement."

She could see the greed in his face, he was already picturing his promotion. She gestured for him to leave. "I have the torch, you go ahead."

"OK. I'll see you tomorrow, at the McDonald's." He put the knife away, and turned to walk out, Sam following close behind. As they left the office section, she switched off the torch.

"What's going on?" he asked, panicked.

"I think the battery died."

He pulled his phone out of his pocket to serve as a makeshift torch, just in time to see Sam slash at his throat with her knife. He felt blood dripping down his throat, and he tried to scream, but he wasn't even sure if he did, the pain was overwhelming. She stabbed at him again, and his mind was yelling at him to defend himself, but he felt his body moving far too slowly in response. He struggled to stay conscious, but his mind was shutting down to block out the pain. He didn't even feel the second or third stab.

"Sorry, I'm not hiring."

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I'm not particularly happy with how this one turned out. I wanted to try and get into the mind of a psychopath, since I've often wondered if I am one, but I guess the fact that I couldn't is a good sign?

But the story definitely feels badly executed. I read so many thriller novels, but I couldn't seem to capture the same suspense.

Kiev Major - Main Event: Liquid vs Newbee, Game 1

Day 1 of the main event at the Kiev Major sees Team Liquid and Newbee playing against each other. Both teams went 2-2 in the group stages, with Liquid winning 6 and losing 4 (1:2 Thunderbirds, 2:0 SG e-sports, 1:2 Digital Chaos, 2:0 Faceless), and Newbee winning 4 and losing 5 (0:2 Digital Chaos, 2:1 mousesports, 0:2 EG, 2:0 Team Random).

The main event is a best of three and this is game 1.

Drafting Phase

Newbee bans Io.

Liquid bans Legion Commander.
Newbee bans Nature's Prophet.

Liquid bans Vengeful Spirit.

With the first two bans from Newbee being Io and NP, it seems like Newbee are concerned about having to deal with split pushing as well as the global ganking capabilities of those two heroes. Liquid's first two bans LC and VS don't give too much away. VS is a strong support for disrupting team fights. She can swap out a friendly hero to save them from being ganged up on, but she's also great for swapping in an enemy carry, so that the team can burst them down while their allies are out of position. Her short cooldown stun, and damage increase aura also make her great for ganking and helping push lanes. 

Newbee picks Crystal Maiden.

Liquid picks Treant Protector and Lion.

Newbee picks Nyx Assassin.

First pick Crystal Maiden seems fairly standard. She's a strong support hero that works well with a wide variety of other heroes, so it doesn't really limit further picks. Newbee's second pick, Nyx, is good for keeping the enemy on their toes as the weaker heroes have to watch out for being picked off by Vendetta. Just by being in the game, he forces the enemy support heroes to have to invest gold into sentry wards and dust just to avoid surprises.

Liquid also starts with picking supports to hide what their strategy is, picking up Tree and Lion. Tree is great for the laning phase, with his Nature's Guise stun harass, as well as living armour, which is a global heal + added armour. Lion has two good disables and a strong nuke. 

It seems both Newbee and Liquid are content picking supports / roamers first.

Liquid bans Sand King.

Newbee bans Naga.

Liquid bans Terrorblade.

Newbee bans Lycan.

Newbee's third and fourth bans seem to again show that they're worried about the split push. Naga's net also goes through magic immunity, so they may be concerned about picking a carry who may be vulnerable without being able to rely on fighting with BKB.

Liquid's bans, Sand King and TB seem to indicate that they're a bit concerned about big team fights especially with the AoE damage from both CM and SK's ultimates, but also TB is a strong pushing hero.

Liquid picks Spectre.

Newbee picks Juggernaut.

Liquid picks Doom.

Newbee picks Shadow Fiend.

The Spectre pick shows that Liquid wants the game to go late, which explains the TB ban, but Newbee follows that with a Juggernaut pick. Whether they had intended to pick Jugg anyway is uncertain. He works really well with CM as a laning partner, as her aura keeps his mana up giving him more spins and healing wards, her frost nova and frostbite are scary when combined with his spin, and his healing wards really help push lanes, which would be good for trying to end the game before Spectre gets strong enough to win.

Liquid responds with a Doom pick. Doom's ultimate goes through magic immunity, which is great for removing a hero from a team fight. Since it goes through Jugg's spin, it means he isn't able to rely on being able to spin and teleport back to safety. 

Newbee's fourth pick is Shadow Fiend, one of Sccc's most played heroes, and a strong mid laner. He is quick to build up damage with his Necromastery souls, making him a scary early-game pushing hero, and for a damage dealer, he's fairly tanky. His Shadow Raze also means he makes short work of creep waves, another bonus for pushing.

After the second round of picks, Newbee has their safe-lane core and their mid-laner. Liquid has their safe-lane core and probably offlaner.

Liquid bans Keeper of the Light.

Newbee bans Templar Assassin.

Liquid's KotL ban is good for both Spectre and Doom as they both have expensive spells with a small mana pool and mana leak hurts. Plus, once KotL gets Aghs, his illuminate heal also helps push lanes by clearing waves and healing creeps and heroes during the day. KotL also tends to go for Aghs, and if he gets gem, too, he is able to spot Tree hiding around, meaning Treant isn't able to provide vision by skulking around in the trees.

Newbee knows Liquid needs a mid, and bans one of Miracle-'s stronger heroes, and also someone they will struggle to burst down, as they don't have an easy way to remove refraction charges (the best being CM's frostbite), and TA can tank a few of Jugg's omnislashes and Nyx's vendetta.

Newbee picks Omniknight.

Liquid picks Tinker.

Omniknight is a strong pick for Newbee, and maybe they were inspired by how well he worked as an offlaner in the IG v mousesports game. He'll be up against Spectre with potentially Tree and Lion zoning him out, but with Repel and Purification, he should survive any gank attempts. His repel will save someone from Lion's disables / nuke, and of course, Guardian Angel makes it difficult for Liquid to right-click the team down.

Liquid's Tinker pick is great for delaying the game, as it is very hard to push into multiple waves of March of the Machines. And he can also be a nuisance around the map once he gets Boots of Travel, pushing out lanes and forcing the other team to deal with him. Unfortunately, it is a bit dangerous for him, as he can get stunned by Nyx's Carapace when he's using March of the Machines.

Radiant - Team Liquid

Kuro "KuroKy" Salehi Takhasomi - Treant Protector

Ivan "MinD_ContRoL" Borislavov - Doom

Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi - Tinker

Maroun "GH" Merhej - Lion

Lasse "MATUMBAMAN" Urpalainen - Spectre

Dire - Newbee

Zeng "Faith" Hongda - Crystal Maiden
Song "Sccc" Chun - Shadow Fiend
Xu "uuu9" Han - Juggernaut
Damien "kphoenii" (kpii) Chok - Omniknight
Hu "kaka" Liangzhi - Nyx Assassin

Pre-Game

Newbee smoke up and Jugg teleports to the top tier 1 tower holding an obs ward and places it on the ward spot overlooking the Radiant tier 1 tower. Doom teleports to the Radiant secret shop shrine and drops an obs ward overlooking the Dire jungle bounty rune as well as top river. SF drops a ward in mid-lane on the Radiant side, giving top rune vision.

Omni casually walks into the Radiant jungle, scouting out who is at the bounty rune (Spectre and Lion - Tree remains hidden from view) and gets chased off by Lion.

Tree and Lion head up towards the Dire secret shop rune and take a few hits from Omni and SF, but a well-timed Earth Spike from Lion allows Tree to grab the bounty rune. However, Jugg, CM and Nyx have gone on a journey of their own and picked up the Radiant secret shop bounty rune. Fortunately, Doom's obs ward let him see this, so he walked around to grab the Dire jungle bounty rune. Spectre manages to pick up the Radiant jungle bounty rune with ease. Meanwhile, Tinker is blocking the mid lane creeps.

SF also ends up taking quite a bit of damage and has to eat one of his shared tangos and get a heal from Omniknight who uses a tango.

Bounty runes - Radiant 3: Spectre, Treant, Doom, Dire 1: Juggernaut

Laning Phase

Doom is alone in top lane, against CM and Jugg.

Omni is up against Spectre in bot lane.

SF is against Tinker, but Nyx is hanging around harassing Tinker so that SF can get some early souls. Nyx skilled Mana Burn first to start eating away at Tinker's mana so that he isn't able to keep spamming his Laser (which gives 100% miss chance) to stop SF from getting last hits.

Lion and Tree aren't happy with this, and head straight for mid lane. Lion gets a stun off on SF and Tree casts leech seed to slow him. SF manages to make it to the shrine and survive the gank, but Lion continues to chase him away so he doesn't even get to hang around for the full duration of the heal. SF ends up walking all the way back to base so Nyx hangs around in mid to soak up XP and continue burning Tinker's mana.

Doom is happily devouring away at the jungle creeps, having picked up a Wildkin which gives him 3 extra armour. Spectre loses a few creeps to denies from Omni so Lion and Tree begin the trek down to spook him off. Spectre has picked up an Orb of Venom and the three of them chip away at Omni's HP, but it isn't enough to finish him off before he retreats to the safety of the tower, and he doesn't even need to pop a Purification. But the Radiant creep wave pushes and with a Spectral Dagger, the three of them chase Omni behind the Dire tier 1 tower, with Lion and Tree keeping him out of XP range. Omni ends up having to Shrine. Nyx does head to top to try and catch out the Doom, but to no avail.

At the 4 minute mark, Lion and Tree continue roaming, and CM and Nyx join in by heading to mid-lane. Nyx reveals himself in mid, and Tinker pops the haste rune he had bottled and goes uphill. He knows Nyx is level 2 with only mana burn and impale, so he doesn't have to worry about carapace. Unfortunately, he doesn't see CM, who frostbites him holding him in place for the Nyx impale, and he also eats a Shadow Raze, giving away first blood to Shadow Fiend.

The action moves to the bottom lane, as CM and Nyx try to make a play on Spectre, but Lion is able to save him, though he loses his life for it. In mid lane, SF gets a double raze off on Tinker, but dies to laser and missile. Fortunately, the Dire creeps finish off the Tinker, so not all is lost.

CM and Nyx smoke up and try to get around on Tinker, but no uphill ward results in Lion breaking smoke and getting a great double stun and Tinker finishes Nyx off with Heat-Seeking Missile and Laser.

Lion and Tree pop a smoke of their own and head towards Jugg in top lane. CM manages to break smoke on Lion and goes to attack a jungle creep, getting stunned by Lion and leech seeded by Tree, dying. But Spectre is struggling alone in her lane, and Omni forces her to TP out. He has picked up Arcane boots and can start spamming Purification to farm and harass. After healing up, Spectre tries to Haunt and save Doom who is getting Omnislashed, but fails and ends up Reality Rifting back to the fountain.

Omni is dominating bot lane, but Spectre, Lion and Tree begin chasing. He tries to repel and run, but Doom had TPed to the shrine and casts Doom on him. Unfortunately, Spectre misses the last hit, and the kill goes to Doom.

CM and Jugg smoke up and head bot, Leaving Nyx to soak up some much-needed XP in top lane. SF picks up invis rune, and joins Omni, CM and Jugg in bot. They pick off Lion and finish off the Radiant bot tier 1 tower. Meanwhile, Nyx has hit level 6, and with Omniknight, manage to pick off Spectre at top lane, who was just trying to find some farm and catch up.

At 11:21, the gold and XP are in Newbee's favour and they seem to have much more space on the map. But Tinker has picked up his Boots of Travel now, so he can be a bit more active in fights. That, in combination with Spectre's Haunt, means Liquid has the means to turn around team fights.

Mid-Game

Newbee smokes top lane, hoping to pick off Doom and get another tower, but their smoke is revealed by a hidden Tree, which allows Lion to get off a stun and Finger on CM who dies to missile. Omni pops GA, and they try to burst Tree down, but he manages to survive Omnislash. SF gets doomed but Omni gets off a heal and repel and Nyx's impale stops the rest of Radiant following up while the Dire team finishes Tree. Jugg nearly dies to Spectral Dagger, but manages a well timed spin. Tinker tries to finish SF off, but gets stunned to Nyx's Carapace which was used while March was up. He tries to TP out, but Nyx gets off an impale and the respawned CM freezes him in place while Jugg gets another spin off on him. Tree's living armour isn't enough to save him.

Dire goes to push top tier 1, and nearly die in another team fight, but healing ward keeps them up and they manage to pick off Tree who is still only level 5, so he doesn't have Overgrowth to hold them in place.

Bot tier 2 drops to the Dire team, but a team fight at top erupts.

Nyx gets dusted by Lion who pops everything on him. He manages to get carapace off, and turn around to stun Lion who gets finished by SF, but Tinker kills him for it. Doom blinks in and Dooms SF and Spectre haunts in to finish him off. Doom ends up dying for it, but after picking off SF, Spectre manages to make it out into the trees. Her TP scroll is still on cooldown, but the Dire team is unable to find her. Tinker manages to burst down the CM.

Liquid spreads out to farm, and Newbee smoke into the Rosh pit, easily picking up aegis for SF. They move up to top lane and secure top tier 1, but Radiant are starting to claim some space, having pushed mid and bot tier 1 towers for themselves.

At 22:30, on the Radiant side: Spectre has her Radiance. Tinker has BoTs, blink, and Aether Lens. Doom has blink. On the Dire side: SF has Dragon Lance and Manta, Jugg has Manta, Omni has pipe. Newbee pick off Doom and get mid tier 1, and head towards top tier 2. 

Tree gets off an Overgrowth on CM and SF. Lion fingers CM who is then killed by Spectre. Omni pops GA, but gets doomed and dies. But SF and Jugg finish off Spectre. The Radiant top tier 2 lives to see another team fight.

Newbee continue to pressure top lane, and go for another push, with Liquid wrapping around, looking to try the same defense. Omni is hiding in the trees, trying to avoid doom, but Spectre's ult reveals him and Doom manages to blink in and target him, popping BKB to avoid being stunned.

Omnislash picks off Lion. Tree casts Overgrowth to hold everyone in place while Doom moves to finish off the Omniknight. Tinker blinks in trying to finish CM and Nyx, but she runs and urns herself up. Meanwhile, Jugg finishs off Tree. Tinker rearms and blinks in, casting missile to kill CM, but one heads towards Nyx who casts Carapace, stunning and damaging Tinker in return. 

He mana burns Tinker and Jugg heads in, casting Diffusal to slow him. Tinker cyclones Nyx and dagons him, but dies to Jugg. Lion is back, but he and Spectre aren't able to save the tower. The great Dire "Tinker" ward reveals Lion who was hiding in the trees, so Lion dies again.

Newbee backs off to do a bit more farming, and Liquid tries to get a bit more space, but Tree gets caught out after picking up an invis rune, and the well-placed Nyx and CM manage to hold him in place with an impale combined with frostbite and freezing field, keeping him within sentry range.

Liquid tries to come to the rescue, but the rest of Newbee comes in, and Shadow Fiend manages to finish off both Tree and Lion, who tries to save him. This allows Newbee to get a free Roshan, with aegis being picked up by SF.

Spectre tries to get a bit of farm in bot lane, but Nyx has been following him, and hits him with vendetta, mana burn and impale. Even though Spectre has turned off her Radiance to avoid being stunned by spike carapace, Nyx lines himself up to get hit by the spectral dagger she tries to use to get away, giving Jugg enough time to run in and omnislash her to death, getting a bash proc which stops her from being able to haunt away. He is now 8-0, on a Godlike streak.

SF finishes off mid tier 2, and Newbee heads in to siege mid tier 3. Tinker tries to throw out march of the machines to delay the push, but between Jugg's healing ward, and Omniknight's purification, SF stays nice and healthy, and picks up the tower with no problems. They aren't confident of pushing high ground now that Spectre is back up, so they retreat.

Liquid smokes up, hoping to meet them at the bottom shrine, but it seems Newbee head towards their own shrine instead. Lion, Tree and Doom head uphill,while Tinker BoTs to top lane, as they have a ward revealing SF and CM near the shrine, but a hasted Nyx is Vendetta'd nearby and catches out Tree, stunning him with impale. Lion pops dust, but Nyx uses carapace, resulting in Lion's Finger of Doom being reflected back on himself, allowing SF to finish him with one attack.

Meanwhile, Doom blinks in to Doom Omniknight, and Tinker has made his way into the fight, followed by Spectre's haunt. CM falls to spectral dagger and Tinker's nuke combo. SF gets off his Reqiuem of Souls before Tree casts Overgrowth, hitting Doom, Tinker and Tree, SF beats on Doom, while Jugg manages to get Omnislash off on a solo Spectre, who tanks all of the hits and dies. Liquid turns around to retreat, but Tinker manages to pick off Nyx assassin before leaving,

Another costly fight for Liquid.

Lion manages to snipe a courier carrying SF's Monkey King Bar and Omniknight's Ultimate Orb, and tries to escape with an invis rune, but doesn't quite make it out. It's kinda worth it though, as the Monkey King Bar can counter Tinker's laser miss chance, making it easier for Newbee to take buildings. Plus, he has the -30s respawn talent, so he's back before long anyway.

Unfortunately, Spectre tries to escape the roaming Newbee kill squad and gets stuck in the trees, spotted out by Nyx Assassin despite turning her Radiance off, and gets picked off.

Newbee uses this advantage to finish the middle set of barracks.

Omni finishes his Linken's Sphere and with his gem, pick off a wandering Tree, taking this opportunity to push bot tier 3 while he can't use living armour. Aegis has expired, but they feel confident going in anyway. SF takes the tower, with the help of Jugg's healing ward, and after Tree respawns, Liquid moves in to defend. Doom blinks in and pops BKB to Doom Omni, but unfortunately, he didn't notice Omni's Linken's, so Doom is consumed. Spectre haunts in and Lion blinks, hexing the Jugg for Spectre to fight. Lion dies to a couple of hits from SF for his trouble.

CM begins casting her freezing field, uninterrupted, and Omni gets off his guardian angel, protecting himself, CM and Jugg. Tree manages to overgrowth SF, and he and Tinker go to work trying to take him down, ending his 7-kill streak, but SF's dying Requiem of Souls slows everyone, allowing Jugg to make short work of Spectre and Doom.

Lion buys back. Nyx stuns Tree and Tinker, but gets impaled by Lion in return and eats a Finger of Death, leaving him on ~400 HP, but not before he gets a Eul's off on Tinker. When Tinker finally returns to the ground, Jugg begins spinning on him, getting a lucky bash.

Meanwhile, SF has bought back, and is teleporting back into the fray. Lion pops shrine to try and get more mana, but lets off a stray attack on Nyx and gets stunned by carapace. Tree seems to think this is a good idea, and also get stunned. SF arrives and finishes Tinker. Tinker buys back instantly, but it's not enough to stop the bleeding and they lose bot rax.

Newbee moves to top rax, and Tinker does manage to combo Nyx before Nyx can get carapace off, but it's a small consolation prize, and they lose top rax as well and Newbee gets mega creeps. Newbee backs off and Liquid calls GG.

Newbee's draft seemed much stronger than Liquid's. They knew they were on a deadline, having to end the game before Spectre came online, and did a great job dealing with Liquid's stalling strategy.

SF got Manta Style, and the extra hits from his illusions meant they could remove charges of living armour from towers much faster. SF can also start pumping out damage faster than a lot of other carries, with necromastery, and he is fairly tanky, so in combination with healing ward, purification and repel, can stand there beating on towers, while the rest of Newbee stays back and Liquid had nothing to answer that except March, which was countered by the healing ward.

Doom couldn't really Doom SF, as it was critical for him to get Omniknight, and with Omni's repel, SF could skip BKB, allowing him to pick up other items earlier.

Nyx was also strong against Tinker, as Tinker has to be concerned about casting March of the Machines and hitting Nyx's spiked carapace.

Liquid committed a lot trying to stop SF from snowballing, and as a result of that, poor Spectre was left alone to combat Omniknight, who really put the pressure on. Spectre was quite poor for a lot of the game, and with Newbee being so aggressive, really struggled to find room to farm.

Tinker was actually quite scary, and you can see Newbee picking up a lot of magic defense items, like glimmer cape, pipe, hood of defiance, but it also reflects Liquid's magic heavy line-up, with lion and tinker (laser and doom is pure damage though).

Liquid had a great team for global fights. I think if they were able to get ahead in the early game, Lion and Tree roaming around, with Tinker teleporting in and Spectre's haunt would mean Newbee had to be wary of ganks, especially early, when SF is vulnerable. But Newbee forced them to have to play passively, and gained control of the map by taking towers and roaming around themselves. Nyx did a great job of planting some aggressive wards, and he and CM created a lot of space for Omniknight and Jugg to farm up.

Unfortunately, once Newbee's roaming tower destruction force got together, they began to dominate the map and they were very good at taking towers, then retreating to farm, while Nyx ran around looking for easy kills.

Overall, great play by Newbee. Very strong, consistent push which carried them to a game 1 victory.

---------------------------------------

The reason I wrote about this game is because the mid lane was Tinker vs SF, who are the two heroes I'm deciding to play in the match against the guy from work. Personally, I prefer playing Tinker, because I like avoiding team fights, but I can't afford for the game to go late, as the bots will be too stupid. I figured as Tinker, I would be able to have more involvement in the fights, as when the bots are in trouble, I could teleport in and laser, missile, dagon the attacker, but I don't know if I could do it reliably enough, and without getting killed myself in the process.

Whereas SF can take on a few heroes on his own, and as we saw in this game, can end the game early if he gets far enough ahead.

Logically, I should play SF, and I did say that I'd play the hero that won this game - there's no denying that it was SF. I was really torn while watching the game, because I wanted Kpii, the Australian, to win, but I also wanted Tinker to win.

Still, SF was stronger, so it's back to the practice room, I guess.

Fight For Your Honour

Had a really fascinating lunch today. Rocky was telling me how he was walking to work when this man in a suit holding a briefcase shoulder checked this elderly lady and said, "Sorry" really sarcastically, without even checking to see if she was OK. It looked to Rocky that the guy did it on purpose and it was a full-on shoulder into her chest kind of action, so his (Rocky's) response was to shove him up against a wall. The man asked if he had a problem, and Rocky gestured towards the lady, and the man just walked off, while Rocky went to see if she was OK. Despite the fact that there were probably about thirty people around, nobody else stepped in.

To be honest, I was completely horrified when he told me this story, which I think must have shown on my face, because Rocky asked what I would have done. At first, I laughed and said, "You should really use your words, violence isn't the answer." But then I admitted, I would likely have thought about doing something, but in reality, would have just stood there. The bystander effect in action.

His response was that he was sick of people just standing around doing nothing when terrible things like that happen. There are so many people who are just scum, and because people don't punish them for it, they continue being scum.

I would like to point out that despite his name, Rocky isn't a big guy. In fact, he's probably skinnier than me, but he is taller. If you saw him, you probably wouldn't guess that he's as tank as he is. He showed me some topless photos of himself, and he is pretty muscly, but I think it's that lean kind of muscle. So if he had shoved me up against a wall, my first response would be that I could probably take him in a fight.

But the rude guy didn't. Rocky said the rude guy was much bigger than him, but he wasn't afraid. I actually thought it was admirable that he was willing to stand up to someone like that.

The thing is, if someone got into a fight in front of me, for my honour, or something stupid like that, I would be disgusted. I think we are well beyond the time where arguments are settled with fists, and logic should prevail. If someone is being a dick, well, you can just ignore them, and over time, their dickish behaviour will result in them being surrounded by other dicks, and like low priority queue in Dota 2, they can all be in their little bubble while the rest of us continue on with our lives.

So while Rocky's behaviour makes me uncomfortable, I wonder how much of that stems from the fact that he was able to do something while I would have stood there doing nothing? Talk is cheap, and until I have the courage to stand up for someone else, who am I to say that he's wrong? If I were in the same situation, at worst all I would have done is given the guy a mean look. Yep, that's going to make him change his ways, I'm sure of it.

I say that I want to make the world a better place, but what have I really done other than contribute some badly written vegan recipes?

He told me some other stuff about his childhood, which I won't repeat here, but I find it fascinating that two people who are so similar could have taken such different paths. Our childhoods sound nothing alike. While we share some similar personality traits and likes, I feel like we are polar opposites in... I don't know what the word for it is, but it's like the way that we ended up the way we are is completely different. A bit like convergent evolution.

I honestly feel like he's a completely different person in my eyes now. I'm both scared of him and fascinated by him at the same time. Yet another person who I'm not able to file neatly away in a box. I'm starting to rack up a heap of these.

Bretzel Day!

Today is National Pretzel Day in the USA. I don't know why, as there doesn't seem to be any significance between today and pretzels, but it seems you can get free pretzels at some places in the US, so I can't complain. Except for the part where I'm not in the US, so I'll solve that by making my own.

I was told that pretzels are a bit like bagels, so I tried to find a recipe that included boiling them, and came across this one: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1139659/authentic-german-pretzels

It has "authentic" in the name, it must be good, right? Right?! Plus, it has malt in it, and I love malt. I changed it right from the start though, as I've been craving vanilla cinnamon pretzels ever since the Arnie Classic.

Note: This recipe uses 1kg of dough. Kneading this was like kneading a rock. My biceps haven't worked so hard in such a long time, and that counts going to the gym. Then I got a good work out the next day rolling out the dough for the pretzels. If I were to do this again, I'd halve the recipe, as we really don't need 16 pretzels, and it'll be easier to manage the dough.

Ingredients
Makes 16 pretzels.

1kg bread flour (protein of 9 - 12%)
260ml milk (lukewarm) - I used soymilk
260ml water (lukewarm)
80g butter (unsalted, melted) - I used Nuttelex
1 tbsp malt extract (liquid or dried, or brown sugar)
2sp active dried yeast
2 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)

(for boiling)
1L water
3 tbsp baking soda (or lye, but be wary of using lye! It must be food grade and it's dangerous)

(for sprinkling - this was a mistake!!!!!)
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

(the original recipe has unrefined rock / sea salt, or cheese and ham cubes for topping)

Method
1. Mix water, yeast and 100g of the flour, and leave in a warm place for 5+ hours so the yeast gets going.

Well, right from the start, I goofed. I misread the recipe, and put the milk in with the water, yeast and flour. I left it in a warm place to proof, and this is what I came back to:

I figured I'd go ahead anyway and see what happened.

2. Add remaining flour, salt, milk, malt extract, melted butter. Mix and knead until form, then leave for 90 minutes until it springs back when poked gently. (I didn't have time to wait, so I chucked it in the fridge overnight for use the next night (though I did give it a bit of a knead in the morning to stop it overflowing).) I had a really hard time kneading the dough, and I found it a bit dry, so I ended up adding an extra 2 tablespoons of milk and 1 tablespoon of water.

3. Separate the dough into 16 pieces (the original recipe said 14, but 14 only has 2 factors: 2 and 7, and I'm not that great at eyeballing things into 7 equal sized pieces).

If making the traditional pretzel shape, roll the dough out to about 40cm, Hold both ends up so that the middle is down, so the whole thing is a U-shape. About 3-5cm from the top, depending on how long you were able to roll it out, twist the two ends around each other, then fold back onto the fat bottom of the U and stick the ends into the bottom.

4. Allow the dough to proof in a warm place for at least 30 minutes. Good time to preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

5. In a medium / large pot, add the baking soda to the water, and bring to a boil.

6. The original recipe says to leave the pretzels where there's a breeze or a fan for a bit, as that will make it more chewy. There was no breeze, and we don't have a fan, so I skipped this, and mine didn't turn out very chewy. :(

7. Combine the sugar and cinnamon.

8. After you've proofed and breezed the dough, Put the pretzels in one at a time, and boil until they float (roughly 5-10s), but I'd say leave it in a few seconds longer so the water has time to soak into those nooks and crannies. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar.

9. Bake the pre-boiled pretzels for 15 minutes, until brown (I didn't seem to be able to get a dark, dark brown, but the more brown pretzels had more of that pretzely taste than the golden-brown ones. I ended up baking them for 20 minutes to get them somewhat brown).



While the cinnamon sugar gave the pretzels a nice cinnamon-sweet taste, it did not go well with the pretzel taste. I think I should have done it with American-style pretzels rather than German ones. I can really see these pretzels going well with mustard or garlic instead. Definitely more savoury pretzels. Oh well, a semi-disaster, but they're still edible.

Vegan Anzac Day Ice Cream Sandwich

redbeanpork suggested making ANZAC biscuit ice-cream sandwiches for ANZAC day. The recipe he linked was this: http://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/recipes/recipe-search/feature-recipe/2015/1/anzac-and-golden-syrup-ice-cream-sandwiches/, but I used the ANZAC biscuit recipe from http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/anzac-biscuits-2/8373f5a9-f47a-43b5-837e-8c32cc33f558 instead, as I've never heard of adding ginger to them. The ice cream is a modification on my modification of the Serious Eats vegan vanilla ice cream base, except I removed the granulated sugar, and increased the xylitol, because of the addition of the golden syrup.

Ingredients
Golden syrup ice-cream
400ml coconut cream
400ml soy milk
10g pea proten
6g xanthan gum
110g xylitol
176g golden syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

ANZAC biscuits
150g plain flour
90g rolled oats
85g desiccated coconut
100g brown sugar
55g caster sugar
125g butter (I used Nuttelex instead)
45g golden syrup (2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons water
1/2 tablespoon bi-carb soda



Method
Ice cream
1. Combine all ingredients except vanilla in a saucepan and whisk until it's mixed enough that the sugar and golden syrup aren't stuck to the bottom.. Heat over medium heat, whisking as you go to to help smooth out the lumps. Once it's smooth, and starts to simmer, remove from heat and cool in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

2. Prepare according to your ice-cream maker's instructions, then cool for at least 5 hours to harden.

ANZAC biscuits
1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, oats, coconut and sugars

3. In a small saucepan, combine the water, golden syrup, butter over medium heat until smooth. Add the bi-carb soda. It'll get all frothy.

4. Mix liquids into the floury, oaty mix.

5. Scoop 1 tablespoon balls into baking tray.

6. Flatten slightly until they're about 1cm thick.

7. Bake for 15 minutes - you don't want them to be too brown. Allow to cool. Pair off the biscuits into ones that are roughly the same shape and size.

Once ice-cream has hardened enough that it's scoopable, serve between two biscuits.

I couldn't wait that long for the ice-cream to harden, so that's why mine looks so melty. Still delicious though, so it'll be nicer once the ice-cream has hardened enough to scoop. I tried putting a baking paper collar around one, so that I could put the ice-cream in and freeze it. It didn't hold it very well.

The one from the top of the post is after the ice-cream had hardened in the freezer overnight so that it was scoopable.

Happy ANZAC day!

-------------------------------

Edit: Oops, forgot this part!

Today is the end of week 3:

Weight: 58.4 / 59.1 / 58.9 / 58.6
Waist: 74.5 / 75.5 / 75.5 / 74.5
Hips: 88 / 89 / 90.5 / 88.5
Bust: 89.5 / 91 / 89.5 / 90
Left thigh: 52.5 / 51.5 / 53 / 52.5
Left calf: 35.5 / 35.5 / 37 / 35.5
Right thigh: 53.5 / 53.5 / 54 / 53
Right calf: 36.5 / 36 / 36.5 / 35
Left bicep: 31 / 29 / 29  / 29
Right bicep: 30 / 29 / 30.5 / 30.5

Yesterday, I weighed in at 60.9, which is the first time I've been over 60 in a long time. It was actually pretty heartbreaking, as I feel like I've put in so much effort over the past few weeks, and the number kept getting higher and higher. But Easter was pretty bad, as I ate a lot. I can't even blame work being stressful, as it hasn't been. I really don't know why my weight keeps going up.

I almost felt like calling the whole thing off, but then I'd be letting GP down. Plus, I had to meet Pharmacist at the gym later in the day, and I didn't want to let him down, too. I guess that's the power of making a commitment with another person. But what does that say about me and my willpower? I really don't know what motivated me to go from 69 to 52 the first time I did it. Maybe part of it was that we just lived so close to the gym and I felt compelled to go. I had a regular routine of yoga, pilates and zumba classes, so it wasn't even about the weight back then, but just the routine of going.

I still don't really have a real goal I'm working towards now. I have the mini One-Punch Man thing, but even if I don't make it, I don't care. Pharmacist asked if I'm having a mid-life crisis, and I think maybe I am.

Well... this post got dark quickly!

Pandesal Bake-Off???

Both Roger and Michael's Filipino heritage resulted in a suggestion that we try the Filipino bread pandesal, which is Spanish for "salt bread", but it isn't really salty. I had never heard of it, but it was described as a kind of milk bread. Despite the fact that they look a bit like dinner rolls, they are usually eaten for breakfast or lunch, and you typically dip them in coffee.

I read through a few recipes, and some of the comments on this one from The Little Epicurean had comments saying it was just like the pandesal they remembered from the Philippines, so that was the one I picked.

I tried converting the recipe to metric instead, but I think I failed pretty miserably. The end bread tasted OK though. I don't have a mixer, so I had to knead it, and it was... an interesting experience. I didn't want to measure flour with cups, as it's inaccurate, so I looked up how much flour is in 1 cup, and it said 120g. But then the milk I measured with a measuring jug. ~_~ I'm amazing. Anyway, I think I ended up with too much liquid in my dough. Fortunately, the day before, I had stumbled upon this post on Seasoned Advice (the cooking Stack Exchange site): https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21675/why-stretch-and-fold-vs-traditional-kneading-of-bread-dough

TL;DR: Instead of kneading dough, you can stretch it out, and fold it over itself, rotate and do it again. Then let the dough rest for about 45 minutes, and repeat a few times. It's a technique used for high hydration doughs, because it's too sticky to knead properly. The stretching and resting allows the gluten bonds to form.

Ingredients
9.5g active dry yeast
1 1/4 cup whole milk, warmed to 37 degrees Celsius
360g plain flour
180g bread flour
1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
42g butter, room temp
1/3 cup white sugar
2 large eggs, lightly whisked
breadcrumbs

Makes 24 rolls.

Method
1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk with 2 tsp of the sugar. Leave for 5-10 minutes until the yeast has activated (you should be able to smell it, and it looks bubbly).

2. Whisk the flours and salt in a bowl (doesn't need to be that big as you'll be pouring this into the other mixture, just big enough to whisk it without spilling).

3. Mix the milky yeast in a large bowl with the sugar, egg and butter. The butter will be kinda lumpy in the mix, but that's OK, just try to mix it in a bit, but once you add the flour, it'll mix together.

4. Add the flour into the mix one third at a time. Mix together, it'll be super liquidy. Once it has all come together, put on to a lightly floured surface and "knead".

I put knead in quotation marks because the dough is so wet it's kinda hard. I ended up doing a weird attempt at stretch and fold. At the start, the dough was just a glob and too hard to stretch, so I had to kinda pull it up as much as I could without it breaking, and fold it over. I did this for a few minutes, until the dough started holding together enough for me to do this:

5. Once it starts to get smooth, put it in an oiled bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Place in a warm place to proof for an hour. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Before:

After:

6. Divide into 24 pieces, roll the top in breadcrumbs.

(I had some choc-chips that are going to go off in a month, so I mixed some in, but I know that's not traditional!)

Leave to proof for 20 minutes. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, until golden brown.

They were nice and soft on the inside, and the breadcrumbs made them slightly crunchy on the outside. Most of the posts said that if you don't get crumbs all over your shirt while eating these, then they're not real pandesal!

I found it was a bit burned on the bottom, and the author said to add a second sheet underneath to avoid that.

Next batch, I tried to make like hot cross buns, but unfortunately, I found the middle ones didn't cook as nicely as the ones on the edge..

But having the second sheet underneath did reduce the browning on the bottom.

As the comp was on a Monday, I figured I could leave some dough in the fridge overnight, and divide into pieces in the morning, and go for my run while the oven heats up. Surprisingly, this is what I woke up to in the morning.

I saw another recipe that suggested a different way of shaping the rolls: http://www.saveur.com/gallery/shaping-pan-de-sal

You stretch it out and roll it up like a long sausage, then make diagonal cuts in the sausage to make all the pieces. My dough was a bit too wet for that, unfortunately, and just got stuck to the counter.

So I divided it into two pieces and tried to do it with those.

Anyway, same process, coat the top with breadcrumbs and bake.

Unfortunately, Michael and MrBrioche didn't have time to bake this weekend, and Roger was working from home, so I ended up competing against myself. I've never had a pandesal before, so I wasn't sure what it is supposed to taste like. Michael said mine were too much like brioche. He said I needed more milk, but I think he meant less butter, as my dough was too wet to add much more milk. He also said that pandesal should be completely covered with breadcrumbs, not just the top.

On a side note: the choc-chip ones were delicious. The dough is slightly sweet, so the choc-chips add a nice touch. MrFodder confirms that the plain pandesal was delicious dipped in coffee, with the bread absorbing the liquid really well.

Unfortunately, the if you leave the rolls out, they become stale really quickly. The one I kept overnight in a container fared somewhat OK, but it was still not as nice as when it came out of the oven. I froze the leftover ones, not sure how they'll be, but we'll see!