Got in a few more games with Taric yesterday.  Managed to get an S+ on him in 1 game.  That game I had an adc that understood his kit.  Immediately after that I had a draven that decidedly did not understand his kit - guy might was well have been throwing feathers instead of axes.  

Anyway, then I hooked up w/ some buds.  Played 1 game with PDT, hunny, and bryff.  PDT wasn't on board with voice chat and was kind of in his afk doing stuff world, so we gave him the boot after a game.  Hunny was leaning heavy towards tilt, so was probably the best move.  Anyway, Bryff ended up supporting me and did a really great job in that game, but we lost due to some shenanigans.  The next game I was just smeh.  My support forced me to blow my heal within the 1st 2 minutes for no good reason and then I did not play well enough to compensate.  I could have done so much better but played like poop lord.  I was a little tilt leaning, but nothing too bad. I really need to refocus on that whole "i'm choosing to play in this elo" thing.  Me expecting anything good out of my support was not good.  I needed to be better.  

jeeze o pete I was getting so salty last night.  We got in a few games with that new fella I mentioned a few days back... unfortunately, every single game of late that he's with us, someone in our group ends up tilting and stopping world hunger.  Didn't really enjoy my games all that much yesterday.  Was just kind of a low elo feed fest.  One game was nice in which we ended up stomping a team that sent their mid bot to gank like 8 times.  Always feels good to do well enough with that much pressure.  But bleh - I was not enjoying things.  And I feel bad as I want the new fella to get to plat and us to get some games in.  Played 1 game on my main and that was rough.  Should not have done that...

Anyway, hoping to refocus tonight and have some fun.  Way too tilted over crap last night.  

It recently occurred to me that I should start a team of folks that are all 1TPs.  My goal is to have to forfeit in champ select.   I think I was a little slow on the uptake initially w/ one of our newer pals.  Did not realize we were adding a 3rd 1TP.  Kind of funny anyway. Just something to keep in mind if you play with our pal beetle - guy can play poppy and skarner top - jungles if needed - gold lv player that is very hungry for plat.

Anyway, I think I should pull back the curtain a little bit on some things that I haven't discussed publicly as there were/are some bad feelings there.  Hopefully, I can help sort that out. So, a lot of this has its root in some discussions I had with thunder a little while back... I think I'll go way far back and move us through to today to hopefully clear many things up.  

So, as you know, quite a few of us used to shoot the shite on this blog/forum.  Eventually that devolved in many ways to just folks trying to troll/get a rise out of each other.  Some of that was on me, quite a bit was on a few others.  I think I subtlety and occasionally very directly made it clear that I'd rather not be doing that sort of thing here.  Personally, I'd rather have a conversation with myself than have folks randomly pop in to try to egg me on.  Or have the same old tired discussions here and there.  As such, this blog has reverted more to a commentary about what I'm up to, etc, and its just something I enjoy posting to and taking stock of things.  Folks are still welcome to jibber jabber as they like, but days of folks just tuning in for some trollish drama are hopefully in the rear view mirror.  

So, let's move forward a bit.  Thunder and I have a bit of a falling out.  The long and the short of that whole falling out is that I caused that guy more than a little agita.  It kind of got to the point where, while being a real nice guy, he ended up festering quite a few negative feelings towards me that were... I guess a little troublesome is an ok way to put it.  Now, I can, quite easily explain how he got to where he was with me and I understand that.  All said and done, though, I really got under his skin and I don't think it was a healthy thing for him or me.  Anyway, I don't have any ill will towards him nor do I fault him in any way for how he felt, etc.  We had some behind the scenes discussion about all this stuff.

All of this ties heavily into the way I'm viewing the game, things I'm doing, and some of my posts.  And if you can read between the lines, a lot of it is related to me focusing on self improvement, figuring out how to not be toxic, etc.

So, now to address a few things:

1. Why am I'm not using team speak anymore?  I think its better to have more of a clean break from thunder.  I'd really rather not create anything more uncomfortable for him or me, so I thought it was best to find another option.  This also avoids some awkwardness. Anyway, I landed on using curse voice - which I was glad to learn actually has a decent web client now, so you can just click a link and join a call without downloading the app.
2. Why am I not playing with X person?  This ones a little more tricky to address without going into a case by case basis, but I can start with a simple question?  What causes me to be toxic and/or go on tilt and how can I avoid that?  Then going further, do I play with folks that trigger that behavior on a very frequent basis?  For instance, the other day I was commenting and "thinking aloud" about my current thoughts on PDT - all as it related to me tilting.  Is it healthy or smart for me to play with certain individuals or they with me?  My thought is no, its not.  So, taking breaks is smart.  
3. Clubs are silly - membership does not impact my view of folks.  Don't know that I ever brought this up - just tossing in out.  

One big take away from that 2nd point - I'm not trying to be mean or malicious to folks.  I actually genuinely like everyone I play with or have played with on a regular basis. But I think its smart to take a break from certain folks and I really don't want folks to think I'm not tossing out invites because of some ill will towards them.  If I think there's really good odds that playing with X person will set me off or if I'm already wound up, then I'll either play with folks that don't mind that sort of thing or just play PUGs solo.  None of that is intended as a screw you to folks.  I think moderation is best in some instances - not just for me, but for some folks that I play with and if we trigger each other.   I'm paying a lot of attention to certain behaviors that i have around certain folks and thinking through why - then evaluating if I should go into moderation, what i should address with x person, and so on.  

Anyway, hope this clears a few things up.

Rito servers having problems tonight it seems... :/

Glad you checked in hedgie - still working for same place since Amazon?  I haven't really gotten into ashes as of yet - might not ever.  Kind of fun, but hasn't really hooked me.  re; the card games, nopers - i know a few the other folks do still.  Used to love SOASE for games with pals... been a long time since I've played that one.  

edit - playing on LAN while the server issues get sorted.  Looks like they have a fix now, but need to deploy + login queue fun.

That's great re: getting married. Grats!  

Cow - do you do any coding?  Didn't know you did any programming. So are you unemployed now?  I generally think its smart to have a another job lined up before you quit something, so hopefully you socked away some savings for a bit.  Anyway, hope all is well there.  

That's cool you've got a bit of a passion project going w/ the text game.  Sounds like you are enjoying the experiment at the least and hopefully you'll have something really cool to show for it when its done.  

@hedige - yeah I totally get the feeling of punishment if you can only play like 5-6 game a lol a month.  Barely enough time to keep up with things, grasp the change notes, etc.  Bleh.  Glad you are having fun doing other things though.

Well great!

God bless

https://www.livecap.tv/t/loltyler1/uaAKR74dFJ2

Kind of have a love hate thing going for the drake changes.  Really glad its going to be a real objective again.

I really think this patch is going to be a giant cluster.  Doubt I'll play much ranked on my main while I figure it out unless I find some silly cheese.  Whole lot of changes, though.  Going to have to look up champs to figure out what they do now, figure out wtf is going on with the items (some passives don't exactly sound like the clarity team remembered they were a clarity team on).

I wonder how many folks are needed to get RH now and when... will drakes be hotly contested early or only if its a certain drake?  The timers on drakes spawning might make rushing them very desirable.  Are split pushes suddenly better is rushing getting them RH a huge deal?  What items are broke, if any?

Bans are going to get silly.  We know who we are banning now.  Well guess what... not enough bans do that and try to counter whatever comes out as very strong, so we'll be seeing raka again at least.  Anyway, lots of stuff.  Worth reading the patch notes.. it will take you awhile to get through them all

Patch imo looks pretty bad for tanks.

zyra feels better and is more fun to play.  They coded rift herald properly on her plants, so there is no easy solo op.  It's actually quite difficult to solo even fed.  The rng to her plant spawns is a fun mini game, but also rng and therefore not really reliable.  I like the added power on her ult with the plant dmg buff.  She doesn't really shine imo.  Nowhere near the level that malz does. 

tried velkoz - i suck with him.  Didn't notice anything awesome.  I know his ult is supposed to be stronger with follow up attacks anyway.  

swain felt kind of meh to me - big power spike with some of the new items, but feels really poop in lane.

brands passive with the 12% + hp crap works on jungle camps and epic monsters.  And his ult targets champs very similar to how it did before they fixed it (remember the ol brand support crap we had for a bit?  probably back).  Also, low AP and still big dmg 

Didn't get to play Brand....

I think Vlad is a huge lane bully now. Not sure how his team fight is sort of mixed results in the game I played against him. 

Swain seems strong in lane probably can 1v1 anyone except Vlad (sustain to great). Need level 6 though.