HonestTea Profile Blog Joined December 2005 5007 Posts Last Edited: 2007-11-05 06:41:03 #1

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What do it mean when you dream that you fallin'

What do it mean when you dream that you ballin'

What do it mean when you never dream at all then

And you don't really know cause you can't recall them

It's sorta fly you get a chance to say hi to

People you never got a chance to say bye to

Maybe you could pull em up outta your dreams

Into real life, if you try to

So close, but so far

And so far, no cigar

We can't dwell on the past all we got is today

— Kanye West



Only Until Midnight

by HonestTea

TeamLiquid: Final Edits





If you haven't noticed, the following events happened in the last month.



Warning: If you are pregnant or elderly, it is highly recommended that you do not continue reading.



— July was eliminated from MSL by a Terran who, three months ago, I did not know existed.



— GoRush was taken out by the same motherfucking Terran who took out July.



— Nada's OSL/MSL losing streak has now entered double digits.



— Oov, once unbeatable at TvT, can't beat any non-Nada Terran.



— Garimto was rustier than Chernobyl in his comeback loss.



— Yellow has become a glorified cheerleader, which led to a thread aptly (yet sadly) titled "What does Yellow do?" in the Forum. (What does he do? He's just a fan with the best seat in the house.)



— Boxer lost against Magma, a second tier Zerg on a third tier team. Not only did he lose, but he lost while attempting proxy rax to bunker rush. Of all people, Boxer should be able to do that one-handed, right? NOPE! It was the most pathetic bunker rush ever. Magma (who?) just ran his speedlings past the poorly built contain, straight to Boxer's main for the GG. (At that moment, Yellow, who is watching the match at home while listening to Avril Lavigne's new CD, turns off the TV. He flings a bottle of cognac to the wall, where it shatters. He then crawls into bed, hides under the blankets, draws his knees close to his chest, and weeps).



— Reach showed us vintage 2003-style PvZ as he put up an uninspiring display en route to crashing down to offline qualifiers.



You guys still there? Everyone ok? Ok.



You know what the real crazy thing is though? I wasn't hurt much by any of those events. No, I'm too numb now. I have wrapped myself in so much cynicism and doubt that it doesn't hurt me that my old heroes, these iconic towers of progaming, are now losing left and right. I don't wish upon any stars no more, I don't talk to my imaginary friends no more, and I don't believe in the old StarCraft heroes no more. I can't afford to.







This league now has many wonderful players like Bisu, Savior, and Hwasin. Anytime, Stork, Free, Iris... hell - all you need to do is check out the



Blame the influx of young 'uns. Blame Kespa and the ridiculous five-days-a-week Proleague. Blame growing up. Blame the military. Blame Rekrul. Blame whatever you want. But the reality is that the old guard are simply not competitive any more. And that's the truth, Ruth.



But the real, hidden, so-deep-within-my-heart-I-don't-want-to-face-it-truth is that... even though I joke about it, even though I laugh at his pathetic PvZ... under all the snark, under the sarcasm, beneath the doubt and the sneering and the low expectations is a tiny bit of HOPE that I'm trying to ignore and when Reach starts to win again it will slowly melt all my cynicism until he makes the quarterfinals, then the semis, and I will drop all pretensions and allow myself to wholeheartedly cheer for Reach







But for now?



No. My Protoss hopes are with Bisu and Fall!Anytime. Instead of Yellow, Savior. Instead of Boxer, Sea.



Once upon a time, it wasn't like that. I used to believe in Yellow and Reach, just like I used to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. I used to believe, no, I knew that Yellow, Reach and Boxer were the Justice League, and whoever they were playing that week were evil enslaving zombies from outer space. When Boxer showed me quantum physics, when Yellow went for the neck and didn't let go, when Reach ran straight into a containment and warriored his way through, I would feel blessed: my faith justified, my fandom re-affirmed. But as I watched more games, I learned to see in terms of strategies and angles, to watch each match as a fine-tuned exercise of unit supply and APM. I began to see the flow of the game in terms of



I'm glad that I know the game better now. I'm a better fan now that I can objectively judge each players' strengths and weaknesses.



And it saves me a lot of grief. Why? Because those motherfuckers broke my heart. Not in the way that Yukie Chang broke my heart in 10th grade, but more like the way my mom broke my heart when she told me, "No HonestTea, you can't walk through that wardrobe because there is no Narnia." (YOU MAY HAVE GAVE BIRTH TO ME BUT I KNOW YOU ARE LYING! LYING!) When I saw Boxer screw up that bunker rush, I had to stand up, leave my desk, and go outside to look up at the sky. That was just because the general principle of it was so damn sad. Imagine how broken I would have been if I actually was rooting for Boxer.



Because when I see Yellow it reminds me that July might never win that Golden Mouse, that I may never see IntoTheRainbow again. It reminds me that someday, even Savior and Bisu will stop being bulletproof. Yellow's dumb presence at the KTF bench every game only serves to haunt me, an all-too-obvious example of mortality. He is a breathing, walking, memento mori.







I mean, this is fucking Yellow we're talking about here! We need to step outside for a moment, because we should remember that once upon a time, Yellow was straight unstoppable. It's amazing how easy it is to forget, especially these days, but dude once ripped everyone else to shreds like Wolverine+War Machine. He was the only hope for Zerg when it once seemed impossible, the last defender of an entire race before the likes of July and Savior. Now I have to watch him smile like an idiot on the KTF bench?



What really makes me sad is when I think back to their recent last hurrahs. Boxer, Yellow, Reach... I find that I don't look back at the glorious moments, moments like Yellow winning King of Kings. No, I think back to Shinhan Season 1, when Yellow came back from nowhere, tore through the group stages and climbed to the semis only to lose to Casy in five close games. I didn't realize it then, but I may have been watching Yellow's last combustion. He was burning up all he had left, and I didn't know.







Which brings my attention to Nal_Ra. As we all know, Nal_Ra is in the MSL quarterfinals, and he will face Xellos to move to the next stage. This may be his last stand, his Battle of Thermopylae. He's going to break my heart too. And it's going to be worse than ever before, because of all the old heads, Nal_Ra was the one who could last forever. He just understood the game better than any other pro.



Boxer was innovative, but his genius was exclusive for himself. Everyone else had no hope of emulating him. Yellow's trademark Storm Zerg style was more of an attitude than a strategy. Reach was man of courage, not a thinker. But Nal_Ra... If Boxer's the Einstein kind of genius, then Nal_Ra is Thomas Alva Edison. His accomplishments include:

—standardizing forge-first FE PvZ

—standardizing the basic PvT pattern during 2004-2005 (with assist from ForU)

—teaching other Protoss how to optimize cannon rushes.

—and so many more little things.



Nal_Ra gave the rest of his race brain-bursting yet learnable build orders. He is a teacher who demonstrated his genius in simple steps.







With that same genius, he has lasted longer than his peers. He is still fighting in the MSL, still fighting for relevancy. He is forcing me to cheer for him. And despite my best instincts, despite all the defense mechanisms I have built to this point, I find myself rooting for him once again.



If Bisu beats Savior, I will jump up and cheer, I might do a fist pump, and I'll say things like "Ha! You still cannot solve Bisu's amazing multitask skills! Yeah! Corsair sucka!!" I will be happy. My happiness will be greater than if I had watched a good movie, but it will be less than if I had bought a new pair of fresh sneakers. Bisu winning in the finals will make me content.



But the undeniable truth is, if Nal_Ra somehow beats Xellos, then beats Bisu, then beats Savior, I will be screaming NINTENDO SIXTY FOOUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR~! at the top of my lungs, once again a child on Christmas morning. A child who is simply happy to be at that exact moment when everything makes sense, and all is right with the world.



But it's not going to happen. I have to convince myself that it's not going to happen.



I don't know if progaming is sport. Honestly, I don't give a shit. What I do know is that basic concept of spectator sports is the same concept behind any high-level competition of skill, whether it be gymnastics, chess, or making love. Which is to give everybody a level playing field, so that the player or team with the most skill prevails. Thus, sports is too communist and too capitalist for me to believe in miracles any more.



Sports have taught me that in the end, the higher skill will prevail. Sure, there will be a few upsets, but in the long run the better guys are gonna win. The underdog might catch the favorite on a bad day, or he might pull his shit together for the game of his life, or maybe he sees that 99% perfect girl in the stands which awakes something higher within him and takes him to the astral plane. But in the long run? In a tournament? Clock will always strike 12, the luxurious limo turns back into a pumpkin, the chauffeur turns back into Master Splinter, and your Vera Wang turns back into the dirty rags you were using to scrub the floor.







I'd rather that Nal_Ra float away after achieving his personal brilliance, like Johnny Livingston the Seagull. Instead, he will break my heart, joining his other old school brethren, and linger to haunt me.



Sports has taught me that miracles don't really happen. If your skill is worse, your ass will get beat. And if you stick around, hoping for that last flash of glory, you'll just get beat worse. Rocky Balboa is fiction.















.

.

.





...but sports has also taught me that perhaps, just perhaps, an aging vet can keep it together and elevate his play, sustain it for just a long enough stretch of time,







If you haven't noticed, the following events happened in the last month.If you are pregnant or elderly, it is highly recommended that you do not continue reading.— July was eliminated from MSL by a Terran who, three months ago, I did not know existed.— GoRush was taken out by the same motherfucking Terran who took out July.— Nada's OSL/MSL losing streak has now entered double digits.— Oov, once unbeatable at TvT, can't beat any non-Nada Terran.— Garimto was rustier than Chernobyl in his comeback loss.— Yellow has become a glorified cheerleader, which led to a thread aptly (yet sadly) titled "What does Yellow do?" in the Forum. (What does he do? He's just a fan with the best seat in the house.)— Boxer lost against Magma, a second tier Zerg on a third tier team. Not only did he lose, but he lost while attempting proxy rax to bunker rush. Of all people, Boxer should be able to do that one-handed, right? NOPE! It was the most pathetic bunker rush ever. Magma (who?) just ran his speedlings past the poorly built contain, straight to Boxer's main for the GG. (At that moment, Yellow, who is watching the match at home while listening to Avril Lavigne's new CD, turns off the TV. He flings a bottle of cognac to the wall, where it shatters. He then crawls into bed, hides under the blankets, draws his knees close to his chest, and weeps).— Reach showed us vintage 2003-style PvZ as he put up an uninspiring display en route to crashing down to offline qualifiers.You guys still there? Everyone ok? Ok.You know what the real crazy thing is though? I wasn't hurt much by any of those events. No, I'm too numb now. I have wrapped myself in so much cynicism and doubt that it doesn't hurt me that my old heroes, these iconic towers of progaming, are now losing left and right. I don't wish upon any stars no more, I don't talk to my imaginary friends no more, and I don't believe in the old StarCraft heroes no more. I can't afford to.This league now has many wonderful players like Bisu, Savior, and Hwasin. Anytime, Stork, Free, Iris... hell - all you need to do is check out the Power Rank to see that there is a great amount of talent and character in the League. With so many exciting players giving their all, serving us spectacular matches every week, I just can't afford to hitch my hopes on the older generation. I'm not going to teach my grandmother how to send a text message, and I'm not going to wait for Kingdom to return to the starleagues.Blame the influx of young 'uns. Blame Kespa and the ridiculous five-days-a-week Proleague. Blame growing up. Blame the military. Blame Rekrul. Blame whatever you want. But the reality is that the old guard are simply not competitive any more. And that's the truth, Ruth.But the real, hidden, so-deep-within-my-heart-I-don't-want-to-face-it-truth is that... even though I joke about it, even though I laugh at his pathetic PvZ... under all the snark, under the sarcasm, beneath the doubt and the sneering and the low expectations is a tiny bit of HOPE that I'm trying to ignore and when Reach starts to win again it will slowly melt all my cynicism until he makes the quarterfinals, then the semis, and I will drop all pretensions and allow myself to wholeheartedly cheer for ReachBut for now?No. My Protoss hopes are with Bisu and Fall!Anytime. Instead of Yellow, Savior. Instead of Boxer, Sea.Once upon a time, it wasn't like that. I used to believe in Yellow and Reach, just like I used to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. I used to believe, no, Ithat Yellow, Reach and Boxer were the Justice League, and whoever they were playing that week were evil enslaving zombies from outer space. When Boxer showed me quantum physics, when Yellow went for the neck and didn't let go, when Reach ran straight into a containment and warriored his way through, I would feel blessed: my faith justified, my fandom re-affirmed. But as I watched more games, I learned to see in terms of strategies and angles, to watch each match as a fine-tuned exercise of unit supply and APM. I began to see the flow of the game in terms of management and threat I'm glad that I know the game better now. I'm a better fan now that I can objectively judge each players' strengths and weaknesses.And it saves me a lot of grief. Why? Because those motherfuckers broke my heart. Not in the way that Yukie Chang broke my heart in 10th grade, but more like the way my mom broke my heart when she told me, "No HonestTea, you can't walk through that wardrobe because there is no Narnia." (YOU MAY HAVE GAVE BIRTH TO ME BUT I KNOW YOU ARE LYING! LYING!) When I saw Boxer screw up that bunker rush, I had to stand up, leave my desk, and go outside to look up at the sky. That was just because the general principle of it was so damn sad. Imagine how broken I would have been if I actually was rooting for Boxer.Because when I see Yellow it reminds me that July might never win that Golden Mouse, that I may never see IntoTheRainbow again. It reminds me that someday, even Savior and Bisu will stop being bulletproof. Yellow's dumb presence at the KTF bench every game only serves to haunt me, an all-too-obvious example of mortality. He is a breathing, walking, memento mori.I mean, this is fucking Yellow we're talking about here! We need to step outside for a moment, because we should remember that once upon a time, Yellow was straight unstoppable. It's amazing how easy it is to forget, especially these days, but dude once ripped everyone else to shreds like Wolverine+War Machine. He was the only hope for Zerg when it once seemed impossible, the last defender of an entire race before the likes of July and Savior.What really makes me sad is when I think back to their recent last hurrahs. Boxer, Yellow, Reach... I find that I don't look back at the glorious moments, moments like Yellow winning King of Kings. No, I think back to Shinhan Season 1, when Yellow came back from nowhere, tore through the group stages and climbed to the semis only to lose to Casy in five close games. I didn't realize it then, but I may have been watching Yellow's last combustion. He was burning up all he had left, and I didn't know.Which brings my attention to Nal_Ra. As we all know, Nal_Ra is in the MSL quarterfinals, and he will face Xellos to move to the next stage. This may be his last stand, his Battle of Thermopylae. He's going to break my heart too. And it's going to be worse than ever before, because of all the old heads, Nal_Ra was the one who could last forever. He just understood the game better than any other pro.Boxer was innovative, but his genius was exclusive for himself. Everyone else had no hope of emulating him. Yellow's trademark Storm Zerg style was more of an attitude than a strategy. Reach was man of courage, not a thinker. But Nal_Ra... If Boxer's the Einstein kind of genius, then Nal_Ra is Thomas Alva Edison. His accomplishments include:—standardizing forge-first FE PvZ—standardizing the basic PvT pattern during 2004-2005 (with assist from ForU)—teaching other Protoss how to optimize cannon rushes.—and so many more little things.Nal_Ra gave the rest of his race brain-bursting yet learnable build orders. He is a teacher who demonstrated his genius in simple steps.With that same genius, he has lasted longer than his peers. He is still fighting in the MSL, still fighting for relevancy. He is forcing me to cheer for him. And despite my best instincts, despite all the defense mechanisms I have built to this point, I find myself rooting for him once again.If Bisu beats Savior, I will jump up and cheer, I might do a fist pump, and I'll say things like "Ha! You still cannot solve Bisu's amazing multitask skills! Yeah! Corsair sucka!!" I will be happy. My happiness will be greater than if I had watched a good movie, but it will be less than if I had bought a new pair of fresh sneakers. Bisu winning in the finals will make me content.But the undeniable truth is, if Nal_Ra somehow beats Xellos, then beats Bisu, then beats Savior, I will be screaming NINTENDO SIXTY FOOUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR~! at the top of my lungs, once again a child on Christmas morning. A child who is simply happy to be at that exact moment when everything makes sense, and all is right with the world.But it's not going to happen. I have to convince myself that it's not going to happen.I don't know if progaming is sport. Honestly, I don't give a shit. What I do know is that basic concept of spectator sports is the same concept behind any high-level competition of skill, whether it be gymnastics, chess, or making love. Which is to give everybody a level playing field, so that the player or team with the most skill prevails. Thus, sports is too communist and too capitalist for me to believe in miracles any more.Sports have taught me that in the end, the higher skill will prevail. Sure, there will be a few upsets, but in the long run the better guys are gonna win. The underdog might catch the favorite on a bad day, or he might pull his shit together for the game of his life, or maybe he sees that 99% perfect girl in the stands which awakes something higher within him and takes him to the astral plane. But in the long run? In a tournament? Clock will always strike 12, the luxurious limo turns back into a pumpkin, the chauffeur turns back into Master Splinter, and your Vera Wang turns back into the dirty rags you were using to scrub the floor.I'd rather that Nal_Ra float away after achieving his personal brilliance, like Johnny Livingston the Seagull. Instead, he will break my heart, joining his other old school brethren, and linger to haunt me.Sports has taught me that miracles don't really happen. If your skill is worse, your ass will get beat. And if you stick around, hoping for that last flash of glory, you'll just get beat worse. Rocky Balboa is fiction. Deuk-Ku Kim is non-fiction....but sports has also taught me that perhaps, just perhaps, an aging vet can keep it together and elevate his play, sustain it for just a long enough stretch of time, and... What happens to a dream deferred?



Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?



Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.









Or does it explode?

returns upon momentous occasions.