The dated, draining sounds of "Addicted to Love" drifted into my room from the living room, where my roommates sat watching Cocktail. Have you ever seen that movie? It's bunk. And so are my roommates. Sitting there, being social, picking the lice from each other's hairy backs. Snorting, grunting, like the pigs they are. Rolling around in a cesspool of filth, pussing, oozing, secreting.

I opened my door a crack and looked out at them. A slight draft of stale air swept over my face. Just by breathing the same air as them the acrid taste of bile crept into my mouth, and I shut the door with a slam. Not for the first time I fantasized about the many creative techniques I could 'remove' them with. A knife, maybe? Aimed between the shoulder blades as they waddle to the bathroom? Too messy. Poison, scattered across the compost in their feeding trough? Not messy enough. Letting out an audible sigh, I turned from the closed door and looked at the shrine. The Jesse voodoo doll lay twisted upon the altar, held together only by the myriad of pins stuck in his every joint and orifice. Then there were the pictures of Sarah and Ryan, slashed and chewed, their accusing, conspiring eyes glaring blankly from the bulletin board. I knew they planted those dirty dishes. And the pubic hair on the toilet seat.. too long to be mine. At times like these, there's only one thing to do: Supress the memories of my father beating me with a bible and log on to Bnet for some games of starcraft. As my modem dialed I could feel the psychotic urges receding, and by the time I was in channel Nohunters, life was just dandy.

Roqu was on, and he was looking for games. It's always nice when good players actually play rather than just sit in Clan -x17 and tell you to fuck off when you ask if they're playing any battle reportable games. Anyway, this lead to that, and I ended up watching a 1x1 game between Roqu and ][~Praetor~][. Watching with me was the very charismatic and respected KinSlayer(tm). Both players ended up with protoss, Roqu by chance, Prae by choice, and, as shown on the minimap, Roqu got the left start-spot on temple, and Prae warped in on the bottom. To kinslayer, a lot was at stake this game. He's a big Prae fan, and watching his idol lose could shatter his fragile grip on sanity. Despite the pressure, both players were very optimistic.

Roqu's goal with his build order was to power goon rush at the cost of faster reaver tech. To do this he warped in one gateway followed by an assimilator, a cybernetics core, and then a second gateway. He took a bit of a risk by building no zealots, but the issue of an early zealot rush never came up.

Prae's idea was to get a fast reaver to support his zealots and dragoons, who were being produced from only one gateway at first. His build order went gateway then assimilator, cybernetics core, robotics facility, support bay, and then second gateway.

Just as Prae's second gateway was finishing, Roqu struck. He had four dragoons to take on Prae's three zealots and a dragoon defense. He tried to run them up the ramp first, but the zealots blocked them and Prae's lone goon managed to get in a few free hits. Roqu ran back down the ramp and waited a moment for reinforcements. Then he tried to take the ramp again, but after taking a lot more than he could dish out, he retreated again, this time back further, near the minerals in Prae's natural expansion, where he waited for more reinforcements. At this point, Prae's reaver was on its way, and his second gateway had just joined the first in goon production, but he lacked the goon range upgrade. Roqu had more dragoons than his opponent, and he had the range up, so he was at a fairly signifigant advantage. After a few more attempts at the push up the ramp, Prae had no zealots and only three goons left, compared to Roqu's five. Just as Roqu's larger force managed to push its way up the ramp, Prae's shuttle-transported reaver arrived on the scene and started ramming scarabs down its enemy's throats. Roqu targeted the reaver and shuttle with his goons, and before dieing managed to take both of them out.

Prae managed to just barely squeeze by thanks to his reaver, but by losing it in the battle he also lost the chance to drop Roqu's probes. He was left with nothing but a few fresh goons after the fight, and Roqu only lost a few of his growing number of soldiers. Because Prae was "In a world of hurt," Roqu decided to press his advantage conservatively and expand to his natural while Prae had nothing to challenge him with.

By the time Prae got his next shuttled reaver together, Roqu had one of his own, which he decided to use right away in a drop on his enemy's probes. Roqu flew in and dropped in sight of the probes but far enough back that Prae's cannon-defense was no threat. As soon as Roqu landed, one of Prae's scarabs slammed into it. The scarab exchange was on. After Prae shot the warning scarab, he picked up his reaver, so Roqu took aim at the nearby probe line and sent a handful of the little robotic bastards to little robotic bastard hell. As soon as that shot was off, Prae landed and fired again. Roqu's reaver had taken heavy damage at this point, and so the shuttle was flown nearby to take it away. Not quickly enough, though. Prae landed one more fatal shot to the fleeing reaver, and the fight was over.

The dragoons Roqu sent to his expansion encountered Prae first. In this skirmish, Prae's goons killed most of Roqu's before he set the reavers down. Roqu ran what was left toward the center to regroup, and Prae let them go; his focus was destroying his enemy's base, not hunting injured robots. Prae was now just outside of Roqu's natural, and after a brief pause to let the rest of his army catch up, he charged in and dropped the reavers. Roqu had no reavers here, and his goons were both fewer and weaker; Prae had upgraded to +1 attack and range, and roqu had nothing but range. Trying to sandwich the attackers, Roqu's goons from the center of the map ran in. These reinforcements ate heavy scarabs before being fininshed by Prae's goons. Prae won here and destroyed the natural exp.

Kinslayer and I were both pretty surprised by Prae's success, because Roqu had a considerably larger army and a good defensive position. What made the difference is that Roqu split his army and didn't upgrade fast enough. The latter is the same thing that beat down Prae early on, when Roqu tried to rush up his ramp. He was almost successful because his goons had better range than Prae's. The reaver Roqu sent to help cannon in Prae's natural was needed at home when Prae attacked as well. Cannoning the natural was a bad idea considering how Prae had yet to expand. He could have just expanded elsewhere. If Roqu had played more adaptively he would have done better.

After his natural fell, the game was pretty much over. There was a little resistance as Prae bulldozed up the ramp and to the heart of Roqu's main, but nothing serious enough to make Prae consider retreating.

Oh, and the first of the releases from the shandy files are coming soon.. Keep an eye out, and get ready to meet shandy and spunk! And hey, something looks wrong with my pics.. how can I make them look better? Any ideas at all?