Patiently waiting for the tide to pass!

  I didn't blog for quite some time now not because I was busy but because of electricity issues.  I usually blog at night, when my day is almost over and I feel like reflecting on what happened that day.  Its summer now, the humidity is awful and every air-conditioner in the neighborhood gets turned on at night.  In turn, it means that our poor electricity supply isn't sufficient and thus, we get low-voltages.  Even with an UPS, I'm unable to keep my system running because the voltage remains bad not just for half an hour, but for the entire night.

  Weirdly enough today, I'm on my old UPS and it has managed to survive for a little more than an hour now.  But on other days, I just switch off my system at 9pm to avoid frustration.  Even though there are dozens of channels on the television, I rarely find something worth watching.  But not to worry; if there is anything that I learned in Trivandrum, its that I still love to read books.  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is what I'm reading currently and it feels good to read books again.  I'm thinking of making it a habit to read books for at least an hour every night.

  The other topic that I wanted to touch upon today was Zion.  As you might probably know, Zion is the local cafe that belongs to my teammate.  For two weeks now, I have been trying to organize proper DotA matches at Zion.  There is no point in mindlessly playing the game like idiots.  We need to get organized, learn, practice, improve and evolve to become the best at whatever it is that we do.  To become the best in DotA, we must first play proper -cm mode drafted matches.  Surprisingly, I managed to pull that off and (most) people are now eager to play -cm and are even asking for it themselves.

  I thought it would be impossible to make em play proper matches and that if they did, they will eventually improve.  Sadly though, I was wrong.  It seems that it was the easier part.  To actually make them think is the tough part.  I'm not sure whether its the effect of World of Warcraft which they recently started playing or its just their nature, but they seem dumb.  There are one or two exceptions like Siva who has improved a lot and properly understood the game.  But others don't seem to understand even the basics.

  Its not even their lack of knowledge and talent that I hate.  Its their lack of ability to think.  I mean, DotA is not a mundane, slow, stupid game.  Its like a game of chess plus teamwork and agility.  You need to think; you need to think a lot in-fact.  You should have the ability to read and understand your situation so that you can adapt to it.  You need to communicate, think collectively, concentrate on whats important, prioritize and keep your nerve.  More than everything, you need the desire to improve.  Sadly, they don't seem to have any of these.

  Finally, I realize now that I really miss my team.  From a eight member team, we are now down to just the two of us, me and Praveen.  Raja joins us occasionally, but that is pretty much it.  To think that these people aren't even as smart as we were two years ago, is just sad.  The saddest truth of them all is that, till these players improve, I can't.