Well, I have pretty much dropped Quake 3 the day CXG ended in the wonderful world of Las Vegas, Nevada. I found it to be a fitting time to quit this great game with one of the greatest tournaments of 2004 at the time. That and the fact that Quake 3 was dead in my eyes, due to the fact that no tournaments were really gonna be around except ESWC and maybe QuakeCon. So it was pointless to continue playing when I should be focusing a bit on school instead. Then there happened to be two online tournaments ran by IONGamers (Tribute to Quake 3/Ides of March). I didn't have much motivation to prepare for them so I decided to just show up for them to merely play. Ended up winning both of them and raked in $3750 which came as a surprise to me.

Kind of sucks to spend so much time preparing for a tournament and TRYING to win, only to fall short or not close at all... and end up winning two tournaments when I really didn’t care much at all to win :P. Ahh well, perhaps that is my fate, or maybe I’m just really good online and just ok on LAN. I also got all A's in my classes this semester, so it was kind of nice to take a break. And by the way, CXG was awesome... I don't care what you think or read in the news, any event that has Gary Coleman, me owning zero4 in blackjack in a hotel room, and rigor winning hundreds of dollars combined for him/me/z4 in five different casinos in two hours is a successful event to me.

A normal day huh, well I’ve been taking classes here at a community college for the past 3-4 years getting all my transferable credits done for when I go to a University next spring. I’ve been taking classes every summer as well, so my days are off and on with studying. A few days/nights a week I’d be up studying with no time to spend playing games. Although, in my free time to play games I normally play poker on the weekends and some WC3 tower defence. I’d have to admit that a lot of my time is spent watching movies, shows and listening to music. I’m not a TV junkie as most expect of me (despite I love my Survivor/Alias/24/Shield/Sopranos), I like to watch a lot of movies :P. On the weekends when I have the most free time, I generally go to parties, play poker with friends, or LAN.

In the coming years ill be focusing on my school. I’ll be going into computer science of course :P. I don’t see myself dropping gaming at all, but I’d most likely be playing on a more casual level like I am now. Any other plans are up to fate to decide. Oh, and I plan on fulfilling my childhood dream of winning the CPL. What some has come and told me is the most unwinnable will be wrong… the CPL is beatable. QuakeCon is only three and a half hours away from me, so I'll be going no matter the game of choice. I'm hoping there will be a duelling game as usual, whether it is q3, qw, or doom3. And of course, I’ll be competing in whatever game is chosen.

To be honest, I have little to no idea whats going on with the USA team right now. As I understand it, combatcarl for the UT2K4 tournament is looking for a sponsor to make the trip, but with little to no luck and not sure what Infinite's status. But for the Quake 3 side of things, it looks dead. The only person I have talked to regarding anything is CZM. The top choices for representing America in my opinion are ZeRo4, CZM, cha0ticz, and me, however it seems like CZM is probably the only one to be able to make the trip despite the status of whether we can get sponsorship or not. I'm not sure what our team captain, Wheat, has been up to but I heard he was looking for sponsors a month or two back and nothing had turned up.

I've been hearing numerous rumors about possible mixes of players to attend, but in my opinion, theres no team in america that can be put together that can have the best chance at winning than those that mentioned above. We'll see what happens, despite the tournament is merely a month away. Currently, I can't afford the trip on my own. As of right now, I am unable to make the trip but I hope someone from the USA can make it and atleast give a decent showing.

People can think what they want honestly, but the only reason I'm playing painkiller is simply for the money. I find it funny when people shake their heads when someone plays merely for that. Those of you who follow tournaments or even play in them, aren't just your typical casual gamers. There are those who play for fun, competition, or money. I personally play for the competition and money alone. I never started playing Q3 because I thought it was fun, it was because I saw the competition behind it all and became even more appealing when I realized there were some prizes in the end. But, anyone who fly’s to a tournament from wherever and tells you "I just play for fun" is most definitely full of lies :).

Painkiller has one USA tournament right now, and that’s one more than quake 3 does. But painkiller wasn't my first choice of a replacement game; I was going to play some Call of Duty instead. The team that I was playing for was Team Clutch which featured the world's best CTF player: viju, world's greatest quake 3 player that lives in Boston: cha0ticz, my brother: jaguar, and some kid named cl0ck who plays q3ctf. Our fifth player was a mix of decka and the greatest Canadian gamer ever: gellehsak. Unfortunately, it turned out it was a failure... we disbanded after about a week and a half due to the fact of people just cant dedicate the time to learn and play as a team.

Was for the best, but luck was on my side, that very night we disbanded... CPL decided to up the signups for PK from 48 to 64. It was that moment there that I told myself I was going to be the greatest PK player ever... or at least in Texas. Although, I'm not dropping Quake 3 completely, just until the next tournament is announced. But for now I'll be focusing on painkiller as much as time permits me.