Dota 2 and LoL - Which to play?

I'm a big fan of League of Legends, right now it's definitely the game I play the most on a daily basis. I'm also a fan of Dota 2, not so much to the same degree of LoL, but at times I feel compelled enough to play it and most of the time I have fun. Most of the time. You see, although LoL and Dota 2 are essentially (at a basic level) the same game with a few dissimilarities here and there, the reason that I prefer LoL to Dota 2 is simply because Dota 2 is an unforgiving demon that repeatedly spanks you for any and every blunder one makes.

It might just be me being a massive newbie, but honestly whenever I build up enough courage to play another game of Dota with my friends, some new mechanic is introduced to me (through hero abilities) that makes me question why I wasn't just playing League. For example, yesterday a group of friends and I hopped into a game late at night, I picked Anti-Mage because at the time I was compelled to vanquish the magic using scum.

Anyway, one of the enemy heroes, Sniper, showed me something that I had yet to see before in a game; that he could out-range towers. Seriously, how is that not broken? No amount of teleport scrolls can save our base from that. Not to mention that whilst playing Anti-Mage (aka Blink n' Stab Man) I could basically jump into a fight, use my ultimate on anything that moved, get a kill and then blink out.

It's like every single hero in Dota 2 has some aspect about them that's amazing, which I guess balances it all out to a degree, but when you're terrible at the game like I am it's unforgiving. I so much as move my camera and I get murdered; really, up to mid game even the creeps take me down to half HP if I stand there for more than 5 seconds. (But then I ate a tree and it was okay)

Not to say that it isn't amusing to running around with a Battlefury murderising entire hoards of enemies, but I feel like unless I build nothing but HP I die immediately.

And then there's LoL, casual and noob friendly, mistakes are practically rewarded. With the addition of summoners spells to the original Dota formula, more specifically 'flash' (blink), it becomes a lot more okay to make a mistake or two. I think that's why I prefer LoL, because it gives you that helping hand. If you make a mistake, then you could come out of it without losing your life. Really the only time you go down is if you're genuinely being outplayed or when you have an aneurism and fall onto your keyboard. Which is good. The only way for you to get this helping hand in Dota is if you farm enough gold for a blink dagger or if your hero has blink as an ability.

Regardless really I'll still play both games, they're both fun to an extent (if I see one more Riki in my Dota games I'm going to uninstall it). Though, regardless of what people think about difficulty of play and all that jazz, I'll play LoL a lot more, and so will many other people.

 Magic sucks.

Do I even lift?

Going to the gym has got to be one of the best decisions I've made this year. Not only has it given me hours of entertainment, but it's also made my body slightly more appealing to look at. I've been going to the gym for about 10 months now, give or take a few weeks. Throughout this year I've been attending a small, local gym by the name of 'David's Gym', quite humble in nature and also very small in size. (but awesome nonetheless)

I mentioned in my first post that I haven't been going to the gym for the last few weeks due to my gym partner, the scoundrel, taking off to Thailand. On top of that I went on a bit of a binge with alcohol for about a week. To be fair it was with a large group of people, but I think it might have hurt my body just a little bit more than I wanted. It's going to be very interesting to return to gym and see how these past few weeks have affected my lifts.

As of the last time I was there, my main lifts were at (1RM):
Squat: 115kg
Bench: 80kg
Deadlift: 125kg
OHP: 52.5kg

Compared to when I started out, I think I'm doing alright for a 6'0', 70kg guy (do I even lift?).

But really I'm looking forward to getting back to it asap. Self improvement is something I take great pride in, not to mention I've missed the fun times I spent with my friends while we were there. Gym is really an experience that you should spend with you friends, otherwise it gets old very quickly. It's also nice to have someone you know spotting you when you're trying out your 1RM bench. I'm not sure I trust that many people in my gym with my life; other than my bros of course.

Looking forward to keeping this blog updated with my progress, among other things.

Why Borderlands 2 makes me feel like a little girl

So today after an elongated break of about 2 months, one of my friends and I decided to rekindle our lost love for Borderlands 2. Unfortunately back in the day as we played in the hopes of reaching level 50 our journey was cut short by assessment periods. Now that it's all over we once again have time available to play to our hearts content; however, our hearts weren't quite ready for what was in store.

Anyway, we hopped onto our level 38 commando and assassin respectively and launched back into the world of Pandora. Our focus was really on the main quest as we wanted to grind our way to level 50 as fast as possible, and if that means excruciating battle after excruciating battle then so be it. Since we basically avoided side quests all together our levels were far below that of the enemies we fought in the main story.

After about 50 minutes of getting our asses kicked we simply rage quit and left the game in the dust. I don't think I've ever felt so terrible playing a game in my life, nothings worse than using 700 bullets from a 1000 damage machine gun to drop a minor enemy robot to half health, only for it to one hit you and make you die and lose $20,000.

Maybe one day I'll play you again, Borderlands 2, maybe.

I hate robots.

Where to start...

Well, where to start, for a while now I've had a relatively strong interest in the blogging world. I've spent many a night trudging through an array of different blogs to do with my interests, and many more which I still wonder why I even read them.

At this point in my life I've scored more free time than at any other time I can remember, and what I've realised about having free time is that it isn't as great as I once thought. Really, with the exception of the countless hours of video games I've played in the time I've had so far, I can't remember doing a single memorable thing.

Other than gaming my only other real passion is going to the gym, and I enjoy it as more of a social experience than anything. With your friends by your side it's really very worthwhile and I would encourage everyone to do it. Unfortunately for me however my gym buddy decided to run off to Thailand with his girlfriend for a few weeks. Really that ruined my motivation. He returns from his trip this coming weekend, and when that time comes I'm going to jump back into routine.

A close friend of mine once told me that the most important thing in life was the height a person could jump. Really he did love talking about how large his vertical leap was, and it did matter to him. I didn't care though, honestly. But everyone does need something to aim for, and I respect that friend for having a good time in reaching those goals of his.

So that's probably what this blog will be about I guess, goals/aspirations/dreams whatever you want to call them, big or small, I'll share them. If I don't, well, I might die from the massive amount of mediocrity that's been piled onto me from the stretch of holidays I'm about to 'enjoy'. Looking forward to posting more. Cool.