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@ over mcccxxxvii

The Reds won tonight. To all of you for whom only the declaration of the respective winner is of meaning in a writeup, the Redeye Writing Team wishes you a good day. For those of you who fight the urge to retreat from lengthy treatises and instead choose to journey deeper into the text, the Writing Team commends you and promises a fair amount of intrigue.

Since it is finals week, things have been piling up at Redeye Central. First the Reds stop holding any form of practice. Then the regulars stop showing up at all. Next, the mail staff stops answering all correspondence, and for the past few days everyone has been testy and snapping at each other. The most serious of these issues shall be resolved tonight. For tonight, the Redeye Writing Team shall try making a dent in the mailbag.


<i>Dear Writeup Team,
What did you do to the predders? They always seem to be hating on you. It's like you killed their dog.
-SollyX</i>

So you read the Cats and Konspiracy sites too, Sol? It does seem like Mr. Rage and Dark Knight have something against the Reds, but none of the Reds have ever touched either of their canines in a bad way.

Honestly, no one should fault the predictors for their decisions. They're doing the best they can with the information they have, and week after week they put themselves out there. It's not like they know who is going to show up come match time. It's not even like the teams in question know who's going to show up at match time. It's all guesswork and intuition. You look at the past history of the teams and try to extrapolate future results from it as best you can, but there is so much missing and bad information out there that it becomes a very difficult task.

For instance, the Writing Team can understand Mr. Rage confidently going out on a limb and predicting MCCCXXXVII to win after they got trounced by the Knights the week before nearly as bad as the Reds did. Some people have poor intuition about how things work, and that's okay. The good Samaritans out there keep an eye out for such people so they can swoop in and protect them from themselves if the need arises. So when Rage comes calling with a sure investment bet and asks you to match his speculation in orange futures, beware, and maybe talk him out of it altogether. Nobody wants to see Rage out on the streets because people had enough orange juice this winter.

That being said, one should question a predictor that fails the trivial task of fact checking. STA predictors aren't CBS news reporters, after all. They should be held to high standards of accuracy in their analyses. When a predictor makes his judgment on the basis of streaks and shared histories, he should at least report the streaks and histories correctly and not mislead anyone as to what the real story is.

However, even though a predictor may report that while the Reds are 1-1 in their last two. As of Monday evening, one could say the same thing about the Pacers. They're 1-1 in their last two. What that obscures is that the Basketball Jesus's squad is 10-6 for the season. That's sort of like the Reds now being 3-1 in Bronze. Crazy isn't it?

But no, Sol. The Writing Team doesn't think the predders are busy hating on the Reds. In truth, the Writing Team would have come down the same way the predders have, with the exceptions of tonight's match against MCCCXXXVII. But that's a long story.


<i>Yo Writeup miesters,
<3 ur work! Wish u won all teh time. Wazzup with u & teh l337ones?
-Deus</i>

The Writing Team can only assume D. is referring to the lively and highbrow banter that occurs before, during, and after every Redeye vs. MCCCXXXVIII match. Statements like the following.

<i>Vampire: "Yeah we got [forcefully molested] by KHR, but maybe we just suck at this map [security_r]. [I] dunno. [W]e'll see how things go this next week. Redeye isn[`]t much of an opponent for anyone in Bronze at this time so [I]'m sure we'll handle them with ease."

Fam: "[The] [L]eetones by 80[.]"

Rorippa: "[P]hew! I am relieved. Losing once to [R]edeye was bad enough. [Losing] twice would be too shameful. [MCCXXXVII] would have to disband if that happened."

Mexi: "[T]hat's definitely cool. ALL THE LEET KIDDES AT <@> CAN'T HANDLE A LOSS :("</i>

Things happen, Deus. The E-leeters like to talk smack, and the Reds have been known to harbor a few smack talking fools themselves. There's just something combustible between the two teams. It's like adding sodium to water, there's going to be a lot of noisy fizzing swirling around before it goes "Pop!" No matter how many times you see it, it doesn't get old.

Take tonight for instance. The pre-match feather fluffing was in full effect all weekend. The E-leetists were busy posting to the best of their abilities how the Reds didn't belong in the same division, let alone on the same field, as them. They pointed to the last time the two teams played. Somehow they neglected to hype the fact that the Reds could barely hold them off when playing 8v7. The Writing Team would have given that fact more play even though it happened months ago. But as Madonna sings nonstop on the radio, "Time goes by so slowly for those who wait. . ." the Reds will play anyone and everyone they're scheduled against with equal vigor, but they're not waiting for particular grudge matches.

However, once again the little team that didn't belong somehow held off the team that thought it could. Oh well. It could have ended gentlemanly like that. For most teams, it would have ended with some good games, some exchanging of logs, and maybe trading HLTV recordings, but not for the E-lites and the Reds. But that's another story.


<i>To the Writeup Team,
I read every word of your 18 page writeups. I want to know what you think of Psilance.
-Psyed</i>

The Writing Team selected this question for the irony of Psy asking about Psi. Other than that, the Team has nothing. To pull a line from the esteemed Psilance, "I don't give most people much thought." The Team is usually quite busy and doesn't often engage in returning hostilities to people reaching beyond their means, but since you asked, Psyed, the Team will do it's best to address its position on Psilance.

Psi has issues. What those issues are, only a trained psychologist or psychiatrist could make the diagnosis with any certainty. What is known is Psi openly admits that his theory of mind is somewhat lacking. He wears this as a badge of honor so that he can set himself apart from "the insignificant masses." It's a coping mechanism often used by extreme narcissists who find themselves isolated but deal with it by wrapping themselves in the comforting belief of their own superiority. Psi is so clever, so intelligent, and so great that everyone else is incapable of keeping up with him.

By not giving much thought to other people's thoughts, emotions, and potential actions, the humanity of others is stripped away leaving people only as objects ripe for manipulation. The world view of someone with a limited theory of mind sees human interaction similar to the way TFCers deal with bots. You figure out their routes and reactions and how to exploit them, but you never consider how the exploitation makes them feel, nor would you care about them even if you ever did consider it.

So as Psi was getting laid asunder tonight, it would have never occurred to him that the medic tearing him up felt bad about the situation. There was Darko the Completely Unknown striking down Psi each time he spawned. Sure, Psi managed to dispatch Darko fairly regularly but only at the expense of being out of position to repair his sentry. Darko came out of the match and said, "I bet Psi's going to berate his team after this. I feel sorry for them." Yes, it is surprising, but Darko does use words like `berate' on a regular basis.

Indeed, Psi followed up the match by contending that he was the only one playing defense during the second round and minimized the contributions of his teammates while maximizing his own. One can see Psi as a tragic character trapped in the delusion of his own greatness and oblivious to the living, breathing, thinking world around him. Even if he somehow stumbles across the Writing Team's musings about his character, he'll only react hostilely to the suggestion that he has noticeable character flaws that make socializing with him a difficult task. Besides, he doesn't need people anyway. He's better than all of them.

The Writing Team on the other hand is keenly aware of its flaws and is doing its best to manage and ameliorate them.


<i>Dudes!
What's been your favorite TFC moment of the past week?
-Zithis</i>

No, Neko, the Team is not going to mention your demoing during the first round or your heavying during the second round as great TFC moments. It's not going to happen. Instead, the Team nominates the way the entire Round One defense sans Neko hung together in the face of great adversity by the Leetle's offense and quarter second pings. That was amazing. It'll be amazing in the morning, and years from now it may still be amazing.

Second on the list has to be the way the Leeteens started dropping midway through the second round once they believed the game was out of reach for them. Seriously, with 10 minutes left in the match, they started bailing out like they just discovered the Titanic was sinking in 5 minutes instead of 20. They could have stuck around and tried laming the game up. The Reds would have understood, but maybe they had better things to do with those 10 extra minutes. One should not speculate as to what a bunch of male gamers would do with 10 minutes on their hands after playing video games in a dark room, but one could.

Anyway, Big Z. Moment #1 is the defense holding tight. Moment #2 is watching the L337 bandwagon empty.


<i>Hey Reds,
can i get sum of ur <a href=http://www.konspiracy.org/?action=matchinfo&div=tfc&id=24761>Converse</a> swag?
-Fr33Lo@d3r</i>

The Team saw this one coming. The Reds only part with the swag if you pass the tryout processes, Freeman. That is assuming there are ever enough Reds in the server to run a tryout again. The Reds just reactivated Cow and admitted Torgo during the past week, which was part of the reason they were victorious over the E-Leeties. Once the second round hit and the offense was able to stop drop concing and start handholding, Cow and Finch went nuts with the flag touching. Flag room. Front door. Back door. Battlements. Water. Every place was a good place for some flag grabbage. And every time was a good time to watch Psi and his sentry go down.

It must be said that being limited to four defense on Security_r makes things difficult, especially when the defenders start chasing opponents way away from their positions and leave the backbone of their defense exposed. For all of their flaws, and there are many, one rarely sees the Reds feed their engineer to the enemy like they were handing out fresh baked cookies.

As for the Cons. The Reds are still wearing them. It turns out they work well in freezing water and on pairs of bunnyhopping scouts.


<i>Hi <@>,
What hax does Diablo have?
-Mono</i>

This is a good question, Mono. This might be the first time this question has ever been asked in his 6 years of playing TFC. The Writing Team supposes that given enough time, anything is possible, but the thought of Diablo cheating is quite humorous to those who know him, have played against him, and witnessed his accuracy firsthand. This is not to say he is the worst soldier ever to take the battlefield, but one should consider that soldier is not even his primary class. One should also consider how often he blows himself up, gets startled by incoming forces, and flips out when conced.

Even with such evidence to the contrary, some people cannot believe such skills can be achieved through natural means. These people work themselves up into believing that Diablo must be using some kind of wallhack or audio tweak in order to blow himself up at such a moment that he takes both himself and multiple opponents out at the same time. Some people might call that good fortune, other may see it as bizarre, and then there are those who view it as an opportunity to request a demo.

This reminds us of another Psi story. Once upon a losing evening, Psi plops himself into the Reds' channel and requests a personal demo. The target of the demo is flattered as can be. Nobody has ever requested one from him. Not an admin, not a teammate, and certainly not a member of the losing side of a grudge match. Psi explains that he is not accusing the target of cheating. . . At least he is not making that accusation yet. By all accounts, this seemed like rational behavior.

However, something like 30 seconds tick by and Psi does not sense movement on his request so he immediately shifts into "bargain mode."

"You can either give it to me, or I can get an admin to request it," Psi explains rather pleasantly.

What Psi did not realize is that the target of his request could have been running win98, IE 5.0, and never uploaded anything in his life. Sure, it was almost 2006, but some transitions take time. None of these details concerned Psi. Never did he ask what the hold up was. Instead he repeated his demands for the demo in question and linked its arrival into his transfer folder with the release of the evening's HLTV demo.

The Writing Team has a theory about how this came about. Psi is special in many ways. One such way is that his internal clock runs fast. Rather than oscillating at 22Hz like most neurons do, Psi could be ticking at twice that rate, maybe even 4 times that rate. That would mean he has both an itchy trigger finger and is so hyperaware of time passing that 10 minutes feels like an eternity. Granted, this is just a theory and there is currently no evidence to support it other than the Writing Team's belief, but such logic seems to be good enough for Kansas, so who is to judge?

So Mono, the Team cannot disclose the hacks Diablo plays with because he does not have any. However, as the white guy being voiced by Sammy L. Jackson said on the Boondocks the other night, "The absence of evidence for something is not evidence for the absence of that something," or something like that.

One last thing, Mo. If you ever request a demo from Psi, make sure you have a `good' reason. While he can clearly request demos from anyone with or without cause on his behalf or that of his team's, he is not one for reciprocity of action. He's much more of a taker than a giver, but the world needs those kinds of people for some reason or other.


<i>Hola Team,
How'd you do on your <a href=http://www.konspiracy.org/?action=matchinfo&div=tfc&id=24812>math assignment</a>? I knocked it out of the park.
-Jerry from class</i>

Jerry. Jerry. Jerry. Let's just say that there will be no curve on that assignment. So wherever you were on the distribution, we were further to the right. So there.


Here's to hoping Psi and his guys don't fold after tonight's loss to the Reds. The community needs all the teams it can muster, even the overconfident and brash ones. The Team will gladly consider past statements to the effect of "playing against the Reds is like being forced to play chess against the neighbor kid with Down's Syndrome" water under the bridge if nobody gets upset if the kid sometimes wins. Besides, does anyone really expect the l337s to be accountable for what they say or do. It's not like anyone <a href=http://www.konspiracy.org/?action=matchinfo&div=tfc&id=24534>expects</a> that of the Reds.

That's it for the night. The Writing Team hopes such transparency in its operations resonates with the kindhearted souls in the community. May your finals go smoothly or your job go easy this week, and may the Reds get a sound thrashing next week. No matter how things turn out, remember that the Reds, strong advocates of the Philosophy of Care and always thinking, see you in ways you don't even see yourself. ;)

Feel free to email <a href=mailto:redeyewut@gmail.com>redeyewut@gmail.com</a> with any comments or questions for future mailbags.

-The Redeye Writing Team.

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