And the Winner is...

After much delay, I am proud to share with the StarCraft world that my third child will be...

A BOY!

He is at 19 weeks in this picture - you can see his left forearm (on the left) and that blur above his head is his right hand - clearly some serious APM going on there ;-)

And as I promised on my last blog post, since he's a boy, I will be playing Zerg for Season 7 and going for a third hatchery (base) in EVERY game!

So shortly (maybe next week?) I'll be looking at this screen and getting ready to hit the Find Match button!

I haven't played Zerg on the ladder since December 19, 2011 - so I'm a bit rusty with Zerg, rustier than the normal rusty I am with Terran ;-)

My son and I have been playing a few Zerg games against a Hard computer AI (my son on his "play" keyboard and me standing behind him using a wireless mouse on a bookshelf) and from the results, I can tell that this will be an interesting season to be sure!

Girl or Boy?

Tomorrow my wife and I are going to our next baby appointment and finding out whether we'll be having a baby girl or baby boy this fall. I've asked my Facebook friends what their guesses are - and it seemed like I should do something for the blog :)

So here it is - rather than definitively playing Protoss for Season 7 (as had been my previous plan) - my choice of SC2 race will be determined by our next baby's gender!

(I figured boys were more into goopy things.)

In addition, in honor of our third child, I'll strive to always build a third base (Nexus or Hatchery) before the end of every game! (Which, if we're having a girl will be interesting to do as Protoss...)

And yes, there is a chance our baby will be particularly squirmy and the ultrasound technician won't be able to determine the gender... in which case, I'll have to play Random!

Going For A Third

I've been meaning to post this several weeks ago, but as you'll see, life has been very busy for me this last month ;-)

From the title, you might think this post will be about when to pursue a third base in a game of competitive StarCraft 2.

And indeed, below is a screenshot of a third base being built in a game I played late last night against the computer on Very Hard difficulty.

But upon closer inspection, you'll notice that the Nexus is almost halfway complete - 437 of 1000 hit points to be exact.

437 of 1000 is equivalent to 17.5 of 40...

Now change the unit of measurement from hit points to weeks...

And you guessed it - I am very pleased to share with my SC2 friends that my wife and I are expecting our third child!

The baby's due date is October 5th, and today we are at about 17.5 weeks (out of 40). The baby was at 13 weeks in this ultrasound and next week, we'll be finding out whether the baby is a boy or girl!

We shared the good news with our families and close friends at the beginning of the month, and the rest of the month has been a whirlwind of activity!

From filing last minute taxes to taking both kids to a Cars-themed birthday party (by myself! 2 vs 1!) to baby appointments to burrito/wings eating contests to My Little Pony (Friendship is Magic!) to iPhones to breaking and replacing a CPU fan to buying and building Ikea furniture, life has been packed this month!

Needless to say, I now have a massive blog post backlog - including many, many thoughts on SC2 and eSports - so be prepared for some serious blogging - (and cross fingers!) some video casting :)