On the plus side, I got my case and RAM installed just fine. On the minus side, we lost the SD card for our camera, and it turns out that making a guide up to snuff with my own expectations on building your own computer is much more difficult than I'd have thought. This was slightly compounded by a rather tight fit on my CPU cooler, which has in turn given me reason to upgrade that as well.

On another note, I thought I'd share something that's had me hooked and I finally obtained as well - the joys of a mechanical switch keyboard. For those of you who grew up in the '80s these were the loud, possibly obnoxious keyboards usually made by IBM. I can't speak for everyone, but while I did like the feel of the old Model M units, I can't say I cared much for the noise. I had forgotten all about the great feel though, until I was reminded of it by a review of the Das Keyboard Professional. While further reading has revealed that the Das Keyboard itself revealed it to be plagued by a poor controller, the soundness of its design and the feel its keys almost certainly offered had me tempted. After a bit of searching, I finally came across a wealth of knowledge regarding mechanical keyboards from a variety of sources. Most exciting for me was the realization that mechanical keyboards do not necessarily have a "click" in the middle of the keystroke, the one thing I wasn't really sure I wanted. Some switches only feature the tactile response, and some keys don't even feature that much.

So to make a long story short, I recently blessed myself with a Deck Legend Frost. At $176, this is NOT a cheap keyboard, but the feel of it is amazing. The spring of the keys as they pop back up is incredible, and the tactile bump is amazing for typing - I'm still adjusting, but I don't have to fully bottom out my keys in order to complete a keystroke. As soon as I get that tactile response, I can let up on the keys, which helps relieve stress from long periods of typing. It's not loud either - well, compared to my old G11 it is, but all things considered this isn't a board that's going to keep any but the most anal of housemates up during late night keyboard sessions.

To anyone that does a lot of typing, I cannot stress how great the feel of a mechanical keyboard is. If you're interested in knowing more, feel free to let me know and I'll set you up with some links. For basic typists you could just get a used IMB Model M off Ebay for a song, so you don't have to spend big like I did to find a keyboard that you just might fall in love with all over again.

If you doubt me, I got rid of my Logitech G11 without a second glance. Macro keys? Anti-windows switch? Media controls? Bollocks. I use them once in a great while, but the sheer joy experienced every time I press a key on this board makes up for all those gimmicks a thousand times over.

I pulled the trigger today, and my new Lian-Li PC-P50 case is in the mail, along with the EX-332B hard drive cage and 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 RAM. Pictures will be coming soon, and hopefully I'll be able to get an entire tutorial with pictures going sometime next week.

Ah, it'll be nice to have a good case.

Next upgrades planned:

New CPU cooler
Possibly two 140mm fans depending on how well the stock ones perform.
Solid State Drive (after Windows 7 comes out and SSD prices drop to ~$1/GB)
New graphics card (DirectX 11 only)

In the end I opted for none of the televisions I had originally planned for, instead opting for the 42LGX, the thinner version of the 42LG60. It supposedly uses an IPS type panel, and after checking viewing angles and measuring input lag, I'm inclined to believe it does indeed use one. It's one hell of a TV, I love it a lot. A few of its gimmicks I'm admittedly not to fond of like the intelligent sensor, especially in a dark room. Every time there's a bright scene the TV senses its own light, turns itself down to compensate, then when its dark again, it cranks the brightness back up. Rinse, lather, repeat - the end result is a TV that keeps dimming and brightening itself.

I also noticed something interesting while watching standard definition stuff (especially DVD's) - they all look like soap operas. By that I mean they have a kind of gel-like quality to them that I found somewhat amusing, but I'm not overly bothered with it. I'll probably pick up an upscaling DVD player at some point.

One more potential concern is how hot it gets - it's incredibly warm to the touch, but I'm going to attribute that to how thin it is, and assume that most LCD panels would get that warm in such a tight space.

Overall though, I love the panel. The sound is incredible for a built-in setup, the picture is great (not overly bright like most Samsung units I looked at), and overall it just does it for me. I almost regret not doubling my budget and picking up the 47LG90 (LED backlit), but I'll probably just wait for OLED to become mainstream before I get a new TV.

This guide is not meant for beginners. If you're just starting Team Fortress 2 or the Pyro class, you're going to want to get the basics down before attempting a lot of this stuff. That's not to say you can't learn anything from this guide, but most of it is going to require intimate knowledge of maps, weapon ranges, enemies, etc. If you're the type of Pyro that charges across the map popping flames in front of you, you need to get some more basic skill down before taking full advantage of these tips.

Just in case the question of skill comes up, have a look-see: [link]

I'm one of the top 1000 players ranked by HLStatsX on some of the trickiest public servers in the game, and 3 of my top 5 weapons are Pyro-specific.

Note: These tips are for my preferred load-out, the stock Flamethrower, Shotgun, and Axtinguisher. Small adjustments may be necessary for other loadouts.

1: Compression blast is your best fucking friend. A good Pyro should feel damn near naked without it. The Backburner has its advantages on certain maps and for certain playing styles, but all the best Pyros I know use the stock Flamethrower because general combat can be much more effective with a sudden blast of air capable of causing a lot of grief. Experiment with it. Reflected rockets can give even the most stalwart Soldier pause, and while you can now destroy sticky bombs with your shotgun, moving them out of the way is still very effective and faster than switching weapons (as well as putting the Demoman who put them down in danger). Its most endearing power is versus Ubers however - blowing an Uber off course or separating the medic from his target can completely negate a minute or better of the Medics work, and will often result in the medic and his target being killed by your team. It's most effective on Uber Pyros who have only a short range and not much way to fight back. Heavies are also good, mainly since they tend to be a bit stupid and not paying attention to the reason they're flying everywhere. Soldiers and Demomen generally benefit more from being separated from their Medic than being blown around given the nature of their weapons.

Important note: The airblast is not effective on enemies on a downhill slope. Be it a defect in the game physics or an intentional inclusion, airblasting someone running up a ramp towards you cannot be blown back.


2: Things that give health are the fucking enemy. Know the locations of all medkits on the maps, and likely locations for dispensers. Part of your biggest advantage as a Pyro is being able to fire and forget about a target, but if they step on a health pack or squat on a dispenser, you just wasted your time. Hell, if they had a Medic present you just did him a fucking favor by helping him build up an Ubercharge quicker. When in combat with any other class, always gun for medkits and steal them so your target is in danger of dying even if he kills you. If the target has a Medic, take him down first. I'd even go so far as to airblast him out of the way to take down the Medic (or at least set him on fire and hope there's no health around) first. You can get Medics to pop Ubers early and waste them, or simply waste whatever Ubercharge he'd already built up. As the only class that saps health over time, anything that counteracts that effect is not good for you.

Combining 1 and 2, it's very satisfying to airblast someone over/to the side of a medkit and grab it for yourself.

3: Switch to your other fucking weapons. I can't even begin to count the number of kills I've got on enemies I've killed by giving them a quick puff of flame, blasting them back, switching to the Shotgun, and giving them a nice face-full of buckshot while they're a) trying to figure out what's going on and b) unable to do any serious dodging. For slower classes (Heavies especially), a quick burst of flame around a corner to set them on fire, ducking back, switching to the Axtinguisher, and going in for the kill is a highly effective way of dealing a hell of a lot more damage than you would with the Flamethrower. One hit will kill any flaming class in the game except the Heavy, and two hits will finish anything off (or so close that the Heavy won't get any healing in time to burn to death). Get to know all your weapons intimately - the Flamethrower will indeed be your mainstay when it comes to kills, but your secondary weapons will save your ass quite a bit if used properly. You never know - that guy just out of Flamethrower range running to the medkit might only have 15 health left, and one pump from the Shotgun will prevent him from snagging the health and getting back into the fight (possibly killing you).

4: Other Pyros are your worst fucking enemy (in a standalone fight with no Medics of course). One of your greatest advantages is nullified by that nifty asbestos suit he (and you) is wearing. Stupid Pyros can be easy to deal with since they'll chase you down while you run backwards flaming them the whole way, and the guys who prefer the Flare Gun aren't too hard to deal with either, but a standing Shotgun/Flamethrower war wastes more ammo than it's worth and doesn't allow you to fire and forget. By and large I prefer to just blow the other Pyro out of the way and go for someone behind him. If you absolutely must go toe-to-toe with a Pyro, choose your weapons carefully. A few blasts from the Shotgun will soften him up drastically, and going in to finish the job can be much easier. Never turn your back on another lone Pyro, especially one wielding the Backburner.

Note: If you're one of the Pyros that prefer the Backburner, you occasionally get blessed with a stupid Pyro that shows you his back, enabling you to get a few quick criticals in and finishing things up quickly. Backburner Pyros are generally more well-suited for Pyro/Pyro combat, but since you're horribly gimped against Soldiers, Demomen, and generally anyone you didn't sneak up on, I find the con to heavily outweigh the pro.

If you liked this guide or think it helped you out on some of your Pyro skills, I might do a follow-up with more general tips.

For those of you that are Asian, I'm sure you've had to answer the question "Where are you from?" more than once (and often subsequently "No, where are you REALLY from?" if you were born in America and name the place of your birth which is annoying in itself and worthy of a different journal even if it doesn't affect me). It's an innocent enough question, if a bit pointless. What I can't stand however, is those dipshits that feel the need to prove to you how "in-touch" they are with your culture once you tell them your ethnicity.

Take the following conversation for example (not word-for-word, but close to one I heard recently):

White guy: "Where are you from?"
Asian friend: "The Philippines."
White guy: "Oh, that's cool! I ate Filipino food at a Filipino restaurant once, I love lumpia (mispronounced lump-ee-ah)."
Asian friend: "That's...great."
White guy: "Yeah, I really love Asian food!"
Asian friend: "Oh, you like balut?"
White guy: "What's that?"
Asian friend: "You like eggs? How about if the duck was mostly grown, then you ate the egg with the duck mostly grown up?"
White guy: "Oh...umm...no."

I hear conversations like this what seems like dozens of times a week (and that was one of the more casual occurrences). We have to deal with your dumbshit stories about every minor interaction you've ever had with Asian culture, from your love for Anime to fucking Panda Express. Guess what? I don't give a shit about your "one Asian friend in high school," as if that makes you some sort of non-racist, culturally educated prick. I definitely don't give a fuck if you, a family member, or god forbid, parent/uncle/grandparent was stationed in my country (like we want your sorry invading asses there). I don't want to hear your broken-ass, butchering of my native tongue. I don't give a shit if you've eaten sushi. Do I enlighten you with stories about the time I ate a fucking hamburger, or watched an American movie? The worst is your stories about some white-washed girlfriend who happened to share an ethnicity with me. Why the fuck would I want to listen to that shit? I'm thinking about picking up a white bitch just so I can share a story about that one dumb white cunt I fucked, and how loose she was. Tell you what, I'll stop thinking of you as a dumbass when you stop calling it "Yellow Fever", as if dating Asian women is a fucking disease.

Bottom line: Think before you open your fucking mouth. I'm not expecting anyone that's not Asian to fully understand where I'm coming from, but I hope you can at least appreciate my viewpoint. It's fucking annoying, and no matter how hard you try, if you're not Asian, you're not going to connect with us by sharing your banal stories about every single dumbass Asian encounter you've had. The fact that you consider them "cultural" experiences at all just makes me peg you as a racist and someone whose teeth I might kick in.

Don't get me wrong, there are certain things that are okay - actual in-depth experiences, a passable understanding of the language, having actually spent time in the country yourself of your own accord (military can fuck right off), or even just expressing curiosity in certain things is fine. Asking for language tips doesn't bother me, it's when I'm assaulted by shitty pronunciation and grammar or get one of those fuckheads that just want to learn pick-up lines or cuss that I get aggravated.