Hey what`s up guys,

Been a long time since I wrote a blog, I apologize for that.

First of all, I wanted to start by saying thank you to all the people who keep visiting my website and supporting me, I couldn`t be happier really. You give me a lot of motivation to keep doing what I do and I`m really grateful for that.

So what`s up in my life lately? Well.. for the past 2/3 months I lived in Milan in a really comfortable home with a really good old friend of mine, Michele, who was also used to play Quake3 back in the good old days with the Italian clan Mad-Squad (his nickname Is Mik[M] or Mattisani now in QuakeLive). Life in Milan it`s pretty cool and I had the chance to reconnect with some of my best friends that I haven`t seen in a long time..  Riccardo “Vicious” Zanocchio and Vincenzo “Booms” D`Aurelio.

Since May I started increasing my Quake Live playing hours but really slowly, not only because I didn`t want to get burned out too early, but also because I am working on a cool project that took a lot of my time.

In June I`d say I started playing only with other top players, unfortunately I had to stop using my real account because it would have been impossible for me to play online calm and quiet , without stressing out.. I want to thank Spartie for practicing a lot with me lately, he`s a great player.

Right now I`m preparing for Quakecon, which definitely will be a cool event.. I can`t wait really. I haven`t played in a tournament in a year, since CGS finals, and in a FPS tournament in like… 2 years? Maybe even more.. My last official FPS tournament was i30 in April 2007 I believe.. I`m really excited ;).

Yesterday I played a showmatch vs av3k, one of the best Quake players in the past few years.(what a coincidence, my last serious game in a FPS tournament was actually against him in the i30 Quake4 final..).The showmatch was streamed Live on ESL TV and it was the introduction match for the big tournament they’re holding online in the next weeks, called ESL Quake Live Invitational, sponsored by Razer.

I increased my playtime few days before the showmatch, tried to re-learn old maps like dm13 and t4 since it has been awhile since I played them and also because they are in the  Quakecon map pool

I played decently considering I was a bit nervous, but I definitely shook off that tournament rustiness/feeling .

I`m going back again to my real home in Andora tomorrow and stay there until I leave for the United States.. so I can enjoy the sun and some relax at the beach between hours of practice.. I`ll probably invite some players over as usual, but unfortunately we will have to play online since Quake Live doesn’t have LAN support yet :p.

Till the next blog,

Alessandro “stermy” Avallone