When gearing myself up for The Challenge I considered that I could buy the game and practise, practise, practise. I could work my way through the single player games to find out the nuances of the different sides’ weapons. Maybe I could throw in a few skirmish games and perhaps even play some people over t’internet to hone my ‘skills’. I could have done all this and more but instead I decided to go the other route - hardly and practise and instead psyche out WorkTommy.

There has been a bit of “you’re going to lose” “no, you are!” type conversations which never seemed to go anywhere so instead I started making things up. Ever heard of the EGC? I haven’t (although it may exist), but I created the European Games Championship where I actually got to the regional finals a few years ago playing Starcraft (a different RTS game). This got him a little worried and I keep mentioning that playing against the computer is vastly different from playing against a real life human over t’internet which I have been doing for many, many years.

Something in my favour is that WorkTommy has been having a hard time getting ready for the challenge. He got his phone line in but it was a later date than he thought (cue “Oh delaying tactics eh? Need more practise?” comments); he couldn’t get broadband until he’d had the phone line activated (more delays); couldn’t get broadband until he’d had the phone line activated for 10 days (uh huh) and despite that 10 fay being up last Sunday, he’s still not phoned the ISP to get broadband - he really is delaying and possibly getting scared, honest.

I’ve even started being nice to him: “Look WorkTommy, all these delays. If the thought of the challenge is getting to you, let’s forget about it. Being a quitter is fine if the alternative is getting stressed out over the whole thing.”

I think I’m winning the psychological battle but maybe I should get in a little practise before the matches…