Yosep was on the phone this morning asking me if I was gonna to have a badminton practice. Definitely I would go. He called around 10.30 PM and told me he was just going to pick up Sudarwan and would be at the gym at around 11.30 PM. I was still on the bed so I got up quickly, bathed, and ate my breakfast. I arrived there at 11.30 PM more or less. Yosep had not arrived yet. It ain’t a surprise however, since Yosep is always late. The traffic he used to say. Fortunately Eddy, Sigit and his friend (I can’t remember the name, let’s just call him Al) was there already so we could start a double game. Al and I versus Edy and Sigit.

We beat Eddy and Sigit in a 30-points game easily. Eddy complained that his hand was injured so he couldn’t play well. Not more than an excuse to me since Eddy ain’t really good at double games. He is good in single games though as he has the speed and stamina. But power, self-positioning, teamwork, and ball placement talks much more in double games. In my opinion, Eddy considerably lacked those points. Sigit is powerful and a good finisher but he could hardly do anything in the game because he didn’t have enough assists from Eddy. Al is good at ball placement but he often overuses his abilities that leads to blunders. Yosep is pacey and he has almost unlimited stamina that he won most single games. In double games, he can use her pace very well to cover his partner’s holes. In this case he was almost always the MVP of double games. Sudarwan has a big fat body, much bigger than me so he doesn’t have Yosep’s or Eddy’s pace. But he has a considerable power and he is good at ball placement. This makes him a good double games player. The bad news is he is such an egoist that he always blames his partner when things get bad. He always makes an excuse if something is clearly his fault. Since Yosep is the most patient person among us, he partners with Sudarwan almost everytime.

What about me? In my humble opinion, I have the power, a pretty good ball placement, and self-positioning. I lack the aspect of speed and stamina. Therefore I like to finish every game as quickly as possible. I also lack the determination. Sometimes I played so damn well that I could devastate my opponents with a very big points difference. But some other times I played a very bad game that my opponents could see me as a joke.

Teamwork? I can do well with the pacey type such as Yosep. In such composition, Yosep do much as the defender and I act as the attacker. But we rotated the partners often, with the exception of Sudarwan and Yosep since Sudarwan can’t go along so well with the others. With Eddy, I can’t do much because I can’t expect a good assist from him. He always gives the perfect ball for the enemies to smash it at us. Usually, I gave everything I got like there’s no tomorrow. That way we could lead the points from the very first time. Then, if our opponents were nervous enough to catch up we could win the game. But if they could catch up, I usually ran out of stamina and they would easily beat us.

I can’t play well with Sigit since we are pretty much the same type. Two attackers without defenders means that we usually scored as much points as the opponents. The games usually tied but since there should always be a side that win a game, our probability of winning is about 50-50. I should be able to do well with Al as we play differently. I play explosively while he plays softly. But since both of us tend to make a lot of blunders, the result is very unpredictable.

Everytime I played with Sudarwan is a nightmare. We share the same type so it should be like me and Sigit. The bad news is that Sudarwan is so bossy. But I can’t just let him put all the blames on me. Never. So we can’t help each other in a game. We play as we like egoistically. In a game, both of Sudarwan and me fight against three enemies. In my case, I fight my two opponents plus Sudarwan. I think you can pretty well predict the result. We lost almost all the time. I can continue this review, but I think it will be very boring. By the way, put Yosep and Al together to create the most boring team since both of them tend to play defensively.

Friend or Foe

After the badminton practice, Eddy told me about his recent project. He was working on a Karaoke computer program. He needed to create a software equalizer and found a great difficulty programming the sound card. I then suggested him to use DirectSound. He didn’t really understand it so I explained a bit to him. He also didn’t have the DirectX SDK to create a DirectSound application so he followed me home to get a copy.

After his leaving, my grandma asked me about him and my other friends. She asked why my friends seem to come often only when they needed something from me. I didn’t say a word to her although I knew the answers. A friend in need is a friend indeed, isn’t it? Most of my friends are from the same kind of people. People who need my knowledge, my stuffs, or my money. People who are close to me when they need something from me and just disappear when they have got what they need. Of course, some are sincere but they ain’t that close to me :( .