So yer, I'm fairly new to blogging so if this becomes an eyesore let me know and I'll promptly destroy my laptop :p

Hi there, I am Julian "Jools" Cottee, I'm 20 years old, a 3rd year University Student and currently captain of the infused Halo 3 side. Some of you may also know or recognise me as the Coach of the i36 infused team that won the event, the big guy! I just thought I would write a blog to tell you guys about how i38 went for us and what you can expect from us in the future. I will hopefully keep you updated monthly or whenever, because I think it is quite important for Infused to know how the different teams are doing.

Anyway, so i38 was obviously in November and was our first ever events as a team. I suppose at this point I should mention the other members of the team - AdamsKi, Gaskin and Freebird.  I had teamed with Freebird in a last minute mix team at i37 and managed to place 7th/8th so we decided to stick together and build a solid team for the next event. Anyway, this was my 3rd iSeries, but my first ever at Newbury and to be honest, I was a little disappointed. From speaking to i-Series veterans I understand that Stoneleigh was a big improvement, but still, I didn't think that Newbury gave that same feel of gaming Event as much as Stoneleigh did. The location, exhibitions, schedule, tournaments etc all seemed a bit second-rate compared to what iSeries have delivered in the past. But no matter, we got over that quickly and settled in on the Thursday night before the Tournament began on the Friday. Going into the event we were seeded 6th and were predicted 5th-8th. Suffice to say we tore through that, eventually placing 4th. I feel looking back that we actually could have done better. We lost to SK Gaming and Dignitas in the Winners and Losers Brackets respectively, but both series went down to the wire in all maps and we really could have beaten either team. A few costly mistakes on our end as well as some dodgy decisions by i-Series Admins to make us play 3 5-game series back to back beginning at 9am on the Sunday led to us losing, and so we are happy with 4th because it exceeded people's expectations, but at the same time, we know we can be better.

So since then, what have done? Well not a lot to tell you the truth. I spoke to Liam (Magik) who was very pleased with us and we agreed to continue the partnership with infused which we are very happy with. After the event, my teammates got stuck into Modern Warfare 2 and I was left alone playing Halo (sad git lol). Recently, Gaskin and myself have been given a tonne of University and College work to do, but we are back in practice again. It doesn't appear that there will be any more events in 2009, but to be honest, I need the break! As for what you can expect from us, well as you maybe gathered, we aren't happy with 4th. We can't see a reason as to why we can't place within the Top 3 and keep pushing from there. Lan-wise we have i39 to look forward too, but also ECL which is being run by Halo3Forum.eu staff (including myself) and we are very excited to see what ECL has to offer. I think on top of this we are quite excited about possibly going abroad to compete in some Continental LANs. A few LANs in France and Germany seem to be approaching so we will look into attending them. Aside from that, I'm looking forward to seeing the new infused jerseys..as much as I love Fruit of the Loom lol.

So that's all for now, hope you enjoyed reading and hopefully I will update you in the New Year.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year and all that jazz

Jools.