Girls, Girls, Girls

Took the train to Akihabara Friday after work. When I got there I noticed they moved a few things around. There was a long line set up with those dividers like they have at the movie theater to form lines. There were 2 cabs for what was either the full version of, or a test version, of some new game called Fate: Unlimited Codes. The game was 3d but played sorta 2d. It was fairly fast paced but for some reason didnt look all that interesting to me. It actually sorta reminded me of those X-men 3d fighting games that were made a while back. Though I know hardly anything about it so I wont judge it but I didnt bother to stand in line to play it. The line was long and I just wanted to play some gear. Unfortunately, as a result of having the 2 Fate cabs, the AC cabs were reduced from 11 to 6 to make space. Im pretty sure this is just a beta test so once its over im sure they will put the other AC cabs back. After a few hours of gear I headed to Shinjuku to go Drinking at Current.

There was a big party going on at Current for one of the girls' birthday. Almost all the regulars were there and it was good times. It was also sorta a Nightwish concert afterparty since the concert was earlier that night in Ebisu. I really wanted to go but I tried to buy a ticket the day before the show and it was sold out... bummer. I heard the show was good from pretty much everyone that went. I guess Ill just have to see them next time around. I saw them once in Chicago back when they still had Tarja as the singer and it was an awsome show. I stayed till closing like usual and went to sleep at the same spot as always.

Saturday, I woke up, got food, and headed over to Vegas for some casuals. Today there would be 2 tournaments in Shinjuku, one at Clubs Sega and one at Vegas. The Club Sega one starts at 4 and the Vegas one starts at 5. Pretty stupid for them to throw 2 AC tournys at almost the same time on the same day. They should have at least made the start times farther apart. I figured I would go to the Club Sega one first and try to play in both. While I was playing casuals at Vegas, Gin, the Slayer player, showed up and asked me if I was entering the Club Sega tourny, I told him yes, and he asked if I wanted to team up since it was a 2 on 2. I agreed and we headed on over to Club Sega. The tournament ended up being a 7 team round robin. Most notably, Isa and FAB showed up and teamed up together... talk about broken. There were some other good players like Basara (SL) and some other folks ive seen before but dont know their names specifically. MIU was there working as usual and ran the tournament. I played some casuals before the tourny and was doing relatively well, winning way more than I lost, though I still felt a bit off and wasnt landing all my shit. Gin seemed to be doing well too. First match we fought against a team of HOS and PO. I went first and narrowly lost to HOS (I beat this guy 5 times in a row in casuals before the tourny so I was pretty upset.... should not have lost). Then Gin went and lost as well. Bummer... So that kinda fucked our momentum fromt he start. Up next was a FA SL (Basara) team. We both lost to Faust, once again I should have won this one, it was very close and I just kept making stupid mistakes, like looking at the wrong meter thinking I head enough to RC and doing air teleport and then having it get blocked and not having meter to RC and getting killed. Up next was FAB and Isa. We both lost to FAB. I put up an ok fight but ive done far better against him before, once again I didnt play so great. Next was a team of AX and CH. We won RPS for the first time all day so they had to pick first. They chose Axl so I went first since I hate CH and would leave him for Gin if I lost. I beat Axl pretty convincingly and I also beat Chipp pretty good too, so Gin didnt need to play this time after all. Up next was SO and MI team. This time Gin went first and beat both of them himself so I didnt need to play. Last match was DI and SL. Gin went first and lost to DI, then I beat DI but lost to SL in another match that was too close that I should have won. So after that I guess it went into some sorta regular bracket tourny and they had us play against the HOS PO team again. This time Gin went first and beat HOS and then lost to PO, and then I lost to PO too.... in another extremely close match that I should have won. I was pretty much just in brain fart mode this whole tourny. Unsurprisingly, Isa and FAB won the tourny. So after it was over it was about 5 minutes after 5:00 so we left to try and play in the Vegas tourny. When we got there, the tournament had already started. However, the tournament was a singles tourny and was divided into 2 separate round robin pools, one of 6 people and one of 5. The first pool was about half way done but the 2nd pool hadnt even started yet. I asked one of the Vegas worker dudes if I could still enter and just be placed in the 2nd pool and that way it would even it out so they both had 6 players but the guy was being a total dick and wouldnt let me enter even though it wouldnt have affected the tournament at all and would have been extremely easy to just write my name in and draw a few extra lines on the round robin grid. So I was pretty pissed at this dickhead Vegas guy and just played some casuals at Vegas for a while. I played till about 11 and then headed to Current again.

This time when I walked in to Current, the place was packed again. At first I thought, aw sweet this is gonna be a good night. Then I started looking around and noticed that almost everyone in there was like 40 years old or older... which is extremely rare for Current as most people that go are in their 20s and 30s. Then I noticed that instead of playing metal, they were playing random old Japanese pop songs. Mogi proceeded to explain that there was some special pop star event going on and these people like payed have this party there or something. I figured id have a beer anyway since I was already there and then just go to GODZ or something. Then this one chick who was younger, probly in her late 20s, started talking to me, I guess she didnt know about the event either. We talked about random bullshit for a bit and then I told her I was going to GODZ. She said she was staying there since the event would end soon. I was like.. whoa really? So I asked Mogi and he said the event would end a little after 12. So I figured I could put up with about an hour of this crap. There was this other dude who was like 20 who I had seen in there before who was friends with the girl I was talking to. We talked for a bit too and he was telling me how he had this band called Fair Lady that played like 80's style metal and they needed a bassist and he asked me to join his band. I told him it would be cool but that I lived 3 hours away and wouldnt really be able to like practice and shit with them very often so it was pretty much futile. Eventually all the old people started to shuffle out and they started playing classic rock. The bar never got too packed since most of the regulars were there yesterday and dont often go twice in a row, but eventually Chip showed up and we talked for a bit so it was cool. The girl I was talking to before had another friend of hers show up and the 2 girls went to get a table to talk for a while. After a while I noticed that I hadnt seen her for a while. I got up to use the bathroom and I opened the door and she was in there just sitting on the floor. I guess she had too much to drink, which was odd since she didnt seem drunk at all before. So her friend helped her out of the bathroom and she just sorta passed out on the floor near the door. I went in my backpack and got my little pillow that I always bring for when I sleep at the manga kisa, I let her use it since it didnt seem very comfortable. In any case, eventually it got late and she woke up and was feeling better and it was time to leave so I said goodbye to everyone and headed out for sleep as usual.

The next day there was a tournament scheduled at Shinjuku Sportsland that I saw posted last weekend. I wanted to play so I headed over there. It was still kinda early so there wasnt really anyone there. I decided I would go to Vegas instead to play casuals first since there might be more people. Vegas had a couple players, not many but enough to play. I played some games and most of the comp was pretty weak. One thing I noticed, however, was that there were like 3 female players there. I was pretty surprised and had never seen any of them before. Eventually it was getting closer to tournament time so I went back to Sportsland. When I got there, there were a few more players but still not that many. Once again most of them were female. Eventually there were probably like 16 female players there! I was pretty amazed and had probably only seen maybe like 5 of them before. Some of them were pretty good, most notably a Dizzy and a Slayer, both of which ive seen before. So it was about time to sign up so I went to go sign up and then the Sportsland guy told me that I couldnt play because it was a girls only tournament! I guess I should have realized that but I didnt bother reading the details since ive never encountered one of these before and it didnt even cross my mind. There were only like maybe 3 or 4 other guys there just playing casuals. So I stayed and played casuals throughout the tournament. I was beating most people and getting lots of wins, most of the comp was so-so except that the Dizzy and Slayer managed to beat me a few times. Actually the Dizzy was exceptional and is one of the best Dizzys ive played against outside of Kazuki and H.H. She ended up winning the whole tournament as well which came as no surprise to me. I also had a big win streak and this one male Ky player played me and I basically triple perfected him. Then he kept playing me over and over and he started to step his game up. He squeezed in one win and I was kinda pissed so the next match I took every opportunity I could to taunt him. I was straight up taunting him for like the next 4 matches and kept beating him. I think he eventually got pissed when I taunted him and also dizzied and perfected him and then he stopped playing me. Maybe that was kinda a dickish move on my part but I was getting pretty tired of playing there and didnt really give a fuck. After a while I decided I would just go to Akihabara since the comp would be better and I wanted a change of environment. It was taking a while for people to play me after a while too. When I arrived at Akihabara they still had the setup the same way with only 6 cabs but there were plenty of people there playing. First thing I did was sit down at a cab I saw was empty on one side and played against a HOS player. I beat him in a close match. Then after the match Ogawa came around to the other side and told me that I am getting a lot stronger. I was like wow that was you? I told him thanks but I still am not that strong. Then I beat this one really good I-no player like 4 times in a row and played a bunch of other games. Losing a few, winning a few. The rest of the night was pretty typical. I stayed till about 8:20 and then headed for the train station to go home.

Thats about it. Next weekend I will go to a drinking party for my base school Friday night and wake up and head to Tokyo in the morning. There are plenty of tournaments on Saturday and Sunday and im sure I will at least go to one of them on each day.