This weekend started out much as the opposite of last weekend. Instead of having to stay late at work, I ended up getting out early due to a visit to the eye doctor after lunch. Seems my eye will be fully fine next weekend and I will once again be able to wear a contact lens in my left eye again. For the time being I have some glasses I recently aquired.
I caught the train an hour earlier than normal. Just like 2 weeks ago, I ran into Laura at Takasaki station so we caught the train again together. One of her old students that graduated and was going to High School now also ran into us so I ended up getting sandwiched between them as they chatted a bit. Laura said that her friend Dustin was having a small party somewhere near Omiya and said I could probly go but I said I wasnt really sure yet and id let her know later.
Anyway eventually I arrived at Vegas. I had plenty of time for casuals at Vegas. I started off by playing against the pretty good (and cute) female Sol player who is often at Vegas. While she put up a good fight, I beat her 4 in a row and then she gave me a nod as she left the arcade. At the machine sitting right next to me was FAB. I said hi to him and he said long time no see. I asked him if he was gonna enter the tournament here at Vegas tomorrow and he said he indeed would be entering, so I was having good hopes about a decent turnout. From there HH decided to have a crack at me. I started off by beating his Dizzy and then he tried his Ky on me. I beat his Ky once, lost once, and then beat him again. From there he eventually switched to Dizzy and started beasting. I ended up going 4 wins and 10 loses vs his Dizzy. A lot of my losses were pretty close and in the middle I kept fucking up small things that would cost me a round I otherwise had so I got a little pissed in the middle, but I regained my composure and pulled off a final win. After the final time of me beating him he took off. At some point, MIU showed up and said he was sorry for missing my birthday at Current (as I had sent him an email last weekend) and he wished me a happy birthday. I didnt get around to playing him and he didnt stay very long. From there I got 5 wins, lost to some white Johnny, who I immedietly rematched and won 3 rounds in a row for revenge... and this win was the start of what would in the end turn into a 45 win streak. During this winstreak, Matt showed up earlier and eventually Honnou also showed up a bit later. A good chunk of the streak was this extremely determined dude who kept picking Testament and Chipp against me. I kept beating him down but he just kept coming back for more. Towards the end, Honnou tried a few times against me but it was getting late and we sorta decided to go to Current and start drinking. As a result, I just left the machine without losing. At some point in there when it was starting to get late, I mailed Laura and told her I was just gonna drink in Shinjuku tonight but thanks for the invite. I went to go use the bathroom and then Matt and Honnou decided to play eachother a few times so I went to the conbini and got some corn dogs and a rockstar energy drink (they just started selling these in Japan, fuckin awsome! and they seem to be promoted Yoshiki of X-Japan lol).
Once the 3 of us arrived together at Current, as soon as I walked in I was surprised to see Monty there once again! He insisted on buying all 3 of us a beer right away too! Such a cool guy. He also immedietly apolagized for missing my birthday party but he had a good reason so its no big deal. iA friend of Monty's was also there, a Japanese guy named Kentaro. This guy has done roadie work for several big name bands and is (according to Monty) a phenominal drummer. He was talking about all kinds of music theory stuff and time signiture changes and whatnot and he really seemed passionate about it which is awsome. Plus he was a cool dude, so we drank with him as well. Monty was telling me that this dude can (and has multiple times) took an entire shot glass full of tobassco sauce without even flinching! Monty once gave him 5000 yen just to see him do it. Now THATS fucking metal! At some point I also accidently put my beer on top of a pack of snus that was sitting on the table and it spilled all over but I cleaned it up and Mogi busted out the mop and it was all good. Shit happens. That was the first time ive spilled a drink at Current. A few other regulars were there but it was a typical Friday as far as numbers.
After that, we sat together for a bit and talking about playing music. Matt plays some Guitar and I play some Bass and Honnou also plays some guitar as well as Kentaro playing drums. Monty said if we actually wrote like 40 minutes of solid material that he could get us an opening act spot on almost any show he books as long as it was good stuff. We certainly toyed with the idea and Matt and I decided that next weekend I will bring my bass to his apartment and store it there so we can try to jam a bit together. Obviously this is all just speculation as I have no idea how good Matt is at guitar and I have no idea how good of material we can come up with, but its certainly worth at least looking into given the fact that if we really were able to come up with something good and click together we would have a lot of opportunity. Also, Mogi had mentioned that there would be a big party at Current tomorrow night and said to make sure I was there. I asked what the occasion was and he said, Sushi wasnt going to be there. I dont know why thats a reason to party since Sushi is a pretty cool guy. Maybe he was joking or maybe its cuz its his boss but in any case, im always down for a big party. Eventually as the night was about to end I bought Monty a shot of Jagermiester before we headed out. Everyone else went home but Matt, Honnou, and I decided to go hit up PSY for another hour of drinking. Not much noteworthy to mention here except that I kinda started to nod off towards the end. I dont really remember much there. After getting McDonalds breakfast, I went back to Matt's place to sleep since its nice to be able to take a shower the next day. Honnou was gonna come too but Matt's place has no internet and he needed to check stuff online so he hit up the manga kissa.
I woke up in a panic and checked the time. It was 4:55 pm and the tournament was to start at 5:00. The chances of us getting there in 5 minutes was not gonna happen but I still wanted to try. Matt decided to sit around and eat a bowl of fucking cheerios instead of hurrying and was complaining that he couldnt enter anyway because he didnt have 2 valid forms of ID. I was confused as to why the fuck he would need that to enter a tournament and then suddenly I woke up again.... but this time for real. It had all been a nightmare. I checked my phone and it was like 11 am LOL! The dream inspired me to set the alarm on my phone to make sure we DIDNT live that dream as a reality incase Matt's alarm failed. I also had a fucking headache so I popped a pill before going back to sleep.
At 3;00 pm we awoke to Queen's Fat Bottom Girls as my cellphone alarm did its job. After getting ready to go, we stopped and got some awsome Indian food and headed to Vegas for the 2 on 2 tournament that would be going on. Upon arrival I noticed they moved the GG cabs to the far corner in the back by the big screen TV so they could have it set up for the tournament. The place was packed with tons of GG players and among them were several big names like Kazuki, Inoue, Mitsurugi, FAB, Taku, HH, and Natsume just to name a few. I promised Matt and Honnou that I would team up with one of them but Honnou hadnt arrived yet and it was getting close to start time. I called up Honnou and asked him if hes still coming and he said he was almost there. I told him I wanted to sign up right now so I told him I needed to figure out a fair way to decide who gets to be on my team between the 2 of them. Originally I was just gonna have them play for it but we had no time for that so I just had them play RPS over the phone. Matt threw out a scissors and then I asked Honnou what he had out and he said rock without knowing what Matt had out. With a crushing blow by Honnou's mighty rock to Matt's sharp but fragile scissors, the result was determined and I signed up myself and Honnou as partners under the team name Rock Inn Current! I told Matt to just go ask around and I said I was sure he would find someone. He comes back like a few minutes later saying he is teaming with Mitsurugi! (he had no team mate) Looks like Matt had no reason to complain as Mitsurugi is a beast.
Soon after, the tournament started. They had divided everything up into several small 3 team round robin pools. The winning tream from each pool would be placed in a regular single elim bracket from there. Honnou and I were in pool C so we went up fairly quick. In our pool was a team of Suneo (SL) / Iikeni (AB) and of Yootsuu (RO) / Areshikusu (ED). Im pretty sure ive never heard of any of these guys. The 2 other teams went first against eachother. Areshikusu's Eddie pretty much just raped both of the guys pretty easily. After that, we were to face the team of SL/AB. I just told Honnou to go first and do his best and I will take care of anything that he doesnt take down. First match Honnou goes with his I-no against the Slayer and wins the first round, loses the 2nd round in a close match, and comes through with the win in round 3. Good shit. Up next was ABA and though it was fairly close, Honnou wasnt able to take him out. I went in next and finnished the job for the win. For the final match of the pool, Honnou won RPS so we got to have them reveal their first character. They said Robo-Ky would be first. Honnou said its a bad matchup for him so I told him I would just go first this time. First round was going well at first and I had a good lead. RO had about a pixel of life left and I went for a pogo forcebreak over some missles but he was able to recover in time to block. I did a bag overhead (p) and he blocked it, and then I followed it up with a pogo hit (ff) and he squeezed in a fucking super DP and it killed me.... The 2nd round wasnt as good and it ended the exact same way. I went for the force break and he supered me out of the FF pogo attack! I was pretty pissed at myself for losing to the exact same shit twice, but ive never had that happen before. The window to squeeze that in there is so small since those 2 attacks actually combo but that super is like 2 frames startup so I guess I should be more careful. Anyway, Honnou gave it a good try but lost 2 rounds and just like that we were out of the tournament. I played some casuals after that for a bit and got a few wins. Matt and Mitsurugi's team was in the final pool. First match, Mitsurugi went first and just took both guys out pretty easily. Their 2nd match was against FAB (PO)/Taku (SL) team. Lucky them. Matt went first against Taku and the first match he was just put in the corner and kinda had a brain fart and just got perfected. The 2nd round he did a bit better but he fucked up a few of his combos and could have done better if he didnt. After the match I pointed the the floor and told Matt he dropped something. He looked down and I said... oh wait its just your combos! LOL Mitsurugi went up next and actually took out Taku despite the bad matchup. The final match with FAB was extremely epic and went down the the last hit of the last round. Both of them had like no life and Mitsurugi got Raoh out, but FAB's pacience proved to be too great and he squeezed in a final hit vs Zappa for the win.
After this, we had a choice to stay and watch the rest of the tournament but Honnou had another suggestion. Editor of popular gaming blog Kotaku, Brian Ashcraft, had recently written a book called Arcade Mania! which is about Japans arcade scene. Today in Ikebukuro would be the release party for this book and Honnou sorta knows Brian from talking with him sometimes online. He said they would have 500 yen drinks and free snacks with no cover and suggested we go. Sounded like a pretty good idea to me, so we decided to go head on over there.
Eventually after a little walking we found the place, it was at a bar called Pause. The place was mostly packed with foreigners with a few Japanese people here and there. They had lots of copies of the book on the wall on shelves as well as various pictures from arcades around Japan. I recognized Mikado in one of the shots. We mingled with people for a bit and I was introduced to Brian Ashcraft by Honnou. Some of the people there seemed really cool and we had some nice chats. While we were there, Matt and I both had 3 drinks each. I had a Kirin Heartland beer, a rum coke, and a red wine. The book was only 2000 yen which isnt expensive at all and looked really cool so I picked up a copy and Honnou did as well. We both got our copies signed by the author.
As it started to get a bit later, we decided to leave and get some mexican food! However, the place we went to ended up being packed full so we couldnt get a seat. As a result, we got some Thai food instead and it was pretty awsome anyway. I got a vodka-grapefruit while we were there (they had a pretty limited drink menu but it was good enough). After that, we headed to Current.
Upon arriving at Current at just a little past 11 pm, the place was already packed! I knew about 80% of the people in there and tons of regulars showed up. Ja and Mu were there, and I hadnt seen Mu in like months! After greeting everyone, we got our drinks. Matt and I were sitting having our first beer and Matt made some smartass comment about how I passed out last night at PSY, calling into question my ability to drink alot. I told him I would drink him under the table and with that, we were engaged in the very first Rock Inn Current DRINKING BATTLE!!!(please read with echo effect). We started a check list that kept track of how many drinks we both had and we had to keep up with eachother. If one of us was to pull ahead, the other had to fucking catch up, no lagging behind! Since Matt cant handle shots and would probably lose for free if he had to match me in shots, we decided he could chug a beer in place of me taking a shot. I was also one drink ahead of him since I had that drink at the Thai place and he didnt have one so he had to drink an extra one too. We also decided that snus plays a factor into this as it gives you a wicked buzz, so we had to match eachother on snus intake as well. The final rule was, you only get one vodka redbull since the caffiene helps a lot too. Throwing up means an instant loss. This was on the honor system since neither of us would know if someone threw up in the bathroom. This epic battle would last throughout the night! In addion to this, as soon as Yago showed up we engaged in a side bet! Yago seems to always take off his shirt without fail after he has had enough to drink. Matt said he would take it off at 1:30 on the dot, while I said more like 2:30. Whoever was closest had to buy the other a drink.
At some point, I look over at Yago, and within a few seconds he went increadible Hulk on us and that shirt was history! With the classic trademark Yago shirt-taken-off look on his face, I quickly took a look at my cellphone and the time was exactly 1:31! FUCK! I lost the bet, but honestly the fact that Matt called it out so perfectly both had us laughing our asses off for a good while so I had no problems buying him a beer. Good call on that one. Ill rematch him next time perhaps.
In addition to all the other aswsome regulars there, Maiyuko came! At one point I was having a chat with her and she told me she was going to be marrying Mikey, the Australian dude that she brought to the bar a little over a month ago who I chatted with for a bit. I guess they knew eachother for over 5 years but Mikey was married and got a divorce a little while ago and she always had feelings for him. Came as a bit of a shock but I hope stuff works out for them. Maiyuko and I both sorta had a crush on eachother back when we first met through Chip but since I had a girlfriend, nothing ever happened between us (though it came close...) and she moved back to Hokaido for the longest time. In any case, I never got to finish my conversation with her cuz Matt showed up and interupted but its ok cuz he didnt know better. So i never got to get a lot of details about it but if shes back again next time Ill find out more. I just hope it works out well for her. Mikey seems cool so hopefully it will.
At some point I also was told I get to DJ again! I didnt even ask to but they said I could have 20 minutes, which is better than nothing! My set was...
Symphony X - Out of the Ashes
Circus Maximus - Sin
Dream Theater - Don't Look Past Me
Diabolical Masquerade - Death's Design, 2nd and 3rd movement (tracks 5-12)
The rest of the night had all the classic elements of a great night. Mogi and Masami stage diving off the bar, people busting out inflatable guitars, lots of dancing, tons of drinking and great conversations. When 5:00 finally rolled around and we had to leave Current, Matt and I were even at I think what was like 13 or 14 drinks each (I dont have the checksheet with me while typing this), and I think we both did like 5 or 6 snus. I didnt end up doing any shots so Matt didnt have to chug any beers. We decided to keep it going and headed to PSY!
When we arrived there, Heidi was there and at some point, Mai from Current came too! One of the bartenders from GODZ was there as well. Matt and I both ended up having one more drink and one more shot. However, Matt wanted another vodka redbull but I already ordered a beer. I told him id let it slide so he had his vodka redbull and I had my beer. I also proposed we both had a to a shot so we both ordered a shot of vodka. However, my dumbass accidentally knocked my shot over so I ordered another one but changed it to whisky cuz I like whisky better. In the end, when PSY closed, we both ended up drinking the same ammount of drinks. I think it came out to about 16 or something each. We were considering trying to find the Izakaya where Yago works to drink even more but we didnt really remember exactly how to get there and both of us were pretty fucked up so we just called it a draw for the night and agreed to rematch again another time. I headed to the manga kissa went to sleep and Matt went home.
The next day I woke up without a headache but I had one of those body futiegue hangovers. I got some food and then headed to Vegas. I mailed Matt and asked if he was coming out for casuals but he must had still been asleep cuz he didnt reply till a couple hours later. I also asked Honnou if he was coming but he said he had other plans. However, I loaned him a bunch of money all weekend and he got it recieved into his checking account this morning so he stopped by Vegas just to pay me back. During this time I was standing in the doorway of the mens room waiting for some douchebag to finish taking his epic 15 minute long shit. Eventually after Honnou gave me the money and headed out, the guy was still in there so I walked over to Mikado just to take a dump in their toilet. There was a ST tournament going on but I didnt really stay to watch. I went back to Vegas and eventually Matt showed up and we pretty much just spent the entire rest of the day playing casuals. I looked at the brackets for the tournament from yesterday and it seems that FAB and Taku won. Not much of a surprise. Most of the time I spent there was playing against that one pink Axl who ive mentioned before (who I just found out actually works at Vegas) and these 2 Johnny players who were friends. One was brown and one was green. The green one was a bit better. There was also this Sol who was decent who got in on the action. For a while the Johnnys were dominating but then I pulled ahead and went through the rotation and got a nice streak. Meanwhile, Matt was engaged in a long epic struggle of HOS mirror matches against this hot HOS chick who is around sometimes (theres several female HOS players but shes the hot one).
Once 8:30 rolled around I had to leave so Matt headed to the train station with me since he had to go home and do homework. I pretty much just slept the entire way home as I often do.
...and so concludes another epic fucking weekend. I had tons of fun. The drinking battle between Matt and I will get run back again, possibly even next weekend! There also is probably a Guilty Gear tournament going on somewhere. I will make sure to hit that shit up as well!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
# 26
On Friday, I had to stay late at work for a meeting with some of the other English teachers and the vice principal so I didnt arrive in Tokyo until about 10 pm. I went to Vegas as usual. There were still some people there but it wasnt extremely packed. Matt and Honnou were there playing against eachother. I sat down and just started playing. Right before a match was about to start, I felt someone sorta poke me in the ribs. I turn around and Yoshi, the owner of Zin was there at Vegas! Certainly wasnt expecting that. I didnt have time to talk to him cuz the match was starting. Eventually afterwords we found out that he was there to play Gundam lol. We stayed for maybe a little over an hour and after getting some food, Matt, Honnou, and I headed to Current.
As soon as I walked in, Monty was there and bought me a shot because hes awsome.
Eventually Yoshi showed up after having played some good games of Gundam at Vegas haha. Yoshi found out it was my birthday party tomorrow but said he had to work at Zin so he bought me a rum coke. I later offered to buy Monty a shot in return for the one he bought me when I came in and hes like, just buy one for Mogi instead. So I bought Mogi and I a round of Jack shots and then Mogi soon after bought all 3 of us another round of shots! Monty had just bought Current a copy of Death Magnetic (the new Metallica CD) and asked Mogi to play a bunch of songs off it. I had listened to a bit of it at a store like last week and thought it was better than their previous 3 albums (which I dont care for at all) but not as good as anything from the Black Album or earlier. Monty loved the crap out of this album and said it was better than And Justice For All and the Black Album but I totally disagree. To each his own I guess. The rest of the night at Current up until closing was the usual deal.
After Current closed, Matt, Honnou, Yoshi, Megu, Ayano, and I all went to do some Karaoke and more drinkin! The room we ended up getting was freakin huge for whatever reason and had this nice big table in. We could have conducted a business meeting in there, but instead we just got shit faced and sang a bunch of songs off key. I ended up singing... um.... wow I cant remember.... but um.. I know I sang like a few songs. Ayano wanted me to sing a Sonata Arctica song with her so we did um.... some song.... I cant remember.... I think I also sang Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies in there somewhere too. After a few drinks, the girls started to get a bit tired. Ayano ended up laying down and fell asleep using my leg as a pillow. At some point I fell asleep too a bit towards the end. I guess at some point Yoshi took off but left some money for his share. The rest of us headed out as well. I went my own way back to the usual manga kissa while the other 4 headed to the train station to go their own respective ways. I later found out that Matt was, for whatever reason, in a not so great mood walking home and ended up punching a wall or some shit in his drunken state.
The next day, I woke up from a phonecall from Honnou. We had made plans to go together to the random 2 on 2 Game Chariot tournament that would be starting at 5. I set my alarm before going to bed but my drunk ass set it to the wrong time so its a good thing he woke me up. Despite having taken one of those awsome anti-hangover drinks you can buy from the conbini, I certainly had a hangover. I think I figured out the reason since I got one last weekend as well on Friday night. This is kinda nasty but im just gonna say it anyway. From time to time id find blood in my poop. For a while I was worried I had cancer or some shit but I got it looked into while I went to the doctor for my foot and it turns out that I have an internal hemroid. They arnt painful and theres no real way of knowing you have one unless you get it checked. Some of you may recall me mentioning something about poopin some blood when I did snus (Swedish tabacco in a pouch that you absorb through your gums, gives you a wicked buzz) and the reason was obviously due to my internal hemroid. So anyway, the Doc gave me some of this like chinese herbal powdered hemroid medicine which tastes like shit. In addition it seems to have a side effect of making you a bit woozy feeling. I noticed lately ive been feeling a bit car sick when driving and appearently the shit doesnt go well with long epic nights of drinking. Since tonight (Saturday) would be my birthday party at Current, I decided it might be best for me to hold off on the medicine for a day.
After killing a little time beating some random Venom player at Vegas and then him leaving, I headed to Shinjuku station and met up with Honnou. We took the train out to Goi station in Chiba which Game Chariot is right next to. Took a little over an hour. We arrived about 20 mins before the tournament would be scheduled to start. When we arrived, there werent that many people there and I was surprised to see that there were only 2 AC cabs (there used to be like 5 or more every time I went before). In addition, Kaqn wasnt working there today. I played a few games of casuals and won like all 5 of my matches until the tournament started. After signups finished, there ended up being about a total of 8 teams I think. All the teams were 2 man teams except Buppa was there and was on a team by himself. I didnt know who most of the players were but in addition to Buppa, DIO was there too, as well as the Faust player Ojima, and the ABA player Reo (these are the 2 guys I was teamed with during the 3 on 3 that I won at Game Chariot from the blog entree apropriately entitled "Victory at Game Chariot"). This tournament sorta reminded me of that one in a way in the sense that it was a bit smaller and they didnt record any matches. My team mate ended up being a HOS player (actually the first guy I beat in casuals after arriving) named Wagen. Our first opponent turned out to be Buppa, the well known Ky master. I went first and came really close in the first round but he came back with just a little life left. The 2nd round was fairly close too but in the end he got the best of me. I felt like I should have had it since he was good but it wasnt like I felt dominated, I just made a few mistakes and he caught me off guard a bit. Wagen unfortunately lost as well, and just like that we were out of the tournament. Honnou was teamed with a Testament player whos name I dont recall. They ended up losing to an ABA player who goes by the handle AAA. Some other highlights... Buppa ended up taking out AAA and his team mate which was another Ky. There was also a Slayer vs Ky match in which Slayer was losing but suddenly was about to make a huge comeback after hitting Ky with a dead on time super, he could have gone for a huge combo that probably would have killed Ky, but much to everyone's surprised he followed it up with an air HS and it just slammed Ky down to the ground lol! Obviously the dude choked and messed up. From here on out, he shall be known as Slamdunk Slayer. For the finals, it was to be Buppa vs DIO and his teammate who was a Millia player. They decided to make things fair that they would select someone at random who already lost and make him be Buppas team mate. Everyone drew a number at random and the winner ended up being a Venom player. The finals went like this... Millia beats Venom but then Buppa takes out Millia. The final match was DIO vs Buppa. I always thought this was a good matchup for Ky but in the end, DIO took out Buppa for the win.
After the tournament ended, we stayed and played a few more games of casuals. I played against DIO twice and we went 1 and 1. I also played Ojima in a Faust mirror and it went down to the last round and I lost but then I got back on right away and beat him 3 rounds in a row. There were lots of times when we both did scalpel pull from full screen and I would land mine like a split second earlier and kept hitting him and you could hear him yelling from the other side. Sorta like a jokingly frustrated yell haha. Eventually it was starting to get a bit late and we had a long trip back, so Honnou and I said goodbye, got some food from Lawson and headed to the train station. After waiting around for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and still no train, suddenly 3 of the guys from the tournament showed up. We talking with them for a bit while we waited for the train. They were all asking me about my handle (ElvenShadow) and what it means so I explained it to them and they were all sorta like "Oooohhhh!" as they finally got wtf it means. Among them was AAA, the ABA player, and he explained to us that he got his name from not having a name and just mashing buttons when you input your name in games after you win to record your score. The default being AAA and he ended up adopting it as his actual handle haha. Eventually the train came and we all talked a bit more about random Guilty Gear related stuff and when we got to Chiba station we went our seperate ways as they had different trains to catch. Honnou and I played some 2 player Sonic game on the DS on the way back for a bit and eventually arrived at Shinjuku station where we met up with Matt and Honnou's friend Takao. From there, we all headed over to Vegas.
My girlfriend was coming to Tokyo to go with us to Current for my birthday party but she hadnt arrived in Shinjuku yet so we decided to kill time at Vegas. For whatever reason, Basara was there and he was using Testament. I beat his Testmament and then he switched to Anji and beat me. Around this time, Ryoko messaged me saying she arrived so we went to go meet her at Shinjuku station.
After that, we all headed to Current together. We got there fairly early, probably around 10. When we arrived not many people were there yet. Within an hour the place became fucking packed. There was a random large group of foreign guys (who brought a sailor/school girl outfit and were taking turns wearing it 0_o) that came with some Japanese girls I dont know and another group of some Japanese people I didnt know, but aside from that the place was packed with just about every single one of the main regulars aside from a couple people. In addition to it being my birthday this week, it was also Antti"s and Mai's (Mai has the same birthday as me). When 12 midnight hit it was officially my birthday and I became the absoloutly non signifigant age of 26, just one year closer to turning 30 and feeling really old, but at least its a good excuse to get wasted (not that I ever needed an excuse :P). Though Ryoko had gone with me once to Current before, the night she went ended up being a bit dead, or rather a typical Friday (read "the calm before the storm" entree) so she didnt get to meet a lot of the regulars. Tons of people had been wanting to meet her for a very long time so they were all happy to finally get the chance. Throughout the night, everyone just kept buying shots and pitchers and drinks all over the place. There were times I found myself with multiple drinks in front of me due to so many people buying me shit.
The people who are friends of Laura who I went to that club thing with last week called me earlier in the day saying they wanted to come but never ended up calling me back. However, I got a random call from one of Kyle (stunedge)'s Chinese friends who was still in Japan (the guy who mostly plays SF but wanted to play me in AC that one time at Club Sega Shinjuku). He wanted to meet up and play games but I explained to him what was up and he said he wanted to come drinking too. So Ryoko and I stepped out of Current for a few minutes to go find him outside. He showed up with this other French Asian guy (I think it was his boyfriend).
Eventually another one of Antti's Finish friends showed up with a large supply of snus. I decided to have some even though I know what could occur. If I only leave it in my mouth for a few mins I get a buzz without the bloody stool as none of it gets mixed with my spit and swollowed on accident. Ryoko tried one too but she said it tasted like crap... which it does haha.
Later on it was my turn to DJ! This time the let me DJ for like over an hour or something and I brought my CDs with me. During my set, Chip showed up and so did Sawa. DJing was fun as hell. My set was the following (though I cant remember the exact order)...
Symphony X - Eve of Seduction
Dream Theater - The Mirror
Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction (requested by Megu)
Circus Maximus - From Childhood Hour
Sonata Arctica - Respect the Wilderness (I think)
Nightwish - Bare Grace Misery
Seikima II - 蠟人形の館 (rôningyô no yakata, 蠟人形の館?) '99
Evergrey - Mark of the Triangle
ACDC - Have a Drink On Me
Children of Bodom - Little Bloodred Ridin Hood
Angel Dust - Bleed
Symphony X - Of Sins and Shadows
Dream Theater - Another Day
Nightwish - The Islander (requested by Matt)
GGXX #Reload Korean ver OST - Pillars of the Underworld (Ky Theme) (requested by Honnou)
During Mark of the Triangle I had to pee but some chick was in the bathroom for way too long so Bosch led me somewhere outside on the side of the building and told me to piss in a drain lol. I made it back in time before the song ended.
Also, at one point, one of the Finnish dudes requested some ACDC and it just so happened that I cued up the ACDC song for next before he even asked. Great timing lol. I can read minds!
Everyone said they enjoyed the set and rocked out so it was good times. After that, Bosch went back to DJing and people did lots of dancing. At one point they played Wish I had an Angel and I was able to explain to Ryoko how I injured myself as I pointed to them doing the same shit that happened when I got dragged down haha. Luckily this time no one was hurt.
A little later on they served a birthday cake in honor of Mai and me. Everyone enjoyed some tasty cake chased by shots and more beer! At one point Matt was missing for a bit so we went outside to check on him and he was laying down outside by the stairs saying he wasnt feeling good for whatever reason, but later he came back in and seemed fine.
Eventually after one of the most epic nights of drinking ever, they turned on the lights and played Pretty Maids - Please Don't Leave Me (one of the quentisential Current songs). This is ussually the cue for people to leave but most people stayed around for like another half hour anyway haha. After eventually saying goodbye to everyone, I left with Ryoko.
Our plan was to go to Tokyo Disneyland (which is actually in Chiba) at around noon. We got on the train to find a hotel somewhere near there. We ended up falling asleep and waking up back at Shinjuku right where we started which wasted a lot of time. When we arrived at Tokyo station, we decided to just find a hotel around there since it was already past 7 am. After walking around for a bit and finding one hotel that wanted 18000 yen to sleep there for 4 hours and 2 other places that said it was too late to check in, 8 am rolled around. Both of us were tired as all hell and pretty wasted so we decided to just go home. We werent going to get enough sleep and wouldnt enjoy going to an amusement park that required extensive walking and standing in line for hours on end in our current state, so we decided to save it for another time. After sleeping on the train for 3 hours we finally made it back to our town and went back to my place to sleep some more.
After waking up and doing some other things, and Ryoko giving me a kickass birthday present (a brand new pair of awsome fucking shoes that actually fit me, which I desperately needed after buying ones that were too small) we met up with Cynthia and went to a Sushi resturaunt for my birthday, followed by icecream. I pigged the fuck out cuz I was starving and Ryoko and Cynthia insisted on paying for all the food even though I wanted to pay for everyone instead.
In the end it was one of the most awsome birthdays ever. One of the most fun nights at Current ive ever had and it was great that so many awsome people showed up to party with. The only thing that stopped this from being a perfect birthday was the absense of everyone from back in Chicago, but that cant be helped.
Next weekend there will be a 2 on 2 GGAC tournament at Vegas! Shit should be fuckin hype! I'm there!
As soon as I walked in, Monty was there and bought me a shot because hes awsome.
Eventually Yoshi showed up after having played some good games of Gundam at Vegas haha. Yoshi found out it was my birthday party tomorrow but said he had to work at Zin so he bought me a rum coke. I later offered to buy Monty a shot in return for the one he bought me when I came in and hes like, just buy one for Mogi instead. So I bought Mogi and I a round of Jack shots and then Mogi soon after bought all 3 of us another round of shots! Monty had just bought Current a copy of Death Magnetic (the new Metallica CD) and asked Mogi to play a bunch of songs off it. I had listened to a bit of it at a store like last week and thought it was better than their previous 3 albums (which I dont care for at all) but not as good as anything from the Black Album or earlier. Monty loved the crap out of this album and said it was better than And Justice For All and the Black Album but I totally disagree. To each his own I guess. The rest of the night at Current up until closing was the usual deal.
After Current closed, Matt, Honnou, Yoshi, Megu, Ayano, and I all went to do some Karaoke and more drinkin! The room we ended up getting was freakin huge for whatever reason and had this nice big table in. We could have conducted a business meeting in there, but instead we just got shit faced and sang a bunch of songs off key. I ended up singing... um.... wow I cant remember.... but um.. I know I sang like a few songs. Ayano wanted me to sing a Sonata Arctica song with her so we did um.... some song.... I cant remember.... I think I also sang Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies in there somewhere too. After a few drinks, the girls started to get a bit tired. Ayano ended up laying down and fell asleep using my leg as a pillow. At some point I fell asleep too a bit towards the end. I guess at some point Yoshi took off but left some money for his share. The rest of us headed out as well. I went my own way back to the usual manga kissa while the other 4 headed to the train station to go their own respective ways. I later found out that Matt was, for whatever reason, in a not so great mood walking home and ended up punching a wall or some shit in his drunken state.
The next day, I woke up from a phonecall from Honnou. We had made plans to go together to the random 2 on 2 Game Chariot tournament that would be starting at 5. I set my alarm before going to bed but my drunk ass set it to the wrong time so its a good thing he woke me up. Despite having taken one of those awsome anti-hangover drinks you can buy from the conbini, I certainly had a hangover. I think I figured out the reason since I got one last weekend as well on Friday night. This is kinda nasty but im just gonna say it anyway. From time to time id find blood in my poop. For a while I was worried I had cancer or some shit but I got it looked into while I went to the doctor for my foot and it turns out that I have an internal hemroid. They arnt painful and theres no real way of knowing you have one unless you get it checked. Some of you may recall me mentioning something about poopin some blood when I did snus (Swedish tabacco in a pouch that you absorb through your gums, gives you a wicked buzz) and the reason was obviously due to my internal hemroid. So anyway, the Doc gave me some of this like chinese herbal powdered hemroid medicine which tastes like shit. In addition it seems to have a side effect of making you a bit woozy feeling. I noticed lately ive been feeling a bit car sick when driving and appearently the shit doesnt go well with long epic nights of drinking. Since tonight (Saturday) would be my birthday party at Current, I decided it might be best for me to hold off on the medicine for a day.
After killing a little time beating some random Venom player at Vegas and then him leaving, I headed to Shinjuku station and met up with Honnou. We took the train out to Goi station in Chiba which Game Chariot is right next to. Took a little over an hour. We arrived about 20 mins before the tournament would be scheduled to start. When we arrived, there werent that many people there and I was surprised to see that there were only 2 AC cabs (there used to be like 5 or more every time I went before). In addition, Kaqn wasnt working there today. I played a few games of casuals and won like all 5 of my matches until the tournament started. After signups finished, there ended up being about a total of 8 teams I think. All the teams were 2 man teams except Buppa was there and was on a team by himself. I didnt know who most of the players were but in addition to Buppa, DIO was there too, as well as the Faust player Ojima, and the ABA player Reo (these are the 2 guys I was teamed with during the 3 on 3 that I won at Game Chariot from the blog entree apropriately entitled "Victory at Game Chariot"). This tournament sorta reminded me of that one in a way in the sense that it was a bit smaller and they didnt record any matches. My team mate ended up being a HOS player (actually the first guy I beat in casuals after arriving) named Wagen. Our first opponent turned out to be Buppa, the well known Ky master. I went first and came really close in the first round but he came back with just a little life left. The 2nd round was fairly close too but in the end he got the best of me. I felt like I should have had it since he was good but it wasnt like I felt dominated, I just made a few mistakes and he caught me off guard a bit. Wagen unfortunately lost as well, and just like that we were out of the tournament. Honnou was teamed with a Testament player whos name I dont recall. They ended up losing to an ABA player who goes by the handle AAA. Some other highlights... Buppa ended up taking out AAA and his team mate which was another Ky. There was also a Slayer vs Ky match in which Slayer was losing but suddenly was about to make a huge comeback after hitting Ky with a dead on time super, he could have gone for a huge combo that probably would have killed Ky, but much to everyone's surprised he followed it up with an air HS and it just slammed Ky down to the ground lol! Obviously the dude choked and messed up. From here on out, he shall be known as Slamdunk Slayer. For the finals, it was to be Buppa vs DIO and his teammate who was a Millia player. They decided to make things fair that they would select someone at random who already lost and make him be Buppas team mate. Everyone drew a number at random and the winner ended up being a Venom player. The finals went like this... Millia beats Venom but then Buppa takes out Millia. The final match was DIO vs Buppa. I always thought this was a good matchup for Ky but in the end, DIO took out Buppa for the win.
After the tournament ended, we stayed and played a few more games of casuals. I played against DIO twice and we went 1 and 1. I also played Ojima in a Faust mirror and it went down to the last round and I lost but then I got back on right away and beat him 3 rounds in a row. There were lots of times when we both did scalpel pull from full screen and I would land mine like a split second earlier and kept hitting him and you could hear him yelling from the other side. Sorta like a jokingly frustrated yell haha. Eventually it was starting to get a bit late and we had a long trip back, so Honnou and I said goodbye, got some food from Lawson and headed to the train station. After waiting around for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and still no train, suddenly 3 of the guys from the tournament showed up. We talking with them for a bit while we waited for the train. They were all asking me about my handle (ElvenShadow) and what it means so I explained it to them and they were all sorta like "Oooohhhh!" as they finally got wtf it means. Among them was AAA, the ABA player, and he explained to us that he got his name from not having a name and just mashing buttons when you input your name in games after you win to record your score. The default being AAA and he ended up adopting it as his actual handle haha. Eventually the train came and we all talked a bit more about random Guilty Gear related stuff and when we got to Chiba station we went our seperate ways as they had different trains to catch. Honnou and I played some 2 player Sonic game on the DS on the way back for a bit and eventually arrived at Shinjuku station where we met up with Matt and Honnou's friend Takao. From there, we all headed over to Vegas.
My girlfriend was coming to Tokyo to go with us to Current for my birthday party but she hadnt arrived in Shinjuku yet so we decided to kill time at Vegas. For whatever reason, Basara was there and he was using Testament. I beat his Testmament and then he switched to Anji and beat me. Around this time, Ryoko messaged me saying she arrived so we went to go meet her at Shinjuku station.
After that, we all headed to Current together. We got there fairly early, probably around 10. When we arrived not many people were there yet. Within an hour the place became fucking packed. There was a random large group of foreign guys (who brought a sailor/school girl outfit and were taking turns wearing it 0_o) that came with some Japanese girls I dont know and another group of some Japanese people I didnt know, but aside from that the place was packed with just about every single one of the main regulars aside from a couple people. In addition to it being my birthday this week, it was also Antti"s and Mai's (Mai has the same birthday as me). When 12 midnight hit it was officially my birthday and I became the absoloutly non signifigant age of 26, just one year closer to turning 30 and feeling really old, but at least its a good excuse to get wasted (not that I ever needed an excuse :P). Though Ryoko had gone with me once to Current before, the night she went ended up being a bit dead, or rather a typical Friday (read "the calm before the storm" entree) so she didnt get to meet a lot of the regulars. Tons of people had been wanting to meet her for a very long time so they were all happy to finally get the chance. Throughout the night, everyone just kept buying shots and pitchers and drinks all over the place. There were times I found myself with multiple drinks in front of me due to so many people buying me shit.
The people who are friends of Laura who I went to that club thing with last week called me earlier in the day saying they wanted to come but never ended up calling me back. However, I got a random call from one of Kyle (stunedge)'s Chinese friends who was still in Japan (the guy who mostly plays SF but wanted to play me in AC that one time at Club Sega Shinjuku). He wanted to meet up and play games but I explained to him what was up and he said he wanted to come drinking too. So Ryoko and I stepped out of Current for a few minutes to go find him outside. He showed up with this other French Asian guy (I think it was his boyfriend).
Eventually another one of Antti's Finish friends showed up with a large supply of snus. I decided to have some even though I know what could occur. If I only leave it in my mouth for a few mins I get a buzz without the bloody stool as none of it gets mixed with my spit and swollowed on accident. Ryoko tried one too but she said it tasted like crap... which it does haha.
Later on it was my turn to DJ! This time the let me DJ for like over an hour or something and I brought my CDs with me. During my set, Chip showed up and so did Sawa. DJing was fun as hell. My set was the following (though I cant remember the exact order)...
Symphony X - Eve of Seduction
Dream Theater - The Mirror
Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction (requested by Megu)
Circus Maximus - From Childhood Hour
Sonata Arctica - Respect the Wilderness (I think)
Nightwish - Bare Grace Misery
Seikima II - 蠟人形の館 (rôningyô no yakata, 蠟人形の館?) '99
Evergrey - Mark of the Triangle
ACDC - Have a Drink On Me
Children of Bodom - Little Bloodred Ridin Hood
Angel Dust - Bleed
Symphony X - Of Sins and Shadows
Dream Theater - Another Day
Nightwish - The Islander (requested by Matt)
GGXX #Reload Korean ver OST - Pillars of the Underworld (Ky Theme) (requested by Honnou)
During Mark of the Triangle I had to pee but some chick was in the bathroom for way too long so Bosch led me somewhere outside on the side of the building and told me to piss in a drain lol. I made it back in time before the song ended.
Also, at one point, one of the Finnish dudes requested some ACDC and it just so happened that I cued up the ACDC song for next before he even asked. Great timing lol. I can read minds!
Everyone said they enjoyed the set and rocked out so it was good times. After that, Bosch went back to DJing and people did lots of dancing. At one point they played Wish I had an Angel and I was able to explain to Ryoko how I injured myself as I pointed to them doing the same shit that happened when I got dragged down haha. Luckily this time no one was hurt.
A little later on they served a birthday cake in honor of Mai and me. Everyone enjoyed some tasty cake chased by shots and more beer! At one point Matt was missing for a bit so we went outside to check on him and he was laying down outside by the stairs saying he wasnt feeling good for whatever reason, but later he came back in and seemed fine.
Eventually after one of the most epic nights of drinking ever, they turned on the lights and played Pretty Maids - Please Don't Leave Me (one of the quentisential Current songs). This is ussually the cue for people to leave but most people stayed around for like another half hour anyway haha. After eventually saying goodbye to everyone, I left with Ryoko.
Our plan was to go to Tokyo Disneyland (which is actually in Chiba) at around noon. We got on the train to find a hotel somewhere near there. We ended up falling asleep and waking up back at Shinjuku right where we started which wasted a lot of time. When we arrived at Tokyo station, we decided to just find a hotel around there since it was already past 7 am. After walking around for a bit and finding one hotel that wanted 18000 yen to sleep there for 4 hours and 2 other places that said it was too late to check in, 8 am rolled around. Both of us were tired as all hell and pretty wasted so we decided to just go home. We werent going to get enough sleep and wouldnt enjoy going to an amusement park that required extensive walking and standing in line for hours on end in our current state, so we decided to save it for another time. After sleeping on the train for 3 hours we finally made it back to our town and went back to my place to sleep some more.
After waking up and doing some other things, and Ryoko giving me a kickass birthday present (a brand new pair of awsome fucking shoes that actually fit me, which I desperately needed after buying ones that were too small) we met up with Cynthia and went to a Sushi resturaunt for my birthday, followed by icecream. I pigged the fuck out cuz I was starving and Ryoko and Cynthia insisted on paying for all the food even though I wanted to pay for everyone instead.
In the end it was one of the most awsome birthdays ever. One of the most fun nights at Current ive ever had and it was great that so many awsome people showed up to party with. The only thing that stopped this from being a perfect birthday was the absense of everyone from back in Chicago, but that cant be helped.
Next weekend there will be a 2 on 2 GGAC tournament at Vegas! Shit should be fuckin hype! I'm there!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Here Comes A New Challenger! (and some random drama)
After spending the past 2 weeks at home, my right foot has had enough time to heal. While it still hurts slightly and I have to walk a bit slow with a slight limp, I no longer need the crutches or the bandages. I also had plenty of time to play the hell out of MGS4 and beat it last weekend. Aside from a few small plot holes, the game was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it a lot. However, during my final stretch of playing the game, my left eye started hurting like a bitch. I wear contacts and I just kept it in for a while figuring it would fix as it often does but eventually it was unbearable so I took the lense out. Youd figure by the next day it would heal as is often the case, but it still hurt like hell. It never ended up healing so I figured I would just deal without my left lense for a while as my left eye sucks anyway, and would get it checked by a doctor later.
On my way to Tokyo I ran into Laura, one of the other ALTs near my town at Takasaki station. She was also going to Tokyo for the weekend so we talked for about 2 hours on the train. We said we might meet up at some point later on. After getting off the train alone I headed to Vegas for casuals. Starting from earlier this week, a new American player who goes by the handle Honnou on dustloop would be living in Japan for a year and living in Tokyo. We made plans to meet up at Vegas. Various noteworthy people were at Vegas such as Inoue, HH, Baim, Ririko, Bleed (who was playing Johnny again), and a few others as well as a bunch of people I dont know. Eventually Honnou showed up. His real name is Rodrigo. He's from California and has been playing Gear since XX. His main is I-no but he says he can play a little under half the cast fairly well. We played eachother about 7 or 8 times. He picked I-no on me the whole time except for one match he used HOS. While he wasnt able to beat me at all, he did begin to adapt after a few matches. Im sure after living here for a while he will get a lot better. He told me that playing out here is like learning the game all over again since the level of skill is so high.
After playing till pretty late, he evetually headed out. He wanted to come drinking but he had no money, but we made plans to meet up again the next day. After that, I met up with Matt, Chris, 27yov, and a few other random Norwegian guys they were friends with. We ate and then headed to Current. It was a typical Friday with a few regulars there and not a whole lot happened that was extremely noteworthy. As usual, 27yov tried his best to get lucky but failed as he always does. However, I guess I was drinking pretty fast because Matt said that sometime around 4 or 4:30 I passed out. I honestly dont even remember but I do remember saying goodbye to everyone and leaving. I left with Matt and he said it was cool if I crashed at his apartment in Nakano since I had to go to Nakano hospital the next day to return my crutches.
I woke up the next morning on the floor in the corner of Matt's apartment... with a splitting headache! I guess I really did drink a shit ton cuz it was a fucking nasty hangover. I ended up sleeping till like 3 pm. After Matt took a shower and then I took a shower, we went to get some Indian food before heading to the hospital. We then swung by TRF real quick to see how the comp was over there. We left shortly after to go return my crutches. By the time we made it to the hospital, it was just a little after 4 pm. I returned the crutches and was pleased to find out I got about 3200 yen back out of the 5000 yen I paid to rent them. Extra beer money! However, I also wanted to get my eye checked out while I was there. The receptionist told me that they close for general checkups after 4 pm, so I was just a few minutes late. Bummer. Looks like I will have to get my eye checked another time.
After that we headed back to TRF and played SFIV for a bit. For the most part we were both getting beat up pretty bad by the comp there. I finally bought one of those cards that stores your record and lets you get points, but I didnt register it with my info yet. After playing there for a bit, we decided to head over to Vegas since the Guilty Gear comp at TRF was pretty much non existant. A ton more top players were there again and we got a lot of good matches in. Eventually Honnou showed up as well. I saw Matt and Honnou play against eachother sorta from a few cabs down while I was waiting for my next match to start and it was very close with Matt winning by just a bit. I dont know how many times they played though. Eventually towards the end of the night, Honnou wanted to play me a bunch of times again. I dont know how many games we played but it was a ton. Once again he couldnt beat me, but he was starting to win a round here and there more frequently than he was before. At some point there wasnt really anyone else there playing besides us and maybe like 1 or 2 more guys so we decidedto go drinking. This time Honnou would join us. We stopped at a 7-11 on the way to Current to try to get money out of the ATM for Honnou but his card wouldnt work for whatever reason so he only had like 1200 yen for the night. He said he would be fine with that as he isnt an extremely heavy drinker. I told him id loan him some money or something if he ended up wanting to drink more.
When we arrived at Current, this time it was pretty packed since tonight was a metal event night. As usual, all the metal event regulars were jamming away on their inflatable guitars and singing along to songs. At some point shortly after we arrived, the audio system suddenly just crapped out for a good like 10 minutes. During this time, the metal event crowd just kept singing the lyrics in unison to the Sonata Arctica song that was on while it crapped out. It was rather hilarious and once the song ended they just went ahead and started it all over again. Some of them were even like immitating the guitar and keyboard parts with their mouths too haha! They called in Sushi to come in and check it out. It didnt take him long to arrive so im assuming he must live extremely close which would make sense. When he arrived he was wearing a cast on each arm. Mogi had told me that he broke both of his arms after getting extremely wasted and falling down the stairs. Poor guy. Much worse than what happened to me. Shortly after, they got the equipment fixed and Sushi left again and never returned. I dont blame him. I wouldnt wanna be working with 2 broken arms either.
For a while they were just playing this long block of Motley Crue songs which was ok at first but got a little redundant after a while. Around this time, Matt decided he was going to go to Zin with Saeko and said he would return later. I was having fun at Current and Honnou was still there chatting with these 2 chicks at a table in the back so I figured id just stay. Basically the rest of the night at Current was pretty much a regular metal event. Good times. They finished up the night with Candlelight Fantasia by Symphony X which was awsome (aside from me, 3 other people had Symphony X shirts on... sweet). After it was over at 5 am, as usual, they handed out a sheet of paper with the setlist for the night on it. Right before we arrived they had just finished playing like a whole 10 song set of Symphony X. I was pretty bummed that I just missed it but oh well, I was busy playing Gear so its all good.
After Current closed, Honnou decided to head back to his host family's home where he is staying. However, he said he had a great time at Current and was even air guitaring on one of the inflatable guitars for a bit lol! Matt never came back so I mailed him and we decided to meet up and Zin and do more drinking. He said a few other people might come. I arrived at Zin and Matt was saying bye to some totally hot chick dressed all dolled up in gothic lolita clothes. He got her number I guess. After that, Saeko, Matt, and I headed to this one Izakaya where Yago works. Its actually the same place I went to about 2 weeks ago during the Friday night (morning) of the previous blog entree. This time when we got there, I was surprised to see that Bosch and Ayano were there sitting in the back. They left Current together early. It seems everyone was a bit confused about the plans. We werent sure if it was like a date or not so we just sat at the bar and let them do their thing. Matt thought Saeko was good friends with Ayano but it turns out they only met like twice so I dont know where these plans came from but eventually Mogi showed up. He said hi to us and then went to sit with Ayano and Bosch. We werent sure if it was cool for us to go too so Matt decided to go check it out, but he was waved away by Mogi and Bosch indicating they didnt want him to sit there. We were then a bit confused. Eventually Saeko went over there and said she would be back. She sat there for a good while talking with them and it was just me and Matt. We were a bit confused. She came back eventually and then later went back over by them. There was this table of 3 girls and a guy (all Japanese) sitting behind us. Matt decided he was gonna go hit on the chicks. I was left at the bar alone for about 30 seconds and then Mogi and everyone at the other table motioned for me to come over and sit with them. Turns out that I guess a while back there was some beef with Mogi and Matt that Matt thought blew over. I wasnt there at the time, I think I was either at an enkai or someplace else, but I guess Matt said something that pissed Mogi off and it has made a lasting impression. Mogi also used to have something going on with Saeko. I dont know the details exactly but perhaps since Matt was flirting with her it may have pissed Mogi off. Once again, I dont really know the details. They were all telling me that they are totally cool with me and im their favorite foreigner and all this other stuff. I guess they just think Matt is sometimes a bit rude and get the impression that he hits on too many girls. While I dont always pay that much attention to that fact, perhaps its true. However, I sorta tried to defend Matt saying hes not a bad guy and such. They said they dont like hate him but they didnt really want to hang out with him outside Current I guess. They said they hate Chris (Slightly Pudgy Guy) more than anyone cuz hes really annoying lol. I dont think hes annoying but whatever. Mogi would periodically yell stuff over to the other table and call Matt 4-eyes in Japanese. Im friends with all of these people so I didnt really wanna get stuck in the middle of some drama over some shit I had nothing to do with. In any case it didnt really seem to be a huge deal but I guess I never realized how some people felt about eachother. I find it really funny that I know just about everyone that goes to Current regularly and am cool with everyone, yet there are some people that just either dont know eachother or dont get along well at all, despite them always being there. I found it very surprising, for example, that Antti and Chip didnt even know eachother until a few weeks ago and they both have been going to Current longer than I have lol. Anyway, we all drank till about 9 am and then went home. Matt was still hitting on the chicks so I just said bye to him. On our way out he grabbed Saeko's ass lol. I said goodbye to the people I was sitting with outside and then headed to the manga kissa.
The next day I had no real plans. I headed to Akihabara to check out the Tatsunoko Vs Capcom location test going on at Hey! game center. This time they had Karas, Gold Lighton, and Doranjo playable for Tatsunoko, and Rockman and the mech from Lost Planet playable for Capcom. The select screen was also changed to fit way more characters so im sure we can expect this game to have a good sized cast in the end. I was surprised to see that there was like no line at all to wait to play the game. A few people were watching but hardly anyone wanted to play. I wonder how well this game will end up doing in Japan... I got on and tried out most of the characters I havnt played as before. Doronjo seems cool and her game revolves around summoning those 2 partners she has as special moves and they sorta control space and set up traps. Karas is really fast and seems to be a solid character. He (she?) has a lot of ground combo based gameplay and his level 3 super is this fucking rediculously good throw that does a shit ton of damage and it has tons of range too. Rockman... I dunno, he didnt seem that good. Honestly thought when I was playing as him I didnt have a copy of his movelist so I didnt know what I was doing and his moves seem to have strange commands. I cant pass judgement on him yet. Gold Lighton and the mech take up 2 character slots and have an extra large life bar. They can block but they are extremely slow. Mostly all their moves seem to have super armor so they continue even when they are getting hit. Its too early to say if they are good or not, but I kept seeing them lose against 2 character teams every time I saw them play. I tried out Gold Lighton myself and I guess I see ways he could be effective but im not really sure if hes gonna be good yet. I honestly didnt play that much. I just wasnt really in the mood and after seeing some of the new stuff that was enough for me and I wanted to play some other games. I played a little SFIV at Hey! (They have a TON of cabs for this game) and the comp there was rediculously good. I mostly got raped and then decided to just go play some Gear at Clubs Sega.
When I got to Club Sega, Ogawa was there as is often the case. I played against him like 3 times and then managed to beat his Eddie! Then he played me again and won. I went to another cab and ended up getting this huge win streak. During this time, Ogawa just chilled out next to me and kept giving me all kinds of matchup advice for Faust for no reason at all. I guess he was just being really nice and stuff. He uses a lot of slang and talks really fast so its hard to understand him and his English ability is next to nothing at all, but I did my best to understand what he was trying to tell me. After a while he sat at the cab next to me and started getting his own streak. Sometime during my winstreak, Matt showed up. I told him I wasnt sure if I was gonna go home tonight or stay in Tokyo for another night. The next day was Respect for the Aged Day (a national holiday) so I didnt have work... but I also had no plans for tonight. I decided that whether I stay or not would be dependant on my win streak. I had about a half hour left to decide before I had to catch the last train and no one had beat me yet. I was up to about 20 wins I think. I ended up beating a few more people until eventually a May player challenged me with about 7 minutes to spare. I figured this might be the end and we fought an epic match that ended extremely close in the last round but he managed to beat me, ending my win streak at 25 wins. At this point I probably could have caught the train but I figured it was close enough and decided I wanted to stay. I mailed my friend Laura and she said she was going to some sorta concert with some Jam bands and stuff tonight at this place called Ageha in Shin Kiba. She said I could come along. I decided I might as well.
After playing a few more games, Matt and I headed to an Izakaya in Akihabara for some food and a quick drink. We talked about the stuff that went down last night and basically I just told him not to worry about it so much. He said though that he doesnt often remember being so aggressive with the ladies sometimes when he gets wasted. I dont really think he does anything extremely bad, but I could tell he felt a little bad about it. In any case I dont think its going to be a huge deal. After eating, he said he had to go home because he had classes the next day and needed to do homework. I headed over to Shin Kiba station to meet up with Laura. When I got there it turns out her and her friends were planning on taking a bus from Shibuya cuz it was free from the hotel they were staying at but it didnt leave till later so they said they would meet me there after they arrived which would be in about an hour. At this point it was about 10 pm. I figured I might as well just go inside the place and wait there.
After asking for directions to the place from some random cop, I found it pretty easily. It turns out that Ageha is actually the same place as Studio Coast, which is where I saw Children of Bodom in concert not too long ago. It also turns out that this wasnt just some concert, it was an all out musical event that lasted until 5 am and was more like a night club than a concert. The event was called NBSA. It was 6000 yen to get in, but it turns out the place had like 4 different stage areas with over 20 different bands/acts/DJs/artists performing throughout the night. ALl of the acts were Japanese. They had all sorts of music from Regae to Jam bands, to electronic music, to free style hip hop. There were these 2 rappers and one of the dudes was making the beats with nothing but his mouth and the mic, and it sounded real as hell! I was pretty impressed with that actually. While none of this is stuff I often listen to, I had lots of friends and room mates back in Chicago that prefered this type of music and it would often be played at my apartment since the majority of my friends are not actually all that big into metal. In the main stage area where I saw Bodom before, they had these 3 guys painting this HUGE mural like right there at the event of like these Rhasta dudes and this monkey just chillin and playing guitar in this crazy tropical island scene. It looked amazing and was awsome watching them paint it in person. I took a pic with my cellphone but they didnt allow cameras inside. Eventually Laura and her friends showed up. She was with 4 other people. 2 were Americans from Reno who were on vacation, one of which was white and one was Japanese. The white dude was named Graham and was waring a Slayer T-shirt and he gave me compliments on my Zeppelin shirt. Seems I wasnt the only metal dude there haha. The other was a Japanese American named Dustin whos mother lives in Japan. Then there was another Japanese guy named Shun and a Japanese girl named Mayumi, who throughout the night, all the guys were swooning over cuz she was really hot. We all pretty much just got wasted and danced a lot going from act to act. I decided to take a break from beer since they only had heinekin and it was 700 yen for a can and I ussually drink it on tap at Current for 500 yen so it didnt seem worth it. Instead and started off with some red wine and then basically just went all over the place with mixed drinks. I got pretty good and drunk. As a result, as the night went on, I found myself actually dancing a lot. Anyone who knows me and has seen me dance knows I basically suck at it really bad. However, I have no idea why or how, but people kept coming up to me and complimenting me on my dancing saying how cool I was... and they werent being sarcastic... I have no idea wtf was going on with that, but I was wasted and didnt care and was having fun so it was all good. Due to me being drunk, I was able to dance a lot despite my recent injury. I didnt even really feel anything until towards the end when we stopped for a bit and both of my feet were sore as hell.
Eventually a little bit after 5 pm, the place closed and we headed out to get our stuff from our storage lockers. (I realized that this place had way more lockers than I thought and I could have easily stored my backpack in them last time when I saw Bodom, which would have spared me a lot of trouble... oh well). As I was going down the stairs from the locker area which were outside the building, it was still raining a bit and I ended up slipping and landing on my ass. Luckily I somehow managed to not injure myself at all this time. I certainly wouldnt have wanted to go through more BS with crutches. After that the plan was to go back to Shibuya where they all had a fucking nice ass hotel room. They invited me to sleep there too so I certainly wasnt gonna turn that down. They didnt want to take the train so all 6 of us piled into a cab. You might be thinking how the hell we managed to do that, and I really cant answer that. Lets just say it wasnt exactly comfortable. Fortunately it only took about 15 minutes and only ended up costing us about 1000 yen each. After getting some drunken Yoshinoya we all headed to the hotel room and shortly after, passed the fuck out. I found a nice comfy spot on the floor and got a good pillow so I was all good.
The next morning we woke up and one of their friends whos a construction worker was down on the street and called one of their phones. We could see eachother up from where we were on the 17th floor. It was pretty awsome. The view was sick too. I took a few pictures. After everyone showered we headed out. Laura had to go have lunch with her Japanese uncle that she hardly knows and wasnt very excited about it. The rest of us went to get some food and I got some tasty fuckin Udon. They all said they wanted to come check out Current so they may show up next weekend. After eating they had plans to go somewhere and I wanted to go play some Gear, so we parted ways from there and I headed to Akihabara to play some more. I pretty much just spent the rest of the day playing casuals at Club Sega and Hey! Ogawa was there again and I played him a couple times but didnt beat him. Gin was there too and was trying to beat Ogawa with his Slayer but also failed.
At around 8:30 I headed out and went back home. Next Sunday is actually my birthday. Mogi says were gonna have a party at Current on Saturday night since its also Antti's birthday and another girl's birthday who often goes there. My girlfriend is going to come too! And after that, on Sunday, she wants to take me to Tokyo Disney Land. Im not really a huge disney fan but riding some rollercoasters and shit will probly be pretty sweet. In additon, Saturday afternoon, there will be a Game Chariot random team 2 on 2 tournament. This was basically the same tournament last year where Karun and I ended up in those vids that have been around youtube so maybe I will make it on there again... who knows... In any case, next weekend should be pretty fuckin awsome.
On my way to Tokyo I ran into Laura, one of the other ALTs near my town at Takasaki station. She was also going to Tokyo for the weekend so we talked for about 2 hours on the train. We said we might meet up at some point later on. After getting off the train alone I headed to Vegas for casuals. Starting from earlier this week, a new American player who goes by the handle Honnou on dustloop would be living in Japan for a year and living in Tokyo. We made plans to meet up at Vegas. Various noteworthy people were at Vegas such as Inoue, HH, Baim, Ririko, Bleed (who was playing Johnny again), and a few others as well as a bunch of people I dont know. Eventually Honnou showed up. His real name is Rodrigo. He's from California and has been playing Gear since XX. His main is I-no but he says he can play a little under half the cast fairly well. We played eachother about 7 or 8 times. He picked I-no on me the whole time except for one match he used HOS. While he wasnt able to beat me at all, he did begin to adapt after a few matches. Im sure after living here for a while he will get a lot better. He told me that playing out here is like learning the game all over again since the level of skill is so high.
After playing till pretty late, he evetually headed out. He wanted to come drinking but he had no money, but we made plans to meet up again the next day. After that, I met up with Matt, Chris, 27yov, and a few other random Norwegian guys they were friends with. We ate and then headed to Current. It was a typical Friday with a few regulars there and not a whole lot happened that was extremely noteworthy. As usual, 27yov tried his best to get lucky but failed as he always does. However, I guess I was drinking pretty fast because Matt said that sometime around 4 or 4:30 I passed out. I honestly dont even remember but I do remember saying goodbye to everyone and leaving. I left with Matt and he said it was cool if I crashed at his apartment in Nakano since I had to go to Nakano hospital the next day to return my crutches.
I woke up the next morning on the floor in the corner of Matt's apartment... with a splitting headache! I guess I really did drink a shit ton cuz it was a fucking nasty hangover. I ended up sleeping till like 3 pm. After Matt took a shower and then I took a shower, we went to get some Indian food before heading to the hospital. We then swung by TRF real quick to see how the comp was over there. We left shortly after to go return my crutches. By the time we made it to the hospital, it was just a little after 4 pm. I returned the crutches and was pleased to find out I got about 3200 yen back out of the 5000 yen I paid to rent them. Extra beer money! However, I also wanted to get my eye checked out while I was there. The receptionist told me that they close for general checkups after 4 pm, so I was just a few minutes late. Bummer. Looks like I will have to get my eye checked another time.
After that we headed back to TRF and played SFIV for a bit. For the most part we were both getting beat up pretty bad by the comp there. I finally bought one of those cards that stores your record and lets you get points, but I didnt register it with my info yet. After playing there for a bit, we decided to head over to Vegas since the Guilty Gear comp at TRF was pretty much non existant. A ton more top players were there again and we got a lot of good matches in. Eventually Honnou showed up as well. I saw Matt and Honnou play against eachother sorta from a few cabs down while I was waiting for my next match to start and it was very close with Matt winning by just a bit. I dont know how many times they played though. Eventually towards the end of the night, Honnou wanted to play me a bunch of times again. I dont know how many games we played but it was a ton. Once again he couldnt beat me, but he was starting to win a round here and there more frequently than he was before. At some point there wasnt really anyone else there playing besides us and maybe like 1 or 2 more guys so we decidedto go drinking. This time Honnou would join us. We stopped at a 7-11 on the way to Current to try to get money out of the ATM for Honnou but his card wouldnt work for whatever reason so he only had like 1200 yen for the night. He said he would be fine with that as he isnt an extremely heavy drinker. I told him id loan him some money or something if he ended up wanting to drink more.
When we arrived at Current, this time it was pretty packed since tonight was a metal event night. As usual, all the metal event regulars were jamming away on their inflatable guitars and singing along to songs. At some point shortly after we arrived, the audio system suddenly just crapped out for a good like 10 minutes. During this time, the metal event crowd just kept singing the lyrics in unison to the Sonata Arctica song that was on while it crapped out. It was rather hilarious and once the song ended they just went ahead and started it all over again. Some of them were even like immitating the guitar and keyboard parts with their mouths too haha! They called in Sushi to come in and check it out. It didnt take him long to arrive so im assuming he must live extremely close which would make sense. When he arrived he was wearing a cast on each arm. Mogi had told me that he broke both of his arms after getting extremely wasted and falling down the stairs. Poor guy. Much worse than what happened to me. Shortly after, they got the equipment fixed and Sushi left again and never returned. I dont blame him. I wouldnt wanna be working with 2 broken arms either.
For a while they were just playing this long block of Motley Crue songs which was ok at first but got a little redundant after a while. Around this time, Matt decided he was going to go to Zin with Saeko and said he would return later. I was having fun at Current and Honnou was still there chatting with these 2 chicks at a table in the back so I figured id just stay. Basically the rest of the night at Current was pretty much a regular metal event. Good times. They finished up the night with Candlelight Fantasia by Symphony X which was awsome (aside from me, 3 other people had Symphony X shirts on... sweet). After it was over at 5 am, as usual, they handed out a sheet of paper with the setlist for the night on it. Right before we arrived they had just finished playing like a whole 10 song set of Symphony X. I was pretty bummed that I just missed it but oh well, I was busy playing Gear so its all good.
After Current closed, Honnou decided to head back to his host family's home where he is staying. However, he said he had a great time at Current and was even air guitaring on one of the inflatable guitars for a bit lol! Matt never came back so I mailed him and we decided to meet up and Zin and do more drinking. He said a few other people might come. I arrived at Zin and Matt was saying bye to some totally hot chick dressed all dolled up in gothic lolita clothes. He got her number I guess. After that, Saeko, Matt, and I headed to this one Izakaya where Yago works. Its actually the same place I went to about 2 weeks ago during the Friday night (morning) of the previous blog entree. This time when we got there, I was surprised to see that Bosch and Ayano were there sitting in the back. They left Current together early. It seems everyone was a bit confused about the plans. We werent sure if it was like a date or not so we just sat at the bar and let them do their thing. Matt thought Saeko was good friends with Ayano but it turns out they only met like twice so I dont know where these plans came from but eventually Mogi showed up. He said hi to us and then went to sit with Ayano and Bosch. We werent sure if it was cool for us to go too so Matt decided to go check it out, but he was waved away by Mogi and Bosch indicating they didnt want him to sit there. We were then a bit confused. Eventually Saeko went over there and said she would be back. She sat there for a good while talking with them and it was just me and Matt. We were a bit confused. She came back eventually and then later went back over by them. There was this table of 3 girls and a guy (all Japanese) sitting behind us. Matt decided he was gonna go hit on the chicks. I was left at the bar alone for about 30 seconds and then Mogi and everyone at the other table motioned for me to come over and sit with them. Turns out that I guess a while back there was some beef with Mogi and Matt that Matt thought blew over. I wasnt there at the time, I think I was either at an enkai or someplace else, but I guess Matt said something that pissed Mogi off and it has made a lasting impression. Mogi also used to have something going on with Saeko. I dont know the details exactly but perhaps since Matt was flirting with her it may have pissed Mogi off. Once again, I dont really know the details. They were all telling me that they are totally cool with me and im their favorite foreigner and all this other stuff. I guess they just think Matt is sometimes a bit rude and get the impression that he hits on too many girls. While I dont always pay that much attention to that fact, perhaps its true. However, I sorta tried to defend Matt saying hes not a bad guy and such. They said they dont like hate him but they didnt really want to hang out with him outside Current I guess. They said they hate Chris (Slightly Pudgy Guy) more than anyone cuz hes really annoying lol. I dont think hes annoying but whatever. Mogi would periodically yell stuff over to the other table and call Matt 4-eyes in Japanese. Im friends with all of these people so I didnt really wanna get stuck in the middle of some drama over some shit I had nothing to do with. In any case it didnt really seem to be a huge deal but I guess I never realized how some people felt about eachother. I find it really funny that I know just about everyone that goes to Current regularly and am cool with everyone, yet there are some people that just either dont know eachother or dont get along well at all, despite them always being there. I found it very surprising, for example, that Antti and Chip didnt even know eachother until a few weeks ago and they both have been going to Current longer than I have lol. Anyway, we all drank till about 9 am and then went home. Matt was still hitting on the chicks so I just said bye to him. On our way out he grabbed Saeko's ass lol. I said goodbye to the people I was sitting with outside and then headed to the manga kissa.
The next day I had no real plans. I headed to Akihabara to check out the Tatsunoko Vs Capcom location test going on at Hey! game center. This time they had Karas, Gold Lighton, and Doranjo playable for Tatsunoko, and Rockman and the mech from Lost Planet playable for Capcom. The select screen was also changed to fit way more characters so im sure we can expect this game to have a good sized cast in the end. I was surprised to see that there was like no line at all to wait to play the game. A few people were watching but hardly anyone wanted to play. I wonder how well this game will end up doing in Japan... I got on and tried out most of the characters I havnt played as before. Doronjo seems cool and her game revolves around summoning those 2 partners she has as special moves and they sorta control space and set up traps. Karas is really fast and seems to be a solid character. He (she?) has a lot of ground combo based gameplay and his level 3 super is this fucking rediculously good throw that does a shit ton of damage and it has tons of range too. Rockman... I dunno, he didnt seem that good. Honestly thought when I was playing as him I didnt have a copy of his movelist so I didnt know what I was doing and his moves seem to have strange commands. I cant pass judgement on him yet. Gold Lighton and the mech take up 2 character slots and have an extra large life bar. They can block but they are extremely slow. Mostly all their moves seem to have super armor so they continue even when they are getting hit. Its too early to say if they are good or not, but I kept seeing them lose against 2 character teams every time I saw them play. I tried out Gold Lighton myself and I guess I see ways he could be effective but im not really sure if hes gonna be good yet. I honestly didnt play that much. I just wasnt really in the mood and after seeing some of the new stuff that was enough for me and I wanted to play some other games. I played a little SFIV at Hey! (They have a TON of cabs for this game) and the comp there was rediculously good. I mostly got raped and then decided to just go play some Gear at Clubs Sega.
When I got to Club Sega, Ogawa was there as is often the case. I played against him like 3 times and then managed to beat his Eddie! Then he played me again and won. I went to another cab and ended up getting this huge win streak. During this time, Ogawa just chilled out next to me and kept giving me all kinds of matchup advice for Faust for no reason at all. I guess he was just being really nice and stuff. He uses a lot of slang and talks really fast so its hard to understand him and his English ability is next to nothing at all, but I did my best to understand what he was trying to tell me. After a while he sat at the cab next to me and started getting his own streak. Sometime during my winstreak, Matt showed up. I told him I wasnt sure if I was gonna go home tonight or stay in Tokyo for another night. The next day was Respect for the Aged Day (a national holiday) so I didnt have work... but I also had no plans for tonight. I decided that whether I stay or not would be dependant on my win streak. I had about a half hour left to decide before I had to catch the last train and no one had beat me yet. I was up to about 20 wins I think. I ended up beating a few more people until eventually a May player challenged me with about 7 minutes to spare. I figured this might be the end and we fought an epic match that ended extremely close in the last round but he managed to beat me, ending my win streak at 25 wins. At this point I probably could have caught the train but I figured it was close enough and decided I wanted to stay. I mailed my friend Laura and she said she was going to some sorta concert with some Jam bands and stuff tonight at this place called Ageha in Shin Kiba. She said I could come along. I decided I might as well.
After playing a few more games, Matt and I headed to an Izakaya in Akihabara for some food and a quick drink. We talked about the stuff that went down last night and basically I just told him not to worry about it so much. He said though that he doesnt often remember being so aggressive with the ladies sometimes when he gets wasted. I dont really think he does anything extremely bad, but I could tell he felt a little bad about it. In any case I dont think its going to be a huge deal. After eating, he said he had to go home because he had classes the next day and needed to do homework. I headed over to Shin Kiba station to meet up with Laura. When I got there it turns out her and her friends were planning on taking a bus from Shibuya cuz it was free from the hotel they were staying at but it didnt leave till later so they said they would meet me there after they arrived which would be in about an hour. At this point it was about 10 pm. I figured I might as well just go inside the place and wait there.
After asking for directions to the place from some random cop, I found it pretty easily. It turns out that Ageha is actually the same place as Studio Coast, which is where I saw Children of Bodom in concert not too long ago. It also turns out that this wasnt just some concert, it was an all out musical event that lasted until 5 am and was more like a night club than a concert. The event was called NBSA. It was 6000 yen to get in, but it turns out the place had like 4 different stage areas with over 20 different bands/acts/DJs/artists performing throughout the night. ALl of the acts were Japanese. They had all sorts of music from Regae to Jam bands, to electronic music, to free style hip hop. There were these 2 rappers and one of the dudes was making the beats with nothing but his mouth and the mic, and it sounded real as hell! I was pretty impressed with that actually. While none of this is stuff I often listen to, I had lots of friends and room mates back in Chicago that prefered this type of music and it would often be played at my apartment since the majority of my friends are not actually all that big into metal. In the main stage area where I saw Bodom before, they had these 3 guys painting this HUGE mural like right there at the event of like these Rhasta dudes and this monkey just chillin and playing guitar in this crazy tropical island scene. It looked amazing and was awsome watching them paint it in person. I took a pic with my cellphone but they didnt allow cameras inside. Eventually Laura and her friends showed up. She was with 4 other people. 2 were Americans from Reno who were on vacation, one of which was white and one was Japanese. The white dude was named Graham and was waring a Slayer T-shirt and he gave me compliments on my Zeppelin shirt. Seems I wasnt the only metal dude there haha. The other was a Japanese American named Dustin whos mother lives in Japan. Then there was another Japanese guy named Shun and a Japanese girl named Mayumi, who throughout the night, all the guys were swooning over cuz she was really hot. We all pretty much just got wasted and danced a lot going from act to act. I decided to take a break from beer since they only had heinekin and it was 700 yen for a can and I ussually drink it on tap at Current for 500 yen so it didnt seem worth it. Instead and started off with some red wine and then basically just went all over the place with mixed drinks. I got pretty good and drunk. As a result, as the night went on, I found myself actually dancing a lot. Anyone who knows me and has seen me dance knows I basically suck at it really bad. However, I have no idea why or how, but people kept coming up to me and complimenting me on my dancing saying how cool I was... and they werent being sarcastic... I have no idea wtf was going on with that, but I was wasted and didnt care and was having fun so it was all good. Due to me being drunk, I was able to dance a lot despite my recent injury. I didnt even really feel anything until towards the end when we stopped for a bit and both of my feet were sore as hell.
Eventually a little bit after 5 pm, the place closed and we headed out to get our stuff from our storage lockers. (I realized that this place had way more lockers than I thought and I could have easily stored my backpack in them last time when I saw Bodom, which would have spared me a lot of trouble... oh well). As I was going down the stairs from the locker area which were outside the building, it was still raining a bit and I ended up slipping and landing on my ass. Luckily I somehow managed to not injure myself at all this time. I certainly wouldnt have wanted to go through more BS with crutches. After that the plan was to go back to Shibuya where they all had a fucking nice ass hotel room. They invited me to sleep there too so I certainly wasnt gonna turn that down. They didnt want to take the train so all 6 of us piled into a cab. You might be thinking how the hell we managed to do that, and I really cant answer that. Lets just say it wasnt exactly comfortable. Fortunately it only took about 15 minutes and only ended up costing us about 1000 yen each. After getting some drunken Yoshinoya we all headed to the hotel room and shortly after, passed the fuck out. I found a nice comfy spot on the floor and got a good pillow so I was all good.
The next morning we woke up and one of their friends whos a construction worker was down on the street and called one of their phones. We could see eachother up from where we were on the 17th floor. It was pretty awsome. The view was sick too. I took a few pictures. After everyone showered we headed out. Laura had to go have lunch with her Japanese uncle that she hardly knows and wasnt very excited about it. The rest of us went to get some food and I got some tasty fuckin Udon. They all said they wanted to come check out Current so they may show up next weekend. After eating they had plans to go somewhere and I wanted to go play some Gear, so we parted ways from there and I headed to Akihabara to play some more. I pretty much just spent the rest of the day playing casuals at Club Sega and Hey! Ogawa was there again and I played him a couple times but didnt beat him. Gin was there too and was trying to beat Ogawa with his Slayer but also failed.
At around 8:30 I headed out and went back home. Next Sunday is actually my birthday. Mogi says were gonna have a party at Current on Saturday night since its also Antti's birthday and another girl's birthday who often goes there. My girlfriend is going to come too! And after that, on Sunday, she wants to take me to Tokyo Disney Land. Im not really a huge disney fan but riding some rollercoasters and shit will probly be pretty sweet. In additon, Saturday afternoon, there will be a Game Chariot random team 2 on 2 tournament. This was basically the same tournament last year where Karun and I ended up in those vids that have been around youtube so maybe I will make it on there again... who knows... In any case, next weekend should be pretty fuckin awsome.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Current 7th Anniversary party. Admission: 1,000 yen and your right foot.
This weekend started off like any other weekend, but certainly turned out to be much different than I would have expected. I arrived in Tokyo on Friday at the usual time around 8 pm. I headed to Vegas as I often do, played a little GG and a little SFIV. Nothing extremely noteworthy to mention. This weekend, Rock Inn Current would be having its 7th anniversary party both Friday and Saturday nights. I decided to get to Current kinda early since I figured it would be pretty packed.
When I arrived, there were a decent ammount of people there for an average Friday night, but it wasnt really all that packed. I got there around 10 pm which is earlier than I ussually show up. They were charging 1000 yen at the door and you got a drink ticket. Normally when they charge a cover at the door for events, they never make me pay it since they know I would be going there anyway. Most of the time its for metal events which are run by other people and they just use the bar as the venue so the money would be going to them. However, since this time the bar itself was running this event, the money goes directly to them, so they had me pay like everyone else. I didnt really mind since really im only paying 500 yen and they had free snacks all night. Most of the people there were regulars and even the owner of Zin showed up. I emailed Matt to see if he was coming but he said he was too busy dealing with moving into his new apartment in Nakano so he wouldnt make it tonight but would come tomorrow. They were giving away these Current sample Cds which were just a collection of some music they often play at the bar, and they burned a bunch of them wrong and were using them as coasters haha. Basically other than this it was a typical night, drank for a long time and had fun. After they closed at 5, a group of some of the regulars were going to go drinking some more at an izakaya. I went along with them and got some food and more beer. We stayed till about 7 am and then I walked to the manga kissa from there.
I woke up to lots of people sending me emails but went back to sleep. I ended up using my stamp card I had filled up at the manga kissa which gives you an extra 2 hours free, so I slept for a full 8 hours which felt nice. After I finally rolled out of there around 3 pm, I headed right to Vegas across the street. There were people there playing which was cool. Matt met me there as well to play games all day. I played a decent ammount of SFIV as well. Until last week, they only had 1 SFIV cabinet at Vegas but now they have 3. Thats a good sign that the game is actually making them some money since they bothered to order 2 more and those cabs are pretty expensive. I did pretty well with my Blanka actually, getting some wins here and there and even getting a 5 win streak, which is good for a game Ive hardly played. Lots of people were using Gouki. I was doing really well against Balrog (Claw) but was having lots of trouble against E.Honda. I got some good games of gear in here and there as well. At one point, Kawin (Spikey Hair Potemkin), Hase, and Natsume showed up. They were playing eachother for a bit and I jumped in there too. I played a game against Kawin but didnt win. Then eventually, after Natsume and Hase tried to beat him a few times, Natsume won. Hase lost to Natsume and then I got on and I beat Natsume's Dizzy. Then Hase picked Millia on me for some reason (I didnt even know he played millia), and I won again. He rematched me and I lost by a small ammount. Around this time, Matt's friend from back in Oregan showed up. His name was Artur. He doesnt play fighting games very seriously but he used to be really into CvS1 and he is the ex room mate of Hellsap (the Zappa player). He is in Japan for a 3 week vacation. It was around 9 pm so we decided to get some food and then head to Current.
First we stopped at an Izakaya near Current to have a drink and some food. I got this kickass huge ceasar salad for 300 yen and a whiskey coke. After staying there for a bit and chilling and talking we headed to Current at around 9:45. Once again it wasnt extremely packed yet but it was still very early. This time they didnt charge me at the door since I paid last night. Tonight was supposed to be a costume night. Masami was wearing a giant beer stien hat thing which looked hilarious but later he switched to a viking helmet. As time went on, more and more people showed up, and by 12, the place was just as packed as any crazy metal event night with tons of people, and all of them were awsome regulars that I knew well so it was totally awsome. Some of the ladies had some pretty awsome costumes on. Nozomi was dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Megu was dressed as a cop. Ayano was in one of those nice chinese dresses. One of the girls was dressed as a sexy nurse, and there were also some other various extremely skimpy outfits going on. Antti showed up and a bunch of his Finish friends came as well. I gave Antti the rest of the snus I had since I didnt really wanna use it anymore, he was super happy and like finished 2 whole packs that night. At one point, I noticed a bunch of people were leaving all of a sudden. Matt went outside to see what was going on. One of the regular guys, Mame, had broken his nose. While they were dancing, I guess someone got a little to wild and accidently hit him in the nose. So people were just out there checking on him and stuff. They eventually all came back inside and Mame had a bandage over his nose but otherwise seemed fine. Being drunk is a great pain killer.
Tonight there were several DJs throughout the night, and Sushi told me that I could DJ for about 30 minutes too! Originally I was planning on bringing my own CDs but I was in a huge rush to catch the train on the way to Tokyo and I left them all in my car. However, Current has tons of great stuff so I knew I would be able to put on a good set anyway. Throughout the night they were giving away tons of free shots, people were buying me vodka shots left and right, and beers and all kindsa stuff. I was feelin GOOD! Eventually it was my turn to DJ. This was my set...
Sonata Arctica- Wolf and Raven
Children of Bodom - Bodom Beach Terror
Symphony X - Church of the Machine
In Flames - Ordinary Story
Dream Theater - Overture 1892
Nightwish - Planet Hell
A few people were asking me for requests while I was up there, but I told them I only had like a few songs left and already picked em, but I told the next guy up to play them. Lots of people were digging my set and were rockin out. While I was DJing, Chip showed up with Sawa. One of the Finish guys bought me a vodka shot while I was up there too.
After a little more time went on, one of the DJs played Nightwish - I Wish I Had an Angel. Everyone loves this song so they quickly formed this big circle by putting their arms over the shoulder of the next person, and would run around in the circle really fast and switch directions on occasion. About near the end of the song, Ayano, the girl who was next to me in the circle, tripped and fell over. As she fell, I got dragged down with her and all of a sudden I felt an extremely sharp pain in my right foot. I stood up but it hurt like a bitch so I had to sit down for a bit. I took off my shoe to check it out and it was pretty bad. I wasnt sure how bad it was. Megu and one of the Finish girls saw me and asked what was wrong and each of them gave me a foot massage. Very nice of them. However, I dont think it helped much, and the Finish chick was doing it way too hard, I think she was enjoying it heh. I was able to walk on it but not without limpling like hell and had to go really slow. I tried to walk outside on the front walkway area to get some air and just walk it off. When I went out there, there was a group of people on the stairs. One of the dudes was having a conversation with me about stuff im not gonna get into on here, but he used to live in Canada and was telling me he hates it here and just got back like a few days ago. He spoke good English. However, I still found myself speaking to him in Japanese, and he would reply in English. I didnt even realize why at first but everyone there was laughing really hard since the Japanese guy was speaking English and the foreigner was speaking in Japanese. Ass backwards haha. After talking for a bit, I went back inside.
Current ended up staying open till about 6 am. After they turned on the lights, everyone knew it was time to wrap it up. I spent a while saying goodbye to everyone since I knew just about everyone there (there was like at least 50 people or something there that night). After I was done saying goodbye, I mailed Matt to see where him and Artur went. They said they went ahead to the MOS burger down the street. I went there to find them and didnt see them so I told them they werent there but they were all the way in the back so he came out and got me. I came back and they were sitting with Chip and Sawa. I got a fish burger and a drink and we all talked for a bit. Eventually, Chip and Sawa left, and then Matt, Artur, and I headed for the train station. They were gonna go to Matt's new apartment in Nakano to sleep, they said I could crash there too. I was a bit weary of my foot and it sounded better than the manga kissa so I took them up on the offer. On our way to his apartment, I limped along and tried to keep up. It hurt but it wasnt unbearable, but I was also completely wasted so the pain was deceptive. We finally arrived at his place. I was surprised to see how small it was. His entire apartment is smaller than my kitchen, and his entire bathroom is smaller than my shower. He pays 90,000 yen a month where as I pay 25,000 a month. However, thats the price of living in Tokyo. He doesnt have to take a 3 hour train ride every weekend like I do, so it has its trade offs. He had no furniture yet so I just found a spot in the corner on the hardwood floor. I didnt have a blanket and his aircon was cranked up. I used the plastic shopping back filled with my dirty clothes as a pillow. I fell asleep pretty fast but kept waking up in intervals, tossing and turning.
After about 4 hours of sleeping, I needed to wake up and use the bathroom. When I tried to stand up, I found out that I COULDNT. After being off my foot for this long, and sobering up a bit, the pain was unbearable to put any pressure on it at all. At this point I knew it was at least sprained or worse. I made it to the pisser by hopping on one foot. All the noise woke those guys up and I told them I couldnt walk. They ended up just staying up at this point, it was already like 11 am anyway. After talking for a bit, we came to the conclusion I would need crutches. They went to the drugstore to see if they could buy some but no where carried them. We knew then that I would have to go to the hospital. They taped up the foot with some medical gauze tape stuff to keep preassure on it. The original plan was to have me walk by putting my arms around both of them sorta using them as human crutches, but that didnt end up working for very long. Eventually Artur just gave me a fucking piggy back ride. He weighs a decent ammount more than me so he was able to do it without TOO much difficulty. However, it was quite hilarious and sorta embarrasing at the same time as several Japanese people watched as 3 foreigners walked through the street, with one only wearing one shoe and being carried on the other ones back.
Eventually we made it to a main road after about 10 minutes of walking. We were able to hail a cab and he took us to Nakano hospital. From this point I just hopped on one foot all the way inside to the front desk. They quickly brought me a wheel chair. This was the first time ive been in a Japanese hospital. I filled out some paperwork and gave them my medical insurance card. Not long after, they wheeled me in the back, asked me some questions and took some x-rays. The doctor said it wasnt broken but it was sprained pretty bad. They gave me some crutches for rent which costed me 5,000 yen. They also gave me some pills to take to reduce swelling and pain. After a bit more waiting, I signed some more stuff and then they presented me with the bill which was a little over 10,000 yen (this was IN ADDITION to the 5,000 yen I already paid). This was also the discounted fee after insurance. I never thought spraining my foot could be so expensive. Ive never broken a bone before and the only time I sprained something before this was my ankle in like 1st grade or something. Instead of just giving them the money at the front, they gave me this card. I then had to go to a machine and put the card in, and then the machine told me how much I owed, and I had to put the cash in like it was a vending machine or I was about to get a meal at Matsuya or something. Japan and its vending machines.... wtf...
After that, we headed out and while the plan was originally to go and play games all day, I decided it would be best for me to head back home to figure out what I was going to do. I had to switch trains 3 times, for one of them I had to stand the whole time, the other ones, people let me have their seat and I got to sit in the priority seating area. I slept for most of the entire way home. Since it was my right foot I knew I wouldnt be able to drive a car, so I had to go back to a different train station from where I was parked. I called Ryoko and she was nice enough to come pick me up and go back with me to my place for a bit. She took good care of me and all that. I called my boss and told him what happened and right now im at work, but teaching classes on crutches is kinda a bitch. I dont know how long it will be till him healed, the doctor in Nakano told me to visit another hospital in my town within the next few days. I hope it doesnt end up costing me a shit ton more money.
Next weekend my school has a sports day festival. All schools in Japan have these once a year and they are on a Saturday, meaning all the teachers have to come work on Saturday. We get Monday off instead though. I am just going to take it easy and stay in my town next weekend, most likely playing lots of MGS4 and spending time with Ryoko. I hope this shit heals soon. Most likely wont be doing a blog entry next week as I doubt it would be very interesting. Hopefully in 2 weeks ill be back to my ussual shinanigans.
fuck...
When I arrived, there were a decent ammount of people there for an average Friday night, but it wasnt really all that packed. I got there around 10 pm which is earlier than I ussually show up. They were charging 1000 yen at the door and you got a drink ticket. Normally when they charge a cover at the door for events, they never make me pay it since they know I would be going there anyway. Most of the time its for metal events which are run by other people and they just use the bar as the venue so the money would be going to them. However, since this time the bar itself was running this event, the money goes directly to them, so they had me pay like everyone else. I didnt really mind since really im only paying 500 yen and they had free snacks all night. Most of the people there were regulars and even the owner of Zin showed up. I emailed Matt to see if he was coming but he said he was too busy dealing with moving into his new apartment in Nakano so he wouldnt make it tonight but would come tomorrow. They were giving away these Current sample Cds which were just a collection of some music they often play at the bar, and they burned a bunch of them wrong and were using them as coasters haha. Basically other than this it was a typical night, drank for a long time and had fun. After they closed at 5, a group of some of the regulars were going to go drinking some more at an izakaya. I went along with them and got some food and more beer. We stayed till about 7 am and then I walked to the manga kissa from there.
I woke up to lots of people sending me emails but went back to sleep. I ended up using my stamp card I had filled up at the manga kissa which gives you an extra 2 hours free, so I slept for a full 8 hours which felt nice. After I finally rolled out of there around 3 pm, I headed right to Vegas across the street. There were people there playing which was cool. Matt met me there as well to play games all day. I played a decent ammount of SFIV as well. Until last week, they only had 1 SFIV cabinet at Vegas but now they have 3. Thats a good sign that the game is actually making them some money since they bothered to order 2 more and those cabs are pretty expensive. I did pretty well with my Blanka actually, getting some wins here and there and even getting a 5 win streak, which is good for a game Ive hardly played. Lots of people were using Gouki. I was doing really well against Balrog (Claw) but was having lots of trouble against E.Honda. I got some good games of gear in here and there as well. At one point, Kawin (Spikey Hair Potemkin), Hase, and Natsume showed up. They were playing eachother for a bit and I jumped in there too. I played a game against Kawin but didnt win. Then eventually, after Natsume and Hase tried to beat him a few times, Natsume won. Hase lost to Natsume and then I got on and I beat Natsume's Dizzy. Then Hase picked Millia on me for some reason (I didnt even know he played millia), and I won again. He rematched me and I lost by a small ammount. Around this time, Matt's friend from back in Oregan showed up. His name was Artur. He doesnt play fighting games very seriously but he used to be really into CvS1 and he is the ex room mate of Hellsap (the Zappa player). He is in Japan for a 3 week vacation. It was around 9 pm so we decided to get some food and then head to Current.
First we stopped at an Izakaya near Current to have a drink and some food. I got this kickass huge ceasar salad for 300 yen and a whiskey coke. After staying there for a bit and chilling and talking we headed to Current at around 9:45. Once again it wasnt extremely packed yet but it was still very early. This time they didnt charge me at the door since I paid last night. Tonight was supposed to be a costume night. Masami was wearing a giant beer stien hat thing which looked hilarious but later he switched to a viking helmet. As time went on, more and more people showed up, and by 12, the place was just as packed as any crazy metal event night with tons of people, and all of them were awsome regulars that I knew well so it was totally awsome. Some of the ladies had some pretty awsome costumes on. Nozomi was dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Megu was dressed as a cop. Ayano was in one of those nice chinese dresses. One of the girls was dressed as a sexy nurse, and there were also some other various extremely skimpy outfits going on. Antti showed up and a bunch of his Finish friends came as well. I gave Antti the rest of the snus I had since I didnt really wanna use it anymore, he was super happy and like finished 2 whole packs that night. At one point, I noticed a bunch of people were leaving all of a sudden. Matt went outside to see what was going on. One of the regular guys, Mame, had broken his nose. While they were dancing, I guess someone got a little to wild and accidently hit him in the nose. So people were just out there checking on him and stuff. They eventually all came back inside and Mame had a bandage over his nose but otherwise seemed fine. Being drunk is a great pain killer.
Tonight there were several DJs throughout the night, and Sushi told me that I could DJ for about 30 minutes too! Originally I was planning on bringing my own CDs but I was in a huge rush to catch the train on the way to Tokyo and I left them all in my car. However, Current has tons of great stuff so I knew I would be able to put on a good set anyway. Throughout the night they were giving away tons of free shots, people were buying me vodka shots left and right, and beers and all kindsa stuff. I was feelin GOOD! Eventually it was my turn to DJ. This was my set...
Sonata Arctica- Wolf and Raven
Children of Bodom - Bodom Beach Terror
Symphony X - Church of the Machine
In Flames - Ordinary Story
Dream Theater - Overture 1892
Nightwish - Planet Hell
A few people were asking me for requests while I was up there, but I told them I only had like a few songs left and already picked em, but I told the next guy up to play them. Lots of people were digging my set and were rockin out. While I was DJing, Chip showed up with Sawa. One of the Finish guys bought me a vodka shot while I was up there too.
After a little more time went on, one of the DJs played Nightwish - I Wish I Had an Angel. Everyone loves this song so they quickly formed this big circle by putting their arms over the shoulder of the next person, and would run around in the circle really fast and switch directions on occasion. About near the end of the song, Ayano, the girl who was next to me in the circle, tripped and fell over. As she fell, I got dragged down with her and all of a sudden I felt an extremely sharp pain in my right foot. I stood up but it hurt like a bitch so I had to sit down for a bit. I took off my shoe to check it out and it was pretty bad. I wasnt sure how bad it was. Megu and one of the Finish girls saw me and asked what was wrong and each of them gave me a foot massage. Very nice of them. However, I dont think it helped much, and the Finish chick was doing it way too hard, I think she was enjoying it heh. I was able to walk on it but not without limpling like hell and had to go really slow. I tried to walk outside on the front walkway area to get some air and just walk it off. When I went out there, there was a group of people on the stairs. One of the dudes was having a conversation with me about stuff im not gonna get into on here, but he used to live in Canada and was telling me he hates it here and just got back like a few days ago. He spoke good English. However, I still found myself speaking to him in Japanese, and he would reply in English. I didnt even realize why at first but everyone there was laughing really hard since the Japanese guy was speaking English and the foreigner was speaking in Japanese. Ass backwards haha. After talking for a bit, I went back inside.
Current ended up staying open till about 6 am. After they turned on the lights, everyone knew it was time to wrap it up. I spent a while saying goodbye to everyone since I knew just about everyone there (there was like at least 50 people or something there that night). After I was done saying goodbye, I mailed Matt to see where him and Artur went. They said they went ahead to the MOS burger down the street. I went there to find them and didnt see them so I told them they werent there but they were all the way in the back so he came out and got me. I came back and they were sitting with Chip and Sawa. I got a fish burger and a drink and we all talked for a bit. Eventually, Chip and Sawa left, and then Matt, Artur, and I headed for the train station. They were gonna go to Matt's new apartment in Nakano to sleep, they said I could crash there too. I was a bit weary of my foot and it sounded better than the manga kissa so I took them up on the offer. On our way to his apartment, I limped along and tried to keep up. It hurt but it wasnt unbearable, but I was also completely wasted so the pain was deceptive. We finally arrived at his place. I was surprised to see how small it was. His entire apartment is smaller than my kitchen, and his entire bathroom is smaller than my shower. He pays 90,000 yen a month where as I pay 25,000 a month. However, thats the price of living in Tokyo. He doesnt have to take a 3 hour train ride every weekend like I do, so it has its trade offs. He had no furniture yet so I just found a spot in the corner on the hardwood floor. I didnt have a blanket and his aircon was cranked up. I used the plastic shopping back filled with my dirty clothes as a pillow. I fell asleep pretty fast but kept waking up in intervals, tossing and turning.
After about 4 hours of sleeping, I needed to wake up and use the bathroom. When I tried to stand up, I found out that I COULDNT. After being off my foot for this long, and sobering up a bit, the pain was unbearable to put any pressure on it at all. At this point I knew it was at least sprained or worse. I made it to the pisser by hopping on one foot. All the noise woke those guys up and I told them I couldnt walk. They ended up just staying up at this point, it was already like 11 am anyway. After talking for a bit, we came to the conclusion I would need crutches. They went to the drugstore to see if they could buy some but no where carried them. We knew then that I would have to go to the hospital. They taped up the foot with some medical gauze tape stuff to keep preassure on it. The original plan was to have me walk by putting my arms around both of them sorta using them as human crutches, but that didnt end up working for very long. Eventually Artur just gave me a fucking piggy back ride. He weighs a decent ammount more than me so he was able to do it without TOO much difficulty. However, it was quite hilarious and sorta embarrasing at the same time as several Japanese people watched as 3 foreigners walked through the street, with one only wearing one shoe and being carried on the other ones back.
Eventually we made it to a main road after about 10 minutes of walking. We were able to hail a cab and he took us to Nakano hospital. From this point I just hopped on one foot all the way inside to the front desk. They quickly brought me a wheel chair. This was the first time ive been in a Japanese hospital. I filled out some paperwork and gave them my medical insurance card. Not long after, they wheeled me in the back, asked me some questions and took some x-rays. The doctor said it wasnt broken but it was sprained pretty bad. They gave me some crutches for rent which costed me 5,000 yen. They also gave me some pills to take to reduce swelling and pain. After a bit more waiting, I signed some more stuff and then they presented me with the bill which was a little over 10,000 yen (this was IN ADDITION to the 5,000 yen I already paid). This was also the discounted fee after insurance. I never thought spraining my foot could be so expensive. Ive never broken a bone before and the only time I sprained something before this was my ankle in like 1st grade or something. Instead of just giving them the money at the front, they gave me this card. I then had to go to a machine and put the card in, and then the machine told me how much I owed, and I had to put the cash in like it was a vending machine or I was about to get a meal at Matsuya or something. Japan and its vending machines.... wtf...
After that, we headed out and while the plan was originally to go and play games all day, I decided it would be best for me to head back home to figure out what I was going to do. I had to switch trains 3 times, for one of them I had to stand the whole time, the other ones, people let me have their seat and I got to sit in the priority seating area. I slept for most of the entire way home. Since it was my right foot I knew I wouldnt be able to drive a car, so I had to go back to a different train station from where I was parked. I called Ryoko and she was nice enough to come pick me up and go back with me to my place for a bit. She took good care of me and all that. I called my boss and told him what happened and right now im at work, but teaching classes on crutches is kinda a bitch. I dont know how long it will be till him healed, the doctor in Nakano told me to visit another hospital in my town within the next few days. I hope it doesnt end up costing me a shit ton more money.
Next weekend my school has a sports day festival. All schools in Japan have these once a year and they are on a Saturday, meaning all the teachers have to come work on Saturday. We get Monday off instead though. I am just going to take it easy and stay in my town next weekend, most likely playing lots of MGS4 and spending time with Ryoko. I hope this shit heals soon. Most likely wont be doing a blog entry next week as I doubt it would be very interesting. Hopefully in 2 weeks ill be back to my ussual shinanigans.
fuck...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
