Monkey Business

Upon arriving at Vegas, I was surprised to see Nakamura was there. I hadn’t seen him since SBO. He was playing Millia and had a nice streak going. I decided to play against him first. I lost to him twice and a few other people played him in between. On my 3^rd try I took him down and ended his streak at 23 wins. Afterwards, he came over and said hi to me. We made a little small talk and I found out from him that next weekend there will be a tournament at Club Sega Akihabara on Sunday. He said he knew of no tournament this weekend though. Our conversation got cut when a Ky player got on the machine to play me and then Nakamura went back on the other side of the cabs. I beat the Ky player and then Nakamura re-matched me and I managed to beat him a 2^nd time! Then he got back on the cab right away and beat me. I rematched him a few more times but I couldn’t beat him again. Millia is a really hard match for Faust so I was happy that I managed to beat him twice. There was also this really good Chipp player who was sitting next to Nakamura. I don’t know the guys name but they seem to be friends. He had 7 wins and I beat him but then he rematched me and I lost a few against him. After getting beat up enough by Chipp I went to go play against some I-no player. During my match I heard Nakamura and the Chipp behind me and they were saying I was playing good and stuff. After the match they said they had to leave so they said goodbye and good games and headed out. I beat the I-no 2 more times and then he eventually beat me. I beat some scrubby Sol and then I emailed Matt and Rod (Honnou). Matt said he was staying home tonight because he was broke. I sent him a reply email saying “pussy” with a thumbs down icon. Rod said he was bowling at a place nearby with some friends.

I decided try some SFIV and played like 2 games against some Ryu player but I lost. I hardly play this game and still havnt really gotten a good feel for it yet. I went back to playing Gear and played against another I-no. I won 1, lost 1, won 4, and then I-no gave up. Then I beat an Eddie, a Slayer, another I-no, Slayer, I-no, some scrubby Ky, and then I was getting hungry so I mailed Rod to see if he wanted to get food.

Rod said he was eating at some place already with some friends but invited me to join them. It was some restaurant above a nearby pachinko place. After a bit of searching I found the place. I ended up getting off on the wrong floor but eventually I figured it out and met up with Rod by the elevator. He was with a group of people from his University’s international club. There were 2 Japanese people and about 4 or 5 other foreigners. I noticed Rod was wearing a stuffed Monkey around his neck. I asked him what the deal was and he said he won it as a prize from when they went bowling. We ate some good food, chatted for a bit, and had some drinks. They seemed nice. After that, everyone split up and went their separate ways, while Rod and I headed for Current. On the way there, we met up with Mi Seon who just got off work. She seemed a bit reluctant to go to Current for whatever reason. Rod claims its because she doesn’t like smoke, though Ive never been to a bar in Tokyo that DIDN’T have lots of smoke so…

When we got there, Rod and I went inside, but Mi Seon said she was gonna run over to the convenient store for a second. There was a good size crowd there for a Friday. About half regulars and half people I didn’t know. Not long after, Monty and Kentaro showed up and with them was the metal band Hemlock. I don’t really know much about them and had only heard one song by them before, so I cant say I was exactly excited, but they seemed like nice enough guys I guess. I didn’t really talk to any of em much. After around the time I finished my first beer, Rod was wondering why Mi Seon hadn’t showed up yet. He went to check and she was just chilling outside in front. She wanted to get food, and I was still hungry so I said why not. We ducked out to go grab some Saizeriya (cheap Italian food). I got a pizza there and a beer and then we headed back to Current.

Kentaro was just sitting outside in front of the building, saying that he also didn’t feel like being there. He seemed a bit tired. He was working at the Hemlock concert tonight so he was probably all exhausted from that. Since Mi Seon didn’t really seem like she wanted to go inside Current, she just stayed outside and chatted with Kentaro. They said they wanted to go to another bar and we said to think of something and we will figure it out later. Rod and I went back inside and drank a bit more. Throughout the night, Rod’s Monkey was getting passed around all over the place and various people were wearing it on their head, neck, shoulder, whatever.

Eventually, this one random young white guy in a suit dude who I don’t think I’ve seen before was passed out in the back on a bench. He was out pretty cold…. and thus began possibly the most epic of all the fail moments at Rock Inn Current. Monty decided it would be fun to put some shit on the guys head. It started with something simple like a coaster. Eventually it turned into an all out game of “how much shit can we stack on this passed out dudes head?” About 90% of the people in the bar gathered around him and just started snapping all kinds of photos as people stacked all sorts of shit on this dude. They put a glass on his head and then started pouring beer into it while it was still balancing on his head. They stacked multiple glasses in a tower on top of his head. They took Rod’s Monkey and stuck it in one of the glasses, and at one point the put the monkey around his neck with the ass sticking out so it looked like he was tossing the monkey’s salad! LOL! They stuck some random shit in his ears too. People were gathering around him to take silly photos with him. The most amazing this is, the entire time, this guy was still just passed out cold. He only slightly moved a bit the entire time but never actually woke up. Then they picked the dude up, laid him across another bench, and decided to carry him and the entire bench outside in front of the bar! About 3 guys lifted the bench and brought him out while the rest all followed. People started snapping photos of him passed out in front of the bar, and then Monty opened up this like gate area next to the stairs and they were gonna put him in there, but then he started to wake up. As soon as he started getting up, everyone was laughing like crazy and bolted for the door to go back inside the bar. About 1 minute later, someone came back in saying that he passed out again and then they all went back outside. They tried one more time to move him but he woke up again and then they ran back inside again. Shortly after, someone said the guy was no where to be found. The lesson to be learned here is that you shouldn’t pass out at a bar because you WILL get owned.

It all actually reminded me of this time back in the day in Chicago when Juicy G passed out in the hallway of an anime convention on a chair. We took the liberty to draw shit all over his face and put shit on his head and take lots of hilarious pictures. Ah the nostalgia…

Anyway, eventually Mi Seon and Kentaro came in and said they were gonna go to another bar. I didn’t wanna leave yet so Rod and I told them to mail us later and we would meet up with them in a bit.

Bosch was DJing tonight and I requested he play Alice Cooper – Feed My Frankenstein. I asked him if he remembered it being in Wayne’s World and he did. It then resulted in him busting out like half the songs on the Wayne’s World soundtrack including Jimi Hendrix – Foxy Lady, Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody (in which the whole bar was singing along and busted out lighters), and the Wayne’s World main theme. Good times.

We continued to enjoy drinking until closing. After saying goodbye to everyone, Rod and I headed out to PSY where we agreed to meet up with Kentaro and Mi Seon. Rod realized he left his monkey at Current but its alright cuz he figured he could just get it tomorrow. They showed us that the bar they went to earlier was actually just down the street from PSY. When we got inside PSY, it was pretty packed. For whatever reason, Mi Seon didn’t feel like going inside their either, and Kentaro and her just ended up leaving instead heh. Heidi and Anna were there among various other people. Anna and I enjoyed requesting lots of Children of Bodom and I talked with Heidi for a bit. Both her and Anna are going back to Norway like in a week or so. Heidi will come back again but still doesn’t know what shes gonna do with her future. Masami showed up after finishing closing up at Current as well. Ayami was there again this time too and her and Rod spent most of the time there talking to eachother. This one older chick whos there a lot (the same girl who wanted to go home with Antti that one night but he didn’t want any of that from her… I’m just gonna refer to her as Miffy cuz I dont know else to call her. Miffy went in the bathroom and took off her under garment which was like this sorta red nighty looking thing with black hearts over the nipples. Some random guy was wearing it for a bit, and then the cool bartender guy who always plays our requests was wasted as hell and put it on as well. (I don’t know this bartenders name so from here on he will be called Request Man). Request Man was fucking wasted as hell, and looked hilarious wearing that thing. I took a picture of him in it and he pretended to lick his nipple haha! We drank till they closed a little before 7 am. Rod went home and I got some food and then passed out at the manga kissa.

I woke up and headed right for Vegas which is a 5 second walk from the manga kissa. No one was really playing Guilty Gear so I played a little SFIV. I won like 1 or 2 games but mostly got beat down. I was hungry so I went to get some Wendys and buy a cigar for later. On the way back, I decided to check out Shinjuku Sportsland to see if they had any upcoming AC tournaments posted. No tournaments were posted. I knew Vegas would still be dead. I noticed that they had a Sugoi Arcana Heart 2 cabinet. No one was playing it but I had never played Arcana in my life (not any version, not even a single match) before, so I decided to just try it out. Sugoi AH2 (the upgraded version of AH2) has 2 new characters. One of them rides on a wolf and has a pet bird and she fights with a long staff. When I saw pics of her in Arcadia magazine I wanted to try her out because not only does she look cool, but her normals are actually very Faust like in the sense that they are pokey and long range and she has great zoning potential! I liked the way she played a lot actually but I know almost nothing about the mechanics of the game. After only playing one match against the computer, some random guy gets on and challenges me. I have no idea what im doing but somehow I almost beat his Kamui. I go to the other side and it turns out hes a foreigner. He says hes from New Jersey. He doesn’t post on SRK or Dustloop and I forgot his real name. I told him I had never played Arcana before and asked him a few questions about the mechanics of the game. I played him a whole bunch of times and managed to actually win a few of them. I just kept trying out various arcanas and had no idea how they worked or which ones are good for the character I was using. I also kept getting hit by stuff I had no idea what it did but it was nice experience and I think I may eventually pick the game up on a competitive level after a research it more and get more educated on the mechanics of the game. During the time I was playing, Shoot was there working and he said hi to me. I hadn’t seen him in a while either. I told him it was my first time playing this game and that I wanted to try this character because she is sorta Faust-like. He couldn’t talk long cuz he had to work but it was cool seeing him. After I head enough Arcana I said bye to the guy I was playing against and headed out to go back to see how Vegas was doing.

There were people there now and Inoue was playing various characters again. I played against his Millia and won, and then beat a few other people but then eventually lost to Inoue’s Axl (I honestly doubt theres a character in the whole game that this guy doesn’t know how to use). His Axl wasn’t even bad, cuz Vegas Pink Axl was there and he even lost to him in a mirror match 3 straight rounds!

Vegas had signs posted that they will be getting 2 Blazblue cabs next week! I knew Rod would be on a field trip with some people all day but I decided to see what was up with Matt. He told me he was gonna be a pussy again and stay home all day. I told him he was gonna miss Saeko’s birthday party tonight at Zin and then he decided to come out after all.

I played a bunch more games. HH showed up at some point and I lost to his Ky twice and then beat him once and then he just stopped playing. After that, some random red Faust player challenged me like 9 times in a row but he couldn’t beat me. Afterwards he come over and said thank you for the games and left. Very polite guy.

Eventually Matt showed up and it was started to get kinda dead so we headed out. We went to get some food real quick at Sukiya and then Rod called me saying he wanted to meet up in front of Shinjuku station in like 20 mins. On our way walking to the station, we ran into Nick who was on his way to Current. We told him to come with us to meet up with Rod. When we met up with Rod, he said he was gonna meet some friends of his close by. We crossed the street and they were waiting there. They were these 2 Japanese guys. There names were Satoshi (not the Potemkin player hah), and this other guy who introduced himself as “DJ Jerry”. He had lots of business cards and gave them to all of us. DJ Jerry was pretty old and Matt thought that he was Satoshi’s dad hah. Both of them were very good at English but we all mostly just talked in Japanese anyway. We were planning to go to Zin but those 2 guys said they didn’t have much time and wanted to get coffee. I didn’t really wanna but it was still early so I figured why not. We went to an Excelsior café and everyone just ended up ordering beers lol! I don’t really see why we couldn’t have just done that at a bar but whatever. We talked for a bit and Rod showed us video footage of a boxing match he had attended earlier in the day that he took with his cellphone. There were hot chicks holding up the signs for what round it was and then he fast forwarded to the end of the fight where the one dude TKOd the other guy. I don’t remember the contenders names. It was starting to get really late so we sorta started hinting that we should head out and eventually the guys got the hint and finished their drinks. We went outside and then said goodbye to the 2 Japanese guys and then the 4 of us headed over to Zin.

Zin was packed and pretty much everyone were Current regulars. Nick brought a bunch of CDs and Yoshi played a bunch of his requests. SPG Chris was there and he was telling us this fucked up story about some guy he knows who passed out naked and asked Chris and a bunch of people to put out cigarette buts on his scrotum! WTF?!?! The fucked up part is Chris actually did it! LOL!

I wished Saeko a happy birthday and bought her a birthday shot. She wanted some Jack. I also got some Rum on the rocks for myself after finishing my Rum and Coke. Then Chris told me that they sold Absinthe at Zin and got a glass and I was like WTF no way! I hadn’t had absinthe since over a year ago on the first day I met Monty back at the Hobgoblin bar in Roppongi where he gave me a shot of it for free. After finishing my rum I got one for myself. That shit is really strong and tastes good too. Too bad its not like the old school absinthe they used to sell that makes people hallucinate and shit.

At some point I was very surprised to see Dana’s friend Richard walk in! I had first met him when he came to Zin a while back. With him was another girl who knew me and said hi. I didn’t recognize her at first and shes like “what you don’t recognize the girl who took you to X-Japan?” and im like “holy shit Jessie!” I wasn’t expecting to see her there at all and hadn’t seen her since the X-Japan show. She had died her hair black now (it used to be blonde) and changed her hair style and it also looked like she lost weight, which is why I didn’t recognize her right away. It was cool to see her again. They stayed for a bit but they were with some other people too that had to leave Japan tomorrow so they needed to leave with them, but they said they might join us later at Current.

After drinking for a bit more, we decided to go check out Current since they were having a metal event tonight. However, Ayami and Mai said they were gonna show up tonight and someone told us they would be here any minute. Rod kinda has a thing for Ayami and it seems she really seems to like him as well so he kinda wanted to wait for her so we decided to stay a bit longer. Nick, Matt, Rod, Chris, and I all went to Current. On the way to Current we saw these 2 random salaryman lookin dudes just passed out in front of some building on the street. Whats with all these fucking people in Japan not being able to hold their liquor!? I snagged a nice photo of that scene haha.

As we were walking inside, a bunch of the metal event regulars were outside the front door and we exchanged a bunch of high fives and shit. This was one of those cool metal events where they have a big screen set up with a projector and when we walked in, they were showing a live video of Iron Maiden – Run to the Hills. Shortly after, they just stopped using the screen pretty much for the rest of the time for whatever reason. In addition to this, while there was a decent sized crowd there, it just seemed like everyone lacked energy and were already tired. It was only like 2:00! People don’t normally get that tired so early so I was pretty shocked. I enjoyed my cigar while we were there and it was tasty as hell. Chip was there too actually, and he was sitting with this girl named Tomoko (not to be confused with the Tomoko that is often at Current) and he said she was his girlfriend! I said hi to her and made a little small talk and introduced her to Rod and Matt started talking to her too for a bit. Rod found his monkey that he left at Current last night and once again it was getting passed around and being worn by various people. Also, while we were there I mailed Richard telling him we were at Current but would probably go back to Zin soon but he never replied. Later on, at some point while I was in the bathroom, Chip left. Throughout the time we were there they played lots of good metal I never heard of before, but the atmosphere was just kinda dead and no one was getting into it. We all decided that we should just go back to Zin since everyone was there.

Upon leaving Current, as we were walking back and passing by Gravity (the other rock bar near Current that I havnt been to in forever), we randomly ran into Ai! (Ai is the metal event regular girl who is a fellow hardcore Symphony X fan). I hadn’t seen Ai since I unexpectedly ran into her at the Children of Bodom concert with her brother. She gave me a big hug and I introduced her to my friends. We stood outside Gravity talking with her for maybe about 10 or 15 minutes about various things like video games and music. She said Chip was in Gravity. At some point, this guy she knows was seen walking with 2 massage girls haha! He looked kinda embarrassed. He went one wayand then went back the same way again. She said hes a bit confused. We were talking about how he was gonna get double teamed and shit heh. She also took a liking to Rod’s monkey and wore it. She wanted to meet up with us later to go drinking more at GODZ and PSY. Chris decided he would go drink with her at Gravity for a bit. When we left, she decided to keep Rod’s monkey, promising to give it back later tonight.

We arrived back at Zin and everyone was still there. We had a few more drinks and I talked with this one guy whos name was Hide. He was a friend of Nozomi. He said he used to live in the US for 4 years and we talked about various things. After a bit I decided I would go head to GODZ to meet up with Ai and Chris. I said goodbye to everyone before leaving. As I said goodbye to Yoshi, he pointed to Nick and asked me if he was my friend. I said yea, why? He said, well hes not ordering any drinks and doesn’t look too good. I told him he was just really drunk and he said well if hes my friend its ok if he stays. I guess they don’t like people in there who don’t order drinks heh…

Anyway, after I got to GODZ they started playing some live Dream Theater from the Budokan DVD and I didn’t even need to request it. Ai and Chris weren’t there yet, just a few people I didn’t know, aside from Hide the bar tender. Shortly after, Rod, Nick, and Matt showed up. I wasn’t expecting them to come too since I said I would be back to Zin soon. We waited a bit but eventually 5 rolled around and Ai and Chris never showed up. After that we headed to PSY since we figured Zin was closed.

When we got to PSY there were only like 2 people there aside Request Man who was tending bar. I asked him if he remembers anything from last night and he didn’t. I showed him the pictures I took of him wearing the red nighty on my camera and he was just like WTF?!?! LOL! A few minutes after we got there, the girl who was tending bar at Zin showed up. She said that lots of people were still at Zin and that Mogi and Masami even showed up. Damn. But we were already at PSY with drinks and we knew Ai and Chris would be there soon so we waited. Sure enough they showed up not long after. Ai sat by me and Rod and immediately started talking to Rod a lot. She seemed to take a liking to more than just his stuffed monkey. Rod was like giving her hand massages. At some point Masami eventually rolled in as well. Matt was saying some shit about how Masami was sticking his camera down people’s pants and taking pictures (0_o) but I didn’t see it. Matt was really wasted, and at some point he just goes up to Rod, right in front of Ai, and says in English very loudly and bluntly “You better stick your dick in that girl tonight, cuz I really want to and if no one does it would be a waste!” We both just were like WTF!?! Afterwords, Matt sat back down and im like… “um dude, how do you know that she doesn’t understand enough English to know what you just said?” Hes like, “trust me dude she doesn’t!” I’m just like, “You’d be surprised by how much English the average Japanese person can understand, even if they don’t speak it very well. You should be more careful about that shit.” In any case, its probably not a good idea to say shit like that anyway. Especially since Ai is my friend, and not just some random drunken bar slut or something. In any case, its unclear if she understood or not but gave no noticeable reaction to the comment. They called last song and Ai was about ready to head out. She said goodbye and Rod said he would walk her to the station. Chris, Matt and I left and got some food. Matt offered to let me stay at his host family’s house but I just wanted to go to sleep now, so I said I would just sleep at the manga kissa, and did.

The next morning I woke up and went right to Vegas again. Pink Axl was there playing the computer so I got on and played him. We went 1 and 1 on Axl vs Faust and then he switched to Sol and I beat him again. Then he had to get ready to start working. I played a couple other people and was getting hungry. I mailed Rod and asked if he wanted to get food and hit up the all you can eat Shakey’s Pizza lunch buffet for 850 yen. He said he was down but needed time to get ready and come out. I had a small streak going in AC and played a match vs HEVEN’s venom and lost so I figured it would be a good time to go see how late Shakey’s buffet was open till. After searching a bit, I found the Shinjuku Shakey’s (I had never eaten at the Shinjuku location before). The buffet was open till 4 but it was about 3:15 and Rod wasn’t here yet. I mailed him asking whats up but didn’t get a reply so I just headed to Sportsland because it was close by. While I was there I played a little SFIV and then eventually Rod mailed me saying he was running late and wouldn’t make it in time and he would meet me at Current. I left and got some Curry and headed to Vegas.

More people were at Vegas now. Lots of girl players showed up like Tatsumi, Baim, Ririko, and the hot female Zombie sol whos name I don’t know and is always with her boyfriend who plays Jam. Rod came not too long after I got there. I played HEVEN a bunch more times but I just couldn’t beat him for whatever reason today and I was getting a bit frusterated. Eventually Natsume beat him with his Dizzy and then I in turn beat Natsume. Sucks cuz I wanted to beat HEVEN. I played a few other people and eventually Rod came and he played me a ton of times in a row with a bunch of different characters. He didn’t beat me at all but he came extremely close twice (once with Slayer and once with I-no). I respect his determination. Eventually he went to play other people and I beat some Venom a few times and eventually I lost in a close match to some Slayer player I beat earlier who likes to spam cheap command throw setups in a very close match. He ended my win streak at 32 wins. Around this time I pretty much had to leave to catch the last train. Rod said he would just leave with me so we stopped by at the conbini and got some quick food for the road (Rod bought mine for me just cuz he felt like being nice) and then we walked to the station. I asked him what was up with Ai and he said he walked her to the station and that was it. She seemed drunk but insisted she was ok so they parted ways there. He said she didn’t say anything about what Matt said, so perhaps she didn’t understand him after all which is good. Rod isn’t the type of guy who likes to sleep around with random girls, but he is very popular with many of the ladies out at the bars. Seems he may end up dating Ayami soon if things go his way, which would be cool to see. We parted ways at the station and I headed home.

Next week is going to be fucking awesome. Not only is it a 3 day weekend, but theres a GGAC tournament at Vegas on Saturday, another GGAC tournament at Club Sega Akihabara on Sunday, and this will be the first weekend with Blazblue out in arcades! In addition to all that, Saturday night at Current is Sushi’s birthday party! I don’t know if next weekend could possibly have any more potential to kick so much ass but I guess only time will tell!