Monday, March 16, 2009

Eye Candy

When I first got to Vegas on Friday night, it was pretty dead. I started off by getting 9 wins in GG and then no one was playing me for a while. I was almost ready to give up and just go to Akihabara since it was still sorta early. I mailed Matt and told him I was going but he said him and Yuki would be there soon so I said I would just wait, In the mean time, I just got off the GG machine and decided to play some BB cuz some Noel player was sitting there and literally falling asleep from fighting the computer and waiting for some comp lol. I beat his Noel with my Arakune but then he picked Taokaka and beat me like 3 times. It was like my first time playing BB in weeks. After that, a few more GG players showed up so I went back to GG. I got 12 wins in a row vs this one Robo-Ky player who wouldnt give up, and a couple of times he picked Slayer on me too but I still won. Then Hot Zappa showed up and I got a win on her. Then I beat the Slayer 2 more times, but he eventually managed to get a win on me and then I lost to him 2 more times in close games. Then Yuki showed up (the Orange I-no player I will be teaming up with for SBO) and he was playing his Bridget so I played him and beat him. Then he rematched me with his I-no and beat me twice but they were both fairly close. Then I beat Pumpkin Ky and got 6 wins on that Robo-Ky again. He switched to Slayer again and I beat him 2 more times. At some point, Matt and Rod showed up.

Then there was this Anji player. He was really solid and had great footsies and pressure but I managed to beat him. He rematched me and I lost. Around this point it was getting late. I kinda wanted to start drinking so I ran over to the Lawson and got this new white can Ebisu beer that just came out. It ended up being sorta mediocre but not bad. I brought it back to Vegas and drank it while I was playing. At this point almost no one was still playing except for like Matt and Rod and that Anji player. Rod and Matt were fighting like a zillion grudge matches in a row so I played the Anji again. I beat him. After that, Hot Zappa and her boyfriend (HZB) left and said bye to me. I played Anji again and this time I lost. Then I played him again and won, and then he started busting out other characters. I beat his Johnny and then his Sol but then he went back to Anji and beat me. At this point I had enough and since I had an empty stomach, and since it was a 500 ml beer can and I drank it fast, I was already starting to feel buzzed. However, he was a really good player so I went around to tell him good games. I asked him if he was gonna enter SBO and he said he wants to but he doesnt have a team. I have a few team mates lined up but many of them cant go to every tournament. That ABA player Ni, who I met a while back mailed me and said he has to work on the first qual day so I cant team with him. Yuki and I still need a 3rd for the first qual. However, the Anji player said he doesnt really feel like traveling far, but will be willing to enter any of the Tokyo quals with me and Yuki, so I at least have another solid player now who I can team with. The guys name is Kuni (not the same Kuni who plays Zangief in SFII). Meanwhile, Matt and Rod were still swinging away at eachother and Rod wouldnt give up cuz Matt had like 4 wins on him or something and just kept putting in more money even though the arcade was about to close and the staff already took all the stools away from the cabs LOL. Eventually they gave up and we left.

I was hungry and wanted to get some food but those guys already ate so I just got some corn dogs from the 7-11. Rod suggested that we go look for this one video game bar called 8-bit cafe. I always wanted to check it out but I never knew how to get there. Rod did some research online and pretty much knew where it was so we went to check it out. It took us a little bit of time and searching to find the place but after walking around a bit, we eventually did find it. The sign was a bit hard to notice. The place was pretty awsome actually. Not super huge but bigger than 16-shots. They had lots of cool game related decorations, collectables, and stuff. They had a few tables and a bar area and then they also had a seating area with a TV and several game consoles that you could just play. We played some Super Famicom for a while cuz it was already hooked up. We got some beers and started with some Super Street Fighter II. We were all playing on pad cuz they didnt have sticks. For a while I had a big win streak and was picking like most of the characters in the cast. Eventually I lost to Matt's Guile with my Dhalsim cuz my Dhalsim kinda sucks. The only other game I lost was my Boxer vs Matt's T-Hawk cuz my Boxer is garbage and Matt is decent with Hawk. After that, Rod suggested we try this old ass Hokuto no Ken fighting game they had for Super Famicom. This game was pretty crappy and felt kinda half ass. We had some good laughs with it though and after maybe about 3 matches, we decided to just switch to Final Fight II. I was getting mails from Maiyuko asking if I would come to Current tonight. I asked her if it was packed and she said it was pretty full so we decided to go swing by there and see what was up. Despite what happened there last week, Rod was able to put it behind him.

We walked over to Current and got there around 3:30. There were indeed a lot of people there and most of them were regulars. Everyone on the Current staff gave us a pretty warm greeting when we walked in. I think Sushi apolagized to Rod again or something too. It turned out that Maiyuko ended up getting too drunk so she was already gone LOL. Oh well. I enjoyed hanging out with everyone else though.

At closing time, we headed over to PSY. Typical night there with a few PSY regulars. We saw a poster on the wall that tomorrow would be Michiro (one of the bartender's) birthday party. We stayed till closing but then Matt and Rod were still down to keep drinking, so the 3 of us went to do Karaoke. We did it for like 2 hours and it was pretty good. Brought our own beer in again but they didnt notice cuz we were smart about it. Rod fell asleep towards the end but overall it was pretty good. After getting some McDonalds breakfast, everyone went home and I went to the manga kissa.

The next day, I woke up like around 3:00 cuz we were out drinking so late (I think I went to bed at like 9 lol. I headed right to Vegas which was pretty dead to start off, but Kuni was there again. I played against him in several games for a while. I didnt keep a record of the exact match log, but it started out with us going back and forth vs his Anji but then he suddenly just started busting out all these random characters and probably picked about 1/3 of the entire cast on me. He played like SO, JO, ED, KY, RO, HOS, SL, and TE. I beat every single one of his sub characters and eventually he went back to Anji. I think he might have been testing me to see how good I am against different matchups. While his sub characteres werent nearly as good as his Anji, he was actually pretty decent with almost all of them which is pretty impressive. We went back and forth a few more times vs his Anji and then more people started to show up and HZB challenged me and beat me twice with his Robo-Ky.

I left to get some Curry and Matsuya and then went back and even more people were there. Throughout the day, many various regulars came and went. The toughest fights I had all day were vs Seta, Mitsurugi, and Tsu. I ended up beating Seta in a mirror match and I also beat Tsu's Eddie a few times which was cool. I couldnt get a win on Mitsurugi though. Rod showed up after a little while too. Pissed off HOS chick was there and for once she actually seemed happy! I dont know why but she wasnt mashing the taunt button and slamming the cabinet at all! Not too much else to really go into detail about but I played a shit ton of casuals that day. There was a tournament going on somewhere in Saitama like half way between where I live in Gunma and Shinjuku so it would take like 1.5 hours to get out there and I wasnt even sure if it was gonna be big or anything so I just decided not to go. It didnt start till 8 pm and tons of good players were at Vegas so I figured the casuals practice was a better idea. We played pretty late and eventually we decided to head on over to Current at around 11. We stopped to get some Sukiya first.

We got a mail from Matt who finally had just left his house at like 10:30 haha. I just told him to meet us at Current. Tonight at Current was Bosch's birthday party! Tons of people were already there when we arrived and Bosch already was getting pretty drunk! They had like 4 people working the bar. Masami and Sushi were back there as usual, and I guess now Mame works there part time as well. In addition, Piko was just back there helping out too. Mogi for once was taking a break and just chilling and drinking with some people. Hes always so busy so its cool that he gets a chance for once to relax. Mostly all the big party regulars showed up for this one. I bought Bosch a shot of Tequila pretty soon after getting there. Matt eventually showed up with Akiko. Not long after that, Mogi and Bosch just started busting out whole bottles of Jack Daniels and were pooring up shots for everyone, chugging straight from the bottle and going around just pouring whisky into peoples mouths or giving them the bottle to swig. Given how fast everyone was getting drunk I wasnt surprised when I looked over and saw a few people already taking their shirts off. The best part was when Hibiki took her shirt off. Not only cuz shes really hot, but it triggered pretty much like 80% of the girls in the bar to do the same and before I knew it, there were shirtless girls (and dudes) everywhere! Rod and I were just like... fuck it... and took our shirts off too. Then people started getting up on the bar and just bar diving and a big group of people waited and caught them and they crowd surfed a little. I went up there and did it too but they almost didnt catch me LOL! That would have sucked. There was just tons of crazy drunken dancing and people were just getting sloshed.

At some point, I was talking to Hibiki at the bar and told her I liked her bra cuz its my favorite color (dark green) and shes like, "yea my panties are the same color see?" and she flashed me her panties. It was hot. Then she was like telling me how earlier in the day she went to see the black metal band, Satyricon in concert. She then pointed to these 2 Norwegian guys sitting at the other end of the bar that I noticed earlier and said that they were members of the band! I honestly im not a huge Satyricon fan simply because I havnt heard almost any of their music though I am familiar with them a bit. She said she wanted to talk to them but her English isnt so good and they dont know any Japanese so she asked me to translate for her. We went over and talked to them and basically just just asked them a few questions and then one of the guys asked her for her myspace information and she was all happy and wrote it down for them. They were pretty nice guys and I talked with one of them for a bit. They said they wanted to check out GODZ while they were around so they ended up going to GODZ with Taka and they eventually came back later.

The party continued to stay pretty epic till it was over. Everyone had a great time and nothing really bad happened as far as I could rememeber. After that, we went to PSY. It was pretty packed since it was Michiko's birthday. Hibiki showed up with one of the guys from Satyricon later on too. They stayed open pretty late. Matt and Akiko ducked out early but Rod and I stayed till closing. I spent a good ammount of time talking with Heidi too. When they finally closed, I got some McDonalds breakfast with Heidi, Masami, and Jackie, and then went to the manga kissa.

I was so drunk when I got to the manga kissa I just passed out as soon as I hit my chair. Didnt even take my boots off or set an alarm. I ended up waking up 45 mins after my time was up and got charged like 300 yen extra. I was so out of it I still felt drunk and was even thinking about sleeping for longer, but I forced myself to just get up. I felt pretty hungover so I popped a headache pill and had some coffee. I was seriously just considering going home at this point. Hardly anyone was playing and I noticed that someone had left their game of BB in arcade mode so I decided to just sit down and mess around on it while I considered what to do. They had been using Ragna so for the very first time I tried playing as Ragna and just checked out he felt vs the computer. I eventually died to Hakumen cuz I had no idea wtf I was doing lol. I dont think I can see myself maining Ragna or anything. Doesnt really fit my play style I dont think. I decided I needed to just man up and wake the fuck up, so I went to get a red bull and walk around outside a bit.

When I got back to the arcade I was starting to feel a little better. Then I saw something I never thought I would see in a million years... there was a hot chick playing as Faust! I watched her play a match and when she won, I went over to her and told her I thought it was awsome to see a female Faust player cuz I had never seen one before. I gave her props and then told her I wanted to play her. I went over to the other side of the cab and we played some mirror matches. She was using my old reload color (the sorta blue-green one that people sometimes used to call "used car salesman Faust"). I think we played about 5 games. I won every single one, but she actually had a pretty good Faust! She was nailing all her FRCs and knew how to FDC well and her overall game was pretty good! She was probably better than most US Faust players for sure! After I beat her she came around to the other side and told me I was too strong! We talked for a little bit and she told me she lives in Chiba and doesnt come out here that often. She said shes only been playing since AC and asked me how long ive been playing and everything (since XX 2002) and we just talked about a few other various things. I asked her name and she said it was Yuie. Then she was like "you're ElvenShadow right?" im just like "Whoa! How did you know?" and shes like "Well, you are pretty famous". I thought that was pretty cool. Eventually she went back to the other side and shortly after, I saw her leave the arcade out of the corner of my eye with a guy who looked very familiar.

Some time passed and the place got more packed. Eventually Matt showed up. Then as time went on, there was like all of a sudden more female players there than male players! It was like hot chick guilty gear day! I think there was a total of 7 female players there, the most id ever seen there in one day. Hot Zappa, Faust girl, Baim, Tatsumi, this one Sol player chick whos sometimes there, pissed off HOS chick, and like this one other girl who Matt said he saw before were all there. Unfortunately for Pissed off HOS chick, she went back to being pissed and I would occasionally hear her slam the cabinet in the distance. Then at some point, Baim was talking with Faust girl and they were watching someone play SFIV. I then realized it was the same guy who I saw her leave with earlier, and it was none other than Nemo! He was owning some people with his Akuma. I asked her if she was Nemo's girlfriend and she indeed was! Figures that the Faust girl would be dating one of the best Faust players ever (or at least he used to be before he quit Faust). I asked her if Nemo taught her how to use Faust and she said that was not the case at all and that she actually used Faust before she even met him. They asked me if I respected Nemo as a player and I was like, of course, and they were all like happy and stuff haha. Though I told them I was dissapointed when he switched to Testament, and I havnt even seen him play GG at all lately.

I went back to playing some more casuals and there was this really fucking good Ky player there. Ive seen him around before. I dont know his name. I asked him actually and I totally forgot it but its something that starts with an A. I dont think hes very well known. I was talking with Hot Zappa about him and she doesnt know who he is either but she pointed out that he has some of the best footsies and spacing around! Hes very much like Mitsurugi in that regard because hes the same way. No one was really able to beat his Ky except for me. I would lose a few against him and then win one or 2 and then lose a few more. I had some great games with him though. Really solid Ky player.

Later on, it started to die down at around 7:30 so Matt and I went to get food. We decided to get McDonalds because they lowered the prices on most of the cheap stuff back down to 100 yen so im no longer boycotting the non breakfast menu. Then I noticed something that was absoloutly amazing that I failed to notice before when I was there cuz I was drunk all the other times... for a limited time they had 5 piece nuggets for 100 yen! 5... piece... nuggets... for .... 100... yen. It doesnt get much toper on the fast food tier list than that! I ordered 15 nuggets and enjoyed them very much. They will be around till the end of next weekend so I know what im gonna be feasting on next weekend now too! I just wish I noticed earlier.

After we ate, we went back to Vegas and a few people were still playing but it was pretty dead. I played a few games vs the Sol player girl and beat her all of them and then my last games were against Sol player girls boyfriend's Sol and I won. Then he picked Jam which hes better with and I lost. It was time for me to go anyway so I didnt care. Matt walked with me to the station and then we split ways and I took the train home. I was absoloutly tired as fuck and just wanted to sleep.

When I got to Takasaki staiton, I went to switch to the last train to get home and it wasnt there.... I almost shit myself cuz I didnt wanna sleep at the station and had to get up pretty early. I panicked slightly but then when I checked the entire time table, it turns out they changed the track it was on. Its always on track 6 but for whatever reason, it was on track 2 this time. I ran and got on the train like 30 seconds before it left!

Overall it was a pretty interesting weekend. After all the shirtless sexy party chicks and cute Guilty Gear players I cant wait to see Ryoko tonight lol. Next weekend theres some GG tournaments so I will be hitting up some tournament action next time.

2 comments:

ajinkris said...

Awesome post, Mike. Man it always makes me jealous reading your blogs. Sounds like you get to have an amazing time over there :D

landstalker said...

don't know if I said this in another post, but you're like a hero to me. You play fucking great and when you night comes you go drinking till morning. Wish I could have this life style around here.