Back In Business Again

Winter break was fun times. I went home to Chicago for a few weeks and pretty much just got fucked up every day with friends and family. Frosty Faustings went smoothly and I won both GG singles and teams which was good. Full results for all tournaments can be found here and here in these threads on dustloop and SRK.

Matt is now back in Japan for a few weeks. He will be staying at my apartment for most of the time while he is here visiting. He has been in Japan for a few days staying with some other friend.

On Friday after work, Matt came to my apartment. His friend is a Japanese dude who was studying abroad in Oregon and lives in Maebashi. According to Matt, he is a good SFIV player. His friend dropped him off at my place and then we headed to Tokyo together on the train. Emmet got on at Numata and rode out there with us too.

We headed right to Mikado. There was a good amount of people there playing GG and other stuff too. I pretty much stuck to GG the whole time we were there, doing pretty well for the most part but my execution felt just a little rusty. Matt was mostly playing BB since GG is kinda dead where he lives now so he sorta has to play BB if he wants any comp.

We stayed at Mikado till a little after 10. We probably would have played longer, but Liz wanted to join us at Current for a few drinks and wasn’t gonna stay out past the last train, so we left to go drink with her there. We got some road McDonalds on the way. They have this new Texas burger which has like onion ring bits, BBQ sauce, bacon, cheese, and this really awesome mustard on it. Its pretty tasty stuff. Appearently they are going to release a California, New York, and Hawaii burger sometime soon as well.

When we got to Current all the seats at the bar were full and it was like all people I didn’t know and probly half of them were foreigners. Sushi, Mogi, and Mame were working the bar. Masami was there and he had broken his arm. He had a cast on it. I asked him how it happened and he said he doesn’t remember cuz he was too drunk lol… I hope he gets better soon though. I cant say I never injured myself while drunk hah…

Soon after, Liz arrived and joined us at our table, and Shuji came and sat with us as well. He was pretty happy to see Matt. SPG Chris was also there and sat with us for a good while until he eventually went to go to GODZ. He was telling me about how his band is playing a live show in Okubo next Saturday so we might go to that next weekend.

I briefly mentioned before that Emmet often randomly just starts singing song lyrics and he substitutes out random words for “Andy.” Andy doesn’t particularly care for it but hes a trooper and just sorta deals with it and sometimes even cant help but to laugh. Well Emmet got Matt hooked on this and we were busting out Andy lyrics for a good while hah… Matt never even met Andy yet before so it made it even sorta more funny. One of the best ones is “Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are Andy!”

Bosch came later on and was spinning all kinds of weird random shit. After Liz left and we decided we wanted to switch up venues at about 2 am, we headed to PSY.

PSY had a good amount of people there. The PSY staff was pretty surprised to see Matt as well. For whatever reason, they had Coyote Ugly playing on the big screen in there with Japanese subtitles on and the sound off. We requested a ton of songs and they even played The Count of Tuscany in all of its 19ish minutes entirety.

I have this new kind of snus called Elixyr that has caffeine and tourine in it, in addition to being extra strong as well. Matt and I were buzzing hardcore off this shit and we were so wide awake. By the time PSY closed at 6 we were still wide awake and feeling great, so we wanted to drink some more. Emmet, on the other hand, was barely staying awake. Probably because he slammed like 2 whole small bottles of whisky at the conbini. SPG Chris showed up too and I was talking to him for quite a while. He was pretty hammered.

I decided I would take Matt to Tokyo Loose. I knew it was guaranteed to sorta suck, but its open late and they have fair prices on beer and it’s a place to drink. Plus he at least should see it once lol. SPG Chris went with us too but he left like right away cuz I guess he wasn’t digging the place at all, which I don’t blame him. It wasn’t too packed in there and as usual the guys to girl ratio was heavily in favor of guys with like a good amount of them being the Nigerian dudes.

There were these 3 girls from somewhere in Europe, I don’t remember where. When we first walked in, they were like asking us to save them cuz they thought the place sucked too and apparently they were here on vacation and just found the place somehow. We talked with them for a little while, mostly Matt. Then at some point, one of them who was kind of a chubby girl got all pissed off cuz one of the Nigerian guys like grabbed her arm sorta hard when she tried to wake up some guy who was passed out in the corner. So, eventually after arguing with her friends a bit, all 3 of them just stormed off and left… lol. There was also some passed out Japanese girl sitting down near the corner and some desperate Japanese guy was like trying to hit on her still. It was pretty sad. There was also another desperate Japanese guy totally macking on some old chick who wasn’t very good looking. Tokyo Loose is like the epitome of desperation. Its hilarious to go there and just see what kind of losers try so hard to pick up the skankiest and nastiest of hoes. We ended up drinking there until like 8 am cuz we were still buzzing pretty hard and watching all these people amused us. Eventually we decided that it was enough though so we left.

Matt wanted to get some spicy Indian curry before bed. I didn’t really want any but Emmet was all about it too so I just went anyway and got like the cheapest thing on the menu which ended up being like rice with some beans and really spicy curry. I only ate like half of it and then we went to the manga kissa to sleep.

The next day my stomach was hurting like hell! My ulcer continues to bother me, and eating that spicy curry before bed was a huge mistake. Never doing that again…

We headed out and went back to Mikado. It was pretty dead and not a single person was playing GG, so we went to Bix Box for some SFIV action.

There was this HUGE SFIV nationals tournament going on. I didn’t know any details about it but there was like Capcom staff there and stuff. They had tons of cabs going and tons of spectators. We watched a few matches and then eventually I realized that some of the cabs were for casuals so I played a few games. My first match was vs a Dhalsim player who had like over 100,000 bp or something named PPN. He was really good and was like wrecking tons of people. I did ok the first round getting him to about 25% life left but around 2 was brutal and he almost perfected me. Blanka vs Sim is a pretty bad matchup for me and I don’t know it nearly as well as I would like. I played a few more people like a Viper who I came extremely close to beating, and a boxer who I also did surprisingly well against but didn’t beat. Then suddenly Daigo gets on the cab and starts beasting with his Ryu. He wins like 5 in a row and then some other random Ryu who had like WAYYY less BP gets on and beats him in a mirror match! I think the guy wasn’t even Japanese, he was like Chinese or something. I was pretty surprised but the dude played really well. There were tons of people crowded around watching but then as soon as Daigo lost they all just cleared out lol! I was kinda bummed cuz I was up next to play and wanted to have Daigo kick my ass but that’s ok. Hes at Big Box all the time so Ill play him another day.

BTW, the finals of the tournament were

Mahou Shojo Zangitan no Chousen ~ Zenkoku Taikai Hen ~ (Mahou Shojo Zangitan's Challenge! Chapter - National Tournament!)
Mahou Shojo Zangitan (ZA)
TUC (DI)
Moruda (HO)

vs

Lettuce Sandwich
Shiro (AB)
Oji-san Boy (SG)
Kyabetsu (VI)

Final match was Ojisanboi vs Mahou Shojo Zangitan and Ojisanboi took the win. I didnt see the rest of it or most matches for that matter. We showed up late in the tournament and I didnt even know what was going on since I didnt know about the event till we just showed up for it. Id like to go to the next one though and know about it in advance so I can actually watch it and stuff. Mahou Shojo Zangitan did well and even beat another good Sagat earlier in the tournament and people were pretty hype about it.

After it was all over and we played enough casuals we decided to get some food. We got some quick McDonalds again and then headed back to Mikado. There were lots of people there playing now. Lots of big name GG players were there like Osaka B, Inoue, En-Slayer, Taku, Tanabata (aka “Seta”), and some others too. At first I played various people and was getting some mini win streaks of like 5 or 6 games and was playing against a blue May who I went about even with after 6 games. Then Taku played me and beat me a bunch of times. Osaka B played him a few times too but with no success. Then another pink Faust (whos name escapes me at the moment) eventually beat him after a few tries. Taku had like maybe almost 20 wins when he finally lost. I also played Tanabata’s Slayer a few times but couldn’t beat him as well. Those guys were both on fire. Matt played Tanabata once and did really well but didn’t win.

Andy showed up at around 6 pm. We played a little longer and then at around 6:30 we left. We had plans to meet up with Megu, Ayano, and some other people at an Izakaya at Shinjuku for drinks and food.

We met up with Megu and a friend of hers who I met for the first time and then went to the Izakaya, which happened to be located in the basement floor of the same building as the manga kissa we sleep at all the time LOL! The place was really nice though. It had like a pirate theme with pirate pictures on the wall and the walls looked like a ship and stuff. They also had these red light bulbs above each table that you turn on when you want to order something instead of the “pin pon!” sound buttons. It was pretty cool.

Eventually Ayano and her friend from Sweden showed up as well. Also, Liz called and wanted to join us so I met up with her at Donki Hote cuz its close by and showed her out to get to the place. So there was 10 of us total. We drank and ate there for about 2 hours. It was a pretty nice place and I would go there again for sure. We talked about lots of random stuff like how Emmet likes to have sex with Sheep.

After our time there was up, we left and just ended up going to Current. It was only like a little after 9 so it was pretty early, and since we started drinking at 7 I knew that this was going to be a long and very intoxicating night. From 7 pm to 6 am… that’s 11 hours of drinking. I knew it was gonna be a wild ride.

Tonight at Current there was a metal event. It gradually got more and more packed in there and eventually it was just like CRAZY packed! Even for a metal event there were a lot more people than usual for whatever reason. A good amount of regulars showed up too like Antti, his girlfriend Miho, and Snus Man… Kana, Chip, and some others. Antti seemed very happy to see Matt there. All the people in my group were sitting at the small table near the front and crowded tons of chairs around it and people kept being all cutthroat and jacking other peoples chairs when they went to buy beer or pee cuz there weren’t enough seats lol!

Chip brought a girl with him there from Sweden who he met a few nights ago or something at Current. Her name is Jasmine. She plays games and said she is even (or at least used to be) a Guilty Gear player and used Anji. She asked if we knew Marn cuz when him and Flash went to Sweden for that SBO tournament she met them there. She also asked if I knew Shinjn and I told her how we teamed up at the SBO last chance qual and hes a cool guy and a good player. I asked her if she ever heard of ElvenShadow and she said she did, and I said it was me, so she thought that was cool. Pretty random how that turned out.

They were playing good music throughout the night, and they even played a HUGE set of back to back ACDC songs. Probably like at least 10 in a row. I was kinda surprised cuz they usually play a bit heavier stuff but I love ACDC so I had no problem with it.

Later on at around 2, Antti and Matt wanted to do Karaoke so Matt, Emmet, Andy, Miho, Antti, and I went to the Karaoke place down the street for 2 hours. We sang lots of good stuff and drank a ton of beers. Emmet once again decided to substitute Andy’s name for the lyrics a bunch… much to Andy’s amusement… Near the end, we still had like half a pitcher of beer so we had to chug it before our time was up. This sorta pushed me over the edge and I was now officially wasted!

Once we stumbled back to Current I was just sloshed! I rocked out with the metal event crowd for a while and we stayed till closing time. Near the end of the night I like bumped into the table and knocked over my beer which was like a quarter full. Party foul on me. I was really fucking wasted though. At closing we said bye to everyone and then headed to PSY.

Matt, Andy, and I went ahead. Emmet eventually showed up with some girl he was hitting on at Current. At PSY I don’t remember much other than passing out for a little while and Hibiki showing up and talking with us a little bit. I finished my beer but I was just fucking wasted! At least I didn’t throw up or anything.

After PSY closed at 6, Andy went home back to Takasaki. Emmet was macking on that girl the whole time and ended up taking her to a love hotel. Matt and I went to the manga kissa for sleep.

The next day, I woke up extremely hungover. I could have used some more sleep for sure. Matt and I went to Akihabara cuz I needed to buy a few things. I accidently brought my brother’s PS3 power cable with me back to Japan instead of mine. His is 3 prong with the ground and Japanese power outlets are all only 2 prong so I couldn’t use it. I had to buy a 3 to 2 prong converter. I found one pretty easily for like 700 yen which was pretty cool so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. Matt was looking to buy Final Fantasy 13 and the new Kingdom Hearts for PSP for his girlfriend (hes dating a Japanese girl studying abroad in American right now back home). I also promised Jessie, another ALT, that I would try to find her an R4 card for her DS.

Matt and I walked around a bit, I took a huge dump that was like tar black… like blacker than the blackest bowels of hell. It was pretty black. I know you all wanted to know that.

Eventually Emmet contacted me and he arrived so we met him at the station. We went to a few different stores cuz Matt was trying to find the best deal. Eventually we went to Gamers and they had the best prices so he got his games there and I also picked up the new Arcadia that has the SBO dvds for GG and Arcana. Sweet! I also was able to find Jessie her R4 at a little shady looking table with 2 people just selling them off of it on a side street.

Also, Emmet bought a remote control toy helicopter from a sex shop. Yea… I have no idea why they were selling it either but he bought it and was pretty excited about it cuz now he has 2 of them and can have them battle or something.

We stopped and ate at this one place and I cant remember the name, but it had 150 yen 5 piece nuggets and fries and onion rings so I got like 15 nuggets and some fries and rings and only could eat like half of them cuz I still had a really bad headache. It was fairly tasty though.

After eating, we did a little more shopping and pretty much went home at around 4 pm. Everyone got everything they wanted to buy so it worked out well.

I was tired as hell though on the way back and we had to wait 45 mins to transfer at Takasaki. Matt and I played some SFIV and some New Super Mario Bros. Wii at my apartment (Ryoko bought me a Wii for xmas).

Next week we will most likely be back in Tokyo again. It felt good to go back there after being away for a few weeks.