Happy Birthday Andy

On Friday, all ALT's in Gunma had to go to a seminar in Maebashi that lasted the whole day until about 4 pm. After it ended, Emmet and I left together and met up with Matt in Takasaki and then we rode the train to Tokyo together. Emmet went to go drinking with some girl when we got to Tokyo.

Matt and I got to Mikado a bit earlier than usual due to starting from Maebashi. I mailed a few players throughout the week trying to find a team for this weekend. One of them was Udei. He didnt reply but when he saw me at Mikado, he said that he was trying to form a team with HEVEN and that if HEVEN was down, I could be their 3rd. Unfortuantely, he mailed HEVEN that night, and HEVEN already decided he would enter with other people (Ain, and someone else, I forgot). Kunihiro said he would enter with me but Udei doesnt know him and said he didnt feel very motivated to go so he said he wasnt gonna enter afterall. I needed one more, and the other people I asked couldnt do it. Akinori was a maybe and didnt give me a straight answer. I called the arcade and registered our team in advance just in case since they were taking registration by phone and I was concerned that it might fill up.

Casuals was fun that night. I cant really think of anything in particular worth mentioning.

After leaving Mikado, Matt and I got ramen and then headed to Current. It was pretty good for a Friday. I drank, but I made an attempt to pace myself. I got a buzz but never really got very drunk at all. We chilled with Chris and a few other regulars. Matt and Emmet ended up getting into an argument about morals that I didnt hear most of cuz I was talking with Michi and Shuji for a while. I guess the argument got resolved eventually though without anything really bad happening.

We went to PSY a bit earlier and I only ended up staying till 5 am cuz I wanted to make it to the tournament on time tomorrow. Matt ended up going to Karaoke with some of the PSY staff until about like 8 am or something.

I woke up the next day in the good manga kissa. I got a mail in the morning from Akinori saying that he couldnt make it afterall. Then I mailed Kunihiro and he said since we only had a 2 man team, he was just gonna sit this one out. I figured I might as well just go and try to find a team there since I had nothing else to do anyway.

I was on my way to the tournament at got to Shinjuku station and them Emmet mailed me and said he wanted to go with me. He never wants to go to tournaments but I guess he had nothing else to do so I waited for him a bit. It got the the point where I couldnt wait any longer or I would be late so I left. I told him how to get there so that he could meet me there later but he got lost and never showed up. Today's tournament was in Kanagawa about an hour by train from Shinjuku.

I made it to the arcade about 20 minutes before the tournament was scheduled to start. I was able to find a 2 man team that let me join them. I dont remember their names, but it was a guy who played Testament and this hot girl who played May. Both of them said they had only been playing GG for 6 months so they said they werent very good. Oh well, at least I could enter.

Lots of good teams were there. I was lazy today and didnt take pictures of sign up sheet or brackets, but a good majority of the top players who have been entering recently were there in some capacity.

Our first match was vs Satoshi (PO) / JT (MI) / Karun (JA).

first the female May player went vs Satoshi and lost. She didnt seem that bad though and played better than I thought but she didnt win any rounds.
Next the Testament player went and played much worse than our May player. He was constantly dropping combos and trying stuff that didnt even work. He lost pretty bad.
Finally I went. I knew this team wasnt going anywhere but I figured I might as well just try for fun. The first round I got him down to about half life but then he got in on me and I couldnt escape. The 2nd round I got him to like a pixel of life left and he was in the corner. I messed up a pressure string and something whiffed on accident and he was able to capitalize on that and bustered me and I lost. Oh well, I didnt really care honestly.

After I lost, I played casuals for a while on the extra cab they had. I beat this one Jam player a few times and he started talking to me. He asked if I was ElvenShadow and I said yes. He said he was from Kyushu and that he recently moved to Tokyo for school. I was surprised he has heard of me, I guess he must have seen some of my vids online or something.

Mugen was there again with the same Dizzy player on his team. He said hi to me and we talked a little. This time, instead of Kakeru, they had En on their team. Not a bad trade if I must say so. Funny thing is, they had Kakeru in the name of their team. I wonder if they originally were gonna enter with Kakeru and then got En last minute. Mugen's team made it to the semi finals but they lost to Maruken's team.

Anyway, eventually it was the finals so I went to watch that. It was...
Maruken (BA) / Satou (JO) / TEN (IN)
vs
Kishya (FA) /AGF (AN) / Taku (SL)

Maruken OCVed them and his team won the first preliminary of the B-4 block.

After the tournament, I played a few more games of casuals and then it was getting late so I headed back to Mikado. On the way back, I stopped in Shinjuku and bought some cigars for Andy since today was his birthday!

Emmet was there waiting, playing random games. I played some casuals for a while. I fought Karun about 4 times and lost and kept like ALMOST beating him but he would just get comebacks. Oh well. I beat FAB though which was pretty good. Not much else to mention I guess.

Eventually Matt, Sam, and a few of Sam's friends from his school showed up. They all were planning to go drinking at this place that had 100 minutes of nomihodai for 1000 yen! Thats a great deal! So, at around 9, we left there and headed to Yotsuya where the place was.

Before going to the place, we met up with more people in the park that Sam knows and ended up rolling in there like 15 people deep. One of the dudes was like this incredibly flaming gay dude that Sam kept jokingly making fun of and it was pretty amusing.

This place had self serve all you can drink beer. I ended up slamming ALOT of beers while we were there. I sorta lost count. By the end of the 100 minutes I was feeling really good. I know I am supposed to watch out for my ulcer so I was planning to just get really drunk there and then slow down the rest of the night. It didnt really work...

So when our time was up, everyone pretty much split up. The flaming gay dude was like "Im off to 2-Chome!" which is the gay neighborhood in Shinjuku LOL! The way he said it was just hilarious. I guess everyoene else just went home or something. Sam, Matt, Emmet, and I went to Current.

We met up with Andy shortly after going to Current. He just got to Tokyo or otherwise he would have went with us to the other place. Current was pretty good. Snus-man and some other Finnish people sat at the table next to us. I ended up using a little snus cuz I was drunk and being stupid but I didnt leave it in that long. We also ended up talking to these 3 random Japanese girls and one Japanese guy for a bit. One of them was hitting on me pretty hard. She wasnt very attractive though and after I told her I had a girlfriend she sorta let up a bit. At some point, Sam disapeared and said he got a random booty call and was going to a love hotel! How often does that situation happen? I guess hes pretty lucky.

Anyway, we all ended up going to Karaoke together down the street from Current for like 2 or 3 hours. It was pretty fun. The fat girl ordered a TON of food. I had some more beers cuz they opted for everyone to get nomihodai again... I knew it wasnt a good idea but I didnt wanna argue with everyone. The singing was fun though I this time I actually got to request plenty of songs.

Out of the group of people we didnt really know, only one girl was there by the time we left cuz all her friends bailed early. The bill ended up being over 30,000 yen which is alot! That girl ended up having to pay for all her friends on her credit card. I hope they pay her back.

After that, the girl went home, and the rest of us went to PSY. We stayed till closing. I was pretty tired and knew I had already probably drank too much. Emmet was tired too so we left. Matt ended up going drinking with a bunch of people until NOON the next day! WTF! He drank from 9 pm Saturday night to NOON on Sunday! Thats 15 hours! Why the fuck doesnt HE have an ulcer?! Andy went with too but he only stayed out till like 8 or something and then went home. Matt said he crashed on the floor in Jackie's office after they tried to play SFIV on his xbox but failed cuz Jackie was too drunk to figure out how to plug in his arcade stick. LOL! Oh well... Anyway, the nice manga kissa was full so Emmet and I stayed at the old shitty one.

I woke up with really bad heartburn and my ulcer hurt a bit. I knew I made a mistake and drank too much. I took a dump at the manga kissa and the color was normal. Today, there was no SBO tournaments around here. There was one in Aichi which is really far but I didnt have a team so I wasnt gonna bother going.

After leaving, Emmet and I got some food at Lotteria. I hate Lotteria. Its the worst burger chain in Japan, but they currently have a monstrosity called the tower cheese burger. It has 10 patties of beef and 10 slices of cheese! WTF is that shit!?!? Considering Lotteria has really crappy meat, I had no desire to eat that shit so I got a shrimp burger which was still not so good. I definetely enjoyed watching Emmet whoof down that whole thing though. It looked extremely hard to eat. I got a good picture of him holding it up before eating it. He said he felt a bit queasy after eating it but he didnt throw up to my knowledge.

After leaving there, Emmet went home and I went to Mikado. I took another dump there and this time it was black. I knew I drank too much last night. I guess I need to be more careful next week.

I pretty much just played casuals the whole day there. I got a long set in with Yuuta, the Testament player. He said I was good. He ended up getting a big streak on me at somepoint though but whatever.

Mikado also had another one of those Super Turbo match analysis things going on on the big projector with guys like explaining it frame by frame. It ended after like 2 hours or something.

Eventually Matt showed up and was pretty beating from drinking so long. We played till late, got some kebabs, went back and played a few more and then it was time to go home. Not much else to go into detail about.

Next week there are 2 tournaments in Tokyo so I will try to enter both. No idea who my team will be but hopefully it will work out better next time.