Skin o' My Teeth

Matt, Emmet, and I headed to Tokyo after work on Friday at the usual time. At Mikado, there were players but it wasnt that busy. Kunihiro was there beasting on lots of people. I played him a bunch that night and only managed to beat him a few times. He was playing really solid. I didnt have a team decided yet for this weekend. I asked him if he could join me and he said that he could play on Sunday but not Saturday. So for the Saturday tournament, I figured I would pretty much just show up by myself and try to find a team.

We only stayed at Mikado till about 11. Chi (one of the bartenders from PSY) invited us to go to this club in Shibuya with her and her friends. A bunch of dance groups would be performing on stage there tonight and one of her friends was one of the dancers. She said she could get us in for 1000 yen (its usually 3000 yen there) and there was nothing special going on at my usual bars so I said why not.

When we got to Shibuya, we had a little time to kill before we were going to meet them. We walked around looking for Donkihote and found the club as well on accident but didnt go in yet cuz we needed to wait for Chi. I totally forgot to bring a hat this weekend (and I ALWAYS have a hat) and it was rainy all weekend so I wanted to buy one. I got one at Donkihote so it was all good.

Eventually we met Chi and her friend in front of Shibuya station and then went to the club together. We stood in line to get in, and then when we got to the door they told me I couldnt come in cuz I was wearing sandals. I already knew that lots of clubs wont let you in with sandals, which is why I ASKED Chi in advance if I would be ok with sandals. She said yes... she was mistaken. So, I just told them to wait for me for like 5 mins, and I ran to Donkihote which wasnt that far from the club. I just rushed down the shoe section and asked some dude working their to direct me to their cheapest pair of shoes. I pointed me to some crappy converse all star chuck taylor ripoffs that were only 790 yen. I got the biggest size they had (27) which was a little small on me but was good enough, and then I ran back to the club where they were still waiting. We were all able to get in with no problem after that.

The club was pretty packed. The music was standard club crap that I dont really care for. However, the dancers were fuckin hot! There were several dance groups and they were very um... talented heh. Most of the dance groups were girls but there were also some dudes who I couldnt give 2 shits about. I tried to keep it slow on the drinking but I had a few.

At some point, there was this black dude who came up to us and he showed us this Uniqlo commercial that he made. Hes like a dance teacher and directed the thing. When he asked my name I said my name was Joe... I dont know why lol. Then he asked where I was from and I was like "New York". He was like, "I'm from New York too! Where from?" I was thinking like... oh shit, Ive never even been to NY, oh well.. "I'm from Albany" figuring he was from somewhere other than Albany. I was right. Luckily he didnt ask me anything else about where I was from LOL. He seemed pretty wasted but was cool enough I guess. Eventually he just started like dancing around us and sorta fizzled off somewhere else.

Sometime after 3 am, Chi wanted to go to another club where it was like 3000 yen for all you can drink. I was planning on going to bed before 5 cuz I had a tournament tomorrow, and I didnt wanna spend that much for such a short time espessially when I was trying to cut back on the drinks for my ulcer. Everyone else decided to go, but Emmet almost stayed behind but went with them at the last minute. So, I just stayed at the club I was already at by myself for like another hour. I danced a little bit and talked to a few people but thats about it. I went to the manga kissa and we to sleep at about 5 am.

The next day, I woke up to hearing Emmet talking on the phone. He was like 2 booths down from me in the manga kissa. I was about to leave for the tournament and he decided to tag along since he had nothing better to do. We tried to wake Matt up to come with us but he was totally out of it and too tired to go so we left him at the manga kissa. When we tried to wake him up he was acting all shocked in like this comical fashion that amused us.

Today's tournament was at Game OSLO in Tachikawa which I have been to before several times. When I got there, I signed up alone hoping to find a team. Ruka was there and I asked him who his team was. He said had a 2 man team. I asked him if I could join. He said to hold on a sec and then went over and talked to Kishitaka. Then he said he was gonna team with Kishitaka. I guess maybe Kishitaka was there alone too. Oh well. Then these 2 other guys came up to me and asked me to join their team. One was a Potemkin player named Kero and one was a Slayer player named Kuma. Both of them were pretty much unknown players. I agreed to join them. Kero said he remembered me from a qual last year in Kanagawa where I teamed with a friend of his. They named our team something along the lines of "Eleven Shadow-sensei has joined our team!" LOL...

Lots of good teams were there. A total of 18 teams entered. They had 4 cabs for GG. While we were waiting for the tournament to start, Emmet was playing 3S. He fought a Ken player who turned out to be Ain. I think Emmet went 1-2 against him. Also, Ririko was there with this other hot girl. I asked her if she played GG too and she said she was just there to watch Ririko play. She said she thinks the game is cool but its too difficult for her to learn.

Anyway the tournament started and our first match was against BOB(ED), Taku(SL), Kishya(FA). Pretty beastly team.

Our Slayer went first against Taku in a mirror match. Taku beat him up. Then, our Potemkin went and he actually beat Taku! Potemkin is good against Slayer but thats still a nice accomplishment. Up next was BOB and he beat our Potemkin. Finally I went against BOB. I played ok but in the end I lost. I felt like I could have done a little better but oh well.

I didnt really bother writing down details about all the stuff that went down but the finals was

BOB's team
vs
Zero (OR) / Kanata (SL) / Kadeko (MA)

and BOB's team ended up winning the tournament. You can see the full brackets here.

After it was over, Emmet and I pretty much just left cuz Emmet was going to go to an international party and it was gonna start soon.

On my way back, I got a mail from Matt. He was spending the day with his girlfriend. She lives in Maebashi (they met back in Oregon when she was living there as an exchanged student and now she is back in Japan which is the main reason why Matt came to visit). They sorta had a fight before he came so he had only seen her once up to this point which was pretty shitty but she agreed to come see him in Tokyo today. They had just finished getting it on at a love hotel in Okubo and were going to go to an izakaya. I was hungry and I hadnt met his girlfriend yet so I agreed to go meet them there.

Matt said to meet him at Alpha Station so I went there to kill a few minutes. Aside from a few people playing BB, it was dead as hell. No one was playing any games I play so I just left and ended up meeting Matt in front of Shin Okubo station. We went to this one izakaya I went to before with Ryoko.

I noticed Matt's GF was putting a lot of eye drops in. Later when she was in the bathroom, Matt told me how when he pulled out, he accidently squirted it in her eye LOL! I found this amusing. However, despite that, and the fact that Matt overslept for an hour when he was supposed to meet her today, she seemed like she wasnt angry with him anymore which was good.

We had some good food, and despite the fact that we got there around 5, I still pounded a few beers. Every time you ordered a beer at this place, they gave you a scratch and win ticket. On my very first try, I won! I got some card that (according to the waiter) was worth 2000 yen in free beers at several izakayas! I was pretty happy about that. (However, later I showed it to Ryoko who explained it to me in more detail that the card only gives you half off 1 beer for each person in your group one time for a value up to 2000 yen. So basically it just means everyone in your group saves 150 yen... big fucking deal... POS card...).

Also, I played against Matt's GF in Puyopuyo on DS and she tore me a new asshole. This girl is like broken at that game. I managed to beat her only one time out of a bunch and she had the handicap on, lol. I hardly ever play that game but she was still a beast.

Eventually Andy joined us as well cuz he had just arrived in Tokyo. We stayed there till about 8 pm or something like that. After that, we headed to Mikado for some games. I needed to take a break from drinking cuz if I kept it up from 5 pm to my usual drinking time without stopping, I would be pooing some tar for sure.

While at Mikado, I mailed Akinori to try and get a full team for tomorrow and he said he would be glad to join, so I was set for tomorrow. BTW, KA2 has a beastly Johnny. I played him in casuals and he beat me like 2 or 3 times before I beat him. I dont remember much else about casuals that night but I got like a 10 win streak or something and my last match of the night was vs Batako or Chonari (im not sure which) and i won. We left at around 11 pm cuz we found out it was Hide's birthday tonight at GODZ from Ai who wanted to meet us there before she had to leave on the last train home. Hide is one of the owners of GODZ.

Before going to GODZ we got some kebabs for the road. A bunch of wasted people came out of an izkaya across the street looking a bit upset cuz Japan had just lost their game in the worldcup that night. (BTW the world cup is HUGE here. Pretty much everyone seems to care about it).

We got to GODZ and it was pretty packed. They were pretty much playing live Megadeth the whole time. Hide got a birthday cake and everyone shot confetti poppers at him and he did the whole blow out the candles and stage dive off the bar deal. Ai was really happy to see us. Hibiki showed up too. We only stayed for like an hour and after Ai left, we left shortly after to go to Current. On the way to Current we ran into Terry and 2 other people who just left there to go find a club somewhere in Shinjuku. We said hi breifly and then went on our way.

When we got to Current, we met up with Emmet and sat at a table in the back with him and this Italian dude who he met in Roppongi at the international party so they came to Current together. They also appearently came with some girls, but the Italian guy said Emmet was saying the word "fuck" in like every sentence cuz he was drunk, and he said it so much that the girls got offended and went home, LOL!

A few other people I know were there so we drank with them a bit too. Nothing much else to say really about the night, but it was fun. We left Current at around 3 and headed to PSY. Emmet didnt go with us and went to a love hotel with Sachiko instead.

On the way to PSY we ran into Terry's 2 friends and they were asking if we saw him recently but we hadnt. Appearently he got lost at the club or something.

PSY was pretty full for its size. We sat at the bar and talked with Jackie for a bit and just kinda chilled. It was fun and I stayed till about 5 and then decided I had best get to sleep so I could make it to the tournament. Andy and Matt stayed behind and kept drinking.

The next day I woke up and headed to the tournament. Sam said he was gonna me up with me on the way but he never ended up coming.

When I got to the tournament (which was near Fujimidai station at some arcade that was hard to find), Kunihiro was already there. Standing right next to him was creepy stalker girl. I went over to say hi to Kunihiro and she thought I was like going to talk to her so she starts babbling a bunch of stuff while im speaking to Kunihiro. After I was done talking to him I said hi to her breifly to be nice. I checked the signup sheet and was dissapointed to find that 16 teams had already signed up and that today's tournament was limited to 16 teams. There was a waiting list though in the case that some team didnt show up. I signed us up on the waiting list. I played a few casuals and talked a bit to the Nice PO player (his name is Ochiai, I just found out) and Shuoji the TE player. Akinori showed up and I went outside to meet him at the station to show him the way. When we got back inside, they told me that one team wasnt going to come so we got lucky and were able to enter. While I was playing casuals, creepy stalker girl was like watching me like a hawk and clapping no matter how good or bad I played lol. At some point she comes up to me with her little note pad and instead of showing me a little picture this time, she wrote down some stuff. I was like "whats that?" shes like "its your team!" She copied my team name and the names and characters of the players on my team into her notebook. I was just thinking like "wtf"... why would she write down my team and show it to me!? This girl is strange as hell! Luckily as the day went on she didnt really bother me much. I find it odd that she is supposedly friends with Nemo's wife yet I have never seen Nemo interact with her at all (or ANYONE interact with her for that matter). Something is certainly strange about her.

Our first match of the tournament was vs TE SO SL. The bracket didnt list the player names so I didnt know who it was. Then they called our teams to fight first round. I played RPS to determine sides and my RPS opponent was none other than Nemo. Lucky us.

Kunihiro went first vs the SL player and got perfected first round. However, he played really smart and careful and was able to actually beat him! Up next, was their SO player. Kunihiro lost. Then Akinori went with his PO. He won the first round, lost the 2nd round and ALMOST won the 3rd round but lost by a pixel. Last was me. I lost the first round but a little bit. Then in the 2nd round we both had a pixel left and he was running at my while I was in the corner. I threw out a jab as he was running towards me but he did like a last second frc gun flame and I got hit and lost.

After the match, I looked over to see who the other guys on the team were and the SO player was 012 and the SL was Niga. I sorta suspected that it was 012 by his play style and the color so I wasnt that surprised. However, the fact that Kunihiro took out Niga is pretty remarkable.

After our match, 012 was playing casuals while waiting for his team to play again. Several people and I fought him and he got like a 20 win streak. I eventually beat him and ended it at 20 wins. I stayed for the rest of the tournament and watched and played more casuals. I almost beat Consome in a casual match too but I dropped a combo cuz my pogo forcebreak didnt come out and i lost. Oh well. MK was there and he was with some other team this time. Isa didnt go though. I havnt seen Isa enter since we played in the b2 block finals. I had asked MK earlier in the week if he wanted to try and form a team with ASA and me but he said he didnt know ASA so he didnt wanna join and then ASA couldnt go either which is why I had no team coming into the weekend. Oh well.

Anyway, in the semi finals...

Ka2 (JA) / Haken (PO) / Ko1 (MI)
vs
Ochiai (PO) / Kishitaka (SO) / En (SL)

Kishitaka almost beat Ka2 but he dropped a combo and lost and then someone yelled "Kiiishiiitaaakaaa!!!" really loud like Darth Vader "NOOOOOoooo!" style. It was pretty funny.
Then En beat Ka2.
Next was Haken vs En. This match had so much walked back and forth footsies. It came down to like 8 seconds left in the last round and En pulled out a clutch win! Haken looked upset. Then En lost to Ko1 and Ochiai gave a great performance and beat Ko1 for the win!

The finals was En's team vs Nemo's team.

En ended up OCVing the whole finals in the order of Niga, Nemo, 012. En was on fuckin fire today. You can see results here on tougeki site.

After it ended, I said bye to Kunihiro and he said he would be down to team again next Sunday. I left with Akinori and we rode back on the train together. He was planning to go practice more at another arcade. We parted ways at Ikebukuro. He agreed to team with me again next weekend either day so Sunday I will keep the same team. Not sure about Saturday yet.

After that, I went to Shibuya to meet up with Matt and Andy, and Matt's friends Mari and Eriko whom I met a few times before. We went to the same awsome izakaya we went to last time we chilled with them during Matt's birthday. We ate a lot of good food and I had a few beers.

We left there with barely enough time to get the last train back home. Matt realized he was low on money and couldnt afford a ticket in the case that they checked our tickets on the train. We had to go to 7-eleven. We found one, but walking back to the station I realized that we werent going to make it unless we ran. We started running when we got to the intersection before the Hachiko exit and ran through the station and made it to the platform JUST as the last train was pulling up. If I missed this train I would have been screwed. Good thing we made it but we probably should have left a little earlier heh... oh well.

Between almost not getting into the club Friday, almost not being able to enter Sunday's tournament, and almost missing the last train home, I certainly got lucky in a lot of ways this weekend. In addition to all that, despite all the drinking I did, somehow I didnt have black poo which was another miracle lol.

Anyway, Matt will go back to the US on Wednesday. It was fun times chilling again. He plans to maybe visit again in November or something. Next weekend is 2 more tournaments around Tokyo so hopefully I will do better next week.