Epic Drinkathon and Current's 9th Anniversary!

Friday after work was the welcome beer garden event for all the new Gunma ALTs. It was held in Takasaki at the usual place. Most of the ALTs I know came, as well as lots of new ones. I talked to a few new people but not that many actually. It seemed like there werent all that many new ones that came. I was pounding the beers pretty hard. I was there from 6 to 9 pm and probably had like 12 mugs of beer or something. I got pretty hammered. Unfortunately it started raining pretty like halfway through so everyone had to take shelter inside but that didnt stop me from drinking.

After the beer garden was over, lots of people ended up going to to Yamato, which is an awsome izakaya that has GIANT beers (like 1 liter mugs) for 400 yen! I had like 2 of those there and was already pretty sauced when we got there. Emmet and Jessie left early. I chilled with Andy most of the night. After it was over, we went back to his apartment and he let me crash on his floor. I dont even really remember leaving the izakaya cuz I was pretty smashed.

I woke up Saturday morning with a pretty bad hangover but I manned up and it eventually went away on its own over time. I also had black poo, and my esophagus hurt, but the pain went away like within an hour after I woke up. I took a shower and then Andy and I headed out to get some food. We went to this awsome beef bowl place. Ive eaten at all the major beef bowl chains (Sukiya, Matsuya, Yoshinoya) plenty of times but this was the first time I had a good beef bowl at a non-chain restaurant and it rocked pretty hard.

Andy had other plans today but would meet me later tonight at Current for the 9th Anniversary Party, so I said bye to him and headed to Tokyo on my own.

Today, before the party at Current, the plan was to go to Tokyo Game Night Final Roundbats, which is like a ranbats organized by some players and eventually they will send the person with the most points to Final Round in Atlanta. They already had a few sessions so some people already have a lot of points so at this point I doubt I would be able to even win in the long run, and even if I did I probably wouldnt be able to take the time off to go to Final Round anyway, but I just wanted to go to play and chill. It was for SSFIV btw.

I arrived in Shinagawa, where it would be held, and then from there I had to take a quick bus ride to the building. I arrived a little after 4 pm. It was at this big swanky apartment building called the Sky Crest Tower. A Japanese player who often posts on SRK, Bull410, lives in the building so he can use the lounge. When I got there, Scott Popular (who organizes this even along with Bull410) was the only one there and was still setting up. I cracked a beer and just chilled for a bit. I kept drinking from this point on for the rest of the day. The lounge was on the 37th floor so the view was pretty awsome. They had 2 TVs, one with SSFIV and one with an N64 hooked up which was sorta just like the casual fuck around games TV.

Eventually more and more people showed up and there ended up being like about between 15 and 20 people total by the end of the night. The SSFIV ranbat started at around 5:30 and at this point, only like 10 people were there, and only 8 people entered the tournament. Before it started we all took a shot (cuz thats the rules, I like how these guys roll), and then we got to it.

The 8 players in the tournament were
ElvenShadow
Tokido
Scott Popular
Bull410
Abelity
Suicidal Grandpa
Ken (a Ken player from Germany)
Miguel

The tournament was single elim, one match, 3/5 rounds

I fought Suicidal Grandpa first round. He used El Fuerte. I won the first round and lost the rest. Im not very familiar with how to fight Fuerte but im not gonna use it as an excuse. He won so props to him. All the rounds were really close though. I think they taped it so it might be online later. I dont remember the details well but Ill post it later if its uploaded.

Abelity (Abel) fought Ken and Ken won. He had a pretty solid Ken.

Tokido fought Scott Popular and Tokido picked El Fuerte and Scott played Rose. Tokido won.

Migeul fought Bull410. I cant remember this match but Bull410 uses T.Hawk. I forgot who Miguel uses but I think Bull410 won.

Next, I forgot what the 2nd round looked like but Tokido and Ken won their matches and they played in the grand finals. This time, Tokido picked his Akuma. I think Ken won a round but Tokido won the tournament (which wasnt really a surprise). I think Tokido is now leading on the scoreboard too and it will probably stay that way lol.

We pretty much chilled and played casuals the rest of the time. More people showed up later and like there were probably like at least 8 girls there which was pretty cool. None of them played fighting games really but they were drinking and chillin with us and they played some Mario Kart and stuff. We ordered a bunch of pizza's from Dominos and it was good as hell. I got nice and stuffed and full of beer, and everyone was cool to chill with so it was good times.

Oh and I played that Ken player in a money match and almost won but he made a comeback and I lost. It was only for 500 yen so no big deal. He said he thinks I have a good Rose.

We had to leave at around 10 cuz thats when the event ended. My plan was to then go to the party at Current. Lots of these guys wanted to keep drinking so I invited them to come along. That Ken guy was trying to get Tokido to come drinking but Tokido said he had plans to meet his sister or something tomorrow so he couldnt go. Ken wouldnt give up and he said "Man... I want Tokido to come so I can fuck him!" ...... "But, im not gay!!!" LOL! Perhaps he meant, he wanted to get him fucked up. ....Or maybe not! I really dont know but it was funny anyway.

When we all left, that dude Ken had some fireworks and was like trying to set them off in front of the building but people were telling him to wait cuz its kind of a bad idea to do that when we just were invited to that building and we would like to go back again. So as we were walking back to the station over some bridge, he started like setting them off into the river. He was really lagging behind and eventually most of us all made it to the station but Ken and Tokido were gone so we just went on ahead to Shinjuku.

So the group that went was me, Scott Popular, Calibur, Suicidal Grandpa, and Abelity. We arrived at around 11 pm. Current was already packed as hell! As is always the case with their Anniversary parties, this ended up being one of the best Current parties yet! Just about all the old school regulars came, some of which I hadnt seen in a really long time, so it was great to see everyone again and knock back lots of beers. However, there was one person who wasnt there which came as quite a shock to me, and im sure it will come as a shock to many of you as well. It turns out that as of like 2 weeks ago, Mogi has left Current for good. I dont know the exact details but from what I gathered, he quit his job at Current and has plans to eventually open up his own bar. I know nothing beyond that. According to Masami, he still has a good relationship with the staff so I guess he ended his job there on good terms. I guess I am happy for him if he is successful with his new bar, but Mogi was always such a huge part of Current, not having him there certainly makes it feel like something is missing.

So yea, but literally just about anyone else you may be familiar with that usually goes to Current was there, and in addition to all of them, I also invited Pachi who showed up later with 2 friends of his. We talked a bit more about what is going on at Ark System Works and what the future may hold in store for GG and BB. I hate to break it to everyone, but unfortunately at this time, they are NOT currently developing an online version of Accent Core. Pachi recently brought the idea up to the company president at a meeting and his response was just something along the lines of "That is an interesting idea..." which is sorta like the indirect Japanese way of saying "No".

But yea, everyone was getting smashed and I was no exception! Lots of dancing going on and people generally just being hype as fuck. I took lots of pictures so looking at them will give you a good idea of how things went down.

At one point, some dude was like headbanging so hard that he bashed his head on a bar stool and there was blood pouring down his face. He left, walked to the hospital, and later came back with a bandage around his head only to start drinking more! This mother fucker was hardcore!

They ended up staying open a little later than 5. I honestly dont even remember what time it ended. Once it was over and I said bye to lots of people, though, I rounded up a crew and we went to PSY.

On the way to PSY as we were walking down the street, we passed Pachi who was passed out in the middle of the street. I woke him up and he seemed ok after that. He walked with us up to the corner on the way to the station and said he was heading home. He had plans to go to a big festival in Koenji (the part of Tokyo where he lives) tomorrow. He invited me to come too so I told him I probably would hit up the festival, too.

PSY was kind of a blur but lots of people came and I was mostly talking to this one pretty hot half Swedish half Japanese chick whos here on vacation who I met last weekend. They ended up staying open till past 7 am!

After PSY closed, I wanted to keep drinking! So, the Swedish/Japanese chick, Jackie, Jackie's friend and I went to some Okonomiyaki restaurant for more beers and some food! We ended up drinking till 8:30 am! So I drank non stop from 4 pm to 8:30 am.... which is 16 and a half hours. This might be a new record or its at least damn close to the old one. I slept at the manga kissa after that quite comfortably.

When I woke up on Sunday afternoon, I surprisingly felt fine! No hangover, and no esophagus pain. Even though I drank WAY more throughout the day on Saturday than Friday, I think the fact that I paced myself more really helped. Honestly, after I woke up, I still felt a little drunk. Then I remembered that Pachi invited me to the festival, so I was totally in the mood to knock back a few more beers!

I was hungry so I went to Sukiya. While there, I got some curry and ordered a beer. Since I already felt buzzed still, that one beer got me going again nicely. I had a little time to kill so I headed to Mikado. I beat some so-so Chipp player a bunch of times. Then I beat a Johnny and the Chipp back and forth. I was playing a little different than usual because I was buzzing good. Then I fought a Ky player and lost by a pixel. I went over to the other side and it was Kunihiro! He told me it felt like I was playing different than usual today. I apologized and told him I had been drinking and was about to go to a festival. At this point, it was already almost 5 pm so I told Kunihiro I was gonna head out and left. I grabbed another beer for the road.

I went to Koenji where I met up with Pachi near the station. The streets were FLOODED with people. He lead me to this one bar that was on the 2nd floor of a building with a big open window overlooking the street below. The people who owned the bar were friends of his. Everyone was doing nomihodai so I did as well. It was 3500 yen and they had Yebisu and black Yebisu on tap, self serve! I just kept refilling that shit so many times I lost count! They also had some free food like rice and nachos. Pachi introduced me to lots of his friends there. One of the guys was a BB player. Everyone seemed really nice and cool.

From the window we had a great view of everything going on down on the street and there were endless parades of dancers and musicians in their troupes with matching uniforms. We also went outside street side half the time too and cheered on people as they passed by. There were no mikoshi (portable shrine-like Japanese style parade "floats") but the musicians and dancers were getting hype as hell and had so much energy. Pachi said that this festival was Shikoku style and that they have it here every year as a tradition and its his favorite festival of the year. I got so plastered and was getting hype as fuck. Everyone there had tons of energy and it was overall a great time.

About 10 minutes before I had to leave to catch my train home, out of nowhere, Franchesca and her friend (2 girls that always go drinking at Current) showed up to the bar we were chilling in front of! I guess they somehow knew someone who worked there and were invited separately completely independent of Pachi and myself, which makes it a huge coincidence! It was cool to see them but I didnt really get to chill with them cuz I had to leave shortly after. I thanked Pachi and his friends and headed back home and made my train on time. I took a beer and some food for the road too so my train ride home was good.

I eventually passed out though, and I fell asleep on the last train and missed my stop. I was woken up 1 stop later by another ALT named John, who just happened to park his car there and woke me up before he got off. He totally saved my ass cuz he had to go back the other way and was able to drive me back to where I parked by the other station. At this point I was sobered up from sleeping for like 3 hours on the train, so once he drove me back I made it home with no problems.

So, overally this weekend was fun as hell and I consumed record amounts of beer. As of right now I feel just fine and as of sometime on Saturday my poo was already back to normal so I think that my condition really is healing fairly well. I just need to be careful not to drink too fast and espessially right before bed.

Next weekend is my school's sports festival on Saturday which means I have to work on Saturday. I will just stay around where I live all of next weekend so I doubt I will even bother writing a blog since there wont be anything noteworthy to mention. Ill update again eventually though.