The previous week when I didnt write a blog post, I was pretty busy and it just wasnt very interesting of a weekend. Basically it was a 3 day weekend and 2 of those days I stayed in Gunma and drank at home with Ryoko and also went skiing with Ryoko, Andy, and Cameron. The Saturday I went to Tokyo but it was pretty standard and nothing really worth mentioned except basically Tokyo Loose sucks and I probably wont go back there anymore cuz the manager was being a dick.
Anyway, moving on to this past weekend....
Friday night I had an enkai so I just stayed and drank in Numata and after it was over I went home with Ryoko and we drank at my place.
Saturday I woke up and headed to Tokyo.
There was another Johnny-o cup singles qualifier at Mikado. I arrived about 15 minutes before the tournament was scheduled to start. Lots of people entered. I took a picture of the bracket and will upload it later. I got a few practice matches in before the tournament started and soon they called my first match.
My first match was against an I-no player. The funny thing was, I just happened to JUST beat him in casuals like RIGHT before they called our match. I didnt even know he was my opponent. I wonder if he challenged me knowing I was his next opponent or not. In any case, I beat him in the tournament as well.
Around this time, I noticed that they were hooking up an Xbox360 with MvC3 on it to a viewlix cabinet. They also had another setup just hooked up to a regular LCD with sticks next to it. I asked what the deal was and they said that after the GG tournament was over at around 5 pm they were going to take signups and run a MvC3 tournament for the hell of it.
Shortly after, my next match was called, and it was against "my favorite player in Japan" (please read with 120% sarcasm) the portly Ky player, Ain! I played pretty solid against him and won the first round. The 2nd round ended when he locked me down with an EX floating lightning ball over my head and I threw him right away but after the throw the ball hit me and I died from having like no life left. 3rd round I dont remember much about but I played well and I beat him! It felt very good to take him out since is isnt exactly the nicest guy... lol.
After that, my next match was against a HOS player. For round 1, I dizzied him and he was about to die. I could have killed him with a foward HS into pogo but I did the foward HS into random item to try and bait his burst. He didnt burst but I just ended up killing him like right after anyway. During the match, Satou, FAB, and Ain were like standing right behind me watchin. Satou gave me this like wtf look after I didnt kill him from the dizzy and I pointed to the guys burst and he just sorta like did this hand motion like "gtfo" implying that the guy probably wasnt gonna burst anyway but whatever. I lost round 2. It went down to round 3 and in the final round he was in the corner and I rushed him as meteors were coming out and he got hit and died.
I had now advanced to the semi finals and got top 4. My next opponent was Satou. The last time I played him in an SBO qual I beat him but lately in casuals he was beating me up. He pretty much just got in my head and stayed there the whole match and it was pretty damn ugly. He just read me well and hit me with brutal combos and put me into that damn corner mist loop and I lost both rounds.
The other semi finals match was FAB vs Roy. Roy won, so I had to fight FAB next for 3rd place.
The first round started out well and I was doing a good job keeping him out and picking away at his life. However, I was doing some FDC floats and I ran out of meter without realizing it and ended up doing a down kick drill move sorta near the ground, but it whiffed and FAB punished it pretty hard and I ended up losing the round. The other round wasnt as good and I did a bad burst when he had me in a ground chain. He predicted it (as he usually does, so I was better off not bursting but was just being stupid) and canceled into the mirror super just as I bursted and fucked me up hard.
The finals were Satou vs Roy and Satou won. So in the end I got 4th place which isnt that bad considering there were lots of big name players in this tournament, and beating Ain felt good, but I wish I did better vs Satou and FAB. 4th place gets some ranking points at least though so at least I have some sorta rank now and im not just another guy piled up on the bottom of the list.
There is another Johnny-o cup qualifier in 2 more weeks. If I do well at it I might even be able to make it on the Tokyo team (as thats what the Mikado tournaments are for).
They took all our pictures after the tournament ended and it will be on the Johnny-o cup website.
All the matches should have also been recorded so I will update this blog once all that is posted.
After the tournament, I chilled for a bit playing some GG and then I played like 3 casuals of MvC3. I won 2 and lost 1. I decided to enter the tournament for the hell of it since it was free to enter and it looked like fun.
A few GG players entered such as ABEGEN, but most of the big top GG players just kept playing GG and lots of other random guys entered as well. Im still not very good at the game and have only had it for a couple of days. Some guys there were already busting out tons of crazy combos though. Most of the people there seemed like they just played the game for the first time though or something. I entered with the team Hsien-ko / MODOK / Amaterasu.
First match I fought Wesker/Ironman/X-23. You can see the match here. I won. For my 2nd match I fought a team of Super Skrull / She Hulk / Dormammu. I lost. This guy already knew good combos and stuff (which I hadnt even had the time to learn yet lol) and he was pretty good with Super Skrull. I kept getting thrown out of all kinds of stuff from like half screen. You can watch the match here if you go to 13:25. The 2nd match was sorta close but I got screwed when I tried to tag out my character and got an assist attack instead. Holding that button down to tag out is sorta annoying.
Im quite aware I suck right now but once I have time to practice some stuff and play more matches im sure Ill get decent.
Once i lost I didnt stick around to watch the rest cuz I was low on money and needed to get money from the ATM at 7-11 before 8pm cuz my bank sucks and thats when it cuts my card off from being able to make cash withdrawls. I got the money and then headed back to Mikado. When I got back, they tournament was over but they were still letting people play casuals. I asked the guys running it if they were going to ever do it again and they said the cab wont be set up here all the time but they are going to run monthly MvC3 tournaments at Mikado, so who knows... maybe the Japanese will actually try to develop a competative tournament scene for this game. I havnt heard about any other arcades running MvC3 tournamets but there very well could be since I never even checked into it.
I stayed and played for a while until a little after 10, mostly playing GG casuals with a couple matches of SSFIV in there. I beat these 2 random foreigner guys there a couple times who were using Guile and DeeJay and then some random Blanka beat me. In GG I had a lot of good matches and gomes some small streaks and stuff. I also played a long set with En-Slayer and won about 40% of the matches which isnt bad considering its En-Slayer.
So after 10, I headed out and went to Shinjku to drink. I started off at GODZ where I drank with SPG Chris, Sachiko, Ian, and some other people. We stayed for like a drink or 2 and then headed to Current.
Current was pretty good tonight compared to how its been lately with lots of regulars. Unfortunately about half of the regulars that were there left before the last train but enough cool people stuck around to make it fun. The big dude, Ted, was there and he had this dude and this chick who he met at some show earlier and brought them to Current. The girl was pretty hot and was pretty amusing. I guess the dude was like her ex but she was still sorta like making out and snuggling with him but then she was being all flirty with Ted too. Also, i was sitting with these 2 Swedish chicks I know and the girl comes up to the table and says how like she goes both ways and things the Swedish chicks are hot and then she like runs off all shy right away and just starts dancing with a bunch of people. It was pretty funny. Other than that, I drank with several other regulars and had fun.
At around 3 something, a bunch of us went to PSY. PSY was pretty packed considering its size so it was fun as well. I only stayed till about 5 though cuz I decided to be responsible this time about making it to tomorrows tournament at Magmax in Kawagoe (the same place where I was 5 mins late 2 weeks ago and couldnt enter).
I went to the manga kissa and checked for a good train time and then went to sleep.
The next day I got some 100 yen filet-o-fish (cuz they were running the deal this weekend) but sorta regreted it cuz they tasted kinda shitty. I got em to go and took the train down to Kawagoe. This time, I made it there about 20 minutes before the tournament so I had plenty of time to register and got a couple practice games in.
All the usual guys who show up to the Kawagoe ones were there but this time Limekey, Kawin, and Ka2 also came. Maruken was there too but he didnt enter for whatever reason. Also, like half the signup sheet was Eddie players and Testament players
My first match was against... wait for it... an Eddie player! *gasp*
Im not sure who he was but I beat him up pretty bad getting a perfect and not losing any rounds.
My next match was vs Limekey. Im honestly not very good or confident against good Anji players and Limekey is arguably the very best Anji player. Despite that, I played really solid and won the first round. The 2nd round wasnt that bad either but I sorta fucked up when I didnt capitalize on a hit I scored that could have turned into a big combo which instead sorta disoriented me and he came back agaisnt me. 3rd round I lost as well, but I felt like I put up a decent fight at least. I gotta get better vs Anji.
I dont remember all the details for the rest of the tournament but the finals ended up being Melon (ED) vs Takare (ED). Takare is that young kid who really likes Latif's ED. The finals wernt very exciting since I dont really like watching Eddie mirror matches but in the end, Melon won. Congrats to him. I thought Takare would win but Melon brought the hurt.
Sometime during the tournament, Woody asked me why I entered both the Saitama qual (this one) and the Tokyo qual (Mikado). I told him cuz Johnny-o said it was ok when I asked him and I just like competing. Plus I said since I live in Gunma I cant really rep my own prefecture (since it has no team, its just Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa) so I just figured I play for whichever one I can get on. Woody said he was in the same situation sorta since he lives in Tochigi. Plus, Melon was at the one yesterday, too so its not like I was the only one who entered more than one.
I spent the rest of the day just chilling, playing lots of GG casuals and some SSFIV casuals. I played against Limekey in SSFIV as well and he has a Master rank Adon! He is pretty beastly at that game and beat me up. I did well for the most part in GG casuals though. I took a game on Takare and also took a few games on Hayashi (though he beat me more than I beat him).
I got the last train back home and thats about it.
This coming weekend there is another Final Roundbats tournament at the skylounge. I will probably go since I have nothing else planned and it will be fun to play some Marvel with those guys. Hopefully by then I will get a bit better of a grasp on the game. I heard Tokido is gonna pick the game up so I look forward to seeing what kind of shenanigans he busts out. Getting drunk will be fun as always, too.
Until next time.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Too Late
Just gonna sum this one up kinda quick cuz I dont feel like typing right now.
It's been 2 weeks since I last wrote. Matt is back in the US again now. Last weekend we just stayed and drank in Gunma so I didnt bother typing cuz there was nothing really interesting to mention.
Friday I headed to Tokyo. I was expecting Emmet to get on at his stop but he didnt and instead Bloodbath got on. He was heading to Tokyo to visit his girlfriend so he rode the rest of the way with me. Emmet mailed me saying he just missed the train and would catch the next one. On the way there Bloodbath's girl mailed him asking if he wanted to go to a yakiniku tabehodai and nomihodai. He asked if Emmet and I would be down. After a bunch of confusion about schedules, we all finally agreed that the 4 of us would go.
We waited for Emmet to arrive in Ikebukuro at a bar and got a beer. Then when he arrived I went to get him and we met up with the others at the restaurant. The food was good. I had a lot of beer. It was a 2 hour package.
After we left there, Emmet and I went to Current, which ended up being dead. Then we went to PSY and it was a little better. We stayed till closing. I wasnt planning to stay out any later but Mandy and the Indian Guy wanted to go to Tokyo Loose and Emmet hadnt been there in a while so they convinced me to go for one beer.
Loose was pretty lame as always. Full of skanks and people I probably wouldnt like. After that we went to sleep at the manga kissa.
I didnt get much sleep at woke up JUST in time to make it to Mikado in time for today's Johnny-o cup singles tournament. Emmet went with. Lots of the big name heavy hitters were there today. I got a couple practice games in and shortly after, they called my match. My first match was against some Dizzy player I dont know. I beat him up and advanced to round 2.
I played a few more practice games against various people. I was doing pretty well but felt a bit rusty. My 2nd match ended up being against Taku's SL. We were gonna play RPS to determine sides but then he just told me to pick a side cuz he didnt care. The first round was going well and i had a lead starting out. I got him down to about less than half life and was zoning pretty good but eventually he got in and I died to some big combos. 2nd round I pulled out a win. 3rd round I just got raped after he started the round out with a connected gold burst and I ate some huge combos.
I think in the end, Mitsurugi ended up winning the tournament with his Zappa.
After that, I just played more casuals. Emmet left to go meet his girlfriend in Shibuya. I played more casuals and then suddenly Emmet showed up like an hour or 2 later. I asked him why he was back and he said he just broke up with his girlfriend. I dont know all the details but I guess he wasnt too happy with her and she said she would be really busy from now on and wouldnt get to see him much so they broke up. After a little more casuals, Emmet left for Roppongi to go to an international party. I played some more casuals of GG and like a total of 3 games of SSFIV. I fought Ririko a bunch and was doing well vs her. I fought Satou like 3 times and couldnt beat him.
Eventually Bloodbath messaged me saying he wanted to go drinking with us and his girl. Around 9 pm I headed out and waited for them in front of Tokyo station. They were taking a while to get there and I ended up drinking a whole 180 ml bottle of whiskey while I waited. I also grabbed an Idaho burger from McDonalds (this burger is legit as fuck, you should try it if you get a chance). I met up with them and then we headed to Current.
Current was dead as hell. We stayed for like 2 beers and then went to PSY. At PSY it was packed all night cuz it was Yukio's birthday party. They were playing AKB48 music videos with the sound off on the big screen most of the night on loop, lol. Bloodbath and his girl stayed till about 11:30 or 12 and then decided to go home before the last train. Emmet showed up a bit after that after I told him there were girls at the bar lol. Pachi also showed up to drink with us for the night.
PSY was fun times. However, Emmet wanted to go back to Tokyo Loose to try to pick up chicks and Pachi agreed so I just tagged along. This was pretty early (maybe around 3 am). Loose wasnt as bad as some nights, and we discovered the fact that they have hookahs there! I love smooking hookahs so we got one (it was only like 2000 yen so split 3 ways thats not bad) with some apple tobacco. I was buzzing pretty hard off of it.
Eventually after we all agreed that Loose sorta sucked, we went to some izakaya which ended up also being dead. Pachi went home at like 5:00 or something and then Emmet decided he wanted to give PSY another try. I went back with him and was only planning so stay till the usual closing time of 6. There were still TONS of people there and they ended up staying open till passed 7. I lost track of time and by the time I ended up going to sleep at the manga kissa it was like almost 8 or something.
This resulted in me not getting much sleep and I also didnt feel very good. I was sorta hungover and had a bad stomach ache. The problem was that today's Johnny-o cup tournament was in Kawagoe which is like an hour train ride away. I timed it so that I figured I would pretty much make it just on time. As I was on the train about one stop away with 5 minutes to spare, I decided to mail Woody the TE player cuz hes always there. I asked him if he could sign up for me. Then, when I got to Kawagoe I ran from the station to the arcade. I got inside and the tournament had JUST started. I tried checked the signup sheet and my name was not on it. Then I tried to sign up but the staff dude said I was too late. Then Woody came up to me apolagizing saying he tried but that by the time I mailed him they just stopped taking sign ups and he said next time I should mail him sooner. Hes probably right. I just figured they would be more lenient on the time since Mikado always starts shit like 10-15 minutes late. I guess I have no one to blame but myself, but the fact that I came all that way and missed the tournament and was already feeling like shit left me feeling pretty salty. I tried to play a single game of SSFIVAE against some Chun-Li player. I took him down to the last round and lost by like one hit and then I suddenly just lost all desire to play anything. I decided I might as well just go home early.
I tried to email Ryoko to see if she could meet up with me. She didnt reply till I was already on the way home but it turned out shes having a sort of family emergency and her father is very ill, so she couldnt meet up with me. So, I just got home around 8 pm, ate dinner, and went to bed early cuz I still felt like shit.
Ive had a bad cold all week and even had a minor fever on Monday. As of now (Wednesday) my cold is getting better and I think I should be back to normal by the weekend. I still have no actual plans for the coming 3 day weekend so I guess Ill see how it turns out. I just wish I could have entered that one tournament, and I need to stop staying out so damn late drinking when I know I have stuff to do the next day.
It's been 2 weeks since I last wrote. Matt is back in the US again now. Last weekend we just stayed and drank in Gunma so I didnt bother typing cuz there was nothing really interesting to mention.
Friday I headed to Tokyo. I was expecting Emmet to get on at his stop but he didnt and instead Bloodbath got on. He was heading to Tokyo to visit his girlfriend so he rode the rest of the way with me. Emmet mailed me saying he just missed the train and would catch the next one. On the way there Bloodbath's girl mailed him asking if he wanted to go to a yakiniku tabehodai and nomihodai. He asked if Emmet and I would be down. After a bunch of confusion about schedules, we all finally agreed that the 4 of us would go.
We waited for Emmet to arrive in Ikebukuro at a bar and got a beer. Then when he arrived I went to get him and we met up with the others at the restaurant. The food was good. I had a lot of beer. It was a 2 hour package.
After we left there, Emmet and I went to Current, which ended up being dead. Then we went to PSY and it was a little better. We stayed till closing. I wasnt planning to stay out any later but Mandy and the Indian Guy wanted to go to Tokyo Loose and Emmet hadnt been there in a while so they convinced me to go for one beer.
Loose was pretty lame as always. Full of skanks and people I probably wouldnt like. After that we went to sleep at the manga kissa.
I didnt get much sleep at woke up JUST in time to make it to Mikado in time for today's Johnny-o cup singles tournament. Emmet went with. Lots of the big name heavy hitters were there today. I got a couple practice games in and shortly after, they called my match. My first match was against some Dizzy player I dont know. I beat him up and advanced to round 2.
I played a few more practice games against various people. I was doing pretty well but felt a bit rusty. My 2nd match ended up being against Taku's SL. We were gonna play RPS to determine sides but then he just told me to pick a side cuz he didnt care. The first round was going well and i had a lead starting out. I got him down to about less than half life and was zoning pretty good but eventually he got in and I died to some big combos. 2nd round I pulled out a win. 3rd round I just got raped after he started the round out with a connected gold burst and I ate some huge combos.
I think in the end, Mitsurugi ended up winning the tournament with his Zappa.
After that, I just played more casuals. Emmet left to go meet his girlfriend in Shibuya. I played more casuals and then suddenly Emmet showed up like an hour or 2 later. I asked him why he was back and he said he just broke up with his girlfriend. I dont know all the details but I guess he wasnt too happy with her and she said she would be really busy from now on and wouldnt get to see him much so they broke up. After a little more casuals, Emmet left for Roppongi to go to an international party. I played some more casuals of GG and like a total of 3 games of SSFIV. I fought Ririko a bunch and was doing well vs her. I fought Satou like 3 times and couldnt beat him.
Eventually Bloodbath messaged me saying he wanted to go drinking with us and his girl. Around 9 pm I headed out and waited for them in front of Tokyo station. They were taking a while to get there and I ended up drinking a whole 180 ml bottle of whiskey while I waited. I also grabbed an Idaho burger from McDonalds (this burger is legit as fuck, you should try it if you get a chance). I met up with them and then we headed to Current.
Current was dead as hell. We stayed for like 2 beers and then went to PSY. At PSY it was packed all night cuz it was Yukio's birthday party. They were playing AKB48 music videos with the sound off on the big screen most of the night on loop, lol. Bloodbath and his girl stayed till about 11:30 or 12 and then decided to go home before the last train. Emmet showed up a bit after that after I told him there were girls at the bar lol. Pachi also showed up to drink with us for the night.
PSY was fun times. However, Emmet wanted to go back to Tokyo Loose to try to pick up chicks and Pachi agreed so I just tagged along. This was pretty early (maybe around 3 am). Loose wasnt as bad as some nights, and we discovered the fact that they have hookahs there! I love smooking hookahs so we got one (it was only like 2000 yen so split 3 ways thats not bad) with some apple tobacco. I was buzzing pretty hard off of it.
Eventually after we all agreed that Loose sorta sucked, we went to some izakaya which ended up also being dead. Pachi went home at like 5:00 or something and then Emmet decided he wanted to give PSY another try. I went back with him and was only planning so stay till the usual closing time of 6. There were still TONS of people there and they ended up staying open till passed 7. I lost track of time and by the time I ended up going to sleep at the manga kissa it was like almost 8 or something.
This resulted in me not getting much sleep and I also didnt feel very good. I was sorta hungover and had a bad stomach ache. The problem was that today's Johnny-o cup tournament was in Kawagoe which is like an hour train ride away. I timed it so that I figured I would pretty much make it just on time. As I was on the train about one stop away with 5 minutes to spare, I decided to mail Woody the TE player cuz hes always there. I asked him if he could sign up for me. Then, when I got to Kawagoe I ran from the station to the arcade. I got inside and the tournament had JUST started. I tried checked the signup sheet and my name was not on it. Then I tried to sign up but the staff dude said I was too late. Then Woody came up to me apolagizing saying he tried but that by the time I mailed him they just stopped taking sign ups and he said next time I should mail him sooner. Hes probably right. I just figured they would be more lenient on the time since Mikado always starts shit like 10-15 minutes late. I guess I have no one to blame but myself, but the fact that I came all that way and missed the tournament and was already feeling like shit left me feeling pretty salty. I tried to play a single game of SSFIVAE against some Chun-Li player. I took him down to the last round and lost by like one hit and then I suddenly just lost all desire to play anything. I decided I might as well just go home early.
I tried to email Ryoko to see if she could meet up with me. She didnt reply till I was already on the way home but it turned out shes having a sort of family emergency and her father is very ill, so she couldnt meet up with me. So, I just got home around 8 pm, ate dinner, and went to bed early cuz I still felt like shit.
Ive had a bad cold all week and even had a minor fever on Monday. As of now (Wednesday) my cold is getting better and I think I should be back to normal by the weekend. I still have no actual plans for the coming 3 day weekend so I guess Ill see how it turns out. I just wish I could have entered that one tournament, and I need to stop staying out so damn late drinking when I know I have stuff to do the next day.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Guilty Gear x Blazblue MUSIC LIVE! 2011
This blog post is a bit late cuz I was busy all week but I managed to squeeze it in before the next one started. This post refers to the previous weekend of Feb 22nd.
After work on Friday I headed to Tokyo with Matt and Emmet. Laura (another ALT) also rode with us as far as Takasaki. We enjoyed drinking some good micro brew US beers that Matt brought to share with us from Oregan.
Today we would celebrate Matt's birthday (his actual birthday was on Tuesday). We went to the same izakaya that we went to, to celebrate his birthday last year. That place has awsome American and Mexican food so I never mind going. We met up with 2 of Matt's old friends from back in the day; Eriko and Mari. Emmet's girlfriend Natsu also joined us. We got nomihodai for like 2 hours and ate lots of good food.
After that we headed to Current for a bit, followed by PSY. Emmet was having a little fight with his girlfriend so he left early. At PSY, everyone kept buying tons of rounds of Jager shots. We all got trashed as hell. Then after PSY closed, Matt rounded up a group of people to all do karaoke and it was already like 6:30 am. We were gonna do it earlier but it kept getting put off.
We got in the karaoke place and Matt sang like one song and then said he wasnt feeling well and split like right away. I also only sang one song and then just passed out. Someone decided to order nomihodai for everyone at that time in the morning which was a pretty bad idea. At like 8:30 am I wake up and everyones leaving. We go to pay and it was like over 4000 yen a person. I only had like half of one drink and sang one song, so I wasnt too happy about that. Also since Matt left I had to pay his share too. Luckily I still had enough money to afford the manga kissa.
I woke up the next morning after only getting about 5 hours of sleep and with one of the worst hangovers I have had in recent memory. I would have just kept sleeping, but today I had tickets for what would possibly be a once in a lifetime event. Today we would go see the official Guilty Gear and Blazblue live music concert at Club Citta. I had to get up to meet up with Kyle (Stunedge) in Akihabara cuz he currently had my ticket. Matt and Andy were also going, too.
Matt and I headed to Akiba, found Kyle at club Sega, and then met up with Andy at the station. After that we headed out on the train to where the concert would be. My head was still pretty much throbbing with pain at this point and I hadnt eaten anything yet.
We arrived in front of Club Citta and there was a sea of people waiting outside to get in. We had a little time and I was still hungry so I went to a nearby Family Mart. Unfortunately, much to my surprise, whey I walked in, I saw nothing but a bunch of mostly bare shelves. I guess this particular Family Mart was about to go out of business. I just bought a bottle of water for the time being. I then returned to the front of the venue.
They were letting people in by the order of their ticket number instead of having people form a line. Kyle and I had tickets with a low number so we got in sorta quickly but Andy and Matt had higher number tickets so they had to wait a bit longer.
Kyle and I stood in line for a bit cuz Kyle wanted to buy some merchendise. They were selling stuff like t-shirts, cds, posters, pins, and more. I wasnt particularly interested in buying anything but I waited in line with him. Eventually Andy and Matt came in and the merch line was still pretty long ahead of us so I just went ahead with Matt and Andy to go find lockers to put our stuff in. We got lockers and then headed to the main room where the show would be.
It was an all standing show. They had a mandatory drink ticket they made us buy at the door so I just got a redbull with it cuz I didnt feel like a beer yet since. I also got a nan hot dog at the food stand. After eating and drinking, I started to feel a bit better.
Eventually Kyle came in. we ended up standing sorta near the back and to the left near where the food stand was cuz people were already flooded into the main room.
The show was divided into 3 parts. Part 1 was a long set of songs. Part 2 was a discussion and Q/A session from the hosts. Part 3 was more songs.
The band had 6 members. A bassist (who was their leader), a drummer, 2 guitar players, a keyboardist, and a violin player. Some of these guys had other bands that they were plugging such as the keyboard player who is in a progressive metal band. I wanna check them out but I forgot the name. Ill search for it later.
I dont remember the exact set list. For the first half they mostly played BB songs. In fact they only played 2 GG songs for the first half (Moontide - Sol vs Ky, and Suck a Sage - Chipp theme). Suck a Sage was particularly awsome, espessially that killer bass solo. They also added a little extra soloing from some of the other instraments. They had about 4 vocal songs from BB. 2 were sang by Noel's voice actress. The other 2 sang by Bang's (one of them being the Bang install super music). The Noel chick was wearing a pretty nice outfit she said she made to look similar to Noel's. The Bang guy had a cool scarf and a pimp hat.
Then for the 2nd part they had a bunch of talks by all the hosts. Daisuke Ishiwatare was there, as well as the main producer of BB, and the voice actress for Makoto (in addition to the 2 singers that performed earlier). They answered some fan submitted questions about various things about the BB and GG series. No ground breaking new information was revealed. It was mostly stuff like "What is Mr. Ishiwatare's favorite GG theme (its Millia's)" and "What game had the hardest music for Mr. Ishiwatare to compose (GGII Overture was)" They also showed some trailer for BBCS for the PSP and 3DS but everyone already knew that was coming out so it wasnt a very big surprise.
After the talking they finally got down to the next set. This one had more GG songs which made me happy and was overall much better than the 1st set IMO. They played Still in the Dark (Millia vs Eddie GGX) which is probably my all time favorite GG song so that made me quite happy. They played Ky's theme, Holy Orders, which was cool but it was the overture version so it had a different violin intro. It was still pretty cool. They also played one of the "ending credits" songs from GG Izuka. Honestly GG Izuka is a pretty crappy game but it has one of the best game soundtracks ever IMO. I was totally happy they played that song cuz GG Izuka music is the fuckin shit! They also played Order-Sol's them, Get Down To Business, which was awsome. During the "chorus" (or whatever you wanna call it) everyone was raising their fists in the air yelling "Get down get down!" which was pretty sweet. I was also really enjoyed Lust Sin from BB and they even played the Nu-13 / Lambda-11 theme from BB with a real opera singer, and that was pretty fucking epic. She even looked like your steriotypical sorta chubby opera singer chick but she was Japanese. She had a great voice and it was a good performance.
Overall I think they played something like around 18 songs or so but im not exactly sure. Either way it was totally worth my 5000 yen and I really enjoyed the show. This is the only show they had planned any time soon so I was really lucky to have had the chance to go (you couldnt even buy tickets unless you won a raffle for the right to even purchase them in the first place and luckily Kyle won 2 and Matt won 2 so Andy and I were able to go).
For more information about the concert, check this page out.
After the show as we were walking back to Kawasaki station we passed a store with like some of the craziest manoquins I have ever seen so I got a picture of Matt posing with them. When we arrived at the station we split up with Kyle cuz he had other stuff he had to do. Andy and I got in a dispute over what the fastest way back to Takadanobaba from Kawasaki would be. Andy figured just taking the Yamanote from Shinagawa would be faster. I figured taking the Chuo line express from Tokyo to Shinjuku would be faster and then transfering to Yamanote for 2 stops. I didnt even look at the map at the time but was going by memory. So, we made a wager that whoever gets there last buys the other guy a kebab, though Andy decided not to do the wager right before we left. So we rode the train to gether until it was time to transfer to the Yamanote line at Shinagawa. Andy got off the train and Matt and I rode to Tokyo and took my route. By the time Matt and I got to Shinjuku, I received a mail from Andy saying he arrived in Takadanobaba so I lost. I only lost by like 5 minutes. I should have taken into account transfer times even though my route has less stops.
We then went to the usual kebab place. I bought the woman that works there a keychain from Chicago cuz she gave me 1000 yen to get her one since she collects them. She seemed pleased with it. We ate our food and headed out. I paid for Andy's kebab even though he called the bet off. He said he was gonna pay me back later but I think he forgot to. I dont care either way.
After that we went to Mikado and I played a little GG for a bit. It was already really getting late so after a while, Andy decided to go home. Matt and I made plans to go to Gotonda where Emmet's girlfriend lives and do Karaoke with the 2 of them.
We go to Gatonda and met up with them and got a karaoke booth. This time we didnt get nomihodai and just snuck our own booze in. I was pretty much completely sober when we got there and I never do karaoke sober. Thankfully Emmet let me have some swigs off his vodka bottle and I brought a few beers so I got buzzed pretty quick. We did a lot of the usual good songs, in particular my karaoke staple, Holy Thunderforce, which never gets old. One of the best things about this karaoke session was when for whatever reason, Matt had a bottle of lube with him. I dont remember exactly how it happened but for whatever reason, Emmet mistook the bottle of lube for hair gel and rubbed a big wad of lube all in his hair, lubing up his entire head. we had a good laugh at his expense as he spent the remainer of our time at karaoke singing with a lubed up skull. We sang for about 2 hours and then decided to go to bed a bit earlier cuz we were all pretty tired. Emmet went with Natsu and Matt and I stayed at a nearby manga kissa.
The next day was a Johnny-o cup singles qualifier ranbat. There was one yesterday at Mikado as well but I skipped it for the concert. Today's was at Magmax in Kawagoe where I went right before leaving for the US. Matt went with me.
I think only about 14 people entered the tournament. Some known players there were Melon, Woody, and the young Eddie player who really likes Latiff whom I havnt seen in forever. I was doing really well in casuals before the tournament. My first match was against a Chipp player. Unfortunately he beat me. I hadnt gotten any Chipp practice since before I even left Japan to go visit home so I was a bit rusty on the matchup and he played very well. Oh well.
After losing I just played some SSFIVAE for a bit. In the end, Woody won the tournament with Testmanet against Melon's ED in the finals. I missed it cuz I was playing AE but Matt said Woody was on fire and was just blocking EVERYTHING Eddie threw at him and pulled off a crazy comeback in the first round as well.
After that, Maruken randomly showed up and he was playing some AE against Woody. Woody came over to me earlier while I was playing and talked to me a bit about AE saying he uses Adon. I played him in a match later and won. He told me that he doesnt have any Rose matchup experience afterwords.
Eventually Matt and I got some BK and then after that Emmet showed up. We spent the rest of the day just playing GG and AE casuals. I did overall very well in both games in casuals. For AE the only one who was giving me major trouble was a Gief player who I kept trying to beat but kept losing to. I got a nice like 12 win streak though vs other people.
After that, we rode the train home, and thats about it. This coming weekend (which at the time of me writing this blog starts as soon as I get off work in a few hours) I am just gonna stay around Gunma so I dont know if there will be worth anything blogging about but I will type something up whenever I feel something interesting enough happens.
After work on Friday I headed to Tokyo with Matt and Emmet. Laura (another ALT) also rode with us as far as Takasaki. We enjoyed drinking some good micro brew US beers that Matt brought to share with us from Oregan.
Today we would celebrate Matt's birthday (his actual birthday was on Tuesday). We went to the same izakaya that we went to, to celebrate his birthday last year. That place has awsome American and Mexican food so I never mind going. We met up with 2 of Matt's old friends from back in the day; Eriko and Mari. Emmet's girlfriend Natsu also joined us. We got nomihodai for like 2 hours and ate lots of good food.
After that we headed to Current for a bit, followed by PSY. Emmet was having a little fight with his girlfriend so he left early. At PSY, everyone kept buying tons of rounds of Jager shots. We all got trashed as hell. Then after PSY closed, Matt rounded up a group of people to all do karaoke and it was already like 6:30 am. We were gonna do it earlier but it kept getting put off.
We got in the karaoke place and Matt sang like one song and then said he wasnt feeling well and split like right away. I also only sang one song and then just passed out. Someone decided to order nomihodai for everyone at that time in the morning which was a pretty bad idea. At like 8:30 am I wake up and everyones leaving. We go to pay and it was like over 4000 yen a person. I only had like half of one drink and sang one song, so I wasnt too happy about that. Also since Matt left I had to pay his share too. Luckily I still had enough money to afford the manga kissa.
I woke up the next morning after only getting about 5 hours of sleep and with one of the worst hangovers I have had in recent memory. I would have just kept sleeping, but today I had tickets for what would possibly be a once in a lifetime event. Today we would go see the official Guilty Gear and Blazblue live music concert at Club Citta. I had to get up to meet up with Kyle (Stunedge) in Akihabara cuz he currently had my ticket. Matt and Andy were also going, too.
Matt and I headed to Akiba, found Kyle at club Sega, and then met up with Andy at the station. After that we headed out on the train to where the concert would be. My head was still pretty much throbbing with pain at this point and I hadnt eaten anything yet.
We arrived in front of Club Citta and there was a sea of people waiting outside to get in. We had a little time and I was still hungry so I went to a nearby Family Mart. Unfortunately, much to my surprise, whey I walked in, I saw nothing but a bunch of mostly bare shelves. I guess this particular Family Mart was about to go out of business. I just bought a bottle of water for the time being. I then returned to the front of the venue.
They were letting people in by the order of their ticket number instead of having people form a line. Kyle and I had tickets with a low number so we got in sorta quickly but Andy and Matt had higher number tickets so they had to wait a bit longer.
Kyle and I stood in line for a bit cuz Kyle wanted to buy some merchendise. They were selling stuff like t-shirts, cds, posters, pins, and more. I wasnt particularly interested in buying anything but I waited in line with him. Eventually Andy and Matt came in and the merch line was still pretty long ahead of us so I just went ahead with Matt and Andy to go find lockers to put our stuff in. We got lockers and then headed to the main room where the show would be.
It was an all standing show. They had a mandatory drink ticket they made us buy at the door so I just got a redbull with it cuz I didnt feel like a beer yet since. I also got a nan hot dog at the food stand. After eating and drinking, I started to feel a bit better.
Eventually Kyle came in. we ended up standing sorta near the back and to the left near where the food stand was cuz people were already flooded into the main room.
The show was divided into 3 parts. Part 1 was a long set of songs. Part 2 was a discussion and Q/A session from the hosts. Part 3 was more songs.
The band had 6 members. A bassist (who was their leader), a drummer, 2 guitar players, a keyboardist, and a violin player. Some of these guys had other bands that they were plugging such as the keyboard player who is in a progressive metal band. I wanna check them out but I forgot the name. Ill search for it later.
I dont remember the exact set list. For the first half they mostly played BB songs. In fact they only played 2 GG songs for the first half (Moontide - Sol vs Ky, and Suck a Sage - Chipp theme). Suck a Sage was particularly awsome, espessially that killer bass solo. They also added a little extra soloing from some of the other instraments. They had about 4 vocal songs from BB. 2 were sang by Noel's voice actress. The other 2 sang by Bang's (one of them being the Bang install super music). The Noel chick was wearing a pretty nice outfit she said she made to look similar to Noel's. The Bang guy had a cool scarf and a pimp hat.
Then for the 2nd part they had a bunch of talks by all the hosts. Daisuke Ishiwatare was there, as well as the main producer of BB, and the voice actress for Makoto (in addition to the 2 singers that performed earlier). They answered some fan submitted questions about various things about the BB and GG series. No ground breaking new information was revealed. It was mostly stuff like "What is Mr. Ishiwatare's favorite GG theme (its Millia's)" and "What game had the hardest music for Mr. Ishiwatare to compose (GGII Overture was)" They also showed some trailer for BBCS for the PSP and 3DS but everyone already knew that was coming out so it wasnt a very big surprise.
After the talking they finally got down to the next set. This one had more GG songs which made me happy and was overall much better than the 1st set IMO. They played Still in the Dark (Millia vs Eddie GGX) which is probably my all time favorite GG song so that made me quite happy. They played Ky's theme, Holy Orders, which was cool but it was the overture version so it had a different violin intro. It was still pretty cool. They also played one of the "ending credits" songs from GG Izuka. Honestly GG Izuka is a pretty crappy game but it has one of the best game soundtracks ever IMO. I was totally happy they played that song cuz GG Izuka music is the fuckin shit! They also played Order-Sol's them, Get Down To Business, which was awsome. During the "chorus" (or whatever you wanna call it) everyone was raising their fists in the air yelling "Get down get down!" which was pretty sweet. I was also really enjoyed Lust Sin from BB and they even played the Nu-13 / Lambda-11 theme from BB with a real opera singer, and that was pretty fucking epic. She even looked like your steriotypical sorta chubby opera singer chick but she was Japanese. She had a great voice and it was a good performance.
Overall I think they played something like around 18 songs or so but im not exactly sure. Either way it was totally worth my 5000 yen and I really enjoyed the show. This is the only show they had planned any time soon so I was really lucky to have had the chance to go (you couldnt even buy tickets unless you won a raffle for the right to even purchase them in the first place and luckily Kyle won 2 and Matt won 2 so Andy and I were able to go).
For more information about the concert, check this page out.
After the show as we were walking back to Kawasaki station we passed a store with like some of the craziest manoquins I have ever seen so I got a picture of Matt posing with them. When we arrived at the station we split up with Kyle cuz he had other stuff he had to do. Andy and I got in a dispute over what the fastest way back to Takadanobaba from Kawasaki would be. Andy figured just taking the Yamanote from Shinagawa would be faster. I figured taking the Chuo line express from Tokyo to Shinjuku would be faster and then transfering to Yamanote for 2 stops. I didnt even look at the map at the time but was going by memory. So, we made a wager that whoever gets there last buys the other guy a kebab, though Andy decided not to do the wager right before we left. So we rode the train to gether until it was time to transfer to the Yamanote line at Shinagawa. Andy got off the train and Matt and I rode to Tokyo and took my route. By the time Matt and I got to Shinjuku, I received a mail from Andy saying he arrived in Takadanobaba so I lost. I only lost by like 5 minutes. I should have taken into account transfer times even though my route has less stops.
We then went to the usual kebab place. I bought the woman that works there a keychain from Chicago cuz she gave me 1000 yen to get her one since she collects them. She seemed pleased with it. We ate our food and headed out. I paid for Andy's kebab even though he called the bet off. He said he was gonna pay me back later but I think he forgot to. I dont care either way.
After that we went to Mikado and I played a little GG for a bit. It was already really getting late so after a while, Andy decided to go home. Matt and I made plans to go to Gotonda where Emmet's girlfriend lives and do Karaoke with the 2 of them.
We go to Gatonda and met up with them and got a karaoke booth. This time we didnt get nomihodai and just snuck our own booze in. I was pretty much completely sober when we got there and I never do karaoke sober. Thankfully Emmet let me have some swigs off his vodka bottle and I brought a few beers so I got buzzed pretty quick. We did a lot of the usual good songs, in particular my karaoke staple, Holy Thunderforce, which never gets old. One of the best things about this karaoke session was when for whatever reason, Matt had a bottle of lube with him. I dont remember exactly how it happened but for whatever reason, Emmet mistook the bottle of lube for hair gel and rubbed a big wad of lube all in his hair, lubing up his entire head. we had a good laugh at his expense as he spent the remainer of our time at karaoke singing with a lubed up skull. We sang for about 2 hours and then decided to go to bed a bit earlier cuz we were all pretty tired. Emmet went with Natsu and Matt and I stayed at a nearby manga kissa.
The next day was a Johnny-o cup singles qualifier ranbat. There was one yesterday at Mikado as well but I skipped it for the concert. Today's was at Magmax in Kawagoe where I went right before leaving for the US. Matt went with me.
I think only about 14 people entered the tournament. Some known players there were Melon, Woody, and the young Eddie player who really likes Latiff whom I havnt seen in forever. I was doing really well in casuals before the tournament. My first match was against a Chipp player. Unfortunately he beat me. I hadnt gotten any Chipp practice since before I even left Japan to go visit home so I was a bit rusty on the matchup and he played very well. Oh well.
After losing I just played some SSFIVAE for a bit. In the end, Woody won the tournament with Testmanet against Melon's ED in the finals. I missed it cuz I was playing AE but Matt said Woody was on fire and was just blocking EVERYTHING Eddie threw at him and pulled off a crazy comeback in the first round as well.
After that, Maruken randomly showed up and he was playing some AE against Woody. Woody came over to me earlier while I was playing and talked to me a bit about AE saying he uses Adon. I played him in a match later and won. He told me that he doesnt have any Rose matchup experience afterwords.
Eventually Matt and I got some BK and then after that Emmet showed up. We spent the rest of the day just playing GG and AE casuals. I did overall very well in both games in casuals. For AE the only one who was giving me major trouble was a Gief player who I kept trying to beat but kept losing to. I got a nice like 12 win streak though vs other people.
After that, we rode the train home, and thats about it. This coming weekend (which at the time of me writing this blog starts as soon as I get off work in a few hours) I am just gonna stay around Gunma so I dont know if there will be worth anything blogging about but I will type something up whenever I feel something interesting enough happens.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Lolis and Diahrrea
I dunno what it is, but I always seem to get sick around this time of year....
I had a great time back in the US. Did a lot of the things everyone who knows me would expect me to do and saw mostly all the people I wanted to hang out with. Frosty Faustings III was a big success with a huge turnout and I won the GG singles tournament again and made a little money which helped to pay for my plane ticket. Thanks to everyone who made it out. Full results can be seen here.
I got back to Japan and Matt was already at my house cuz I left my key with Ryoko so that he could stay there for a bit while I was away. He will be staying with me for the next couple weeks.
I picked up Arcana Heart 3 last week when it came out. I dont know how seriously I will end up playing the game and this is the first Arcana game that I really will have tried to even play at all so its quite new to me. Originally I was going to main Nazuna, but then I discovered Yoriko and really like her long range pokes and she has some interesting specials so I think I will give her a try. Also, I was reading up on the character descriptions and I didnt even know her demon god staff is actually named Mike, so I would say it fits me well enough. And... if you flip the first to sylabils around in her name Yoriko pretty much becomes Ryoko. So Ryoko and Mike seems like a good combination to me, heh. I still have only played the game like one day basically but so far its interesting and very different than other fighters than I am used to. I suck right now but hopefully I can at least get decent at it once I get more used to it and play more. Ill still main GG for life though (as long as theres still comp for it).
My first time back to Tokyo was good for the most part. Friday I went there with Matt and Emmet. Matt and Emmet wanted to just go drinking so we had a few beers on the train and then we went to an izakaya along with Emmet's new girlfriend Natsu.
We stayed there for a few hours and then after that we went to Current. Emmet and Natsu ducked out early. It was pretty average and died down quick so Matt and I went to GODZ and PSY as well. After that, we went out to get some Udon at like 6:00 with Jackie and the girl Yui, of whom he is the manager. I knew she was the singer in a band but I didnt know she also did voice acting. Infact, she is the voice actress for the very character I decided to main in AH3, Yoriko. She always seems like the type who doesnt want to attract attention and was sporting her sunglasses at 6:00 am so people wouldnt recognize her so I didnt ask about a bunch of details and stuff about her acting career but I thought it was kinda cool that I know the voice actress for the character I am going to main, lol.
After eating with them, Matt and I went to Tokyo Loose and some old, not-hot Spanish chick was like trying to kiss me and grab Matt's junk but neither of us wanted any part of that and left after one beer lol.
Saturday we woke up and got some quick BK. I also got a haircut at those 1000 yen 10 minute quick cut places. Today the plan was to go to the next Final Roundbats in Shinagawa. Emmet and Natsu were originally going to go watch a Sumo tournament but it was sold out so they opted to join us. We met up with them at Shinagawa station and then took the bus over to the Sky lounge building.
This was my 4th Final Roundbats. The turnout was pretty average. Some old regulars were there as well as some guys I never met before. Everyone seemed pretty chill. Everyone brought some booze and we all sorta shared. Tokido came again as well.
The tournament ended up getting 10 entrants. I won my first match against Scott Popular who picked Rose so we played a mirror match. I won all 3 rounds and in the 3rd round we got into a little Rose ball match which was pretty funny. Matt had to fight Tokido first round and got peaced out. My 2nd match was vs Jude's Claw. He usually beats me in casuals but I took him out in the tournament this time which was surprising cuz I dont usually do very well in that matchup. I think Emmet won his first match and then lost his 2nd match but I forgot who he lost to. My 3rd match was vs Tokido in the Semi Finals and this time he just tore into me pretty good and i didnt win any rounds (and he was rocking his new Murder Face T-shirt with the off center 天 on the back). Then I had to fight the battle for 3rd place against a guy I just met today but his name escapes me. For some reason my mind is drawing a blank but I think he used Guile or T Hawk or something. In any case, I won, so I got 3rd place. The finals were Tokido vs umm..... once again I forgot but Tokido won, and with this victory, he now had too many points to be contested and will oficially be going to Final Round 2011 for free. Im sure everyone is extremely shocked (lol...)
After the tournament was over, lots of casuals were played, lots of alcohol was consumed, and lots of pizza was eaten. It was fun. Also, someone showed up who I hadnt seen in a long time. There used to be this white dude named Ryan who used to play Bridget at Las Vegas game center all the time back in the day when that arcade still existed. I hadnt seen him since it closed down but he just randomly showed up to this thing. After Matt and I realized who he was, we convinced them to let us play a little GG and take a break from SSFIV for a while. I rocked it out with Faust and went undefeated for the time we played. It was fun but the TV was just a little laggy.
At 10 pm we packed the party up and everyone headed out. A couple of the guys went with us to Current after that. It was packed at first and then died down after a couple hours so we went to PSY. PSY got pretty packed actually and it was fun times. Right before PSY closed Andy showed up with this one other ALT guy who I dont really know and they said they just got back from drinking in Roppongi all night. Andy just showed up cuz he had pre ordered Arcana Heart 3 special collectors edition in Akihabara and he wanted us to pick it up for him tomorrow cuz he was about to go home. So he gave us the pre order ticket and headed out.
Then Matt and I went to Tokyo Loose after PSY closed with Mandy and Indian dude. Matt was getting sleepy but I wanted to keep drinking cuz I wasnt tired at all for some reason. Some random Candian dudes were there and were being cool and bought Matt a Redbull which woke him up and then we chilled there for a bit longer. Some fat Korean chick who didnt speak English OR Japanese was trying to hit on me and trying to get me to type stuff into her iphone so it would translate into Korean lol. Some other girl tried to get me to buy her a drink and i just kept messing with her asking her why I would want to and she was bad at convincing me. Also, some chick like stuck her whole entire head inside antother girls shirt for like a good whole minute so it looked like the other chick had one giant boob and one normal boob and it was pretty funny.
In the end, we stayed at Tokyo loose until like 10 am which is rediculous. Matt was hungry so he convinced us to get some Indian food across the street with Mandy and Indian dude. At this point I started falling asleep while eating but I finished it and then we split and headed to the manga kissa.
This might also be a drinking record. The Final Roundbats started at like 4:30 pm and we started drinking when we got there. We finished drinking the next day at 10 am... so thats like around 17 and a half hours of drinking. Probably not very healthy but somehow I didnt pass out the whole time until eating the curry at the end and somehow the next day I didnt wake up with a hangover.
After waking up, Matt and I headed to Akihabara. We didnt eat yet so we wanted kebabs. We could have gotten the good ones we always get but they are at and out door stand and it was cold, so we tried finding an indoor kebab place cuz I could have sworn I saw one there before. We walked around a bit and eventually the only other kebab place we saw was another stand. At this point we just wanted to eat so we just said fuck it and ordered there. This place had all kinds of weird stuff like tortilla kebabs and kebab burgers and kebab subs and stuff. Matt ordered a mashed potato kebab which I had never seen before. I just got a classic one. One thing that bothered me was the meet towards the bottom of the bit kebab chunk of meat thingy where they shave it off (whatever the hell you call it) looked a little under cooked. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and just got it anyway. We ate our food on some steps nearby and then we went shopping for a bit.
Matt was looking for a PSP cuz he wanted to buy one but after going to like 5 stores they were all sold out. I guess Monster Hunter raped everyones PSP supplies. I also picked up Andy's AH3 for him.
After that, we headed to old Club Sega to play some SSFIV AE. Emmet joined us there eventually as well. I did good for the most part and the only guy that was really giving me a lot of trouble there was this annoying Seth player. I lost to him like 7 times or something and just couldnt beat him but kept getting really close. I was beating most other people up that I played though. Also, Isa was just randomly there playing BB and said hi to me briefly.
Eventually it was about time to go home so the 3 of us headed out and rode the train back together. We ate some combini food on the train.
Late that night at like 3 am or something, I woke up with a bad stomach ache. I went diarhea a bunch of times and threw up and so I knew something was wrong. I woke up the next morning to go to work with a fever so I called in sick. Ryoko took me to the doctor later that day and he said I had a norovirus. I felt like shit for the next couple days. I ended up taking the whole week off of work mostly just bumming around the house and sleeping for the most of it. Today is Friday as I type this and I am finally back to 100% health and am back at work again.
I dunno why but I just always seem to get sick around this time of year. I dunno where I got sick from but it was probably the Indian place or the kebab place in Akiba. Either way I wont be going to either of those places again. Hopefully I wont get sick again for a while.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Another One Bites the Dust
Well, this is it. The final post of 2010. It was a good year.
Friday night, I promised the other English teachers at my main school that I would go drinking with them at an izakaya in Numata, so I did. Drank a good amount, ate some good food, and then Ryoko picked me up and we chilled at my place for a big and I drank some more.
Saturday I got up around 10:30 and headed out to Tokyo. This weekend was the final 2 Johnny-o cup 2 on 2 qualifiers. Today's Mikado tournament was scheduled to start at 3 as usual. I got there and signed up my team (once again entering with Gaku, the Robo-ky player). I got some good practice games in and the turnout was good with lots of top players showing up.
Our first match of the tournament was against a team of Faust and Slayer. I dont remember their names but I had never heard of them before. Gaku went first against the Faust player and won. Then he lost against the Slayer. I went next and I beat the Slayer player.
For our 2nd match, we had to fight Ain (Ky) and Kishya (FA). This time I went first and my opponent was Ain. I managed to beat him last time so I was feeling pretty good about it. It was a pretty good match and I would have won the 2nd round, but I got impatient when he had like almost no life left, did a sloppy pogo force break that he was waiting for, he counter hit me with crouching HS and I died from the following combo. Up next was Gaku vs Ain. Kishya and I are both Faust players and we both brought a Ky player along, except my Ky player is a Robot Ky, which means hes made of METAL! Gaku rocked that shit out and took out Ain. Unfortunately Kishya's Faust is just too good and Gaku was unable to take him out so that was the end of the road for us today.
Around the time we lost, King Low Tier showed up. He was playing some SSFIV Arcade Edition (which just came out on Thursday). I hadnt even played it yet cuz I was waiting for the GG tournament to finish but now that it was over I wanted to get some games in. Mikado got 2 SSFIV:AE cabs. KLT was rocking his Mokoto. We each played a game and then we decided to get some quick McDonalds cuz they were running the 200 yen bigmac deal all weekend.
We got some food and then came back and played some more. I got my card registered and my username is ElvnShadow (theres a 10 character limit unfortunately). Overall, I started off losing a few but in the end I did really well that day at Mikado with my biggest win streak being like 21 wins, and I didnt even lose, I just beat the game cuz people stopped playing me. We also went to Big Box for a bit and I didnt fare as well over there. I made sure to play plenty of GG in between playing SSFIV and Mikado as well. I ended up staying till about 10:00, so I got a good long day of games in.
After that, I grabbed some more big macs, knocked back a 180 ml flask fo whiskey and headed to Current. Tonight at Current was Emma's birthday party. First I sat with Kyla and a few of her friends for a bit but Kyla had to leave to go to some xmas party. Gradually lots of Current regulars showed up and it was a good turnout. Emma got a nice birthday cake. She also did some pretty sexy dancing on top of the bar (shes a professional dancer, not the stripper kind though). At some point I went outside with this one dude and we split another 180 flask of whiskey. Everyone also got free shots of jagermiester from the bar, and with all the beers I had throughout the night I got pretty smashed.
At some point I got hungry so we ducked out for a sec to walk to McDonalds and get a quick bigmac. On my way back, suddenly like out of nowhere, the bottom of my boot came loose from the rest of it from the front of the shoe to about halfway in the middle and was flopping around when I walked. It was seriously just out of nowhere and really bad, so I went to the conbini and bought some tape and wrapped it around my boot. It looks ghetto as fuck and it looks like I need to get new boots now.
I dont really remember much about the night after a certain point but from what I do remember and looking back at all the pictures I took, it was a good night and went well. I am pretty positive I went to PSY after the party with some people as well. LOL
I woke up in the manga kissa and forgot to set my alarm. Fortunately it was only like 1:30. I didnt need to be at the tournament today until 3 (thats when it starts), but it was in Kawagoe (part of Saitama) and would take a bit of time to get there so I had to leave ASAP. I got some more bigmacs for the road and headed out.
I was cutting things really close but in the end I pretty much made it to the arcade like at 3 pm exactly. They hadnt started yet so I was on time. Gaku already signed us up. The thing I was shocked to see was that this time, only 6 teams showed up. All the people there were good though such as Inoue/Nage team. Melon/Ina team, and a few other people.
Our first match was vs this one Robo-ky and a Millia player. I forget their names but they are around all the time. The Millia player I usually can beat. I went first this time vs the Millia player. It started out pretty well but then once I got put in the corner I was just blocking the mixups really badly. He kept using standing dust. I probably got hit by it like 3 fucking times! No one ever uses that shit lol, but its my fault for not blocking it. It was pretty much just a big brain fart on my part and since I didnt get any practice matches in I wasnt feeling very warmed up but oh well, I have no one to blame but myself on that one. So.... I lost. Up next, Gaku went, and he beat the Millia player. Next was a Robo-ky mirror match. Honestly Gaku is way better than the other guy IMO (based on my personal experience fighting both of them several times), but since mirror matches can sometimes be random as hell, Gaku lost....
I was pretty bummed cuz it was only a 6 team tournament and we only had to get top 2 to qualify, but somehow we still fucked it up heh. It was also the last chance so I wont be in the 2 on 2 at Johnny-o cup. The singles tournament quals will start when I get back from Chicago (actually they will have already started and I will miss the first week of it, but oh well) so im gonna try for that as well.
Since I was already out that way and had no real reason to go back to Tokyo, I just stayed at Magmax game center all day where I was already at. They got 2 SSFIV cabs and had 2 GG cabs set up and lots of people were playing both games so it was fun. I played more SSFIV but the wait to play was long cuz lots of people were there. Inoue was playing SSFIV as well. He just bought a card for it and was playing Yun. I fought him in his very first match and I beat him, too. Unfortunately, he seemed to learn fast (or he had already played before) cuz he didnt lose another single match the entire day. The only loss on his card was the one he took from me. I played him like 2 or 3 more times, and they were close games, but I lost. In general I was doing fairly well though. By the end of the day, I had about a total of 60 something matches on my card. 40 something of those matches were wins and 20 something were losses, so I guess I didnt do too bad. The game is a lot more fun to play in arcades than at home online. I guess its just the environment but thats pretty much the case with any fighting game.
Overall Rose feels exactly the same except Ultra 2 is nerfed. It still seems useful but there were lots of times it got stuffed by shit. My biggest problem with it now is that before, Rose could safely use Ultra 2 against Zangief to get him away from her and jump away after the ultra if Gief tried to SPD. NOW.... if I do ultra 2 within grab range of Gief, he can do an SPD on reaction and just straight up throw me out of it before I even can jump away after ultra. It sucks... I got ultrad by Gief a few times as a result of that scenario. I guess I just need to get used to playing with the ultra modified. I guess I could also try to use Ultra 1 more but I am just so used to Ultra 2. We will see though.
Anyway, after I left the arcade and was heading home, I suddenly noticed that my vision seemed to be a little off. Actually, i never mentioned it last week but my eyes have sorta been hurting lately. It started when I fell asleep with my contacts in after passing out as soon as I got to the manga kissa last weekend without taking them out. I woke up and it hurt pretty bad, espessially my left eye. Sometimes my left eye is like that and my left eye is pretty shitty anyway so I dont really care, but my right eye never had problems like this and its starting to worry me. I was just wearing my right lens only for the past week but even so my right eye was starting to feel agitated. Now, I suddenly feel like my vision in that eye is getting weaker. Stuff is just blurrier in general and it almost seems like its more sensitive to bright light. I really hope it ends up being ok... kinda has me worried a bit.
Anyway, tomorrow, I leave for Chicago and will be gone for 3 weeks. Ill be doing lots of chilling with my friends and family and drinking and other stuff and I cant wait to eat some good burritos again. Also, Frosty Faustings III will be going down so that should be fun. I wont bother updating my blog while im back in the US but I may type some stuff about it when I get back. I hope everyone has good holidays and good new years. Make sure to get wasted and play lots of fighting games. Peace!
Friday night, I promised the other English teachers at my main school that I would go drinking with them at an izakaya in Numata, so I did. Drank a good amount, ate some good food, and then Ryoko picked me up and we chilled at my place for a big and I drank some more.
Saturday I got up around 10:30 and headed out to Tokyo. This weekend was the final 2 Johnny-o cup 2 on 2 qualifiers. Today's Mikado tournament was scheduled to start at 3 as usual. I got there and signed up my team (once again entering with Gaku, the Robo-ky player). I got some good practice games in and the turnout was good with lots of top players showing up.
Our first match of the tournament was against a team of Faust and Slayer. I dont remember their names but I had never heard of them before. Gaku went first against the Faust player and won. Then he lost against the Slayer. I went next and I beat the Slayer player.
For our 2nd match, we had to fight Ain (Ky) and Kishya (FA). This time I went first and my opponent was Ain. I managed to beat him last time so I was feeling pretty good about it. It was a pretty good match and I would have won the 2nd round, but I got impatient when he had like almost no life left, did a sloppy pogo force break that he was waiting for, he counter hit me with crouching HS and I died from the following combo. Up next was Gaku vs Ain. Kishya and I are both Faust players and we both brought a Ky player along, except my Ky player is a Robot Ky, which means hes made of METAL! Gaku rocked that shit out and took out Ain. Unfortunately Kishya's Faust is just too good and Gaku was unable to take him out so that was the end of the road for us today.
Around the time we lost, King Low Tier showed up. He was playing some SSFIV Arcade Edition (which just came out on Thursday). I hadnt even played it yet cuz I was waiting for the GG tournament to finish but now that it was over I wanted to get some games in. Mikado got 2 SSFIV:AE cabs. KLT was rocking his Mokoto. We each played a game and then we decided to get some quick McDonalds cuz they were running the 200 yen bigmac deal all weekend.
We got some food and then came back and played some more. I got my card registered and my username is ElvnShadow (theres a 10 character limit unfortunately). Overall, I started off losing a few but in the end I did really well that day at Mikado with my biggest win streak being like 21 wins, and I didnt even lose, I just beat the game cuz people stopped playing me. We also went to Big Box for a bit and I didnt fare as well over there. I made sure to play plenty of GG in between playing SSFIV and Mikado as well. I ended up staying till about 10:00, so I got a good long day of games in.
After that, I grabbed some more big macs, knocked back a 180 ml flask fo whiskey and headed to Current. Tonight at Current was Emma's birthday party. First I sat with Kyla and a few of her friends for a bit but Kyla had to leave to go to some xmas party. Gradually lots of Current regulars showed up and it was a good turnout. Emma got a nice birthday cake. She also did some pretty sexy dancing on top of the bar (shes a professional dancer, not the stripper kind though). At some point I went outside with this one dude and we split another 180 flask of whiskey. Everyone also got free shots of jagermiester from the bar, and with all the beers I had throughout the night I got pretty smashed.
At some point I got hungry so we ducked out for a sec to walk to McDonalds and get a quick bigmac. On my way back, suddenly like out of nowhere, the bottom of my boot came loose from the rest of it from the front of the shoe to about halfway in the middle and was flopping around when I walked. It was seriously just out of nowhere and really bad, so I went to the conbini and bought some tape and wrapped it around my boot. It looks ghetto as fuck and it looks like I need to get new boots now.
I dont really remember much about the night after a certain point but from what I do remember and looking back at all the pictures I took, it was a good night and went well. I am pretty positive I went to PSY after the party with some people as well. LOL
I woke up in the manga kissa and forgot to set my alarm. Fortunately it was only like 1:30. I didnt need to be at the tournament today until 3 (thats when it starts), but it was in Kawagoe (part of Saitama) and would take a bit of time to get there so I had to leave ASAP. I got some more bigmacs for the road and headed out.
I was cutting things really close but in the end I pretty much made it to the arcade like at 3 pm exactly. They hadnt started yet so I was on time. Gaku already signed us up. The thing I was shocked to see was that this time, only 6 teams showed up. All the people there were good though such as Inoue/Nage team. Melon/Ina team, and a few other people.
Our first match was vs this one Robo-ky and a Millia player. I forget their names but they are around all the time. The Millia player I usually can beat. I went first this time vs the Millia player. It started out pretty well but then once I got put in the corner I was just blocking the mixups really badly. He kept using standing dust. I probably got hit by it like 3 fucking times! No one ever uses that shit lol, but its my fault for not blocking it. It was pretty much just a big brain fart on my part and since I didnt get any practice matches in I wasnt feeling very warmed up but oh well, I have no one to blame but myself on that one. So.... I lost. Up next, Gaku went, and he beat the Millia player. Next was a Robo-ky mirror match. Honestly Gaku is way better than the other guy IMO (based on my personal experience fighting both of them several times), but since mirror matches can sometimes be random as hell, Gaku lost....
I was pretty bummed cuz it was only a 6 team tournament and we only had to get top 2 to qualify, but somehow we still fucked it up heh. It was also the last chance so I wont be in the 2 on 2 at Johnny-o cup. The singles tournament quals will start when I get back from Chicago (actually they will have already started and I will miss the first week of it, but oh well) so im gonna try for that as well.
Since I was already out that way and had no real reason to go back to Tokyo, I just stayed at Magmax game center all day where I was already at. They got 2 SSFIV cabs and had 2 GG cabs set up and lots of people were playing both games so it was fun. I played more SSFIV but the wait to play was long cuz lots of people were there. Inoue was playing SSFIV as well. He just bought a card for it and was playing Yun. I fought him in his very first match and I beat him, too. Unfortunately, he seemed to learn fast (or he had already played before) cuz he didnt lose another single match the entire day. The only loss on his card was the one he took from me. I played him like 2 or 3 more times, and they were close games, but I lost. In general I was doing fairly well though. By the end of the day, I had about a total of 60 something matches on my card. 40 something of those matches were wins and 20 something were losses, so I guess I didnt do too bad. The game is a lot more fun to play in arcades than at home online. I guess its just the environment but thats pretty much the case with any fighting game.
Overall Rose feels exactly the same except Ultra 2 is nerfed. It still seems useful but there were lots of times it got stuffed by shit. My biggest problem with it now is that before, Rose could safely use Ultra 2 against Zangief to get him away from her and jump away after the ultra if Gief tried to SPD. NOW.... if I do ultra 2 within grab range of Gief, he can do an SPD on reaction and just straight up throw me out of it before I even can jump away after ultra. It sucks... I got ultrad by Gief a few times as a result of that scenario. I guess I just need to get used to playing with the ultra modified. I guess I could also try to use Ultra 1 more but I am just so used to Ultra 2. We will see though.
Anyway, after I left the arcade and was heading home, I suddenly noticed that my vision seemed to be a little off. Actually, i never mentioned it last week but my eyes have sorta been hurting lately. It started when I fell asleep with my contacts in after passing out as soon as I got to the manga kissa last weekend without taking them out. I woke up and it hurt pretty bad, espessially my left eye. Sometimes my left eye is like that and my left eye is pretty shitty anyway so I dont really care, but my right eye never had problems like this and its starting to worry me. I was just wearing my right lens only for the past week but even so my right eye was starting to feel agitated. Now, I suddenly feel like my vision in that eye is getting weaker. Stuff is just blurrier in general and it almost seems like its more sensitive to bright light. I really hope it ends up being ok... kinda has me worried a bit.
Anyway, tomorrow, I leave for Chicago and will be gone for 3 weeks. Ill be doing lots of chilling with my friends and family and drinking and other stuff and I cant wait to eat some good burritos again. Also, Frosty Faustings III will be going down so that should be fun. I wont bother updating my blog while im back in the US but I may type some stuff about it when I get back. I hope everyone has good holidays and good new years. Make sure to get wasted and play lots of fighting games. Peace!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Xmas Shopping in Akihabara
Not the most eventful weekend ever but I figure I might as well write a quick update.
I went to Tokyo last weekend with my main goal being to get xmas shopping done. On Friday night, on the way to Tokyo, I road down with Emmet. Our train got delayed by a bit so we got to Tokyo sorta late but whatever. We were hungry so first we went to the usual Kebab place in Takadanobaba and got some kebabs. Then, we headed to Mikado and played there for a few hours.
I started off with mixed results, getting a few wins. but mostly having trouble against a Baiken and an Axl. Also, this one HOS player, I played only one time, and he snuck in a win on me that should have been mine, and then when I got up to get more change to rematch him, he just straight up got up and ran out of the arcade! I was like.... wtf. Sorta pissed too cuz I really wanted a rematch. Other than that, I did really well and won tons of games.
After that, Emmet and I headed to Current. On the way there, I slammed an entire 180 ml hit flask of Whiskey in less than 3 minutes lol. It hit me on the way there and felt quite good, lol.
When we got to Current, there wasnt many people there, as expected for a Friday. There was a table full of people though that were celebrating a birthday. Among them was my friend Notch. The girl who's birthday it was, was her friend. So, Emmet and I sat with them. Later on, this really big dude named Ted, who is Japanese but was raised on a US military base so he speaks perfect English, showed up and sat with us too. He had fun fucking with Emmet cuz Emmet kept questioning him if he was an American or something.
We drank with them for a while and then they wanted to do karaoke and invited us along so we all went and did karaoke for a few hours. Johan joined us as well. We all snuck in whiskey bottles. I was chasing my whiskey bottle with a rum coke that I ordered at the karaoke place lol. I got pretty hammered. We sang lots of metal songs (except Emmet who sang Hit Me Baby One More Time, much to the disapproval of Ted). At some point the night became a blur but we stayed there pretty long. Emmet said I passed out towards the end for maybe a half hour.
I woke up the next morning at the Manga kissa. I went online for a bit and waited AGES for the shower and finally the douchebag who was in there for like over and hour finished so I could take a shower. After that, I left to go do some xmas shopping in Akihabara. Emmet was gonna come with but he wasnt answering his phone so I just left by myself.
I got a declious kebab and then I started off going to Super Potato (an awsome retro game store) cuz my brother Tony (Mr. Chu-hi) and some cousins wanted some stuff from there. I got Tony an old still factory sealed copy of one of his favorite Super Famicom games, and I got a bunch of Nintendo character plushies for my younger cousins. Emmet finally mailed me back while I was there saying he over slept. I told him to just meet up with me later.
After that I went to this Duty Free shop to get more presents for the rest of my family. I found lots of good stuff there but I didnt feel like carrying around stuff that wouldnt fit in my backpack all day so I decided I would just go back there the next day before heading home to Gunma on the train.
So after that, I went back to Mikado and played for several hours. I got a lot of good practice in. The place was swarming with Baiken players, including Maruken. I got a lot of practice vs them. My first game vs Maruken, I actually would have beet him but I fucked up. I dizzied him and it would have been the kill hit, but I was stupid and back dashed for a second to pick up a doughnut that was behind me (I dont know why I bothered), thinking I would have time, but he mashed out so fast that he blocked my attack and came back to kill me. I felt pretty robbed but it was my dumbass fault for getting the doughnut. I dont remember much else worth mentioning there that day but it wasnt really all that packed. The reason being was probably that BlazBlue CS II had just came out in arcades this very weekend, so lots of people were probably playing it, and for whatever reason, Mikado didnt get it. They might eventually but they still had regular CS running.
Eventually around 10 pm I left, got some Curry, bought another whiskey flask, and I decided to head to Current. There were more people there than last night. Tomoko and Mai were sitting at a table in the back and invited me over to sit with them. I hadnt seen them in ages. It was cool to chill and talk with them. They went home on the last train but I talked to a bunch of Swedish people, Chris, Sachiko, Rob, and eventually Emmet and this one girl he was at an izakaya with showed up later, too. So, it was a good drinking night. Afterwords, I went to PSY with some people and it was good times. Not much really special to talk about though.
The next morning, I noticed that Burger King had a brand new NY Pizza Burger on the menu. I figured I would give it a try. Im not sure if this is in the US Burger Kings too, but its basically a GIANT burger and you can buy the whole thing for like 1600 yen or by the slice for like 300 something yen. I got 2 slices. It wasnt as good as I was hoping but it was ok I guess. I guess they should have made a Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza Burger instead hah.
After that, I headed back to Akihabara and bought those presents I was gonna get the day before. Various cliche Japanese stuff like geisha dolls and wall scrolls and stuff that my family wanted. When I bought the doll, they didnt have a box for it so they had to get one from another store down the street and it took forever so they gave me some free purfume (which I gave to Ryoko) and some pocket binoculars (random) for waiting so long.
After that, I popped into the old Club Sega and decided to try BBCS II real quick. I was interested in trying out Platinum. I think her design is dumb but I like her play style. The machines were all full so I had no choice but to fight someone. I fought a Jin player hoping that maybe I would be able to try some stuff out since I didnt even know her move list, but this damn Jin player was rushing me down all hard and serious and shit. I hardly got to try anything out and decided I would just try her again some other time. I went to the other side to see who it was, and much to my surprise it was none other than Kyle (stunedge)! I gave him shit for trying to beast so hard on someone who obviously was just trying the character out and he just sorta shrugged and laughed lol.
After that, I played a few games of GG, got a small win streak, only lost once to some Eddie player, and after a while no one was playing me so I decided that with the last 2 hours of my day before I have to go back, I might as well go to Mikado and play.
Unfortunately at Mikado, it was dead as hell. There were only like 4 guys there playing. Among them was R1, the top Millia player. I beat him on my first try somehow, and then lost like 5 in a row. After that I was getting sick of playing Millia and needed a break so I fought some Chipp and won. Then some Anji challenged me like a zillion times and I beat him every time. Then no one was playing me so I decided to get a Kebab.
I went to the usual Kebab place. The waitress who always is working there saw my bags and asked me if I bought souvenirs. I told her they were for my family when I go home for xmas. She then suddenly told me how she collects rare keychains and gave me 1000 yen and asked me if I could buy a Chicago keychain for her and bring it the next time I go there. I agreed and will get a nice one for her. I guess I must eat at that place way too much if they would trust me to give me 1000 yen when im leaving the country knowing that I will surely return because I cant resist their top tier kebabs lol.
After eating I went back to Mikado and fought some Bridget player like 10 in a row and won every time. Then I had to go so I told the guy it would be our last game. I won and then said good games and left.
Thats about it. Next weekend is my final weekend in Japan before I go back to Chicago for 3 weeks. Next weekend will also be the 2 last Johnny-o cup GG 2on2 Team Tournament quals. I will enter both of them with Gaku once more. It will also be Emma's birthday party at Current. should be a fun weekend, and hopefully Gaku and I can qualilfy.
I went to Tokyo last weekend with my main goal being to get xmas shopping done. On Friday night, on the way to Tokyo, I road down with Emmet. Our train got delayed by a bit so we got to Tokyo sorta late but whatever. We were hungry so first we went to the usual Kebab place in Takadanobaba and got some kebabs. Then, we headed to Mikado and played there for a few hours.
I started off with mixed results, getting a few wins. but mostly having trouble against a Baiken and an Axl. Also, this one HOS player, I played only one time, and he snuck in a win on me that should have been mine, and then when I got up to get more change to rematch him, he just straight up got up and ran out of the arcade! I was like.... wtf. Sorta pissed too cuz I really wanted a rematch. Other than that, I did really well and won tons of games.
After that, Emmet and I headed to Current. On the way there, I slammed an entire 180 ml hit flask of Whiskey in less than 3 minutes lol. It hit me on the way there and felt quite good, lol.
When we got to Current, there wasnt many people there, as expected for a Friday. There was a table full of people though that were celebrating a birthday. Among them was my friend Notch. The girl who's birthday it was, was her friend. So, Emmet and I sat with them. Later on, this really big dude named Ted, who is Japanese but was raised on a US military base so he speaks perfect English, showed up and sat with us too. He had fun fucking with Emmet cuz Emmet kept questioning him if he was an American or something.
We drank with them for a while and then they wanted to do karaoke and invited us along so we all went and did karaoke for a few hours. Johan joined us as well. We all snuck in whiskey bottles. I was chasing my whiskey bottle with a rum coke that I ordered at the karaoke place lol. I got pretty hammered. We sang lots of metal songs (except Emmet who sang Hit Me Baby One More Time, much to the disapproval of Ted). At some point the night became a blur but we stayed there pretty long. Emmet said I passed out towards the end for maybe a half hour.
I woke up the next morning at the Manga kissa. I went online for a bit and waited AGES for the shower and finally the douchebag who was in there for like over and hour finished so I could take a shower. After that, I left to go do some xmas shopping in Akihabara. Emmet was gonna come with but he wasnt answering his phone so I just left by myself.
I got a declious kebab and then I started off going to Super Potato (an awsome retro game store) cuz my brother Tony (Mr. Chu-hi) and some cousins wanted some stuff from there. I got Tony an old still factory sealed copy of one of his favorite Super Famicom games, and I got a bunch of Nintendo character plushies for my younger cousins. Emmet finally mailed me back while I was there saying he over slept. I told him to just meet up with me later.
After that I went to this Duty Free shop to get more presents for the rest of my family. I found lots of good stuff there but I didnt feel like carrying around stuff that wouldnt fit in my backpack all day so I decided I would just go back there the next day before heading home to Gunma on the train.
So after that, I went back to Mikado and played for several hours. I got a lot of good practice in. The place was swarming with Baiken players, including Maruken. I got a lot of practice vs them. My first game vs Maruken, I actually would have beet him but I fucked up. I dizzied him and it would have been the kill hit, but I was stupid and back dashed for a second to pick up a doughnut that was behind me (I dont know why I bothered), thinking I would have time, but he mashed out so fast that he blocked my attack and came back to kill me. I felt pretty robbed but it was my dumbass fault for getting the doughnut. I dont remember much else worth mentioning there that day but it wasnt really all that packed. The reason being was probably that BlazBlue CS II had just came out in arcades this very weekend, so lots of people were probably playing it, and for whatever reason, Mikado didnt get it. They might eventually but they still had regular CS running.
Eventually around 10 pm I left, got some Curry, bought another whiskey flask, and I decided to head to Current. There were more people there than last night. Tomoko and Mai were sitting at a table in the back and invited me over to sit with them. I hadnt seen them in ages. It was cool to chill and talk with them. They went home on the last train but I talked to a bunch of Swedish people, Chris, Sachiko, Rob, and eventually Emmet and this one girl he was at an izakaya with showed up later, too. So, it was a good drinking night. Afterwords, I went to PSY with some people and it was good times. Not much really special to talk about though.
The next morning, I noticed that Burger King had a brand new NY Pizza Burger on the menu. I figured I would give it a try. Im not sure if this is in the US Burger Kings too, but its basically a GIANT burger and you can buy the whole thing for like 1600 yen or by the slice for like 300 something yen. I got 2 slices. It wasnt as good as I was hoping but it was ok I guess. I guess they should have made a Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza Burger instead hah.
After that, I headed back to Akihabara and bought those presents I was gonna get the day before. Various cliche Japanese stuff like geisha dolls and wall scrolls and stuff that my family wanted. When I bought the doll, they didnt have a box for it so they had to get one from another store down the street and it took forever so they gave me some free purfume (which I gave to Ryoko) and some pocket binoculars (random) for waiting so long.
After that, I popped into the old Club Sega and decided to try BBCS II real quick. I was interested in trying out Platinum. I think her design is dumb but I like her play style. The machines were all full so I had no choice but to fight someone. I fought a Jin player hoping that maybe I would be able to try some stuff out since I didnt even know her move list, but this damn Jin player was rushing me down all hard and serious and shit. I hardly got to try anything out and decided I would just try her again some other time. I went to the other side to see who it was, and much to my surprise it was none other than Kyle (stunedge)! I gave him shit for trying to beast so hard on someone who obviously was just trying the character out and he just sorta shrugged and laughed lol.
After that, I played a few games of GG, got a small win streak, only lost once to some Eddie player, and after a while no one was playing me so I decided that with the last 2 hours of my day before I have to go back, I might as well go to Mikado and play.
Unfortunately at Mikado, it was dead as hell. There were only like 4 guys there playing. Among them was R1, the top Millia player. I beat him on my first try somehow, and then lost like 5 in a row. After that I was getting sick of playing Millia and needed a break so I fought some Chipp and won. Then some Anji challenged me like a zillion times and I beat him every time. Then no one was playing me so I decided to get a Kebab.
I went to the usual Kebab place. The waitress who always is working there saw my bags and asked me if I bought souvenirs. I told her they were for my family when I go home for xmas. She then suddenly told me how she collects rare keychains and gave me 1000 yen and asked me if I could buy a Chicago keychain for her and bring it the next time I go there. I agreed and will get a nice one for her. I guess I must eat at that place way too much if they would trust me to give me 1000 yen when im leaving the country knowing that I will surely return because I cant resist their top tier kebabs lol.
After eating I went back to Mikado and fought some Bridget player like 10 in a row and won every time. Then I had to go so I told the guy it would be our last game. I won and then said good games and left.
Thats about it. Next weekend is my final weekend in Japan before I go back to Chicago for 3 weeks. Next weekend will also be the 2 last Johnny-o cup GG 2on2 Team Tournament quals. I will enter both of them with Gaku once more. It will also be Emma's birthday party at Current. should be a fun weekend, and hopefully Gaku and I can qualilfy.
Monday, December 6, 2010
How the JLPT N2 killed my Sunday
I didnt have time to write a blog post last week so I will quickly summarize the previous weekendbefore I get to the most recent one.
Friday I went to Mikado for some casuals and then went to Current and PSY. Big surprise! Then Saturday, I went to a thanksgiving international party with all you can eat Turkey and stuff and open bar as usual. It was in Shinjuku so after that, we went to Current for Sushi's 51st birthday party. Most of the regulars showed up and it was a good sized and fun party. After that I went to PSY for Toru's birthday for the last hour. Sunday, we played poker again in Maebashi. This time only 5 people played cuz some of the other guys were busy. Once again Emmet was the big winner, this time winning over 20,000 yen. I came in 2nd and won about 4,800 which is the best ive done so far. I had one really bad hand where I lost 3,000 in one hand so I could have won way more if I wasnt a dumbass but oh well.
Now, moving on to this past weekend. I started off by going to Shinjuku. Right outside the East Exit of Shinjuku station, there was a giant monster hunter statue. A new Monster Hunter game just came out for the PSP and for whatever reason its popular as hell right now in Japan. Ive only played one Monster Hunter game before (Sam gave me it for free cuz he lost his PSP) and while it seemed kinda fun, I dont get the big craze over it. I only played it a little so maybe I should give it more of a chance.
In any case, I needed to pick up some cigars for my dad for Christmas. Meanwhile, Emmet tried to go to this one book store that has a big English book section cuz he wanted a travel guide for when he goes to Thailand over the holidays. He couldnt find it so after I got the cigars I met back up with him and showed him how to get there. I helped him find the book and then while he was paying for it, there was this pretty hot Japanese girl who looked at me with this huge smile. I just sorta nodded and smiled back. Emmet made a comment how someone seems to like me lol. If I was a single guy maybe I would have went to go talk to her but theres no point in hitting on some girl at the bookstore. Then Emmet got the idea that he would start trying to hang out here and "shop for English books" more in hopes to meet Japanese girls who are interested in learning English or getting with foreigners lol. Im curious to see how that ends up working for him.
The store was about to close so we left after getting the book. I wanted to go to Mikado to practice a bit but it was already getting pretty late and I didnt feel like going to Takadanobaba so we went to Shinjuku Sportsland. I brought a small bottle of whiskey in there with me and already had a few beers on the train. I played against 2 guys and they both kicked my ass pretty hard. I probably shouldnt have drank so much so far lol. So, we didnt stay there for very long and decided to go check out Current.
Emmet was taking a while to finish the booze he bought so we sat down outside a bit before going into Current and I picked up another beer. While we were drinking, Jason, a guy who sometimes drinks at Current, was walking on his way there and stopped to talk with us for a bit. Jason works for an airline and gets flights so cheap to wherever he wants, they are practically free. So, even though he lives in the US, he comes to Japan quite often.
After finishing our booze, we got to Current. Unfortunately, it was quite dead tonight. We stayed for one beer and then decided we would go to Roppongi. Jason had plans to go to Shibuya so Emmet and I headed there.
We passed the crazy Roppongi girl on the street that Emmet was banging for a while. She was walking the opposite direction with 2 guys. We then went to a club I had never been to before called 911. Surprisingly, Jason (the same guy we saw earlier at Current) was there. I guess Shibuya didnt work out or something. So we chilled with him for a bit. Just like Gas Panic, its free to get in, which is one of the conditions I have for going to clubs usually cuz I hate paying expensive cover when i dont really like clubs to begin with. To offset the cost of it being free to get in, drinks were rediculously expensive... like 1000 yen and up, but I got pretty smashed before we went and drank more whiskey on the way there so I only got 2 drinks the whole time we were there and one of them was a long island iced tea so I was ok. I dont remember much about the club except that it was crowded and seemed like it was at least better than gas panic.
We stayed till after 5 until the trains started running again. Then, Jason said that we could crash on the floor in his hotel room in Shibuya for free so we took up his offer and saved a little money.
I woke up the next morning and I heard the shower running. Jason was asleep and I couldnt see Emmet. I figured it was probably him in the shower but I wasnt sure. In any case, I had to get going so that I would be on time for the GG Johnny-o cup at Mikado so I just left.
As soon as I arrived at Mikado, Emmet mailed me asking where I went and I told him to just come meet me at Mikado.
I got a few practice games in before the tournament started and did fairly decent and got a win vs Machaboo's Eddie again. This time, not as many people entered the tournament. I asked Gaku (my teammate again today) why he thought the turnout was so low and he says he blames it on the new Monster Hunter game lol.
Just like 2 weeks ago, this time we were once again in the zero taisen bracket (meaning we had to fight an extra match), so we were one of the first ones to play. Our opponent's were Machaboo (ED) and Ririko (BR). I won RPS so we got to see who their first character was. Gaku says he hates Eddie, and the first character ended up being Ririko's Bridget, so this time, Gaku went first. The videos for all our matches will be uploaded eventually and I will link them here once they are. For now ill just say, Gaku beat Ririko and then he went on to pull a close win against Machaboo as well! So, we advanced and I didnt need to play.
Our 2nd match was vs Ain (KY) and Roy (SO). We lost RPS this time so we had to declare our first character. Gaku requested to go first again so I told him to go ahead. He had to fight Ain's Ky. It was a pretty good fight but Ain beat Gaku. If you read my blog often enough, im sure you know how I feel about Ain, so I really wanted to beat him. And... I did! I won the first round, lost the 2nd, and won the 3rd! Now I just had to beat Roy, which I can usually do in casuals and consider the Sol matchup one of the ones I know better than most. Yet... for some reason, I lost. My biggest problems were just falling for command throw tick shenanigans and not FD volcanic vipers enough. I probably could have stood to play a bit more careful but oh well. Would have been nice if we advanced but tough shit I guess.
After we lost, Gaku said he would like to team with me again for the last 2 tournaments which are on the weekend of the 18th. So, hopefully we can pull out a win next time. I left Mikado after that because once again, today was another Final Roundbat tournament in Shinagawa. Today was the German player named Ken's birthday.
I brought my own booze thinking it was BYOB but Ken was awsome and brought a ton of alcohol to share with everyone so I didnt even really end up having to drink any of my own. This time, the tournament only had 7 people enter. A few other people showed up to play casuals and hang out.
My first match was against Scott Popular's Dudley. I won. Up next, I had to fight Bull410's T.Hawk and I won again. With that, I had made it to the grand finals and as expected, my opponent was Tokido's Akuma. You can see the match vs Tokido here. While I was sorta expecting to get fucked up really bad, somehow I actually did really well. The grand finals were 3/5 rounds 2/3 matches. The first match, I won 2 of the rounds and took it down to the wire and Tokido only had like 10 percent life left when I lost. The 2nd set I didnt do as well but I still put up a reasonable fight. After the match, Tokido said my Rose gets better every time we play, which is odd cuz I havnt even been practicing SSFIV at all lately. I hadnt even played since the last Final Roundbat tournament. I guess I just played smart.
After the tournament, I won a free One Piece calendar that I will give to Ryoko cuz she really likes the One Piece manga. I also drank a shit ton of alcohol. They had all you can eat Domino's Pizza again this time and they got a TON of pizzas. There were probably like over 15 people there and they wound up having 3 whole pizza's leftover. I straight up pigged out. In fact... I ate way too much pizza. I was pretty drunk so I didnt really know when to stop and I felt bloated as hell afterwords. The doctor told me not to over eat cuz of my stomach problems and I probably should have listened.
After the party ended, Ken invited a bunch of us to go to an izakaya near Shinagawa station to have a few more drinks for his birthday. He also will be moving back to Germany in a few days so this would be the last time we would see him for a while (or ever?). So, I went with to the izakaya for a few drinks. I was still feeling extremely bloated so I went into the bathroom and made myself throw up a bit cuz it seriously was in my best interest and pouring more beer over it wasnt gonna help much lol. I just threw up a little bit and I felt much better after that. I had 2 beers and Ken ended up paying for the cuz he was being really cool. Some of the guys stayed longer but I went ahead and left cuz I needed to get to Current before the trains stopped. Jude, the Claw player who came with me to Current last time, came with me again.
I pretty much couldn't stay out at Current very late, because Sunday, I would be taking the JLPT (Japanese Langauge Proficiency Test) in Maebashi. I was going to take the N2 level (which is the 2nd hardest one). Since I had to take the test in Maebashi and it started at 12:30 (meaning if you werent in the room at that time you CANT take the test) I pretty much would have to wake up at like 9 am. So, I told myself I would stay at Current no later than 2 and that way I could get 7 hours of sleep which is enough for me.
Well... things didnt work out that way. Current ended up being pretty awsome that night and lots of friends were there. I spent a good amount of time drinking with SPG Chris and Sachiko, and talking with Joanna and several other people. Emmet also showed up with a girl he met at the international party last week (the Thanksgiving one) but she was already shit faced when they got there so he said he would probably have to send her home in a taxi lol. So yea... I told myself "OK fine, Ill stay till 3, one hour wont kill me." And... I stayed true to my words and left at 3. Unfortunately, when I got to the manga kissa, it was full. I went to a few more and they were all full too. So, I figured if im gonna wait around I might as well just go back to Current and hang out some more. I ended up staying till pretty much 5 when they closed. So... I didnt get to sleep until around 5, which meant I only got 4 hours of sleep, cuz I did end up waking up at 9.
I got a whopper for the road, ate it, and passed out hard on the train the whole way to Maebashi pretty much. I still felt drained and tired as fuck but there was nothing I could do about it except drink some Redbull. I met up with May (another ALT) at the station, who was also taking the JLPT (but she was taking the N4) and we agreed to split a cab cuz it was being held at Gunma University which is quite far from Maebashi station. So, I got a Redbull and another quick cheeseburger, we hopped in the cab, and I made it on time to the test.
So, this was my very first time to try taking the JLPT. I wasnt really sure if I was ready for the N2 cuz its pretty advanced, but I didnt wanna bother starting with the N3 cuz pretty much anything below N2 is worthless. You can actually use N2 and N1 to get a job in Japan but no one gives a fuck if you have N3 or lower. I also hadnt really been studying very hardcore. I pretty much would just study some vocabulary and kanji readings at work when I could find a little time, but somehow ive actually been fairly busy at work lately so I would often be lucky if I got an hour a day to study and some days I didnt even get that much.
The test is broken up into 2 parts. The first part is like 2 hours long, around 75 questions, and its all reading comprehension and vocabulary and kanji. It started off... not good and pretty much ended up getting hopeless once I got to the big long paragraphs at the end. There would be just page long blocks of kanji and I had to read it and answer like 1 or 2 questions and then go to the next page long block of kanji and there were tons of these. I didnt bring a watch and there was no clock in the room (WTF) so I had no idea how much time was left, but I sorta glanced over at the chick sitting in front of me to the left (not to copy her... which I didnt, but to see how far she was along) and she was like 10 questions ahead of me. So I started to panic and just skimmed the paragraphs really fast and half ass. At the time, I didnt take into account the fact that she was Chinese and probably knew the kanji pretty damn well as a result, so I shouldnt have panicked so much. Next time I need to bring a watch. I managed to answer all the questions but honestly guessed on a lot of them. There was actually a ton of vocab and kanji on there that I never even studied at all, which is strange cuz I followed the official kanji list on the JLPT site and made sure I at least learned the meanings of ALL of them but they busted out kanji that wasnt even on there. It was pretty annoying.
After the reading part of the test, there was an intermission. I went outside and chilled and talked with some other ALTs like Phil and Bloodbath about the test. I found that I wasnt the only one who felt like the test was ridiculously difficult. I felt bad for Bloodbath and Phil cuz they were cramming a ton recently but still said it was extremely hard and they felt lost. It just makes me feel even more hopeless about it.
Anyway, the listening part of the test still remained so it was time to go get that shit done. The listening part was something like 30 questions and it was just straight up listening and choosing the best choice. Im pretty sure I fucking rocked this part of the test. The listening part was SOOOOO much easier for me than the reading part. I guess it makes sense because I consider my spoken Japanese and listening comprehension to be fairly good, but my reading skills are kinda bad. Probably because I talk to Ryoko all the time and all my other Japanese friends and constantly hear the language, which you can learn a lot that way from not actually doing much active studying, but I dont try to read nearly as much stuff as I probably should. I would say I at least got 90% on the listening. After the test, the other guys also agreed that the listening part was much easier.
The results wont be released until February but im pretty sure I wont pass. Even if I aced the listening, it wont matter, cuz if you get less than 60% on the reading part, you auto fail regardless of how well you did on listening.
After it was over, a bunch more ALTs all sorta just stood around talking about the test and stuff. Andy was there too and he took the N3 level but said he wasnt sure how he did. Eventually we all decided we would go out to eat. Everyone had a car except Bloodbath, Phil, and me, so we said we would walk and meet them there. It turned out that the place they were going was farther than we thought so we just gave up and went somewhere else but it was good anyway.
After eating, we took a cab back to the station. Bloodbath went his own way and Phil and I rode the train back together cuz we live in the same town. We got on the wrong train and didnt realize it split off onto a different line at Shibukawa (ive never even ridden that line before) and we wound up at like the most middle of nowhere ghetto station I have ever been to. Luckily another train came sorta soon.
When we got back to Shibukawa (we only passed it by 2 stops before we realized the train changed lines), we waited for the next train for a bit. While we were there, there was this drunk old man who was straight up POUNDING LOUD on the glass window of the gate entrance counter trying to get the staff's attention. The guy didnt come out for a while and this old guy was just making a fucking racket over nothing. Phil and I were having a good laugh over it. I dont even think this guy knew why he was angry. He just kept babbling and eventually the station staff guy came out and the old man just called him a bastard and stuff a bunch. The staff tried to quiet him down but he acted up again. Eventually some young woman entered the station and just straight up told the guy to STFU. The old man went from being all pissed and crazy and apologized normally but then just went right back to shouting a bunch of crap. The woman came back and just went off on him LOL! Our train came soon after that, but it was certainly entertaining while it lasted. Im just glad he was some stupid drunk old man and wasnt getting violent.
When we got back to my town it was already like 9:30 and I was tired as hell. I dropped Phil off and then went home and just went right to bed and slept for like 9 hours, but I still felt really tired this morning and my stomach feels really bad. Probably from over eating that pizza. Hopefully it will start to heal soon but it doesnt feel so good.
Anyway, I will try to take the JLPT N2 again in the summer (its offered twice a year) and hopefully will be able to study more this time, but that shit fucking kicked my ass. It's pretty discouraging.
Friday I went to Mikado for some casuals and then went to Current and PSY. Big surprise! Then Saturday, I went to a thanksgiving international party with all you can eat Turkey and stuff and open bar as usual. It was in Shinjuku so after that, we went to Current for Sushi's 51st birthday party. Most of the regulars showed up and it was a good sized and fun party. After that I went to PSY for Toru's birthday for the last hour. Sunday, we played poker again in Maebashi. This time only 5 people played cuz some of the other guys were busy. Once again Emmet was the big winner, this time winning over 20,000 yen. I came in 2nd and won about 4,800 which is the best ive done so far. I had one really bad hand where I lost 3,000 in one hand so I could have won way more if I wasnt a dumbass but oh well.
Now, moving on to this past weekend. I started off by going to Shinjuku. Right outside the East Exit of Shinjuku station, there was a giant monster hunter statue. A new Monster Hunter game just came out for the PSP and for whatever reason its popular as hell right now in Japan. Ive only played one Monster Hunter game before (Sam gave me it for free cuz he lost his PSP) and while it seemed kinda fun, I dont get the big craze over it. I only played it a little so maybe I should give it more of a chance.
In any case, I needed to pick up some cigars for my dad for Christmas. Meanwhile, Emmet tried to go to this one book store that has a big English book section cuz he wanted a travel guide for when he goes to Thailand over the holidays. He couldnt find it so after I got the cigars I met back up with him and showed him how to get there. I helped him find the book and then while he was paying for it, there was this pretty hot Japanese girl who looked at me with this huge smile. I just sorta nodded and smiled back. Emmet made a comment how someone seems to like me lol. If I was a single guy maybe I would have went to go talk to her but theres no point in hitting on some girl at the bookstore. Then Emmet got the idea that he would start trying to hang out here and "shop for English books" more in hopes to meet Japanese girls who are interested in learning English or getting with foreigners lol. Im curious to see how that ends up working for him.
The store was about to close so we left after getting the book. I wanted to go to Mikado to practice a bit but it was already getting pretty late and I didnt feel like going to Takadanobaba so we went to Shinjuku Sportsland. I brought a small bottle of whiskey in there with me and already had a few beers on the train. I played against 2 guys and they both kicked my ass pretty hard. I probably shouldnt have drank so much so far lol. So, we didnt stay there for very long and decided to go check out Current.
Emmet was taking a while to finish the booze he bought so we sat down outside a bit before going into Current and I picked up another beer. While we were drinking, Jason, a guy who sometimes drinks at Current, was walking on his way there and stopped to talk with us for a bit. Jason works for an airline and gets flights so cheap to wherever he wants, they are practically free. So, even though he lives in the US, he comes to Japan quite often.
After finishing our booze, we got to Current. Unfortunately, it was quite dead tonight. We stayed for one beer and then decided we would go to Roppongi. Jason had plans to go to Shibuya so Emmet and I headed there.
We passed the crazy Roppongi girl on the street that Emmet was banging for a while. She was walking the opposite direction with 2 guys. We then went to a club I had never been to before called 911. Surprisingly, Jason (the same guy we saw earlier at Current) was there. I guess Shibuya didnt work out or something. So we chilled with him for a bit. Just like Gas Panic, its free to get in, which is one of the conditions I have for going to clubs usually cuz I hate paying expensive cover when i dont really like clubs to begin with. To offset the cost of it being free to get in, drinks were rediculously expensive... like 1000 yen and up, but I got pretty smashed before we went and drank more whiskey on the way there so I only got 2 drinks the whole time we were there and one of them was a long island iced tea so I was ok. I dont remember much about the club except that it was crowded and seemed like it was at least better than gas panic.
We stayed till after 5 until the trains started running again. Then, Jason said that we could crash on the floor in his hotel room in Shibuya for free so we took up his offer and saved a little money.
I woke up the next morning and I heard the shower running. Jason was asleep and I couldnt see Emmet. I figured it was probably him in the shower but I wasnt sure. In any case, I had to get going so that I would be on time for the GG Johnny-o cup at Mikado so I just left.
As soon as I arrived at Mikado, Emmet mailed me asking where I went and I told him to just come meet me at Mikado.
I got a few practice games in before the tournament started and did fairly decent and got a win vs Machaboo's Eddie again. This time, not as many people entered the tournament. I asked Gaku (my teammate again today) why he thought the turnout was so low and he says he blames it on the new Monster Hunter game lol.
Just like 2 weeks ago, this time we were once again in the zero taisen bracket (meaning we had to fight an extra match), so we were one of the first ones to play. Our opponent's were Machaboo (ED) and Ririko (BR). I won RPS so we got to see who their first character was. Gaku says he hates Eddie, and the first character ended up being Ririko's Bridget, so this time, Gaku went first. The videos for all our matches will be uploaded eventually and I will link them here once they are. For now ill just say, Gaku beat Ririko and then he went on to pull a close win against Machaboo as well! So, we advanced and I didnt need to play.
Our 2nd match was vs Ain (KY) and Roy (SO). We lost RPS this time so we had to declare our first character. Gaku requested to go first again so I told him to go ahead. He had to fight Ain's Ky. It was a pretty good fight but Ain beat Gaku. If you read my blog often enough, im sure you know how I feel about Ain, so I really wanted to beat him. And... I did! I won the first round, lost the 2nd, and won the 3rd! Now I just had to beat Roy, which I can usually do in casuals and consider the Sol matchup one of the ones I know better than most. Yet... for some reason, I lost. My biggest problems were just falling for command throw tick shenanigans and not FD volcanic vipers enough. I probably could have stood to play a bit more careful but oh well. Would have been nice if we advanced but tough shit I guess.
After we lost, Gaku said he would like to team with me again for the last 2 tournaments which are on the weekend of the 18th. So, hopefully we can pull out a win next time. I left Mikado after that because once again, today was another Final Roundbat tournament in Shinagawa. Today was the German player named Ken's birthday.
I brought my own booze thinking it was BYOB but Ken was awsome and brought a ton of alcohol to share with everyone so I didnt even really end up having to drink any of my own. This time, the tournament only had 7 people enter. A few other people showed up to play casuals and hang out.
My first match was against Scott Popular's Dudley. I won. Up next, I had to fight Bull410's T.Hawk and I won again. With that, I had made it to the grand finals and as expected, my opponent was Tokido's Akuma. You can see the match vs Tokido here. While I was sorta expecting to get fucked up really bad, somehow I actually did really well. The grand finals were 3/5 rounds 2/3 matches. The first match, I won 2 of the rounds and took it down to the wire and Tokido only had like 10 percent life left when I lost. The 2nd set I didnt do as well but I still put up a reasonable fight. After the match, Tokido said my Rose gets better every time we play, which is odd cuz I havnt even been practicing SSFIV at all lately. I hadnt even played since the last Final Roundbat tournament. I guess I just played smart.
After the tournament, I won a free One Piece calendar that I will give to Ryoko cuz she really likes the One Piece manga. I also drank a shit ton of alcohol. They had all you can eat Domino's Pizza again this time and they got a TON of pizzas. There were probably like over 15 people there and they wound up having 3 whole pizza's leftover. I straight up pigged out. In fact... I ate way too much pizza. I was pretty drunk so I didnt really know when to stop and I felt bloated as hell afterwords. The doctor told me not to over eat cuz of my stomach problems and I probably should have listened.
After the party ended, Ken invited a bunch of us to go to an izakaya near Shinagawa station to have a few more drinks for his birthday. He also will be moving back to Germany in a few days so this would be the last time we would see him for a while (or ever?). So, I went with to the izakaya for a few drinks. I was still feeling extremely bloated so I went into the bathroom and made myself throw up a bit cuz it seriously was in my best interest and pouring more beer over it wasnt gonna help much lol. I just threw up a little bit and I felt much better after that. I had 2 beers and Ken ended up paying for the cuz he was being really cool. Some of the guys stayed longer but I went ahead and left cuz I needed to get to Current before the trains stopped. Jude, the Claw player who came with me to Current last time, came with me again.
I pretty much couldn't stay out at Current very late, because Sunday, I would be taking the JLPT (Japanese Langauge Proficiency Test) in Maebashi. I was going to take the N2 level (which is the 2nd hardest one). Since I had to take the test in Maebashi and it started at 12:30 (meaning if you werent in the room at that time you CANT take the test) I pretty much would have to wake up at like 9 am. So, I told myself I would stay at Current no later than 2 and that way I could get 7 hours of sleep which is enough for me.
Well... things didnt work out that way. Current ended up being pretty awsome that night and lots of friends were there. I spent a good amount of time drinking with SPG Chris and Sachiko, and talking with Joanna and several other people. Emmet also showed up with a girl he met at the international party last week (the Thanksgiving one) but she was already shit faced when they got there so he said he would probably have to send her home in a taxi lol. So yea... I told myself "OK fine, Ill stay till 3, one hour wont kill me." And... I stayed true to my words and left at 3. Unfortunately, when I got to the manga kissa, it was full. I went to a few more and they were all full too. So, I figured if im gonna wait around I might as well just go back to Current and hang out some more. I ended up staying till pretty much 5 when they closed. So... I didnt get to sleep until around 5, which meant I only got 4 hours of sleep, cuz I did end up waking up at 9.
I got a whopper for the road, ate it, and passed out hard on the train the whole way to Maebashi pretty much. I still felt drained and tired as fuck but there was nothing I could do about it except drink some Redbull. I met up with May (another ALT) at the station, who was also taking the JLPT (but she was taking the N4) and we agreed to split a cab cuz it was being held at Gunma University which is quite far from Maebashi station. So, I got a Redbull and another quick cheeseburger, we hopped in the cab, and I made it on time to the test.
So, this was my very first time to try taking the JLPT. I wasnt really sure if I was ready for the N2 cuz its pretty advanced, but I didnt wanna bother starting with the N3 cuz pretty much anything below N2 is worthless. You can actually use N2 and N1 to get a job in Japan but no one gives a fuck if you have N3 or lower. I also hadnt really been studying very hardcore. I pretty much would just study some vocabulary and kanji readings at work when I could find a little time, but somehow ive actually been fairly busy at work lately so I would often be lucky if I got an hour a day to study and some days I didnt even get that much.
The test is broken up into 2 parts. The first part is like 2 hours long, around 75 questions, and its all reading comprehension and vocabulary and kanji. It started off... not good and pretty much ended up getting hopeless once I got to the big long paragraphs at the end. There would be just page long blocks of kanji and I had to read it and answer like 1 or 2 questions and then go to the next page long block of kanji and there were tons of these. I didnt bring a watch and there was no clock in the room (WTF) so I had no idea how much time was left, but I sorta glanced over at the chick sitting in front of me to the left (not to copy her... which I didnt, but to see how far she was along) and she was like 10 questions ahead of me. So I started to panic and just skimmed the paragraphs really fast and half ass. At the time, I didnt take into account the fact that she was Chinese and probably knew the kanji pretty damn well as a result, so I shouldnt have panicked so much. Next time I need to bring a watch. I managed to answer all the questions but honestly guessed on a lot of them. There was actually a ton of vocab and kanji on there that I never even studied at all, which is strange cuz I followed the official kanji list on the JLPT site and made sure I at least learned the meanings of ALL of them but they busted out kanji that wasnt even on there. It was pretty annoying.
After the reading part of the test, there was an intermission. I went outside and chilled and talked with some other ALTs like Phil and Bloodbath about the test. I found that I wasnt the only one who felt like the test was ridiculously difficult. I felt bad for Bloodbath and Phil cuz they were cramming a ton recently but still said it was extremely hard and they felt lost. It just makes me feel even more hopeless about it.
Anyway, the listening part of the test still remained so it was time to go get that shit done. The listening part was something like 30 questions and it was just straight up listening and choosing the best choice. Im pretty sure I fucking rocked this part of the test. The listening part was SOOOOO much easier for me than the reading part. I guess it makes sense because I consider my spoken Japanese and listening comprehension to be fairly good, but my reading skills are kinda bad. Probably because I talk to Ryoko all the time and all my other Japanese friends and constantly hear the language, which you can learn a lot that way from not actually doing much active studying, but I dont try to read nearly as much stuff as I probably should. I would say I at least got 90% on the listening. After the test, the other guys also agreed that the listening part was much easier.
The results wont be released until February but im pretty sure I wont pass. Even if I aced the listening, it wont matter, cuz if you get less than 60% on the reading part, you auto fail regardless of how well you did on listening.
After it was over, a bunch more ALTs all sorta just stood around talking about the test and stuff. Andy was there too and he took the N3 level but said he wasnt sure how he did. Eventually we all decided we would go out to eat. Everyone had a car except Bloodbath, Phil, and me, so we said we would walk and meet them there. It turned out that the place they were going was farther than we thought so we just gave up and went somewhere else but it was good anyway.
After eating, we took a cab back to the station. Bloodbath went his own way and Phil and I rode the train back together cuz we live in the same town. We got on the wrong train and didnt realize it split off onto a different line at Shibukawa (ive never even ridden that line before) and we wound up at like the most middle of nowhere ghetto station I have ever been to. Luckily another train came sorta soon.
When we got back to Shibukawa (we only passed it by 2 stops before we realized the train changed lines), we waited for the next train for a bit. While we were there, there was this drunk old man who was straight up POUNDING LOUD on the glass window of the gate entrance counter trying to get the staff's attention. The guy didnt come out for a while and this old guy was just making a fucking racket over nothing. Phil and I were having a good laugh over it. I dont even think this guy knew why he was angry. He just kept babbling and eventually the station staff guy came out and the old man just called him a bastard and stuff a bunch. The staff tried to quiet him down but he acted up again. Eventually some young woman entered the station and just straight up told the guy to STFU. The old man went from being all pissed and crazy and apologized normally but then just went right back to shouting a bunch of crap. The woman came back and just went off on him LOL! Our train came soon after that, but it was certainly entertaining while it lasted. Im just glad he was some stupid drunk old man and wasnt getting violent.
When we got back to my town it was already like 9:30 and I was tired as hell. I dropped Phil off and then went home and just went right to bed and slept for like 9 hours, but I still felt really tired this morning and my stomach feels really bad. Probably from over eating that pizza. Hopefully it will start to heal soon but it doesnt feel so good.
Anyway, I will try to take the JLPT N2 again in the summer (its offered twice a year) and hopefully will be able to study more this time, but that shit fucking kicked my ass. It's pretty discouraging.
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