It's time I went into wayy too much detail about the tournament. Be warned, about 99% of this blog is DDR-related. 5% more than usual. First, though, my weekend so far.
Friday, it was the same old shtick, but it was one of the best Starbasings I'd had in a while anyway. Thrown into the mix was a webcam we all goofed off in front of, my ninja mask that I wore (make it yourself!) and did Tsugaru to with Jam (actual ninja), and my passing of two Oni courses, Naoki Standard (again) and Soul 6. Okay, fine, they're two of the easiest onis, but still, accomplishing stuff like this makes me happy. Also, I know the obsession with 231 is over, but right after I got a 231 full combo on a song, Chris's Perfect count on his first song was 231. o_o
But "best" of all that night was at the very beginning, where I gave Sophie a late Christmas present--a pair of drumsticks as an..."inside" joke, not knowing that that was her gift to me also for that same joke! XD She and Annie then utterly crushed every bone in my body with a double-team hugnkiss out of nowhere that STILL sticks in my mind at this moment, then scampered off, leaving me gaping and trying to comprehend what got them to do that. Aghh, it all happened so fast...and that was exactly the point. -_-
Video Bob was visibly pissed at the Northgate Mall for getting DDRMAX2 and setting it at such a low price, and I totally understand him...it sucks that he no longer has the only DDR machine in Marin. It's the exact scenario of the corporation taking over the mom'n'pop shop--this Namco run arcade killing the local 20 year old arcade's DDR profits...50 cents for 4 songs, ugh, they must be trying to get rid of him. Unfortunately, I have been having fun going there lately...I've already had all these crowds gather and people ask me all about DDR and how I know the arrows backwards. Friday still means Starbase for the atmosphere, though, and boy, do we ever pump a lot of money into there on those nights.
Finally got around to learning the tabs for Simple and Clean lately...yess...playing along with it is the best.
Last night, I went and saw "Chicago" along with (surprise) Sophie/Annie/Conrad, and was blown away by how much I actually ended up liking it. Heheh, I had this giant grin on my face for most of the movie--it just got me feeling goood. Maybe it had to do with all the legs, legs, and more legs (it was funny, this little kid next to me was restless and bored in his seat the whole time), but everything in it was stylish, dead-on, and very entertaining. I'm so glad I got invited to see it, since I probably wouldn't have gone otherwise. The free tickets Conrad obtained didn't hurt either. :P
And now, last week's Saturday.
That morning, I simply lay in bed, propped on a couple pillows, watching one full screen freestyle video after another from a gigantic playlist I set up. Yes, this is how Gowdey prepares for a tournament. >_<
Arrived at the 'Base early with Brad at around 11:00--we were pretty much the first ones there. I warmed up with Sky High, then did some Kind Lady/Pu'cho Faith in Me freestyle...I still can't get over what a songlist Extreme has...Tyler and Friend then arrived, and then WrathX, who I met at the Rohnert Park tourney. Then Justin (aka Squigger, this is the last time I'll say that :P) and Chris got there with a crapload of free DDRinks for everyone that day--Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Rockstar, and Red Bull. EVAR.
After most of the other entries showed up, the qualifying songs for Perfect Attack were announced--new-to-Extreme-songs that none of us had practiced (Hold On Me, Memories, Blue Impulse, Tears, and Cartoon Heroes). IMO, the qualifiers were wayy too unbalanced, as the last 2 songs are damn-near impossible to PA well (Justin tried Tears for the hell of it and...didn't do too well). Everyone except 5 of us chose Memories...let's just say having to listen to Paula Terry back to back to back wasn't too fun. Jeff, Bryan, Bryan H, and Kevin M all did well on Blue Impulse, but I then chose Memories, full comboed it with 19 Greats, and qualified 2nd. :P The top 8 were moved into our own bracket, leaving the 4 below to duke it out later.
After that, it was time for the freestyle division to start. Fortunately for me and my nervous self (and I'm not sure if they even let you do this in regular tournaments), Chris gave the freestylers about 15 minutes for practice, so we all got to do a few exhibitions. Nothing was too spectacular, as we all wanted to keep our Secret
And get this--after it was done and I had gotten the applause that I'd always wanted to hear since I'd first gotten into FSing, I found out that I didn't get recorded. I STUPIDLY forgot to tell WrathX how to switch the mode to "camera"--BHAGHGHAGH. Now, granted, there's a video of me doing Kind Lady doubles on the Starbase site (redesigned!), but that's just an exhibition I did afterwards just to give people downloading it a taste of what the real one was like. The routines are pretty similar, actually, except I didn't grab the bar in that one embarrassing part that you'll see in the video. Still, here I am, improvising for all to see. Get DIVX 5.03 to watch it.
After the last song, Chris came up and announced that he and Justin didn't expect the quality of the freestyle to be this high--he almost awarded 1st place to Bryan (Groza), but took some other stuff into consideration. The judges went over the scoresheet for about 5 minutes and finally decided a "winner":
"Captain Canadia, you had some incredible moves in there...and Bryan H, you were by far the most prepared going into this."
So we tied for first. Here's where it got a little unfair--instead of us splitting the money or something, Chris asked the audience (is that still on?) to cheer loudest for who they wanted to win the most. Now I had a posse of the DDR club and Drake on my side, and Bryan had a couple of his friends, so needless to say, it was a totally unfair decision and I ended up winning. =D
PA time after that--Chris picks a song for two people each round, whoever has the most Perfects wins. The crowd got worked up at the songs and mods Chris chose--it was hilarious seeing and hearing their reactions and having no idea what was going on since our backs had to be turned to the machine.
After some intense dancing (got a high A on A, yay), we had a few rounds involving "distractions" chosen out of a hat. One was a singalong to It's Raining Men, which was memorable...next time it should be Captain Jack, though--more people know the words. :P Bryan surprisingly knocked out Squigger in a song that I forget, Jeff killed my ass at Cartoon Heroes on Sudden (I HATE SUDDEN), but I then beat Kevin on "i feel...", with Chris messing with the volume as another distraction. This left Jeff and I in the finals to face off. It was just too perfect, and yes, I mean that in a very homosexual way.
If he won once, he was winnar; I had to beat him twice in a row. Let's Get Down was our first song (new "challenge" steps for a 1st mix song, yay), and to make it damned frustrating for both of us, Chris had the entire audience yell out various chants the whole time. I heard everything from "LETS GO GIANTS *clap* *clap* *clapclapclap*" to stuff from other DDR songs ("HOI, THROW YO HANDS UP")...it was chaos. I could barely stay on beat and keep from laughing, and barely edged out a win.
What was more perfect than the best of friends facing off was the last song Chris picked, INSERTiON (meant in a NON-homosexual way). Jeff and I each have the rhythm to this down pat, and what's more, we got the arcade to be completely silent, with the only sounds being this song and our machine-gunning feet...and uh, that pinball machine that goes "OKAY BUDDY, PULL OVER". Chris dimmed the lights randomly as a slight distraction, which only made things more dramatic when set to this song. I ended up winning--I think missing only one--and claming my second title that day...the prize money in all was 55 bucks, and I couldn't have been happier. Brad then owned the "lower" division, making for a Canadian sweep! Hah!
All in all, the tourney was everything I wanted it to be and more. Chris, Justin, and Eric (WrathX) all did a perfect job at running the thing and keeping everybody happy. The only things missing were O-Yama of Rohnert Park and Sophie, who had an even better day than me at the Alternative Press Expo in SF. It was just bad timing date-wise, whatever, there will be more tourneys at Starbase. =)
After, Bryan, Brad, and the leftover Drake people stayed inside, and I re-did that Kind Lady routine as best I could to put online. Hannah (who arrived too late for the distraction songs, unfortunately) went insane outside while I kept a safe distance and geeked out with Brad as we did some White Boy Freestyle to Mr. T. Had this been a big-time tournament, we all would have gone to some place like Denny's and been really loud and obnoxious, but I guess that's a coming attraction.
Spanking of future tournaments...Bemani by the Bay (aka B3) at the Riptide Arcade in Pier 39 is coming. It's a freaking huge 2 day Bay Area tournament, partly run by a mod from DDRFreak (so you know some amazing people are going to show up :P), and it's only around 20 minutes away. Er, distance wise. It's really in Spring Break. Chris is pushing for me to enter both DDR divisions (there's also Beatmania and DancemaniaX), but I'm just a tad intimidated. I mean, okay, maybe I'm considered "best FSer in Marin", but this is just Marin, nothing near the Golflands or SF, which have the calibur of people who will be entering this. I haven't decided what I'll be doing yet, but I do have time to make some progress by May...or at least work another routine out. I also need some tighter shirts in my freestyle wardrobe.
Uh, moving on.
Indogutsu wants you all to download this plugin for Winamp called Highly Experimental. Ever wanted the entire soundtrack of a Playstation game, but never had time to Kazaa the whole thing? They're available here in this new PSF format, and at a very modest download sizes. If you have trouble, you can contact him on AIM at BigTsuRM2K for help.
update: I'm listening to the Chrono Cross soundtrack right now, and it's in unbelievably perfect quality. Get this plugin!
That's enough for today...wow, I think I covered everything. Go see Chicago with some friends, it's great. :)
| >> posted by CaptainCanada at 2/6/2003 02:01:38 PM |