The arcade weekend

I mentioned this in last week's workout posts, and talked of this event last year as well. I figured I'd get out all my talk of this here, if not for people to read, for my own memory. As usual, all names have been changed for privacy reasons.

It started with Monday, when my friend, Binder I'll call him, invited me to the arcade's quarter night along with his brother. I was playing around on the various machines when I went over to the DDR machine. Unfortunately, this one never is priced at a quarter per play, but I figured one round of it could be fun. After i finish the first song, a guy comes up, complimenting me on how I did, saying there needs to be more doubles players around. I thanked him, and just kept playing. After I finished, I ended up watching him play, where he was taking suggestions on what to play on doubles, and how some songs were since it had been awhile since he played.

Eventually I went to see if I was up on other machines, since the line for the In The Groove machine is usually long as hell, and funny enough, Binder was signaling me it was my turn. Fast forward some, the guy near the DDR machine chats with me, says his name is Jim, and talks about how I should enter the doubles tournament this weekend. I knew the big arcade tournament was coming up but thought it was the next weekend, so this was news to me. In any case, I told him I really can't compete anymore as people haven't gotten so much better than I, it's not funny. He then asked if I'd be going this weekend, which I had to figure out a plan to. Luckily, Binder was coming Friday and Saturday, but Sunday I'd have to find a ride for or get my license renewed to borrow a car.

I had been holding off on getting my license renewed because my sister wanted to go with me since hers was up soon as well and figured we'd get it done in one shot. I asked her about going sometime this week, but she said she wasn't positive, and told me I should try making back up plans in case she can't. it was okay, got my cousin Olivia to be my back up driver for Sunday, so I figured all was good.

Fast forward to Friday, Binder and I drive to the arcade. I met up with Jim, as well as a few old friends, including Butterfly from last year! They were mainly doing qualifiers tonight and it wasn't too crowded. I chatted a bunch with Jim and found out he was a Dragon Quest fan too! In fact, it seemed his girlfriend from back home was into it too! Can't believe I found a person who not only was damn good at playing doubles on DDR without holding the bar, but is also a Dragon Quest fan as well! Seriously, felt like I found a long-lost brother! In any case, I was trying to find my old friend Cucumber from last year, as it is unusual for him to miss a day of these activities, but he was no where to be found tonight. The night ended late, with one funny incident happening where the arcade ran out of power during a qualifier.

General crowd pic

Saturday was great at first, then lame after awhile. First, I needed to get my license renewed and my sister did not want to go because her hair wasn't looking good and didn't want that plastered on her license for the next 4 years. Second, Olivia's car broke down so she couldn't help with driving me on Sunday! It's rather sad that I can make multiple plans and yet they will fall through on me. I was about to ask Olivia's little sister to drive me to the DMV when Sis finally said, "Well, if it means that much to you, I guess I can take you..." I owe her in other words... So she took me there way early, with me running on about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Got that shit done, went home, and fell back asleep.

Woke up with Binder texting me that he was stuck a little late at his work, and wouldn't be able to go until later in the night. Luckily, with my license freshly renewed, Dad let me borrow his car for the next two evening and off I went. While there, I found Cucumber had came and entered everything as usual. he wanted to show me this iPad music game he had but was so busy, never had the chance to show me. In fact, the same basically happened with Jim, and others. Butterfly chatted with me for a long time, but had an overnight shift so had to leave halfway through the night.

Big guy's chest, lack of 3D on the internet (un)fortunately

I ended up on the bored side, just playing Mario Kart 7 on my 3DS. I suppose I'm glad that I brought my 3ds, since not only did I get like instantly 10 tags when entering the arcade that night or tag a dude from Japan, but it gave me something to do. Also, a big guy saw me taking photos with my 3DS and yelled for me to take a 3D pic of his chest, haha!

Found out also that cupcakes were made for one of the tournaments that were spiked with... alcohol or weed or something? I'm not sure, just one guy was telling me all about it. In any case, with my boredom of this night, I started deciding if I should enter the doubles DDR tournament just for the hell of it. I doubt I would do well, but sure as hell would be more fun then sitting down playing on my 3DS like an antisocial asshole. I decided I could see how I feel Sunday before making a decision.

Sunday, I felt all right enough to compete. After getting myself ready for the day, I headed over at my usual time of about 5pm. Unfortunately I had missed the qualifiers for Doubles and they had already started. Ah well, not a big deal to me. That's when Jim ran up to me, asking me to help him run a Guitar Freaks tournament. Apparently, because he entered every tournament, he was way too busy to run it. I'm a little familiar with Guitar Freaks, but don't know all the ins and outs of it.

I was going to refuse when it hit me... I was so bored on Saturday cause I had nothing to do. Now, I would have something to do! (Plus, some free games on Guitar Freaks) I accepted, and he told me what I'd need to do. There were some gaps of info missing on what to do, such as how he wanted me to handle tiebreakers (and in one case, double tiebreakers), and whether or not the competition would be double elimination or not. Luckily, all the players were really awesome people and worked with me on things. It also helped that I said anytime I didn't know something, I'd refer to Jim, haha.

Big Guy's awesome leg tattoo

After weeding out a lot of people, Guitar Freaks took a standstill as the two people who were up next were also facing each other in another tournament. Since there was downtime, and apparently the In The Groove machine was no longer doing a tournament, I figured I would play a round on there. I had put my card up there for the line of people wanting to play right when I first got there. When I went over, however, the card was knocked down. I was annoyed, and about to put myself back in line when two people ran over putting themselves on the line too. There would be no way I'd have time to play now.

Not only was I annoyed with the two people rushing in line, but the fact no one pays attention when they knock down someone's card really put me in a bad mood. So during the Guitar Freaks downtime, I was playing on my 3DS, and thinking some rather dumb thoughts about people that had nothing to do with what happened. I got over it eventually, as once the Guitar Freaks tournament was back in action, I had a little more fun.

One thing about running the tournament was how LONG it took. Because people were running about doing other tournaments, there was often some downtime where I ended up stuck near the machine waiting for people. My legs were killing me something awful, and I was getting really tired. Jim asked if I wanted to be let off the hook, as he didn't want to inconvenience me, but I told him I was fine, some mild discomfort wasn't a big deal. He then offered to buy me dinner for my help, so that was cool; free food! I was going to buy something there, but hey! Now I didn't have to!

Eventually the tournament ended, Jim placed 2nd, losing only to another guy by one Great rating. I wanted to get a picture of the top 4 people, but two of them left before I had the chance. I figured that must have been the last tournament, but apparently the doubles DDR tournament was still going on.

Apparently, the competitors kepts AAA-ing things (as in, getting the whole song done perfectly without mistake or even being slightly off). Cucumber and Jim were apart of these amazing people, along with another friend of mine, Jake. Eventually, the tournament ended with a 3-way tie for first (two including Jake and Cucumber) and one in 4th place (Jim). I don't know how that works, but whatever works for them I suppose.

To be honest, the whole way the tournaments were run, besides Guitar Freaks, really didn't make much sense to me. A lot started with having typical ladder matches, but double elimination. But, when it got to the final four of some tournaments, the game changed from double elimination ladder matches to 4 way gauntlet battles. That seems off to me cause then... it greatly benefits those who ended up in the loser's brackets and doesn't give the advantage to those in the winner's bracket. Usually, a double elimination works by having one person rise in the losers' bracket and one person rise in the winner's bracket to face each other in the end, where the winner's bracket guy only has to beat loser's bracket guy once, but loser's bracket guy needs to beat the winner one twice (once to send winner into the loser's bracket, and then another to completely eliminate him). This is what I was used to when I competed anyway.

In any case, things eventually ended. They announced the winners of individual tournaments before announcing the grand winners of the weekend. The way the grand winning works is calculated how many tournaments one person entered and how they placed in each of those tournaments. Last year, Cucumber had won since he had entered everything and placed pretty well in all of them. This year, however... was Jim's turn! He hadn't won any individual tournament, but was in the top 4 of a lot of them!

After congratulations and pictures were taken, Jim came up to me and said instead of buying me dinner, he was going to hook me up with some Dragon Quest stuff for helping him with the Guitar Freaks tournament. I couldn't help but hug the man; that right there is a fucking awesome dude! Personally, I think he could have gotten anybody to run it, I just wanted to have something to do for the night! I thought dinner was enough really, but no, I'm getting some awesome Dragon Quest stuff!

So just for socializing this weekend, not only have I got a bunch of new friends on facebook, a great time, and lost a few pounds, but I'm getting Dragon Quest stuff! All of this has motivated me to really start playing these music games again. I'm not thinking competitive wise, but it would be nice just to get far in a tournament for the fun of it, so I don't have another night where I'm bored out of my mind, and also meet more people as I face them. This has motivated me to try a little harder on the job search, so hopefully by this time next year, I will be employed, have some money, and maybe even place in a tournament? Haha.