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You know, I was waiting to get into the right mood to talk about today's tournament. I don't want to sound negative, because, well, it wasn't all bad. There were some high points to the day. But, getting knocked out in the first round just... sucks.
However, I just got email from a friend of mine who I hadn't thought of in a while, but who I'm really happy to hear from. It's so cool. He was in some fiction workshops with me, and around the time when I switched majors to English and wanted to get to know some English majors better, I harrassed him to hang out sometimes because I thought he was cute and funny and cool. We got coffee once or twice and had some good conversations about sci-fi and movies and stuff, but then he graduated and we didn't keep in touch at all (why would we? I figured). I didn't expect to get a "hey, how are you, I can't believe I've lost touch with you, what's up?" email - if anything I expected to run into him at a reunion someday and he'd say "Deanna who?" It makes me hopeful that the people I remember as being cool in my life will remember me for a while as being cool in their lives.
(It would be incredibly funny if it turns out he has an LJ and finds this, but that's another story. I have no idea how to respond to him, so I'll have to ponder it as I write this.)
Ok, so now I'll talk about the tourney. Sam picked me up at 10:50 and we picked up Krisp and Christina at 11. Then we went to the BVM. We got there the same time as Chris the arcade guy and his girlfriend, and Rebecca and Bayani and people were there already. So we did signups and paying and all, and a lot of warming up. I was doing pretty well, I felt pretty confident in myself at the beginning of it all. Rebecca and I went and put on silly cosplay outfits, too - I put on my Emi 4th mix stuff and she put on her Yuni stuff. But I felt really silly in it after a while because it was so hot (already hot arcade, wig, plus wool hat... hot.) So I took it off before the actual competing happened. I offered the hat and wig part of the costume to this one guy to wear after he was saying how much he looooooooooooved Emi, but he turned out to be a really... umm... scummy sort of annoying guy, and when I asked for the hat and wig back he kept whining and stuff. He offered to buy them off me, and didn't seem to understand that I really didn't want him to wear them all day - I had realized that yuck, I'd have to really wash them out if he played DDR in them and sweated in them. (Note later: You can shampoo out a wig pretty well and it dries out just fine... Now I know.) What is funny is, Rebecca stayed cosplaying as Yuni the whole time - and I was cosplaying as Rebecca! I was wearing a red shirt, black athletic stripe pants, red shoes, and a bandanna. It was funny.
So, anyway, warmups made me think "I can beat some of these people..." However, it turns out that all of those people entered in Basic. There were like 16 people in Basic, 15 in Trick, and 3 in Maniac. So they did the 3 people matching up in Maniac round-robin - Maniac rounds occurred randomly between other rounds of the game.
They started with Basic. Not much to say about it except that I never ever ever want to hear Dynamite Rave or Drop the Bomb again. Krisp and Christina both lasted to the second round but were knocked out then. (Krisp went up against this 10-year-old girl Shelby.. she is really funny) Eventually they had winners... this girl Crystal who was videotaping (Rebecca was also videotaping) won overall in Basic. Second was this guy Andy who I talked to a bit afterwards, and third was... umm... damn, I remember the girl Molly who was 4th but I'm totally blanking on who was 3rd.
Sam did an "exhibition" of Drop Out Double Maniac during one of the Basic rounds while Bayani was doing math. So I volunteered Rebecca and I to freestyle exhibition between Basic and Trick, which we did. We called it a "Spin Competition" and did Butterfly Basic. Incase you don't know my DDR style, it's basically "spin around a lot but lack all other freestyle moves". So, I got like 19 spins in or something. Brad said he lost count. Rebecca got... I don't know how many, but less than that. I'm guessing 12 because I was counting which ones she did. It was just funny because I was inventing spins in places where they didn't exist, but somehow I still full-comboed the song (IIRC, or maybe I just came damn close).
So I was feeling cool as Trick got started. Remember how I figured Rebecca would win first, Juan would be second, and if I was lucky I'd end up third? Well... Rob Seanor came up to me and Rebecca like "hey, are you guys good friends?" we're like "Err... we just met like a month or two ago?" and he said "Well, I'm playing against you (he pointed at Rebecca) and she's playing against my brother... bad luck on my part I guess" So, I was thinking "Wow, whew, I'm not against Rebecca in the first round!" and then also thinking "Hmm, I can beat Rob, so I bet I can beat Rob's brother! Bonus!"
Damn, was I wrong. I missed the coin toss and had to choose category instead of first and third songs. If I was smart I would have decided to do Player's Best as the category so I'd get B4U as my second song, but I picked Pops A because I knew there were no really really tough songs in it like Paranoias and all. Well, that was a bad choice. Brian picked Dub-I-Dub first. WHY DOES EVERYONE ALWAYS MAKE ME DO THAT DAMN SONG? Sigh... so he beat me. Big surprise there, it's one of my worst songs. I should know from now on to pick a category it's not in. Anyway... so I picked My Summer Love as my second song. (You might recall that the last round of the last tournament was Dub-I-Dub and My Summer Love, and I placed 3rd as a result.) Well, I wanted to redeem myself - and I did full-combo the song in front of everyone - but I only got 148 perfects and Brian got 162 (even though he didn't FC). Fuck. Well, I figured at that point it was just a loss. He picked Hero as the third song and I beat him 118-112, but it didn't matter at that point. Sigh. Total choke. I was out in the first round. Ugh. As it happened, Juan was also eliminated in the first round, oddly enough.
After getting knocked out I walked outside, drank some 7up, took some deep breaths, and then came back in... then said to Brian (the guy who beat me) stuff like "good game", "you're much better than your brother", "wow, I can't believe you did so well on Summer Love," and such, and he was like "yeah, I love the slower songs, I was so surprised you picked that one", and then the kicker:
"Hey, did you go to Carnegie Mellon?"
"Yeah... did you?"
"Yeah. I thought you looked familiar."
"Huh. When did you graduate?"
"Oh, a bunch of years ago. I was class of 1999"
"Me too... sort of... I walked in 99 but actually was class of 1998 originally."
"Oh, me too! I took 5 years because I switched from ECE into IDS..."
"Ha, I took 4.5 years because I switched from CS to English..."
*pause*
"Wow."
"I never even thought that a bunch of CMU people would be here... it's obvious of course, but I just didn't think of it"
"Oh, yeah. Heck, we were trying to get a machine on campus... but damn those SDC bastards, they're not buying one after all"
"Yeah, if there's anywhere in Pittsburgh there should be a machine, it's certainly not HERE..."
Eh, so we went on for a while chatting about CMU and DDR and stuff. There was a girl with him who I think was a girlfriend of sorts though so I didn't want to seem like I was hitting on him, and so eventually I went back to talk to Sam and everyone. The funny part was, everyone I talked to, was like "what the fuck happened? how the heck did you get eliminated?" and such. Like one interaction of basically: "how'd you do?" "(sad face) I was knocked out in the first round" "(stunned pause) You're fucking kidding me." Even Juan was like "goddamn, I was positive I'd be playing you for second place. I mean, I see you here all the time and you kick ass," and I was like "dude, I was going to be lucky if I got to play you for third place. You're a machine!"
Oh well. So I went and got food after a bit, and ate it outside the arcade. I acquired a following of the Bethel Park high schoolers. They were sort of fun to talk to. It's funny because I think they were trying to impress me at first with their anime and D&D crap, but when I was like "oh, yeah, when I was at Anime Expo 2000, I first saw DDR..." and their jaws dropped like "You went to an Anime Expo? WOW..." and one guy was going on about Japanese Rock and how he wants to write songs like J-rock songs, and I said to him in Japanese, "How do you plan to write J-rock songs if you don't speak Japanese?" and he said in English "I don't speak Japanese. What did you say?" Heh. And then there was Shelby the 10-year-old girl who was just a riot. She was talking about how she wants to write music for DDR stuff and she plays clarinet and stuff and I told her how Sam and Christina play french horn and I play euphonium and we are all in band together, and she said "Oh wow! What grade are you all in?" Hehe. It was overall pretty amusing.
In the meantime, Rebecca did win Trick. The guy who won second, I didn't catch his name. It turns out that Brian-who-beat-me and the scummy-obnoxious-guy were actually up to compete between 3rd and 4th place -- but Brian thought he was out so he had left the mall - so 3rd went to the annoying guy. Sigh. Sam won Maniac, with John placing second and Bayani third. (Bayani just always takes this stuff so well. I guess people know he's a good maniac player and he was exhibitioning a lot and him and Sam pretty much RAN the tournament since Chris works at the arcade and couldn't oversee it all)
After the competition was over over over, Christina and I played a round of DDR, then Krispy played a round with someone else, and then we started to pack up. Rebecca and Bayani and Brad were going to Dave and Buster's to play some Pump it Up, and I was thinking of going with them, but then I realized that not only was I kind of tired, but I didn't really want to deal with the Saturday night crowd at D&B. So I came home.
Then I realized that, damn, it was 7:45 on a Saturday night and I had nothing to do. I vaguely tried to see if anyone was around - I almost thought that it would be fun to try to go swing dancing at Wightman - but I couldn't get in touch with anyone - so I stared at my ceiling for about half an hour being sad about the DDR tournament, and then I started laundry. Eventually Eli came home, and now it's like 12:30am and I swear I can't figure out how the whole evening passed. I think I need some ice cream.
However, I just got email from a friend of mine who I hadn't thought of in a while, but who I'm really happy to hear from. It's so cool. He was in some fiction workshops with me, and around the time when I switched majors to English and wanted to get to know some English majors better, I harrassed him to hang out sometimes because I thought he was cute and funny and cool. We got coffee once or twice and had some good conversations about sci-fi and movies and stuff, but then he graduated and we didn't keep in touch at all (why would we? I figured). I didn't expect to get a "hey, how are you, I can't believe I've lost touch with you, what's up?" email - if anything I expected to run into him at a reunion someday and he'd say "Deanna who?" It makes me hopeful that the people I remember as being cool in my life will remember me for a while as being cool in their lives.
(It would be incredibly funny if it turns out he has an LJ and finds this, but that's another story. I have no idea how to respond to him, so I'll have to ponder it as I write this.)
Ok, so now I'll talk about the tourney. Sam picked me up at 10:50 and we picked up Krisp and Christina at 11. Then we went to the BVM. We got there the same time as Chris the arcade guy and his girlfriend, and Rebecca and Bayani and people were there already. So we did signups and paying and all, and a lot of warming up. I was doing pretty well, I felt pretty confident in myself at the beginning of it all. Rebecca and I went and put on silly cosplay outfits, too - I put on my Emi 4th mix stuff and she put on her Yuni stuff. But I felt really silly in it after a while because it was so hot (already hot arcade, wig, plus wool hat... hot.) So I took it off before the actual competing happened. I offered the hat and wig part of the costume to this one guy to wear after he was saying how much he looooooooooooved Emi, but he turned out to be a really... umm... scummy sort of annoying guy, and when I asked for the hat and wig back he kept whining and stuff. He offered to buy them off me, and didn't seem to understand that I really didn't want him to wear them all day - I had realized that yuck, I'd have to really wash them out if he played DDR in them and sweated in them. (Note later: You can shampoo out a wig pretty well and it dries out just fine... Now I know.) What is funny is, Rebecca stayed cosplaying as Yuni the whole time - and I was cosplaying as Rebecca! I was wearing a red shirt, black athletic stripe pants, red shoes, and a bandanna. It was funny.
So, anyway, warmups made me think "I can beat some of these people..." However, it turns out that all of those people entered in Basic. There were like 16 people in Basic, 15 in Trick, and 3 in Maniac. So they did the 3 people matching up in Maniac round-robin - Maniac rounds occurred randomly between other rounds of the game.
They started with Basic. Not much to say about it except that I never ever ever want to hear Dynamite Rave or Drop the Bomb again. Krisp and Christina both lasted to the second round but were knocked out then. (Krisp went up against this 10-year-old girl Shelby.. she is really funny) Eventually they had winners... this girl Crystal who was videotaping (Rebecca was also videotaping) won overall in Basic. Second was this guy Andy who I talked to a bit afterwards, and third was... umm... damn, I remember the girl Molly who was 4th but I'm totally blanking on who was 3rd.
Sam did an "exhibition" of Drop Out Double Maniac during one of the Basic rounds while Bayani was doing math. So I volunteered Rebecca and I to freestyle exhibition between Basic and Trick, which we did. We called it a "Spin Competition" and did Butterfly Basic. Incase you don't know my DDR style, it's basically "spin around a lot but lack all other freestyle moves". So, I got like 19 spins in or something. Brad said he lost count. Rebecca got... I don't know how many, but less than that. I'm guessing 12 because I was counting which ones she did. It was just funny because I was inventing spins in places where they didn't exist, but somehow I still full-comboed the song (IIRC, or maybe I just came damn close).
So I was feeling cool as Trick got started. Remember how I figured Rebecca would win first, Juan would be second, and if I was lucky I'd end up third? Well... Rob Seanor came up to me and Rebecca like "hey, are you guys good friends?" we're like "Err... we just met like a month or two ago?" and he said "Well, I'm playing against you (he pointed at Rebecca) and she's playing against my brother... bad luck on my part I guess" So, I was thinking "Wow, whew, I'm not against Rebecca in the first round!" and then also thinking "Hmm, I can beat Rob, so I bet I can beat Rob's brother! Bonus!"
Damn, was I wrong. I missed the coin toss and had to choose category instead of first and third songs. If I was smart I would have decided to do Player's Best as the category so I'd get B4U as my second song, but I picked Pops A because I knew there were no really really tough songs in it like Paranoias and all. Well, that was a bad choice. Brian picked Dub-I-Dub first. WHY DOES EVERYONE ALWAYS MAKE ME DO THAT DAMN SONG? Sigh... so he beat me. Big surprise there, it's one of my worst songs. I should know from now on to pick a category it's not in. Anyway... so I picked My Summer Love as my second song. (You might recall that the last round of the last tournament was Dub-I-Dub and My Summer Love, and I placed 3rd as a result.) Well, I wanted to redeem myself - and I did full-combo the song in front of everyone - but I only got 148 perfects and Brian got 162 (even though he didn't FC). Fuck. Well, I figured at that point it was just a loss. He picked Hero as the third song and I beat him 118-112, but it didn't matter at that point. Sigh. Total choke. I was out in the first round. Ugh. As it happened, Juan was also eliminated in the first round, oddly enough.
After getting knocked out I walked outside, drank some 7up, took some deep breaths, and then came back in... then said to Brian (the guy who beat me) stuff like "good game", "you're much better than your brother", "wow, I can't believe you did so well on Summer Love," and such, and he was like "yeah, I love the slower songs, I was so surprised you picked that one", and then the kicker:
"Hey, did you go to Carnegie Mellon?"
"Yeah... did you?"
"Yeah. I thought you looked familiar."
"Huh. When did you graduate?"
"Oh, a bunch of years ago. I was class of 1999"
"Me too... sort of... I walked in 99 but actually was class of 1998 originally."
"Oh, me too! I took 5 years because I switched from ECE into IDS..."
"Ha, I took 4.5 years because I switched from CS to English..."
*pause*
"Wow."
"I never even thought that a bunch of CMU people would be here... it's obvious of course, but I just didn't think of it"
"Oh, yeah. Heck, we were trying to get a machine on campus... but damn those SDC bastards, they're not buying one after all"
"Yeah, if there's anywhere in Pittsburgh there should be a machine, it's certainly not HERE..."
Eh, so we went on for a while chatting about CMU and DDR and stuff. There was a girl with him who I think was a girlfriend of sorts though so I didn't want to seem like I was hitting on him, and so eventually I went back to talk to Sam and everyone. The funny part was, everyone I talked to, was like "what the fuck happened? how the heck did you get eliminated?" and such. Like one interaction of basically: "how'd you do?" "(sad face) I was knocked out in the first round" "(stunned pause) You're fucking kidding me." Even Juan was like "goddamn, I was positive I'd be playing you for second place. I mean, I see you here all the time and you kick ass," and I was like "dude, I was going to be lucky if I got to play you for third place. You're a machine!"
Oh well. So I went and got food after a bit, and ate it outside the arcade. I acquired a following of the Bethel Park high schoolers. They were sort of fun to talk to. It's funny because I think they were trying to impress me at first with their anime and D&D crap, but when I was like "oh, yeah, when I was at Anime Expo 2000, I first saw DDR..." and their jaws dropped like "You went to an Anime Expo? WOW..." and one guy was going on about Japanese Rock and how he wants to write songs like J-rock songs, and I said to him in Japanese, "How do you plan to write J-rock songs if you don't speak Japanese?" and he said in English "I don't speak Japanese. What did you say?" Heh. And then there was Shelby the 10-year-old girl who was just a riot. She was talking about how she wants to write music for DDR stuff and she plays clarinet and stuff and I told her how Sam and Christina play french horn and I play euphonium and we are all in band together, and she said "Oh wow! What grade are you all in?" Hehe. It was overall pretty amusing.
In the meantime, Rebecca did win Trick. The guy who won second, I didn't catch his name. It turns out that Brian-who-beat-me and the scummy-obnoxious-guy were actually up to compete between 3rd and 4th place -- but Brian thought he was out so he had left the mall - so 3rd went to the annoying guy. Sigh. Sam won Maniac, with John placing second and Bayani third. (Bayani just always takes this stuff so well. I guess people know he's a good maniac player and he was exhibitioning a lot and him and Sam pretty much RAN the tournament since Chris works at the arcade and couldn't oversee it all)
After the competition was over over over, Christina and I played a round of DDR, then Krispy played a round with someone else, and then we started to pack up. Rebecca and Bayani and Brad were going to Dave and Buster's to play some Pump it Up, and I was thinking of going with them, but then I realized that not only was I kind of tired, but I didn't really want to deal with the Saturday night crowd at D&B. So I came home.
Then I realized that, damn, it was 7:45 on a Saturday night and I had nothing to do. I vaguely tried to see if anyone was around - I almost thought that it would be fun to try to go swing dancing at Wightman - but I couldn't get in touch with anyone - so I stared at my ceiling for about half an hour being sad about the DDR tournament, and then I started laundry. Eventually Eli came home, and now it's like 12:30am and I swear I can't figure out how the whole evening passed. I think I need some ice cream.
