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No One Really

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[Aug. 6th, 2007|03:34 pm]
No One Really
[Current Mood |awake]

The first time I played Afronova I nearly passed out. Some guy was doing an SSR course (yeah, remember? The other heavy?) and I asked if I could "play with". Little did I know. I ended up screwing his timing so bad...

75 misses in one song. "Aw come on. How hard can it be? It's only 1 foot more"

I practiced the foot pattern for afronova for a long time afterwards, trying to figure out exactly where to turn. Because, really, the only hard parts are the beginning and the end. Jump jump jump jump jump my ass. >_<

3rd mix wasn't something I got to play a lot during my first limited time in California, but there are a number of memories, even so.

Dam Dariram. Everyone played this damn song. It was the butterfly of 3rd mix. The first time I played it was an absolutely hilarious failure. "It's an 8 footer, how hard can it be?" Right Mel? RIGHT?

This is before there were speed mods of any kind. 6th mix made everyone noobies. ;-)

It was nearly impossible for me to read. I just couldn't get it at all. Of course, then, I listened to the music a lot and it made perfect sense. But first time, not so much.

And then, it was back to NorCal for boring 1st mix. But I still played it to death. Because by then, I'd been turned on to the idea of perfect attack.

Really, though, most of my memories about 3rd mix come from Madison or Atlanta (because of US Mix 2) or TyZone.

TyZone. Heh.

The first time I met Ty was at his original house in Sunnyvale (I think... I wasn't very clear on where it was, to be honest). He had about 6-7 people over, and they were watching some movie on his monster projecter/stereo setup. I also remember that thing never getting hooked up in the new TyZone in San Jose.

There were like, 12 dozen KKs in the kitchen, a 3rd mix machine in the garage, and I think he was working from home doing network administration.

The new TyZone was some of the best times of my life so far, but I'm still getting ahead of myself.

"Do It All Night" was the "routine" that somehow got me into the finals of the AX 2000 DDR freestyle competition. I think this was one of the worst freestyle tournaments I've ever been in. I feel a little bad saying that, because it was pretty clear that the people were trying very hard, but they weren't really familiar enough with the game.

The perfect attack tournament was ok until the finals, but more about that in a minute.

So my "routine", such as it was, was to place 6 mountain dew cans on the machine, and play Do It All Night double basic, while drinking all 6 cans of mountain dew. I think I got through 4 or so. I did basically nothing else. Additionally, I'm pretty sure it was an edited double with less steps. "Dew it all night". har.

I made the top 8. WTF.

So, the top 8 conspired, basically, to do the Bran for all 8 finals routines. We all did it with our own little twists. Mine was to play on 2 different machines at the same time, on different edits. It was good times, ever if Mr. Gorgeous and Conji didn't quiiiite go along with it. They did put "the Bran" in, though.

The Bran, if you don't remember what that is, was his night in motion routine. If you haven't seen it, I really can't explain it. It defies literal description. I can't really describe the motion itself.

As for the perfect attack, 8 people you would expect made it to the finals, and it was all fine except for the 5 edits in the finals that neither Crackpr0n nor I could pass. >_<

And somehow, I managed to write all the way through Dynamite Rave. Thankfully.

And End of the Century had the worst single steps ever. I mean, it's like some edit writer had a seizure.

I don't really... anyway.

Jam Jam Reggae Trick Double Little!

I did a "leet" freestyle routine to this once, where I made fun of pretty much every overdone freestyle trick in the book. Jumping over the bar, the Koshiru bb$ shuffle, kneedrops handplants you name it. My knees were bleeding afterwards.

What was amusing afterwards... I forget where this tournament was, but I had some people come up to me afterwards and berate me for making fun of freestylers. As if I weren't a perfect attacker in the first place. I think I basically said "look, if you're doing all the stuff in that routine, do something more original. Kneedrops aren't cool just because you have an arrow to do them on."

Not that I'm the final word on freestyle. I still have no idea why I was picked to judge so many DDR tournaments. I think it was because I had a laptop.

The freestyle routines that always amazed me were the ones that did something interesting with their feet. If I could tell you were playing DDR, that's kind of a minus. But people like Cynan, or Jihon-chan (you didn't think I could actually let the chan go, did you? ;-) ) or Lil Bee, whose feet just seemed to slide across the stage like it were glass... whew.

Not to say I didn't do my share of random crap. ;-)

All of my freestyle was gimmick though. I've never had that kind of grace. It's amazing to me the kinds of things people can do with their bodies. I saw a video of Lil B's recently of him doing locking and I was just like o_O

Never. Not if I practiced for 10 years.

But, in a way, I guess he has.

I feel like I should have more to say about 3rd mix. But, in a way, 3rd mix was my "I'm not around" mix. I played 3rd mix mostly at home in Atlanta.

I had probably the most ghetto 3rd mix setup ever made. Large piece of wood, and ddr pads screwed into it. I mean literally... screws through the pad, into the wood. And even with all of this it still moved.

3rd mix nonstop is where it was at. And that was when I played the most, when I could just non-stop it.

But there are some other memories. The steps for Silent Hill Maniac Double were so much fun. All back and forth and fun. "Christmas is here!" Liechtenstein my ass.

And Xanadu.

Xanadu's steps changed pretty violently in 4th mix. But I thought I knew them. ;-)

Anyone remember Hollywood Nova Tommie Styles? I went out to his DDR tournament in Brighton, ended up helping out a little bit, but it was a lot of fun. Mike Ngo was out there too, but we ended up getting schooled by people from Chicago. Frustrating at the time, but great looking back. Lost 1 great to 0 on Xanadu Basic. And I was hoping he'd pick maniac. ;-)

Oh well, what can you do?

Almost getting kicked out of a casino later was fun, too!

And popc... I mean, Vol. 4! I remember Mel playing that for me for the first time, and being like "well, this is a... completely different song"

It has always been amusing to me how little of that sort of music I know about. Any time Cynan or Mel or Ross would be talking about some song, and I'd be thinking "huh. never heard of that one..."

And is it just me, or is every song in DDR sung by like, 5 women and a couple of guys? Like, the Erotic girl, the butterfly girl, the Drifting Away girl, the BeForU girl, and some other girl I'm not thinking of right now.

Turn me on. heh.

Paranoia Rebirth was 433 steps of pure pain at the time. I did that SSR nonstop with Rebirth in it sooo many times. o_O

But that was nothing compared to La Senorita Double. back and forth across the stage over and over.

And THAT was nothing compared to Dead End SSR Double. Hardest song in the game. 8 foot my ass. "I am not responsible for you keeling over from heart failure from playing Dead End Double SSR 5 times in a row"

I did that song so many times. >_<

4th mix was really a disappointment for difficulty after 3rd mix. Almost everything was sight-readable, really. There were definitely a few songs that gave me trouble in 4th mix...

but why don't I wait until the next post for that?


From: mayene
2007-08-07 05:08 am (UTC)
I still remember going up against you in TournOrochi 2K1... and I still wonder why I didn't just pick a song, Love This Feelin', instead of the machine that I didn't know had one of your better songs, aka Paranoia KCET clean mix. I think everyone bopped me for that one, screwing up what little chances I had when going up against you in PA. :P

Your posts bring back so much memories. XD
(Reply) (Thread)
From: noonereally
2007-08-07 12:09 pm (UTC)
I didn't think I was quite as famous for that song yet at the time. ;-)
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
From: mayene
2007-08-07 05:04 pm (UTC)
Well, I guess you were, because Cynan told me after that round, "Why did you pick the USA machine instead of picking a song like Love This Feelin'? You should have known EnoOn was going to pick a Paranoia."

Thus, I just associated you with all the Paranoias. :P
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)