My hand hurts… I think I slaped the Pop’n buttons too hard last night.

I beat some 28 level song last night on Pop’n 7… don’t remember what it was. The levels are so screwed up anyways on 7.

I think that I may need a reference for VJ Army, if you can vouch for me that would be great. Please let me know if you can, and then how to use that reference.

Well, I got about 3 hours of IIDX in last night. I was just trying to play more songs from 5th and 4th style. I ended up passing most songs that I played. Some took 2 tries just because certain areas of songs seemed harsh, but when I finished the song with like 50% I would say to myself: “O, snap. I can beat that, that one part just threw me for a loop” and I would. It is scary, I am passing a few 6* (star) songs (unfortunatly I do not remember the names as most are not too memorable). I have had this for less than a week and really not put too much time into it. I am still playing songs that are easier than level 26 Hypers in Pop’n.

I know that I have said this before, but I cannot shake it. I feel that I am cheating in IIDX now that I can hit most of the keys w/o getting lost on the controller. I am try to not pinky scratch and hope that it makes it a bit more difficult, but with this type of progress I will be playing 7K stuff by this weekend. I can do stuff in B:IIDX that I still have problems with in Pop’n (occasionally) because I have 3 or 4 fingers on each at my disposal for hitting 7 buttons… not 2 hands that can hit a max of 3 out of 9 buttons each. My timing still sucks, but I think that I may have gotten an A or two in 4th style last night, who knows. I would love to track this at VJ Army, but it seems like some people screwed it up for the rest of us and registration is down.

Well since my wife responded finally after having the link to here since I started I figure I might as well play som Pop’n tonight. Perhaps I will have learned something new and beat a new hyper or somtheing.

Well, personal stuff first, if you want the video games, scroll down a paragraph or two ;)

So on Friday my wife was sick again. We ended up watching a whole lot of Ranma 1/2, finished up season 2 and started season 3. I played a little Pop’n Music for a while, but nothing major. She felt better I guess on Saturday, so she went to work only to get rained out and come home by like 3pm.

Saturday I had Tim come over early as I was getting bored. We were going to the Skinny Puppy concert that night, so he was just going to pick me up, but he was interested in learning Beatmania IIDX, so I said come over early (more on that later). So after some uneventfulness we headed out for the concert at about 7 and ended up in line at 8:10. The first intro act was some crazy guy. He reminded me of a kid who just got a lap-top, mixer board and a mic. He was up there all alone making some (rangeing from) great to poor music and he just had loads of energy. The House of Blues was also fairly “empty” at this point. Then the next opener came on: Tweeker. If they played 8 songs only the last 2 or 3 were ok, I was kind of wondering why these guys were touring with SP :\

Then, after about a 45 min wait SP came on. The HOB was pretty packed at this point, and we were upstairs. The visuals were kick ass, but we could not see the stage, so we decided to go down stairs. BIG mistake. It was even more packed. When we hit to bottem of the starts it was wall to wall people. I am seriously convinced that they were packed beyond a safe level of capacity. We managed to worm to right in front of the bar, dead center with a decent view (much better than upstaris). But we were in a heavy traffic route. Every 3 to 5 min some one would walk in front of us to try to get from one cowded area to the next. I was also so packed in there that I was in a constant state of leaning backwards. I did not realise that untill it was over and I could stand up straight… lower back pain sucks.

Now about the music. First lets use the way back machine. I have not been listening to this kind of heavy industrial in at least 5 years. I moved more into experimental industral (like Download started up after SP dispersed by Cevin Key) and that is about the closest that I have listened to it in a while. I was much heavier into this music in High School. So after saying all of that I still remembered all of the stuff they played aside from one song. The music was just like I remembered. About 1/2 way through the concert they decided to get all political. The lead singer taking a “fake” uzi and pretending to shoot the President was not really my idea of entertaining. It made me feel really uncomfortable for a while, you know being Republican and in the Military. It took a while to get the bitter taste of that incident out of my mind before I could enjoy myself again. Did I evermention that it was unconfortable?

Anyways, towards the end they put a mic on the audience and cranked it up really freaking loud. I seriously thought that I was going crazy. There was this noise in the center of my head, it sounded like the audience only it was louder than the band, and they were loud. Then the noise kept going like an Energizer Bunny. I have never heard anything like that in my life and hope I never do again. Did I mention that I was uncomfortable? Overall I would have rather done something else, but it was a really nice closure to that part of my life.

On Sunday I watched Donnie Darko. Tim let me borrow it. I must remind myself to discuss with him the finer points of taking care of your audio/video media. About half way through it was so scratched that it was impossible to get through. I tried to doctor it many ways, but to no avail. Tom was over (I thought I should just mention that). Now I said we should just go and rent it and finish it, because all of us were really enjoying it. Sara said we should just go buy it. So a trip to Best Buy was in order, I needed to pick some other items up as well. So we get there and walk out with it for $10 (nice) PS2 Memory Card $20 (for Bemani games) and The Dark Crystal $10 (nice, this was to replace a missing copy). I almost walked out of there with much more. Anyways after a near 2 hour intermission we finished the movie. 4 out of 4 stars. I was very impressed with it over all and am glad that I purchased it.

I almost dont want to write about games now, but oh well…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beatmania: IIDX
I did not really get too much time in with it all weekend (probabl about 3 or 4 hours total). I did beat a few 5 Star songs (Gradiusic somethingornother being the coolest) in Light 7. Tim had come over on Saturday to play it because I was telling him about it and he showed high intrest in it. He picked it up (well the really basics) quickly, but he des have a small ammount of Pop’n experience). We were getting bored with 6th style (well he was as he could not beat more than the 1 star songs in beginner) so I mentioned that there is a small chance that 4th and 5th style were in the mail. I walked out to the mailbox and, low and behold, they were there. Sweet. Unfortunatly 5th almost feels like a waste as there is only one or two good songs. 4th, on the other hand is awesome. I am still working my way through the songs on both styles though, so there may be some improvement.

The largest improvement overall on this was that I learned to leave my brain out of the equasion on this as much as possible. Stare at one point of the screen and use your eyes as a translation service for your fingers, think as little as possible. I also ordered 7th Style today from play-asia :D !

Side Note: I feel up to this point that I have spent about $300 to play a couple dozen good songs for Beatmania… the rest are really crappy and only slightly improved from 1st - 3rd Mix (original 5-Key stuff) where the good stuff is CD purchase worthy (Ride on the Light!)

Pop’n Music
I am almost to another break thru, I can feel it. Unforutunatly I need to speend more time with it for this to happen. I played less than 3 hours of it all weekend… I guess this was a bad weekend for gaming. I almost beat Choco Pop [h], but that ending just kicks my ass hard core. It would be sweet to beat that song, so far I am almost at a full combo up untill the very end… damn.

When I arrived home yester day I heard the sound of the song select “scratch” from B:IIDX and was like: “WTH?!” No, I was not going crazy, my wife was playing beginner mode. She had been playing for about 30 min and had only beat one song.

“This is crazy even on beginner mode. How can you play this… and how are you supposed to. I cannot use only one hand to hit all those buttons.” I laughed and told her that it took me a little over an hour before my fingers kind of “fell into place” with it.

I made no where near as much progress last night. I beat a few more songs , but nothing major. I still have quite a few songs where about 2/3 of the way through they just throw me with something strange or complicated then I loose my whole bar and cannot recover. It reminds me of when I was first learning hypers in Pop’n.

I was reading BBH’s reply from yesterdays entry and breathed a sigh of releif when I read it. Last night I was just “trying a few songs that were 5 and 6 stars and ran across a song called “The Strong Jaeger” (or something very similar) and thought the name sounded cool. I tried it and was just blown away with its difficulty. I decided that perhaps I needed more work in the 4 star level, so I stayed there. Then today he said that the song was more difficult than many 7 Key songs. *whew* I will probably start practice on some higher level stuff now.

So my “DJ Level” is at about B for songs I am good at (ones I like more mostly) and at a C for the rest. Lots of room to improve.

Well I got it last night. Lots of fun, with lots of opinions. I can do a fair ammount of songs up through 5 stars (not including). “Holic” would have to have been the most “difficult” song that I passed… on light 7. I played L7 first for about 30 min. Then I played on Beginner as I was not passing any L7 songs that were over a 2 star difficulty. This whole time I was sitting down. Beginner was REALLY easy. I was just gliding through the song list and then said “f” it and just went back to L7 mode. After a few more runs I was beating 3 star songs then some fours. Then I was just having problems with stuff, it was not so easy. So I stood up and made a makeshift stand for the thing. WOW! I just was a passing fool.

With in 3 hours of starting I was passing 4 star songs. That was a really cool thing. I did not expect that. The only problem is that I feel like I am cheating since the buttons are so close together (as opposed to a Pop’n ASC). Some of the stuff is really easy to skate through on and others it is hard. I don’t know, it seems more easy to not “miss” a beat in this, yet much harder to pass. It almost feels like I get penalised for “good” hits on songs.

Problems: 1) I miss the buttons. To me they are small. If I move too far away from one when I come back to it I either a) hit the edge of it, b) hit between two buttons, or c) hit the wrong button. I think this will improve my scoreing greatly. The difference between me passing and failing a song high depends on this #1, but I do not think it will last long.

2) Scratching is weird. My hands are pretty quick after trinaing for some of those button hits in Pop’n, so I am trying this for as long as I can. My left hand can hit buttons (up to two) and still make the scratch with all getting “Great” or “Just Great”. I am not sure if this is pinky scratching, but just having my pinky move would be impossible, my hand has to leave those keys right now. So this is unfortunatly not the only problem with scratching. I will also “scratch” but nothing happens. I realised after a while that either a) i was getting too close to the center of the circle and it was not spinning when I was trying or b) I was hitting it like a button :\ . Yea this will improve with time.

3) The Music: The problem is that when it is good music it is good, but when it is bad music… it is really bad. I still think Pop’n has better cumulative music, but the great stuff in B:IIDX is on the same calibur if not higher than Pop’n.

Now I just bought 4th and 5th style today and they should be in the mail right now (hopefully I will get them by Sat! ) and I am bidding on 7th style to see if I can get it cheap. If not, then I will go though play-asia with a $5 off cupon. Yay!

USPS DC Tracking:

Your item was processed and left our BELLE CHASSE, LA facility on June 23, 2004. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later.

Now today will drag on after reading that :( Can’t wait to get home.

Well I am starting to get nervous about this. I have a delivery confirmation # for IIDX 6th style and the IIDX controller. I am starting to wonder how well my skills will transfer over to IIDX from Pop’n. I know that my ability to read the notes will help me jump start on IIDX really quickly, but how well will I do? Were I to get it an not be able to pass a single song on Light 7 the first day would probably be a huge discouragement. I am probably just setting myself up for excitement though as I have seen great improvement in Pop’n music. I am at a skill level where 2 months ago seemed not only unlikely, but was flat out discouragening.

I have (on Pop’n 9 alone) 30 hypers cleared. That is about 1/4 of all the songs cleared in hyper for the game. I can clear most up through level 26 (6 stars, I think, for those curious enough) which seemed miles away a few weeks ago. Now I will play some 28 level songs and go: “Well no I can’t do that part, but the rest is no problem whatsoever.” Other level 24 songs still slap me with difficult 32nd note hits :X

Now looking at the IIDX sites that I have been searching it seems like some of the songs that I play are about the 4 or 5 star difficulty in IIDX. So I am hoping that my fingers just need an hour or so to adjust to the button layout. If they do not, just for fun, I will see if I can play IIDX with my Pop’n ASC.

I also only have one more trip throught the dungeon for Gambler De Z then I am done with the unlock system for Pop’n Music 9. I am also back to only playing hyper songs. This is taking abit longer to get through three songs (as I will fail quite frequently) but it is worth it seeing the leaps and bounds I have made since last Thursday. I just hope that IIDX does what I want it to do: act as another tool to improve my Beamani skills for both Pop’n and IIDX.

Well I started to play Shinobi over the weekend. It is hard, but no where near as hard as most people (from what I have read) make it out to be. It is very cinematic and quite good so far. I am on the 5th (?) level part A.

MOVIES:

Euro Trip: 1/2 star out of 4. I could not even finish watching it. Poor all around.

50 First Dates: 3 stars out of 4. I liked it. I did not think it was going to be that good, but I was pleasently supprised. It feels like Adam Sandler is maturing greatly, from Billy Madison to this is a long travel.

Sorry about the brevity of this entry. Alot happen this weekend and it is easier to be breif than to expand upon it all. Right now I am overworked, so I do not have the time. I am also still quite anxious about getting IIDX.

Controller and 6th style paid for… on their way… tomorrow shipping… excited.

None the less I creamed through about 12 hypers last night on Pop’n 9. I have been watching alot of YOS tatsujin videos and said to myself: “Look, he is barely moving his hands, and no where near as much as I am. Look he just… holy shit! Use your fingers too…. you idiot.” So I changed my style up a little, adjusted to the new style, then just start clearing Hypers… AWESOME!

Well last night was boring. I impressed my neighabor with my Pop’n skills then watched him play 5 line and get frustrated. I was supposed to go to Hai’s house and try IIDX but when I got home my truck was still in the shop, so no wheels.

I am pretty much convinced that I would enjoy IIDX. Unfortunatly it is looking like I will have to wait until August for the re-production of the official Konami controller. As for mods and what not, I have been working with this stuff for about 5 years now. I had to re-wire my 5 key Beatmania controller before I knew that this game even had a “cult following” so I am pretty confident that I could make a regular sized (not an ASC) work.

I would want to build one of these, were I to go the ASC route. I think that a real record with a custom label would be pimp. I have a lot of vinyl from when I use to acutally spin, I am sure I could spare a record for the project, and Happs has flush rectulangular buttons (almost exactly the same as the Sanwas from the arcade) for only $7. This would end up being cheaper than the Pop’n ASC to build, my only problem would be figuring out the turntable mechenism…

I am going to work an hour earlier than usual and only leaving about 15 min early because I have to carpool. Man I am so tired…