Officially, I got better at IIDX. I have no idea how or why but I am. I played for like an hour or two and not a single 5 star or less 7 Key song gave me a problem. Alot use to be a problem…. alot.

Also, another 30 min or so with G5. I went back to using option 4 ship. My first run was really good as I made it up to the 4th boss in level 2. Then after that I was performing progresivly worse with each play. I decided to try out option 2 ship and that threw me completely off and I was then dieing on level one… blah. I need to get a solid plan down for level 2 and actually beat that stupid elctric arm boss.

I also worked out (*coughDDRcough*) for an hour or so last night.

Just got an email saying the bonus DVD shipped. Horray!

Well last night (after finding out that my battery was dead and having to have my wife jump it) I got home. After some confusion about who was doing what with the custom mini-pop’n controler (it choked to death on a crappy Best Buy controller) at about 7pm Hai, Derick, and Ton came over. While I was fixing the Mini Pop’n controller everone was oogling my Gradius 5 game.

After that we played a bit of Pop’n. I cranked out some lousy examples of my skill (harder songs that I score worse on) and also a few good examples (I broke 90K on Flower Pop hyper). Then we played IIDX for a while. While I have not played in quite a while (and a really long time since I “practiced”) I still played better than last time I played.

Overall a good night.

Man was I tired last night. I got approximatly nothing accomplished last night. I played some Pop’n, but, aside from making my arms tired from playing Oi Punk 0 Hyper, nothing new. I played a bit more G5, but still no progress in that. I just ended up re-learning my route with the third option ship and getting to the same place in the game (end of level 2 one life). I just felt so lethargic overall that I got almost nothing accomplished which ended up making me feel like poo for not accomplishing anything.

I also tried to haul my Ford Escort (’88) out of the garage, but the brakes are still locked up. Oh well my wife will take care of that with Triple A.

I am going to end up re-soldering a Pop’n controller sometime soon… this will be my 5th soldering on a Pop’n controller, this should be simple.

I knew I should have updated this morning… now I am sure I forgot stuff.

Pop’n Music: Yay I beat Casandra Hyper. I have no idea how, but on my third try BAM! down it fell.

Gradius 5: I have not spent too much time with it (like only one or two hours) but I can 1 life up to level 2 boss, but proceed to get my ass kicked at that point. I also cannot decide between option 3 and option 4 to use for the Konami competition. I at least want to try to enter it by Oct second, but that will take alot of freaking practice to get anywhere near the top score. I can only hope that the top scores do not video tape their entry.

Barnes & Nobel: So after doing an assload driving around on Saturday (new car…) Sara wanted to study at B&N. So I wandered around looking for a new book to buy. On accident while wandering around the Manga section a black and red book stuck out like a sore thumb (aside from the fact it was a book not a manga). I recognised the book based on a movie released under the same name. Being unsure about if this was the same book as the movie I picked it up and read the back. Sure enough it was: Battle Royale. It is an odd shaped/pressed/formated book, it reminds me more of a text book from High School (perhaps this is what they wanted). Anyways I was never too interested in the movie because I figured it would make it to the US eventually, but I was unaware that the book had been translated. After reading about 10 pages I had been alienated by the author and the fictional Japan that this story takes place in (the safety lable on the giutar about no rock as it is decedant music). So I am reading this book now.

Shaun of the Dead:

I saw this last night and I thought it was great. I was not expecting it to be as funny as it was. There are so many refeneces to horror movies and in particular the “– of the Dead” movies. The directing is good, nothing spectacular. The story can actually get serious, and be taken seriously at points. The special effect are actually really well done.The sound was really good as well. I will more than likely be purchasing this when released on DVD. 3 out of 4 Stars

Well I bet this will be a shocker to most, myself included.

As some of you may know tomorrow is me and my wife’s 4 year wedding anniversary. Since I am never sure if she reads this I have not yet written about what I got her, but I will post that later. None the less yesterday I went to work… that is I got ready to go to work and went there to trick my wife. I had taken leave (a day off for non military) more than a week prior to do this. I went to this flower shop that has the gorgeous flowers called “stargazers” I think. Anyways they did not open until after 8am so I went to work to make an entry here — as I said before I never know when/if she reads this — to make her think I was at work. Then I made sure to have everyone at work cover for me to make it look like I was at work if she called.

At 8:30 (after a bit of free coffee) I went back to the flower shop and got the flowers then went home to clean, as she was not home yet. Well…… then she had planned to go to a car dealer ship (as some may know I have been looking into getting a new car for a while) and after being there for 7 hours of negotiations we went home at about 9pm. Well I just got home from the dealership:

So yea… I got a brand new Honda Element EX with 22 miles on it and an extended warentee… not a lot of new game purchases for the next 60 months for me :(

Yes, I plan on playing all of these in the not too distant future. This weekend hopefully. I want to put a bit of time in with Gradius V soon because I have not even opened it yet and the High Score tourney is almost over. . .

Anyways I beat some harder stuff in DDR last night and played MAX again. Wow, Holic and Absolute are really nice to hear in a DDR, it makes me want to play IIDX ;) I also realised why I may be picking this game up “quickly” (I say quickly as my wife has almost the same ammount of time spent playing and I can do 6 or 7 foot songs in standard while she is stuck on 5 foot or lower light songs). I have about 3 years of Tap, Jazz, and Ballet dance training… I have no idea how I forgot about this.

Aside: I seem to have pissed off a friend online. I hope that he is reading this and accepts my apologies, I am just bad with words sometimes.

So, yea I played more DDR last night. I can pass a few 6 foot songs on standard. I also got DDR Extreme US version. It is … OK. Honestly both games just have really crap music. The only thing that rocked about Extreme was the 2 Silent Hill songs and 321 Stars. Most of the other songs are either OK or crap (with a few exceptions from IIDX and Pop’n Stuff). Overall the songs just suck for DDR, but I was expecting this so I am not let down or anything.

My wife is also playing a fair ammount of DDR too. She can pass most light songs and one or two standard songs.

I just found out that Wayne completely passed my skill level in Pop’n and went towards the upper ranks. Any chance that I once held for catching up have been squelched. I mean yea perhaps one day, but he progressed so fuggin quick… oh well.

Well I played some more DDR last night. I tried out workout mode which is… umm… yea. My wife also started to play, and really enjoy, the game last night. She picked it up pretty quickly.

I also got Gradius V last night. The bonus DVD (the whole reason that I preordered it from a company that I hate *cough*gamespot*cough*) was not included. I guess that I am not the only one with this problem. I just sent them an email a few moments ago and hopefully I can get this straightened out.

I also saw Man on Fire last night:

Man on Fire: Well right from the start there is a lot of lead into how this movie is going to go. The credits in the begining have their own little mini-story which sets you up for not only the style, but the context for the rest of the movie. Tony Scott did an amazing job directorily, and I does things with text that goes beyond anyother movie to the point of me beliving that this film would not have worked if entirely in english. Also Tony Scott builds some of the best enviromental tension in this film than I have seen in a while. The acting (even by the little girl) is quite excellent. There are really only a few scenes that I think should not have been in the movie (I think that they called the audience stupid by explaining things that were easy to figure out like motive). Another little bonus was that the DTS audio track was simply amazing, seriously. 3.5 out of 4 Stars.

I bought DDRMAX and an Ignition Pad last night. I will probaly sink alot of time into this, but mainly I think I screwed up because the community for this game is much different than other games. I think that I may end up just ignoring most of the community. I got this game because I need to excesise more and I can’t stick with any excersize routine I ever try. I get bored with sports. I don’t like lifting weights. My job will start doing physical fitness tests soon (they should have been for a while as it is a requirement, but…) and I am pretty out of shape (Shaper… hahahaha I am a pun!).

Yea so I got DDR, just a warning incase I start to post about it. I can do up to some 6 foot songs in light and a few 4 or 5 foot songs in Standard. Anything that is not a step on the beat I can’t seem to figure out well, oh well. I will probably drag a bunch of old/used games over to EB this weekend and trade them in for DDRExtream as I am quite underwhelemed with the current song list in DDR MAX (which I was told to purchase in leiu of DDRMAX2).