Haha okay. First off, I made a new friend at the PIU machine. His name is Hans, and he's a stepper who wants to start freestyling too. :D Ain't that great?

Next, World of Fun, the arcade that has the PIU machines, is holding a tournament! Yes, that's right. A tournament! And I'm signing up for sure! At first the rules were crappy (in the semi-finals, THEY will choose which mode you play in, either crazy, freestyle or nightmare. In the finals you MUST play a nightmare mode song). I was handed a flier by one of their employees. I went in, and it so happens that some of the heads (?) of WoF were at a table in front of the PIU machine (because they were pushing VIP cards on people; for P50 you get a card that entitles you to tokens and stuff). The one inside, as they have two. The other is in the hallway, which is where I normally play. I did some über freestyling in front of them (not really intending anything; that's just how I play really o_o), and they saw me lol. After a while, I applied for a VIP card and one of them spoke to me, asking me how the rules of a tournament should be. So I told them the rules of a real tournament. :D Tomorrow (Sunday) I'm going to talk to them again to give them more details on the rules, including criteria for judging, just like Andamiro's tournament as listed in their website.

I learned some new stunts, and I've applied them to some of my routines. Hmm. Yay. I need to learn some more though, and I need to learn how to do that... flippy thing. It's hard to describe. You start off with your hands on the floor and your feet (or one of your feet) on the bars. Then you continue to flip from that position so you land on both your feet. o_o I feel like I can do it, but I get wimpy when I'm about to try it already. >_< I should try it at home first.

Anyway, now that there's a tournament, the elimination rounds will be all Saturdays of September, so I can go whenever I want. I have to choose which song I'm going to use for the elimination round. Good grief there are so many choices! @_@

And last but not least, tomorrow (Sunday) is CCF's anniversary worship service! Yay lol. It's pretty exciting really. We'll wake up early-ish (well, earlier than usual). So that means I have to sleep now. Laterz. o_o

Argh. I've spent the last two days downloading more freestyle videos, many of which came also from the now dead Pumpstreet.co.kr. Some of them are okay-ish, but some are extremely cool. Some had some insane breakdance moves, which of course I want to learn. Also, it seems like it's obligatory for freestylers to make a routine for Funky Tonight, so I've decided I'll make one sometime. I know Mikey's going to enjoy the videos already, as Funky Tonight is currently Mikey's main song.

I myself have not greatly improved in the high-flying stunts department, but let's just say I'm a little stronger and more flexible (and like 4 lbs lighter) than my last blog entry. I'll keep trying to do said stunts until I get it right.

The international PIU tournament in Korea is on November 12. I sooo want to go. If I do go, I'll give it my best shot, but I'm actually not thinking of winning. What I really want is to see some routines (and the freestylers themselves) first-hand. I haven't talked to mom about it yet, but seeing how air fare will cost an insane amount, it actually looks bleak. Still, there are ways I can go there, including going there to stay there, to study/work. I'll have to ask God about this decision again, of course.

I had to pick a song to make a new routine to, just off the top of my head, and I chose Fighting Spirits. I'll work on a routine soon after I post this, and since we're going out again today to help the Designing Arts Ministry in CCF, I can get to practice this on the machine later. Since yesterday though, since I saw all the breakdance moves, I've been working on my strength and flexibility, trying to get them up, so I can do some of the tricks I saw, even if just the simple ones such as twisty handstands and backflips. I'll keep working.

I just got through watching my all-time favorite Hanna-Barbera Cartoon, Top Cat. I've been watching this since I was a kid, and I don't think I'll get tired of it. Sure, a lot of things didn't make sense, being an old cartoon, but I always found the story charming in an almost indescribable way.

Maybe it's because of the undeniable friendship between Top Cat (and his gang) and Officer Dibble. The episode I just finished watching is one of the most clear-cut examples of that. Dibble was about to break Ironman Muldoon's record for most consecutive days on patrol (3,486 days). When he does that, he'll be rewarded with 2 weeks paid vacation. This was good news to Top Cat, because with Dibble out of the picture, T.C. and his gang can operate. I'll skip to the end, when Dibble gets the vacation, and is replaced temporarily by 3 hard-nosed cops who are particularly good at stamping out illegal activities, such as the ones T.C. specializes in. T.C. escapes to meet up with Dibble at the toll gate, as Dibble was driving off to his vacation. Though irritated and telling them to get lost, eventually Dibble lets them come with him on the vacation, but Dibble has a cold, so T.C. and his gang take care of him as they all head out on the vacation.

See? It's a really nice story. Despite their odds, I guess they've just been around each other too long that they've become friends without them knowing it.

Top Cat started airing on September 27th, 1961, and was the second primetime cartoon of Hanna-Barbera (the first being the more popular "The Flintstones"). Top Cat only ran for one season, but was received well enough for that single season to be rerun on NBC throughout the 60's (and is still rerun on different places, Cartoon Network included). I personally first saw this series when I was just a kid, during the early 90's. I remember fond weekday summer mornings, waking up semi-early, and sitting back to watch this. I guess those memories of good times helped attach me more to this cartoon.

Anyway enough about that. Last Sunday we went to Sta. Rosa, Laguna. Nothing much eventful there, but we went to see our relatives. My cousins informed me that they were still in contact with this girl I used to like, whom I haven't seen in over 4 years. We haven't been in contact with each other for over 3 years now, because I lost my old cell phone, and she didn't have one at the time (she borrowed phones at random, as far as I knew). So our only means of contact then was severed. But now I can get to see her again. We'll see how this plays out.

I have a new dilemma. I've been presented again with the option to go to Korea first, then Japan. It really sounds like a good idea, and I have no complaints. I've been praying to God for the wisdom for this decision, and I've decided to seek advice from everyone who cares about me and my decisions. Regardless, though, my main goal will be to let people know about God, so either is fine with me. Wherever God wants me to go.

Yesterday (Monday; I live off an odd clock, being nocturnal, so I always have to clarify when "yesterday" is), I went to SM North, like I do every month, to pay bills. Naturally, I went to the PIU machine there afterwards. And I have to say, it was one of the more annoying experiences of my life. Unlike last month and two months ago, there weren't a lot of people playing. No lines or anything. I was immediately able to play. So that's obviously not the problem. The problem was that there were so many kids that don't listen to you. Let me explain. I was playing Freestyle mode (of course) and some kid keeps jumping up onto the other set of panels that I'm not on. Two of the kids keep holding on to the back bars, despite my repeated requests for them to give me some space. I bought 10 tokens, but after the 3rd I decided it wasn't worth testing my patience like that, so I left. I'll use the other tokens at the Megamall instead.

Finally, I still haven't been able to do Solitary... I'm working on simplifying the steps a little bit, at least until my body gets used to such rapid motions, which it obviously isn't at the moment. Also, I'm working on some more high-flying stunts... Watch for it!

Well, over the week Mikey, another fellow from CCF that I've turned into a PIU freestyler, came over to my house to practice a routine for Koul. We got the routine down, and got to test it yesterday. I was at the mall from 10 AM onwards, which was insane because I didn't realize how little sleep I got. Later that day I was so annoyingly sleepy, as an effect of the pain killers I'm taking, plus fatigue, plus the fact that I was already lacking sleep.

Anyway, Mikey and I did our routine for Koul repeatedly, trying to get it perfectly. We didn't quite get it "perfectly" but it's pretty good. After the expected failures on our first few attempts, I'd say we got up to a satisfactory performance.

The other song I was practicing, though, which was a solo routine for the song Solitary, I ended up failing miserably. For some reason, I was unable to anticipate the speed of the steps... When I practiced at home, I took it segment by segment (like you should), but I never got to do a dry run or whatnot. I have decided that I'm not ready for Solitary yet, and I need more practice, and maybe a redo of some parts to make it more efficient. I already pretty much memorized the first part, but memorization needs familiarization to make it work in this case, so I need to do my routine for the first part over and over. The "first part" I'm talking about is roughly the first 1/3 of the song or so, possibly going up to the halfway point. Much of the latter part of the song is really really easy, so much that I already memorized it just from watching freestyle videos, but I haven't exactly come up with a routine for it yet. I guess because it's easy, I can concentrate on other parts first.

Arms feeling better (sometimes?), wrists no longer an issue, new smaller bruises on knees, living off pain killers... Oh and I overshot an elbow stand. What an interesting experience.

Anyway that's all for now.

Ahaha. Okay so last Saturday we obviously played Pump It Up all day. I had just learned to do my freestyle routine for Caution (Don't Bother Me). I have to admit, it felt very sloppy. Neither did I get to do all of the moves I wanted, but I also felt like I was tripping on some of the moves. I dunno maybe I was tired. But the good news is that I got an S rank anyway. It's only about the 3rd time I've ever finished Caution without failing, and I got an S. Heheh. Anyway by now I already feel more comfortable with the routine, but I can't seem to get an S again. Oh well.

I'm nursing a couple of strained elbows. My left elbow hurts in particular. Sort of throbby pain, but not all the time. Oddly it doesn't hurt while I'm dancing. But it did affect my ability to do handstands, as I couldn't get vertical with as much ease as I did last Saturday. So I decided I'm going to take a break from handstands and practice in general just for a couple of days. Or until my arms feel better. I guess my 21 years of not really ever having tried a handstand caught up with me, and now that I'm doing them a lot, my arms aren't used to the kind of effort they have to produce.

Abby seems to have memorized her routine for Valenti. I'm going to help her think of some good choreography, particularly hand movements, to make it look more like a dance rather than just backwards stepping.

My next project will be Koul, simultaneous (?) with making up a duo-routine for Abby and me for BanYa's First Love. I'm looking forward to Koul in particular, because it's an oldskool dj mix song. Would be fun putting oldskool-style moves. But like I said I'm taking a few days off to rest. Hopefully, if God allows it, by Friday I'll already have a routine set-up for Koul. As for me now, I'll try memorizing the stepchart or something.

Oh yeah. There was a really good stepper last Saturday. I rarely ever say this of steppers because I naturally prefer freestylers over steppers anyday, but this one was really good. He looked really intense while playing. He didn't cling to the bar the whole time, and he even got an S in a 16-rating crazy-mode song. I forgot which song though. Best part is probably that he doesn't play just the overused songs. Many of the songs he played I haven't even heard before. That earned him my respect really. Because that means, he's just a guy who's good with his feet and his step-reading skills, who can and will play any song within his difficulty range, *cough* unlike many other steppers out there who can only play like 10 songs total *cough*. All I'm saying is that variety for steppers wouldn't hurt anyone, because honestly, Beethoven's Virus and other such songs are getting old and are starting to hurt my ears.

Okay so off to rest with me. Pray to Almighty God for my speedy recovery.

These past few days I've been playing at The Kingdom of Loathing. It's fun in a strange way. If you're into net lingo, rpgs, etc., it's worth a look at. An example of how insane it is would be that the currency used in the game is meat. I currently have a level 5 disco bandit, which is sort of like a thief but not really. I'm not sure lol. I'm trying to make money by selling dry noodles, Knob Goblin perfume and asshats. o_o

Anyway, the Suikoden Tactics game I talked about before is called Rhapsodia. The portrait artwork is nice, but to be honest, I dislike the graphics style they used here, which is fairly common among next-gen consoles these days. It's the mix between 3d and cel-coloring style graphics, which really annoys me for some reason. That isn't to say that I won't play it when I get the chance, though. I just wish they'd either stuck to a traditional 3d like they did with Suikoden III or IV, or with traditional 2d sprites [on 3d plane background] like Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics or whatnot.

Our ISP was down for a few days. I think from Saturday or Sunday up to just yesterday. It went up for a little while last Tuesday, but not for very long. Their dial-up server wasn't responding. But it's okay now so like yeah. o_o

As for Pump It Up news, I'm currently working on a routine for Caution and Solitary simultaneously. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, like if it'll affect my ability to memorize steps for either song... But anyway I'm getting more comfortable with getting down, like kneeling and such. I'm also feeling better, in terms of my numerous minor injuries resulted from dancing without warming up first. So hopefully by tomorrow or Saturday I'll be in good-enough shape to put on a show. 8D

Ez2Dancer news: we were misinformed before. The Time-Out arcade in the Megamall didn't close after all. Instead, it's undergoing renovation. The Ez2Dancer machine is still there, but sadly when we last saw it last Sunday, it was broken (weak/no sounds, broken sensors/panels on the left side).

Finally I bought fingerless gloves yay (called driving gloves by its label). It really REALLY helps in protecting my hands from injuries when I play PIU, because sometimes when you slam the panels with your hands, it might hit one of the screws or a little bit of sand or something, like what happened to me before, causing little injuries to your hands that really add up in the long run. With the gloves, you're protected from that. Doing handstands and stuff would really need them. I'm thinking of getting knee supporters too, but maybe that one can wait.