Song stuck in head... 1Tym - Wi Hum Hae. This song is a lot of fun, and is also good for dancing (b-boy heheh).

Whew. Abby made me a great new layout. :D I like it, as always. I mean, I wouldn't let Abby make a layout that sucks, right? And she wouldn't put it up if it sucked either. :D Yay rambling.

Anyway, an old buddy from my high school days back at St. Joseph's Academy of Valenzuela messaged me. After all these years heheh. We spoke primarily on Friendster but I got his contact number, and though he hasn't replied [to either] yet, I invited him to come over to any of the malls I frequent. Or maybe I could go there (Valenzuela). Whichever's easier.

Next, Mikko gave me news on some MMORPG called Silk Road Online. It looks pretty cool. It seems to have a huge free-roaming world (no loading screens), and it's free (forever, as I'm told). So far the skills system is very complex, but we haven't gotten much into it yet. All I know is that there are entire sections in fan-forums dedicated to the study of the skill system... Mikko and I will meet later (Friday), because he'll give me the CD with the installer on it. We'll see how this game runs.

I'm back to playing Heroes III, simply because I made a new map, and I'm play-testing it. The map is pretty tough, which is just the way I like to play Heroes, really. Good grief this game is old lol. o_o

I was at SM North a few days ago (I think it was Wednesday), and the PIU machine is now only hogged by various high school (?) girls. I found the usual players scattered around the other arcades. I'm not sure why. One of the greatly notable things though is that their PIU machine is now located in a corner... Much less space than before. I myself didn't feel like playing because of that. I got to one game then that's it.

Ah my body aches. My arms especially. Lots of new things with my bboying. I'm getting better with my strength and balance on some freezes. I'm trying to do a Nike where I hold my back leg... We'll see.

Good news is that PIU in WoF Megamall is back. Yeah they finally got the new board. And that means more PIU. It also means scores are reset and songs are locked again (I forgot how to unlock Canon-D in Remix Station). Pity that the pad is broken again, but that can be fixed. Also, it's inside the WoF main, so it's kinda hot and crowded. They say they'll put it back out soon though. I hope they can fix all the problems while they're at it.

Apparently, the new version of PIU is called "Pump It Up: Zero". Not much info on it yet, especially not a release date yet, especially not one for the Philippines yet...

Additionally, the PIU World Festival at Seoul, Korea was held yesterday (Sunday). Bleh. I should've been there. :c I'll wait for news on it. Maybe videos or something.

Bboying is going well. I've learned a few more things about balance and strength. I can do an unstabbed baby freeze variation, and I can do a coffee grinder. Still learning to link the coffee grinder into a baby freeze though. Finally, I'm also learning to pike my legs after a handstand. It spawned from trying to L-kick from a handstand. I still don't have either, though.

Been downloading a lot of bboy videos, especially the trailers/highlights of the IBE2005 (International Breakdance Event). Judging from the highlights, one of the Korean guys is insane rofl. The guy does like a drop where he lands on his shoulder and upper arm (on the same side), then bounces back up. He also does these master swipes that kinda link into 90's and stuff... Insane. It inspires me to work harder at my practice. Anyway, now for some linkage. This is Style2Ouf.com, a French site that focuses on bboying and stuff.

Last week, Cat spent a few days at our place (and Mikey spent a night). Cat brought her PS2 so I got to play for the first time. Yeah that was the first time I ever touched a PS2. It absolutely r0x0rz. She brought a lot of games actually, including Need for Speed Underground, Resident Evil, FF7 (PSX obviously), Tekken 5, Virtua Fighter 4, and Soul Calibur 2, but the games we played the most of were Katamari Damacy and Soul Calibur 3!

Katamari Damacy is absolutely, insanely addictive. We played a few rounds of the eternal stages, and I can't even describe how much fun it was.

Soul Calibur 3 is really new. I love the new characters, but I don't like how they changed the moves of some characters, such as Talim and Ivy, so drastically. Other characters like Cassandra and Astaroth didn't change so much, which is okay. And the return of old characters like Seung Mi-na (which was spelled as Seong Mi-na for some reason) and Sophitia is a very welcome addition. Character creation is really enjoyable, especially if you like to dress characters up or whatever. o_o Like me. Yeah. I didn't even get to try Chronicles of the Sword mode too much, but from the looks of it, it looks fun too. I wonder if they're going to release this for the arcade, and if so, when.

Man I need a PS2.

Last week I learned a couple more b-boy moves. I finally got the baby freeze down (well, not perfect, but I got a basic one), and I got the back roll -> shoulder stand freeze. I even have two different kinds of shoulder stands now, one for either shoulder. I'm close to learning to do a turtle I think, and my handstand -> L kick is gaining progress. :D Man it sucks to be a newbie b-boy at this age. If I started when I was in my early or mid teens, I'd be pretty good by now, and my body would've been conditioned and in better shape to do these things. Now I'm just too weak and heavy for some moves, so I need to work out and strengthen up my upper body particularly.

Yesterday (Sunday) I got to play Soul Calibur 2 at the arcade again. I kinda stopped playing this because of b-boyin' and PIU. But since PIU is still dead, I have time for SC2. And I got several challenges heheh. Man, I missed this. I think fighting games are best played against real people. There's this one guy who kept challenging my Taki, and lost like 10 consecutive times until he finally just left with a credit still in the machine. So somebody else played that, and lost. Finally some guy came around with a Maxi and beat me 3 consecutive times. That's sad to me because he kept doing this sweep kick that lead into a rising kick (I think it's d + K, ws K, K). And all this time I kept anticipating that he might do something else, because he did it so often. Turns out that's his only wake-up attack, so I kept overanticipating another move, causing me to get hit by that one instead. I finally caught on in my 3rd game (slow, ain't I?), when I used Talim against him (he'd beaten my Taki and Astaroth, and those two + Talim are my best characters in SC2), and I could've won that one, because I was actually able to defend against that sweep kick attack repeatedly, but I got a little careless I guess in the 3rd round and took a couple of hard juggles...

Well enough of that. Point is, my interest in kicking ass in SC2 has returned, and I'll play there more often, to see if anybody would keep challenging me and losing again. :D

Wahaha. Good grief. I just saw a trailer for the DVD release of the International Breakdance Event 2005. Okay I saw it over and over, and I'll see it over and over for an undetermined period of time. But it's so kickass. The trailer already has me by the jaw. I kinda want to get the DVD just to see the rest of it. It's supposedly 5 hours of some of the illest bboying. DVD was released October 22nd.

October 29th was the Skechers Street Dance Battle high school division eliminations. It was held at the Megastrip in the Megamall. To be honest, I'm slightly disappointed. In my opinion, there wasn't enough "street dance" going on. Some of the crews with girls in them looked like they were doing a cheering competition or something, without the gymnastics or stunts. And some of the boys in those such crews looked like they were being dragged through a pit of vomit or something. With that said, some of the crews were pretty sick, in the good way. Somebody did a windmill, somebody did some crazy flips and stuff. Except that it didn't feel like a "Street Dance Battle", the show was alright.

PIU in Megamall = still dead. I spoke to the people working on the machine, and apparently, the board itself is broken. They already ordered a new one from Korea, but that's what they're waiting for, and they don't know how long that would take. In any case, that's progress. Better I know how bad the damage is than being completely in the dark.

Oh, and the break from PIU has given me time to work on my bboyin' heheheh. I can now do side chair freezes and handglides. Well, sort of. I picked those moves up almost simultaneously while trying to strengthen my wrists (left wrist in particular. It hurts like mad when all my weight is in my gut and my wrist though. It's in my gut because to do a handglide, you have to do something called stabbing, which is basically planting your elbow into some part of your body. In this case, it's my gut. In the case of side chairs, it's the side part of your intestines (in front of your kidneys).

My handstands still look like crap, and so do my L-kicks. My shoulder stand hurts as much as ever, but at least I can sort of roll back into it now. Seeing that IBE trailer made me want to work even harder though. I need to step it up, seriously.

Oh and finally, I joined www.bboy.org, finally. I was a lurker for a while there. I picked up some cool videos and tutorials on some moves, like windmills and various drops and freezes. I'm looking into some other sites mentioned by members there, as well.