VGC 2011, thus far
For several reasons, I've been putting off writing about the Pokemon season this year. The biggest one is sheer laziness and failure to return to livejournal in a timely manner, though after swearing off the stuff last year I felt the entries would just remind me of breaking that promise to myself. But I figured that, this being my journal, honesty is welcome here more than anywhere else.
I originally did not plan on entering this year. Travis, Kevin, Danny and Suleski all made me feel very welcomed in the community last year - others did as well, but those four made it the most clear that I would be missed if I left. Gabby has planned on convincing me to return since about last New Jersey (before we were even dating), and I had consistently told her there was really only one thing that would convince me to keep playing. A few weeks ago, as the season was starting, I told her that I secretly told myself at New Jersey last year that I'd continue to play if I fell in love with Gabby. To do that again after the pussy-whipped summer I had last year, I reasoned, would make me owe the Pokemon franchise a bit - and there was no way I would turn my back on a video game that gave me something so beautiful (Gabby responded with the cliched "Awww").
So this year, instead of playing to prove myself (which I did enough of last year to earn the respect of the Ducks and anyone else I really care about), I decided to use Pokemon as an outlet for traveling and visiting good friends.
I flew to Dallas in late May, where I entered their regional and hung out with Travis, Kevin, a somewhat new friend named Len (someone I'd seen around through mutual friends but never really known), and Judd and Roy (those last two for the first time since 2006!). None of us placed in Nationals, but we didn't quite mind - there was lots of heavy drinking and Mario Partying at Judd's place afterwards. His wife was super nice to all of us. Oh, and we beat Super Mario Bros in one sitting without warp flutes, with Alaka and me leading Team Luigi and everyone else combining their inferior efforts for Team Mario.
Suleski was chatting with me on FaceChat the following morning, and when I said something to the effect of "I think we played Mario Party," I was sent an IRC conversation to which Judd contributed:
Kongler: BSTS, Multi, Alaka, Roy over for Mario Party and drinking. Yeaaahhh.
Kongler: I got Chalkey so fucked up he passed out on my couch.
To be fair, I don't think it was that bad.
Next stop was D.C., where I stayed with in Colin's humble abode - but due to Colin getting accepted into the Peace Core in Fiji, this made the second year in a row that I stayed at a friends house when they weren't actually there. By day, I hung out with Danny and Dan L, and some new friends Ray, Andrea and her boyfriend. The Dan L I met last year, and Danny I met in 2009 and only really got to know last year. But both are pretty high on my "cool peeps" list. By night, I hung out with my college buddies Tom, Rob and John McKeegan. And let me say this: it was good to have some bros again. Being around Nathan and Thomas every day is great, and I do see them as brothers, but that is in no way the same as seeing them as bros. I need male friends that will talk dirty. That will make jock references and do jock things. That will drink and smoke and talk about women in ways only fit for a locker room. That will list Call of Duty before Sonic the Hedgehog on their list of favorite video games.
Most recently, Gabby and road tripped together to Newark, celebrating the place where I first started to gain feelings for her (she told me this was the same for her once, though she now recalls herself as being already "pretty far gone" at this point). Danny and Dan returned for another stop, as did Andrea and Ray, so that was pretty great. Dan, Ray, Gabby and I even got to go out for drinks with the one and only Emcee of the Pokemon Company, Nick McCord. Gabby joked that the guy had it out for me - proposing going out for drinks, giving me his phone number. Hell, in Dallas when he saw me, he stopped announcing, turned off the mic and jumped a roped off area to hug me. He then hugged Travis and Kevin, who responded to his "I thought you quit!" with a "His friends wouldn't let that happen."
McCord's pretty great. I found out he actually plays pokemon, which is more than we can say for a lot of the previous EmCees of pokemon (cough Hulk Hogan cough). He has a beautiful fiance whom he recognizes is too good for him. He's also somewhat of a comedian - rumors had it before I met him that he used The Pokemon Company as a means to travel from state to state for his stand-up, though he told me that night that he doesn't do it as much now. McCord talked about his in-game team with a decent level of excitement, and I drunkenly told McCord that I would run his team in Nationals if I got to play this year. All I know is that the team will have Garbodor, a pokemon made out of a trash bag.
Performance-wise, this year is not quite on par with last year but also not that disappointing, as I feel I've proven what I need to for my own justifications. I got around the 70s-ish in Dallas, losing to a double freeze. First round I lost in D.C., to Attract-spam (a luck based strategy that typically is a faux pas, for you non-pokemon people), and I placed in the top 32 in Newark (all of these had a cap of 1,024 people). The Newark performance was one win away from qualifying me for Nats again, much to Gabby's disappointment. Although she was pretty happy with my loss anyway, since a minority girl beat me for the spot, giving all sorts of equal representation in Nats.
In a few weeks, I'll be driving down to Indy to cheer on the two Dans and Suleski on in Nationals, while Skarm, Travis, Kevin and I fight in the LCQ. Oh, and Thomas and Nathan will be coming with me, as will Gabby, so I'm pretty excited.
In the words of some old dead guy, "No man is a failure who has friends."
-Didroy
I originally did not plan on entering this year. Travis, Kevin, Danny and Suleski all made me feel very welcomed in the community last year - others did as well, but those four made it the most clear that I would be missed if I left. Gabby has planned on convincing me to return since about last New Jersey (before we were even dating), and I had consistently told her there was really only one thing that would convince me to keep playing. A few weeks ago, as the season was starting, I told her that I secretly told myself at New Jersey last year that I'd continue to play if I fell in love with Gabby. To do that again after the pussy-whipped summer I had last year, I reasoned, would make me owe the Pokemon franchise a bit - and there was no way I would turn my back on a video game that gave me something so beautiful (Gabby responded with the cliched "Awww").
So this year, instead of playing to prove myself (which I did enough of last year to earn the respect of the Ducks and anyone else I really care about), I decided to use Pokemon as an outlet for traveling and visiting good friends.
I flew to Dallas in late May, where I entered their regional and hung out with Travis, Kevin, a somewhat new friend named Len (someone I'd seen around through mutual friends but never really known), and Judd and Roy (those last two for the first time since 2006!). None of us placed in Nationals, but we didn't quite mind - there was lots of heavy drinking and Mario Partying at Judd's place afterwards. His wife was super nice to all of us. Oh, and we beat Super Mario Bros in one sitting without warp flutes, with Alaka and me leading Team Luigi and everyone else combining their inferior efforts for Team Mario.
Suleski was chatting with me on FaceChat the following morning, and when I said something to the effect of "I think we played Mario Party," I was sent an IRC conversation to which Judd contributed:
Kongler: BSTS, Multi, Alaka, Roy over for Mario Party and drinking. Yeaaahhh.
Kongler: I got Chalkey so fucked up he passed out on my couch.
To be fair, I don't think it was that bad.
Next stop was D.C., where I stayed with in Colin's humble abode - but due to Colin getting accepted into the Peace Core in Fiji, this made the second year in a row that I stayed at a friends house when they weren't actually there. By day, I hung out with Danny and Dan L, and some new friends Ray, Andrea and her boyfriend. The Dan L I met last year, and Danny I met in 2009 and only really got to know last year. But both are pretty high on my "cool peeps" list. By night, I hung out with my college buddies Tom, Rob and John McKeegan. And let me say this: it was good to have some bros again. Being around Nathan and Thomas every day is great, and I do see them as brothers, but that is in no way the same as seeing them as bros. I need male friends that will talk dirty. That will make jock references and do jock things. That will drink and smoke and talk about women in ways only fit for a locker room. That will list Call of Duty before Sonic the Hedgehog on their list of favorite video games.
Most recently, Gabby and road tripped together to Newark, celebrating the place where I first started to gain feelings for her (she told me this was the same for her once, though she now recalls herself as being already "pretty far gone" at this point). Danny and Dan returned for another stop, as did Andrea and Ray, so that was pretty great. Dan, Ray, Gabby and I even got to go out for drinks with the one and only Emcee of the Pokemon Company, Nick McCord. Gabby joked that the guy had it out for me - proposing going out for drinks, giving me his phone number. Hell, in Dallas when he saw me, he stopped announcing, turned off the mic and jumped a roped off area to hug me. He then hugged Travis and Kevin, who responded to his "I thought you quit!" with a "His friends wouldn't let that happen."
McCord's pretty great. I found out he actually plays pokemon, which is more than we can say for a lot of the previous EmCees of pokemon (cough Hulk Hogan cough). He has a beautiful fiance whom he recognizes is too good for him. He's also somewhat of a comedian - rumors had it before I met him that he used The Pokemon Company as a means to travel from state to state for his stand-up, though he told me that night that he doesn't do it as much now. McCord talked about his in-game team with a decent level of excitement, and I drunkenly told McCord that I would run his team in Nationals if I got to play this year. All I know is that the team will have Garbodor, a pokemon made out of a trash bag.
Performance-wise, this year is not quite on par with last year but also not that disappointing, as I feel I've proven what I need to for my own justifications. I got around the 70s-ish in Dallas, losing to a double freeze. First round I lost in D.C., to Attract-spam (a luck based strategy that typically is a faux pas, for you non-pokemon people), and I placed in the top 32 in Newark (all of these had a cap of 1,024 people). The Newark performance was one win away from qualifying me for Nats again, much to Gabby's disappointment. Although she was pretty happy with my loss anyway, since a minority girl beat me for the spot, giving all sorts of equal representation in Nats.
In a few weeks, I'll be driving down to Indy to cheer on the two Dans and Suleski on in Nationals, while Skarm, Travis, Kevin and I fight in the LCQ. Oh, and Thomas and Nathan will be coming with me, as will Gabby, so I'm pretty excited.
In the words of some old dead guy, "No man is a failure who has friends."
-Didroy