After years of prompting, I finally made it out to my friend Chris'
Texas Showdown tournament again. I hadn't been since 2006 - I'd see Chris in Evo (Vegas) or elsewhere, but it'd been a long damned time since actually attending his event. While it was a brief trip, it's always a little surprising to see so many faces from over the years. I'd frequently find myself desperately trying to remember a name or otherwise learn it in the most non-obvious way possible. Boy do I love nametags. :\
I jetted West to Austin to see Lynn and Jennifer the first day I was in Texas. I arrived midday so got to spend the afternoon first seeing a movie in the delightful
Alamo Drafthouse (I wish we had these in Washington) and then noodling the blues on a ukulele in
Capitol Park. I felt that Greg deserved a little blues in her honor (these have been hard times for her, and my leaving eighteen hours after she got back from a month away wasn't helpful) and also felt that playing music in Austin would be something that I'd want to have done in my life. It was a pretty relaxing and blissful time.
Lynn and Jennifer and Jonas (Mr Lynn) and I had dinner at
Chuy's that night. I was delighted by their Nacho Car, and the company was also excellent. It seems we're all stuck on our own minor respective life humps, but it also seems like each of us were on track to make huge progress.
I somehow managed to get 2nd in the Marvel vs Capcom 2 tournament. I lost to the best player in the world (Justin Wong), which was expected, but he also blew me out which if I cared I'd want to work on. It was fun to beat people with dumb tricks again. I put the medal and the money I won on my Wall of Awards at work. While I'm no Desmond/X-Cutioner, it's fun for the moment knowing that I placed more highly than he ever did at Texas Showdown. I can pretend that I'm good. (Discussion of this tournament online led me to learn that I'd beaten another of my favorite players a long time ago and simply never noticed. XD )
The after-party was its own odd fun too. We started out at one bar where I had pie... and then it was globally decided upon that more pie was required so we headed to the
House of Pies (this is a place!) where we all had Bayou Goo pie. It's those small moments that really make the travel feel worthwhile.
I was amused when I got back and started uploading my footage when somebody
tweeted their surprise. That's fair... until you realize that I've been filming the past two Evos... and managed to lose my cameras both times. My absence from the recording scene has been much more a result of theft and ineptitude than any real deliberate abandonment.