In The Groove

Yesterday it was the day when I would find out how my results might look like at the World Championships. For that we needed to head for Vienna to the closest In The Groove machine. I usually count five hours to get there.

After not so successful attempt at getting up at 6am (with the last two night with insufficient sleep) we headed to Prague with my father. I then proceeded to Hloubetin where I woke NX up. I later found out that we won't be heading directly to Austria but that we would stop in Policka to deliver a dance pad. I wasn't happy about it but why not. Our route took us to Policka, then Svitavy and then to Brno finally. From there we headed to Pasohlavky and made our stop to have some lunch, get the money from the machine etc.

I ordered a really good chicken breasts filled with ham and cheese but I did not feel well after eating it *sniff*. In the meantime I played few songs on pump. I played Mr. Larpus FS, Energizer CZ, Aliens in our midsts, Utopia CZ and some nightmares. That should be enough for warming me up? Believe me playing at 35 degrees celsius outside was really too much for me. I mean ... Energizer CZ is quite easy, but at this temperature and my body already sweating so much...(I managed to fail it, well I tripped twice in the stream at the end ...)

When our stomachs were full and everything settled we headed for Bratislava this time. We were told that the road from Znojmo to Vienna is bad one and it would take us eternity to get to Vienna. We decided to go via Bratislava which finally wasn't such a good idea after all (as it took us another two and half hours).

Eventually we finally arrived to Vienna at approx. 6 pm. In the arcades we met Mary, Alex and Leckse (another Alex^_~).

My first credit inserted and 3 songs played on doubles. I played High hard 98.27, Driving Force Classical hard 99.13 and then messed up On a day like to day 92.81. After that I tried Lors expert(98.xx), Euphoria expert (94.xx) and renessaince (68.xx). I realized that using the glass cleaner will be something that might decide whether I clear a song or not as my foot slipped while playing Renessaince and I failed it because of that. Otherwise that stepchart is quite funny. Reminds me of Mr. Larpus in some parts (and Dignity on FS).

Singles was a surprise as well. I needed to sync and see if I can still clear some elevens or twelves. I hardly played all of them even though I wished for it. First try was July as I hardly played the song since the first time I cleared it no bar years ago. Songs like !, delirium, monolith, xuxa, the beginning etc followed. I sometimes got angry because of an occasional pad miss. Especially the one on The Beginning. I was getting full combo all the way till I got few breaks (not mines) and one way off! I was pissed off I have to say---. Anyway this happened on other songs as well and it's probably better so I can see what my scores will look like with a miss here and there.

In the meantime I was looking at Mary playing and getting nice scores. I also realized why everyone is playing on Hallway!! I have to say that with Hallway I could probably do well on all those songs with crappy BPM for me like like vertex, pandemonium, energizer, lipstick kiss etc. I mean 5x Hallway is completely LEGIBLE! Ok well I never tried hallway before and I won't probably risk it at the tournament but I have to say it would save me a lot of trouble probably many times. I was also trying to figure out what I can read at what speeds. And it seemed that 130-170 should be 4x and the rest...who knows. I tried 200 at 3x no bar..and seemed to work more or less. But I'm not really sure about all this. I would a machine for that and more time to experiment with this.

After a dinner meal and some chat with Alex we decided to head home but a storm caught us on the road. We stayed at one gas station for some time and waited for the storm to calm down a bit^_~. It hopefully did and the looooonnnnggg way home started.

Thanks to everyone especially NX who got me to Wien and back in one piece^_~, to Mary as a really cool opponent, Leckse who tried to survive some songs with me and Alex with whom we had the chance to speak and see him play as well.

See you all at Worldcup guys!