The Best Laid Plans

So hey, remember that DDR tournament I was supposed to go to today?

I went, and it didn’t happen.

Now, I had expected that it wouldn’t be as big as some of the past tournaments that the place has held before, but I figured at least people close to the place would have shown up. Apparently not. Maybe it was for the better–I’ve been a bit sick lately, so I doubt I would have played as well as I was capable of (Which isn’t all that well).

It wasn’t a total loss, though. I discovered Pump It Up today! Well, “discovered” is the wrong word, as I’ve known about it for almost as long as I’ve played DDR, but I played it for the first time today. It’s very similar conceptually to DDR, except it has five panels–one on each diagonal, and one in the center. I’m told it’s hilarious to watch novice DDR players try to play Pump, because they keep going back to the center (As most beginning DDR players do) and get completely confused when they have to hit the center panel, which they’re already standing on with both feet. I’m far from an advanced Pump player after only a day, but I did seem to get the hang of it pretty quickly, which led to my favorite quote of the day from Nathan, the guy who would’ve been running the non existent tournament: “You’re definitely a lot better at this game than you were, um, six hours ago…”

Plus, if nothing else, I discovered this song as a result of the game. The Pump it Up version is quite a bit shorter, about a minute and a half long versus this video’s five minutes, but it rocks either way. It’s called “Lazenca, Save Us”, and from what I could find about it, it was the opening theme to a show called Lazenca. I guess Lazenca saved some people, or something.