Link to original post: [drupal=2019]Genesis, Money and San Diego Love - A detailed recount of my time in the US and at Genesis[/drupal]
Foreword:
If you don't feel like reading a whole 12,000 words, skip down to Day 8 of the trip (just ctrl + F find Day 8)
Genesis, Money and San Diego Love
By Vyse
Quite a long time ago Sakurai envisioned a video game that would see the bringing together of Nintendo’s most iconic characters and produced a fighting game unlike any we’d seen before. It is very much like Genesis in that is and was a tournament engineered by the smash crew DBR (Death by ****) to bring together some of the most iconic players in Smash history.
It is a game that people across the globe play and practice to compete in tournaments. In every continent (bar Antarctica), there are smashers of diverse cultural background, that speak in different tongues, but they can all identify and find a common ground in Smash which is amazing to me.
This ‘blog’ of sorts will serve as a construction, perversion and romanticisation of my adventure in America, at Genesis and everything else in between. I’m writing this for those smashers world-wide that didn’t get to go. I’m writing this for those smashers that meet up for smash practice every weekend (or at some diligent frequency), aspiring to become as good at the game as they can, even if they have nobody worth talking about to bench mark themselves against in their area. I’m writing this because the Smash community has long been the envy of other gaming communities and because I want you all to know why.
Pre-Trip
Wednesday 8 April, 2009
We have a lot to thank Gideon for. Truly. I’m sad that I was never around in his time. But looking back, it must have been fun to be an administrator for a forum like this, and to be so involved with the community as well. Of course the community was small back then. They even had a celebration when they reached 1000 users. To be in a small, tight nit community is something I’m used to. It makes every player matter that much more. Other players are not merely a thing to surpass and stand on top of. They are what keep the scene alive. An average sized tournament in Australia is a tournament between 20 and 30 people, not like America.
Although America was not always like that either. There was a time too when one player facing another player after meeting on Smashboards was a big thing. The first tournament ever was a huge undertaking, despite being only a few people strong.
Times change, I suppose. People begun to realise there was a lot more to this little game called Super Smash Bros. Melee than what first meets the eye. Who would’ve thought a game like that would spawn a legacy so great?
Brawl came along and well, you can see the damage that has been done. Though personally, I don’t believe there is such a big problem that it can’t operate as a competitive fighting game (as much as we have to thank Plairnk for exactly the opposite – though it is not so much his fault [he is merely the technique’s namesake] that it is the Brawl project staff in charge of determining the power and inherent ‘cheapness’ of characters, their possible strategies and physics exploits). No, the biggest problem is that the game is simply not well received by the previous competitive community of Melee. Fortunately (And unlike the train wreck that is Soul Calibur 3) Brawl has a large, dedicated following.
I’m on the train as I type this. I’ve got an hour’s worth of nothing to fill. Nothing barring the moving picture of rural Australian bush land rushing by window. A majestic green of plants and scrub and trees. I can’t see any animals, though considering that I’m on a noisy train it doesn’t surprise me. The view is only interrupted by the odd farm of horses and cattle, and pockets of civilisation clustered around main roads in the distance.
Of course, this will only last as long it takes to leave the Gold Coast and head into Brisbane, but this is all besides the point. I’m writing because I want to chronicle my journey all the way to Genesis, and to do such a thing I have to begin with where I start. Gold Coast, Australia.
The Gold Coast is a great tourist spot. Theme Parks, natural tourist attractions, city life. It’s hard for me to really pick out what makes the Gold Coast so appealing because I’ve lived here for so long. It’s actually quite a pain to live here, and commute to Brisbane 4 times a week just for Uni.
After all was said and done. After the long and tiresome hassle of convincing my parents to let me go to Genesis, it was about time I began to prepare. The biggest issue as of last weekend was getting plane tickets. Flying isn’t cheap, as most of you already understand. Fortunately for me I have a great friend in a smasher named called Cao (Goes by usernames ranging from CAOTIC to Caotique, or at least the latter is his current username on smashboards.com). Cao is a regular jetsetter, travelling to locations all around the world every year. Amazingly, this year he plans on travelling with his good friend Ken Hoang (More commonly referred to as sephirothken ‘The King of Smash’ on smashboards.com).
Naturally, an individual like Mr Cao would have a good eye for cheap flight deals and accommodation. He is literally top tier when it comes to this kind of thing, being a smasher who’s experience lies between America and Australia (With expeditions to locations like Japan) helps as well.
Delta Airlines have recently muscled into the Australian Airline industry, offering direct flights between Sydney and Los Angeles for $1100AU. Considering that my date of arrival is to be the day before July 4th, it is a very reasonable fare,
Booking the flight was interesting. I got caught up in attempting to secure travel insurance, thinking I had to book my flights through the same people. Fortunately Cao set me straight and instead I booked my flight directly with Delta (As I type this I’ve begun to wonder whether it is truly $1100 AU, but after checking my bank account afterwards I’m almost definitely sure that was the case).
At the final step of my booking, I decided to open up a chat window with a Delta Representative. This was an odd experience, as one would be forgiven for thinking they were speaking (relatively speaking) with an imperfect AI, than a human being.
He tried to tell me that I couldn’t book travel insurance with another company and had to book it with Delta. It sounds like crap to me, so I just finished up with my booking and recorded all my details.
Last Friday I walked into the local post office and picked up a few forms.
1. Passport Application (Adult): For me, as my passport is well out of date
2. Passport Application (Child): For one of my younger brothers, whose passport is also out of date
3. Enrol to Vote form: I’d forgotten to enrol to vote when I was old enough to be eligible. I didn’t realise til the latest state election came up, and it was far too late for me to enrol.
Finally, on Saturday (While I was at an anime convention) I received a call from flight centre about an enquiry I’d made about a Delta flight (Which I no longer needed to follow up), however, I did ask them about flight insurance, and the staff member whom I spoke to (his name eludes me right now) offered me a 20% discount if I did it through him, rather than going to a more local flight centre.
Discounts, Money. Today I received a talk from my boss at my place of work, IT support at a high school. I was being told that I had to be careful of slacking off around teacher aide staff, whom all may be having their hours slashed (Fortunately, I don’t fall into that category). Though, my boss did make special mention that I might lose a half day of work and that hurts (Considering that I currently only work 12 hours a week – 1.5 days).
As it stands now, I have to sort out three things. I have to sort out my passport, my flight insurance and another flight to take me to Sydney from Brisbane (where I’ll catch the Sydney to LA flight).
Sunday 12 April, 2009
I’ve just finished up learning how to write some code for my next programming assessment piece. It involves converting words from one language to another. Strangely relevant I think, to this idea that I’ll be in a totally new country (if only for a couple of weeks) a few months from now.
I got back today from an STD (Smash Til Dawn), something I haven’t done in a long while. Straight smash all night. After playing with some of the best players in my state in both Melee and Brawl, I feel like I am entirely under-prepared for this skill-wise. I trained mostly Melee though, since it’s not often I get to play with DarkWing SykeDuk and Sirias, both of whom represent a pair of Queensland’s greatest smashers (despite their inactivity).
Syke made a point of drilling into me the fact that I still am not able to read opponents and figure out what they’re doing like I should be. It’s a skill that I can use in Brawl, but because it’s a slower paced game I’m sad to admit. Much of my problem lies in inexperience I think, deciding last night that I’d try to main Sheik along with Falco. More than that, Melee is a faster game that demands greater technical skill, which is something that I need to improve on.
For a while now I’d been thinking Marth. But of the top 4 tiered characters, he’s probably the one I have the least experience using, and least confidence of winning with. Fox is another that I’ve dabbled with, and mained for a short period of time. However this character is another that I feel I don’t have the technical skill to keep up with (for now).
Sheik and Falco require differing balances of Mindgames and Technical Skill to win with, though, neither of these two important attributes are too far removed from my current abilities. Sheik in particular I find I can play with the same level of match reading that I do with Diddy Kong in Brawl. ‘All dis ***** do is grab’ and what not. Falco is Falco for me. I’ve mained him for three years, and after watching so many great players, I feel like I can take him forward with confidence.
The venue at which the STD in question took place is a familiar place to me. DJ. Cat and Dino are perhaps two of the greatest facilitators of smash meets in Queensland’s smash history. I cannot give enough accolades to DJ, in his generosity and kindness and love for old school N64 gaming. Over the years he’s been here, he’s played host to many Out-of-State smashers, driving them to and from airports, providing a bed to sleep in and a ferry for food runs.
More than that, he regularly hosts smashfests, and what a venue! His is a two-storey rental home on an acre of land (large enough for more than a few games of cricket), and TV’s! He has at least five working TV’s that we can use as setups and at tournaments.
I can honestly say without him, QLD smash would be nowhere near as fun and as plausible as it is.
I’ve still yet to make a move on sorting out my Passport and Travel Insurance. Those are things I’ll be able to look at tomorrow since I don’t have work.
Monday 13 April, 2009
At the moment I’m downloading footage to go towards the Diddy Compilation video I’ve been working on for far too long. A combination of Work, Uni and other lame johns has drawn it on for so long that I’m very sorry for all those that have been waiting for it.
Earlier today I made a start on my Passport application. A bit simpler than I thought it would be, although I still have to sort out a couple of photos and a guarantor to boot. That guarantor will probably be my boss, or a former teacher of mine who works from my office (I work at the school I graduated from).
(Off-topic: Speaking of which, this reminds me that I need to interview my boss for a Uni assignment.)
I got up at about 10am today, Easter Monday is an amazing thing. I watched the Qatar 250cc Motorcycle championship race then ate some breakfast. Reading the morning paper, I came across a story about another Australian Tourism advertising bungle. “Where the bloody hell are ya?”. This time it was a picture of a family attempting to put up a beach umbrella not unlike the famous photo of American Soldiers working together to raise an American flag. An advertisement that trivialises the sacrifices made by both American and Japanese military men and women and ironically is pitched at both of these markets.
As a smasher, I not only value the competitive history behind smash, but as a veteran of Smashboards, I want to educate players that have come in the post-melee era. As I’ve iterated over and over already, this is a large reason why I want to go to Genesis. To see and honour my childhood heroes. To see the person whom I reference whilst shouting “G-REG TECH CHASE YEAHUZ”, or “Bob Moneeeeeeeeey” or “PC Chris mindgames son”.
The Trip Begins
Day 1
July 2nd, 2009
The first day of the trip began with me waking up to a home cooked breakfast and watching an episode of Pokemon on children’s TV (Buizel vs. Floatzel was pretty intense). My dad was quite supportive, wanting to help me whichever way possible in the morning so that at least getting me between home and the train station could be a smooth as possible.
The train ride itself is one I’d grown accustomed to after many days spent riding it to Uni and back, but it’s always relaxing to watch the green flora roll by. It was odd actually, since I was always used to watching other people with their luggage on the train, but now I was the one in their shoes, travelling to the domestic airport.
Good weather on my side, I got the domestic airport, the last stop on the line without a fuss in about 80 minutes and checked in for my flight to Sydney. Well, at least I tried to check in, they said I was too early to do so. That was annoying since I was really hungry at the time, and food inside the entrance area of the terminal was extremely over-priced.
Once I finally made it inside the main terminal, past the metal detectors and what not I eventually chose to eat at Hungry Jacks, an Australian (exclusive?) burger restaurant like most others. I had plenty of time to burn, so I went shopping for sunglasses, inspecting the stock of almost every store before deciding on the pair I walked around Genesis wearing.
After all that I still had 80 minutes to fill before my plane. So I sat in front of one of the windows looking out to the air field, next to some guy swearing his head off into his phone. I watched a QANTAS plane take off from close up (reasonably close anyway). An amazing sight to behold.
Sydney is only about a 1 hour flight from Brisbane. From Sydney I’d be flying Delta to Los Angeles, but not til the next day. For the moment, I was to stay with well known Australian Marth main, Shaya, for the night before heading out in the morning. After much mis-direction from the cab driver and paying twice what I should have, I made it to Shaya’s apartment, and together we waited on the others to arrive.
In all 6 of us met up at Shaya’s, the other Aussies making their way to America via different planes to our main Delta flight. Myself, Shaya, tcranter (another prominent Aussie who mains Pokémon trainer and is a PT BRoomer), tedeth (Wolf/Wario main), Luke_Atyeo (Snake Main) and CAOTIC (Famed Peach player and original member of the Koopa Troop).
We filled the night with Duelist Pro Shenanigans (If you don’t know what it is, I suggest you find out for it is epic), and mostly Brawl related fun times. Even though I suggested that we don’t sleep, I was the only one to do so, and I woke to photos of a banana being dangled across my face the next morning.
Day 2 – The Longest Day of my Life
July 3rd, 2009
Well all I could say about our flight to America is that it was incredibly draining for some reason. It just sucked up all of my energy, and I started catching the flu from it. At the very least, trans-continental flights come with plenty to keep one amused in the form of like, 100 different movies to watch.
This flight was a special one because it was to be the very first Sydney to LA flight by Delta. There was a welcoming party at our Gate in Sydney and a press conference of sorts as well. More than your simple plane boarding procedure to say the least.
Arriving at LAX, we all took our sweet time getting through customs and eventually met up with the two other Aussies from my state, Bo0ker and his girlfriend, Alison. So soon after all of us re-uniting in America, we were destined to part ways, Shaya, Atyeo, tcranter and Tedeth getting picked up by Bardull and being taken to his place for some smash. Cao, Billy (Bo0ker), Alison and I were off to navigate the public transport system of LA to get to the Millenium Biltmore Hotel.
This may be something of a tangent, but, I really think tipping is dumb, as is tax not being included in the marked price for something. Australia pays its workers well (we must have a better minimum wage) and all taxes are included in the displayed price. So I was a little annoyed when the flyaway bus driver that took us to the Metro station in LA asked us all for a tip because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have asked any of the other people on the bus. I was pretty **** sure it was only because we were the last ones to come to him, and that he managed to get us in a conversation and found out where we were from that he managed to work a few bucks out of each of us.
Anyway, after a subway ride and a short trek through the streets around Pershing Square, we checked ourselves into our Biltmore hotel room, a queen size bed and four of us staying in it. Seeing as Billy and Allison were sharing the bed, it left Cao and I to form makeshift ones from the various pieces around the room. That would be an exercise to come later, though, since the very first thing we were to do today was head to AnimeExpo, a giant anime convention in LA. We met up with a Smashboards member named ‘UnknownForce’ better known to us as Kyle and his friends and together we headed down the streets to the expo.
AX (AnimeExpo) absolutely dwarfs the biggest anime conventions in Australia. It was just amazing to see all the cosplayers, and shop around the enormous selection of stalls. Before any of that however, we checked out the console gaming room, and I checked out what would be my first taste of American Brawl.
They had a couple of Setups running 4-way friendlies (without items) on FD with the losers cycling out. It was obvious that a few of them did know what they were doing, whilst the rest were very scrubby. I jumped in with Diddy Kong, and stayed in for about 3 rounds which I was pretty happy about. For the last few matches I was in, two of them would be scrubs that by the time they were knocked out, the other decent player and I would still have 3 stock left on mid to high percent, at which point an actual match would start. There were a couple of really good players, and really young players that looked like they would make a mockery of the average smasher back at home.
Princess Aura was there too, playing friendlies with her Game & Watch. It was cool seeing her in the flesh after seeing her in Rofa’s preview trailer for ‘Smashed Together’. Eventually, I got locked in a match with Kyle’s Metaknight which I just couldn’t beat. I could see it too, the way he guarded the ledge, finding the right spacing and charging smashes ahead of time. Many of the little things about the way he played that I just wasn’t used to after a year’s worth of playing this game in my country. Cao time and again pointed out the fact that even though Kyle doesn’t even really play Brawl, American’s just seem to have this higher understanding of what it really means to read and to space that I now am just beginning to understand myself.
After some smash we hit the stalls and I started my Brawl plushie collection, that is, I bought a Metaknight, Kirby and Sonic which are now sitting in my room at home. The Metaknight one is particularly amazing. There were many more that I could have bought, however, I decided that I didn’t want to spend heaps of money in one go.
After some time spent looking at the considerable amount of merchandise and managing to resist it all, we headed back to Kyle’s place to have a few games of Melee before heading back to our Hotel to figure out what was happening with dinner that night. Caotic played phone tag while the rest of us got cleaned up, and he was happy to announce that we would be having a Korean BBQ dinner with the King of Smash “sephirothken” and Arash. I didn’t show it, but I was pretty excited. The prospect of sharing a dinner table with Ken Hoang and Arash was something I considered something of an honour. The reason why I didn’t show it when we did meet up with them was because at the very least I wanted to respect the fact that these guys had now moved on from the smash scene well and truly. I was still a fanboy, I still felt like a 15 year old kid watching Ken play against Bomb-Soldier at JGT2. There’s so much I wanted to rave on about to him about his glory days, but I realised that it was probably something he got more than he cared for.
So we (or the other members of the table) talked about survivor instead, and what he’d been up to. Not to mention we were eating Korean BBQ food, which is an amazing way to eat, and that you should all try if you haven’t. I sat next to Arash, who pretty much fed me the whole night. I’m a pretty skinny guy, I only weigh about 53kg (120 pounds), so I got full pretty quickly. We’d eaten at a burrito place before the dinner as well, so I was already half full. But then Ken comes out and says “I ate a whole Pizza before we got here”, and I just couldn’t fathom where he managed to put it all since he’s a pretty lean guy as well.
Half-way through the dinner, Shaya, tcranter, Tedeth and Atyeo showed up to join us. Now, I think a few of you guys know this already, but Caotic made a bet with Ken that if Cao could beat Ken’s crew in Brawl by himself, he and his crew would go to Genesis. Shaya urged Cao to ask about it by subtly reminding Cao, something to do with Frozen Yoghurt or something, I can’t remember, but Ken said they couldn’t do the bet because one of his crew members was out of town.
After dinner, we all stopped by an Asian grocer because I think Cao wanted to pick something up. One of the funniest things we saw on the trip was a sign above a vat of some form of food that read “Marinated ****, $3.99/Pound”. We all laughed so hard when we saw it, and we all took photos to remember it by. Marinated ****, dear lord.
That day was quite literally the longest of my life, due to me passing through time zones. I landed in LAX 3 hours before leaving Australia, and that was after a 15 hour flight.
Day 3 – Independence Day
July 4th, 2009
Today the plan was to head to Venice Beach. We met up with a group of French Melee players at Union station. Qlex, Shloaka, Porc and Doraki (who is a member of the SBR). With Kyle in tow as well, Cao, Billy, Alison and I headed off with the French to Venice Beach.
One thing I don’t think I could ever get used to in America are the amount of people who work the streets, aggressively looking for donations. A group trying to promote a rapper’s album were supposedly handing out free copies. As soon as you took the CD, they’d place headphones on you and get you talking and ask for a donation at the end.
Thankfully I avoided it once I realised what was going on, but they managed to catch a few of our members in their web on the street. Venice Beach was crowded, people everywhere walking about and down past the shop fronts (every second of which seemed to be a ‘Medicinal Marijuana’ outlet) and I suppose just trying to enjoy Independence Day.
Bardull, along with Shaya, Atyeo, Tedeth and Tcranter (the four of whom I’ll now refer to as the NSW’ers, since they hail from New South Wales) met up with us at the beach, and we all mucked around either in the water or, if you were like me and not feeling 100%, laid in the sun and soaked it up instead. I didn’t wear any sunscreen, and yet I was one of the only ones not to get sunburnt and start peeling everywhere. I’m half-filipino, natural tan ftw.
We checked out the body building competition that was running as well, we even saw a guy that looked almost exactly like ‘The King’ from DBR, (or maybe it was him?
) I’d never really seen a body builder myself, so it was pretty confronting to see all of these body builders together.
At the beach we talked about smash and other random stuff, and there was talk about a weekly happening in Chula-Vista that I wanted to head to as well. Though at that point it didn’t sound like I’d be able to make it, especially since I didn’t feel much like travelling there on the train by myself (since at that point I assumed that Bardull and the NSW’ers would be leaving straight away. More on that later)
We split up from Bardull and the NSW’ers again, they heading off to Bardull’s again I assume, whilst the rest of us started walking towards Santa Monica. For pretty much the whole walk there, I talked to Qlex about different anime and what not, which was really cool. Qlex is a **** good Ganondorf main as well.
We spent the afternoon buying hats and eating at a bar in Santa Monica, then we split into two groups. The French were to head to Anaheim to stay with c0nn0r, whilst the rest of us were just planning on heading to the hotel again.
A lot stuff happened at the same time though which was pretty funny. Kyle left his place to come take Caotic to the train station since he was supposed to be seeing his family near Anaheim, but at the exact same time, the French arrive at Kyle’s to pick up the luggage they left behind at his house. To top all of that, we found out that the NSW’ers hadn’t left yet either, meaning that I could head to San Diego with them for the weekly tournament.
So after all was said and done, the French, Caotic, the NSW’ers and I all ended up on the train. It was scary how close we came to missing it because of everything. We bought our tickets with only a few minutes to spare, and when we got to the train platform Qlex and Shloaka realised that they had left their bags back at the ticket window. Speaking of which, the tickets were ridiculous, sporting a price of US$46 one way to San Diego just because of Independence Day.
Caotic and the French got off at Anaheim and the rest of us rode all the way to San Diego. The ticket conductor found a waist travellers bag full of Euros that likely belonged to them. They had to hold onto the money. Actually, I’m kinda interested into whether they got that money back or not. It was about 700 Euros which is a lot to say the least.
We got to the station in San Diego and met with Havok, one of the best players in the region as well as Hall, a Snake main. The two of them each took a mixture of us and we headed towards Chula Vista. We stopped at a Mexican fast food place that we’d come to be well acquainted with. It was here that I was also able to meet with Marco, who on Smashboards is Cheri-Oates.
He made a point of introducing us all to a favourite dish of theirs, Carne Asada fries. What It’s a dish consisting of Fries, small chunks of meat, cheese and I think Guacamole. What I know for sure is that they’re close to being the best fries I’ve ever had, and are value for money to boot. $5 of fries is more than enough to fill me up and leave room for leftovers.
Day 4 – Chula Vista Weekly
July 5th, 2009
Shaya woke me up in the morning. I swear to you, it is only in America where one can wake up and have somebody say to you that you need to sign up for the Amateur tournament bracket. I can’t remember if I won any matches in the Amateur tournament, though I do remember losing to Chili’s MK and then to a Kirby player in losers. I didn’t feel too bad though, since these two players met each other in the finals.
In low tier I lost even harder. I have this thing for Power Suit Samus. Everybody seems to like her better without her armour on, so I felt sorry for the big girl and took her up as a low tier main along with Sonic who doesn’t count for a low tier anymore sadly. First round I faced Edrees’ Yoshi, which is a beast, and that is coming from a smasher who’s home state in Australia has one of the highest rates of Yoshi mains in the world. Samus didn’t do too well, so I switch to Mario and did a bit better, but still lost out in the end. Same went down in losers where I faced a proper Samus and lost as well.
In doubles I teamed with a Snake main who’s name eludes me, but we didn’t do very well as a team in Brawl. We teamed for Melee and the matches were a bit closer, but still ended up in us losing and getting knocked out pretty quickly.
A couple of notable players, DSF and Tyrant were at the tournament as well, thanks to a little monetary persuasion (the details of which I’ll leave to the reader’s imagination, something to do with raising the entry fee a dollar or two on Oats’ part). Shaya did pretty well against Tyrant’s Falco, managing to beat it in a set of three (as a friendly) thanks to some outside interference from the sun or something (johns lol).
Later that night, Oats felt like taking us on a joyride of sorts in his car dubbed ‘The little Cheri’ which mostly just involved him getting something to eat and drink. At the 7/11 we stopped at Oats introduced us to this thing American’s have which we don’t. A ridiculously large drink called the ‘Big Gulp’ or ‘Double Gulp’, I forget, but for $1.79 American we could get a ridiculously large soda drink. The amazing thing we found about America is how ridiculously cheap fast food and drinks are compared to Australia. I mean really, we hype up how great a place Australia can be to live in, but in actuality it’s a horribly expensive country. Our large sized meals are about as big as America’s medium, and yet more expensive, so I’m left feeling as though I’m getting the short end of the stick here. Anyway, the NSW’ers couldn’t contain their disbelief at the value of the drink, wasting no time in getting ones for them as well.
Day 5 – I like Trains
July 6th, 2009
Oats, the angelic, generous and unshaven being that he is took it upon himself to not only drive me all the way to the union station in San Diego, but also take the others on a little tour of the area as well. He merely explained to us that for us to travel all this way to America, he would feel bad if we didn’t get to see everything the place had to offer. Dropping me off at the station was the primary priority, so before I got to see much I was dropped off at the station.
Blaming mostly time and train johns though, I didn’t get back to LA until about 2pm. That day Billy, Alison and I were meant to go to Disneyland, but being late as I was, it was pretty much pointless for us to go that day. Instead we used today to have a swim in the Biltmore Hotel Pool and shop for Anime/Manga in the Little Tokyo district. I managed to pick up a copy of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s art book ‘Der Mond’, which I was happy about, being the Evangelion fanboy that I am.
Day 6 – I hope you have a magical day
July 7th, 2009
Disneyland is something amazing to say the least. If there was anywhere we knew we had to go in America it was Disneyland, just to be able to say ‘I’ve been to Disneyland’. In all honesty, we probably didn’t get the full experience of the place. We really needed to spend more than just one day there to get the full experience of both Disneyland and California Adventure. We spent more time just seeing everything, and looking in the souvenir shops everywhere. I added a Jedi Mickey Mouse plushie to my collection.
The two rides we went on were the Pirates of the Carribean ride and a rollercoaster at the California adventure park, both of which were a lot of fun. Sadly, those two were the only ones we had time for, especially if we planned to be back in San Diego at a reasonable hour. We took a taxi back to the train depot where we met up with Caotic, who came back from meeting with his family. Together we waited ages for the next train, passing the time by observing a cleaner who got angry at every person who walked past wherever she was mopping, and a ticket scalper who was loitering around the depot.
We finished the night getting picked up from the train station by Havok again. Havok is an amazing guy. Great at smash, and was so willing to house all of us, provided that we could find room to sleep on. I know that I’ll end up doing the same thing as soon as I have a place of my own to live in, but for now I smash on the generosity of the members of my community as well.
Day 7 – HRC is not ‘Home Run Contest’ you guys
July 8th, 2009
For some reason I slept for a really long time that day. I didn’t wake up until about 12:30 in the afternoon, sleeping through people playing smash all around me. The news was that Caotic wasn’t able to secure a pit for a bonfire. Apparently you have to be at the pit you want at about 7am and guard it for the whole day if you want it for a night time bonfire. Caotic ended up heading out with Oats to pay for the Genesis Bus from San Diego.
I got up and mostly spent the day playing smash, and when Oats and the others got back, Billy, Alison and I joined Oats for a small tour of San Diego and headed to his house whilst he got stuff ready for the trip tomorrow.
After heading back to Havok’s, we all decided that from there we’d go to a Hard Rock Cafe for Dinner, meeting up with c0nn0r and the French as well. A large group of us now headed into the city in a few cars and sat down at a table for 18 people or so. Billy and I ordered the Ribs and they were amazing. Huge things they were, I’d never been served a larger piece of meat in my life.
After having a good time there, we all headed back to Chula Vista, stopping at that Mexican fast food place again, where Oats introduced Billy, Alison and the French guys to Carne Asada Fries. Doraki, thought Oats to be an evil villain for forgetting to tell their driver to tell them to order burritos instead of those fries.
Day 8 – Fancied a bit of the old in and out
July 9th, 2009
A massive crowd began to grow at Havok’s house, all of the smashers signed up for the Genesis Bus were meeting to get on said bus to head to Genesis together. A couple of soap bars in hand, Rickety and Shaya got to work drawing stuff on the bus windows when it arrived.
Window 1: “San Diego Love <3”
Window 2: “Ban Me! (And a picture of Metaknight)
Window 3: “Australia + Vive la France!”
Window 4: “You’ll get no sympathy from me!” (And a picture of Ike’s head)
Unfortunately Shaya’s masterpiece that was the 4th window had to be washed off, the driver fearing that some people may be offended by it on the highway for some reason or another.
The bus ride was a long one. Especially because of the detour we made to pick up HugS. We watched Pirate of the Caribbean, the mushroom episode and the lobster episode of Cowboy Bebop, a Clockwork Orange and Dawn of the Dead. It was a pretty fun experience all around, stopping every few hours for a rest and to grab a bite to eat.
When we eventually arrived at the Ramada, there were already people playing Melee doubles in the main sitting room of the Hotel, Caotic and I trying a Peach + Sheik team against a double Peach team which didn’t do too badly (we didn’t lose as hard as some others). After a bit of Dinner at the ‘In and Out’ fast food place, we headed to our room and rested up for the big day tomorrow.
Day 9 – Genesis of Genesis
July 10th, 2009
And so it begins. The Genesis of Genesis as it were. I got up out of bed, showered and came out sporting a Captain Falcon shirt that reads “Show me your moves”, as well as a Smash symbol button, and an Australian flag worn as a cape.
After grabbing at some bagels, donuts and a waffle from the hotel provided breakfast, we all loaded up into the bus for the short, 2 minute drive to the venue. After getting out of the bus, we were met with an enormous line of people waiting to get in. Whilst in the line I managed to get a hold of Paff, an Oregon based smasher who’s experience with Brawl started in Australia as he was studying on exchange with us.
Since going back to America though, he’s since converted to Melee, maining Peach. Our plan was to team for Melee doubles, me running a Sheik. I also had to sort out Brawl doubles, since I didn’t really have a partner for that either. I was meant to team with Australian smasher e_alert, whom we met up with along the way to Genesis. He didn’t arrive in America with the rest of us, choosing a later date to come to America, and leaving after us as well. However, I wasn’t able to find him anywhere in the line. I ended up teaming with Billy instead.
After paying the venue fee for all four events (US$90 total), I went straight into playing as many friendlies as I could. The first rule of smash tournaments is to play as many friendlies as the TO’s will let you get away with, and so I got to play a lot of different, random people. The best player I went up against during the whole time I was in America was ADHD, and man, for a young fella he sure knows how to play this game. Of course, playing against ADHD was like an ultimate test of my skill as a Diddy main, as we played out a Ditto on one of the starters (I can’t remember which), and he proceeded to 3 stock me, mid percent. Then we had a lol match, him picking Kirby and spending a whole stock trying to swallow me for the popgun. Still, it was awesome to play against who is arguably the best Diddy Kong main at the moment and so now I know that there is an incredible amount of mental skill for me to develop between now and the next time I play him (however long that may be).
Day 1 of Genesis was to be the day doubles would be played out for both games, and I can honestly say my performance was abysmal. Billy and I didn’t manage to take a single match from a single set we played in our pool, whilst Melee was a little better, Paff and I managing to win one match from one of the sets we played by going double Peach on Poke floats.
Crews began on this day as well, SamuraiPanda deciding I should be the team captain for the Australia + Mexico (Or I should say + Automatic from Mexico) crew. We lost by 15 stock, but, I took solace in the fact that Europe + Canada did much worse than us. My performance in crews was terrible, I don’t remember taking a stock of CO18’s Dedede, though that didn’t surprise me (CO18 is a top Dedede and I’m not good against Dedede johns). Tonberry from Europe headed the International Melee crew, with us playing against Canada I think. I managed to take one stock from SuPeRbOoM, his last stock (him taking 3 from me in the process), and then got ***** by a DK.
Armada came in as our last player, and managed to take out 3 players by himself (Kage being one of them I think), and almost a 4th. That was when I began to realise just how ridiculously good Armada was. I was sitting next to a Peach main, both of us hyped as school children at how ridiculous his Peach seemed to be. We both agreed that Armada would easily get fifth in the Melee Singles bracket, though at that point I didn’t entirely believe it myself.
The rest of the day I spent walking around talking to people and getting in as many friendlies as I could. I managed to catch up with Nanerz and GameDragonX, amongst the other Diddy mains that were there. I also caught up with Hylian (who is Billy’s idol) and I had Tyrant following me around (as he did each day) asking “Is this THE Vyse? THE Vyse from the Back Room?” which was pretty funny. Ajax’s girlfriend also took a photo of me in my getup, which I want to find if I can.
Seeing how well Armada did, who I didn’t even know was coming, made me feel a little better about my abysmal performance today, but then something else cheered me up even more. After leaving the venue via the bus and heading back to the Hotel, I dropped my stuff back at the hotel room and headed off to eat at the In and Out again. As we walked past the front window, there was Mew2King, waving his arms like a bird flapping outstretched wings, smiling and waving at everyone walking towards the store. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen, and it seemed to nullify then losses I’d endured today. Just imagine M2K waving his arms with a grin plastered across his face, I shall never forget it.
Day 10 – I broke the rules of Marco Polo
July 11th, 2009
I got up this morning and barely had any time for Breakfast. I quickly guzzled down some Orange Juice, and scarfed down a waffle on my way to the bus. When I got to the venue, I met up with Hive, a well known Samus main, and a **** good one too. We found a TV and played out a friendly on FD. Her Samus was pretty amazing. Missiles and Z-air’s everywhere locked me down to the ground and for a while I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. I’m not sure how I came to figure it out, but I realised that the problem I was having was that I was playing too defensively. Going on the offense was a good choice it seemed as I was able to keep up with her better. In the end, I think a good Samus will win out if you play too defensively, but when she’s the one trying to deal with you at close range, her options become a bit more limited. It was close, but I managed to win at the end.
Midway through the day was the East Coast Vs. West Coast crew battle, which had everyone watching, and in fact had people DQ’d because they were watching it instead of doing their Melee pools matches. It was a pretty amazing crew battle, a highlight for me being Mew2King’s win over Mango, with Mew2King only having 3 stock, only because I wanted to see Mew2King do well at this tournament (since he seems to cop a lot of flak from a lot of people). The crew battle came right down to the wire, and was entertaining as hell, but I won’t spoil it for you.
I spent as much of the day as I could playing friendlies between tournament matches, I was in pool 33 for Brawl and 40 for Melee, meaning I had to wait until somewhere in the region of 5pm for my pools to begin (both of which started at the same time, causing some problems). I was originally meant to be in a pool of 6 for Brawl with Shaya from Australia, but SamuraiPanda caught it when Shaya started asking about how many people go through from each pool. I got swapped into a pool of 7 including Champ, a renowned Fox main and SK92, one of the best Falco’s in America.
AlphaZealot, Smashboards Super Moderator, and top American Diddy managed to catch up with me before my pools matches. He saw my performance against CO18 and his advice was that I just need to learn how to play faster. Watching him and QTP play Diddy, I knew that myself, Shaya often told me I was too defensive as well, but hearing AZ say that to me seems to have made me realise what direction I need to focus my game with Diddy (more than before anyway).
In my Brawl pool I had SK92 first, who for some reason decided to play Lucas against me in our first match. Even though it was just his Lucas, the match was pretty close. On his last stock, I search for the last hit til he was well over 200%, the guy just wouldn’t let me get that last hit, but at least I can say sandbagging or not, I beat SK92 in a tournament match. He proceeded to switch to Falco and 3-stock me.
The rest of my pools matches went well though, I managed to beat a ROB player, a Fox, a Bowser and an MK. The last opponent I had, Champ, managed to outplay me with Fox. I was pretty happy with my performance, but I was even happier that my pool was so easy. Unlike Tedeth, who had a pool full of Snakes and MK’s the poor *******. My performance meant that I got 3rd in my pool, meaning I got to advance to the bracket, which I was ecstatic about.
Melee was an embarrassing affair, I don’t think I won a single match in my pool (although many of the matches were pretty close). I had Caotic in my pool for some reason which kinda sucked, and I also had Lucky which was both good and bad, but it’s all good experience.
Day 2 they started selling the coveted Genesis shirts. I snapped up a white one straight away, and the lot of us started getting shirts signed by all the famous smash players that we could. I also had my hat that simply reads ‘Fox’ across the side signed by Zelgadis, which is now one of my prized possessions.
Once my pools were done with it was just about time to leave. I hung around, talking to Automatic about the Pikachu’s that were meant to come, and other players that were meant to come to come (KawaiiBunny!), and SamuraiPanda announced that NinjaLink might be coming on the 3rd day (which didn’t happen sadly).
Day 11 – Get Gimped
July 12th, 2009
Because I was in the singles bracket for Brawl, I had to get up earlier than the others planned to so I could compete (which in actuality just meant I couldn’t sleep in). After riding the bus to the venue, I found Hylian and we played a couple of friendlies on the tiniest TV at the venue (which had no sound, which helped me against his IC’s). I almost beat his IC’s with Diddy, getting him down to one stock, but his chain grabs were too good.
When the bracket was called, my first opponent was to be UTD Zac. He’s a pretty cool guy, before our match he was giving Shaya tips on how to beat Game & Watch with Marth. I found it really difficult to keep up with his Game & Watch. His skill as a player was just greater than mine and he beat me 2-0. It’s that feeling you get playing some players where you feel as though you’re being read like a book, and no matter how many times you think you’ve begun to turn the tables, he just gets you again.
My loser’s bracket match was against a player named Hitori who used ROB against me and beat my Diddy. I counter picked FD, and he counter picked Diddy to ditto mine, which seemed like an ironic way to get knocked out of the bracket, but that’s how it happened. My Johns are mostly that I managed to die at low percent on one of my stocks in each match, and that I was playing catch up the whole time. I think I could have won, but that’s just the way it goes.
Caotic did pretty well in Melee Singles, placing 49th with his Peach, though he thinks he could have done better. Shaya did a bit better than me in the Brawl singles Bracket, placing equal 65th. I spent as much time as I could getting in friendlies, and stopping to watch Melee matches being played out on the projector. I pretty much only watched the projector whenever Armada was playing thinking to myself the entire time ‘This guy is gonna win Genesis’.
I watched him beat somebody (mighta been Zhu), and rushed to the nearest European (Shloaka) and said to him ‘Man, Armada’s guaranteed top 8’, and all he said to me was ‘That’s not enough for him’. Then he played against Mew2King and they played out an extremely close set. Amazingly though, Armada managed to beat his Marth with Peach. I cannot remember the last time M2K has dropped a tournament match to a Peach, and yet here comes Armada after his recent success in Europe, come to America and give them a real run for their money.
A controversy flared up about his win over Mew2King because apparently they were meant to play a set of 5 matches instead of 3. Although Mew2King wasn’t bothered by it, the East Coast players started complaining. Armada firmly held his ground though, as did Tonberry, both of whom said that the website read otherwise and that they too felt it was strange that it would not be a best of 5 match.
It came down to a TO decision and the win was given to Armada without needing to play extra matches, but Armada still felt pretty rattled by it all. Understandably, he was upset by the ordeal of having to argue his side, and be unfocussed by it all. Most of all, I think something like that would make the win feel invalidated. I looked around for Armada after talking to a few of the other Europeans and I said to him that he shouldn’t be too worried by it all. I said to him that they shaked on it after the match and that was that, nothing can invalidate the match they had. That this kind of stuff up is the kind of thing that happens all the time at tournaments and that this time it just happened to be him. I’m not sure how good my pep talk was, but I hoped that it removed some of the doubt that might have been forming and he gave me his thanks before I left him to it.
He went on in winners finals to play against Mango, and sent Mango’s Falco to losers. It was both absurd and incredible that he was able to do that to America’s best player, but here it was happening, the best America had to offer were falling one by one. His playstyle simple and consistent, and his gimps! They were nothing short of amazing.
I talked to Automatic for a bit, and we decided to walk into town to pick up some stuff. He wanted to get his Pikachu hat and a shirt to get signed at Genesis (he bought the black Genesis shirt, so that couldn’t be signed). I wanted to get another marker to get more signatures as well, so we walked there and back together. When we walked into the 7/11 and asked if there were any markers, the attendant asked us why so many people wanted them (because there were none left), and after she said why she found one in her stash of pens and gave it to us for free.
By that time we were beginning to get worried we wouldn’t get back in time. That’s how much we wanted to watch Armada, since we knew that his finals set with Mango was something that would go down as a historic event.
Walking back to the venue, Lain passed us by, “I got 9th!” he exclaimed, arms stretched out. Goes to show how tough the competition was. This was the guy that took a set off Mew2King and got 3rd at Apex, and yet this time he was just edged out of the money.
Fortunately for us, there was still ample time before Armada’s final match. I spent some time getting signatures from players like DaShizWiz and Mango, and even gave my autograph out to a few people wanting me to sign their shirts as well.
When Grand finals for Melee began, I managed to steal a seat in the crowd next to Paff and the match was already living up to the hype we had all placed on it. Everyone in the venue was crowded around, watching the match play out on the projector, chanting, and cheering. Mango lost the first match with Falco, which is when he switched back to Jigglypuff. When he did that, I first began to doubt Armada’s chance at winning. From talking to the other Europeans before, I knew that one of Armada’s worst matchups is Jigglypuff. Little by little, Mango seemed to figure out Armada throughout the set as he stayed Jigglypuff. In the last match of the first set, Mango dash danced about and hit a rest as Armada rolled past him, taking the game and the set when he did. At that point I didn’t feel like Armada was going to take the finals. I felt as though if Armada was going to win Genesis, it would be then and there and he came oh so close to it as well, but Mango pulled it out in the end.
They played out the second set, Armada falling back to Fox in the last match, but it didn’t seem like anything was going to stop Mango from winning the finals. The crowd erupted, Mango throwing money everywhere, and being carried around by everyone. The scene was ridiculous, but it was amazing to be a part of.
Lots of funny stuff happened afterwards. Somebody on the mic bought to light an old bet Milktea made with Mango that she’d kiss him on the lips if he won Genesis, which instantly drew the entire venue to those two. I didn’t really see what happened, but everyone boo’ed at whatever transpired.
Germ announced an impromptu contest to name the order of smashers as they appeared in DBR’s combo video ‘Evolution’. I was so sure that I knew it. I did know it, or I thought I did, but I messed up the order at the start. The order is Bob Money, Clod Zero, Mike Nasty, Hella , The King, DieSuperFly, The Germ and finally Zelgadis for future reference and I shall now receive one hundred lashings for forgetting.
Also DaShizWiz and a few other guys formed a dance circle in the middle of the venue, and with a few tunes played over the sound system they pulled off a few routines for us. Paff wanted me to jump in with some Melbourne Shuffle, but alas, I left my cohognes back in Australia.
Brawl, marred by its naturally longer set lengths and having to wait til after Melee was finished of course did not end on time at the venue. No amount of planning on DBR’s part could have prevented that from happening without sacrificing Melee’s presence just to cater for its naturally longer matches. The Grand Finals for it were to be finished at the Ramada, M2K playing against Ally for first. It was played out in a Hotel room with DBR, the finalists and Shaya present (Shaya volunteering to record the matches for them).
While they waited for this to happen, Mew2King slept, curled up on a small couch in the lobby. He would go on to drop the finals set to Ally, but you had to hand it to the guy. At the end of it all, he was the most successful player at Genesis, walking away with more money than any of the others.
Things wound down, and everyone eventually got to sleep. There were a lot of stories about certain shenanigans going on in and about the venue, people scaring other people whose doors were left open, and hiding from people in other people’s rooms.
Genesis, for what it was worth (US$90), was an amazing experience. For years and years I’d always wanted to go to a large, American smash tournament with the best in attendance. I was one of those guys in some corner of the globe with a few good mates that I played smash with. Meeting on weekends and talking up the latest happenings, playing Melee (or Brawl now) well into the wee hours of the morning. It is a romantic thing, to think of all of these players around the world, not knowing each other, and yet understanding each other at the same time.
Smashers are an amazing demographic of people. We are people of different race, ethinicity, nationality, gender, heights, weights, different social class, with different responsibilities and are all people who perhaps in any other situation wouldn’t have anything to do with each other. Yet, we can care so much for our own kind for our mutual love for this series of fighting games regardless of all that.
We play a series of games that glues its community together, running on the power of grassroots tournament organisers, and dedicated gamers that in their free time work towards researching the games and exploring new avenues all the time. I love this community, more than anything community or group I have ever been a part of. On my birthday this year, I spent it not with my family, but with a bunch of smashers in a hotel in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. When I blew out the candles on my cake I said to everyone in my room “Instead, I’m spending my birthday with you guys, my second family”.
I felt bouncy and energetic back at the hotel room, as though I didn’t want to let go of the day. By closing my eyes I was, ironically, seeing the dream I had envisioned so many months ago finally come to an end.
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- The Rest of the Trip
The return trip was fun as well. We watched Cowboy Bebop’s last episodes as well as V for Vendetta. Havok also told us an amazing story involving a top smasher that happened not too long ago, but since I’m sworn to secrecy, I’ll let the reference refresh the minds of those in on the joke.
After a heartfelt goodbye to Oats, Havok, Hall, Automatic, the French and the other Aussies, Billy, Alison, Caotic, e_alert and I got off at LA, making our way to Hollywood. e_alert left us to travel and stay with one of his US friends whilst the rest of us did lots of the touristy stuff there in Hollywood the next day, and after meeting up with Caotic’s friend Ben, we went to the ‘Medieval Times’ dinner show.
Billy stayed up til the next morning to catch the last State of Origin match (Australian Rugby), and we did Universal Studios as well as the Warner Bros. VIP tour. We also watched the new Harry Potter movie.
The last day I would spend in America would be in Las Vegas. My advice to anyone travelling here is that unless it’s for EVO, don’t bother til you’re 21 years old. Seriously, I travelled on the Greyhound all the way just to look at buildings. That being said, it was quite the sight, and quite a way to cap off such a great trip.
The next day I travelled to the Vegas airport and amazingly I ran into e_alert on his way to EVO. We caught up for a few minutes, then he was off to his Hotel. I ended up getting to LAX from Vegas far before I needed to be there and I considered going to a Mall. Then somehow this guy managed to push two books about self enlightenment into my hands and take $10 from me as I walked around wondering what to do. At least the guy told me that I should check out Fox Hill Mall if I wanted to look around a mall.
The first Taxi driver told me the fare would be $35, trying to convince me that a taxi would be more expensive. After shrugging him off, the next driver told me the fare would be half that. Feeling frustrated by the money hungry people in this country and not really wanting another excuse to spend money anyway, I politely declined and decided to check into the airport for my flight back home.
The flight home wasn’t draining at all this time. In fact I quite enjoyed it. I sat on an aisle seat which was particularly convenient and there was nobody sitting between me and the lady on the window seat. I could stretch out and watch some pretty funny movies. 17 Again, Scandal Makers (a Korean movie I think) and I also watched Push which has yet to come out in Australia.
I was very happy to be back at home, when I finally made it to Brisbane’s airport, knowing home was just an hour and a half’s train ride away. It was good to hear Australian accents as well. One thing I couldn’t handle was the American accent, because many times I couldn’t figure out if some people I talked to were being sarcastic, funny or angry. Everything was familiar and it was comforting because even after just two weeks I was beginning to feel homesick from it all.
The ‘genesis’ as it were of the term ‘San Diego Love’ as I understand it comes from how happy and nice the San Diego smash scene was back in the day (and very much is now) compared to the rest of America which bickered amongst itself quite a lot. It’s a thought I hope I can and have been proliferating amongst my own smash scene. Perhaps some of its members will read this and think twice about trolling my state’s threads.
All I want is a little San Diego Love back here.
And Money. **** man, I’m poor now : /
Shout Outs:
Oats:
Marco, man, you are really something. The way you’ve taken the smash scene into your own hands, drive it with your tournaments, and nurture it with your hospitality. Thanks to you I had a really great time and I want you to know that we appreciate everything you did for us while we were there.
(That ***** be bogan)
Havok:
Carlos, thank you sooooooo much for hosting all of us. I can’t believe how awesome your family is for putting up with all the smashers that came through and stayed there for that period of time we were there. I swear to you that I’ll do very much the same thing as soon as I’m living on my own. It was great playing smash with you, your Marth is solid. Keep working at it and you’ll take top of the power rankings in no time ; )
Hall:
I didn’t get to talk to you much man, but I don’t think these shoutouts would’ve been complete without one to you. Thanks for coming out to pick us up that first night. Your Snake is awesome, so keep at it! Also, the Ness + Lucas money match challenge is awesome, I must do it here some time.
UnknownForce:
Kyle, it was good to meet you. We’re all really thankful to everyone who helped cart us around and you’re no exception. I’d like to play more smash with you one day since you’re pretty **** good at both games. Be sure to come back to Australia and come to Queensland this time.
Ben:
What a champ. He’s not even a smasher (I think, I dunno), but he still hung around with us and got us about the place, trying to study at the same time.
AlphaZealot:
It was good to meet you in the flesh finally. Your Diddy was sweet to watch, but it’s too bad we didn’t record any dittos lol. Thanks for giving me that advice, I’ll be sure to work on speeding up my game.
ADHD:
Good games (lol). Your Diddy is amazing, and will grow to even greater heights once you get some more experience behind you. We all seem to remember you last year as some kid posting new threads every day about every little thing that troubled you, and now you’re the best **** Diddy in America. Well done at Genesis man.
Xelic:
Super *****!
Our money match was pretty lol.
At least I can say that in America I had a genuine money match.
Hylian:
Man it was cool talking to you and playing against you. I’m just sad Hanson couldn’t make it. It would have been party time all day. Your Ice Climbers are really something else, the chain grabs always look so amazing to me. Keep at it man, you’ve got a lot of fanboys in Australia (as you found out)
SamuraiPanda:
It was cool meeting you too, thanks for swapping me out of my Brawl pool. It turned out to work really well for me. Lol.
Tyrant:
Man you’re one funny kid you know.
Pro Metaknight as well.
For sure.
Well done beating Dojo too. I saw that last match, and it was pretty **** close.
Hive:
I wanted to play you more so you could teach me to play Samus better. Actually, I shoulda chased up Hylian, I completely forgot that he mains Samus too. Lol. I didn’t see you on day 3, so I’m guessing you didn’t make it out of pools which is a shame. Well it was good to meet you anyhow.
Caotic:
Davey, thanks so much for putting up with us all so much. I know it must’ve felt like you were babysitting everyone between the Aussies and the French. It was good fun hanging out with you when you weren’t off doing your own thing though.
Billy & Alison:
Thanks for such a great time. It was cool hanging out with you both for two weeks. I’m glad I did, since I doubt I would’ve gotten to see all the cool things I did without travelling around with you guys.
Tcranter:
Toby, man you’ve got a great sense of humour. You’re a really funny guy. It was always fun talking to you, and dude, your Pokemon Trainer is amazing. It’s simply tier defying in how good it is. You’ll own up all the tournaments in NSW now.
Tedeth:
Ted it was good to meet you. Hanging out with you and the others was just too funny. Great job with Wolf and Wario, I could see the visible improvement myself, so I hope that you do well back here in Australia.
Atyeo:
Luke, good to see you again. Don’t listen to Ted ever again and wait for the sunblock to dry. But seriously dude, I can’t wait for the next time to catch up with you again at another tournament. Your Snake is definitely a contender for best in Australia. Atilla has got a very difficult match ahead of him when you two face off.
e_alert:
Sorry I didn’t team with you dude. We woulda ***** hard as a Kirby/Diddy Team. You’ve got a good IC’s though, so keep battling away. IC’s strength lies in your own technical mastery, so practice and keep practicing!
~automatic:
Mario, I really enjoyed talking to you man. Walking all the way to target and the hotel and back to the venue, it was really fun talking to you about the Mexican smash scene, and about the different Pikachu mains and that kind of thing. I hope to see you again in the future : 3
Qlex:
It was really good to meet you and talk like we did. Just talking about anime and manga and what not, it was really enjoyable. Also your Ganondorf is epic. The technical skill you exhibit using him is just amazing to watch. Keep it up man, and I’ll see you again some day
Shloaka, Porc and Doraki:
It was cool hanging out with you guys as well. France’s Melee skill is really great, and should you guys come to our country some time, I think we’d have ourselves an awesome crew battle.
Armada:
Armada, man, if you ever read this you should know that you’re seriously my hero. Rep that PAL Peach son. Watching your Peach was simply amazing. The combo’s, and the gimps especially. I’ve never seen a Peach gimp like you do. It was cool talking to you, and I’m happy that you got as far as you did.
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In general I want to say thank you to America and DBR especially for hosting this tournament. DBR, you guys have been my heroes since before I was even a member of Smashboards. Back in the day, watching Shined Blind, Hylian Nightmare, Overdose and all the others. They did exactly what they were designed to do, that is, get me into competitive smash, and so I thank you for it.
Mew2King, I didn’t get to in person, but I wanted to give you my congratulations on your efforts, and winning as much as you did. Even though you only hold the winner’s trophy to one of the tournaments at Genesis, it is ironic to note that you are indeed the smash who was most successful at least monetary wise. Don’t let the haters get to you man. (Also sorry about the Aussies joking about so much).
Alot of players surprised me as well. Mango, at first my impression was that you were very cocky, and my impression was right I think, but you were also a really cool, friendly guy from what I saw. Congrats on getting 1st. Congrats should go to Zhu, Shiz, Scar and all the other top placers as well.
Also bad luck Lain, better luck next time
That’s it from me I think. 12,000 words later I think I’ve said all that I wanted to say.
My time in America has made me seriously consider studying on exchange there.
If any of you guys reading this feel like talking to me, my aim is anthonyxvyse
My MSN is there too, under my avatar.
Congratulations to anyone who actually read all of this, I hope I haven’t wasted your time
- Anthony
EDIT:
Also sorry to all those who's messages and posts I have failed to respond to since coming back. This blog didn't write itself. Thanks for the shoutout in the results thread Heartz, and yes Ladybug, my teeth are fine now.
Foreword:
If you don't feel like reading a whole 12,000 words, skip down to Day 8 of the trip (just ctrl + F find Day 8)
Genesis, Money and San Diego Love
By Vyse
Quite a long time ago Sakurai envisioned a video game that would see the bringing together of Nintendo’s most iconic characters and produced a fighting game unlike any we’d seen before. It is very much like Genesis in that is and was a tournament engineered by the smash crew DBR (Death by ****) to bring together some of the most iconic players in Smash history.
It is a game that people across the globe play and practice to compete in tournaments. In every continent (bar Antarctica), there are smashers of diverse cultural background, that speak in different tongues, but they can all identify and find a common ground in Smash which is amazing to me.
This ‘blog’ of sorts will serve as a construction, perversion and romanticisation of my adventure in America, at Genesis and everything else in between. I’m writing this for those smashers world-wide that didn’t get to go. I’m writing this for those smashers that meet up for smash practice every weekend (or at some diligent frequency), aspiring to become as good at the game as they can, even if they have nobody worth talking about to bench mark themselves against in their area. I’m writing this because the Smash community has long been the envy of other gaming communities and because I want you all to know why.
Pre-Trip
Wednesday 8 April, 2009
We have a lot to thank Gideon for. Truly. I’m sad that I was never around in his time. But looking back, it must have been fun to be an administrator for a forum like this, and to be so involved with the community as well. Of course the community was small back then. They even had a celebration when they reached 1000 users. To be in a small, tight nit community is something I’m used to. It makes every player matter that much more. Other players are not merely a thing to surpass and stand on top of. They are what keep the scene alive. An average sized tournament in Australia is a tournament between 20 and 30 people, not like America.
Although America was not always like that either. There was a time too when one player facing another player after meeting on Smashboards was a big thing. The first tournament ever was a huge undertaking, despite being only a few people strong.
Times change, I suppose. People begun to realise there was a lot more to this little game called Super Smash Bros. Melee than what first meets the eye. Who would’ve thought a game like that would spawn a legacy so great?
Brawl came along and well, you can see the damage that has been done. Though personally, I don’t believe there is such a big problem that it can’t operate as a competitive fighting game (as much as we have to thank Plairnk for exactly the opposite – though it is not so much his fault [he is merely the technique’s namesake] that it is the Brawl project staff in charge of determining the power and inherent ‘cheapness’ of characters, their possible strategies and physics exploits). No, the biggest problem is that the game is simply not well received by the previous competitive community of Melee. Fortunately (And unlike the train wreck that is Soul Calibur 3) Brawl has a large, dedicated following.
I’m on the train as I type this. I’ve got an hour’s worth of nothing to fill. Nothing barring the moving picture of rural Australian bush land rushing by window. A majestic green of plants and scrub and trees. I can’t see any animals, though considering that I’m on a noisy train it doesn’t surprise me. The view is only interrupted by the odd farm of horses and cattle, and pockets of civilisation clustered around main roads in the distance.
Of course, this will only last as long it takes to leave the Gold Coast and head into Brisbane, but this is all besides the point. I’m writing because I want to chronicle my journey all the way to Genesis, and to do such a thing I have to begin with where I start. Gold Coast, Australia.
The Gold Coast is a great tourist spot. Theme Parks, natural tourist attractions, city life. It’s hard for me to really pick out what makes the Gold Coast so appealing because I’ve lived here for so long. It’s actually quite a pain to live here, and commute to Brisbane 4 times a week just for Uni.
After all was said and done. After the long and tiresome hassle of convincing my parents to let me go to Genesis, it was about time I began to prepare. The biggest issue as of last weekend was getting plane tickets. Flying isn’t cheap, as most of you already understand. Fortunately for me I have a great friend in a smasher named called Cao (Goes by usernames ranging from CAOTIC to Caotique, or at least the latter is his current username on smashboards.com). Cao is a regular jetsetter, travelling to locations all around the world every year. Amazingly, this year he plans on travelling with his good friend Ken Hoang (More commonly referred to as sephirothken ‘The King of Smash’ on smashboards.com).
Naturally, an individual like Mr Cao would have a good eye for cheap flight deals and accommodation. He is literally top tier when it comes to this kind of thing, being a smasher who’s experience lies between America and Australia (With expeditions to locations like Japan) helps as well.
Delta Airlines have recently muscled into the Australian Airline industry, offering direct flights between Sydney and Los Angeles for $1100AU. Considering that my date of arrival is to be the day before July 4th, it is a very reasonable fare,
Booking the flight was interesting. I got caught up in attempting to secure travel insurance, thinking I had to book my flights through the same people. Fortunately Cao set me straight and instead I booked my flight directly with Delta (As I type this I’ve begun to wonder whether it is truly $1100 AU, but after checking my bank account afterwards I’m almost definitely sure that was the case).
At the final step of my booking, I decided to open up a chat window with a Delta Representative. This was an odd experience, as one would be forgiven for thinking they were speaking (relatively speaking) with an imperfect AI, than a human being.
He tried to tell me that I couldn’t book travel insurance with another company and had to book it with Delta. It sounds like crap to me, so I just finished up with my booking and recorded all my details.
Last Friday I walked into the local post office and picked up a few forms.
1. Passport Application (Adult): For me, as my passport is well out of date
2. Passport Application (Child): For one of my younger brothers, whose passport is also out of date
3. Enrol to Vote form: I’d forgotten to enrol to vote when I was old enough to be eligible. I didn’t realise til the latest state election came up, and it was far too late for me to enrol.
Finally, on Saturday (While I was at an anime convention) I received a call from flight centre about an enquiry I’d made about a Delta flight (Which I no longer needed to follow up), however, I did ask them about flight insurance, and the staff member whom I spoke to (his name eludes me right now) offered me a 20% discount if I did it through him, rather than going to a more local flight centre.
Discounts, Money. Today I received a talk from my boss at my place of work, IT support at a high school. I was being told that I had to be careful of slacking off around teacher aide staff, whom all may be having their hours slashed (Fortunately, I don’t fall into that category). Though, my boss did make special mention that I might lose a half day of work and that hurts (Considering that I currently only work 12 hours a week – 1.5 days).
As it stands now, I have to sort out three things. I have to sort out my passport, my flight insurance and another flight to take me to Sydney from Brisbane (where I’ll catch the Sydney to LA flight).
Sunday 12 April, 2009
I’ve just finished up learning how to write some code for my next programming assessment piece. It involves converting words from one language to another. Strangely relevant I think, to this idea that I’ll be in a totally new country (if only for a couple of weeks) a few months from now.
I got back today from an STD (Smash Til Dawn), something I haven’t done in a long while. Straight smash all night. After playing with some of the best players in my state in both Melee and Brawl, I feel like I am entirely under-prepared for this skill-wise. I trained mostly Melee though, since it’s not often I get to play with DarkWing SykeDuk and Sirias, both of whom represent a pair of Queensland’s greatest smashers (despite their inactivity).
Syke made a point of drilling into me the fact that I still am not able to read opponents and figure out what they’re doing like I should be. It’s a skill that I can use in Brawl, but because it’s a slower paced game I’m sad to admit. Much of my problem lies in inexperience I think, deciding last night that I’d try to main Sheik along with Falco. More than that, Melee is a faster game that demands greater technical skill, which is something that I need to improve on.
For a while now I’d been thinking Marth. But of the top 4 tiered characters, he’s probably the one I have the least experience using, and least confidence of winning with. Fox is another that I’ve dabbled with, and mained for a short period of time. However this character is another that I feel I don’t have the technical skill to keep up with (for now).
Sheik and Falco require differing balances of Mindgames and Technical Skill to win with, though, neither of these two important attributes are too far removed from my current abilities. Sheik in particular I find I can play with the same level of match reading that I do with Diddy Kong in Brawl. ‘All dis ***** do is grab’ and what not. Falco is Falco for me. I’ve mained him for three years, and after watching so many great players, I feel like I can take him forward with confidence.
The venue at which the STD in question took place is a familiar place to me. DJ. Cat and Dino are perhaps two of the greatest facilitators of smash meets in Queensland’s smash history. I cannot give enough accolades to DJ, in his generosity and kindness and love for old school N64 gaming. Over the years he’s been here, he’s played host to many Out-of-State smashers, driving them to and from airports, providing a bed to sleep in and a ferry for food runs.
More than that, he regularly hosts smashfests, and what a venue! His is a two-storey rental home on an acre of land (large enough for more than a few games of cricket), and TV’s! He has at least five working TV’s that we can use as setups and at tournaments.
I can honestly say without him, QLD smash would be nowhere near as fun and as plausible as it is.
I’ve still yet to make a move on sorting out my Passport and Travel Insurance. Those are things I’ll be able to look at tomorrow since I don’t have work.
Monday 13 April, 2009
At the moment I’m downloading footage to go towards the Diddy Compilation video I’ve been working on for far too long. A combination of Work, Uni and other lame johns has drawn it on for so long that I’m very sorry for all those that have been waiting for it.
Earlier today I made a start on my Passport application. A bit simpler than I thought it would be, although I still have to sort out a couple of photos and a guarantor to boot. That guarantor will probably be my boss, or a former teacher of mine who works from my office (I work at the school I graduated from).
(Off-topic: Speaking of which, this reminds me that I need to interview my boss for a Uni assignment.)
I got up at about 10am today, Easter Monday is an amazing thing. I watched the Qatar 250cc Motorcycle championship race then ate some breakfast. Reading the morning paper, I came across a story about another Australian Tourism advertising bungle. “Where the bloody hell are ya?”. This time it was a picture of a family attempting to put up a beach umbrella not unlike the famous photo of American Soldiers working together to raise an American flag. An advertisement that trivialises the sacrifices made by both American and Japanese military men and women and ironically is pitched at both of these markets.
As a smasher, I not only value the competitive history behind smash, but as a veteran of Smashboards, I want to educate players that have come in the post-melee era. As I’ve iterated over and over already, this is a large reason why I want to go to Genesis. To see and honour my childhood heroes. To see the person whom I reference whilst shouting “G-REG TECH CHASE YEAHUZ”, or “Bob Moneeeeeeeeey” or “PC Chris mindgames son”.
The Trip Begins
Day 1
July 2nd, 2009
The first day of the trip began with me waking up to a home cooked breakfast and watching an episode of Pokemon on children’s TV (Buizel vs. Floatzel was pretty intense). My dad was quite supportive, wanting to help me whichever way possible in the morning so that at least getting me between home and the train station could be a smooth as possible.
The train ride itself is one I’d grown accustomed to after many days spent riding it to Uni and back, but it’s always relaxing to watch the green flora roll by. It was odd actually, since I was always used to watching other people with their luggage on the train, but now I was the one in their shoes, travelling to the domestic airport.
Good weather on my side, I got the domestic airport, the last stop on the line without a fuss in about 80 minutes and checked in for my flight to Sydney. Well, at least I tried to check in, they said I was too early to do so. That was annoying since I was really hungry at the time, and food inside the entrance area of the terminal was extremely over-priced.
Once I finally made it inside the main terminal, past the metal detectors and what not I eventually chose to eat at Hungry Jacks, an Australian (exclusive?) burger restaurant like most others. I had plenty of time to burn, so I went shopping for sunglasses, inspecting the stock of almost every store before deciding on the pair I walked around Genesis wearing.
After all that I still had 80 minutes to fill before my plane. So I sat in front of one of the windows looking out to the air field, next to some guy swearing his head off into his phone. I watched a QANTAS plane take off from close up (reasonably close anyway). An amazing sight to behold.
Sydney is only about a 1 hour flight from Brisbane. From Sydney I’d be flying Delta to Los Angeles, but not til the next day. For the moment, I was to stay with well known Australian Marth main, Shaya, for the night before heading out in the morning. After much mis-direction from the cab driver and paying twice what I should have, I made it to Shaya’s apartment, and together we waited on the others to arrive.
In all 6 of us met up at Shaya’s, the other Aussies making their way to America via different planes to our main Delta flight. Myself, Shaya, tcranter (another prominent Aussie who mains Pokémon trainer and is a PT BRoomer), tedeth (Wolf/Wario main), Luke_Atyeo (Snake Main) and CAOTIC (Famed Peach player and original member of the Koopa Troop).
We filled the night with Duelist Pro Shenanigans (If you don’t know what it is, I suggest you find out for it is epic), and mostly Brawl related fun times. Even though I suggested that we don’t sleep, I was the only one to do so, and I woke to photos of a banana being dangled across my face the next morning.
Day 2 – The Longest Day of my Life
July 3rd, 2009
Well all I could say about our flight to America is that it was incredibly draining for some reason. It just sucked up all of my energy, and I started catching the flu from it. At the very least, trans-continental flights come with plenty to keep one amused in the form of like, 100 different movies to watch.
This flight was a special one because it was to be the very first Sydney to LA flight by Delta. There was a welcoming party at our Gate in Sydney and a press conference of sorts as well. More than your simple plane boarding procedure to say the least.
Arriving at LAX, we all took our sweet time getting through customs and eventually met up with the two other Aussies from my state, Bo0ker and his girlfriend, Alison. So soon after all of us re-uniting in America, we were destined to part ways, Shaya, Atyeo, tcranter and Tedeth getting picked up by Bardull and being taken to his place for some smash. Cao, Billy (Bo0ker), Alison and I were off to navigate the public transport system of LA to get to the Millenium Biltmore Hotel.
This may be something of a tangent, but, I really think tipping is dumb, as is tax not being included in the marked price for something. Australia pays its workers well (we must have a better minimum wage) and all taxes are included in the displayed price. So I was a little annoyed when the flyaway bus driver that took us to the Metro station in LA asked us all for a tip because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have asked any of the other people on the bus. I was pretty **** sure it was only because we were the last ones to come to him, and that he managed to get us in a conversation and found out where we were from that he managed to work a few bucks out of each of us.
Anyway, after a subway ride and a short trek through the streets around Pershing Square, we checked ourselves into our Biltmore hotel room, a queen size bed and four of us staying in it. Seeing as Billy and Allison were sharing the bed, it left Cao and I to form makeshift ones from the various pieces around the room. That would be an exercise to come later, though, since the very first thing we were to do today was head to AnimeExpo, a giant anime convention in LA. We met up with a Smashboards member named ‘UnknownForce’ better known to us as Kyle and his friends and together we headed down the streets to the expo.
AX (AnimeExpo) absolutely dwarfs the biggest anime conventions in Australia. It was just amazing to see all the cosplayers, and shop around the enormous selection of stalls. Before any of that however, we checked out the console gaming room, and I checked out what would be my first taste of American Brawl.
They had a couple of Setups running 4-way friendlies (without items) on FD with the losers cycling out. It was obvious that a few of them did know what they were doing, whilst the rest were very scrubby. I jumped in with Diddy Kong, and stayed in for about 3 rounds which I was pretty happy about. For the last few matches I was in, two of them would be scrubs that by the time they were knocked out, the other decent player and I would still have 3 stock left on mid to high percent, at which point an actual match would start. There were a couple of really good players, and really young players that looked like they would make a mockery of the average smasher back at home.
Princess Aura was there too, playing friendlies with her Game & Watch. It was cool seeing her in the flesh after seeing her in Rofa’s preview trailer for ‘Smashed Together’. Eventually, I got locked in a match with Kyle’s Metaknight which I just couldn’t beat. I could see it too, the way he guarded the ledge, finding the right spacing and charging smashes ahead of time. Many of the little things about the way he played that I just wasn’t used to after a year’s worth of playing this game in my country. Cao time and again pointed out the fact that even though Kyle doesn’t even really play Brawl, American’s just seem to have this higher understanding of what it really means to read and to space that I now am just beginning to understand myself.
After some smash we hit the stalls and I started my Brawl plushie collection, that is, I bought a Metaknight, Kirby and Sonic which are now sitting in my room at home. The Metaknight one is particularly amazing. There were many more that I could have bought, however, I decided that I didn’t want to spend heaps of money in one go.
After some time spent looking at the considerable amount of merchandise and managing to resist it all, we headed back to Kyle’s place to have a few games of Melee before heading back to our Hotel to figure out what was happening with dinner that night. Caotic played phone tag while the rest of us got cleaned up, and he was happy to announce that we would be having a Korean BBQ dinner with the King of Smash “sephirothken” and Arash. I didn’t show it, but I was pretty excited. The prospect of sharing a dinner table with Ken Hoang and Arash was something I considered something of an honour. The reason why I didn’t show it when we did meet up with them was because at the very least I wanted to respect the fact that these guys had now moved on from the smash scene well and truly. I was still a fanboy, I still felt like a 15 year old kid watching Ken play against Bomb-Soldier at JGT2. There’s so much I wanted to rave on about to him about his glory days, but I realised that it was probably something he got more than he cared for.
So we (or the other members of the table) talked about survivor instead, and what he’d been up to. Not to mention we were eating Korean BBQ food, which is an amazing way to eat, and that you should all try if you haven’t. I sat next to Arash, who pretty much fed me the whole night. I’m a pretty skinny guy, I only weigh about 53kg (120 pounds), so I got full pretty quickly. We’d eaten at a burrito place before the dinner as well, so I was already half full. But then Ken comes out and says “I ate a whole Pizza before we got here”, and I just couldn’t fathom where he managed to put it all since he’s a pretty lean guy as well.
Half-way through the dinner, Shaya, tcranter, Tedeth and Atyeo showed up to join us. Now, I think a few of you guys know this already, but Caotic made a bet with Ken that if Cao could beat Ken’s crew in Brawl by himself, he and his crew would go to Genesis. Shaya urged Cao to ask about it by subtly reminding Cao, something to do with Frozen Yoghurt or something, I can’t remember, but Ken said they couldn’t do the bet because one of his crew members was out of town.
After dinner, we all stopped by an Asian grocer because I think Cao wanted to pick something up. One of the funniest things we saw on the trip was a sign above a vat of some form of food that read “Marinated ****, $3.99/Pound”. We all laughed so hard when we saw it, and we all took photos to remember it by. Marinated ****, dear lord.
That day was quite literally the longest of my life, due to me passing through time zones. I landed in LAX 3 hours before leaving Australia, and that was after a 15 hour flight.
Day 3 – Independence Day
July 4th, 2009
Today the plan was to head to Venice Beach. We met up with a group of French Melee players at Union station. Qlex, Shloaka, Porc and Doraki (who is a member of the SBR). With Kyle in tow as well, Cao, Billy, Alison and I headed off with the French to Venice Beach.
One thing I don’t think I could ever get used to in America are the amount of people who work the streets, aggressively looking for donations. A group trying to promote a rapper’s album were supposedly handing out free copies. As soon as you took the CD, they’d place headphones on you and get you talking and ask for a donation at the end.
Thankfully I avoided it once I realised what was going on, but they managed to catch a few of our members in their web on the street. Venice Beach was crowded, people everywhere walking about and down past the shop fronts (every second of which seemed to be a ‘Medicinal Marijuana’ outlet) and I suppose just trying to enjoy Independence Day.
Bardull, along with Shaya, Atyeo, Tedeth and Tcranter (the four of whom I’ll now refer to as the NSW’ers, since they hail from New South Wales) met up with us at the beach, and we all mucked around either in the water or, if you were like me and not feeling 100%, laid in the sun and soaked it up instead. I didn’t wear any sunscreen, and yet I was one of the only ones not to get sunburnt and start peeling everywhere. I’m half-filipino, natural tan ftw.
We checked out the body building competition that was running as well, we even saw a guy that looked almost exactly like ‘The King’ from DBR, (or maybe it was him?
) I’d never really seen a body builder myself, so it was pretty confronting to see all of these body builders together.At the beach we talked about smash and other random stuff, and there was talk about a weekly happening in Chula-Vista that I wanted to head to as well. Though at that point it didn’t sound like I’d be able to make it, especially since I didn’t feel much like travelling there on the train by myself (since at that point I assumed that Bardull and the NSW’ers would be leaving straight away. More on that later)
We split up from Bardull and the NSW’ers again, they heading off to Bardull’s again I assume, whilst the rest of us started walking towards Santa Monica. For pretty much the whole walk there, I talked to Qlex about different anime and what not, which was really cool. Qlex is a **** good Ganondorf main as well.
We spent the afternoon buying hats and eating at a bar in Santa Monica, then we split into two groups. The French were to head to Anaheim to stay with c0nn0r, whilst the rest of us were just planning on heading to the hotel again.
A lot stuff happened at the same time though which was pretty funny. Kyle left his place to come take Caotic to the train station since he was supposed to be seeing his family near Anaheim, but at the exact same time, the French arrive at Kyle’s to pick up the luggage they left behind at his house. To top all of that, we found out that the NSW’ers hadn’t left yet either, meaning that I could head to San Diego with them for the weekly tournament.
So after all was said and done, the French, Caotic, the NSW’ers and I all ended up on the train. It was scary how close we came to missing it because of everything. We bought our tickets with only a few minutes to spare, and when we got to the train platform Qlex and Shloaka realised that they had left their bags back at the ticket window. Speaking of which, the tickets were ridiculous, sporting a price of US$46 one way to San Diego just because of Independence Day.
Caotic and the French got off at Anaheim and the rest of us rode all the way to San Diego. The ticket conductor found a waist travellers bag full of Euros that likely belonged to them. They had to hold onto the money. Actually, I’m kinda interested into whether they got that money back or not. It was about 700 Euros which is a lot to say the least.
We got to the station in San Diego and met with Havok, one of the best players in the region as well as Hall, a Snake main. The two of them each took a mixture of us and we headed towards Chula Vista. We stopped at a Mexican fast food place that we’d come to be well acquainted with. It was here that I was also able to meet with Marco, who on Smashboards is Cheri-Oates.
He made a point of introducing us all to a favourite dish of theirs, Carne Asada fries. What It’s a dish consisting of Fries, small chunks of meat, cheese and I think Guacamole. What I know for sure is that they’re close to being the best fries I’ve ever had, and are value for money to boot. $5 of fries is more than enough to fill me up and leave room for leftovers.
Day 4 – Chula Vista Weekly
July 5th, 2009
Shaya woke me up in the morning. I swear to you, it is only in America where one can wake up and have somebody say to you that you need to sign up for the Amateur tournament bracket. I can’t remember if I won any matches in the Amateur tournament, though I do remember losing to Chili’s MK and then to a Kirby player in losers. I didn’t feel too bad though, since these two players met each other in the finals.
In low tier I lost even harder. I have this thing for Power Suit Samus. Everybody seems to like her better without her armour on, so I felt sorry for the big girl and took her up as a low tier main along with Sonic who doesn’t count for a low tier anymore sadly. First round I faced Edrees’ Yoshi, which is a beast, and that is coming from a smasher who’s home state in Australia has one of the highest rates of Yoshi mains in the world. Samus didn’t do too well, so I switch to Mario and did a bit better, but still lost out in the end. Same went down in losers where I faced a proper Samus and lost as well.
In doubles I teamed with a Snake main who’s name eludes me, but we didn’t do very well as a team in Brawl. We teamed for Melee and the matches were a bit closer, but still ended up in us losing and getting knocked out pretty quickly.
A couple of notable players, DSF and Tyrant were at the tournament as well, thanks to a little monetary persuasion (the details of which I’ll leave to the reader’s imagination, something to do with raising the entry fee a dollar or two on Oats’ part). Shaya did pretty well against Tyrant’s Falco, managing to beat it in a set of three (as a friendly) thanks to some outside interference from the sun or something (johns lol).
Later that night, Oats felt like taking us on a joyride of sorts in his car dubbed ‘The little Cheri’ which mostly just involved him getting something to eat and drink. At the 7/11 we stopped at Oats introduced us to this thing American’s have which we don’t. A ridiculously large drink called the ‘Big Gulp’ or ‘Double Gulp’, I forget, but for $1.79 American we could get a ridiculously large soda drink. The amazing thing we found about America is how ridiculously cheap fast food and drinks are compared to Australia. I mean really, we hype up how great a place Australia can be to live in, but in actuality it’s a horribly expensive country. Our large sized meals are about as big as America’s medium, and yet more expensive, so I’m left feeling as though I’m getting the short end of the stick here. Anyway, the NSW’ers couldn’t contain their disbelief at the value of the drink, wasting no time in getting ones for them as well.
Day 5 – I like Trains
July 6th, 2009
Oats, the angelic, generous and unshaven being that he is took it upon himself to not only drive me all the way to the union station in San Diego, but also take the others on a little tour of the area as well. He merely explained to us that for us to travel all this way to America, he would feel bad if we didn’t get to see everything the place had to offer. Dropping me off at the station was the primary priority, so before I got to see much I was dropped off at the station.
Blaming mostly time and train johns though, I didn’t get back to LA until about 2pm. That day Billy, Alison and I were meant to go to Disneyland, but being late as I was, it was pretty much pointless for us to go that day. Instead we used today to have a swim in the Biltmore Hotel Pool and shop for Anime/Manga in the Little Tokyo district. I managed to pick up a copy of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s art book ‘Der Mond’, which I was happy about, being the Evangelion fanboy that I am.
Day 6 – I hope you have a magical day
July 7th, 2009
Disneyland is something amazing to say the least. If there was anywhere we knew we had to go in America it was Disneyland, just to be able to say ‘I’ve been to Disneyland’. In all honesty, we probably didn’t get the full experience of the place. We really needed to spend more than just one day there to get the full experience of both Disneyland and California Adventure. We spent more time just seeing everything, and looking in the souvenir shops everywhere. I added a Jedi Mickey Mouse plushie to my collection.
The two rides we went on were the Pirates of the Carribean ride and a rollercoaster at the California adventure park, both of which were a lot of fun. Sadly, those two were the only ones we had time for, especially if we planned to be back in San Diego at a reasonable hour. We took a taxi back to the train depot where we met up with Caotic, who came back from meeting with his family. Together we waited ages for the next train, passing the time by observing a cleaner who got angry at every person who walked past wherever she was mopping, and a ticket scalper who was loitering around the depot.
We finished the night getting picked up from the train station by Havok again. Havok is an amazing guy. Great at smash, and was so willing to house all of us, provided that we could find room to sleep on. I know that I’ll end up doing the same thing as soon as I have a place of my own to live in, but for now I smash on the generosity of the members of my community as well.
Day 7 – HRC is not ‘Home Run Contest’ you guys
July 8th, 2009
For some reason I slept for a really long time that day. I didn’t wake up until about 12:30 in the afternoon, sleeping through people playing smash all around me. The news was that Caotic wasn’t able to secure a pit for a bonfire. Apparently you have to be at the pit you want at about 7am and guard it for the whole day if you want it for a night time bonfire. Caotic ended up heading out with Oats to pay for the Genesis Bus from San Diego.
I got up and mostly spent the day playing smash, and when Oats and the others got back, Billy, Alison and I joined Oats for a small tour of San Diego and headed to his house whilst he got stuff ready for the trip tomorrow.
After heading back to Havok’s, we all decided that from there we’d go to a Hard Rock Cafe for Dinner, meeting up with c0nn0r and the French as well. A large group of us now headed into the city in a few cars and sat down at a table for 18 people or so. Billy and I ordered the Ribs and they were amazing. Huge things they were, I’d never been served a larger piece of meat in my life.
After having a good time there, we all headed back to Chula Vista, stopping at that Mexican fast food place again, where Oats introduced Billy, Alison and the French guys to Carne Asada Fries. Doraki, thought Oats to be an evil villain for forgetting to tell their driver to tell them to order burritos instead of those fries.
Day 8 – Fancied a bit of the old in and out
July 9th, 2009
A massive crowd began to grow at Havok’s house, all of the smashers signed up for the Genesis Bus were meeting to get on said bus to head to Genesis together. A couple of soap bars in hand, Rickety and Shaya got to work drawing stuff on the bus windows when it arrived.
Window 1: “San Diego Love <3”
Window 2: “Ban Me! (And a picture of Metaknight)
Window 3: “Australia + Vive la France!”
Window 4: “You’ll get no sympathy from me!” (And a picture of Ike’s head)
Unfortunately Shaya’s masterpiece that was the 4th window had to be washed off, the driver fearing that some people may be offended by it on the highway for some reason or another.
The bus ride was a long one. Especially because of the detour we made to pick up HugS. We watched Pirate of the Caribbean, the mushroom episode and the lobster episode of Cowboy Bebop, a Clockwork Orange and Dawn of the Dead. It was a pretty fun experience all around, stopping every few hours for a rest and to grab a bite to eat.
When we eventually arrived at the Ramada, there were already people playing Melee doubles in the main sitting room of the Hotel, Caotic and I trying a Peach + Sheik team against a double Peach team which didn’t do too badly (we didn’t lose as hard as some others). After a bit of Dinner at the ‘In and Out’ fast food place, we headed to our room and rested up for the big day tomorrow.
Day 9 – Genesis of Genesis
July 10th, 2009
And so it begins. The Genesis of Genesis as it were. I got up out of bed, showered and came out sporting a Captain Falcon shirt that reads “Show me your moves”, as well as a Smash symbol button, and an Australian flag worn as a cape.
After grabbing at some bagels, donuts and a waffle from the hotel provided breakfast, we all loaded up into the bus for the short, 2 minute drive to the venue. After getting out of the bus, we were met with an enormous line of people waiting to get in. Whilst in the line I managed to get a hold of Paff, an Oregon based smasher who’s experience with Brawl started in Australia as he was studying on exchange with us.
Since going back to America though, he’s since converted to Melee, maining Peach. Our plan was to team for Melee doubles, me running a Sheik. I also had to sort out Brawl doubles, since I didn’t really have a partner for that either. I was meant to team with Australian smasher e_alert, whom we met up with along the way to Genesis. He didn’t arrive in America with the rest of us, choosing a later date to come to America, and leaving after us as well. However, I wasn’t able to find him anywhere in the line. I ended up teaming with Billy instead.
After paying the venue fee for all four events (US$90 total), I went straight into playing as many friendlies as I could. The first rule of smash tournaments is to play as many friendlies as the TO’s will let you get away with, and so I got to play a lot of different, random people. The best player I went up against during the whole time I was in America was ADHD, and man, for a young fella he sure knows how to play this game. Of course, playing against ADHD was like an ultimate test of my skill as a Diddy main, as we played out a Ditto on one of the starters (I can’t remember which), and he proceeded to 3 stock me, mid percent. Then we had a lol match, him picking Kirby and spending a whole stock trying to swallow me for the popgun. Still, it was awesome to play against who is arguably the best Diddy Kong main at the moment and so now I know that there is an incredible amount of mental skill for me to develop between now and the next time I play him (however long that may be).
Day 1 of Genesis was to be the day doubles would be played out for both games, and I can honestly say my performance was abysmal. Billy and I didn’t manage to take a single match from a single set we played in our pool, whilst Melee was a little better, Paff and I managing to win one match from one of the sets we played by going double Peach on Poke floats.
Crews began on this day as well, SamuraiPanda deciding I should be the team captain for the Australia + Mexico (Or I should say + Automatic from Mexico) crew. We lost by 15 stock, but, I took solace in the fact that Europe + Canada did much worse than us. My performance in crews was terrible, I don’t remember taking a stock of CO18’s Dedede, though that didn’t surprise me (CO18 is a top Dedede and I’m not good against Dedede johns). Tonberry from Europe headed the International Melee crew, with us playing against Canada I think. I managed to take one stock from SuPeRbOoM, his last stock (him taking 3 from me in the process), and then got ***** by a DK.
Armada came in as our last player, and managed to take out 3 players by himself (Kage being one of them I think), and almost a 4th. That was when I began to realise just how ridiculously good Armada was. I was sitting next to a Peach main, both of us hyped as school children at how ridiculous his Peach seemed to be. We both agreed that Armada would easily get fifth in the Melee Singles bracket, though at that point I didn’t entirely believe it myself.
The rest of the day I spent walking around talking to people and getting in as many friendlies as I could. I managed to catch up with Nanerz and GameDragonX, amongst the other Diddy mains that were there. I also caught up with Hylian (who is Billy’s idol) and I had Tyrant following me around (as he did each day) asking “Is this THE Vyse? THE Vyse from the Back Room?” which was pretty funny. Ajax’s girlfriend also took a photo of me in my getup, which I want to find if I can.
Seeing how well Armada did, who I didn’t even know was coming, made me feel a little better about my abysmal performance today, but then something else cheered me up even more. After leaving the venue via the bus and heading back to the Hotel, I dropped my stuff back at the hotel room and headed off to eat at the In and Out again. As we walked past the front window, there was Mew2King, waving his arms like a bird flapping outstretched wings, smiling and waving at everyone walking towards the store. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen, and it seemed to nullify then losses I’d endured today. Just imagine M2K waving his arms with a grin plastered across his face, I shall never forget it.
Day 10 – I broke the rules of Marco Polo
July 11th, 2009
I got up this morning and barely had any time for Breakfast. I quickly guzzled down some Orange Juice, and scarfed down a waffle on my way to the bus. When I got to the venue, I met up with Hive, a well known Samus main, and a **** good one too. We found a TV and played out a friendly on FD. Her Samus was pretty amazing. Missiles and Z-air’s everywhere locked me down to the ground and for a while I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. I’m not sure how I came to figure it out, but I realised that the problem I was having was that I was playing too defensively. Going on the offense was a good choice it seemed as I was able to keep up with her better. In the end, I think a good Samus will win out if you play too defensively, but when she’s the one trying to deal with you at close range, her options become a bit more limited. It was close, but I managed to win at the end.
Midway through the day was the East Coast Vs. West Coast crew battle, which had everyone watching, and in fact had people DQ’d because they were watching it instead of doing their Melee pools matches. It was a pretty amazing crew battle, a highlight for me being Mew2King’s win over Mango, with Mew2King only having 3 stock, only because I wanted to see Mew2King do well at this tournament (since he seems to cop a lot of flak from a lot of people). The crew battle came right down to the wire, and was entertaining as hell, but I won’t spoil it for you.
I spent as much of the day as I could playing friendlies between tournament matches, I was in pool 33 for Brawl and 40 for Melee, meaning I had to wait until somewhere in the region of 5pm for my pools to begin (both of which started at the same time, causing some problems). I was originally meant to be in a pool of 6 for Brawl with Shaya from Australia, but SamuraiPanda caught it when Shaya started asking about how many people go through from each pool. I got swapped into a pool of 7 including Champ, a renowned Fox main and SK92, one of the best Falco’s in America.
AlphaZealot, Smashboards Super Moderator, and top American Diddy managed to catch up with me before my pools matches. He saw my performance against CO18 and his advice was that I just need to learn how to play faster. Watching him and QTP play Diddy, I knew that myself, Shaya often told me I was too defensive as well, but hearing AZ say that to me seems to have made me realise what direction I need to focus my game with Diddy (more than before anyway).
In my Brawl pool I had SK92 first, who for some reason decided to play Lucas against me in our first match. Even though it was just his Lucas, the match was pretty close. On his last stock, I search for the last hit til he was well over 200%, the guy just wouldn’t let me get that last hit, but at least I can say sandbagging or not, I beat SK92 in a tournament match. He proceeded to switch to Falco and 3-stock me.
The rest of my pools matches went well though, I managed to beat a ROB player, a Fox, a Bowser and an MK. The last opponent I had, Champ, managed to outplay me with Fox. I was pretty happy with my performance, but I was even happier that my pool was so easy. Unlike Tedeth, who had a pool full of Snakes and MK’s the poor *******. My performance meant that I got 3rd in my pool, meaning I got to advance to the bracket, which I was ecstatic about.
Melee was an embarrassing affair, I don’t think I won a single match in my pool (although many of the matches were pretty close). I had Caotic in my pool for some reason which kinda sucked, and I also had Lucky which was both good and bad, but it’s all good experience.
Day 2 they started selling the coveted Genesis shirts. I snapped up a white one straight away, and the lot of us started getting shirts signed by all the famous smash players that we could. I also had my hat that simply reads ‘Fox’ across the side signed by Zelgadis, which is now one of my prized possessions.
Once my pools were done with it was just about time to leave. I hung around, talking to Automatic about the Pikachu’s that were meant to come, and other players that were meant to come to come (KawaiiBunny!), and SamuraiPanda announced that NinjaLink might be coming on the 3rd day (which didn’t happen sadly).
Day 11 – Get Gimped
July 12th, 2009
Because I was in the singles bracket for Brawl, I had to get up earlier than the others planned to so I could compete (which in actuality just meant I couldn’t sleep in). After riding the bus to the venue, I found Hylian and we played a couple of friendlies on the tiniest TV at the venue (which had no sound, which helped me against his IC’s). I almost beat his IC’s with Diddy, getting him down to one stock, but his chain grabs were too good.
When the bracket was called, my first opponent was to be UTD Zac. He’s a pretty cool guy, before our match he was giving Shaya tips on how to beat Game & Watch with Marth. I found it really difficult to keep up with his Game & Watch. His skill as a player was just greater than mine and he beat me 2-0. It’s that feeling you get playing some players where you feel as though you’re being read like a book, and no matter how many times you think you’ve begun to turn the tables, he just gets you again.
My loser’s bracket match was against a player named Hitori who used ROB against me and beat my Diddy. I counter picked FD, and he counter picked Diddy to ditto mine, which seemed like an ironic way to get knocked out of the bracket, but that’s how it happened. My Johns are mostly that I managed to die at low percent on one of my stocks in each match, and that I was playing catch up the whole time. I think I could have won, but that’s just the way it goes.
Caotic did pretty well in Melee Singles, placing 49th with his Peach, though he thinks he could have done better. Shaya did a bit better than me in the Brawl singles Bracket, placing equal 65th. I spent as much time as I could getting in friendlies, and stopping to watch Melee matches being played out on the projector. I pretty much only watched the projector whenever Armada was playing thinking to myself the entire time ‘This guy is gonna win Genesis’.
I watched him beat somebody (mighta been Zhu), and rushed to the nearest European (Shloaka) and said to him ‘Man, Armada’s guaranteed top 8’, and all he said to me was ‘That’s not enough for him’. Then he played against Mew2King and they played out an extremely close set. Amazingly though, Armada managed to beat his Marth with Peach. I cannot remember the last time M2K has dropped a tournament match to a Peach, and yet here comes Armada after his recent success in Europe, come to America and give them a real run for their money.
A controversy flared up about his win over Mew2King because apparently they were meant to play a set of 5 matches instead of 3. Although Mew2King wasn’t bothered by it, the East Coast players started complaining. Armada firmly held his ground though, as did Tonberry, both of whom said that the website read otherwise and that they too felt it was strange that it would not be a best of 5 match.
It came down to a TO decision and the win was given to Armada without needing to play extra matches, but Armada still felt pretty rattled by it all. Understandably, he was upset by the ordeal of having to argue his side, and be unfocussed by it all. Most of all, I think something like that would make the win feel invalidated. I looked around for Armada after talking to a few of the other Europeans and I said to him that he shouldn’t be too worried by it all. I said to him that they shaked on it after the match and that was that, nothing can invalidate the match they had. That this kind of stuff up is the kind of thing that happens all the time at tournaments and that this time it just happened to be him. I’m not sure how good my pep talk was, but I hoped that it removed some of the doubt that might have been forming and he gave me his thanks before I left him to it.
He went on in winners finals to play against Mango, and sent Mango’s Falco to losers. It was both absurd and incredible that he was able to do that to America’s best player, but here it was happening, the best America had to offer were falling one by one. His playstyle simple and consistent, and his gimps! They were nothing short of amazing.
I talked to Automatic for a bit, and we decided to walk into town to pick up some stuff. He wanted to get his Pikachu hat and a shirt to get signed at Genesis (he bought the black Genesis shirt, so that couldn’t be signed). I wanted to get another marker to get more signatures as well, so we walked there and back together. When we walked into the 7/11 and asked if there were any markers, the attendant asked us why so many people wanted them (because there were none left), and after she said why she found one in her stash of pens and gave it to us for free.
By that time we were beginning to get worried we wouldn’t get back in time. That’s how much we wanted to watch Armada, since we knew that his finals set with Mango was something that would go down as a historic event.
Walking back to the venue, Lain passed us by, “I got 9th!” he exclaimed, arms stretched out. Goes to show how tough the competition was. This was the guy that took a set off Mew2King and got 3rd at Apex, and yet this time he was just edged out of the money.
Fortunately for us, there was still ample time before Armada’s final match. I spent some time getting signatures from players like DaShizWiz and Mango, and even gave my autograph out to a few people wanting me to sign their shirts as well.
When Grand finals for Melee began, I managed to steal a seat in the crowd next to Paff and the match was already living up to the hype we had all placed on it. Everyone in the venue was crowded around, watching the match play out on the projector, chanting, and cheering. Mango lost the first match with Falco, which is when he switched back to Jigglypuff. When he did that, I first began to doubt Armada’s chance at winning. From talking to the other Europeans before, I knew that one of Armada’s worst matchups is Jigglypuff. Little by little, Mango seemed to figure out Armada throughout the set as he stayed Jigglypuff. In the last match of the first set, Mango dash danced about and hit a rest as Armada rolled past him, taking the game and the set when he did. At that point I didn’t feel like Armada was going to take the finals. I felt as though if Armada was going to win Genesis, it would be then and there and he came oh so close to it as well, but Mango pulled it out in the end.
They played out the second set, Armada falling back to Fox in the last match, but it didn’t seem like anything was going to stop Mango from winning the finals. The crowd erupted, Mango throwing money everywhere, and being carried around by everyone. The scene was ridiculous, but it was amazing to be a part of.
Lots of funny stuff happened afterwards. Somebody on the mic bought to light an old bet Milktea made with Mango that she’d kiss him on the lips if he won Genesis, which instantly drew the entire venue to those two. I didn’t really see what happened, but everyone boo’ed at whatever transpired.
Germ announced an impromptu contest to name the order of smashers as they appeared in DBR’s combo video ‘Evolution’. I was so sure that I knew it. I did know it, or I thought I did, but I messed up the order at the start. The order is Bob Money, Clod Zero, Mike Nasty, Hella , The King, DieSuperFly, The Germ and finally Zelgadis for future reference and I shall now receive one hundred lashings for forgetting.
Also DaShizWiz and a few other guys formed a dance circle in the middle of the venue, and with a few tunes played over the sound system they pulled off a few routines for us. Paff wanted me to jump in with some Melbourne Shuffle, but alas, I left my cohognes back in Australia.
Brawl, marred by its naturally longer set lengths and having to wait til after Melee was finished of course did not end on time at the venue. No amount of planning on DBR’s part could have prevented that from happening without sacrificing Melee’s presence just to cater for its naturally longer matches. The Grand Finals for it were to be finished at the Ramada, M2K playing against Ally for first. It was played out in a Hotel room with DBR, the finalists and Shaya present (Shaya volunteering to record the matches for them).
While they waited for this to happen, Mew2King slept, curled up on a small couch in the lobby. He would go on to drop the finals set to Ally, but you had to hand it to the guy. At the end of it all, he was the most successful player at Genesis, walking away with more money than any of the others.
Things wound down, and everyone eventually got to sleep. There were a lot of stories about certain shenanigans going on in and about the venue, people scaring other people whose doors were left open, and hiding from people in other people’s rooms.
Genesis, for what it was worth (US$90), was an amazing experience. For years and years I’d always wanted to go to a large, American smash tournament with the best in attendance. I was one of those guys in some corner of the globe with a few good mates that I played smash with. Meeting on weekends and talking up the latest happenings, playing Melee (or Brawl now) well into the wee hours of the morning. It is a romantic thing, to think of all of these players around the world, not knowing each other, and yet understanding each other at the same time.
Smashers are an amazing demographic of people. We are people of different race, ethinicity, nationality, gender, heights, weights, different social class, with different responsibilities and are all people who perhaps in any other situation wouldn’t have anything to do with each other. Yet, we can care so much for our own kind for our mutual love for this series of fighting games regardless of all that.
We play a series of games that glues its community together, running on the power of grassroots tournament organisers, and dedicated gamers that in their free time work towards researching the games and exploring new avenues all the time. I love this community, more than anything community or group I have ever been a part of. On my birthday this year, I spent it not with my family, but with a bunch of smashers in a hotel in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. When I blew out the candles on my cake I said to everyone in my room “Instead, I’m spending my birthday with you guys, my second family”.
I felt bouncy and energetic back at the hotel room, as though I didn’t want to let go of the day. By closing my eyes I was, ironically, seeing the dream I had envisioned so many months ago finally come to an end.
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- The Rest of the Trip
The return trip was fun as well. We watched Cowboy Bebop’s last episodes as well as V for Vendetta. Havok also told us an amazing story involving a top smasher that happened not too long ago, but since I’m sworn to secrecy, I’ll let the reference refresh the minds of those in on the joke.
After a heartfelt goodbye to Oats, Havok, Hall, Automatic, the French and the other Aussies, Billy, Alison, Caotic, e_alert and I got off at LA, making our way to Hollywood. e_alert left us to travel and stay with one of his US friends whilst the rest of us did lots of the touristy stuff there in Hollywood the next day, and after meeting up with Caotic’s friend Ben, we went to the ‘Medieval Times’ dinner show.
Billy stayed up til the next morning to catch the last State of Origin match (Australian Rugby), and we did Universal Studios as well as the Warner Bros. VIP tour. We also watched the new Harry Potter movie.
The last day I would spend in America would be in Las Vegas. My advice to anyone travelling here is that unless it’s for EVO, don’t bother til you’re 21 years old. Seriously, I travelled on the Greyhound all the way just to look at buildings. That being said, it was quite the sight, and quite a way to cap off such a great trip.
The next day I travelled to the Vegas airport and amazingly I ran into e_alert on his way to EVO. We caught up for a few minutes, then he was off to his Hotel. I ended up getting to LAX from Vegas far before I needed to be there and I considered going to a Mall. Then somehow this guy managed to push two books about self enlightenment into my hands and take $10 from me as I walked around wondering what to do. At least the guy told me that I should check out Fox Hill Mall if I wanted to look around a mall.
The first Taxi driver told me the fare would be $35, trying to convince me that a taxi would be more expensive. After shrugging him off, the next driver told me the fare would be half that. Feeling frustrated by the money hungry people in this country and not really wanting another excuse to spend money anyway, I politely declined and decided to check into the airport for my flight back home.
The flight home wasn’t draining at all this time. In fact I quite enjoyed it. I sat on an aisle seat which was particularly convenient and there was nobody sitting between me and the lady on the window seat. I could stretch out and watch some pretty funny movies. 17 Again, Scandal Makers (a Korean movie I think) and I also watched Push which has yet to come out in Australia.
I was very happy to be back at home, when I finally made it to Brisbane’s airport, knowing home was just an hour and a half’s train ride away. It was good to hear Australian accents as well. One thing I couldn’t handle was the American accent, because many times I couldn’t figure out if some people I talked to were being sarcastic, funny or angry. Everything was familiar and it was comforting because even after just two weeks I was beginning to feel homesick from it all.
The ‘genesis’ as it were of the term ‘San Diego Love’ as I understand it comes from how happy and nice the San Diego smash scene was back in the day (and very much is now) compared to the rest of America which bickered amongst itself quite a lot. It’s a thought I hope I can and have been proliferating amongst my own smash scene. Perhaps some of its members will read this and think twice about trolling my state’s threads.
All I want is a little San Diego Love back here.
And Money. **** man, I’m poor now : /
Shout Outs:
Oats:
Marco, man, you are really something. The way you’ve taken the smash scene into your own hands, drive it with your tournaments, and nurture it with your hospitality. Thanks to you I had a really great time and I want you to know that we appreciate everything you did for us while we were there.
(That ***** be bogan)
Havok:
Carlos, thank you sooooooo much for hosting all of us. I can’t believe how awesome your family is for putting up with all the smashers that came through and stayed there for that period of time we were there. I swear to you that I’ll do very much the same thing as soon as I’m living on my own. It was great playing smash with you, your Marth is solid. Keep working at it and you’ll take top of the power rankings in no time ; )
Hall:
I didn’t get to talk to you much man, but I don’t think these shoutouts would’ve been complete without one to you. Thanks for coming out to pick us up that first night. Your Snake is awesome, so keep at it! Also, the Ness + Lucas money match challenge is awesome, I must do it here some time.
UnknownForce:
Kyle, it was good to meet you. We’re all really thankful to everyone who helped cart us around and you’re no exception. I’d like to play more smash with you one day since you’re pretty **** good at both games. Be sure to come back to Australia and come to Queensland this time.
Ben:
What a champ. He’s not even a smasher (I think, I dunno
), but he still hung around with us and got us about the place, trying to study at the same time. AlphaZealot:
It was good to meet you in the flesh finally. Your Diddy was sweet to watch, but it’s too bad we didn’t record any dittos lol. Thanks for giving me that advice, I’ll be sure to work on speeding up my game.
ADHD:
Good games (lol). Your Diddy is amazing, and will grow to even greater heights once you get some more experience behind you. We all seem to remember you last year as some kid posting new threads every day about every little thing that troubled you, and now you’re the best **** Diddy in America. Well done at Genesis man.
Xelic:
Super *****!
Our money match was pretty lol.
At least I can say that in America I had a genuine money match.
Hylian:
Man it was cool talking to you and playing against you. I’m just sad Hanson couldn’t make it. It would have been party time all day. Your Ice Climbers are really something else, the chain grabs always look so amazing to me. Keep at it man, you’ve got a lot of fanboys in Australia (as you found out
)SamuraiPanda:
It was cool meeting you too, thanks for swapping me out of my Brawl pool. It turned out to work really well for me. Lol.
Tyrant:
Man you’re one funny kid you know.
Pro Metaknight as well.
For sure.
Well done beating Dojo too. I saw that last match, and it was pretty **** close.
Hive:
I wanted to play you more so you could teach me to play Samus better. Actually, I shoulda chased up Hylian, I completely forgot that he mains Samus too. Lol. I didn’t see you on day 3, so I’m guessing you didn’t make it out of pools which is a shame. Well it was good to meet you anyhow.
Caotic:
Davey, thanks so much for putting up with us all so much. I know it must’ve felt like you were babysitting everyone between the Aussies and the French. It was good fun hanging out with you when you weren’t off doing your own thing though.
Billy & Alison:
Thanks for such a great time. It was cool hanging out with you both for two weeks. I’m glad I did, since I doubt I would’ve gotten to see all the cool things I did without travelling around with you guys.
Tcranter:
Toby, man you’ve got a great sense of humour. You’re a really funny guy. It was always fun talking to you, and dude, your Pokemon Trainer is amazing. It’s simply tier defying in how good it is. You’ll own up all the tournaments in NSW now.
Tedeth:
Ted it was good to meet you. Hanging out with you and the others was just too funny. Great job with Wolf and Wario, I could see the visible improvement myself, so I hope that you do well back here in Australia.
Atyeo:
Luke, good to see you again. Don’t listen to Ted ever again and wait for the sunblock to dry. But seriously dude, I can’t wait for the next time to catch up with you again at another tournament. Your Snake is definitely a contender for best in Australia. Atilla has got a very difficult match ahead of him when you two face off.
e_alert:
Sorry I didn’t team with you dude. We woulda ***** hard as a Kirby/Diddy Team. You’ve got a good IC’s though, so keep battling away. IC’s strength lies in your own technical mastery, so practice and keep practicing!
~automatic:
Mario, I really enjoyed talking to you man. Walking all the way to target and the hotel and back to the venue, it was really fun talking to you about the Mexican smash scene, and about the different Pikachu mains and that kind of thing. I hope to see you again in the future : 3
Qlex:
It was really good to meet you and talk like we did. Just talking about anime and manga and what not, it was really enjoyable. Also your Ganondorf is epic. The technical skill you exhibit using him is just amazing to watch. Keep it up man, and I’ll see you again some day
Shloaka, Porc and Doraki:
It was cool hanging out with you guys as well. France’s Melee skill is really great, and should you guys come to our country some time, I think we’d have ourselves an awesome crew battle.
Armada:
Armada, man, if you ever read this you should know that you’re seriously my hero. Rep that PAL Peach son. Watching your Peach was simply amazing. The combo’s, and the gimps especially. I’ve never seen a Peach gimp like you do. It was cool talking to you, and I’m happy that you got as far as you did.
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In general I want to say thank you to America and DBR especially for hosting this tournament. DBR, you guys have been my heroes since before I was even a member of Smashboards. Back in the day, watching Shined Blind, Hylian Nightmare, Overdose and all the others. They did exactly what they were designed to do, that is, get me into competitive smash, and so I thank you for it.
Mew2King, I didn’t get to in person, but I wanted to give you my congratulations on your efforts, and winning as much as you did. Even though you only hold the winner’s trophy to one of the tournaments at Genesis, it is ironic to note that you are indeed the smash who was most successful at least monetary wise. Don’t let the haters get to you man. (Also sorry about the Aussies joking about so much
).Alot of players surprised me as well. Mango, at first my impression was that you were very cocky, and my impression was right I think, but you were also a really cool, friendly guy from what I saw. Congrats on getting 1st. Congrats should go to Zhu, Shiz, Scar and all the other top placers as well.
Also bad luck Lain, better luck next time
That’s it from me I think. 12,000 words later I think I’ve said all that I wanted to say.
My time in America has made me seriously consider studying on exchange there.
If any of you guys reading this feel like talking to me, my aim is anthonyxvyse
My MSN is there too, under my avatar.
Congratulations to anyone who actually read all of this, I hope I haven’t wasted your time
- Anthony
EDIT:
Also sorry to all those who's messages and posts I have failed to respond to since coming back. This blog didn't write itself. Thanks for the shoutout in the results thread Heartz, and yes Ladybug, my teeth are fine now.
