the third wave gargles nut

i hate coffee. everything about it. the aroma, the taste, the (dare i call it a) culture. all of it. right down to it's clever little caffeinated molecular composition. (*ahem* c8h10n4o2 binds our reality) and all the other alkaloidal acquaintances it's akin to: cocaine, morphine, quinine, nicotine.....nice friends, asshole. that being said, i also can't live without it. i breathe coffee. hell....at times i eat it. but only a good indonesian. new giunea, preferably. though not the peaberry starbuck's occasionally carries. (to be honest, i have my doubts it's really a new guinea at all. too acidic. i'd say it's likely a tanzanian.) yep, i fuckin' HATE coffee! strong words perhaps? right. well. it's certainly not some blind, irrational, without good reason sort of hate. no, i've built a rather extensive arsenal of valid gripes. at least a decade's worth. now, for years there has been a swelling dilettante army of coffee elitists being pressure brewed into a tightly knit, while somewhat unrecognized, new generational sub-culture. self proclaimed die hard baristas rising from the ashes of their part-time-while-in-college apprenticeships at whatever corporate coffee chain quasi-giant held the market nearest the school they attended. easy enough to spot as they're likely still togged in the standard issue khaki and black polo uniform that was laid out in the dress code section on page eight of their employee manuals. unless of course you come across an independent coffee house rogue who, while still in "work" garbs, would no doubt be sporting a t-shirt adorned with some quippy remark directly berating his/her corporate counterpart. however, pointing out an actual functional difference between the two breeds would merely lead to frustration. both are masters of their art. as well as their destiny, for neither would show much hesitation if faced with the offer to jump ship and join the ranks of the others party. the rogue tempted by higher wages and possible health insurance - the corpy by lament for the chronic and no random piss tests. but make no mistake! ALL are fully dedicated to the pursuit of pretending to know what the fuck they're talking about and swear that they do indeed know how to make your cuban con panna the "right" way. if i had a point to make it might begin to become clear here. sorry...none shall pass.

spending no less than three hours a day driving to and from work, no small amount of effort is devoted to shrinking my perception of the passing of time. in the absence of new music and when talk radio transmissions become faint i just drive in the relative silence of the veterans expressway. which generally leads my thoughts into ranting diatribes that end up going nowhere once i reach my little cube. i figured instead i'd waste some company time (a little more than usual anyway) and put a thought or two here now and then. maybe even more frequently than every eight months or so. i don't really blog very often. and even less often i blog about myself. i can't really see where anyone but me would give a shit and...well, whatever. that hasn't stopped anyone else.

f, n, d, d/f, rp

there was a very distinct preconceived expectancy surrounding the event that was to take place this past friday night. being prepared to step into a venerable set-to of magnificent proportions....into a demonstration of warrior skill for which making the trek into the depths of central florida's mall infested swampland was worthwhile, i was more than slightly disappointed to find myself walking into, instead, a horrific reminder that my long time favorite gaming genre is in a sad and sorry state. it was several years ago that i last entered an iron fist tournament. not since the official namco tekken tag regional in orlando had i thrown down on any grand scale. so when i first heard rumor of a tekken 5 tournament happening just a short jaunt down i-75, my 60-frame-per-second-blood lust for battle found renewed ardency. training began immediately. hour upon hour of sleepless late night sessions teaching myself new combos and juggles and doing them over and over until i no longer had to think about the button sequence being input....only which of heihachi's side throws i was going to end each match with. i was ready. i've never played better. and with cory on board fully equipped with his newly lethal feng wei and anniversary edition street fighter arcade stick, the anticipation for real battle was paramount....

then we arrived.

walking into a pc dork-den with the sort of lighting fit only for your dirt cousin's velvet iron maiden poster from eighth grade, the question was posed - "is there some tekken going on here?" with a less than gracious acknowledgement the pork behind the counter lazily wafted a meat hook toward the corner of the room and said, "thatsthaguyovertheredoonit"....

sitting in the corner of this place were two large televisions. in front of these two televisions there were two goodwill once-was-a-woman-in-minnesota's style chairs and a matching couch. from the furniture there oozed a vapid substance that would likely be recognized by most as goth kids. (uch...tampa) at the far end of edna's couch sat a pile of the dark goop wearing a korn hat. and that was him...saint angr. (that's right, no e in it.) "funny, he looks a lot different on the zaibatsu forums", i thought. a quick introduction and handshake later he was back on his...gamecube controller playing.... . . smash brothers. this is the place for the tekken tournament right? we are ten minutes late for it's start time right?? ohhh this was the place. that was the host. but even though there was another big screen tv lying dormant to the immediate right of mario and pikachu valiantly trying to avoid jigglypuffs dreaded sleep attack....there was no tekken. then another terrible realization: there was nobody there. at least nobody interested and this supposed tournament. to quote cory, who has just the sort of tact needed for a situation like this, "what the fuck is this shit?"

now, i could go on about all the details of the following hour or so that led to our final decision to dip. like the bunk second player controller port on the only PS2 there. and the long haired last-shirt-on-the-rack-at-ross wearing creep sporting the no button buttoned look. but the only detail that matters is that out of the six or seven people that eventually showed up for this thing (many more were "confirmed" to attend) there wasn't an ounce of game worth mentioning among them. save greasy kid frankie's kazuya. which was still not all that impressive.

anyway, it was lame. we left. and tampa's fighting game community is worse off than i imagined. hopefully november in orlando will prove a bit more rewarding. or it will all be left on me. and none of you will be safe.