Lanie's 33rd Birthday at Hi Scores Barcade 6/3/19

Our friend Elaine, who lives in Norcal these days, was back in Vegas around her birthday so she organized a get together at Hi Scores Bar-Arcade in Henderson. Sean wasn't in the mood to go at the time but I went and had a good time seeing a good number of friendly faces, both old and new! I got to catch up with Elaine a bit, joked around with friends, and even squeezed in a couple of drinks at the bar with Bobby. I'll be looking forward to next time!

Mixtape Tour 2019: New Kids On The Block, Salt-N-Pepa, Tiffany, Naughty By Nature, and Debbie Gibson at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, NV 5/25/19

Sean and I saw New Kids On The Block (my all-time favorite band!), Salt-N-Pepa, Tiffany, Naughty By Nature, and Debbie Gibson at the Mandalay Bay Events Center here in Vegas last night! It was part of the Mixtape Tour 2019. Though the New Kids were definitely the main event of the night, they opened! They did something different then though: they and the other acts alternated and mixed songs with each other throughout the night! We LOVED it. Such a neat alternative to your typical concert arrangement. 

I gotta say that I don't think I could've found a better use for our night last night. :D At this point, I've lost track of how many times we've seen NKOTB. If you ask me how many more times I'm gonna see them though, the answer will always be, "at least one more". Haha Pretty sure we've seen most of these amazing artists multiple times now but it really never gets old. Thank you SO much to Sean for taking me. As always, I had so much fun singing and dancing with you! If you ever feel you've had your fill of NKOTB though, feel free to tag in my little sis Liz as my escort. I'm sure she won't argue! Haha

After all the skin the New Kids had on display last night, I do feel a bit like I owe Sean a trip to a strip club <3 ...but I have a feeling there weren't many people complaining in the crowd of middle aged women! In fact, I was half expecting a dozen stretchers to come wheeling into the audience to rescue people when the live dressing room footage started rolling. Lol

Epic bonus detail: We didn't pay much at all, if anything, for this concert thanks to Ebates cash back and Groupon deals!

ECS 7.5 Online ITG Team Tournament - May 2019

I somehow found myself on 3 ECS 7.5 teams last minute as follows:

Avery & me - Lower: "BBC: A-Team"
Sean & me - Lower: "Ballz Out For Summer"
Urza, Sean, & me - Upper: "BBC Meatballs"

5/6/19:
To save time, Sean played the RE-Entranced lower marathon split on the 1P side for our Ballz Out For Summer team while I played it on the 2P side for Avery's and my BBC: A-Team. My shower cap ripped in the 3rd song so the rest felt crappy but I got 99.00%. We have unofficial pad sensors that have some misfiring issues, especially on the 1P side, in our up arrows on both pads so Sean got more greats than he should've but he still got 98.73%.

5/8/19 - 5/9/19:
We hiked over 13.5 miles up and down the Grand Canyon, wandered the Vegas strip, and partied with friends and family for my birthday. Legs = DESTROYED.

5/10/19:
Avery came over and got 99.85% on the Eurodrive lower marathon split for BBC: A-Team.

5/12/19:
Legs still super sore from the Grand Canyon, Sean got 98.17% on Eurodrive and I got 98.78% on Drum N Basic for Ballz Out For Summer.

5/13/19:
Avery came over and got 99.91% on Drum N Basic for BBC: A-Team.

5/14/19:
Sean and I got 964 points in our lower division raw output for Ballz Out For Summer.

Looking back on pictures from our set, I think our machine's timing issues started today, if not earlier.

5/15/19:
Something was REALLY wrong with the ITG machine's timing when we turned it on today. For some reason, perhaps because it's running on a computer we picked up from a thrift store and probably hasn't ever been run as hard as it was during raw output last night, the timing just went wayyyy out of whack. We actually weren't able to sort the issue out for the entire rest of the week so we just had to play that way and struggle through trying to pass everything.

Dead from raw output yesterday, I only managed to get 22.35% on the Draconic Blaze upper marathon split while Sean got 29.68% on the Phantasmal Immolation upper marathon split for BBC Meatballs.

Urza and his girlfriend Sandra were visiting from Sweden so we went out drinking at night.

Not sure who to blame but someone got me pretty sick so I spent a couple of days feeling really under the weather, trying all kinds of medicine just to stay vertical.

5/16/19:
Urza and I played 2 hours and 52 minutes of the 4 hour raw output set for our upper division team BBC Meatballs. The timing issue really made it so much harder than it should've been. We saved the remaining 1 hour and 8 minutes for Sean to do when he was available and feeling up to it. Although it's normally in a team's best interest to do the 4 hour set together to strategically give each other breaks, we were glad the rules allowed us to split the time this way this time.

Exhausted, Sean, Urza, Sandra, and I gulped down tons of energy drink and went to the Vegas strip and downtown for a night on the town.

5/17/19:
Avery and I got 943 points in our lower division raw output for BBC: A-Team. Despite my tiredness causing me to have to let Avery carry us through the hardest stuff in the pack, I think we could've had a lot more points if it wasn't for machine issues. For the most part, Avery was able to adjust enough for the timing issue but that and right arrow problems almost caused him to fail twice during Ian's OP v2. The timing actually got so bad that I wound up passing a song with 39.xx%! It also caused me to fail another song and we resorted to trying to sync the machine WHILE playing one of the songs and then giving up and restarting the game mid set, which took several minutes and didn't even fix it.

5/18/19:
Urza, Sandra, Sean, and I did some hiking in Red Rock Canyon this morning before a HARD night of drinking with lots of friends at like 5 bars and clubs and on the party bus between them. Ouch... By the end of the night, most of us were too drunk and had been kicked out of at least one club. I don't really remember anything after leaving the last club. Apparently, I redecorated the downstairs bathroom with my puke during the night though.

5/19/19:
I was still drunk when we had to get up today but that soon turned into evil hangover.

I STILL haven't shaken the cough or the mucus pouring out of my face but I think I finally feel my appetite starting to return after quite a few days of really struggling to eat. I think the cold, or whatever I caught, is finally starting to go away.

I don't have a clue how he managed it but Sean used his 1 hour 8 minutes of raw output time for our upper division team BBC Meatballs. Once he was finished, our team ended up with 95 raw output points.

Later, I tried my Draconic Blaze split again but only managed to raise my score to 28.27%. I wound up with way more non-fantastics than fantastics. Worst part is, I could've earned shirts for my team if I'd just managed to hang in there for 4 or 5 percent more.

Final point totals:

Ballz Out For Summer: 986 marathon + 964 raw output= 1950

BBC: A-Team: 995 marathon + 943 raw output = 1938

BBC Meatballs: 342 marathon + 95 raw output = 437

I'm extremely proud of and grateful to all my teammates for sticking it out with me and beasting so hard through all the ups and downs...and I guess lefts and rights too. :p

Videos here:

ECS 7.5 - Ballz Out For Summer (Lower) - s34n & JOKR - Raw Output: https://youtu.be/PkViWXcgNDg

ECS 7.5 - BBC A-Team (Lower) - JOKR & Avery - Raw Output: https://youtu.be/HZjREe4HFOc

ECS 7.5 - BBC Meatballs (Upper) - Urza, JOKR & s34n - Raw Output: https://youtu.be/IPyoi8dATKw

ECS 7.5 - Ballz Out For Summer & BBC A-Team (Lower) - s34n & JOKR - RE-Entranced: https://youtu.be/j8a_zFGFERU

ECS 7.5 - Ballz Out For Summer (Lower) - JOKR - Drum N Basic: https://youtu.be/U9iL_PwbgfM

ECS 7.5 - Ballz Out For Summer (Lower) - s34n - Eurodrive: https://youtu.be/bO_JnVRdD6A

ECS 7.5 - BBC A-Team (Lower) - Avery - Drum N Basic: https://youtu.be/KjKQlh6L06k

ECS 7.5 - BBC Meatballs (Upper) - JOKR - Draconic Blaze
https://youtu.be/d67FQJPdz8A

ECS 7.5 - BBC Meatballs (Upper) - Urza - Phantasmal Immolation: https://youtu.be/I91oR-Wm630

ECS 7.5 - BBC Meatballs (Upper) - s34n - Phantasmal Immolation:
https://youtu.be/DffShh9HD9E

^This is just meant to summarize how the tournament went for the ECS Teams I entered with and me. I'll make more detailed posts about various adventures with friends and family from these dates soon. :)

DDR Ace - Second Ever Attempt

Sean and I played DDR Ace yesterday! Sean got it working on one of our machines (I won't say which). :) We just quickly played thru the 2 qualifier songs for the S.H.A.R.T. online tournament and the handful of songs for the Valkyrie Dimension ladies' online tournament. (My first time entering a DDR tournament that isn't on Extreme, I believe!) We managed to do all the songs and challenges for both first try. Well, except the Valkyrie AAA bonus challenge that requires AAAing 3 songs in a row. Yeah, that's probably not gonna happen. XD I AAA'd the 1st song before totally screwing up though!

Until trying these tournament songs, I'm pretty sure Sean and I had only ever played 3 songs/one set on Ace. (I never got into playing any DDR after Extreme.) Accordingly, there were a lot of sightreads in this session. Haha For speed mods, I sorta guessed we'd have to read at a little under 600. It wasn't perfect but close enough to get thru everything.

I'm not sharing scores here for reasons but I'll be submitting them to the tournament organizers so anyone with an oddly keen interest in our scores can view them when they get added in for the tournaments mentioned.

Tbh I'm not really convinced by this game as far as it being something I'd like to dig into but I might have a crack at whatever the bare minimum is to get by in the occasional tournament just so I can hang with you guys and be social. :p Don't get me wrong, I lovvvve all dance games and definitely won't knock it for anyone else but it's just not my style personally. I'm not about to come waltzing in as the next big name in the game or anything. LOL

Wells Trailhead, Bae5cience Qualifiers, & Sapporo Revolving Sushi with Friends 4/30/19

Sean and I wanted to get away from technology a bit today so we scooped the dogs up and went for a drive. We drove somewhat aimlessly in the direction of Lake Las Vegas and found a trailhead with parking just off the road. It was called Wells Trailhead. Not sure what to expect, we found ourselves jogging, walking, hiking, and wading through a river. We crossed a bridge and went up and down undulating terrain on a couple of different trails. Such a nice find!

Check out my activity on Strava: https://strava.app.link/pWSy4oohlW

Back home, we washed the river off of us and then Sean helped me to play a few songs to qualify for this year's Bae5cience female PIU tournament. I hadn't played PIU in ages, still don't have any current plans to get into it, and am not sure I'm even gonna enter the tournament but I like to keep my options open so I had Sean play the doubles songs for me to give me an idea of what to expect and then I flailed around on them myself just to get some crappy qualifying scores I could submit. The doubles songs were for upper division qualification. I think I'm probably right in between upper and lower skill skillwise so we played the lower division songs, which were on singles, together afterward. I figured I'd submit both sets of scores and let it be decided for me.

Our Utah friends Ken and Sherri were here and we were all hungry then so we met them and Julie, the owner of Gemini Arcade when it was open, for dinner at a place in Chinatown that Danny had recommended called Sapporo Revolving Sushi. (Unfortunately, Danny couldn't join us tonight as he had to get sleep for work.) Like my favorite restaurant in the northwestern United States, Sushiland, it was one of those pay-per-plate restaurants where small portions of food come around on a conveyor belt and you grab what you want. They have other food and drink options too (a futuristic, robotic tray that zooms your food over the top of the conveyor belt and right to you, for example) but the conveyor belt is the restaurant's main feature. It's not a new concept, of course, but it's always SO fun! I absolutely love hands-on and interactive meals at restaurants, seeing my food options before I choose, almost instant access to whatever food I want, and being able to sample small portions of lots of various foods at once so it was perfect! We absolutely gorged ourselves while sharing laughs with our friends and catching up and before heading back home and passing out for the night but I have no regrets.

St. George's Day with Liz in Vegas 4/23/19

4/22/19:

My sister Liz pleasantly surprised Sean and me by showing up in Vegas tonight so we snatched her up from the airport and brought her home to chat with her over some drinks and Netflix about her new job as a flight attendant! She was exhausted though so she knocked out after awhile and Sean and I wound up staying up all night working. Lol

4/23/19 - St. George's Day:

Come morning, Sean and I were pretty tired. He and Liz sandwiched me and we all got some Zzzzs in. Unfortubately, my brain was still doing too much so I gave up after an hour of sleep and started planning the day instead!

Once we were all vertical again, the three of us got ready and headed to Fiesta Henderson for $2 margaritas and to watch an interesting-looking horror movie called "Us" that had surprisingly good ratings. The movie turned out to be really imaginative and different, likely hence the good ratings, and even my sister (not typically a horror fan) liked it!

It was Tuesday so we decided to take advantage of T-Mobile Tuesdays app deals then. (Note to T-Mobile customers: if you don't yet have the T-Mobile Tuesdays app, GO GET IT and take advantage of the various freebies they offer their customers there every week!) We went to Dunkin Donuts and got 3 free, tasty, iced lattes. Then we drove to Taco Bell and got 3 free tacos! We would've bought more food but we had dinner plans so a free snack was perfect.

Thinking we had a bit more time before we had to be anywhere, we headed to Total Wine & More 3 mins away and picked up some inexpensive booze for later.

Finally, it was time for the day's main event: celebrating St. George's Day at the Crown & Anchor! Honestly, none of us had ever celebrated St. George's Day and most of us had never before heard of it but Sean argued, "why not?!" It only made sense to him that, if we were going to celebrate St. Patrick's Day the way we do, we might as well do St. George's Day while we were at it. It was a half-serious suggestion but I never put up a fight when it comes to extra excuses to celebrate! So here we were. :)

We'd planned to arrive at the Crown & Anchor Pub on Tropicana Ave at 4:30pm but were just a little late so our friend Bridgette/Lil 15 was already there, drink in hand. :p It was happy hour so we got down to drinking ourselves, ordered some appetizers, and threw some darts. I love the free dart boards there! I'm probably the absolute WORST dart thrower ever though and I think I'm kinda lucky there were no casualties because of it. XD Danny, our new friend Jewel, and Jewel's husband Nik came down after awhile too so we had a full house!

Though I'd known Jewel online since last year from the female dance game community groups, Sean and I had just met her in person for the first time a few weeks back. This was our first time meeting her husband but both of them we're cool and really nice!

As is typical for a holiday, I was pretty wildly dressed up for the occasion. Sean and Liz were in the spirit somewhat with roses and UK flags too and we couldn't have picked a better place for it as this was likely one of the only places in all of Vegas that was aware of the holiday and celebrating with us!

One thing some of us hadn't realized before arriving was that tonight was also a hockey night and they'd have the game on at the pub. The pub actually got kinda busy and loud for this and we had a great time watching the game and hanging out. Pretty sure that was Sean's and my first time watching Vegas' Golden Knights play. We're not hockey fans but it was fun nonetheless! Best part: they had half price appetizers and cheap Bud Light throughout the game so we pigged out on cheap, delicious calories.

Before the game started, I got the game Heads Up going on my phone and we all got SUUUUUUPER carried away with it to the point where we were shouting and getting dirty looks from the oldies in the bar. I actually had to stop the game a few times to get everyone to simmer down before we got kicked out. XD The jukebox, hockey game, and additional people as they rolled in drowned us out a bit later though.

A little after 10pm, we finally had to call it a night. Liz had left her car at our place last time she visited and would need to start driving it out towards her new place in Atlanta the next morning (long story) so she needed sleep. We finally called it a night but not after some big group hugs!! <3 SUCH a great time.

Home again, we put on Netflix and eventually sandwiched back up in bed. Best kind of sandwich. <3 ^_^ Tomorrow morning, Liz would have to get on her way eastward. Tonight, though, I got to enjoy the cuddles!

DDR Extreme Nonstop 240 songs on Heavy/Oni in 8+ Hours for Sean's 20th Dance Game Anniversary & Easter 4/21/19

DDR Extreme Nonstop 240 songs on Heavy/Oni in 8+ Hours! That was our night tonight. 

Today was not only Easter but was also Sean's 20th dance game anniversary!!!  20 years!! (For me, June 27th will mark 16 years.) Wow.. Obviously, that required a very special sort of celebration so we decided to play through ALLL 240 songs on DDR Extreme on Heavy and/or Oni. It took us over 8 hours and was actually much more physically demanding than you'd expect. The 1P side wasn't great, which didn't help, but I think the main struggle for me was just staying vertical for so long. Working from home, I'm really not used to that anymore. Lol Sean did everything no bar too so that was a big, added challenge. Other funny challenges and drinking games we came up with kept things interesting, though they may have seemed a lot more enjoyable than they should've simply because we were going a bit peculiar as the hours went on.

As we've learned from doing other marathon-type feats, we rarely see high scores or other new achievements in the process, partially due to an attempt to conserve at the start and fatigue later on. In this case, the pad, goofing off A LOT, and often barless play were noteworthy factors too. Accordingly, we were somewhat surprised at getting a couple of AAAs and other particularly low great counts. In fact, I'm pretty sure some song called Feeling of Love came in as my 5th or 6th AAA EVER during the night. Yayy (Hey, we never claimed to have great timing, okay?! )

Anyway, check out the vid from our questionable choice of how to spend 8 hours of our day here!:

https://youtu.be/nWGGfI3qjH0