10/7/08 with Joe Satriani in Minneapolis at the State Theater

UPDATED: With pictures and links and extra content!

10/7/08 Joe Satriani arrives in Minneapolis on his new album tour.

6:08PM - Arrive at the State Theater via bicycle. I drove to a spot about 13 blocks out, parked for free, and biked downtown.

6:30 - Doors opened. The show has assigned seating, so there was no rush to get in. I walked into the theater to the sound of David Bowie singing "I'm Afraid of Americans"
over the PA system.

6:40- I spot a guy who I saw at a Buckethead show a couple weeks ago. I recognize him by his Steve Vai t-shirt. I go over to him, talk to him for a bit, and leave after giving him a pound. Good deed done for the day!

6:45 - My blood sugar is at 50. Nowhere near my record low, but still enough to warrant me chowing down on the two glucose tablets I brought with me.

6:47 - The theater is still barely full.

6:48 - Van Halens "The Full Bug" off of their Diver Down album comes over the PA system.

6:51 - The music takes a negative turn when the Foo Fighters come on. Man, I hate "Monkey Wrench."

6:56 - That retarded, "What can I do~~? All I want is to get next to you~~" song comes on the PA.

6:58 - I leave my seat to go find some soda, just in case those tablets don't hold me over. I end up outside, where I take a picture of the marquee. I settle with convincing a bartender to give me some sugar packets when I can't find a single vending machine.

7:03 - Back in my seat. Nearly everyone I see around me is over age 35.

7:08 - I might have the best seat in the house. I am eleven rows back on the isle on house left. Facing the front, the entire stage fits just neatly in my whole field of vision. Satch usually plays on stage right of his band, so I will get an excellent view.

7:21 - The couple who rented the seats next to me for the evening have arrived. They comment on how close the seats are to the stage and pull out earplugs.

7:22 - I feel like I'm the only person at the show who does not own a Satriani or Vai t-shirt.

7:24 - As if to prove my point, a family of five arrives a few rows away from me, all wearing identical Professor Satchafunkalis t-thirts.

7:29 - Light dim as Mountain takes the stage. The lead guy makes a lame comment questioning why the twins cities are named so when they don't look anything like each other.

7:32 - Latecomers arrive, blocking my view.

7:35 - Mountain's bassist is already swinging his dreads around in circles.

7:36 - "Theme for an Imaginary Western"

7:46 - "Nantucket Sleigh Ride"

8:06 - "Mississippi Queen." It's about time, Mountain.

8:13 - Mountain leaves the stage.

8:15 - I learn how to use my friend Kyle's digital camera. I also throw down a packet of sugar.

8:18 - I leave my seat to pee. The line for the men's room extends about forty guys outside the door. Women are giggling at us.

8:24 - I return to my seat to hear "Swlabr" by Cream over the PA. Finally, something good.

8:28 -Another couple has appeared and claims that their tickets entitle them to my seat. I disagree and produce my ticket. A nearby usher clarifies that they are in the wrong section of the theater. They smile and apologize. All is well.

8:30 A guitar tech is testing an acoustic on stage. I remember that Satch's new album has some acoustic stuff on it. Maybe I will get to hear some live?

8:31 - The sheet is pulled off the drum set. Man, Mr. Campetelli has quite the set-up.

8:33 - "Purple Haze" is now playing in the theater. Good for Hendrix.

8:39PM - Satch is on!

SETLIST

I Just Want to Rock
Overdriver
Satch Boogie
Ice Nine
Flying in Blue Dream
Ghosts
Revelation
(No clue)
One Big Rush
Cool #9
(No clue)
Stu's bass solo
Andalusia
Always With Me, Always With You
Surfing With The Alien
Summer Song (encore)

10:38PM - After a two-hour set including an encore and then three more songs with the Mountain dude, the show is over. Joe has used five different guitars, four of his signature axes and one Les Paul. I exit the theater and hop on my bike.

11:13 - I arrive home, a little less than six hours after I left.

Ketsui and the Cult of Shmups

ケツイ　ー　絆地獄たち　ー

ケツイ　ー　絆地獄たち　ー

The man in the picture above is playing Ketsui, a scrolling shooter game that, in my opinion, is the best video game in existence.  Ketsui is a very simple game that uses three buttons and a joystick and with practice, can be beaten in less than half an hour. It should be noted that in this case, "practice" means probably over 200 hours of gameplay, because Ketsui is very, very hard. Judging by the positioning of the man's hands, he does not have much practice with the game or even the genre.

Ketsui is part of the genre of games known as scrolling shoot'em ups, or "shmups" for short. These games are generally 2D games, are most often sprite-based, and are very short and very hard. They have been around since the early 80s, and, despite being 2D in a graphics-obsessed gaming culture, retain a loyal fanbase, of which I am a part.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when I started playing shmups. My first real memory of one was when I played Raiden DX for Super Famicon in 3rd or 4th grade at a friend's house. From then until my senior year of high school, I didn't give the genre much thought. Sometime during my senior year, though, I became hooked.

I wonder what about these games attracts me to them? Perhaps the fact that they are very personal? They are almost always hand-animated, with bullet patterns comprised of gorgeous colors; most developing teams are less than 15 people. The games are extremely well-crafted. This is a genre that caters to the extremely hardcore gamer crowd - a group of people who would not think it unreasonable to pay $1500 for an arcade machine and then shell out upwards of $1800 for a single game to play on it. Ketsui alone can go for over $2000. This is a fanbase that keeps count of frame data in games, memorizes every enemy wave pattern, and breaks down a chaining mechanic to maximize high scores. These are people who put in 300+ hours into a single game and can tell you that a it moves at 36 frames per second and that you will earn 412 points for every frame you stay alive, meaning that you earn almost 15,000 for every second you can evade a bullet pattern comprised of 46 bullets.

Game companies don’t keep these kind of fans happy by releasing half-assed games. These days, there just is no such thing as a buggy shmup. There will be no need to release updates or patches. A revision means almost a total overhaul of the entire game. Take, for example, a scene I witnessed a few years ago.

I was at a testing release for a game called Mushihimesama Futari at the Hey! Arcade in Akihabara, Tokyo. There were four machines lined up against a wall, each running a copy of the latest beta. There was a line of at least ten middle aged men behind each machine, patiently waiting their turn while at the same time watching the players in front to learn how the game played. All of a sudden, the entire roon erupted in deafening cheers.

Someone had counter-stopped their copy of the game!

To put it simply, they had mastered the scoring and chaining system so well that they had maxed out the score counter. The score couldn’t go any higher, meaning the guy had essentially broken the game. In a genre where high score is everything, a game able to be counter-stopped would sell next to zero copies. Clearly, the developers had a lot of work ahead of them.

This kind of dedication is something I really admire. In a industry where the latest and greatest 3D game is lucky to be a best-seller for a week, here hides a genre that still thrives, mainly because of developer dedication and a highly knowledgeable fanbase. I don’t claim to be a leader in this fanbase, but I do enjoy the games - they are probably the only video games I still play.

Why would I continue this masochistic hobby of playing games that continually beat me down? Because there is a goal. A seemingly unachievable goal that I know I can reach if I try hard enough. And once I reach that goal, the results will be supremely impressive. All I have to put in is the time...

New town, new awesome faces, and new issues to deal with

So I guess a lot has been going on lately, even though I don’t particularly feel that my life has been moving at any quicker a pace. Moving to a new place always makes time go by more quickly in retrospect, but the juxtaposition of being unemployed and having a lot of time on my hands evens out the two extremes.

So, yes, World, it is true. I have moved. I now reside in a house with five other guys my age in St. Paul, Minnesota. Why, you ask, did I move? Well, there are a few reasons. The first is that I felt that God was calling me to become part of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. This church is pastored by John Piper, a rather famous Baptist preacher who has written many books - of which I have read regrettably few - about many religious topics. He is a man I respect very much. The second reason is that while visiting Bethlehem Baptist on my roadtrip, I found a wanted ad for a roommate. The price was right, so I called the guy, toured the house, and told him that I would show up to sign a September 1st lease. Yes, I literally changed the course of the next year (at least) of my life in one afternoon. No, I don’t really consider myself impulsive.

Ok, that is completely not true.

Impulsive or not, I came through on my promise and moved into the house in September. I arrived with the entire contents on my van, and moved into a completely empty room with no furniture whatsoever. Not even a closet rod was to be found. I clearly had a lot of work to do.
















Craigslist.com, here I come!
------------
Three days later, my room looks like this.













Desk - $40, chair - $2.99, CD/book rack - $20, closet rod - $9. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. Thank goodness I have a huge van. That desk wieghed close to 200lbs. And this is one of my two kitchens.














Now I have to find a job.

Conclusion of My Roadtrip, '08!

I guess now that I have settled down somewhere, my summer roadtrip can be considered complete - in both eventful terms and successful terms! That's right, boys and girls, I made it through thirteen different states in a little less that a month, picked up a hitchhiker, had my car overheat, and got questioned by police and lived to tell about it. More about my current situation later, but for now, here is a list of things I learned:

Things I learned

-How to change my own oil. It’s actually rather easy.

-Arkansas is littered with armadillos. This is because (a) they are slow, and (b) when startled by a car they jump straight up in the air.

-You are never too old for animal crackers.

-There still are towns in the US that practically close down on Sunday.

-Playing Guitar Hero is much harder when you have no strap.

-TED videos are super informative.

-Minneapolis is a fantastic city for bicycling. Memphis is not.

-Oklahoma City is a really cheap place to live.

-Police in rural Arkansas will notice a shadily-parked van rather quickly, no matter how late at
night it is.

-I indeed own one of the largest non-commercial vehicles money can buy.

-Watching a video of sprint cars wrecking is entertaining.

-Marijuana can and indeed does grow in closets.

-I really enjoy hearing the phrase, “Would you like your balance in large bills, sir?”

-Nerdfighters are awesome and awkward.

-The Jesse James Farm Homestead is 4 (out of the advertised 3) miles off the highway, closes
gates at 4PM, and was not worth seeing anyway.

-Gas in the US doesn’t get much cheaper than $3.43/gallon.

-LOLcats are awesome.

-Trackstanding on a fixie is a lot of fun, especially when you can do it for twenty seconds at a
stoplight.

-I have a secret affection for cast-iron skillets.

-The Bean in Chicago is possibly the best public sculpture in the USA.

-Nacho cheese flavored sunflower seeds are tasty.

-Joe Satriani really is a brilliant guitarist.

-The best used CD/record store in the world (so far) is in downtown Normal, Illinois.

-The Memphis Public Library sucks.

-Though Route 61 and Route 96 both go south through Kansas, they are different kinds of
south.

-McEwans, 1554, Two-Hearted Ale, and 2XX are all quite good beers.

-Prolonged exposure to chlorine bleach gives me a headache.

-Navigating the American highway system is not as hard as I thought.

Hooray! Now, off to get my new life organized!

Arkansas and a Memphis breakdown, '08!

So there I was, going 55 down I-40, rocking out to Buckethead and eating animal crackers. I had left OKC a few hours previous and was now speeding, under the speed limit, through Arkansas.
“Another dead armadillo!” I yelled as I passed Number Five. Dead armadillos were everywhere along I-40. It was quite peculiar. At around 9:45 I had the opportunity to pick up a hitchhiker, which I took. His name was Billy, and he was 32 and an ex-heroin and crank addict. He had to travel about 60 miles for a court appearance, and needed a ride in the Little Rock direction. Though he sounds shady, he turned out to be a really nice guy. He was a roofer by trade, didn't have a GED, and wanted to work at a recovery home for addicts. he rode with me for about 45 minutes, chattering away and making good conversation. I let him off where I-40 meets 65 North, and drove on. I drove until I was almost out of gas, which proved to be an hour outside of Memphis at 12:30 AM, Tuesday. I pulled off the interstate into a residential district and quickly found a spot off the road where i parked for the night. Arkansas nights are pretty hot, so I vented as many windows as I could and lay shirtless on my couch. Sleep came quickly, but was soon interrupted by some well-meaning police officers just doing there job and investigating a shadily-parked huge van with an out-of-state license plate. They wanted to see my drivers license, which I promptly gave them, and they asked what I was doing parked there.
“Just trying to get a couple hours of sleep before I hit the road again, sir,” I answered. “Is it illegal to park on the street here in Arkansas?”
“No, no you’re fine. We just had to check. We don’t see many vans around here, y’know,” he answered with a heavy southern drawl.
“Of course, sir. I understand.”
“Have a good night, now.”
“Thank you sir.”

And that was the end of that exchange. I was asleep soon after. The next day found me driving into Memphis looking for a garage. My van had been sporadically overheating throughout out the Arkansas drive, and I wanted to see what could be done about it. It didn’t take me long to find a garage, and after leaving my contact information I dropped my van off with some friendly-looking technicians. I proceeded to hop on my Pista and explore Memphis by bicycle. Memphis, for those who are wondering, is not a very bicycle-friendly city AT ALL. The roads are bad, there’s traffic everywhere, and the whole city just seems very narrow. I did manage to find the Memphis Public Library, located on the waterfront, but to my dismay they did not have wireless internet. What they did have were a bunch of homeless people hanging out and, more importantly, air conditioning. I stayed at the library for quite a few hours, in the meantime watching videos on my laptop and answering phone calls from the garage. As it turns out, my fan clutch had failed quite a while ago, and had just now become a real issue while driving through the summer heat. I told the technician to go ahead and fix that. I was planning to see Graceland in Memphis, but time got the upper hand and I had to be in Chicago in two days. So, on Wednesday evening, I started the journey north towards Illinois.

Quest Complete! Dann +6 XP get!

For those of you who have never seen The Man Who Knew Too Little, starring Bill Murray, this post will seem silly. To those who have, read on. On my way through Iowa I made it a point of stopping in Des Moines purely to get a photograph. Murray's character in the film, Wallace Ritchie, allegedly works at a Blockbuster Video in Des Moines, and states so rather emphatically and humorously. Hence, I had to get a picture at Blockbuster Video, Des Moines, Iowa. And here it is.
And here is business card proof.

Life in OKC, '08

Yesterday I drove from Hutchinson, Kansas, down to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In total I think I drove about 4 hours or so. Not bad. The main reason I decided on Oklahoma City was to see the memorial for the 1995 bombing. In addition to that memorial, it turns out OKC has a fantastic downtown public library, from which I am now posting. I can get a 2.5MB/sec Wifi connection here. Here we see the city skyline.The memorial. This pond is maybe a quarter inch deep. The arch at the far end reads 9:01 and the arch directly behind the camera read 9:03, the minutes before and after the 9:02 blast.
Metal chairs are erected across the pool, one for each of the 168 victims. The chairs rest on transparent cubes...
...which are illuminated at night, giving the chairs a floating, ethereal feel.
Unrelated to the memorial is this rather clever piece of advertising.
Oklahoma City marks the first time that I actually used the couch in my van for sleeping. Every other night I've been indoors on someone's couch or another comfortable horizontal piece of furniture. I'd like to report that my couch can be described as "suitable for sleeping on". Also experienced in my van was something that scientists are calling "too damn hot with too few windows".

More on this at 10.

Waterloo, IA, '08

The highlight of hanging out in Waterloo was spending all of Wednesday participating in flood cleanup with Samaritans Purse Disaster Relief. We set out at 7:30 am and were home by 6pm. The majority of the day (all but about an hour) was spent at this little house. I cut and removed drywall from the first floor until lunch, and the entire afternoon was spent washing and bleaching the walls of the basement, upon which quite a bit of sediment had built. The day ended with myself and two others removing soaked insulation and cleaning mica and gravel sediment out of a cubby hole.
The view of most of the appliances removed.
The sediment and insulation we removed.
My buddy Steve and I after a hard days work.
Another highlight of my stop was rediscovering Lite-Brite. Originally selling for $6.99 (without lightbulb), this is one of those toys that always seemed a staple at any host family's house at which I stayed while traveling during my early elementary years.
This is apparently supposed to look like Mr. Potatohead, the policeman.

I also went put-putting at 9pm one evening with Steve, who trounced me.

On to Des Moines!