DJ Old Man Toji aka わしはトジジだ！

Many years ago, I played Beatmania IIDX. As there were no IIDX arcade machines in my home town - I settled for the PS2 games. While it could be played on a PS2 controller, it doesn't come close to the arcade experience if you don't have a Konami IIDX controller.

Of course the console IIDX controllers don't have anything on their arcade counterparts, but they were still pretty good. Though the keys some times stuck, that could be overcome with some minor modification - then the US released their own Konami IIDX controller which solved the issue of sticky keys. While I did put some time in to it, I didn't put enough to really reach a level beyond a small handful of low Hyper difficulty songs.

花吹雪 (Hanafubuki) / Normal difficulty

Skip to over a decade later, and I picked up IIDX again just a little over a month ago. Of course, I didn't bring my PS2 or my extensive collection of games with me to Japan. So what did I do? Head over to the ゲームセンター aka the arcade and play IIDX there. After a few attempts of navigating around the menu and figuring out how to not play double mode (aka 14 keys and 2 turntables), I slowly got back in to the swing of things.

The one thing I love about the arcade version - or at the very least the current version (IIDX 30 Resident), is that you can make your own playlist of songs. Given that there are 30 games' worth of IIDX songs, this is a really neat feature, instead of having to navigate around trying to find the song I want to play.

 It also means, I can save songs that I remember playing back on the PS2 over 10 years ago, and even now, I'm picking songs that I didn't realise I forgot until I started playing them and started to remember again.

In the meantime, I've taken a break from Jubeat, as I felt I hit a slump, despite playing on Extreme difficulty. There some patterns that I'm having a hard time adapting to. On the other hand, it feels good to get back in to IIDX

An afternoon in Choshi

Today, I went over to Choshi in the Chiba Prefecture. My main reason for going there was because there are no malls in Kamisu, and I haven't been to anything remotely close to a mall since arriving in Kamisu. The other reason, is because I wanted to look for something for my girlfriend for her birthday coming up soon.

After a 30 minute drive from my apartment, and across the bridge connecting Kamisu to Choshi, I finally arrived at Aeon Mall. I was actually surprised that it was smaller than what I was expecting - at least, compared to the Aeon Mall that's near Kyoto Station. In anycase, I decided to have a look around. Interestingly, the central area of the mall was set up for what I later found out to be a live performance by a singer. Funnily enough, I parked my car next to what appears to be the singer's van - or at the very least the organiser's van. I decided to get something to eat first - I went for takoyaki, something which I have not eaten in a while. I also purchased an iced mocha, as I have not had a decent coffee in a while, though I thought the iced mocha was so-so. After lunch, I had a look at the electronics store for something that my girlfriend said she would like. I won't mention the product, but it was a reasonable price, though I thought I should check out other stores like K's Denki before I made the final purchase. It later turned out that the electronics store was the cheapest place to purchase the gift, and I will be returning there this weekend.
Afterwards, I decided to have a look at the game center. Compared to the game center in Kamisu, it is a nice change of pace to go to a game center that doesn't reek of tobacco. There were a lot of UFO catcher games, but I wasn't particularly interested in any of the prizes. Instead, I played one game of Groove Coaster. However, because it was a SEGA game center, 100 yen only allowed me to play 2 songs, compared to 3 songs that most other game centers do. It was disappointing, and I decided to leave it at one game.

After the game center, I decided to start heading off, but not before I got a glimpse of the singer doing her live performance. I wasn't sure who she was, but the majority of the audience were older, so I'm guessing it's either someone who was more popular years ago, or a singer whose target audience is older people.

That sums up my afternoon. While it was nice to go to a mall for the first time in weeks, it's not something I see myself doing on a regular basis, purely because it's quite the trip going to the next prefecture. Though, if I'm looking for something to break up the monotony of daily life in Kamisu, it's certainly worth it for that.