What's Wang This Week

With my sister and her family all vacated from the house, I have had some time to relax (and some mornings to sleep without Thomas waking me up). For the last week I've been unwinding with a steady regimen of video games. I bought Rayman Raving Rabbids, and let me tell you, I was a fool to pick Super Monkey Ball over it in December. Super Monkey Ball? More like Super Monkey Asshole¹. I also played some poker and made almost $5. Which reminds me, I owe Jowen 70 cents.

The single most significant thing I've done this week is play Tetris Tournament. After my last post about Tetris Tournament, I had a breakthrough game and brought my high score to 964155. This was a huge improvement over my last high score, and I felt like my game had progressed almost to the point where I could just keep on playing and playing as long as I wanted, so I was, naturally, thrilled. What I didn't expect was that my score would put me 20th out of 60682 on all of Facebook. I was shocked; that's, like, a world ranking. That's not even just a world ranking, that's a good world ranking.

Unfortunately, it turns out I wasn't actually that close to being one of those guys who can play indefinitely, and for the last week I've been trying vainly to better my score to at least seven digits. The closest I've come to my high score is hitting about 850000 a couple of times, but most of the time my score hovers between 600K and 700K. As it is my high score from before is now 36th out of 73481, and it's not likely to improve anytime soon. It's getting difficult because if I want to play a single game of Tetris Tournament, I basically have to play for 25 minutes, so I can only really get in two or three attempts in a session before my hands overheat. On one hand that can't be good for my wrists, but on the other hand there's something to be said about going out of the world of functioning hands in a blaze of seven-digit Tetris glory.

For some time the #10 score on Tetris Tournament was held by a pretty cute girl. As I played, I'd be watching the top ten scores on the side and looking at her picture, and thinking, "I wonder who she is. I wonder if she knows she's my dream girl." Maybe I should have messaged her, but I think I'd have to be at least top 15 before she would take my messages.

A few weeks ago my mandolin bridge finally arrived -- six weeks after it was ordered. Of course, I wasn't in Berkeley to receive the mandolin, so it went back on the shelf, and when I get back I'll have to go and pick another one. If they run out before Sunday I think I'm going to have to challenge someone at Guitar Center to a duel. Of course now all of my best mandolin-learning time is past (time which I spent playing Tetris Tournament, I suppose), so instead of maybe getting OK at the mandolin, I'll have to set my sights lower and limit myself to learning to play Losing My Religion and Hasn't Hit Me Yet. Maybe -- maybe -- Maggie May.

It looks like I won't be able to join the jazz ensembles this semester, as two of the three intermediate combos conflict with my classes, and I have to TA anyway so I don't imagine I'll have a lot of time. Besides, that's time I can spend learning to play Losing My Religion. That's meeee in the cooooorner...

I realize that no one reads my blog anymore (and I hope it's mostly because I don't write as much anymore rather than that people don't like me anymore), but if anyone does and wants to see The Shins at the Greek Theatre on Friday October 5, let me know and we'll get tickets. Sooner rather than later, though; tickets have already been on sale for a week and I don't want to get caught without a ticket.

Current Music: Beck - Midnite Vultures

1. also: Super Monkey Balls; Stupid Monkey Ball; Sucks Monkey Ball; Super Monkey Bullshit.