Home again home again.

I'm back from Madison. It went fine.

I ended up waiting until 7:30 or so to leave town on Friday. It was a good call, as there was no traffic, as opposed to lots of it. Thankfully construction wasn't bad so I was there by midnight.

While I was there, I helped my mom with her computer, which was the (flimsy) main reason that I was there. I saw my bother and his wife, my sister and her husband, my other brother-in-law and my parents. Meals were had by all, at various times.


me and my bro.


mom.


eric up close and personal.


justin and joan.

I went for a run through the town. I went and saw Up again. It was just as good the second time. It ranged from being just ok to being a lot of fun. I was back by 5 pm on Sunday.



While I was home I picked up my Street Fighter 4 FightStick, which I was super excited about. It was shipped to my parent's house by accident, so I've been waiting for weeks to get my hands on it. I plugged it in as soon as I possibly could and got to fighting. And I suck.

I grew up playing Street Fighter on consoles. Genesis, Super Nintendo and Playstation are where the series lives for me. I'm sure I played it in the Arcade once or twice, but my time was spent mainly with a console controller in hand. And I got pretty good.

So when (pretty much) the whole internet started bemoaning the use of a control pad to play Street Fighter 4; how an arcade stick was needed to play properly, and in fact the only way it was meant to be played, I was skeptical but also curious.

And the official Fightsticks were so nice and pretty that when I found one, I snatched it up.

I'm not going to say I was the best at Street Fighter. But I'm good.

I've played them all, from Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, to Street Fighter III: Thrid Strike and all the iterations in between. And now I've played a ton of Street Fighter 4. That's like 15 years of Street Fighter.

And in that time I've become very familiar with the game. I'm pretty much better than any of my friends (although that's not saying a ton). Combos, counters, specials and supers are no big whoop. I could pull a Wake-Up Shyoruken in my sleep, and Akuma's (pretty complicated) special with just a little bit of concentration.

But with the FightStick, I can't even throw a Hadouken consistently. An arcade stick is so foreign. It blows my mind how much I suck. I am terrible.

I played for a bit against the CPU and generally got my butt kicked. Then I played for an hour or more just in training mode. I wouldn't let myself go to bed until I pulled off 3 Hadouken's, 3 Shyoruken's and 3 Hurricane Kicks in a row without messing up.

Ridiculous. But I'm not giving up. I am going to keep practicing. I have everything about the game committed to memory, so now I just have to retrain my hands. Which is frustrating, and maybe a fool's errand. But I payed cold, hard cash for this stick, and I love the way it feels. I want to be able to use it.

And I can already tell there's some definite benefits to the FightStick. Back-forward Charge moves (especially the more complicated specials) work much more consistently with the stick. So I just have to "stick" with it. Eh?

Eh?