Thunder Dragon 2/Big Bang high score #5

Well, I didn't get far with my new pcb before I picked this up again and cannot get it out of the cab. Progress is coming fast, with stage 4 and 5 going down easy. Didn't lose a life until the stage 6 boss and then tanked both extra lives trying to learn the bullet patterns - where I should have just bombed instead. Seems like there are few bosses in this game that you can actually dodge their shots.

Not a huge push past my old high score, but notable if only for the fact that after two days of having it in the cab, I started to break the 2mil mark - a feat which I considered monumental last time I played.

I have really come around on this game - I consider it an essential part of my collection - very old school, great BGM/OST, super fun and one I would absolutely love to 1cc - but that final boss is b-ru-t-a-l.

Battle Garegga - and getting down and dirty with my shmupping

It's not like I haven't played any games in the past year - in fact, I played through Persona 4 and Shin Megami Tensei - Digital Devil Saga (Parts 1 and I'm right at the very end of 2) - but really, that stuff has always been more casual for me.

After moving here to Colorado Springs, I decided for the first time in 17 years, to put a band together. I had been playing guitar on and off and was supposed to start a band with a good friend of mine in Chicago, Shane (guitarist in Murmur and Guzzlemug) and the night of our first practice together, I found out I got the job in COS and was moving in a few weeks - which kind of put a damper on the band thing.

So, I had to scratch the itch and get somethign started here. I got on CL and found a bassist into the stoner metal x early black metal x sludge thing I was thinking of in my head (think Sleep meets Celtic Frost meets Autopsy) and we started to jam and it came together realy fast. We got a drummer pretty quick too and before I knew it, we had a good 3-4 songs with another riffs for about 5 more (all stuff I was pretty impressed with) befpore they started talking of touring, quitting their jobs and trying to make it as a band. Now, I have been down that road and even had a good amount of time living in my car to try and make it happen and I wasn't interested in trying that again, especially as I have friends in major label signed bands who have to work as dishwashers and carpenters and kitchen help when not on tour so they can eat. There's no money in music anymore, really.

We split amicably - I took the music and name and they went off to try to find another guiarist. It was a lot of fun to play again, but really, I just wanted to get loud and prove to myself I could still write good songs - which I did. I may upload some of the recorded video of us riffing at some point. Some good stuff in there.

It took me a while to get my monitor fixed, as it didn't survive the move as well as I would have hoped, but here I am, playing the shit out of Garegga again and hoping to sink my teeth into a new PCB in the stable shortly...

It's good to be back.