Hello,

As you may guess, I was in Capcom's latest Street Fighter Club event in NYC, last Friday, October 24, 2008.
It was awesome!!!

Now, I give you a short story to describe my adventure:

The Saga of a Travelling Street Fighter

Have you ever been puzzled by the fact that, in SF2, the character you picked always had to be the one to travel to another country to fight? In a video game they were trips that took seconds... but try doing that in real life. My journey started on a Friday morning; last Friday (October 24), actually.

So, skipping the part of getting the e-mail, finding transportation back and forth, and possibly a place to stay overnight, I'll go into the main part of the action. Well, if you don't know, I live in Fall River, Massachusetts. So, this time I was the fighter to travel in order to get my ass kicked...

Anyways, I woke up very early, on that Friday. Apperently, it wasn't early enough, because I missed my first bus to NY. So, with the help of my super mother, I got to Providence, Rhode Island, to catch the bus I missed (because it stops there for about an hour). And so I did. Got to Providence on time, had my breakfast, and took off to New York.

After 2 hours on a smooth bus ride, we stopped. The reason was unclear for a long period of time, but it was certainly not good. It was in the middle of the high way (95) and all other cars had stopped as well. We found out it was a police chase that had just ended a few minutes earlier. So, count about 45 minutes without moving a single meter towards NY. Then, we started moving again, and about 2 hours later we arrived!

My journey continued as I took the W line train down to Canal St. Then, it was the J line train to Kosciouski St.
Easy!
Now, off to finding where the hell was the underground place I was to meet other Street Fighters. That was also easy... but there was nobody there. Of course! I was 5 early! Yep. I arrived there at about 3pm EST. So, I went somewhere to get a sandwich or some food. That was hard to find actually. That part of the city had Hair Saloons as its main business. I counted about 4 or 5!
Anyways, I got my sandwich and back the chief bodega place. Getting there I found two other guys, one of them being Jesse, whom I got to talk a lot... (about 4.5 hours, you know?). I couldn't find a link to the other guy's (I think his name was Philip) Unity page. But the important thing is that I explained them I was there FIRST, and they agreed.

Moving on, more people started gathering in front of the bodega as time went by. At about 4:30pm there were about 10 of us. And at about 6pm we had... a lot of people.

Well, so far I had a 5 hour bus ride, half hour in the trains/subways, another half hour wondering around NY... and now 4.5 hours waiting in a line that I basically started!

Finally, the doors were openned. I checked in, grabbed my pizza, soda and cookies, and went for the fight. Actually, no. I stopped to talk to Seth first. Then... SF4!!! I lost all matches. I have no shame in saying so. But there's a reason for that. See, I NEVER, EVER, NOT EVEN ONCE, fought any of the new characters... or Sakura. 99% of the time, I fought Ryu or Ken. the other 1% was split between Akuma, Sagat and...Blanka. Seriously guys... why such fear?? I could kick some ass with Ryu or Ken as well. But I tried to enjoy SF4 for what it had NEW. Not the old stuff. Sure, Ryu and Ken are icons... but had been there for about 20 years. Oh... they also have Focus Attacks? Yeah! But even then... nobody tried using them! I was probably the only one using Able and trying to master the Focus Attacks (they're way harder than they seem)

Enough ranting now... I had a blast!
It was worth every hour waiting, and every moment of back pain I have from standing up for so long!

Oh! Did I mention I met Mike Fass? He's Zangief in College Humor's "Street Fighter: The Later Years", one of my favorite (if not the favorite) internet series ever!

So, in the end, everything felt like playing Street Fighter. I travelled to a different area of the country. Fought many times, and saw many "game over" screens. So I went back to the end of the line, tried to watch and learn from others... and tried again. The fact that I fought Ryu and Ken a thousand times just added to the feeling of hitting the "Continue" option over and over again...

Here are two pictures proving that I was actually there:

Me (Yuri - Dubindoh) and Mike Fass (Zangief)

Street Fighter Devotion producer (sorry, don't remember his name), me, and Zangief... and some other random people in the background...

So, that was it.

I recommend attending Capcom events, like this one. Even if you have to take the whole day off and travel 5 hours... and wait in line... and... well, you read the story, right?

See you next time,

Yuri (Dubindoh)

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