I passed out vomiting a little while ago, and I just woke up in bed with a fever. My wife apparently called into my job (I'm the overnight manager of a Wal-Mart), which I guess is okay, because I feel like hell, but I hate knowing that somebody else's night just got ruined having to do my job.

Anyway, I'm having trouble getting comfortable, and I'm looking at a long night of throwing up by the feel if it. Anyone feel like talking Neo Geo as a distraction? I've been in an arcadey mood lately, so really I guess anything'll do... I have Punisher and GI Joe boards coming in the mail this month from spending some Christmas money, so they'll be cool. I'm just thinking about Neo Geo because I finally learned to play Art of Fighting half-way okay last weekend.

I've never been good at Art of Fighting 1 or 2, but I've been a really decent Capcom fighter and Guilty Gear player for a long time. I hated Art of Fighting on SNES, but when I first bought my AES back in '03, I bought most anything I'd find in the wild, and the first two AoF games are cheapies. It was so much faster, smoother, and more responsive that I started to dig it, but I'd always get pissed... in, like, the second fight on normal I'd fight Jack, and he can KO you in literally three moves. I'd have fun in multi-player, but seriously, fuck single player. I was a little better in the faster second game, and could get pretty far with Yuri, even beating it once... but I still just sucked.

Anyway, Sunday night after my wife and son went to bed, I decided to play Art of Fighting. I just got competely wrecked by Jack again... but instead of switching games like usual when it pisses me off, I resolved to try new approaches. I'd been playing like I play Street Fighter; lots of jumping combos and fireballs for screen positioning and the liken, then blocking into combos. Turns out, I do insanely better if I stay ground based, moving back and forward to maintain a short distance, yet allowing time to block or counter, and using a lot more kicks. Turns out I could cancel or counter a lot of Jack's specials with better priority. All of a sudden, on my last credit, I cleared several fights, and went way deeper into the game than I'd ever done before.

I quit after that last credit, satisfied that I'd finally broken through on one of my personal bugaboos, and wilk beat it sometime soon. Anybody else have a love/hate relationship like that? Wanna talk Neo Geo or other arcade games here? There's a good chance I get dragged to Urgent Care if I don't stop losing fluids, so I'll likely be on a lot tonight if anyone is in the mood.