Moomin Valley Diary 2

You're never gonna win by that strength!
















Sorry for the late arrival of the diary update, but like most of you have figured, I was away for a period of time having some fun experiencing the adult version of Dinseyland, Las Vegas, as well as being on a business trip in conjunction with the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) held in Los Angeles, every year. Since most of the details have already been covered in some of my earlier posts, I am only writing a few words on the Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution tournament. Anyway, as always, enjoy reading!

Tournament Day 2, 15th of April 2006

At last, the day we had been waiting for had finally come. The Norwegians were ready to prove themselves worthy of being the top Virtua Fighter country in the Nordic region. Although we had the ability to test our skills against our opponents the day before, and did relatively well showing our level, we still had to stay focused for the tournament, making sure our command inputs and reaction skills were at their best. Manjimaru drove us to the venue some hours before the Virtua Fighter tournament was about to begin. It was the first tournament to be held that day, so the Twins and I only had about an hour to search the venue area for some more supermarkets. We had wanted to take a bus to visit Lake Bodom –the lake which was the ground for the murder case which is mentioned earlier in this diary-, but due to the time constraint, we had to pass on this. Although not directly related to Rautanyrrki, I was with work covering the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2006 (E3). During the second day of E3, all the Norwegians who were attending the exposition met up for an exclusive dinner party at a restaurant next to the Sunset Strip in Beverly Hills. After that, we headed further to this really amazing bar which is called “the Saddle Ranch”. What one would say is particularly exciting about this bar, has to do with the mechanical bull and the nice looking waitresses. Imitating real-life bull riding, customers get the chance to ride a mechanical bull, where the aim is, as expected, to stay on top of it as long as possible while the bull increases in speed and bumpiness. Anyway, while enjoying my Long Island Ice Tea, I overhear two guys speaking in Finnish. At first, I thought they said something in Swedish, so I introduced myself to them shortly after. After talking awhile, I told them that I had been in Finland two weeks earlier, and that two friends of mine were huge fans of Children of Bodom. Since I was eager to hear more details about the Lake Bodom murder case, I asked one of the guys what really happened. Apparently, the kid who got back alive was in a court case recently accused of the murder. I was told that the victims had received knife stabs and cuts through the tent, and that the kid who was prosecuted had most likely inflicted stab wounds to himself to make it look like he was assaulted, too. Witnesses claim they saw one person running away from the scene at the time of the incident, but due to the far-away distance, the killer could not be identified. Some also claim that the accused was not present with the three victims when they went to sleep that night. Even though the prosecutors had evidence such as DNA samples to tie the kid to the murder, due to the time frame, large amounts of evidence was classified as out-dated, or too old, and was, therefore, nullified. The kid was ultimately declared innocent. Even so, 50% of people in Finland still believe he is the murderer. I can imagine how worried people might be, knowing that a potentially dangerous man is out and wandering the streets. I am sure the prosecutors are working 24/7 until they discover new evidence leading into a guilty verdict.

Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution Tournament

In order to qualify for an 8 Men Double Elimination tournament, all contestants were put in a classic group stage. The Twins and I, received special seeding treatment and were put in separate groups. Netrom, the Akira player, was, without a doubt, put in the most difficult group out of all four. He had to face tough competition from Sweden’s Jeneric, as well as strong Lei Fei player from Finland. In all battles, Netrom was down by two rounds, but amazingly managed to come back and win with only a dot left on his health meter. It was insane; Netrom could have been knocked out of the tournament as early as in the group stage! Another really strong group consisted of Finland’s Pexi and THR, Sweden’s BlixtBob, and Norway’s Wallace. We had heard rumours of BlixtBob’s Jacky play, emphasizing on Jacky’s elbow (forward + Punch) setup, but his game was stopped by some astonishing play by our very own Wallace. Wallace’s Akira had more than 5 launching counter hits, quickly stopping the Swede’s attempt to proving his worth. THR, using Lau mostly, qualified as number two, only beaten by Pexi. Raider did what he had to do in his group, and same as me, never lost a single round. Coming 2nd in Raider’s group, was Finland’s Manjimaru, while NeoChu in mine.

Hmm, maybe I should hold back a little?

Match videos from the Knock-Out Stage can be downloaded from the following page:


http://www.arctic-charge.com/temp/rn6/vf4evo/
http://www.divx.com (You need a divx codec to view the footage)

A more thorough description on what happened at the Knock-Out Stage can be read at my blog at http://chiefgutti.blogspot.com. Topic name: “Norway representing well”, written on 21st of April 2006.

1st place: Chief Gutti (Norway)
2nd place: Netrom (Norway)
3rd place: Pexi (Finland)