DDR Night @ The Blancos' II

Last night, Michele and I hosted our second DDR party -- and we had a whale of a time. :-)

Here's my blog on the first one in Febuary.

This DDR party was a little more enhanced than the last one because of the new home theater we installed last week. And after a day of cleaning and preparing, things started at around 5 PM.

Linn showed up first, and after breaking out all the food and drinks, I taught her how to play. Linn is the kind of dream attendee a DDR host would hope for. She seemed terrified at first, resistant to play, though she wasn't too bad to start.

By the end of the evening, she was all over the dance mat -- kicking butt, taking names. ;-)

Vincen, one of the 2 holdovers from the first party (everyone else was a first timer!) came over and -- as a side note, generously donated his Nintendo 64 to me, so it is a new addition to my collection (see next blog!) -- thanks Vincen! -- and Vincen got practiced up as well.

Mobat (the other holdover) and Athena showed, followed b Sean Christmann. Mobat's always been good, and now he's up to light mode. I wonder who will be the first to join me in standard mode someday. :-)

Christmann was a natural, although he misinterpreted how to play when I explained it to him, and he was a complete spazz to start. Fortunately, he was just playing wrong, and he was almost instantly good.

With practice in full swing and 7 PM (the official party start time) upon us, Dorrie and Mike Munhall showed up. I grabbed Mike right away to teach him how to play, and wouldn't you know it -- Dorrie even played!

Yes, it's a col day in hell, folks. :-)

Mike did really well -- perhaps his inner DJ helped with that -- and Dorrie also did well, though she was playing as if the dance pad were made of acid. But she was getting the rhythm going as the night wore on.

The last to arrive were Michele's brother Andy, and his girlfriend Corrine. (I can spell it now!) Andy figured things out pretty quick -- go figure, the gamers seemed to take right to it -- and Corrine we had to work on. :-)

The white guy having more groove than the white girl? What kind of world is this?

Corrine won't be off the hook, though -- we're gonna work on her!

The party went great! Dorrie made guacamole, and it went fast. The newbies loved the dancing, the room stayed cool because I cranked the AC all day, and the new sound system was flawless -- whew!

The original theme of the party was "Boys vs. Girls," meaning two teams of -- well -- boys versus girls. Unfortunately, the teams were not even, and I instead change things to a "Red vs. Blue" format where I tried to make two very balanced teams.

In the end, after 5 rounds of head-to-head matchups, and 3 rounds of team play, the tournament ended in a DEAD TIE.

The tie-breaker that was agreed upon was to have me and Michele in a dance-off. Michele and I agreed upon the song that we knew we could both do perfectly at any time, so make things fair, so we chose "Cartoon Heroes" in Light Mode -- and I managed to just BARELY beat her out. A late screw up by me made things almost dead even.

I really liked the format this time. I think teams are far better than individual, or couples, standings because -- in the end -- the point is not to declare winners, but just give everyone something to dance for.

The team-based tournament provided that kind of motivation, and a nice camaraderie as well. I think I'll do the same format next time.

One new idea for th enext party is to have a last, bonus round, where every player takes turns doing "Doubles Mode". In this mode, one player plays on BOTH mats at the same time, jumping from side. I've done it a few times, and it's really fun. :-)

The only thing better than DDR is a DDR party. And the only thing better than a DDR party is a DDR party withf riends! :-)

If you combine both parties, in total, there have been 17 unique dancers (Me, Michele, Adriana, Aaron, Kevin, Shawn, Mike, Dorrie, Mobat, Vincen, Patricia, Anthony, Sarah, Sean, Linn, Andy, and Corinne). We might have to plan another DDR party between now and September (I hope to do one about every 3 months or so) just to give everyone a chance!

...

Oh, and sadly, I didn't take any pictures. :-( I am dumb. So, I have nothing to show. No proof. Nothing!

You'll just have to believe me that it really happened. ;-)