Let’s start by saying there are times that I am glad that wireless technology has not managed to make it out to certain events. For the last 5 days I have been out of reach of the world wide web, and without it, I find so much more enjoyment from the things around me. Simple things, like the game of 500, a game of volleyball, or even better, a game of Tetris.
The trip down to Sonshine was safe. We got the tent up which was quite an experience for me and Amber on our own. Once we got it up, we went and visited Nikki and the church group. We all hung out for awhile and then basically went back and played cards and started to watch a movie before we fell asleep.
The next day is when the party started. John, Amber, and I went around and attended all sorts of shows. On my list for that day was Rueban, who was in good form. The day ended with 3rd Day, also in good form. For the most part, all we did most of the day was listen to music. I did play a little Tetris, but I found myself having a hard time working up to anything of value. I would get to level 30 and then die by line 400. It was very upsetting when I was hoping to get a new highscore.
For those of you who don’t know what Sonshine is, it’s a christian music festival. That should have been fairly easy to pick up by the fact that we went and listened to music, but either way I thought I would point it out.
We started watching another movie that night in our tent and again, managed to fall asleep half way through. All the walking, talking, eating, and listening of music really has a way to make you tired. Not to mention the nice warm sun baking you to a crisp.
The next day is when all the action started. John got to see a good number of the bands he wanted to like kutless. I also got to see groups like KJ-52 and my first ever viewing of Audio A(ndrenline). Everything was spectacular. It should be noted though, that sometime that day I had my first 1000 line game of gameboy tetris in about a month. That was good, I was getting back on my game.
But it didn’t stop there.
Later that night during some other bands that were playing, I started a Tetris game. It went pretty well. Got to level 30 without a problem. Got to 500 lines without a problem, but by then, the concerts were more worth my time. Sometime around 1500 lines my gameboy battery light came on, and because I was doing well, I thought I would save it and pause and come back later after I gave it a charge. I dropped it off at my car and we went to see the closing act for that night (Audio A).
Afterwards, we came back to the tent and John and I (Amber couldn’t seem to stay awake) stayed up and watched the second half of the movie we started the night before. During that time, I kept playing gameboy. I was so tired from everything that day that I failed to notice what was going on on the right side of my screen. When I finally thought I should stop for the night, my gameboy screen looked like this:
Yes, that picture was taken the next morning when I started back up. Needless to say, that was at least 300 lines above my old highscore, and the numerical score was 2 million higher. That’s right, Justin had a new highscore on his gameboy… but wait… The game didn’t stop there. Now for a long time, Justin has been on a mission to reach the 10 million mark. So he though, well, I’m 8/10th’s of the way there, if I play safe, and don’t play stupid, I can make it.
So Saturday morning roles around, we do some walking around, and finally I sit down. I turn the gameboy on and start going at it. John and Amber go off and look at some booths, and about 3 minutes after they got back my gameboy screen looked like this:
Yes, that is a game above 3000 lines. Yes, that is a game with a score of 9,994,822. Again, the game is still paused. So I’m like amazed at this point. Not only am I nearing my goal of 10 million, but I have never seen what happens at that point. The gameboy screen doesn’t have anymore room for numbers, so I’m not really sure there was anything that could happen. So of course, I played basically a few more lines of tetris, and the faintful moment came where we got this:
Yes, again, that’s a few screen later because I kept playing. But that makes the point clear, the score locks in at 9,999,999. That actually manage to piss me off a little. No more can Justin keep track of his progress using the score. The game doesn’t keep track of maximum lines. So there is no way for me to know anymore if I have gotten any better. That’s ok though, the fact of the matter is, I broke tetris.
The scarier part is though, the game still wasn’t done. In fact, it wasn’t done till much later that day (or was it the next day? I can’t remember). In fact I managed to get gameover at this point:
Yes, that reads 4509 lines, yes that’s maximum level and score. The question now has become where is maximum lines :-). So this is a minor note to mention that I have not retired (like John did with DDR) from Tetris. I have however decided that gameboy tetris is no longer the game for me to play on when it comes to testing my abilities, for it’s record keeping abilities have gone out the window. Therefore I will have to stick to the New Tetris for N64 so that I can keep track of lines. That will be my new measure of progress for the time being.
So to sum up: Tetris has been seen, conquered, and I’m ready to take on any challenger (for money of course) who thinks they can beat me?in a best 2 out of 3 game match without cheating. Note: I’m only talking like 20 bucks here.
That said….
The real point of sonshine was family.
God is good
ALL THE TIME!
All the time
GOD IS GOOD!
18,000 people praising the lord for 3 days. Many of which don’t shower. Many of whom haven’t slept. And yet, they are still able to ALL have their hands in the air closing night. 36,000 hands in the air, all towards the heavens, praising our God. Truly amazing. If you don’t know God personally, I would hope I could find some way to help you get there. If that means paying for your ticket to Sonshine next year, so be it :-).
From there I’m going to conclude with a photo of my family. I took many more pictures than this, and maybe one day when I finish my photo album, I will get them online. Until that day, here is my family (yes, you are all my family, this is just my sonshine family):
John, Nikki, me and Amber