Posts Tagged ‘DDR’

The Perfect DDR Shoe…

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

All right, I’m exaggerating — the perfect DDR shoe would be a shoe that made my feet move 20% faster, while at the same time making me look 5 inches taller, 10 pounds lighter, and 25 years younger.

But I digress.

I’m not saying that you’re going to be doing your social life any favors, but if you want to significantly improve your Dance Dance Revolution experience, you might want to check out the Vibram Five Fingers shoe:

It’s a little disconcerting at first to be able to feel the dancepad with the bottoms of your feet and your toes, but once you get used to the shoes, they rock!

Of course, I’m talking about using the shoes for the arcade, or an arcade-type dancepad, such as the Cobalt Flux or the RedOctane Afterburner.  For soft pads, you should stick to bare feet.

VFF shoes aren’t cheap (around $80 online for the Classic), but I’m not complaining.  If the internet is to be believed, the shoes are also good for running — but start out slow, and build up to longer distances and higher speeds gradually…

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Fun with Office Supplies

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Got a temp job where you’ve got a computer, an internet connection, a supply closet, and too much free time?  How about some Dance Dance Revolution!  You can make your own finger dancepad out of some Fun-Tak and a wooden coffee stirrer cut into two pieces:

You can download an absolutely amazing shareware simulator from www.stepmania.com.  Rumor has it that you can also download a huge number of DDR songs (including the arcade stuff) at various sites.

If a supervisor asks you about the Fun-Tak and coffee stirrers, you can tell them that it’s for your carpal tunnel syndrome…

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The Geek Life: DDR

Friday, June 20th, 2008

For you non-Geeks, DDR stands for Dance Dance Revolution, that sweaty, stompy Konami arcade game with the flashing lights.

DDR is the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet of arcade games, with a customer base made up almost entirely of Asians, kids, and overweight white people.

Some words to the wise:

  1. Unless you’re a 90-pound teenager, no matter how cool you *feel* doing DDR, you *look* like a complete idiot.
  2. Smiling makes it worse.
  3. Sweating like a pig is not a good look for most people.
  4. Don’t clap your hands to keep the beat, unless you’re trying to do a bad Jerry Lewis impersonation.
  5. Playing double mode (one dancer using both pads) does not make you look twice as cool.  Trust me.
  6. If you do DDR on a date and you win, don’t shout: “In your face, loser!”
  7. You won’t lose nearly as much weight as you think you will.  Just think of all those weight-loss commercials: results not typical.
  8. DDR does not translate well to a real-world dance floor.  (However, doing a lot of DDR does tend to decrease the amount of alcohol you have to consume prior to dancing at a wedding.)
  9. DDR is *way* harder than it looks.  But like anything else in life, with hours and hours of relentless, dedicated practice, it’s possible to choke the life out of it and turn something that’s supposed to be fun into joyless drudgery.
  10. No matter how good you get, there’s some kid who will dance circles around you.  If you’re doing Heavy, they’re doing Challenge.  If you’re getting AA’s, they’re getting AAA’s.  And if you finally get an AAA, they’re juggling flaming torches:

(And no, that’s not David Archuleta — it’s the amazing Billy Matsumoto. Maybe they shop together.)

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