I actually have a by-the-minutes journal of my Arcadia experience on my PDA, but I'm having issues with the computer, so I'll just show you the product:

Parade - Washington Grey's 1
It's got better quality then video 2, but didn't get the whole song. In case you're curious, I'm 3rd rank from the back, closest to the camera, not counting tall flags.

Parade 2
This one has the whole parade, but focuses on the guard more visually and is takes from the other side of the street.

Field Show - Legend of the 5th Sun
It's best if you close your eyes... because the music is GLORIOUS and the visual part was... not so much. I have proof, too, since we won the award for high music score but came in 3rd overall, and music is the heaviest weighted score.

The Drum Major's Final Salute
I didn't realize anyone videoed this. Yeah, our drum major always has a lot of fun with the color guard captains at the final salute.

I know I updated more last marching season, but that's because I was excited. After losing 2 more tournaments after the one previously mentioned, not getting to host our tournament due to the fires, and then loosing ANOTHER tournament (by FIVE FREAKING POINTS) I haven't been in the mood.

Combine that with the death of a student at school at a football game on Friday, and some rather depressing news relating to my extended family... and I haven't been up much to blogging. Maybe we'll win the big end of the year tournament at Arcadia in 2ish weeks. We'll see.

So, Marching Season has officially started. Before I get on my rant, I got Phantom Hourglass. It's awesome. Multi player's a ton of fun, too. Now, for bando ranting.

So our first tournament of the season was yesterday. It was a good performance. No video on youtube yet. Got to give it a few days. I've watched the performance of both us and our one competitor, and I have no idea how they beat us. None whatsoever.

I don't like the way SCSBOA does awards ceremonies. It always apparent who won 10 minutes before they announce it, since it's the one band not called in their division takes all the fun out of it when you have something awesome happen, like this:

1st Place 6A: Mt. Carmel - 74
Music Sweepstakes: Rancho Bernardo - 320ish
Effect Sweepstakes: Mt. Carmel - 230ish
Visual Sweepstakes: Rancho Bernardo - 120ish
Overall Sweepstakes: Rancho Bernardo - 74!

Now here's where all the fun got lost. Look at the scores for MC and RB. IT'S THE SAME! We TIED. But, of course, we already knew we had lost when they called us 5 awards earlier. Noe, they won because Tiebreaker goes to the music scores, but still, that's pretty good. I can't wait until our show is complete. Just imagine: 1 more file covered down, and we'd have won. One less wrong note. One less person on the wrong foot... we should win next week with just a little bit more work.

Though, honestly, how do they win when there's an entire MINUTE of silence in their show where they're moving SLOWLY. Excitement factor of that = 0, and no music should mean, you know, LOWER MUSIC SCORE. Blah. I want it to be Monday so I can get to school and look at our official score sheets and listen to judges tapes.

GLOSSARY OF BANDO TERMS USED IN THIS BLOG:

Sweepstakes - Award given to best score in category and overall in all divisions... in theory. Always goes to a division 6 band anyhow.

Music Judging Category - 400pts possible. Musical Phrasing, Articulation, Note accuracy, etc.

General Effect Judging Category - 350pts possible. How exciting and impressive the show is as a whole.

Visual Judging Category - 250pts possible. How straight the lines are, how smooth the curves are, people are all on the correct foot, etc.

(All are added to get a total of 1000, and then it's divided by 10 to get a score out of 100)

Covering Down: Making sure you're directly behind the person in front you.

http://www.sega.com/cgi-bin/sra/leaderboard.cgi?zone=13&t=us

Yep, there's me. #7.

Actually, #6 as of about a minute ago, but the internet leaderboard only shows updates daily, so tomorrow it will show I'm #6.

On another note, I need ppl to play online against. The matching doesn't do a great job of picking players.

Best Sonic game ever. No joke. It is superior to any Sonic game you've ever played, hands down.

I got myself a DS Lite and Sonic Rush. It is awesome.

On a side note, we're almost done with the first movement of out field show in band! It's exciting!