I went to the Otakuthon Anime convention, and goofed around on at the DDR section. Me being who I am, I immediately tried to find the hardest song, and start off right away with it. The song was called "Pluto" or something like that, and I failed miserably. Despite this, this guy came up to me and started chatting with me. He asked me if I wanted to try the other mix of Pluto which is on this game. I asked him if it's harder or easier than this song, and he told me it depends. The mix I played had a lot of freezes which, if you didn't know the song, could really throw you off. If you know both songs well, though, then the other mix was harder. So I agreed, and we tried the other song, and he wasn't kidding. It had like 16th beat streams at 400BPM. Crazy. I tried the first mix of Pluto again, just to see if I could remember where all the tempo freezes were, and I got further, but still failed.

I took a few minutes to catch my breath, then started talking to the guy. We really hit it off. He told me he makes steps for DDR. I told him I did too. I asked him about how hard he makes his songs, and he says his expert steps are usually around an 8. I told him I sometimes do easy-ish songs, but a lot of my songs are 10s or higher. He also mentioned he was working on a remix of Max. I told him I had worked on a remix of Maxx Unlimited called "Maxx Unlimited (Angelix Mix)", but I never finished it. I then asked him if he knew a bit about music theory, like time signatures and stuff. He said, "Yeah, like Cutie Chaser is..." and I interrupted with "3/4". He said "Yeah. And uh, Holic is like..." and I interrupted again with "7/8". So he nodded, and I knew he knew about time signature. So I told him I'm a bit fan of odd time signatures.

I got his e-mail address and told him maybe we could collaborate on a song sometimes. He said sure, and asked me if I did steps to my songs. I told him no: I compose songs, but never do DDR steps for them, and when I do steps for songs, it's always other songs I find on the internet. They're like two separate projects for me.

Later that day, I'm sitting at a table, reading the event program for Otakuthon, and I see the guy's name under "musical guests". It turns out that guy works for Konami. I made a total ass of myself in front of him. When he said he does steps for DDR, and I said "me too", we weren't talking about the same thing at all. He is officially employed by Konami to design steps for DDR songs, whereas I'm making fan songs. When he said he's working on a remix for Max, and I said I was too, we weren't talking about the same thing at all. He's actually composing songs that will actually be used on an official Konami release of DDR. I'm making a fan mix.

As I was reading his biography in the program, the words I said that made me sound like a complete idiot flashed back in my mind. This guy did the song "Nightshade" in DDR Universe for Xbox360 and "I Wanna Be Your Star" in DDR Universe 2. He has worked with Jenny Rom, SMiLE.dk and Thomas Howard. I guess when I said "me too" to making steps for DDR and composing a Max remix, he realized I didn't know who he was. I also told him I haven't played any DDR since Extreme Mix (so I didn't play Universe nor Universe 2), so maybe that made him more understanding towards my ignorance.

When I said it, I took him completely seriously when he said "sure" to us collaborating on a song, but now that I know he's a famous big shot, I wonder if he will take it seriously or if he was just being polite. I hope he's serious. If I can get one of my songs into the next DDR, that would be freaking amazing. If my songs could appear in the next DrumMania, that would be even better, but my songs tend not to be very interesting in terms of drum-play, so I don't have my hopes up for that.