Tap Dancing?

At #49, we have the first of many DDR entries.

So you're in a new college, and if you're not from the vicinity, you probably don't know anybody or have any tight relationships going into it. Add on top of that the fact that you have a hobby that not many people have heard of and had been called "gay" (for lack of a better term) at times. Going back to September of 2001, just before classes started, I found myself kind of bored in my dorm room and I had left my favorite DDR pads in California.

Being the resourceful person I thought I was, I took some electrical tape that magically appeared in my bag and since the floor was tiled, I marked off 4 spaces. With simulator in hand and tape on the floor, I started practicing. Since the dorm didn't have the air conditioning on yet, Oliver and I kept our door open. Obviously, people could walk in the hall and see this weird Asian dude "tap dancing" on the floor. It was even more of a surprise when I looked behind me to see half my floor stuffed in the entrance to my room. Nervous would be a good word to describe the whole situation.

That was 2001, back when nobody knew about the video game phenomenon and everybody looked at it with a blind eye, thinking it was one of the stupidest things they had ever seen. Today? For most people it's still the same, but most people that have been in arcades have seen a DDR or PIU machine around, and thankfully they hold a little more respect for those that have dedicated so much time to it.