For those of you who have been awaiting my next article - i can only hope it's more than 3 people - this is not it.  Nope, the article I wrote up was about peace and unity and cooperation and lots of hippy crap that only sounds better spoken than written down.  Yes, that article, for the most part, exists, but I am not of the mood to complete it.
       College finals are here and I'm freaking out.  Studying my ass off?  I'd like to think so, but part of the stress makes me want to procristinate, or nap.  It's possible I could fail two classes, I don't know how likely as there are rumors of curves, but still possible, and that ain't sitting well with yours truly.
       In addition to that, I just survived a very ugly DDR situation.  Invited to judge a competition at a different Long Island arcade, both Amanda and I showed up at the designated time.  We didn't know who the opposing team members were and were never introduced, and after two hours the competition never got under way.  We decided to leave at that point, which caused the same people who invited us to blame us for ruining the competition.  Many angry words were exchanged (see DDRfreak, but I'd advise against it) and although things were eventually thinned out, it had gotten ugly and I regret the things I had said.
       I'm not as tolerant as usual.  Optimistic, yes, but tolerant and patient, no.  My sense of humor eludes me as well.  I figure now I'll give the angry article, and next time it will be more pleasant. Teams suck. Yes that is my point.  I don't hate any teams in particular, and honestly I don't hate any teams at all (maybe Triple Break, but read their website and you'll understand).  It's hard to blame a team for something if the team is just a mass of individuals with a few common interests and beliefs.  It's the individuals that make up the team that matter.  What sucks about the concept of a team though is the politics of it.  By joining a team, you have sided
with people.  Not necessarily sided against anyone, but sided with people whom you owe a certain amount of allegiance to.  However, this allegiance does put a barrier between people affiliated to one team and people affiliated to another, not that they CAN'T get along at the same time, but it creates friction.  Gatherings and trips to the arcade become more of a team
event than an individual pursuit of fun, and almost a political representation.  Just as an example because they are one of the most prominent teams, I can't say something about Rand Corp without at least 8 people having a reaction.  Not that what I would have said would be negative, it could have been a compliment, but it would be directed at multiple people rather than one.  Conversely, if I were to say "Damn Nugget you play really well" the rest of Rand recoils because they perform together and Nugget is the only one who gets mention.  (thanks for being the guinea pig Nugget and Rand, of course these are only examples)
       What happens to the individual players in between these tides of teams? Do they completely get swept away?  Of course not, but often they do not get as much recognition as they would otherwise.  If for example Ted, a lone DDRer, was friendly with all members of DBDRZ, wouldn't that place him in a position of being unofficially affiliated?  In addition, if a team member posts on a board, they are more likely to get response from the other team
members than if a loner did.  This creates an imbalance of power and more than a few sore feelings. How do I feel about this?  I hate teams, well the concept of teams. In some ways, it is difficult for teams NOT to exist. 
          If Jimthefly and Dollar Bill travel together, they're automatically affiliated.  If Rand and Simon and Dillinger travel together, they're all affiliated in some way.  Just as if go to Sports Plus more than FYE and play with the members there, I am more affiliated with them.  While I will gladly stand up for any of those people if need be, I will stand up for them as individuals.  We're not a team, and I like it that way. A team has expectations, allegiances, loyalty, responsibilities, lots of extra baggage that don't necessarily make sense when playing a game for fun. However, if a team is just a group of friends that decided to say "Let's make ourselves
official", more power to them.  The teams that work in sync well together  ought to remain together.  But it still makes things more political and I don't like that.  I'm not warring against teams  or advocating that they break up.
        I am simply stating with words what we all feel about the state of DDR politics.  And as my final message, to all individuals, STAND TALL AND PROUD, you have yourself and that's all you need to play the game.  Keep on groovin.

-Mike aka Hdefined Under Stress