J.D. Lowe's Burger Time Rant

Holy crap.

Including arcade, as well as unofficial records, this is what the scoreboard looks like as of August 3, 2015:

Rank	Score	Player	Platform	Status
1	11,512,500	Bryan Wagner	Arcade	Official
2	10,262,000	VERTEX-DAN	MAME	Unofficial
3	7,881,050	Billy Mitchell	Arcade	Official
4	7,789,300	J.D. Lowe	MAME	Pending
5	7,609,900	William King	MAME	Official
6	6,779,450	Richard Jarosiewicz	MAME	Official
7	6,109,500	J.D. Lowe	Arcade	Official
8	5,944,700	Steve Shepard	Arcade	Official
9	5,882,950	Darren Kennedy	Arcade	Official
10	5,663,200	Tom Sher	Arcade	Official

This can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t1E9QOeF1uWKkuMtko8Dcr5GOm7wuK33Ge6_pL1EfMo/edit?usp=sharing

(Note, yes, I'm on there twice. Furthermore, Twin Galaxies tracks MAME and arcade as separate entities)

Overall notes about the game:

So, the game itself was pretty solid. 514 Burger ingredients, minus 2 for every Type 5 screen which means 508 Burgers ingredients available, and I got 504 of them perfectly.

This means I missed out on approx. 64,200 points.

I also blew a LOT of peppers on Level 24. I blame the nerves; I knew I was on pace for 7.7M after losing those four drops. I entered Level 28 with 20 peppers, and it should have been closer to 30 peppers.

PLUS I ALMOST FRIGGIN' GROUPED THEM TWICE ON LEVEL 28 AND I CHOKED EACH TIME ARGH.

Before the final game, I had tried something I had wanted to do for a LONG time, and that was clear Level 1 with absolutely zero peppers used. I was able to do it! I lost most of my lives, but it was the first level, so I didn't really care.

Problem is, I was using Windows 10. With Cortana enabled.

I was doing Level 2, one pepper grouping, and was running around while joking with my wife, when suddenly something I said sparked Cortana.

Which took focus away from the game, which almost crashed everything.

Fair warning, if you're using Windows 10 and going for world records, DISABLE CORTANA.

So, long story short, there are a few places that need some TLC. Level 22, I missed two items, and the speed was almost too much. Furthermore, Level 24 needs to be refined BIG TIME; I think I'll make a separate YouTube video for it.

Once Level 28 is beat, Levels 29 and 30 aren't too hard. Those should be RELATIVELY easier than Level 28, but we won't know until it happens.

The last time I had seriously gone for this record, I was 19 years old, doing it in my bedroom, living with Mom. This was 2002 we're talking about here.

There is a general consensus in the fighting game community that you "peak" in your late teens / early 20's, so I thought my hey day had long passed. Furthermore, I do understand that this is a 30 year old arcade game that is semi obscure, so it's not that I'm some MLG, 360 no scopin' fool now.

So I thought I was done for, and had come to terms with that. I hit the best part of my life before I hit 20.

But it turns out that was wrong. I'm now 32 years old, I can still push myself even further, and there's an entire world still waiting out there.

GIGANTIC thanks to everyone who joined the stream last night! I was expecting just a few of my Facebook friends, but instead, I had some major old school Twin Galaxies players join in, plus a couple of other "celebrities", such as The Mexican Runner, bsg4000, and Timzy (all three of them were in the Nintendo World Championships 2015!)

I want to thank Cat Despira and Patrick Scott Patterson for promoting the stream on Twitter.

I want to thank Chris Bidwell and Tatton Partington for making the Columbus Retro League, which is what sparked the competitive side of me all over again.

I want to thank my Mom, Karen Bartkiewicz, for all of her love and support over the years.

And finally, I want to thank my wife, Jennifer Spadafino.

True story: I was debating for a few days on if I even wanted to go for this record. I asked her if I should, and her exact words were "OF COURSE! I LOVE watching you kick some body's ass at video games!" It was this exact conversation that made me finally say "THAT RECORD WILL BE MINE AGAIN."

I love her dearly and deeply, and I couldn't be happier to have her by my side.

- Jeffrey "J.D." Lowe
http://www.twitch.tv/jdllama
http://www.twitter.com/jdllama82