OK, so maybe it WASN'T a freak occurrence, if tonight was any indication.
I am so bizarrely inconsistent.
Last night I literally could not play a lick, tonight I got on the machine and rocked balls (well, for me at least), getting to L12 without incident. Part of the problem last night was being out of practice on the "regular" version and its differences, part of it was lag and frame-skipping due to streaming, part of it was being physically uncomfortable with my cobbled together setup, but come on, 150K??
I think, on Junior, I'm just better with a Nintendo control panel than on a keyboard. The superjump in particular drives me up the wall on MAME. I don't know if it's my keyboard, the way I tap the key, or MAME skipping frames or something, but I miss the jump constantly on MAME and rarely on the cab.
And the psychological effects of streaming are, apparently, huge. I don't know what it is, but I have literally never played as well when streaming as I do when I'm not. I guess it just makes it that much harder to get "in sync" with the game when I'm chatting, dicking around with the Allen soundboard, etc.
Having said that, I'm gonna stream some 400K attempts this weekend. I need to learn how to play well while streaming! I shouldn't only be able to play when I'm absolutely zen stone-zeroed in on the game.
If you can't play when the pressure's on, you're really not good enough!