Odds and ends [i]

Ty downloaded some more tracks for Rock Band. My aspirations of rocking out to War Pigs were at last realized.

I recently made three gentlemanly wagers. The stakes for each was a four pack of Boddingtons.

1. The first I won outright, with help from Ted and Curt. I claimed the London underground has a Cockfosters station. Indeed this is the case.
2. The second bet is that should he be nominated, Barack's vice presential nominee will be John Edwards. I realize this is contrary to the traditional tactic of pairing dissimilar candidates in order to sway as many voters as possible.
3. The third bet is that McCain will be the next president. This is neither an endorsement nor an expression of dissatisfaction, simply the likeliest scenario.
   

I was reading Thomas Hawk's blog, he's a good photographer with some worthwhile opinions.

I look at my photography like this. When I make an image it belongs to me. It belongs to me while I take the photo. It belongs to me while it sits in my camera. It belongs to me while I process it on my Mac. It belongs to me while I let it sit in an archive folder waiting to be uploaded to the internet.

At the risk of sounding chiding, this is an amusing example of the Apple demographic. So subtle, but so telling that he drops the brand name amidst so many pronouns. He even dismisses the opportunity to drop his Canon/Nikon partisanship.

Great allegory though.

More enjoyable text messages.

1. "Up from a triple sell to a don't buy!"
2. "I was close to thinking about finding that marginally amusing, but then stopped and resolved to consider the implications of my crapping on your bed."
3. "I bought Ferrari shoes, yeah, I'm that guy now."
4. "Say goodbye to your tagalongs!"
5. "I figured your missed Lost because you were too busy playing Hello Kitty Adventure Island."

It appears one of our own is defecting to Nevada. A send off is in order.

Bring on the band aids [r]

We finally got on the bandwagon. Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah. Apologies, sore tendons makes me giddy. Rock Band is basically Forza with instruments instead of a wheel. It takes practice, patience, and you really can't compete at a high level without knowing the track. Damn, pun counter is at two already. I'm on fire.

I might not be putting in the effort to learn the skill were it not for the awesome fact that it's a four player game. Indeed I didn't play Guitar Heroes 1-3. The co-op element makes it a far greater experience. Alas, the game comes with a single axe and there are no Xbox guitars to be found (the official one won't be released til April). But who really needs a bassist?

Surprises - there's some strategy involved in getting high scores. And the little extras like character customization and cities/venues add a little meat to the great gameplay.

Complaints - the difficulty is all over the place. The game has four skill levels and places each song on a spectrum of difficulty, but this can be a pretty bad indicator.

Music - there's some epic stuff from Iron Maiden, The Who, The Stones, etc. Just a few annoying ones like Weezer and Rush.