Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone reading this either is enjoying their Christmas Day, adding me to the list of stunning and exciting (yeah, right) web sites they view today or just sharing some after-holiday cheer on the ol' blog.

Jetswatch Week 17: Them boys have screwed up so much in the West Coast - they lost to the 3-11 Seattle Seahawks of all things - that they've lost their #1 spot in the AFC East, now competing (tooth and nail) with the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots in a triple-threat situation. In order for the Jets to make it to the playoffs next week, they will need to win against the Dolphins Sunday and hope that the Buffalo Bills claim victory over the Pats. There's so much hoping and wishing involved that I just don't think this will end favorably. To simply hope that the Pats lose to anybody these days is stretching things. We'll see what happens on the 28th.

Joy to the World: This spot reserved. ETA most likely December 26th.

Bye-bye, Xbox: My 360 was shipped to the repair center this past Tuesday. NO it's not a red-ring. Rather, it's a bad DVD-ROM drive. Just a few weeks ago, it just stopped reading discs to the point that maybe after 10 attempts I'd get a game or movie going. I already miss it and hope that I can finish something for another console (friggin Baten Kaitos!) before it comes back. I want to get back at Caprici Di Diablo!

Happy holidays!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Playing a little Rock Band 2...

Yesterday, I was testing out my newly shipped guitar controller that actually was a replacement for a defective one. The guitar controller in question is from Guitar Hero World Tour; you know, the one with the touchpad on the neck. After playing a bit of World Tour with satisfying results, I decided to try out my newly downloaded (well, it's not exactly new since I got it about 2 weeks to a month ago) songs for Rock Band 2. I downloaded the Yngwie Malmsteen pack with songs from his new album (that I'm enjoying very much, thank you) and wanted to see just how hard Caprici Di Diablo is. It's a helluva song that just explodes with flurries of echoed guitar mayhem throughout, so I was expecting to fail within the first 2 seconds.

On my first try, I did get about 10% into the song! I was amazed at that because I simply didn't know the opening blitz of notes off-hand. I practiced for about 10 mins and just took a shot at the song again, still rusty. My results are in video form, below. 21%! Once I get better at the verse (where I failed) the song should be manageable, as it does slow down a bit before going back to the verse. By the way, the lovely lady in the framed photo is my fiancée.



PS I'm working on some holiday music to perform with the choirs at my church on Sunday. I'll post a video of a rendition of "Joy to the World" in a few days.