The World According to Josh

I am Buckethead. (Look it up…OK, fine, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckethead) The office insisted on me showing up today in a costume and I really didn’t feel like getting one, figuring out who to be, etc. Then I had an idea that just might work. If I could find a black long-haired wig (common) and a ski-mask (also common), AND if I could convince my local KFC to give me a bucket - hold the chicken, then I could be buckethead. i went to 3 different places to look for costumes, and the first KFC I went to obliged, no questions asked. Pretty funny how that worked.

Anyway, so here I am at work, one of only 3 people that decided to dress up. I guess that costume prize money might end up being mine after all, eh?

Happy Halloween! Oh, and rock on.

Update: About 10 people ended up dressing up, so that was good. I also was able to wrangle some security footage of when I first walked into work today and put it to some Buckethead music. Enjoy.

buckethead, halloween, kfc

Personal, Pop Culture

So I went to my local GameStop last night just before midnight to pick up my reserved copy of Guitar Hero III, Legends of Rock, for the Wii. This, by the way, is the first and only version for the Wii console, which is the only console I have, so I was very excited to finally get to play guitar!

When I pulled up to the store, nobody was there except one sales clerk, who was busy playing the demo game of, yes, you guess it, Guitar Hero III, but on the XBox 360. I won’t hold that against him. He stopped to help me make the transaction. I had already put down my 5 bucks to reserve it months ago, then also turned in a popular game a couple of months ago for 40 bucks credit, then took in 6 of our old Gamecube games to trade in for the difference. It worked out perfectly. So I basically got Guitar Hero II, with guitar controller, for the Wii, for about 5 bucks. Granted, we are no longer with the other titles, but we hardly touched them anyway, so it’s all worth it.

I got home and plugged in and cranked up the volume and realized how rusty I am at this game. I had only played it once, but for about 6 hours straight, when I was last in Hawaii (Mahalos, Corey!) I was able to get my bearings in about 30 minutes and then I switched from easy mode to Medium and proceeded to play the story mode. By the way, the Wii version requires you to embed the Wii remote into the guitar itself like in the inset picture here. Very interesting, and one reason the package was 10 bucks less than all of the other consoles.

One of the coolest features of this new version is that I had to battle (yes, a guitar battle) Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine to get to the third level. We had to trade off licks and try to mess each other up by shooting over power-ups that make playing even more difficult than it already is! Tom was not very difficult to beat, but later on, I had to go up against Slash, as in Guns n Roses and Velvet Revolver. Slash actually plays on this game (as did Tom Morello) and the playing is absolutely brilliant. It’s prefect for a guitar battle. I quickly learned that I was no match for Slash and repeatedly lost to him. After a while I broke down and read the manual (sigh) and realized that I should be timing my “shooting” of power ups over to Slash more strategically. Once I figured that out, I was able to beat him fairly easily. After beating Tom Morello, I got to play a song with him, Bulls on Parade (RATM) and after beating Slash, he joined me for Welcome to the Jungle (GnR). Very cool.

The songs on this edition are really fun to play and vary widely over the guitar-shredding spectrum. From Pat Benatar’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot to Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast (I jumped up and down when I saw this one on the list! and yes, it is super fun!) There’s even Pearl Jam’s Evenflow, Heart’s Barracuda, and very special treats like Metallica’s One (yes, the entire thing) and Living Colour’s Cult of Personality! (I was totally head banging to this one, so much that I royally messed up my part, but didn’t seem to care!)

The final battle was with the devil himself (sort of, it was Lou Reed) playing The Devil Went Down to Georgia, side by side with the devil. Don’t make any mistakes or he owns your soul! I did manage to beat him and the entire game was beaten…but only on medium level. Try playing a few songs on Hard. The gap between Medium and Hard is great, and the gap between Hard and Expert even greater, so there is still much guitar playing to be had for sure. But at least now the songs are unlocked and we can choose to play which ever at whatever level we want.

As if all of that weren’t enough, the Wii version comes with online play mode. I played bass on Cult of Personality with some stranger named Wick. I also played more later on with others, but this is a VERY cool feature for this game. You don’t have to worry about not being good enough because you get to choose your skill level individually and you can choose battle or the friendlier co-op mode where you simply play bass and guitar, the two of you. It does not allow you to see anything about the other person, nor does it allow you to chat or anything, so it is safe for kids to play pretty much anyone online. The other thing that surprised me was that the entire catalog was open for playing online even though I had not beaten the game yet, to unlock the songs for my own game.

There are also songs and other accessories to buy at the store (pretend money earned from playing, not real money here). You can buy new characters/players, guitars, outfits and a bunch of songs that I have never heard of. Perhaps this is the indie label way to get exposure for bands or lesser known songs…offer them up as bonus songs on Guitar Hero?

The entire family except mommy has had a turn at the game. Sarah is showing the most promise so far. She already beat Tom Morello and is very happy to be rocking out. I expect to have tons of fun with this game for many months, hopefully years, to come.

guitar hero III, review, slash, tom morello, wii

Gaming, Tech

What the hell is the world coming to? We are so wrapped up in our new narcissistic, ego-feeding digital persona - MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Blogs (yeah, like this one, SO??), full names as domain names (again…) and so much more, we should be happy. But no, many are not. Once we have tasted the fruit of “commenting”, there apparently is no cure nor any amount of comments that will quench the rabid thirst that is now rampant online.

I have seen endless pleas from these people for readers to comment their pages, pictures, etc more and more lately. Some ask nicely. Most do not. I have seen one that regularly sends out a MySpace bulletin reading “Comment or Die!” every time new pictures are posted. Today it was “Comment or Die a Thousand Deaths!!”

Um, WTH??

First of all, asking nicely at all is already pretty pathetic. But threatening, even jokingly, that one will die or be harmed if they don’t comment? Are you serious? This does two things:

1. It alienates your readers/viewers. You now remind them of that kid at school who ate his own boogers just to get attention.
2. It takes the wind and sincerity out of any potential comment-givers: ones who would have left a comment on their own, without prompting, but now are having second thoughts because you are coming across as a total douche bag.

Just like P-Diddy’s Vote or Die was such a laughable, raging failure, so too will your Comment or Die campaign. It just needs to be said. Next thing you know, someone is going to snap and go “blog-dal” on everyone and go on a spamming spree or something. Sheesh!

PS - Comment on this post or die!!

comment or die, douche bag, narcissistic, wth

Pop Culture, blogging

When I find myself stuck on a formula that I have used before but simply did not file nor memorize, I am able to search online and find what I need. Today I needed the Access/SQL syntax for returning the first day of the current month. After about 3 clicks, I made it to this site and got my answer. Copy, paste, done. Thanks Rabbit (and Google)!

excerpt:

Re: Function to Return 1st of Month

---

This will return the first day of the current month of the current year.

Code: ( text )

 

CDate(Month(Date()) & “/1/” & Year(Date()))

That’s
CDate(Month(Date()) & “/1/” & Year(Date()))

access, date, function, sql

Programming, Tech

Sorry, baseball fans. I am not one of you. This picture sums up why I never really got into baseball and simultaneously shows how I feel when I am forced to watch the game. Oh, and it’s a good thing he wore a helmet.

baseball, fool, injury, sports

Personal, Sports

My youngest, Seth, is 5 years old and learning to read and write. Tonight he showed me a piece of paper with all of his new writings and drawings and he explained them to me one at a time, with great enthusiasm. The one that struck me the most was the very large “HfR” on the sheet. (Yes, the H and R were capitalized and the f was not.) He told me what it stands for: Haley family Rules! Nice! He’s learning to write and show family pride! Way to go, Seth!

That’s it. I just wanted to say that.

5 years old, family pride, Haley, learning to read, learning to write, Seth

Family, Personal

Did you see the Late Show with Conan O’Brien tonight? It was crazy! After starting the show with a bit (very funny) about the emergency exits, and after the first guest, Anderson Cooper, the actual alarm in the building went off. Right in the middle of taping. Conan wasn’t sure if the segment they were trying to tape was going to make it so he combined fine improvised comedy with obvious disgust with the way the taping was interrupted. And it didn’t stop there.

After deciding to keep the whole alarm fiasco IN the show, they moved along to the next guest, the stunning Paget Brewster. OK, so it seemed. But the actual interview was interrupted twice by this same alarm/problem. Conan was about to blow a gasket but maintained enough composure to make it through the show. Paget was very charming and a good sport through it all, but they had to cut the meat of her interview short due to the lost time from the alarms.

I didn’t realize that taped shows were under such strict time guidelines, but apparently they are. So what we have as a result is late night talk show history. I believe Conan comes on another cable channel during the day (previous day’s show) so look it up if you want to see it. Of course, someone will put it on youtube soon, and then it will probably get taken down by NBC or something. Anyway, I had to mention it. (Update: you should be able to see the show here at NBC.com as well)

And was it just me, or did Lara Logan on Jay Leno just completely mesmerize everyone with her smarts and beauty? You should look that one up too if you can. It was a very sober interview about the things she has seen in war and her life as an international journalist (currently with CBS). James Spader was amazing on the show as well.

Anderson Cooper, Conan OBrien, fire alarm, Lara Logan, Late Night, Paget Brewster

Pop Culture, TV