Guitar Hero II rocks my socks

It's been a while since I pulled out the old Guitar Hero II, and it turns out the reason for that is that I was playing it alone. The only reason to play Guitar Hero II alone is to unlock more songs so you can play more with your friends.

Last weekend I carted my game and two guitar controllers up to West Chester, where some friends and I spent hours dueting on the 15 or so songs that were there, and it encouraged me to finish unlocking the rest of those songs. Which I finally did tonight for the Easy difficulty, thanks to a combination of persistence, Star Power, and luck.

So now I'm working on the Medium difficulty, and a couple things are different. For one, I get paid for each song I clear. Now I can visit the store and buy new characters and even songs. Awesome!

Another thing: Tonight I played my three songs to clear the Battle of the Bands venue, and suddenly, the audience is clapping in unison, and the screen flashes, "ENCORE! Do you want to go back on stage?" So I select yes, expecting the fourth song in the set to start up - but instead, some Spinal Tap song I've never heard of before comes on. I play it and clear it ... and now it's there in my setlist, presumably as a permanent option.

This post probably won't make sense if you haven't played Guitar Hero. Which is why you should totally play Guitar Hero.

From texting to movies to the GOP to DRM

Wil Wheaton eloquently sums up how the face of media is changing:

The revolution may not be televised, but it’s being blogged, YouTubed, MySpaced, Facebooked, Dugg and Netscaped.

Yes, the sound bite is hokey, but the column is actually this beautiful summation of every "OMG MSM sux" blog post you've ever read. It'll make you a believer - and, weirdly, make you want to text-message more.

Also! Are you reading Wil's blog? Because you probably should be. It has stuff like the column I posted above, but it also has stuff like this:

This afternoon, while I was trying to pull out a bottle of Tejava (99 cents at Trader Joe's) to enjoy a cool glass of tea, a bottle of clementine Izzie soda looked up at me, shouted, "Hooray! I'm free!" And launched itself onto the floor and landed in a sticky explosion of horrible, entropic freedom.

Of course you're reading his blog. If you weren't, it would just be ... weird.

(Actually, what's weird is that a copy editor in Cincinnati feels the need to promote the keynote speaker of Penny Arcade Expo. I blame the Chardonnay.)

Hello, fall

Welcome back, fall! It's been a while since we've had a good old-fashioned 85/49 day with isolated thunderstorms.

Hmm - I get a B ...

85%The Movie Quiz

FilmCritic.com - Movie Reviews

Game day, part 2

The Buckeye game was a blowout, of course. (Final score: 38-6.)



But every now and then, the scoreboard would flash the scores of other college games that were going on. When that happened, the stadium would erupt with cheers - because we could see that Michigan was losing to Appalachian State.

After the game, my sister and I made our way back to the Varsity Club party, where they had switched the TV over to the Michigan game. And let me tell you, the final five minutes of that game were more exciting than the whole of the OSU-Youngstown State game.



Appalachian State is located in Boone, N.C., which Wikipedia tells me has a population of 13,274. That means it's probable that the Mountaineers had more fans in Columbus yesterday than in their own hometown. (Possibly 10 times as many; the stadium seats over 100,000, and there were thousands more watching at the bars.)

There was pandemonium at the Varsity Club as Michigan's final field goal attempt was blocked:





(Here's a pretty good recap from the AP, and stories from Charlotte and Asheville - which, naturally, capture the mood in Columbus just a bit better than this column from Detroit.)

Game day

In May or June, I got a letter from the OSU athletic department informing me that I've been selected for the honor of purchasing tickets to the Wisconsin game. I immediately sent back a check for $120, which is my way of letting the athletic department know that I'd be honored to accept this honor. And in August, I got a letter informing me that, while they thought they could squeeze me in for the Wisconsin honor, it turns out that one is full, so here are tickets for the Youngstown State honor instead.

I wasn't surprised, because it happens every year. But I feel certain that I am working my way up the food chain, and after 10 years or so, I will be able to attend, say, the Northwestern game.

Anyway, I took my sister along.



If you go to a Buckeye football game, especially a non-conference game, there is a good chance you will spend so much time at the parties outside that you might not make it into the stadium.




But we got there by halftime, which was cool, because it was alumni band day, so we got to see four Script Ohios forming at once (the student band has two little ones going in the end zones):






Gotta love Script Ohio.

Back from vacation

Just haven't really found the time to post anything lately. Apologies.

To make up for it, here is a slightly out-of-focus photo of Mr. W looking suspicious among the wheat stalks:

The Cat Whisperer

I've managed to convince Gina to help me in my keeping-the-cat-alive goal while I'm on vacation.

To be honest, I'm a little nervous.

All the people I've had feed Thursday before (Mr. W, Sue, Kari) have actually been allergic to cats. (How nice of them to brave runny noses and itchy eyes to help me!)

Gina's the first cat owner to take on the task. And she's not just a cat owner. She is a cat person. She loves her cats. When I first took Thursday in, Gina's the one I called asking for vet advice. I kind of see her as the cat expert.

So I'm really a little nervous that she'll come by, take a look around, and decide I suck as a cat owner. What if I'm not buying the right toys? What if there aren't enough scratchable surfaces? What if Thursday hates the food I buy her, but I never knew because I've never owed a cat before this one and to me, kitty hatred looks just like every other kitty emotion?

Gina will know these things. She's the Cat Whisperer.

(Actually, the Cat Whisperer has been sick the past two days. Maybe I should start looking for a backup.)

Recipe Corner: Stir-fry sauce

When I was growing up, my mom had a pretty standard rotation of Midwestern recipes: mushroom-soup-and-rice casserole, chicken from the Crock-Pot, pork chops, make-your-own tacos.

There was one Chinese dish in this lineup. To this day, nothing I've eaten in a Chinese restaurant can compare with my mom's chicken almond. It's the reason I own a wok. (Well, that and Target was having a sale.) But since I don't always have raw almonds on hand, lately I've been trying out the sauce with different stir-frys. It's a really basic "chow mein" sort of sauce, so it works well with chicken and tofu. I haven't tried it with beef yet, but I bet it would hold up.

Here's the recipe:
- 1/3 cup white wine
- 3 tbsp. soy sauce
- 3 tbsp. water
- 1 tsp. ground ginger
- 2 tsp. honey
- 1 tbsp. cornstarch

I recommend that the wine be at room temperature so the honey will mix in a bit easier.

To use the sauce, start by stir-frying your meat/tofu in a bit of oil. Once it's cooked, add the sauce and cook until it's thickened. Then, add vegetables/nuts and stir-fry the whole mess until it's as done as you want it to be.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the chicken almond recipe, it uses 1 1/2 lb chicken (cut into chunks, obvy), 12 oz snow pea pods, 1 c sliced water chestnuts, and 1 c raw almonds. Delish!

Wizard rock!

Headed to the show! Stacie likes it in the back (of the SUV).






Danae and I do that thing where I hold the camera out at arm's length and hope I have it aimed right.






Holly and Chele.






Chele rocks out with Brian from Draco and the Malfoys pre-show.






Danae bought a H&tP foam finger. That's right - they sold foam fingers.






Micah and her friend Aly, who lives in Grove City (Columbus suburb) and was kind enough to give us a ride to Skully's, where the show was. Aly has never read the Harry Potter books - but now she plans to. Such is the power of wizard rock.






Up first, The Whomping Willows. Wizard Rock 4-eva!






Holly, Chele and Danae in the crowd. Danae was about ready to go bustin' some heads if Matt didn't play "Draco and Harry." Luckily for all of us, it was his last song.






Draco and the Malfoys are up now, which means: "It's time to PARTY! LIKE! YOU'RE EVIL! It's time to FREAK! OUT! SOME MUGGLES!"






OK, so I guess Bradley lays down a drum track in advance, and then they use that for the shows. The drum machine went on the fritz, so Brian had to pull out his iBook. Macs ... is there anything they can't do? (I mean, except play City of Heroes ...)






While Brian fiddled with the drum track, Bradley played solo.






Whoa, dude - you kinda DO look evil there! I guess red-eye will do that to you.







It was an all-ages show. Here you can see a few kids sitting on the bar. I wonder if Skully's has ever had a crowd quite like this.






Things get hectic when my camera decides it's happier on the "Make Everything Look All Trippy" setting.







That would be Paul (aka Harry Year 7) if my camera weren't doing the trippy thing.






There we go! Hello, Paul!






Uh-oh! Looks like one of the Malfoys infiltrated the Potters' set! Bradley changed ties and came onstage as Bill Weasley.






Joe (Harry Year 4) pulls out a sax. Awesome!






These guys basically never stop jumping. Check their MySpace photos if you don't believe me.






It's tough to see in this photo, but this guitar has a lightning bolt painted on it, which is pretty cool. At one point, the guys did the guitar salute from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which was pretty rad, because I knew there had to be someone else out there who liked that movie. Too bad I didn't catch it on film.






Joe plays keyboards, and the bubble machine goes wild! This was the big finish, "The Weapon." So the bubble machine's going, and suddenly the guys jump into the crowd and start giving everybody hugs, and everyone's singing, "The weapon we have is LOVE!" - and it sounds hippie-ish in the retelling, but it was pretty awesome if you were there.






After-party at Barley's in the Arena District. As you can see, Danae took advantage of the excellent happy hour at Skully's. During the show, she was fanning everyone around her with her foam finger - which was nice, except when she would get a little too close and start hitting you in the face with it. Afterwards, she wandered around the bar offering everyone Soft Batch cookies.