Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Video game drums > comics-related blogs

Hey, this is the first day this week I've been able to get on the internet for any length of time. Not because of technical issues, but because I've been busy--running a ton of errands on Monday, playing Rock Band on Tuesday. Yes, we bought Rock Band, and it really is a ton of fun playing the drums. I still basically suck though. Thankfully, there's a separate difficulty setting for each instrument. Also thankfully, my wife still prefers the guitar (she passed me in Guitar Hero proficiency long ago). The guitar, BTW, is very nice, much larger than the GH models and with kind of crisper fret buttons. The strum bar is a little different, but I didn't have any problems with it. (It does not work on Guitar Hero, however, a condition realized with no small degree of disappointment yesterday.) Oh, and singing seems to be very easy. Or maybe it's just easy to sing songs by the Clash, the Ramones, and Mountain. Anyway, Guitar Hero kind of feels obsolete already, especially knowing that downloads of "Bang a Gong," "Rockaway Beach," "Ever Fallen in Love," and "Queen Bitch" await.

I'll be busy tomorrow doing the cooking for Thanksgiving (a holiday controversial in the former Confederacy in the early days of Reconstruction, as some felt that it was an excuse to force scurrilous Republican propaganda on a proud defeated people whose only crime was buying and selling other human beings, and then forcing them to pick cotton for 14 hours a day). Some of you might remember my vegetarianism, which brings up the specter of tofurkey (or however it's spelled). I actually have eaten that marvel of modern food science once in my life, and I thought it was okay with my wife's cranberry sauce over the top. But there's a big difference between "eat it if it's presented before you" and "spend $10-15 on it, cook it, and eat it over the next few days." Besides, I never liked turkey in the first place. Or chicken, for that matter. Becoming a vegetarian might have been an easier process for me than the average person, actually. In any event, here's the planned menu for tomorrow, all of which will be made from scratch (except the pie crusts, because I really hate making pie crust from scratch):

Baked macaroni and cheese
Sauteed green beans with shallots*
Mashed potatoes
Yeast rolls
Apple pie
Blueberry and blackberry pie

*Assuming there are any green beans left at Trader Joe's when I go there later today. If not, we'll have twice baked potatoes topped with gruyere. We'll also remove mashed potatoes from the menu and substitute mashed sweet potaotes. But hopefully I'll be able to find some green beans.

Oh, and one comics related note. My in-laws have bought a bunch of comics for my birthday, basically everything I feel I need to read to make an informed best of 2007 list. So maybe that will come sooner than later. Meanwhile, reading on The Black Dossier is going at a snail's pace. Hopefully I'll finish it before next March.

5 comments:

Chris Mautner said...

What version of Rock Band did you get? 360 or PS3? Mayhap we can meet online and jam.

Dick Hyacinth's Ghost said...

We've got the 360 version, but no XBox Live Gold. Plus I really suck on drums. I need to try singing again--I'm quite eager to try singing "Run to the Hills" or "Highway Star. If you know of a way to get a trial membership to Gold, and that's the version you have, I'm willing to try. My wife too, probably.

Chris Mautner said...

I don't have a gold account either, though I know you can get a 1 month pass for $8. I'll probably end up doing something like that since I have to at least try the game's online capabilities in order to write a review.

Anonymous said...

my god that's a lot of starch you ate for thanksgiving. please tell me you had whole wheat noodles, those are delish in mac and cheese.

had tofurkey for the first time on thanksgiving myself. not bad, but didn't taste like turkey (or chicken or any kind of bird, though i have been a veg for 12 years). veg chinese places in nyc make a great chicken and this was nothing like it. more like stuffed ham.

Dick Hyacinth's Ghost said...

Definitely had the whole wheat kind. Actually it was the Barilla Plus brand, with all the flax oil and whatnot.