John Zeitler

I’m not feeling so hot right now, boys and girls, so I have to keep this entry relatively short. One thing I do want to say, though, is that my decision to stop playing DDR in the house years ago, though at the time born more out of laziness than a conscious effort, is bearing a lot of fruit. For example, the metal pad looks very nice as a wall decoration.

Oh, and there’s that whole “socializing” thing, but who really cares about that?

By nature, I am not terribly competitive. I play certain games without the eye towards dominating an opponent that’s oftentimes not just necessary, but taken for granted if one wants to come out on top. So it’s probably not surprising that I stay in more or less a comfort zone, without venturing too much into the hardest difficulties of those games. In short, I see the game itself as my opponent, and not necessarily the players set against me.

When translated to Rock Band, this means I pretty much stay on Medium and don’t stray unless I think I can get away with it, or if I’m forced into a higher difficulty. However, in playing through The Beatles: Rock Band over the past few days, I’ve found myself becoming a little more adventurous, jumping to Hard every once in a while just to see if I can. I’ve yet to five-star any Hard songs, I think, but I’m getting better.

In any event, that doesn’t tell you much about the game itself. This should: Go buy it. Like, now. Yeah, it’s that good.

Sorry for the terseness, I’m a little frazzled after this week’s havoc and I’m running out of steam very quickly. I need these two days off just to cope, I guess… Catch you all tomorrow.

Tomorrow, The Beatles: Rock Band comes out, allowing me to realize in full my dream of embarrassing myself indelibly in front of actual people while butchering some of the greatest songs ever penned. Seriously, I have always wanted to make an atonal trainwreck of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” in front of my three best male friends.

With any luck, it will be on Youtube within hours of the incident, and the police will be by to press charges shortly thereafter.

I have discovered something infinitely amusing about myself. I have, for lack of a better word, a gift.

The gift of funk.

And it should be stressed that I appreciate… the funk.

Get up.

Spent most of tonight cooking and reading, folks. Not much else to talk about; things were pretty relaxed, as could be expected. With any luck, tomorrow will be busier, and Wednesday full of righteous vibes.

Oh yeah. Mahoromatic is, indeed, awesome.

Catch you all later.

To say that Nanoha is rising in my esteem would be a severe understatement. I’ll leave the rest of the gushing to your imagination.

Skipping blog posts sets a dangerous precedent, one I don’t think I’d care to pursue. However, given how ridiculously busy and inaccessible I was all weekend, I think it’s excusable… it’s not like I’m getting paid to blog, and if you really needed new text from me, the novel was still going strong over at Linguankery. Still, posts will return to their daily schedule from this point on. The only times there should be interruptions will be for ones which are explained ahead of time, or the ones that are true emergencies. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty much a meaningless statement, I suppose.

(Extra note: If you just did the chant, you’re playing way too much Rhythm Heaven. Take a break, now now now. If you just clapped four times, you’re beyond help. I’m an enabler!)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I have four long days ahead of me, and then… well, we’ll see. Things are a little crazy now for the next few weeks, and having the ability to step back, take a deep breath, and dive in feeling rested and calmed has got to be exactly what I needed. I was feeling pretty frazzled by the middle of last week, so this vacation came at the perfect time. At this point, all I have to do is what I do best: survive. Catch you all tomorrow.

The Rock Band night was a smashing success. We discovered many things, including that I am more proficient with drums than I initially suspected, and that Star Power is sometimes more accurately described as Seizure Power. We also discovered that we have to do this again. Soon.

Up until recently I’ve stuck to guitar and bass while playing Rock Band, mostly because the drums are a bit unfamiliar to me, but also because I did not seem to have much luck with the instrument. My coordination appeared insufficient to master the task of banging on things in some semblance of rhythm. However, I have since discovered that there may have been another reason why I had done so poorly, and it’s what I call the “universal excuse”: blaming the equipment. Yeah, my drums were still crap, even after the ordeal of returning them the first time.

It should be noted that I now no longer have that problem– the combination of some timely coupons and the remainder of a gift card meant that I was able to pick up the RB2 drums, and those work flawlessly. No double-hits, no misses when you KNOW you hit it… they just work.

A word about DJ Max Fever (released yesterday for the PSP): YES.

I realize that’s insufficient to serve as a detailed review. Here then are two words about DJ Max Fever: F$#% YES.

Really, if you’re not clear on my thoughts by now, I honestly don’t know what else I could say. The fact that I’m terrible at it notwithstanding.