Keep On A-Rockin' Me Baby

The Rock Band 2 setlist came out yesterday and I can hardly contain myself. Last night I dreamed about all the songs to come. How am I going to wait until September??

Alanis Morissette "You Oughta Know". Are you kidding me?? I'd buy it JUST for that song.

Billy Idol "White Wedding". Too bad its not Mony Mony, but it'll do.

Offspring "Come Out & Play". You gotta keep 'em separated!

Red Hot Chili Peppers "Give It Away". I'm already warming up my tongue for that one.

Joan Jett "Bad Reputation". Ahhh. The memories.

Ratt "Round and Round". I know a chick from Sapaloopa that will be over here to play THAT one as soon as she can. :)

System of a Down "Chop Suey". Creepy but fun to sing.

Bikini Kill "Rebel Girl". Yikes, but yay! And Nirvana "Drain You" which it is said Kurt Cobain wrote it about Tobi Vail from Bikini Kill. I don't like Nirvana anyway and don't know if I can sing about chewing your meat for you without gagging.

The list goes on and on. 84 songs, all master recordings, plus 20 available for download later. I'm crossing my fingers hoping for "Welcome to the Jungle".

Grumblings

Wasn't that a great game on Sunday?? I mean. Until the very end anyway. At least it was exciting, right?

When the Giants missed that field goal right before the end of the regular game sending it into overtime, I think I peed my pants a little. There was much screaming and jumping amongst us. Then we won the coin toss and we were all on Cloud 99. Everyone went back to exactly the same spot we had been lest we jinx the overtime.

Then Classic Brett appeared and all was lost. The warm excitement of just minutes before turned to cold, damp underwear. It was a dreary ride home. Dupree wouldn't even get in the car. He walked home, alone and shivering.

We tried to lift our spirits with a rousing session of Rock Band, to no avail. But here's the thing about Rock Band that I take issue with: all the good songs are the easy ones. In order to earn any fans or money you have to do the harder songs on harder levels and those songs just suck. I don't even want to listen to those songs, let alone sing them.

Another thing I don't like about it is that to stay in tune when singing you have to stay pretty lifeless on those songs. After each phrase they give you a rating, "Messy", "Weak", "OK", "Strong", or "Awesome". If I sing "Enter Sandman" or "War Pigs" or any of the other yucky songs the way I would sing along with them on the radio I am deemed "Messy" or "Weak". I just have to sit there, staring at the screen trying to keep the tone indicator level an steady. BO-ring!

So one night I was singing, SSB was on guitar, Bug was on bass and Pootie, our master drummer in life and on Rock Band, was drumming. I was sitting next to her and as her arms were flailing wildly about to keep up with the "Expert" level she had chosen for herself I noticed she kept sneaking quick peeks at me. My eyes were stuck to my tone indicator and I wasn't paying attention to her but I felt her glares. Finally she yells, "Put some STYLE into it!!" Sheesh. Everyone's a critic. Poor Brett. How he must feel.

Juice Box Hero

Xbox has been the bane of my life. The kids cry about it, fight about it, are addicted to it and get their brains sucked out by it. They get up on weekends and start playing and don't eat breakfast or brush their teeth or get dressed or anything. It overtakes them. I hate Xbox and was glad when ours broke.

Alas they got a 360 for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa. Great for them, not so great for me. I decided to not be Grinchy though and just go with it. I even bought a few games. They loved playing Guitar Hero at other people's houses so we got Rock Band.

Oh, Rock Band. The boon of my existence.

The first couple days after Christmas I didn't play. I don't do Xbox. I have tried several games, sucked at them and didn't have any fun. SSB came downstairs a couple times and said they needed me to sing up there because the kids didn't have a singer. No, thank you.

But then the kids went to Oklahoma and left us to our own devices. SSB, Dupree and I stayed up every single night and played Rock Band. We couldn't get enough. I was hooked. I RAWKED and was loving it. We had our own band and our own characters and it was FUN! So fun. Thank you, Microsoft.

Since the kids came home we haven't played much, but we did for a while last night. Snickety was on guitar, PootiePie played drums and I sang. Beeman likes to sing too, but he can't read much so I sit next to him and when he knows part of a song he'll grab the mic from me and belt it out. He's GOOD! He hits the right notes and gets an "Awesome" rating most of the time. He likes Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" and he likes Foreigner. Their song came up and even though I'm not great at it, we did it anyway. I didn't know Beeman even knew that one. I was surprised. I don't have the heart to tell him it's "JUKE Box Hero" though not "Juice Box Hero."

I wonder what he thinks that song is about. A much-anticipated Capri Sun delivery man? A chugging contest through a teeny tiny straw? He's so cute. I'm sure he's never even heard of a juke box. Ipod, yes. Zune, of course. But not a juke box.