Beatles Rock Band... worth it?

Here is a link to a promo for the upcoming Beatles: Rock Band

This game truly looks incredible. I will in no way deny them that. The graphics are unbelievable and any true fan of the beatles (movies and all) will adore this trailer.

My problem lies within the premise of the game. Rock Band has been a game aimed at expanding what Guitar Hero started. They added the drums and vocals to spawn new elements to the game play. For that, we are grateful.

However, the fun part of the game lies in all of the different music that is available. We get to play rap, rock, pop, classic rock, indie. Anything we want is available. While, yes, the Beatles repertoire is one of the greatest song catalogues of all time, they are simply one band. The Aerosmith Guitar Hero package (filled with some of the great classic/glam rock guitar riffs of the past 30 years) did not do well, falling far short of its universal counterparts.

The other issue can be found in the simplicity of most Beatles songs. In Rock Band, you keep building up to playing harder and harder songs until the penultimate finger killers. The difficulty and probability of failure adds to the tension and eventual release when completed. The Beatles were not very good at their instruments. Paul could write a decent bass line, and George's guitar parts sounded great but there's no challenge involved. John Lennon just played along most of the time and Ringo shouldn't dignify any insults. They were four guys that could write well and harmonize better. There are no face melting solos to challenge you into the wee hours of the night. No syncopated drum beats to destroy your motor capabilities. No wild vocal riffs, incapable of being reached.

To its merit, Beatles Rock Band will get more people into the franchise and will involve older people into the gaming world. This is always a great service to the gaming community. I'm excited to see how this does in the mainstream and how well the hardcore gamers trash it, and the casual gamers glorify it.

Fame - a short play

Here is the recently released trailer for the upcoming remake of Fame



Much like every other movie/tv show in this genre (Save The Last Dance, Glee, Camp, High School Musical.... um... Dirty Dancing perhaps?) you can break down the entire plot into a short dialogue between one of the students and those mean old adults.

ADULT (In a Jerry Orbach manner): You'll never make it!

STUDENT: Why not?

ADULT: Because you're different (and/or your sport scholarship will be jeopardized).

STUDENT: But that's why I am great... that is why I NEED to succeed.

ADULT: You're right. Here's a comically large commendation for your actions. In fact, I think I'll join in, then catch myself in front of my esteemed colleagues, frown for a moment, then shyly smile.


Don't get me wrong. I love these movies. Let's just see one where they fail. Maybe the brilliant minds that produced South Park will do one. What? They produced Hamlet 2? DAMNIT!

Adventures in Photoshop

I often get bored and just try to be creative with photoshop. I've gotten better over time as you can see by some of these images.



This is my response to the strange 3 wolf moon trend over the past year.

It is aptly titled "3 Teen Wolf Moon." Note the fact that Michael J. Fox is dunking the moon.




This is just a simple birthday card I made for one of my brothers (that's his body). I found the picture of the poo mascot and thought this would be a fantastic image.

This is in response to a card he gave me as a kid that said "Sorry for all those times I called you a butt-head growing up. I didn't mean to insult your butt like that."




One of my first photoshops ever. It's pretty terrible as far as composition goes, but I just loved the idea. The source images are the classic charge at Iwo Jima and a couple of Canadian Geese walking along the road.



Above is a picture that took me a full plane ride from DC to California. The source image was black and white in fairly low resolution. I stripped it down as far as I could and then colorized the water and sunset using gradients and the soft eraser tool. The words in the back read "The future you have tomorrow won't be the same as the future you had yesterday." This is a line from the Chuck Palahniuk book "Rant"




Last one for this post. This is a picture I took while skiing in Utah last winter. I used the glowing edges filter and then a few others I don't recall. The coloring is all done with the color replacement tool. I really love the way the trees turned out and the distinct outline of the snowboarder in front of me.

Lol Cheezburgers!

Earlier this summer I was talking to a few people at work and the idea of LOL CHEEZBURGERS came up. I immediately went to the computer and created the following two images.

Recent obsession - Tim Minchin

This guy broke into my peripheral with a song called Inflatable You, a love song about his endearing blow-up doll. I liked his delivery and thought he was a brilliant pianist but didn't think much of him. I then recently came across another one of his songs and had to have more. I browsed through youtube and bings video pages to find everything I could by Tim Minchin.

The first video is called Taboo about a certain word with 2 G's and a R, N, I, and E. Watch before you get offended.

The video at the bottom is a 9 minute beat poem about a self rightous hippie named Storm at a dinner party. He systematically tears this girl apart in rhyme. The text follows the mood for the most part. Everything sounds better with an Aussie accent.

My old band's myspace is still functional

So my senior year of high school I went through a giant funk phase. All I listened to was Galactic, Average White Band, Maceo Parker and others of the sort. My buddies in this funkophelia were long-time friends Evan Weiss and Spencer Inch. These two guys were incredible musicians so I asked them to start jamming and see what came out of it. I played guitar, Evan played saxophone, and Spencer played drums. We brought in my buddy Mike Grippi to round it all off with some bass.

You can find live recordings at our old myspace page
This was the most fun I had in a band because all we did was jam. We showed up at the house, took out our instruments and played until no more notes would come. As can be seen in the Chameleon cover, we had a pretty good feel for how to play together and get the most of our music. I haven't seen or spoken to any of these guys in over a year, but I loved that time in my life and would love to get back together with them and make some music again at some point.

Instrumental note: Listen for the wah pedal used on the sax. Awesome effect stumbled upon by mistake.

My Wine Labels

Recently, my parents took a trip to Napa Valley to blend wines at one of their favorite vineyards. Through the program, they receive a few cases of the blend that they create, two of which go to me. The beauty of this is that I now have my own wine to name and label. The joy of creativity. My parents named theirs J&R having the double translation of John and Rena or Just Right. I, however, chose something a little more fun.

I give you "Wolf Sin Cabernet" and "Boar-Doe Bordeaux." Available at my apartment sometime next year.