Monday night was a good night, we got our xbox360 back from the Microsoft repair center. Around the end of January I received the dreaded Red Ring of Death and was really bummed when I had to send it back to MS. The previous 3 months before it died the wife and I had playedRockband for at least 2 or 3 songs every other day or so. We slowly both became consistently good at it. I had already played Guitar Hero 2 and 3 was proficient enough to "get past" the expert mode guitar on most of the songs on Rock Band so I decided to try my hand at the drums. I had played drums some in high school at a warehouse behind a friends house but never on a consistent basis and to be honest I really could never hold a beat worth a shit for an extended period of time. If you added in a bass player I could keep it pretty steady, but never to the point where I felt as comfortable playing drums as I did guitar. So I decided I should try out the drums and build myself up slowly. To be honest, playing the guitar on Rock Band is extremely fun, but it really doesn't get anywhere near the skill of playing a real guitar. The hand eye coordination is a big variable in both, but that is about the extent of it. The drums I have found are slightly different. I started out on Easy finished all songs, went to medium, progressed through all songs, and have been attempting hard on solo mode and I have pretty much wrapped up all on hard mode with the exception of a few songs (Green Grass & High Tides, etc).Lindz had always been doing great vocals, so we decided to start an entirely new band with her on vocals and myself on drums about 2 months before we had to get the 360 fixed. We had been playing about fairly constantly up until the red ring. Fortunately, we got back the 360 on Monday and dove back into "returning to stage" with band on Tuesday night.

Since we had not had the 360 for a couple of weeks, MS/Harmonix had released a bunch of download-able songs (DLC) for it. I had some points and first picked up the NIN pack (I was salivating to attempt March of the Pigs on Drums) and Roam (B-52s), El Scorcho (Weezer) and another STP song (Interstate I think? I forget which) and set to playing. We aced 5 stars on Hard with Roam and the STP song, then attempted El Scorcho (the half Japanese girls didn't do it to us) but the wife didn't have the lyrics down so we kicked out on that one. Then attempted March of The Pigs which I failed within the first min or so drumming on hard mode.

So we tour on.

Rockband isn't a game per se, it should be viewed as a platform. Harmonix/MTV planned the game brilliantly and it is ripe for the money making. I could even see them selling the actual Rockband instruments at a loss in a few months as more people pick up XBL just because I think they are going to make so much money on the DLC.

Regardless, me an the wife were talking about what songs are perfect for the platform so we decided to each come up with our own Top 10 Songs We Would like to see on Rockband. Neither list is done in a particular order (ie #9 is just as good as #1), and I posted the imeem songlists of each underneath in case you are not familiar with the song, and/or just want some musak to listen to at work.




So without further ado:


My Top 10:

1. Black Dog - Led Zeppelin 

    Come on You knew Zep would be here, I bet you just didn't know which song. Besides the "moaning", I really like the appeal that screaming 'A big legged woman ain't got no soul' into a microphone has.

2. Like a Vibration - The Whigs

    This just has such a killer hook at the beginning of their latest album that I catch myself singing it when i don't even realize it.

3. Gypsy Eyes - Jimi Hendrix Experience

    So I was tore between adding Axis Bold as Love and Gypsy Eyes to the list. I wanted to only have one song per artist. The drumming at the beginning of Gypsy Eyes won it out. I was thinking Axis had an advantage as a lot of the color imagery in the song played with the whole "play by color" theme of Rock Band. But Gypsy takes the position.

4. Whipping Post - The Allman Brothers

    Hello Mr. Bass Player. No One forgets about you and your 'blue groove'.

5. Jellybelly - The Smashing Pumpkins

    There are soooo many pumpkins songs I wanted to put on here, Today, Where Boys Fear To Tread, Everlasting Gaze. This game was built for people in my demographic that grew up wearing out Gish and Siamese Dream.Jellybelly won out because I think it   encompasses a lot of different aspects of what a good pumpkin song was. Great vocals, steady drumming, biting guitar.

6. Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel

    Guitar good, drums good, people seem to know the lyrics to songs like this even when they don't think they do. Peter Gabriel is a genius in my book, and Sledgehammer has to many horns, so I went withSolsbury.

7. Slippery People - Talking Heads

    This song is what got me thinking about a list like this. I love singing to this song, and this is a very FUN song to play I would think on any instrument.

8. Stockholm Syndrome - Muse

    Another band, like Pumpkins, whose songs this game is built for. There were tons of songs from them I could have chose, this is just my favorite personally.

9. Two Step - Dave Matthews Band

    This would be one of those longer songs (think Foreplay/Longtime - Boston) but it would be a blast to play. I personally have heard so many variations of it I don't know which one I like best. I think this one (from Red Rocks) is my favorite.

10. Day Tripper - The Beatles

    Guitar Intro get everyone pumped to play. Great Song.


Playlist:

UPDATE:  So There are tons of blog authors who I read that I know play Rock Band so I decided why not make this a mem?  Most of the people we play with in our bands (The Cyanettes/The Fluffy Camels/Bangers & Mash) don't have a blog (or either don't update it on a regular basis) so I figured I would tag 3 people whom I know play.  Tipa, Cuppy, and Blackguard.  So guys/gals, if you are reading this, post yours on your respective net homes and pass this on.  I would love to write a spider to crawl all this one day and aggregate the results somehow, so if you do your Top 10 and decide to pass it on please ask for a linkback to this blog or just have the people you pass it on to link to "Top10RockBandWishlist" as a Technorati tag so I have a centralized place to go back and aggregate the results.

Technorati Tag: Rock Band,  Top10RockBandWishlist

I see a lot of interesting links a day, but a lot of them don't warrant a full Blog Post  (nor do I have the time to write a full post about it).  So i figured I might bookmark them all and then aggregate them into one list with a short blurb on Monday nights as a summary for the previous week.

These links cross all spans of subjects.  I like to think of it as like the Potpourri category on Jeopardy, only without buzzers and cat ladies.

Some might just be images, others links, other videos.

Pioneering midwife touts 'orgasmic birth' :   Some women can experience a sort of birth ecstasy, says Ina May Gaskin

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23239361/ 

Before I read this article I swore it was going to be about the not-really-talked about method to "jump start a baby delivery".  The article doesn't mention it, but Mrs. Gaskin does talk about how certain births could be partially orgasmic.   While seeing the birth of my daughter was an absolutely amazing and beautiful thing, I am pretty sure my wife would be very hesitant to use the term "orgasmic" within 50 miles of a conversation about her delivery.    Regardless this is an interesting read about home births etc.  I know, we had some slight complications with mother and daughter on Ava's birth and I honestly can't imagine being at home at a time like that, but it is through provoking none the less.

 Jon Taplin's Blog :  “Its All About Oil”-Alan Greenspan

 http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/its-all-about-oil-alan-greenspan/

The Next Slum? : The subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime

 In my opinion this article does a great job on solidifying the facts that the subprime fiasco and the "ripple bubbles" that lowering interest rates after 9/11 has created will eventually effect us all.  Especially those of us who are not worried about making the mortgage payment every month.  Blight, Foreclosure, Crime are so all intertwined that even 1 vacant house in a neighborhood can lead to an upheaval.  This is a great read by the Atlantic.

This paragraph is what really struck me, although I think it is a little scaremongeriness thrown in the article it is amazing if true and Nelson's calculations are correct:

Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, has looked carefully at trends in American demographics, construction, house prices, and consumer preferences. In 2006, using recent consumer research, housing supply data, and population growth rates, he modeled future demand for various types of housing. The results were bracing: Nelson forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.

Wikipedia: The Keating Five 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five

I had heard a lot of people during the course of the election so far mention the Keating 5.  To be honest I never knew about what exactly they were talking about when they say it in reference to John McCain.  Thank you Wikipedia.   Although it sounds like after reading the article it sounds comical that the only person to be punished was the guy who actually had already stated that he was not running for reelection.  I am sure this type of stuff goes on all the time in DC, it was just that this time it was caught because of the monstrosity that was the S&L scandal.

Gustavo Durate: Richard Feynman, the Challenger Disaster, and Software Engineering

http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/2008/02/20/Richard-Feynman-Challenger-Disaster-Software-Engineering.aspx 

This one will probably appeal more to the coders who read this blog, but I really enjoyed this post about the history of the post accident Challenger investigation and Richard Feynman's findings at how he was sort of exiled from the end report.  The emphasis of the article is that Feynman was preaching iterative ("agile paradigm" to some, although thats kinda a generic word these days) bottom up design when critiquing the way in which the space shuttle engine was (from what I can gather without reading his full report) built, which could have lead to the accident.

Gamasutra : Sponsored Feature: Democratizing Game Distribution: The Next Step

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3545/sponsored_feature_democratizing_.php 

It reads like a marketing piece or xna-ish paradigm manifesto, but if you follow this blog I have been a big supporter of Microsoft's XNA ( for non coders that's 'the ability for hobbyist to make games for the Xbox 360 and distribute them to friends and/or market and sell them') on this blog.  I keep up with it because I believe that there are millions of people walking around the world who have brilliant ideas for games, it is just that they don't have the means nor money to make them happen.  Although I don't think that XNA will allow anyone to compete with A-list video games (think Zelda, EA Sports Franchises, and the like) I do believe it gives a platform for people to experiment and will influence a lot of people who want to get into game creation, but want to do it slowly and a lot of times as a hobby.  MS sees the inherent value of "The Free" to a point and I like the fact that they are the ones behind this movement. 

 How to live with a birthmark : It inspires admiration and alarm in equal measure, but one writer loves her ‘nature’s tattoo’

 http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article3374912.ece

I thought this article was interesting because it states that only 1% of the population has a birthmark.  I honestly think that is incorrect and is a lot more, that just sounds low to me.  I liked the layman classifications of the different types of birthmarks in this article also which range from "the Gorbachev" to the really odd scythe one I have on my toe.  So if you ever think you are not dealing with me, and dealing with a clone of me (this is very very possible given my last experiments in our shed lab over the weekend) check out the 2nd to last toe on each foot, to see if you need to torture the clone and find out where it has hid me. 

People of the Web : Jonathan Coulton : Jonathan Coulton went from being just another "code monkey" to the Godfather of "Geek Rock." Here’s how he did it. 

http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/61785/how-to-become-a-rock-star 

 I think Coulton is entering somewhat of a geek demi-god state as of late.  I heard some VB.Net programmers were throwing their panties on stage at him during his Rock Band concert at GDC. 

That reminds me, I still need to beat Portal. 

Interesting Photos Found (Click to view):

Rare Albino Moose Photographed (Flickr Photo Set) 

(You need to read the description of it to understand why I thought it was so interesting.)

Two weekends ago I was explaing the glory of Rick Rolling to my wife in the car and how it comes when you least expect it.

 A friend just emailed me this.  Cracking me up:

We finally have official confirmation today that says there will not only be a new adaptation, but that it is being split into two movies! Warner Brothers has re-acquired the rights and is putting the first film into production right away, aiming to release the first movie by the summer of 2009.

Andy emailed me this earlier, pretty fun game:

I got 193 on my first try, but only 167 on my second, I assumed it would actually go up on my second, but Eastern Europe/Former Russia had it out for me.  I need to bone up on the area south of China and North of Australia around Oceania.  I felt like the game was taunting me towards the end by continuously asking me where stuff was there, so I ended up pinpointing centrally in that area and hoping.  

Good game.

Update:  225 I have redeemed myself slightly. 

Final Score:

(Photo From Kotaku) 

So I guess before my last post I should have just waited till after the keynote, but alas Kotaku's Live blog of the keynote at GDC gives us this nugget (Chris Satchell, chief XNA Architect speaking):

I think we will be able to change all of that, starting today.

 

For the first time ever you will be able to have access to community created games through Xbox Live Arcade.

If we are going to unleash this creativity, we need to put the power in the community.

They're going to do that but democratizing game distribution which means: create, submit, peer review and play.

Let's take a look at this pipeline.

Submit: The first part is you have to create your identity. You will have to build your reputation, as your fame grows this is what captures it.

Next you need to tell the community what 's in your game.

Peer Review: It's not going to be us reviewing it's going to be your peers. First they will look for prohibited content.

Play: Ten million people on Xbox Live will be able to play your game through XNA Creators Content.

Now they're showing a couple of games created on XNA.

On to a video of community games.

What they haven't done is explain exactly how it will be delivered to games, my guess is on a blade... Hmmm? Why does that sound so familiar.

Right now you can go to Xbox Live Markketplace and you can download free trials of The Dishwasher and a number of other XNA games. According to the screen behind Satchell it's a free trial of the games.

 oh I also just read this tidbit:

Wouldn't it be great if you could take all of this content mobile.. What if you had a Zune wouldn't it be great if you could take those games with you on your Zune.

 

Well this year you can.

He's showing Zurai a Shump on the Zune. He's controlling the ship with the touch pad. Now he paused the game and pulled up a song to listen to from the Zune while playing the game. Neat integration.

That's only part of it, with XNA Game Studio you can build online multiplayer games for your Zune. You can take games from Windows to Xbox to Zune.

 Interesting.

http://kotaku.com/358723/liveblogging-microsofts-gdc-presser

Is this it? 

The extensions are designed to help developers write fully-fledged Xbox Live Arcade titles using the XNA managed framework, exposing functionality that is hidden to the public out of necessity - such as achievements and TrueSkill rankings - and allowing developers to use the XDK's debugging tools and Xbox 360 developer units in lieu of regular retail machines.

Not to say thats not cool or anything, but I really don't know if I quite understand what is being announced.    

The extension is structured in Visual Studio as a third profile alongside Xbox 360 and Windows, with a project converter available for games that have already begun life on other platforms. The leaderboard, rich presence and Achievement functionality is encapsulated in several new types, while other Xbox Live features are exposed through expansions of existing types.

I assume there will be sometype of gatekeeper at MS who will allow certain shops to utilize this if their game is worthy?  I don't quite understand how it is going to work.  I would assume that any of the small game I have written won't be getting achievments (I really don't want them to have them).  I would think that it would dilute the "percieved quality" of someone's achiehment score.  Is this just a way for MS to allow what it considers "good" games to graduate from the confines of the personal XNA framework to the larger some larger "arcade library" for everyone to use?  (wouldn't that really be the big announcement, or is that what everyone is going to assume is incomming?)

It will be interesting to see what discussion comes of this, I am not sure I have grep'd everything I need to for understanding what the announcement really means for smalltime XNA developers (or if it is really just geared at the shops trying to break through to the XBLA Arcade Market).

I am sick as a dog today, and I feel like I was hit by a dump truck, regardless, this really lifted my spirits: