Having just now learned that all my Rock Band instruments work on Guitar Hero: World Tour (sad, I know, but still...), I have been enjoying the drums. Sort of weird that the kick pedal which could be easily ignored with the Guitar Hero drums is intrinsic to playing the game with the Rock Band drums, but hey, it's still fun.

The song list has some duplicates, but the guest stars are freaking awesome. Hendrix, Sting, Travis Barker, Hayley Williams, and Ozzy all make guest appearances for their own songs, and there's a couple decent guitar battles. The drums are kind of an afterthought, but it's not that bad. The only real let-down of the title is that, although you can make your own songs using the instruments, you can't add vocal tracks just by singing. You need a keyboard for that, apparently, which definitely makes me think that they really could have just done without it.

As for Rock Band 2 - love it! Sure, some of the songs can get repetitive after a while (a few just pop up like a bad habit on those mystery set lists, and are repeated in a few of the local showcases), but there's really no misses here. The only thing that World Tour has on it is the celebrity appearances, the lack of repeats (unless you want to replay a song), and all master tracks. Gameplay is a bit more fun on Rock Band, and the visuals are more fun.

I'd recommend both, but if you only get one, get Rock Band 2. And make sure you've got a 360.

How many songs: 4471

Sort by song title:
-First Song: A-Hole - Bowling For Soup
-Last Song: 5150 - Van Halen

Sort by time:
-Shortest Song: R.K. Intro - Our Lady Peace - 0:07
-Longest Song: Brian Regan Live - Brian Regan - 56:11

Sort by album:
-First Song: Come Together - The Beatles
-Last Song: Completely Miserable - Lit (Yeah, never bothered to look up the album after it somehow got erased)

Top 10 Most Played Songs:
1. Infected - Bad Religion
2. (F)lannigan's Ball - Dropkick Murphy's
3. As Time Goes By (Live) - Frank Sinatra
4. We Are The Normal - Goo Goo Dolls
5. Way Back In To Love - Hugh Grant and Haley Bennett
6. Wading in the Velvet Sea - Phish
7. Jupiter - 30 Seconds to Mars
8. Take A Chance on Me - ABBA
9. Money, Money, Money - ABBA
10. Metalingus - Alter Bridge

If it included CD play count, Goo Goo Dolls and Jimmy Eat World would be on that list a lot more. And Fall Out Boy. I haven't used iTunes on this computer a lot.

First 5 songs that come up on Shuffle: (I'm going to arrange the list by artist)

1. It's Now Or Never - Elvis Presley
2. Yesterday to Tomorrow - Audioslave
3. Poor Boy - Matt Kearney
4. I Won't See You Tonight (Part 1) - Avenged Sevenfold
5. Electric Princess - Jennifer Gentle (And it would seem that I've got like 200 songs on here that I've never heard...)

Search ....
"sex", how many songs come up?: 8 (Would be more if I had downloaded the full Social Distortion album)
"love", how many songs come up?: 222 - A lot of them are because of the album name, e.g. Papa Roach, Goo Goo Dolls, etc.
"you", how many songs come up?: 636 (Again, album)
"death", how many songs come up? 48 (The majority of which are one band. Guess which one?)
"hate", how many songs come up? 44 (Very varied)
"wish" how many songs come up? 7

Now use shuffle: (Comedy and orchestral pieces shall be ignored)

High School

What was high school like?
Speed of Sound - Coldplay

Was I a good student?
Zoot Suit Riot - Cherry Poppin' Daddies

Did I party a lot?
Pillar of Salt - The Thermals (Oh, great, iTunes is making bad puns. "party a Lot"...check out the book of Genesis if you don't know what I'm talking about)

Love

What describes my first love?
Leave the Pieces - The Wreckers (Yup)

Do I have a Boyfriend/Girlfriend?
Ghost of Past Failures - Shadows Fall

Do I like someone?
Number Five With a Bullet - Taking Back Sunday (I like somebody who kills people?)

Life

What was today like?
Particle Man - They Might Be Giants

What are most days like?
It's Gonna Be Me - N*Sync (Embarrassingly, I like this song.)

What's my life like?
Twisted Logic - Coldplay (Two Coldplay songs now...seems like these guys are my secondary anthem)

What is in store for this weekend?
Losing a Whole Year - Third Eye Blind (Wow...longest weekend ever)

What song describes my parents?
Don't Know - Taking Back Sunday

How is my life going?
In My Head - Queens of the Stone Age

Do I act my age?
I've Just Seen A Face - Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe Soundtrack) [Um...is this at all relevant?]

What song will they play at my funeral?
Cecilia - SImon & Garfunkel (They so would. And I'd laugh. Presuming there's an afterlife and I'm going to Heaven, of course)

Wedding?
Loser - 3 Doors Down (SERIOUSLY? Wow, that's mean. And a bit goth. Not a bad song to which you can dance, though.)

How does the world see me?
Fentoozler - blink 182 (What in the world is that?)

Will I have a happy life?
If I Fell - Evan Rachel Wood (It's possible. If I fell in love.)

What do my friends really think of me?
Points of Authority - Linkin Park

Do people secretly lust after me?
Lady Madonna - The Beatles (What is it with all these Beatles songs? More importantly, I don't think Madonna knows I exist.)

How can I make myself happy?
I'm In Over My Head - Lit (I need to overwhelm myself to be happy? Wow, I'm seriously screwed up.)

Whats my family think of me?
Yesterday to Tomorrow - Audioslave

What should I do with my life?
Saturday (Live) - Fall Out Boy (What is it with all the dadaism in this thing?)

What is my signature dancing song?
Always Be - Jimmy Eat World (Strangely, yes. So far, only in the car, but yes.)

What do I think my current theme song is?
Rhythm of the Night - Valeria (Um...never have, never will.)

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Trouble - Dave Matthews (I feel insulted.)

What is my life theme song?
Wishlist - Pearl Jam

What best describes my life?
Introduce the Metric System in Time - The Hives

What best describes my friends?
Twice in Every Show - Spamalot (Um...)

What best describes the person I like?
Once And For All - Newsies!

How will you die?
I'm Not Sleepin' - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (Stupid iTunes. Ask it how I will die, and it says how I won't.)

What describes my worst enemy?
Yesterday's Letter - 98 Degrees

Do I enjoy life?
Bust A Move - Run DMC

Am I a good person?
Crush - Dave Matthews Band

Do I make others happy?
End of the Day - Beck

1. Put your iTunes on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS! I’m going to skip orchestral songs unless they have an apt title. Aka not ones in foreign languages. K.
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the game as well as the person you got the note from.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY??
I Want You

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Number Five With A Bullet

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Stranglehold

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
A Little's Enough

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Crush

WHAT IS 2+2?
Be Our Guest

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS?
Fear

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Livin' It Up

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Just The Way You Are

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Mother's Little Helper - WHA? SO WRONG! SO WRONG!

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
The First Drop

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Zero - Though it's actually "Zero" from the soundtrack to The Holiday, so it could be a good thing.

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
A Groovy Kind Of Love - Actually, I am that cheesy.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
The Great Houdini

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Forecast - Prophecy? Meteorology? You'll never know!

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
The Bitch Song - Um...actually, almost all of my friends are women, so while offensive, accurate.

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Did You Get My Message?

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
You - That's right you murdering bastards!

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Highway to Hell - Um...my iTunes is getting creepy.

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Pantala Naga Pampa

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Making Memories Of Us

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Breakfast at Tiffany's

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Rapunzel - Dave Matthews is really aggressive.

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
I Want To Know You More

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Drive Away - I've driven away from a lot of stuff...

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Song Sung Blue

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Holiday in Cambodia

Twelve thousand words and change. And I'm barely beating Skyla...barely. However, I am on track for 100K by the end of the month, so that's a huge plus. And I have a plot. Even bigger plus. Only minus - I've just discovered that my muse is from Greeley...the town of my bitter rival.

This is going to be a long month ahead, but hopefully I can get to 40K or 50K by the 8th so that I'm not so panicked for the rest of the month.

Yay NaNo!

So I figured I might as well write up something. I'm not going to go off and bash either candidate for any length of time, even though both scare the hell out of me. Obama's ideas fail to recognize the simple fact that Washington is corporate controlled. We need a freaking Teddy Roosevelt in the office again before we can begin to hope for what Obama is promising he'll do as president. As for McCain, Johnny-come-around-and-support-the-guy-who-made-him-out-to-be-the-freaking-Manchurian-Candidate (yes, that's a lot of hyphens) has chosen a woman VP candidate that has less experience than Obama, when another governor, i.e. Perry, would have been a better choice because said governor knows all about cleaning up George W. Bush's mess. That, and McCain is obviously a wuss when it comes to standing up to his party, seeing as he originally wanted to choose Joe Lieberman. We don't need a guy who only sees half the equation, and we don't need a guy who sees the entire problem and comes up with the wrong solutions. If people voted the issues (and not just ONE ISSUE, i.e. "Oh, he's pro-choice. Screw that, I'm voting for the other guy because he's against abortion," or "Oh, he's for gay marriage. Good, I'll choose him," or, "Oh, he's a solid Christian, so I should support his presidency because no good Christian politician could possibly fall to bribery.") instead of supporting a party because they want to go with somebody they "know" is going to win, Ralph Nader and Bob Barr would probably be getting more votes, simply because they actually are willing to campaign on the issues instead of solely on charisma. Novel concept, I know.

Either way, bullet-point why I support Ralph Nader:

- He wants to reverse US policy in the Middle East. McCain is talking of staying in Iraq "until the job is done", a statement nebulous in its very nature, and echoing Bush quite heavily. Obama's talking eighteen months until withdrawal. The Democrats were in power for TWO YEARS and didn't do so much as pass a resolution forcing the President in to a withdrawal timetable. What makes anybody think they'll be any different with Obama in office. Nader wants us out in six months to a year, as far as military aid goes, and further elections held before we withdraw. As for the Palestine/Israel solution, he wants to censure the Israelis for their military actions against the Palestinians, including blockading the Gaza Strip, and he wants to reach a two-state solution, or at least establish an independent Palestinian state. (I find it ironic that back in 1948, nobody thought to just give Bavaria or Bohemia to the Jews, forcing all the Germans there to move in to what was left of Germany, as a way to punish the society that supported the Holocaust, instead of punishing people who had done nothing wrong. You have to hate the UN sometimes.) Seems to me that it's diplomacy with a freaking huge stick.

- He's pro-union. The real problem with unions these days is that the few that are still left are desperate to keep a grip on what little power they have, so they abuse it to the fullest extent, protecting union workers that don't do their jobs, being unreasonable in negotiations, and taking money that they don't deserve from companies that entered in to agreements with the unions in good faith. If Taft-Hartley were repealed, giving more liberty to people to form unions (point of irony - the Republicans are running ads in Colorado trying to make the Democrats look like the bad guys in the union issues when the Republicans don't even want unions to exist), unions wouldn't feel so threatened, and they might actually be able to stimulate both the economy and workers' rights. It's one of those Tarkin things - the more tightly you squeeze, the more opposition you have. And if the unions that are left feel more and more pressure, they're going to screw with the system.

- He wants to adopt a system known as the National Initiative. Obama says that he wants people realize the citizenry's ability to change the system in Washington. Nader is proposing and would allow for the way to do it - put simply, if enough private citizens get together and bring forth an issue, it can be put on the national agenda. If enough people petition for a national vote on the issue, then it is brought to the national table. Congress has no right to filibuster it or dismiss it, and if it is constitutional, and it receives a majority vote, it passes. The President has no right to veto it, as, instead of overriding a representative democracy, he would be overriding the entire country, which should not be within the President's sphere of power. It allows for people to elect politicians which they believe have the best character, and vote on the issues in a separate sphere.

- He wants to do a lot of things in regards to corporate actions. For example, he wants to crack down on corporate crimes. If a company's top officials commit crimes that cause the company to fold, they don't get off with millions of dollars - they pay off the pensions of their employees. They also don't get off scott free from serving jail time - he wants to increase the Justice Department's corporate prosecution branch s that we can actually handle corporate criminal cases. If a company has repeatedly broken the law, and remains in business, they get no government contracts whatsoever. He wants to end offshore reincorporation so that companies can not simply brush off paying taxes on their profits. He wants to eliminate conflicts of interest in Wall Street trading. And in an interesting twist, he wants to let the share holders in the company decide who the members of the executive board should be - and it makes sense, seeing as they're the people controlling a company in which the shareholders have a vested interest. He wants to reduce runaway executive salaries. People that screw up their job shouldn't be able to walk away with $106 million after losing the company five times that much while lower-level employees barely scrape out a living. He also wants to eliminate corporate welfare/payouts for industries (for example, oil) with proven profitability and no chance of going in to the red any time soon.

- In a separate issue, he wants to end corporate personhood, requiring all companies operating within the United States to get federal charters to continue existence. Screw up enough times, you lose your charter, and therefore your right to do business in the country. Right now, corporations practically control certain parts of the government. Nader thinks it's time to turn things around.

- He wants to adopt a system similar to the NHS in the UK, with all citizens in the US having their health care bought and paid for (mostly) by their taxes. That's not on the board for either candidate, because, guess what, it's the simplest solution. Why should the government have to deal with hundreds of different insurance plans, like Obama's system would do. Obviously, the status quo, which is what McCain supports, isn't working all that well either. Just one national plan covering medically necessary services - that's Nader's idea. And any doctor in the country would be a viable doctor.

I don't quite agree with his ideas on tort law, if only because they would also be applied to the medical field, and I believe that health care is getting more expensive due to frivolous malpractice suits, but hey, if I voted for McCain or Obama, I would support even fewer of their ideas. Plus, with the National Initiative, I would be able to oppose a few of Nader's motions. He's just the best candidate available, because while Obama's rhetoric sounds nice, Nader's plans would do what Obama says his campaign can do - bring hope back to the American citizenry.

I think I've been making more and more mistakes lately, to the point where I'm regretting practically everything I've done since...well, April, pretty much.

Wrong choices in relationships.

Wrong choices financially.

Wrong choices in a job.

And part of me wishes that I could just get hit by a car and leave it at that.

So...

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie!!

opening credits: delicate (terence trent d'arby)

Waking Up: "My Hometown" by Bowling For Soup

first day at school: "Sleeping to Dream" by Jason Mraz

falling in love: "Take It To The Limit" by The Eagles

fight song: "Chariot" by Gavin DeGraw

breaking up: "Don't Stop" by The Rolling Stones

prom: "I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song" by Jim Croce

life: "Dirty Little Secret" by Sarah McLachlan (though it would have been funny if the AAR version came up instead)

mental breakdown: "Daylight" by Coldplay

driving: "Big Blue Note" by Toby Keith

flashback: "Where I End And You Begin" by Radiohead (strangely, this is the most appropriate one yet)

wedding: "Tempus Vernum" by Enya (hmm...apparently it will be dark and ominous)

birth of a child: "27" by Breaking Point (and iTunes really doesn't want me to have a family...)

final battle: "Damn" by Matchbox Twenty

funeral song: "Never Do Anything" by Barenaked Ladies (and apparently my funeral will be funny and ironic)

end credit: "Cello Suite 1" by J.S. Bach

So, yeah...

Saturday is going to rock so much that I think there needs to be a new happy dance. Except that my happy dance will be going to the ball. So I guess the waltz is going to be my official happy dance for the night.

Either way, I know am the proud owner of a top hat, white gloves, and dress shoes with attached spats. And that's only what I bought permanently. What I rented from Wear it Again Sam is quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever worn thus far. It's a grey tuxedo jacket with tails, a somewhat matching tie and vest, and black tuxedo pants. I'm gonna' wear my black tuxedo shirt with it. It's going to look freaking sweet. I realize it's not quite Victorian, but I'm going for Gothic here, so a black shirt seems like it will do. I would go with a walking stick, too, but that seems a bit much, especially since I'll be mostly dancing.

Still, it is gonna' be fun.

DANCE TO THE MUSIC! DANCE TO THE MUSIC!

So, for the alcohol I've had tonight, here are my reactions:

Bass - typical dark beer. Nothing special.

Jose Cuervo - Tastes strangely like a duller version of Jack Daniels. I have no idea why, considering the difference in ingredients, but there you are. Should I go for tequila again, I am definitely ordering something with 100% agape, i.e. true tequila, as opposed to only 60% like Cuervo apparently is.

Some type of vodka whose name I am a bit too buzzed to remember - Due to its pomegranite flavoring, a bit smoother than straight vodka. I liked the fruitiness, really. Too bad I only got one shot of it.

India Pale Ale from a Boulder-based brewery - Like most pale ales I've had, except that it was kind of minty. I don't know if there was any mint in the drink, so it could have actually tasted like pine, but whatever was in there, it was definitely not your typical beer.

So there you go. I had two beers and three shots in the course of an hour, fell asleep on the couch, woke up, was still unfit to drive, and therefore have to walk about two miles to fetch my car which needs to be refueled. But the party was fun either way. And the couch was comfy. I still can't feel my left arm, though.

And that's it. I'm going to bed and I'm probably going to wake up and freak out about losing this book that I just bought until I remember that it's in my car...which is two miles away. Not quite a hangover, but punishment enough to remind me to get a damned ride TO the party when I intend to get drunk even slightly and therefore require a ride FROM the party.

Not really, but it's fun to say. Actually, I got Rock Band...and Guitar Hero 3...for the 360...with all the peripherals for both. So now I've got a four-piece band thingamajig in my dorm room, and roughly $300 more on my credit card. But it is so worth it.

That's really it, actually...