Top 5 Variations for Guitar Hero March 28, 2008

One of my house mates recently got a Playstation game called “Rock Band” which is quite simply, the most paradoxically brilliant yet idiotic invention of the 21st century. It builds off of an earlier game called “Guitar Hero” which involves players pressing buttons and clicking a lever up and down on a fake plastic guitar. Rock Band takes this a step further by adding an electric drum set with a peddle and four different platforms that you smack with your drumsticks and a microphone that allows for even the most tone deaf college kids to imagine that they are John Lennon (or Yoko Ono). The program will play songs by anybody from The Beastie Boys to The Rolling Stones and you get points based on how close you are to playing/singing the songs correctly.

The problem with the game is that it takes about as much getting used to as playing the real instruments. If you think you can pick up the guitar, drumsticks, or microphone without any musical experience you are wrong. Dead wrong. In fact, if you play the songs incorrectly or if you can’t sing on pitch, the crowd on the screen starts booing (I am not making this up) and you are eventually kicked off of the stage. The embarrassment is only compounded by the presence of your friends who will inevitably hold a grudge against you by blowing their one chance of “making it big”. Despite its flaws it is incredibly addictive, so out of gratitude for the game and my house mates who insist on playing it stone drunk at 4am in the morning, I present my top five variations to Guitar Hero/Rock Band:

5. Barbershop Hero

Some of us weren’t raised listening to Smashing Pumpkins and Guns N’ Roses, so for us there should be something geared more towards our own special tastes. The game will include four microphones and maybe a tuner (for the rookies) and will pit quartet against quartet in a free-for-all take-no-prisoners contest to see who can most accurately reproduce “Bye Bye Blackbird” or any other song enjoyed by your great-grandparents, whom you have probably never met.

4. String Quartet Hero

For those with sophisticated tastes, there should be a more complex (albeit more expensive) variation that captures the subtle beauty of the string quartet. Two plastic violins accompanied by a fake viola and cello will make this the hardest Guitar Hero variation ever conceived. You will begin in the Baroque era playing Bach and gradually move forward in time, playing for the Emperor himself (ala Amadeus) before inevitably meeting your end: impoverished, rejected, and buried beneath the weight of your own genius. The training tutorial will involve you playing for an elementary school band conductor who gets more agitated every time you miss your entrance. That ought to be enough to send any music student into an epileptic fit.

3. Jet Li’s “Hero” Hero

The premise of this game is simple. One guy sits on the ground playing a Chinese Guqin (7 stringed zither) while the other players sword fight.

Blindfolded.

2. One Man Band Hero

This variation will only be playable by one person (thus defeating the purpose behind Guitar Hero ONCE AND FOR ALL). Don’t be mislead, this game is anything but easy. You will be forced to play with all four controllers: one will be hooked to the bass drum and cymbals on your back, another to your harmonica, one to the accordion in your hand, and the final one registering how much you are smiling (I know it is impossible, just bare with me). The game will take you through the streets of Manchester or York as you eek out a meager wage from the sympathetic bourgeoisie who see nothing wrong with laughing at your expression of artistic ability. The game will be one of survival as you attempt to make enough money to receive treatment for any number of poverty-related industrial age diseases (cholera, anybody?). Nobody wins at this demeaning game. It is all about SURVIVAL.

EDIT: I just had a revelation. Forget about the controller that measure how much you are smiling. Instead, it should be wrapped around your friend who will pretend he is a monkey on a leash.

1. Boy Band Hero

This little idea will combine the challenge of singing with the fun of synchronized dancing. The game will come with four of those “Dance Dance Revolution” platforms that the players will stand on, hitting the correct squares with their feet for points. You can create your own Boy Band member personalities (should I be the sensitive one, or the “tough guy” with the goatee?) and get in fights with paparazzi. In the end if you were able to build up enough name recognition, you can go solo and create music that rips off of Michael Jackson (before he went insane). The best part about Boy Band Hero is that you will never actually have to sing, you can just lip sync to a different person’s voice. Now THAT is what I call art!

-optionaltoaster

A Case Of Obamamania And Acute Clintonitis March 13, 2008

As of today, I have four of my five term papers completed so I now have time to focus on more important matters, like presidential politics (ha!).

With the Republican nomination all but wrapped up, the attention of the media and the voters has shifted to the race for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. The fact that there was little doubt that the nominee of the party would either be a black man or a woman made this presidential nomination groundbreaking. However, what began as an historic race has spiraled into absurdity amidst an atmosphere of race baiting and race card playing. The very nature of the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is tearing the Democratic Party apart and giving the Republicans a shot at something that seemed just months ago to be an impossibility: holding the White House.

I should start with a disclaimer. I am not a Democrat, in fact I am a card-carrying member (minus the card) of the Republican Party. I am the only Republican in my family (among a Democrat, an Independent, and a Canadian Citizen) and I have been since I reached voting age in 2006. However, I would like to emphasize that I am of the North Eastern variety of Republicans (As opposed to the Texas, California, and seedless varieties). We believe that the government exists to preserve the liberties of the citizens while providing only that which the free market fails to supply. Likewise, what goes on in the home (unless the welfare of an individual is threatened) is not the government’s business. I also believe that though we should not shy away from the responsibilities characteristic of being the world’s only superpower, the best military is the one that never has to be used. The man who first made me want to be a Republican was Arizona Senator John McCain. In 2000 he ran a spirited campaign for the GOP presidential nomination against then Texas Governor George W. Bush. At a time when the economy was booming and our international reputation was unparalleled, McCain ran on a moderate platform based more on personality than ideology. He was the American hero once shot down over Vietnam, now vigorously fighting high spending and special interests, regardless of whether they took the form of greedy multi-billion dollar corporations or exploitative labor unions. His appeal to moderate Democrats and Independents propelled him to success in the New Hampshire and Michigan primaries, but caused him to suffer in the closed GOP primary in South Carolina. As we all know, Bush went on to secure the nomination and become President of the United States in the closest presidential election in American history. Now Republicans are hitting their heads against the wall for not nominating McCain eight years ago. I didn’t support him this election cycle partially because of his rhetoric on national security issues, but moreso because I didn’t think he had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting his party’s nomination. Now that McCain is in fact the party’s presumptive nominee, he has the difficult task of convincing America that he is qualified to be president, even after eight years of poor governing by the Bush Administration.

Thanks to recent events in the Democratic presidential race, it may not be as difficult as he thought. On the eve of the South Carolina Primary, Bill Clinton made a remark comparing Obama’s success in the South to that of Jesse Jackson. Just a few days ago, Geraldine Ferraro, who ran in 1984 as Walter Mondale’s Vice President against Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, made a comment saying that Obama would not be in his present position as the presumptive front runner for the nomination if he was a white man. She added that she never would have been on the ticket in ‘84 if she was not a woman. While all of the Republicans were silently thinking “no duh”, the Democrats and liberals in the media cried foul. Ferrara was accused of being racist by people within the Democratic Party, despite the fact that her whole life has been one committed to fighting for civil rights for women and minorities.

I like to think that I am an impartial observer to the Democratic race. Neither Obama nor Hillary have done much to convince me that they deserve my vote, so I really don’t care which one gets the nod of the party. However, what I have observed has been an absurd war of personalities between these two influential Senators and their surrogates that is causing those outside of the Democratic Party to wonder what the heck is going on. I find it ironic that whenever Obama makes a jab at Clinton, he is praised for taking a tough stand against the “establishment” but when Clinton’s campaign goes on the attack (3am phone call?) she gets tagged as being a neurotic, nagging woman. Never mind that Barack Obama’s pastor is a demented racist*. I am not arguing that one side is more guilty than the other, I am only saying that the nature of a political campaign that has been thoroughly castrated by the SS of political correctness will seizure whenever the fact that Barack Obama is black is even mentioned. Nobody doubted that Mitt Romney did well in the Mountain States because of their large Mormon populations. He won the state of Utah with 90% of the vote and we didn’t kid ourselves why. Barack Obama won 91% of the African American vote in Mississippi, which was an accurate reflection of states across the South where he has consistently held huge double digit leads over Clinton among black voters. Yet when a Clinton surrogate says that Barack Obama is doing well because he is black, nuts like Keith Olbermann and Jack Cafferty cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

My advice to the Democrats is this: Stick to the issues. You need your candidates to stay on message and escape from the polarizing scorched-earth stalemate that they are in. The Republicans knew full well that they could not possibly win on the status quo platform, which is why this November either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be campaigning against a man best known as a decorated war hero whose greatest life accomplishment was refusing to be returned home by the North Vietnamese Army until he was assured that his fellow POW’s would go with him. Let’s face it, John McCain is a lousy Senator. No matter how beautiful your family is (Obama) or how good you are at tearing up (Clinton), if you allow the campaign to be about personality rather than issues, John McCain will trump you every time.

One more piece of advice: Tell Michigan and Florida** to stick their delegates where the sun doesn’t shine.

End of rant.

-optional toaster

EDIT: *Barack Obama’s pastor has come under increasing media attention in the last 48 hours.

EDIT: **The Florida Democratic Party has since voted not to hold new elections. It will not contribute delegates to the convention.

Thieves!: Experiencing A Break-In And Learning A Valuable Lesson In Forgiveness March 4, 2008

A few weeks ago my apartment here in Kingston was broken into. My three house mates and I were away for the week (the only time we get off aside from Christmas) and we returned to find several hundred dollars worth of cash and electrical hardware stolen. One guy lost his laptop, another his ipod (although the thief forgot the charger) and digital camera, and I lost money which I was counting on to get me through to the end of the year (Hey Mom and Dad! I LOVE YOU GUY$!). Apparently the guy came in through one of the windows that was left unlocked and then proceeded to take our stuff:

Coming from a small town where nobody locks their doors or windows, I was stunned by this insensitive thievery of that which I considered to be rightfully mine and the possessions of my house mates, none of whom had done anything to warrant this crime. I have been unable to conceive what could have been on the person’s mind as he walked from room to room taking what he wanted. What was even more distressing was the breach of privacy we had been subjected to. There was somebody in our house and our rooms without our permission. The drawer where I had hid my money was still open, the contents visibly moved around. All of the doors to our rooms were left open and debris from the door that was smashed in lay on the hallway floor:

I was just waiting for Jack Nicholson to stick his head through an axed hole in the door and say “Here’s Johnny!”.

You can’t tell from the photo, but there is a big crack on the molding next to the door where it was kicked. Even the one guy with the sense to lock his bedroom door fell victim to the covetousness of a thief.

He left his flashlight here (not a smart cookie) which we promptly turned over to police. We were told that the odds of them catching the guy were small, which is understandable but underscores the failure of law enforcement to act as a deterrent when resources are stretched thin, like they are in Kingston. Getting past the initial shock didn’t take too long and I’ll get by alright without the money. If something is to be learned from this whole fandango it is not that there are people in the world who are willing to take what is not theirs, or that we should be more careful to provide for out own security (both of which are perfectly valid lessons) but that the true test of a Christian is how one responds to situations where we are confronted with injustice. By all practical standards I have every right, nay, an obligation, to prosecute this guy to full extent of the law. However, Christ preached a doctrine of “turning the other cheek”, that is if a man strikes you, turn so that he might strike the other side of your face (Matthew 5:38-42). One of the first emotions I felt when I realized I had lost money was rage-not a very Christian emotion. I imagined myself hitting the guy on the head and then duck taping him to a chair, if only I had been home when he had broken in. Although realistically, if somebody broke into my house it probably would have played out more like this:

That’s me hiding under my covers with the only weapon at my disposal.

Back to the issue of forgiveness. I have been questioning my own morality by asking myself whether or not I would let the guy keep the money. I tried to answer this by saying that it is irrelevant since he will not be caught. Nonetheless, I am not excused if in my own heart I would not forgive him and show mercy just as God showed to mankind. Had the break-in been done by an unemployed father trying to feed his family, mercy would not be difficult to give. However, if it was a teenager with nothing better to do or who was too lazy to get a job, forgiveness without justice feels totally unnatural. Living up to the Biblical standard in this case, and all situations, requires a suppression of human morality and a surrender of the benefit of the doubt to God.

One of the parables that Jesus told was of an unmerciful servant who was forgiven of a large debt he owed his master but refused to forgive a small debt that was owed to him by one of his own servants (Matthew 18:21-35). The grace that the master showed was meant to be an example for his own servant. Likewise Christ’s sacrifice should set an example to all people and teach us a valuable lesson in forgiveness.

-optional toaster

PS: 226 hits in less than one week=awesome .

Stuff That Old People Teach Us March 1, 2008

As young people we should never be ignorant to the lessons that we can learn from our elders. One of the lessons I was taught to live by as I grew up was to lead the kind of life that would give our grandparents confidence in our generation. While I know I’ve failed in more ways then I’ve succeeded, I hope that I’ve been giving the proper respect where it’s owed.

Over the summer I went to a 5th of July celebration in Carthage, NY with some friends from the my workplace. After a nighttime fireworks show, we went for a walk down one of the scenic streets. A few minutes later we approached a park bench where a well-dressed older gentleman was sitting. He asked if we enjoyed the firework show. We told him that we had and then proceeded to ask him why Carthage celebrates Independence Day on July 5th. Apparently it is to make sure that everybody who might be away is back in town to celebrate. It’s also nice to attract some people from the surrounding area, which we were a testament to since none of us are actually from Carthage. The man asked us to give him a bag of circles to which we responded that doing so is impossible (a circle is an idea, not an object). We asked him what he did for a living and he made us guess. Eventually we found out that he had studied at Villanova University and from that, correctly established that he was the priest at the local Catholic Church. What followed was a philosophical discussion about faith, love, and politics from the perspectives of a half dozen college students working at a Mennonite summer camp and a wise religious scholar whose life had been devoted to the service of God and his parish.

Last month my maternal grandfather passed away at the ripe age of 90. We knew it was coming for a while so we weren’t shocked. Since then my family has been going over his personal effects and as a result, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for what Tim Brokaw called “the greatest generation”. My grandfather grew up in Nova Scotia and attended Dalhousie University before receiving the Rhode Scholarship to study at Oxford. However, the year was 1939 and the war in Europe had just begun. Like many young men at the time, he put his education on hold to enlist in the RCAF. He was soon transferred to the Royal Air Force, flying on board a piston-engine PBY Catalina as a navigator in the African Theater. For those few terrifying years, Great Britain “the island fortress” stood alone as the last bastion against Nazi aggression. The efforts of him and thousands of other British and Commonwealth airmen meant that the fascists could never sleep easy or achieve their goal of total European conquest. Sir Winston Churchill stated in 1940 in reference to the RAF that, “never has so much been owed by so many to so few”.

We recently discovered some of his personal effects from both the war and his civilian life. For my birthday, my parents gave me a folder they had dug up which contained every article that my grandfather had cut out and filed from the New Yorker on President Lyndon Johnson from their Annals of Politics series. This is the Holy Grail for an American political history junkie. They also found numerous photos of my grandfather and the other men from his air crew.

I was usually shy to talk to my grandfather about his life. He clearly preferred to know more about what I was doing. I wish that I didn’t have regrets now, but if I said that I was satisfied with everything I allowed him to teach me, I would be lying. Still, the fact that he remained an enigma to me even up to his passing suggests something wonderful about his character. From the pieces of his life that I’ve recovered and am only now putting together, I have come to the conclusion that he was a man of humility, kindness, and frugality despite leading a very successful life in the business sector and his own home. My mother often recalls a story from her childhood when she and her parents were in the American South. At one point, they walked into a restaurant in order to enjoy a dinner together. Upon seeing a sign with the words “WHITE ONLY”, my grandfather politely stood up and walked out with his wife and daughter in tow. Such an act of protest says something about a man’s heart and should serve as an example to all people who desire to stand up against injustice.

On a more humorous note, I recently saw an episode of Mad TV with a character by the name of Mrs. Leona Campbell, played by the brilliant Stephnie [sic] Weir. Mrs. Campbell, clearly a woman outside her natural environment, points out the absurdity of young people through her unintentionally ironic questions and suggestions.

Mrs. Campbell asks the types of questions that we ought to ask ourselves. Do I really need an ipod? Do I really want to have another drink? Do I really need to check facebook every fifteen minutes or text message somebody that I will be talking to after class anyways? (The answers are all “no”). Let’s try to pick up where our grandparents left off. That way we’ll give our descendants something good and wholesome to write about.

-optionaltoaster