How Guitar Hero helped me embrace my inner gamer

The Dude and I have been eyeing Guitar Hero for a while now. We've talked about how much fun it would be to have our very own plastic guitar controllers and to rock out.

Over the weekend, we found a crazy good deal on Guitar Hero at one of the Big Box electronic stores. Apparently they're rotating out some of the old versions in favor of newer versions that aren't that much different from the old ones. It was cheaper for us to buy two older games that each came with a controller than it was for us to buy a bundled up new game that came with two controllers.

And, since we're ever the spendthrifts, we decided to go that route. And by "spendthrift," I mean grown ups who don't necessarily need the newest tricked-outest version of the game.

We decided to play the game in "career co-op" mode which allows both of us to play at the same time. For the record, our band name is "Achieve." The Dude picked it. For the record, I think DDC21, the band name I use on the Guitar Hero game I have for my DS is way more cleaver. But whatever...

After playing for about 3 hours between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, we have successfully completed the game on "Easy" and started the game on "Medium."

I complained that there was a huge difference between the skill required to play on "Easy" and the skill required for "Medium." And by "complained," I mean whined and cursed.

Just keeping it real, y'all.

What I learned is that I can't play lead guitar in co-op mode. I mean, I am physically able to do it. I just don't want to. The Dude is way better at it. I am more of a bass or rhythm guitar kind of woman. It works well for us, since he seems to prefer to play lead guitar.

I kind of feel like this could some sort of crazy video game-based metaphor for our marriage.

From The Shamless Plug Department

Did you know that The Dude wrote a book?

He did.

It's finally seeing the light of day and I couldn't be prouder.

I watched him through the entire process. I saw him struggle and grow until he produced this amazing labor of love.

He always seemed excited to interview the players, no matter how overwhelmed he felt on any given day.

He was persistent, even when he was tired of writing.

He and Beatrice, our 15-pound calico cat who is madly in love with him, burned many a midnight oil as he crafted chapter after chapter and story after story.

And, at the end of it, he seemed pleased with his work and as in love with the stories as he was the day he started it.

This isn't so much a shameless plug to buy the book (though, you should do that if you want to) as it is a shameless plug for The Dude.

He is certainly one of Mrs. Dude's favoritest things...

Kissing Suzy Kolber

Remember that time that Joe Namath showed up on ESPN tanked up and told Suzy Kolber that he wanted to kiss her?

I don't, actually, but Wikipedia has everything these days.

And another thing, you'd think that Wikipedia could send me a tee shirt or something for the amount that I pimp them.

Anyway, there's this sports blog called "Kissing Suzy Kolber."

A sports blog, Mrs. Dude?

A sports blog, people.

The Dude got me clued into KSK by sending me links to their "stories." KSK is like Jezebel except that they're dudes. So they talk about sports instead of celebrities and getting drunk.

It's very funny, but much of their content is rude and crude, though, so don't say I didn't warn you. Chances are that you'll be offended as much as you end up laughing.

Spiderman 3, or, Why Mrs. Dude loves irony

We went to see Spiderman 3 last night.

I liked it a smidge less than Spiderman 2, but I did like it. The special effects seemed much less fake than Spiderman 2, which is strange because some of the stuff they did was clearly done in front of a Green Screen.

Kirsten Dunst's nipples didn't make an appearance this time. I'm not sure if The Dude was sad about that or not. I was certainly relieved. I mean, you'd hope that they've got a SAG card and are getting a fair wage. Maybe if Dunst refuses to do Spiderman 4, her nipples will agree to make an appearance.

Tobey Maguire didn't do as right by Peter Parker as he did in Spiderman 2. Maybe it was because I spent most of the middle portion of the movie laughing that I didn't see him being true to Parker's emotions. Emo Tobey Maguire is funny stuff. You know how Johnny Depp modeled his Jack Sparrow after Keith Richards? I think that Tobey Maguire modeled his emo Spiderman after Pete Wentz. He was certainly rocking Wentz's eyeliner and pretty emo bangs.

My one big complaint with this movie (and really all the rest of them, too) is that it had a pacing problem. They spent a lot of time in the exposition and then had a mess to tidy up in the last half hour. I ended up wondering if this is because, in comics, you have an infinite amount of time to set the stage in a thoughtful and nuanced way that you simply don't have in movies.

Overall, I liked it. I was fun and fluffy. You should go see it and laugh at emo Spiderman.

As an aside, James Cromwell is in this movie. Cromwell has been in everything from Six Feet Under to Revenge of the Nerds to L.A. Confidential. It's staggering how many things he's been in. I know him best as Farmer Hoggett in Babe. The Dude couldn't figure out where he knew him from. We talked about it on the way home and he said that Cromwell was probably in something iconic and that he'd probably be mad at himself for not knowing it when he saw his IMDB profile. All of the sudden, The Dude turns to me and says "He was Jack's dad on 24!" I replied "something iconic, huh?"

Fun with Black Frances

One of the fun things about The Dude working from home during the winter is that he is always hard at work putting our music collection on iTunes and, therefore, on our iPods.

At Whatsamatta U., I'm allowed to listen to music while I work (I couldn't at my previous POW), so I'm always flipping through Black Frances to find something to listen to. And, admittedly, I get tired of listening to the same five things. So, I've started listening to stuff that I've never heard before.

So far I've liked:
Aimee Mann's Bachelor No. 2
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's self-titled disc
Radiohead's OK Computer
Cat Power's The Greatest

The most remarkable out of all of these is the Radiohead disc. I have had a strong distaste for them for quite some time. This is amusing because The Dude loves them with the passion of a thousand firey suns. So imagine my surprise when it turns out that they aren't as bad as I'd previously thought.

*sigh*...I hate it when he's right :)