Forza Too

For anyone who's interested, for a very short time I am putting some of my old Forza 2 designs up on the AH in the game.  Most of my designs are NFL teams: I have the NFC West, NFC North, AFC West, and Jacksonville.  I also have the Bulls and Blackhawks, and a Bret Hart themed Enzo up.  All NFL teams come in home and away color schemes (2 different cars - F1 McLaren for home, Saleen S7 for away) and have the team's logo, conference logo, and NFL shield.  They all look pretty decent, some are actually so good I can't believe I actually pulled them off.

I decided to do it because I hadn't put them up for sale for probably close to a year and figured since the NFL season was winding down, this might be a good time to offer them up.  I had planned on running the auctions for a couple weeks maybe, but since the time I started doing this last night and now I have received a bunch of the stupid "Make me this team, put it on this car, charge me no more than this, and leave the design unlocked" messages I now remember getting before that made me quit auctioning these off to begin with.  I had actually changed my profile info to explain upfront that this is all there was, team-wise, and there would be no more, etc, last night before I put the first auction up.  Gotta love the timmies. 

So anyway, they are up now and have actually been selling pretty well.  I'll probably run one more round of auctions after tonight and that will be it, so if anyone is interested then check out the AH in F2.

Sampling

This month I have both Christmas (of course) and my son's birthday.  I hooked him up early on the b-day last month with Gears 2 so that was the main part of his gift.  I'll probably pick up some MS points for him as well to buy whatever with.  Now I have to decide what to get him for Christmas.  He already told me for sure he wants a videogame, and I can't really say I'm surprised since there's been some great releases in the last month or so.  I beefed up my Blockbuster game pass so I can get 2 out at a time and I've been renting out the big name releases as they've become available.  My opinions so far on these games:

Left 4 Dead:  Great game.  I actually had it rented last time he was up and he got some quality time in with it.  Its definitely at the top of his list, and its probably at the top of mine as well.

CoD: World at War:  Meh.  Treyarch needs to go away.  The game is beautiful with some superb presentation and lighting, but to me the gameplay is lacking.  Its plagued by the biggest snafu I found in CoD3, and thats stupid squad AI.  I've gotten killed far too many times because my dumbass squadmates wouldn't move and left me pinned in a spot where I was easy pickings.  Not only that, but at one point I was taking damage from behind (insert drunken Mike James joke here) and thought it was the Japs.  Nope, turns out it was the retard sniper in my squad shooting me in the back of the head. 

Guitar Hero: World Tour:  More meh.  I'm already well established on record for hating Neversoft's charting, and this game isn't changing my mind.  After playing RB2's career mode I find GHWT's mode to be stifling and restrictive.  Plus I really hate their cutscenes.  Looks like only 1 music game in our household, and its Rock Band 2.  That kind of sucks because I was watching the video for GH: Metallica and I was getting excited for it.  I mean, how do you not get stoked when you hear Master of Puppets?  But playing this game brought me back down to earth in a hurry, sadly.

Prince of Persia:  Really great looking game, decent controls, not so fond of the camera.  Plus I found the game to be too easy to get through the corrupted lands, and by the time I healed the first land I was bored and had no interest in continuing.  I guess platformers aren't for me anymore.

Destroy All Humans:  Ok, so this one isn't one of the "big" releases, but aside from L4D I have easily had the best time with this one.  There are technical issues abound, sometimes the game will even freeze up.  But if you can get past that, you will find a pretty cool sandbox game here with some wild toys to play with.  Its not at a Saints Row 2 level (the king of sandbox games in my world), but its got some good times in it.  Plus for you older folks, the 70s references are pretty funny.  I'm pretty sure this one will start popping up used eventually, and since its going for only $40 brand new I think this is a purchase down the line.

So thats all fine and good that I gave my opinions, but the question is what will my kid like.  I think L4D for sure, and I've advised him to rent some of the others he was asking for before committing to them.  I mean if he winds up liking WaW for the online or whatever, then cool...its for him afterall.

Are there any other newer titles I might want to check out?

Elvis needs boats

Remember that song, Elvis is everywhere?  Got it stuck in my head recently and can't seem to shake it free just yet.  Its actually kind of unpleasant, and I am resisting the urge to youtube the song because then it may never leave.

So anyway, the other night I went by Brian's for practice and to lay down what I had for the the new song I came up with.  Turns out Ed (guitar) couldn't make it due to illness so the rhythm section ruled supreme!  We started off with bass and drums, with Brian running some beats by me to see what I liked.  Honestly I trust his judgement more than mine, and all the variations he played sounded good.  About the only preference I had was with tempo, as I saw the song more as a bit of a chugger than a fast-mover.

Brian also plays a bit of rhythm guitar (actually more than a bit) so I played what I had and he followed along, then went off working on riffs to go with the bassline.  After that we fired up the drum machine and Brian ran the board to record the bass part so he and Ed had stuff to work off.  It was a little on the tedious side with repetition and everything but it was still fun.  This is all pretty new to me still so I get pretty excited over it.  Of course Brian said he's been doing this for a long time and he still gets a kick out of it, so I guess when you love doing something it never gets old. 

So we broke the song down section by section, and since there's a tempo change we had to come up with different acceptable speeds for the beat.  Once we found the right speeds I went ahead and played through with the track, then afterwards I just played everything all the way through without any tracks, just the bass.  Then we played it back and it came out ok, so we got some cds made up to take home and that was that.  So thats 2 for 2 in song ideas so far, yay.  Now we have to wait to see what Ed comes up with and we can start working more on both those songs, plus the latest song of their's they were teaching me last time.  We're getting closer and closer to a full set of originals being ready to go.  I really do need to start working on some lyrics though.

I also rented Destroy All Humans, which by all accounts is a mess on every level a game can be a mess on.  Right from the beginning I saw the framerate problems and other complaints people had about it.  But as I got about an hour in, suddenly I didn't notice any of it because it was so fun...and I had barely unlocked any of the weapons.  Then as I got further in and unlocked more weapons and abilities, the game became addictive.  I would go so far as to say to ignore the bad reviews and at least rent this one.  If you can get past the first bit and overlook some of the technical problems with the game, you'll find a dearth of sandbox fun to be had.  Not at the Saints Row 2 level, but its still a good time.

And the hits keep on coming

So over the weekend while I was practicing some of our songs I spent a little time just doodling around, trying to increase my speed with my fret hand.  While doing so I came up with another catchy riff.  Well, catchy to me anyway.    So long story short, I worked it around and added some chords around it and suddenly I have another song written.  This one isn't as involved as the first one, meaning the bassline isn't quite so complicated and busy, but it sounds pretty good I think.  Its not completely fleshed out but I think I have enough together to present to the other guys.  Plus I think arranging the guitar part will be a lot easier for this one, especially since I am intending for the riff the song is built around to be harmonized between the bass and the guitar.

I was talking with Brian (our drummer) tonight and he got a laugh out of the fact that they're trying to get me up to speed on their songs, and now all of a sudden I'm coming in to practice with songs I've written of my own.  For the record he thinks its a good thing.  So when we meet up Thursday night I'll run it past them, and if they like it we'll get a rough recording of it (so we remember it...its amazing how fast you can forget these things).  If not, then back to the drawing board I guess.  I've been working on a bassline for another one of the songs they showed me last time and I've made some progress there.  Nothing real flashy, but I think it does the trick.

As far as my Netflix addiction goes, I've finished watching the first 4 seasons of The Office.  If you haven't checked this show out (which I am ashamed to say I really hadn't), then you really ought to give it a watch.  The show is amazingly funny, though amazingly painful to watch Steve Carrel's character at times.  So now that I've finished that I have to catch up on the new season in progress. 

Now my new Netflix addiction is Adam-12.  I used to be all over this show when I was a kid.  I think its still good tv now, although its almost comical at times because of how dated it is and because of what the LAPD became years later.  The dialogue is totally Jack Webb, by the book, "just the facts, ma'am" fare, but its well worth a watch.  I still remember my Adam-12 luncbox I had in gradeschool.  Ah, the memories. 

Yay! (or: Yay!)

So tonight I laid out the song I wrote for the rest of the guys in the band.  I was a bit nervous about it.  So after we warmed up they wanted to hear it, so I explained what I kind of had in mind for the guitar parts and the setup of it then played it.  They actually dug it quite a bit.  I worked with the guitarist first, taught him the riffs and then let him start working on what to put over it.  Then the drummer and I played so he could do his thing.  Once he had his part down we recorded me playing just the bassline, then just the bass and a rough beat with the drums.

What was really cool is the comment was made that it was pretty clear Steve Harris was an influence for me because it had a Maiden feel to it.  Well, to me thats a big compliment anyway.    So all the parts of the song so far remained intact, they liked the whole thing.  The only thing we need is an intro for it and we kicked around some ideas, including a few I had.  We should have something by next time we get together I'm sure.  We spent a good couple hours on that song, then we went ahead and played through the songs we had down so far, then they taught me another of theirs.  So I have that to work on this week, that should be fun.  I have the notes down for the most part and the beat, I just need to come up with something suitable for a bassline overall.

My Netflix addiction continues.  We've been watching the first 3 seasons of The Office all weekend.  Well, I started last week and my son and I started watching this weekend around the end of season 2.  Now we're a little more than halfway through season 3 and getting some good laughs out of it.  I also queued up about 15 more items, so I have like 110 things in my queue now.  Easily the best $9/month I've spent in some time, and I'm still on my free trial. 

Some grocery shopping tomorrow, maybe a little housework just to tidy up after the holiday, then maybe we'll dig out the Christmas tree.  'Tis the season, right?