Rock Band

I have the coolest parents ever. I am 29 years old, and they still gave me Rock Band for Christmas. It is so much fun!

Now, first of all, I would like to dispel the myth that everyone who plays games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band thinks they are “real” musicians. Just like most people who play Dance Dance Revolution don’t think they are “real” dancers, either. When I play Halo, I do not actually believe I am a real Spartan shooting real aliens. In other words, most people are not… you know… insane.

The idea is completely preposterous, and if you think you are an awesome guitar player because you beat Guitar Hero 3 on “freakin’ impossible” or whatever, then I have a news flash for you.

A somewhat guitar-shaped plastic controller is not real a guitar. You are ruining this for the rest of us. Just stop.

That said, Rock Band is an awesome game, and this is a really cool gaming genre. I recently got pwn’d at Guitar Hero 3 by a bunch of teenagers at the cast party for the play I directed this fall, so I started out in Guitar Solo Tour mode. I beat Easy pretty readily, and I am about halfway through Medium.

Here presents a problem, though. I now want to try Guitar Hero again, but the really cool guitar controller that Rock Band comes with, the Fender Stratocaster, isn’t compatible with any version of Guitar Hero! This is in spite of the fact that Guitar Hero controllers are compatible with Rock Band. It makes no sense.

So, my only choice is to purchase Guitar Hero 3 with the wireless guitar controller. But I am not allowing myself to do that until I beat Rock Band Guitar Solo Tour mode on Hard, which will probably never happen.

American as Apple Pie

I have never lived in the Midwest. However, my dad grew up in Illinois, so I was raised to enjoy a fair number of Midwestern traditions. One of these is apple pie with cheddar cheese. My grandfather taught me a wonderful saying when I was a very tiny girl.

“Apple pie without some cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.”

I love apple pie with cheese. I was raised to love it. But since I have never actually lived in a place where people commonly enjoy apple pie with cheese, I routinely get strange looks when I cut a nice, thick slab of cheddar to go with my apple pie.

Now, I ask you, what is so strange about this? People drink milk with pie. People enjoy ice cream with pie. People scoop large dollops of whipped cream onto their pie. Plenty of other dairy products are perfectly acceptable to enjoy with pie.

Just not cheese. Except for those of us who know better.

So, I challenge you all this holiday season. Try this once. Cut a piece of quality cheddar cheese (not nasty cheese), and try this with your apple pie. You probably won’t be instantly converted to an apple-pie-with-cheese-die-hard like me, but you might be surprised at how well the flavors complement one another.

Yum.