Finally finished Guitar Hero 3 on Expert

GH3 was more difficult than GH2 to get through Expert. There are really only two substantial hurdles, but they are high... One is Raining Blood which has really only one complex section - Mosh 1 - which you have to be pretty decent to get through, the second is Lou who is a pain.. In co-op mode getting through on expert is way easier because neither of these hurdles exist in co-op - there are no battles in co-op, and for whatever reason Raining Blood isn't in the co-op set-list.

I'm not a fan of the battles (of which there are 3 introduced in GH3 - Tom, Slash, and Lou). How well you do seems to be much more random than the rest of the game. I think Neversoft could have done a better job making the battles require less luck, and more skill, but you get what you get.

Guitar Hero is going to have to innovate fast to fend off competitors such as Rock Band which is a much better party game although their guitar sections are not as well honed as Guitar Hero. I expect to see some interesting community features being released with the next iteration on this genre, and hopefully a lot more songs. We'll see.

On a related note here's a custom Guitar Hero song for "My Baby's Bad" from my brother's band Lion Ride.

Do not rock too hard.

Vegas to Mt. Baker

This past week I went to Las Vegas to be a part of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Probably the most ridiculous consumer tech show on the planet. I don't think there's been another show that saw Bill Gates and Slash on the stage at the same time... Over 100,000 people came out for the show, so it was a bit busy.

Anyhow, I was manning the booths, and in partner meetings all week, so it was really non-stop from the start. I had the chance to see the show eventually, and also had the chance to hang out in Vegas a bit too.

Pictures cannot describe the magnitude of this show, but here are a few I took anyhow...

Me outside:

Biggest guitar hero screen ever:

Cars, flatscreen TVs:

Random stuff:

 

Here's an article talking about the top 10 booths at CES...

Out on the town I had the opportunity to walk through many of the popular locations on the Vegas strip, and see a few free shows such as Bellagio's water show, Treasure Island's pirate show, and the MGM Grand lions. We were able to get into some great clubs such as Pure, and of course some of the food was pretty good too.

Fountain show outside the Bellagio:

Inside the Venetian:

New York New York:

 

I was set to leave Vegas Friday late afternoon, back in Washington the snow was falling in the mountains, so Cheryl booked us a place up in Mt. Baker for the weekend. Friday afternoon I flew to Seattle, and then Cheryl and we drove straight to Mt. Baker for a weekend of skiing. That was a long day, but we had a chance to ski with Jen and Glade in some decent snow.

Cheryl's skis are still in storage in Vancouver, so she had to rent skis from REI. Turns out they don't have high end rentals, so she was stuck with lame skis. She still had fun, but certainly doesn't want to have to rent those again. We skied all day Saturday, with bad visibility, but good snow. The snow was plentiful, but got a bit heavy near the end of the day as the temperature warmed up. Roads were pretty good, but the parking lot was slippery enough to incite a donut competition amongst a few ski buffs.

We stayed in Glacier which is a town just outside of the ski area, and in the morning my back was in rough shape, so we opted to head home rather than ski a second day. There wasn't any new snow, so I don't think we really missed that much.

Christmas in Seattle, and Sault Ste. Marie

This holiday season I went East on Christmas day, so I was in Seattle for Christmas morning, and Sault Ste. Marie for Christmas night.

Cheryl and I unwrapped our gifts on Christmas eve, which was really fun. She has a stocking which is still in storage in Vancouver, so instead we decided to make our own stockings out of a few paper bags. Pretty high tech...

We had to fly out early Christmas morning, so to catch Cheryl's 6am flight we had to wake up at the wee hour of 3:45am. My flight didn't leave until 8am, so I had 3 hours in the airport to enumerate the reasons I don't like flying. I bought a book to keep me company.

Once in Sault Ste. Marie I was able to relax. The flight was smooth, and the weather co-operated, so all was well. All my brothers made it home, so our biggest problem was to decide whether to open presents right away, or to wait until boxing day. We decided to wait which was good because I still had to wrap my gifts.

Christmas is always fun, here are a few pics I'd like to share...

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care:

The tree was stuffed with presents, and Christmas bling:

Left->Right, Top->Bottom: Jamie, Michael, Nathan, Dad, Adam, Steve, Mom, Aaron, Missy:

Well, after unwrapping gifts we had plenty of time to eat food... Lots of food. Turkey, ham, Christmas cookies, fudge, nanaimo bars, peanut butter marshmallow squares, chocolate, nuts covered in chocolate, truffles, and egg nog... It will take a few workouts to really put a dent in the calories I consumed this past week.

Later in the week we went to our Aunt and Uncle's house (Nina and Bill) for more food... Spaghetti and meatballs. So good. But I do need to get on the treadmill for sure.

Anyhow, we also had a chance to play a lot of Wii... Enough that I almost threw out my shoulder. Tennis, boxing, bowling, Super Mario, and of course - Guitar Hero 3. On Guitar Hero Jamie and I blew through expert co-op with very few problems. We had to do "One" a couple of times before beating it, but otherwise it was pretty quick and fun to get through.

And luckily I was able to watch Nathan's band "Lion Ride" in concert at Foggy's. Lion Ride rocked the house and then rocked it some more. I taped the whole thing, and you can see clips of it here...

Anyhow, all things do have to come to an end eventually, so after all the Guitar Hero, rock, and food I got back on the plane to Seattle in preparation for New Years.

Until next time!