So, let’s get this out of the way first: Rock Band is the greatest in-person multiplayer game ever. That’s all there is to it. Friday, some friends came over and we rocked out. This morning, some friends came over and we rocked out. We’re planning on having a bunch of people over to rock out next weekend. Yes, the initial guitars are buggy, and that sucks. I’ve got two replacements on the way for the two I have, and hopefully they’ll be here before the weekend.

But the game… man. It’s Simon Says for the most part, dressed in crazy Rock suit, but that’s par for the rhythm game course. The guitar stuff works as well or better than Guitar Hero (except for the hardware), the vocals are as good as Karaoke Revolution with a MUCH better songlist… but the drums. The drums are amazing. My sense of rhythm and coordination has improved tremendously over the last few days. This morning, L came over (an actual drummer), and we alternated trying to get through Queens of the Stone Age’s “3’s &7’s” which is RIDICULOUS. It’s really fun to be able to watch the pattern scroll by, figure out where you’re making mistakes, and try to adjust, because when you hit it right, it *feels* right. The music plays properly, it fits in with the other parts of the song and you get this great audio-visual-physical rush of excitement.

Is it music? Not yet, though Tycho of Penny Arcade would argue that it certainly will be eventually. (I’d be inclined to agree, in as much as electronic music is music.) There are already parts of Rock Band that spawn creativity – the drum fills are as real, and as open to creativity as any real electronic drum kit can be. I wish there was actually a “free play” mode where you could just play the four pads & pedal without any other structure.

Awesome, awesome game.

On the other hand, we went to my company’s holiday party tonight. I like the people I work with, and I consider a couple of ’em friends, but I’ve gotta say, large social gatherings aren’t my thing. I just can’t “chat” with people. It doesn’t make sense to me, I’m not comfortable or happy doing it, it doesn’t feel natural, and I just don’t really like it. Chatting with more or less random people is the kind of thing I’d do while trapped at an airport in the middle of a blizzard for 30 hours, towards the 20th hour as I’m dying of cold and boredom. Twice this week we were in situations where “chatting” was all that was expected, and all that could be done.

Bleah. I constantly feel like I’m back in high school whenever I’m stuck at one of these things. Knowing that, I think it’s about time I start declining these sorts of things, rather than accepting the invite and going to something where I’m largely miserable.

So, I don’t have time tonight to do a complete summary of how the vacation went, but there are a few basic things I thought I should mention.

Tulum itself is a small town. It has some ruins, which are a bit of a tourist attraction, but they’re almost a tertiary attraction. The primary attraction in the area is Cancun, the secondary is Playa del Carmen, and the third is the Tulum ruins. This makes Tulum the perfect destination, because they’re prepared to some degree for tourists, which means you can find a reasonable number of fluent or almost-fluent English speakers, there’s a lot of available places to stay, but nothing’s so oversaturated with people that it’s oppressive. Which is *perfect*.

On top of that, the place we stayed (Los Arrecifes) was definitely not the upscale touristy spa sort of thing that a lot of the beachside places were. This was about as bare-bones a place as you could get, which meant that most of the people who were in the area were staying at more creature-comfort-oriented places. Our stretch of the beach, as a result, was almost entirely deserted. Imagine sitting on a beach, or walking in the waves, spending all day in basically paradise and not seeing another soul for miles except your friends. If you’re looking to get away from the craziness for a bit and kick back, this is perfection.

One of the other weird things I found on this trip was that I like tacos. I’ve always been a burrito person, but on this trip, we had a lot of tacos, and I think I finally “get” the little corn tortillas. I’ve always had them with US-sized portions, which has always made the little tortillas a giant pain in the ass – they’re not structurally up to the job of heaving a giant portion of food. But in Mexico, where they actually know how to use the things, the proportion of filling to tortilla is much more appropriate. 7 pesos gets you a carnitas taco, which is about three or four bites of simple pleasure. That’s about 65 cents.

I read a book called “A Voyage for Madmen,” which is the true story of the Golden Globe race – a race where people competed to be the first, or the fastest person to circumnavigate the world by themselves in a yacht without stopping. The story is absolutely incredible, and the book is an excellent, interesting read. I’ve been looking for more in the same vein, and as a result, I’ll probably pick up Deep Water on DVD when it comes out in a couple weeks. Don’t search for Deep Water or the Golden Globe race if you intend to read “A Voyage for Madmen” – just take my word for it and read the book without spoiling things for yourself. A word of warning – don’t look at the pictures in the middle of the book until you’re done with it. The section contains a number of serious spoilers.

I miss Mexico already. Feeling the sand between your toes as the sun beats down on you, but the heat is mitigated by a cool ocean breeze… man. There really is nothing better.

So, we’re back from Tulum. The short version: One of the best weeks of my entire life. Absolutely spectacular.

The longer version will have to wait.

Thanks to everyone who helped take care of Mobius.

Off to Tulum, Mexico for a couple days to relax on the beach. Will basically be totally unreachable for the next week, exactly as it should be. Take it easy.

Lots of gaming this weekend. After finishing COD4, I started it again on Veteran, which I’m not actually likely to finish, played some online, and then hit up Assassin’s Creed for a good bit of time. All good stuff.

We spent part of the time idly today looking at potential new cars, in case the Civic’s repair bill is higher than the car’s worth. Looks like the Honda Fit is #1, with the Scion xD and Mazda 3 in the running somewhere. As much as I like the new Subaru WRX, and as much more as I like the 300HP WRX STi, I don’t think we could reasonably justify $33K (or thereabouts) and the gas mileage. Alas, ’cause it looks much nicer than the standard WRX, and hell, it’s a beast. The Fit? Not a beast.

On a completely different note, I picked up an album – Flag, by Yello. You might remember Yello’s one big hit, “Oh Yeah” – if you don’t, think “Duffman.” For some reason, this album *really* evokes memories of spending time in Canada with my cousin. Between this and The Barenaked Ladies’ “Gordon,” and Icehouse’s “Man of Colours,” that’s middle and high school.

The album holds up surprisingly well. With the exception of maybe two songs which feel explicitly dated, the songs actually feel almost … modern? Worth checking out, even if just to hear what the state of electronica was in 1989.

Rock Band tomorrow. woot.

Just finished Call of Duty 4, and am suitably impressed. While the single-player campaign’s relatively short, it’s very, very highly polished, and a really spectacular experience. Where most games would introduce something, run with it for a little while, then re-do it over three or four times throughout the game making it tired and boring, COD4 has entire levels that are specialized mechanics, and they don’t feel wasted or boring in the slightest.

Instead of 15 hours of “meh,” it’s 5 hours of BOOM! and it works really well. “All Ghillied Up” is one of the best single levels of a game I’ve ever played, and the whole sequence, which includes two more levels afterwards, is one of the best game sequences and examples of interesting character building I’ve seen in a game in a long damn time.

One thing: If you play to the end, watch the credits through to the end, and there’s a surprise after it’s done. This shocked me for two reasons: 1.) it’s a buttload of content to put after the credits roll, and 2.) when I interviewed at Lucasarts a couple years ago (and got rejected), one of the interview questions was to design a level that might be interesting, and the thing after the credits is, almost detail-for-detail, EXACTLY what I’d proposed, to the point where I laughed out loud at one point during the level.

Crazy. Awesome game, though. I liked Call of Duty 2, but this, to me, really puts Infinity Ward on the map. The whole game, from the single-player to the multiplayer is so well done, I can’t wait for their next game. Until then, the multiplayer will provide me with additional hours of entertainment, I’m sure.

Assassin’s Creed holds up to expectations well, as well. The character movement is spectacular – something you really have to see to believe, and the scope of the areas in the game is ridiculous. They’ve basically modeled stuff that amounts to three cities, almost all of which can be traversed fluidly using their insane free running.

The game does suffer from some measure of repetition, but I don’t mind all that much. The story’s intriguing, it’s a great world to just wander around in, and the mechanics are so fun that you can just lose yourself in the world for a couple hours at a stretch. I’m really interested to see what they’re doing with the … uh… part I can’t talk all that much about without spoiling stuff, but it’s good, because I’m intrigued. The thing about it is that it feels like the spoiler-related stuff… I could have skipped all of what’s happened so far, and the game would still go on. It makes that side of things feel like a discovery. Weird stuff, but very cool.

This “season” for games has just been ridiculous. There’s still Super Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect, Rock Band, and I’ve still gotta knock down all the rest of the content in the Orange Box, spend some time with Virtua Fighter 5, Sega Rally Revo, and I’m sure there’s even more. There’s a couple factors leading to this ridiculous glut of games coming out this season, but I don’t think we’re gonna see another like it for at least a couple years – certainly not holiday 08 or 09. Why you would release so many AAA games in the span of two months, I have absolutely no idea. No one’s gonna be able to keep up with it all.

Oh – in non-game-related news, the Civic’s transmission looks to have freaked out. Had to call AAA to drag the car to service. I don’t know what we’ll do if the repair’s too expensive. The car’s got 160K miles on it, and while it IS a Honda, there’s a point where more repairs is just not going to be worth it. We’ll see, I suppose.

Right. I’d been unable to upload the picture last time, so here’s another go:

Consensus seems to be that I look a lot more like my dad with this haircut, which makes sense, since it’s almost identical to his haircut. Fortunately, it’s utterly, totally impossible for me to grow a beard, though he’s kept clean-shaven-ish the last few times we’ve seen him. Still! I look different! Really! Mostly.

Also ended up sending my glasses out to get resurfaced. I’d scratched the living hell out of ’em one day while building the path in the back. My shirt had gotten covered in granite dust, and my glasses were covered in sweat. When I needed to see something, I wiped my glasses off with my shirt, which was effectively like wiping them off with a beltsander. Alas!

So, this afternoon, on the way back to the office from lunch, we stopped off at the nearby Best Buy to play the Rock Band demo kiosk. It’s exactly as fun as you’d expect. You get all the entertainment of something like Guitar Hero, but cooperatively, it’s just a really awesome experience.

The drum kit felt good – almost as good as a generic practice kit. It’ll certainly get you to learn how to play drums in a really, really basic way. But tone and dynamics haven’t really been too much of a problem for me to pick up with instruments, so who knows – the introduction to hand-foot coordination will probably go a reasonable way toward a real lesson in drumming. Might be interesting.

The guitar controller is quite different than the Guitar Hero controller. A lot less noisy. Everything actually feels a little spongy, but in a good way. You’re not “click-click-click”ing along with the song anymore, which is nice. I’m *really* looking forward to this coming out. The song list is incredible, the variety is awesome, and with the DLC, longevity doesn’t look like it’s going to be a problem. With online play, count me all the way in.

On a slightly different note, the first couple days of eating sensibly again have gone pretty well. Been avoiding all the snacks I’d been picking up recently, and eating mostly reasonably-sized meals, which is good. Worked out properly on Tuesday, and will be going to the Y for a swim again tomorrow. Been taking Mobius on longer walks, and more brisk ones at that, so it’s been a bit more exercise, for sure. Call of Duty 4? Yes, please.

The only “bad” thing – tonight, I made some fried garlic plantains. A Puerto Rican restaurant called Sol Food has some awesome fried plantains, and I’ve been meaning to try to make them since I first had them there. The plantains we got weren’t as green as the ones they use (I’d guess), so they were a little sweeter. But with a bit of salt, and some garlic that’s been simmered in olive oil… man, they were good. Sweet, salty, crunchy, chewy… yum.

Ei-Nyung gave me a haircut.

So… in the last post, I said I’d probably end up with COD4, Super Mario Galaxy, COD3 (as a result of buying COD4 with a special deal at Circuit City), and Rock Band. I’d forgotten about Assassin’s Creed. I hadn’t forgotten about Mass Effect. While I’m excited about it, no question, it can wait. Assassin’s Creed *can’t* wait. In part because it’s relevant to work, but in part because I’m ridiculously excited about the game.

So, it’s a tossup:

• Must-gets: Rock Band, Assassin’s Creed
• Will get for sure, eventually: Super Mario Galaxy, Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect

Thing is, Super Mario Galaxy has a deal this week – buy it and get a $25 gift card to TRU. COD4 has a “Buy COD4, get COD3 free” deal at Circuit City. Mario Galaxy, honestly, can wait, except for the fact that it’s effectively half price. COD4’s a bit more… timely, ’cause it’s a very focused Live game, and getting in on the ground floor is useful. A lot of people from work will be getting it as well.

Gah! On top of that, COD4 and AC both have collector’s editions, which have cool things packaged in with them. AC’s CE is a lock for me, but COD4 is a bit of a toss-up. I’ll probably pass, just to save the $10.

Thing is, there’s also a *ridiculous* number of second-tier games that go along with these:

• Scene It (good party game)
• Blacksite: Area 51 (a game from one of the Deus Ex folks, heavily politically relevant, apparently)
• Kane and Lynch: Dead Men (one of the first in the next wave of cooperative games, and by the guys who did Hitman, which is pretty crazy)
• Need for Speed: ProStreet (the demo’s actually a LOT better than the last couple NFS games)

Yeah, it’s not a *ridiculous* number of games, except YES IT TOTALLY IS. Good grief. All those, $60/pop + Rock Band ($170) + $70 (AC:CE) + $50 (Mario) = $580. For ONE MONTH.

What I’m likely to get is: Rock Band, AC:CE, COD4 for November, with a good chance of Mario. So… $350? That’s over my budget for the month for EVERYTHING I need, but fortunately, Ei-Nyung’s way looking forward to Rock Band, so hopefully that’ll fall out of my budget. We’ll see. 😀

😐