The Weak In Rock

We bought Ryan a Wii for Xmas.  That is to say, I visited pretty much every mall in the East Bay and eventually found a store that wasn’t sold out of them.  For a day, Ryan thought I ruled.  Then he went back to his usual pre-teen programming.

At first, we like the Wii as a family.  It came with a nifty game that featured simulated bowling.  Karen still rules the roost on that one.  And I am the all-time home run champ in the baseball game that is on the Wii Sports disk.  Fun.

Then darkness fell.  Or should I say, Ryan bought Guitar Hero.

I’d messed around with Guitar Hero before but never really tried to play it.  Suffice to say, I rule at virtual guitar slinging.

There’s one problem.

The consensus among my fellow musicians is that if you’re a halfway decent guitar player in meat-life then you’ll blow goats at Guitar Hero.  Oops.  I’ve beaten the game on the easy level and am 3/4 of the way through it on medium.  I even got a 300 note streak on Metallica’s “One”.  Crap.

I’m a hack.

Side note - pretty clever on the part of the makers of Guitar Hero to fill it with classic rock anthems.  Way to keep The Kids ™ on the straight and narrow musically.

Side side note - I unlocked the video of John Lydon and Steve Jones talking about rerecording “Anarchy In The U.K.” for Guitar Hero.  Advancing age has turned Johnny Rotten into a softy.  The man admits to his gaming addiction in the video and that he loves Guitar Hero.  I would pay real money to see John Lydon rocking out to “Slow Ride.”

Technorati Tags: Wii, Wii Sports, Guitar Hero, Metallica, John Lydon, Steve Jones, Anarchy In The U.K., Johnny Rotten, Slow Ride

I laughed so hard it hurt.  Enjoy…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InZNBcJTmWs 

Thanks to Tom “High Strung” Young for the link.

We were watching TV the other night and had a collective giggle fit over an ad for Kinoki footpads - the pads that claim to leach toxic chemicals out of your body through your feet while you sleep.

To me it wasn’t funny because I couldn’t imagine anyone dumb enough to think these things actually work, let alone do much of anything at all. At the tender age of 41 I know all too well that there are not only lots of people out there stupid enough to buy this sort of snake oil, but that there are enough of them to justify spending thousands of dollars on a network TV ad spot in order to alert these ignorant masses of where to call to order these inane gauze pads with adhesive around the edges.

No, it was funny to me because were I to think up such huxterish flim flam there’s no way I’d let the dopes who bought my snake oil get off so easy. In my book, if you’re a tragic nitwit you ought to really suffer for your nitwittery. Sticking pads on your feet ultimately just wastes a little of your time. If I were to sell a detox product it would come in the form of either a rectal or nasal tampon.

The chuckles from the rectal tampon are obvious. The nasal one would take some salesmanship. I’d design the product so that in order for the user to get the promised benefit, he or she would have to wear a pair of - let’s call them nasal pods - my nasal pods for 24 hours. After that you’d have health and happiness for all the rest of your days. And your coworkers and family would get some therapeutic gut busting laughs out of watching you walk around all day with two strings hanging out of your nose.

Thanks again to Boing Boing for the link.

Technorati Tags: Kinoki footpads, flim flam, nasal tampon

Ok, this will give you an idea of how my brain works – I read this article about scientists putting enteric bacteria from kangaroos into the intestines of cows to try to reduce the amount of methane cows fart into the atmosphere and I immediately started visualizing this as the beginning of some dystopian sci-fi classic.

The movie trailer would go like this:

“They were trying to save the world”

[shot of scientists in generic biology lab]

“To protect the environment”

[cut to cows in a meadow]

“But something went wrong…horribly wrong…”

[ominous music – cut to scenes of people running screaming in the streets – zoom in on the face of a horrified woman as she says]

“Oh my God!!”

[cut to black]

“Kangacows – coming to theaters this summer”

I know. I’m a sick man.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

Technorati Tags: kangaroos, cows, methane, fart, dystopian sci-fi

Apparent, Viagra, Cialis and similar drugs may have the unwanted side effect of making the person taking the drugs lose his hearing.

The only thought that crossed my mind when I read that this morning was - nice synergy.  Now middle aged women will have to deal with overly amorous partners who can no longer hear them when they say they’re not interested in fooling around.

Technorati Tags: Viagra, Cialis