punquin commented on somebody's picture...
punquin commented on somebody's picture...
Okay, who put that piano up there??
(The Rendertrons sent me this photo free of charge. Interesting choice, Rendertrons.)
punquin said...
Yey! Rock Band 2!!!
I got my copy of RB2 around 1 pm on release day. The game store didn't open until 11 am and we went to brunch first... Mm, chocolate chip waffles!
I played two sessions of RB2 my first evening. The first with an online band, 5 Day Forecast, the second with my one-girl band, Images of Broken Light (bonus points if you can name the song that's a lyric from without Googling!) I didn't make it too far, but I got to try out about 15 songs. I got 13 new achievements. I'm happy I can finally get them again! I had no one to play BWT with in RB1, so I couldn't get those.
The majority of the songs I've sung so far are growing on me. I did not like Interpol PDA at all. No. I didn't like "Rebel Girl" on my iPod, but I like it after singing it. Funny how that happens.
Yey, Rock Band 2 in the house!!!
punquin said...
Mayham, originally uploaded by punquin.
Yesterday we slept in (~10:30 am) before getting up and dressed to head out to Nissan Pavillion for the Mayham Music Festival. Normally I'm to one to say yes to all-day festivals. Danny gets tickets all year for shows, and I always have first dibs on one. I skip the festivals because it is just too drawn out for me. But, this time I *had* to go... Disturbed was one of the headliners!
We headed out at around 12:30 pm once Ivan got to our house. We met Tony in the parking lot and pretended like we weren't tail-gating for an hour or two (you aren't supposed to, but everyone does anyway.) There was a crazy long line to get in! Lots of Hot Topic kiddies (Hot Topic was one of the main sponsors, so I guess they were in the right place!)
We had been hoping to see Black Tide - one of the first bands to go on, but it seemed like they skipped them. All of the band afterwards were slightly early as a result. Hmm. There wasn't anyone else we were interested in on the side stages, so we got a spot of the lawn of the main stage as soon as it was opened.
The first band on the main stage was Mastadon. Their drums are riffs are pretty sick. I had been looking forward to hearing them just to be impressed. Dragonforce was after them. They played well - fast - but, their songs went on forever and weren't my taste.
I think this concert/festival takes the record for the most people to come up and ask me about my hair. Seriously. Anyway, at around 8:30 pm the Disturbed set started. It was so kick ass! They sounded great and played a good mix of older songs and stuff off their newest album. At one point, David Draiman (the lead singer) stopped the show to announce that a little 9-year-old girl in the pit was the cutest thing he'd ever seen. He had her brought up on stage and told everyone she had been singing a long to every song. He was super sweet to her and told her to cover her ears when he said "the bad words". He let her watch the rest of the show from the side stage. The whole set was great and I was rocking out the whole time. Many devil horns were thrown and many fists were in the air. He had thousands of people yelling "Fuck!" in unison (cover your ears, little girl! yes, i like angry music.)
The final band was Slip Knot, who I don't care about. We happily left early to avoid the traffic.
punquin said...
Don't mind me... I'm just sitting here waiting for a new Xbox, as ours decided to go RRoD some time ago.
At least it happened before RB2, right?
Help! I am having serious RB withdrawl! I've been without since before Disturbed was released, and it only turned on 1 in 5 times for a month before that.
Hurry up, Best Buy!
punquin said...
So, I finally got to play some Rock Band on Saturday night. I did a run through in Expert practice mode of all the songs were had bought before vacation. Looks like there are only a couple I can't do in Expert yet. ("You're All I've Got Tonight" - WTF is the melody??) I felt strong enough for some Online Quickplay after that. It was an average night. The song that got picked the most was GG&HT. No big deal for a singer, but I always have to pee by the end of it. that song is too damn long. I got matched up with a drummer with a lot of DLC. He chose a bunch of the songs I had just got, but thankfully not any of the ones I can't do on Expert. We gold-starred "Brass in Pocket".
When I was in Xbox Live, I looked at my rep. Uh oh... Someone gave me a bad review! They said I "quit early". What??! For my whole life I have been very concerned with always being polite and kind to others - regardless of how they are to me. I consider "quitting early" as quitting during a song or perhaps at the difficulty selection screen. Hell, I stuck with a band that made me sing "Timmy" on Expert (well, that part was my choice) 3 times in a row last night before I called it a night. The earliest I quit is after the first song. If anyone else has a mic, I will verbally excuse myself.
So why do I have "quits early" on my permanent record?? It makes me sad. Plus, since so few people have reviewed me, that bad review is 12% of my score. Boo. People are jerks.
And so I have a favor to ask... If we are "friends" on Xbox Live, can you give me a good review if you think I deserve it? I will return the favor.
punquin said...
I'm back in town! Can you believe I haven't played Rock Band in live 3 weeks?? We were out of town for 10 days, then the week before that I was too busy with pre-vacation work to play. We got back early Monday morning, but I haven't even been in our living room where the Xbox lives since we've been back.
I'm almost nervous to fire it up. If I got more than a couple days without playing, I suck big time at singing on Expert until I get used to how finicky it is again. Plus, there are new songs I need to get (Disturbed) that will be hard, not to mention the 10 we downloaded right before we left. So much studying to to! A lot of my Xbox friends expect me to be able to sing on Expert regardless of the song. Some of the ones we got I really haven't heard more than once or twice in my life.
Vacation was nice, but it's never relaxing for me. I can't sleep very well away from home. But, still - You can't go wrong with this view!!
punquin said...
Every time I venture online for some random band quickplay, I feel like I am in a bad reality show called "Adventures in Online Quickplay".
Last night started normal. I got placed in a 4-piece band and we started out on "Tom Sawyer" with everyone on expert except the drums (medium). The next song was "Welcome Home" and we lost a string player at the difficulty screen. The three of us remaining chose expert and continued on. Well, the drummer wasn't ready for that and failed out twice. The second time, the guitar player had not star power to save him with. I had some, but "Welcome Home" has very few star power activation windows in the beginning for vox, so we failed. The leader of the band quit at that point.
Take two. 4-piece band again. Surprise! We start with "Tom Sawyer". This time everyone is expert again except the drummer (hard). At the end of the song, we have that weird ghosting thing happen where empty fret boards scroll by for a while. We finally make it through and the leader chooses, surprise again, "Welcome Home". At the end of that one, the hosting happens again, and after several minutes of it, the leader gives up and quits.
After a brief 1-song run with a group failing out of easy (and making "zomg expert!" comments at me), I try my luck again. My laundry was still in the dryer so I was wasting time. I was placed with a drummer and guitar player who were having a conversation i couldn't understand (their chat was breaking up for me). They zoomed into the song selection screen as soon as I joined and scrolled all the way down. When they backed right out to the player screen, I thought I was going to be kicked. But, i guess I passed their DLC requirements (I only have half) because they just searched for another guitar player. When they got one, they checked the list again. He had no DLC so they kicked him. Had they continued to search and kick, I'd have probably quit, but we went on as a 3-piece.
I was glad I stuck around, because they were nice guys and amazing players. I only had time for 4 songs and we gold starred all but the one I chose hard on (and got 100% - doh! I should have chose expert).
punquin said...
Here is a video of me singing "Run to the Hills" on expert for those who requested it. I can't sing it 100% yet, or even get gold stars. But, I almost always get at least 98%. My highest was 99% and 176,XXX. I'll get there one day. It doesn't really matter, as long as it keeps being fun to sing!
I'm sitting down this time because the combination of allergies and caffeine had my voice shaking like crazy when I stood up. Hehe. :D
And before you watch: Yes, I know I am skinny. I know I'm pale. And, I'm well aware that I'm a dork. There! I just saved you the effort of telling me! :p
If you have any other video requests, let me know.
punquin said...
1. Haha..., 2. Jack & Britt, 3. Jack Rocks Out, 4. The Venue, 5. Taco Time!, 6. Rock Out!, 7. Rock Out!, 8. Rock Out!, 9. Rock Out!, 10. For those about to rock..., 11. Tattoos, 12. \m/, 13. Moose!, 14. Party!, 15. Crazy Nails!, 16. \m/, 17. \m/, 18. Rocked too hard...
punquin said...
Here I am in real life at our Rock Band party, and here is the game version I made to match!
More party pics to come!
punquin said...
Ahhhhrgh! I haven't played Rock Band in a week and I'm starting to get all twitchy. Must... rock... out...!
It's all because I've been preparing for our RB party this weekend as well as a new guest room for our out-of-town guests that are coming to said party.
Tomorrow evening we are heading into the city to see Eddie Izzard. I have no idea how late we'll get home, but I might just have to fire up the 360 for a bit regardless. Because, seriously... A WEEK without Rock Band?? And, no, singing along to my RB iPod playlist does not count.
punquin said...
Now that I've finished my solo tour, I've taken a "break" the past couple days to just fart around in quickplay and in our BWT. Thanks to allergy season, my voice objects to much more than that.
It looks like the leaderboards here are finally starting to catch up to my career score. They'd been saying I had 4 million when I've broken 7 million. Today I see that the leaderboards have gone from me being in the 3,000's with a score of 4 million to the 700's and 6 million. I'm interested to see where I'll be when it catches up all the way. *EDIT* Nevermind! It just caught up and I am number 514! *EDIT* Can anyone explain how the career scores are made? Is it just from your solo tour, or does BWT add to it. And, yesterday it seemed like my score didn't go up after I did a DLC in my expert tour for the first time (I 5*'d it). Confused.
We haven't gotten any of the Judas Priest yet. We'll probably do that tonight. I think Dan has 3 tracks in mind that he wants to get. i added them to my ipod to "study" during work today. My Rock Band playlist is up to 53 songs so far.
punquin said...
Ahhhhsjhfaejusfd!@#$^%@!!!!
I just finished my expert vocal tour! I was only halfway though it, but from 4:30 pm to 7 pm I plowed through it. After dinner, we played band world tour for a while. When my voice started getting hoarse, I took a tea break while Dan drummed for a while. After that, I croaked out the last 6 songs and finished!!
My voice is shot. Hah. But, I did add 3 more gold star songs to my tally today.
Oh, and in our new band, The Making Hot, we reached 1,000,000 fans! It was a productive day.
punquin said...
Here are two more vocal videos. Both are terrible quality! The "Call Me" video has the laptop mic in the shot and you can hear me suffering from my allergies in the background. The "Roxanne" video was way too loud. I didn't bother making either video fancy, as I will have to redo them anyway when i get time.
Call Me:
Roxanne:
punquin said...
Well, I haven't done a single thing on my expert vocal tour since my last post. We played for fun on Friday night - local quickplay with friends. Early, early Saturday we flew to California. We had a big family party to attend. Sunday night we flew back home. I survived a Rock Band free weekend! I didn't even have withdrawal - I think because I was so busy I didn't even have time to think.
Today we took off to sleep. I can't sleep on planes regardless of how tired I am. So when we got home at 7:30 from our red-eye, we crawled into bed until 1 pm. I got messaged to do some work, but thankfully it was quick. After grabbing lunch, Dan and I worked on our new band. We are finally getting into the groove and making progress. It was slow at first, as we are determined to do everything on hard, and the learning curve on a lot of the songs is quite steep. But, still no solo time.
Tonight, we fired up Rock Band right as JRSPipboy2008 came online. We did a few random songs to warm up, one of which I did on expert on a whim and FC'd. That inspired us to all try for a gold star song. Unfortunately, none of the songs I have gotten FC's on are songs that they can ace on guitar and drums just yet and vice versa. We tried Weezer and Garbage, both of which are not really strong for me (around 97%). Dan wanted to try the Bon Jovi, so we went for it even though the guitar was tough. And, we did it!
Hopefully soon I will get to progress in my solo tour, though I'm not sure when. I should go in to the office tomorrow to make up for not being there since Wednesday (I work from home a lot). When I go in, I get home late after Dan is already playing. We'll see...
punquin said...
Since I (re)finished my medium vocal tour, I was faced with the decision of whether to continue on to hard or go balls out on expert...
Balls out, baby! \m/
So far, so good. It wasn't a good night for me, voice-wise, yet I still managed 3 gold star songs and two FC's (Though one FC was not a gold star. Suck!) I do a lot better in solo mode than when Dan is drumming in the same room. I guess it is just harder to hear and easier to get distracted.
I have some that I was super close to an FC and gold stars. I need to figure out the overdrive better. And, practice!
Here is my night's bounty!
And, I checked the Xbox leaderboard for "Roam" - I'm #16!! There much not be many people with that song. I know there are a lot of people with way more free time on their hands than I.
punquin said...
So today, on my way to work, I dropped off our original strat and drum kit at the shipping store in their cardboard coffins. Of course, now we have a broken bass pedal! Dan stomped it in two. Oops. It's been RMA'd and we are awaiting the replacement. In the meantime, we got a backup drum kit. You don't expect us to stop playing for a whole week, do you??
Unfortunately, there will be a mandatory break from Rock Band for us this weekend. We will be out of town from early Saturday to early Monday. I'm sure I will go into withdrawal!
punquin said...
My second Rock Band video! "Roam" by the B-52's on Expert. I got my very first FC on Expert!! And, I just barely squeaked by with gold stars...
There are a few hiccups in the audio, but I didn't have time to rerecord it - I was on my lunch break. My voice is a little shaky on some of of the jumps. I need to work on air support. My "woo's" are really loud cause I'm having problems with it picking up my activations. Cover your ears!
(You can hear me taking photos and doing my little "go me!" happy Snoopy dance at the end! Yes, I am still a dork. I think it is a permanent condition... :D)
I totally have to record myself doing some Iron Maiden or Metallica so you can hear how funny it is when a soprano sings it!
punquin said...
*** Monday, April 7, 2008 - 1:54pm ***
Uh oh... By request, here is my first real Rock Band video. It was my first time doing ANYTHING on expert, and it was first thing in the morning. As a result, my heart was racing and voice was shaking! I didn't FC it, but I got my first ever gold stars! Yey for shiny gold stars of my very own!!
Yes, I am a dork.
punquin said...
*** Friday, April 4, 2008 - 12:22pm ***
Last night, Dan and I got to rock out with JRSPipboy2008. We had a lot of fun! Dan is currently working on his hard drum tour, and I am on my hard vox tour. JRSPipboy2008 is on guitar and has plenty of DLC, so it worked out well. He is funny and wasn't scared off by our joking around.
This morning I was listening to the XM station "Lucy" on my drive in to work. I kept hearing Rock Band tunes! First it was "Cherub Rock". After that, I heard "Epic", "Interstate Love Song" and then they broke the streak by playing the wrong Nirvana song. I guess they didn't get the memo.
I'm wearing the jacket that makes me feel like a real rockstar today. They need a Rock Band version!
punquin said...
*** Thursday, April 3, 2008 - 12:21pm ***
Since I share Dan's Xbox Live account, I don't get a say in what DLC we have. He buys what he likes whether I like it or not (I'm looking at you, "Sick, Sick, Sick".) The free DLC, "Still Alive", was vetoed, song unheard, when I told him about it. But, after listening to it twice on YouTube, I think it would be really nice for my voice. So, he has been warned that I will be downloading it. He isn't pleased, but it's free and can always be deleted.
Here is the DLC that we *do* have. Any suggestions as to additional songs we *need* to have?
"Juke Box Hero"
"Joker & the Thief"
"Ride the Lightning"
"Blackened"
"...And Justice for All"
"3's & 7's"
"Little Sister"
"Sick, Sick, Sick"
"Can't Stand Losing You"
"Synchronicity II"
"Roxanne"
"Hard to Handle"
"Interstate Love Song"
"The Number of the Beast"
"Working Man"
"We Care a Lot"
"March of the Pigs"
"The Collector"
"The Perfect Drug"
"Peace of Mind"
"More Than a Feeling"
"Smokin'"
"Rock and Roll Band"
"Something About You"
"Hitch a Ride"
"Sex Type Thing"
"Move Along"
"Brass in Pocket"
"Roam"
"Last Train to Clarksville"
Our replacement instruments arrived! The guitar has not been tried out, but Danny has tried the drums. According to the bottom, we now have a QM model. Yey for no more holes in the yellow pad (for now)...
punquin said...
*** Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - 11:43am ***
Here is the latest version of my Rock Band singer compared to what I look like in real life. My hair is in really long skinny braids, but the closest hairstyle in rock band is the dreadlock ponytail. My real-life friends are surprised at how much my character looks like me. If I pull my hair up and fan it out, it looks a lot closer.
I'm not sure if it's simply because I enjoy designing costumes/clothes, sewing, modeling, jewelry-making, etc... but, the character design is one of them most enjoyable parts of the game to me. It even seems to be popular with the guys who play, though my husband hasn't really gotten on board with that.
Personally, I'd love to have more clothes in the game. More than half of what is available to female character is a little too fishnets-and-lace for me. Yes, I used to have purple hair, wear fishnets and all black and go clubbing twice a week, but now I'd like more streamlined pieces that can be customized through the color options and mix-n-matched more easily.
I'm a girly-girl. What can I say?
punquin said...
*** Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 8:44pm ***
I finished my medium solo tour of vocals today. I just have a few more bonus tracks to sing through. I guess I didn't do any of them along the tour - I just played whatever the game highlighted next. So after the final set, I went on the the bonus track and have been unlocking them one-by-one.Timmy and the Lords of the Underpants sucks. It is a funny song, but not so funny that I can't get over 85% on medium. Medium! What. No matter how I say 'Tim-my', it doesn't like it. Not a single time.
Now it's on to hard vocals. I am already doing a lot of them on hard in online quickplay. And, I am determined to improve on the ones I haven't yet.
punquin said...
*** Friday, March 28, 2008 - 7:49am ***
I have a blog on my website, Stvlive.com, but people might think I have problems if I only write about Rock Band. Addicted, me?? So, I will just write a lot of the RB posts here instead.
Yesterday, a bunch of gracious people offered to befriend me on Xbox live so I could have people tp practice with. After dinner I fired up the Xbox and started adding them all in. I joined a pick-up band (that was super excited to find a singer) for a few songs, but my throat was tight and I was on a super crack-fit caffeine buzz from earlier in the day. When the leader quit, I used the opportunity to make myself a mug of citrus tea to warm up my voice.
I got a message while I was relaxing with my tea and spying on my new friends (I love that you can read what song they are currently playing!) from a dawger61 offering to practice with me. We joined up and played a few Boston songs together (since chances are random people wouldn't have any DLC) with just the two of us.
Just when we decided to go for a full band, I got a message reply from Boognish so I invited him to the band as well. I did a random search for a second guitar/bass and hit the jackpot with an expert who had Boston DLC. A full online band with DLC? Amazing!
I had a great time jamming with them all, despite being the leader, which I hate. There was a problem at first where the guitar and drums couldn't see each other, but it fixed itself when they backed out and rejoined. We played until I had to call it a night so I didn't turn into a pumpkin at midnight.
Thanks for jamming with me, guys!
punquin said...
*** Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 12:52pm ***
Thank goodness for credit cards and EA's express RMA option, because I just had to RMA half our band!
This week our yellow drum pad cracked. It is still playing, but dropping notes. Might as well get it exchanged now before it gets worse.
Last night, we tried to play the guitar (we usually use a GH one), only to find it had been broken during our Rock Band party. The whammy bar is dead and the down strum no longer works. Great.
So $300 later, I await new Rock Band goodness to rain from the sky!
punquin said...
*** Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - 3:42pm ***
I wasn't really warmed up, but this song is fun to sing...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M4vhBGltHk
I like how the girl on the left is a tan version of me! :P
Wednesday, October 15, 2008