Those About To Rock... In Their Underwear

Just a few blog posts ago I was boosting about my maturity. No, no, the siren call of video games doesn't affect me any longer, for I have become a responsible adult! I was so bold, so self-assured, so proud of my newfound responsibility, so of course it wouldn't last. My friends, if there is another sudden disappearance from this blog, weeks and weeks of nothing new appearing in the many shades of green text you find here, you can blame Guitar Hero II.

Yes, I know, I thought I wouldn't be able to follow the plot either, what without my having played the first Guitar Hero, but I've managed to find some sites on the internet that have explained the idiosyncrasies of the story to me. And, thanks to my keen deductive mind, I've been able to follow the labyrinth of twists and turns with a fumbling, but modest success. What? You're not a fan yet? You don't know about Guitar Hero II?

It boils down to this... you strap on a cheesy, plastic guitar-shaped controller that has buttons on the neck and a weird switch/bar thing you can flick in its center. By pressing the keys and strumming in time to the music you're instantly transformed from a mild-mannered, non-profit office drone into a God of Rock. Or, at least, that's how it works for me. You might have different results, especially if you resist the urge to play in your underwear.

So, Guitar Hero has become my new “thing.“ It's become my hobby, my obsession, nearly become religion for me. Chunk? He loves it too. He doesn't really get that you have to press the buttons and strum at the same time, but he sure likes trying to play it, even if his attempts result in odd noises from his virtual guitar and his little computer-generated rocker gets booed off stage. What else does he like? He likes dancing along to the music while I play, which is kind of neat, as I get to indulge in my new obsession and then claim we were actually having some father-and-son time. I didn't know you needed dancers when you were performing old Motley Crue and Primus songs... again... in your underwear... but it seems to work in the Denver household.

The only bad thing I've discovered since mixing Guitar Hero II and parenting is that while it's a lot of fun, many of the songs are completely inappropriate for a two year old to know by heart and sing along to in public places. There's one particular song called “Possum Kingdom“ by the Toadies which, while not having any foul language or anything, seems to be sung from the perspective of a serial killer “seducing“ his next victim. So, of course that's Chunk's favorite. It's just called “the guitar song“ now and he likes to sing it while we're driving around, hanging out at the coffee shop, or running errands. I would lie to you and say it's cute, but really, it's just kind of creepy.