WWdN: In Exile

Phoenix Comicon Rock Band Video Roundup

Crazy ideas that may or may not be crazy are taking up pretty much all of my free time this week, so my Phoenix Comicon trip report will have to wait until Monday, but since I promised to deliver a Rock Band roundup before the end of this week, here we go.

First up is Karen B., seriously rocking to You Oughta Know. Funny story about this: right before we started playing this song, I said to her, "You know, you have to sing 'thinking of me when you fuck her,' even though it's going to say something like 'think of me when you carebears' on the lyrics."

"I don't know if I can do that," she said, clearly uncertain about using the potty mouth.

"I will totally take all the wrath if anyone gives you shit for it," I said. "Trust me, you have to do it."

"Okay," she said.

When the appropriate moment arrived in the song, she belted the FUCK out of that lyric, and I peed a little. Awesome.

Next, we have a little story that I told the kids after struggling through Give It Away, which is totally not a "1" on the Drums, contrary to what the game claims:

THE BEAT, WE HAZ IT!:


Tararebeka shared this picture of me pretending to be cool at the end of the night:

And this picture of me not even trying to hide what a total dork I am just before I pretend to be cool:


Check out Joe's awesome rock face and stance behind me! FTW, Joe. F.T.W.
You may want to check out Tararebeka's Phoenix Comicon Rockband photoset, especially if you're me and you had so much fun that you want to remember what it was like. If you were there, and want to tag yourself, that would be awesome.
Okay, next we have another angle on the now-legen...wait for it...dary Livin' on a Prayer:



I find it moderately ironic and exceptionally funny that the song I really didn't want to do ended up being the one that's viewed the most times, and is actually my best performance of the night. Now I'm stuck with it. Damn you, Bon Jovi. (Not really. Call me. Mean it!)

Here's a short clip that Ken from XCast put up. It gives you an idea of how much fun we were having, even when we weren't getting the rock on:

Here were are nearing the end of the evening. If you ever wanted to: 1) Hear me make a Star Trek joke about an Offspring Song or 2) watch a bunch of guys dressed up as EM EFFING GHOSTBUSTERS play that same song, this is the clip you want to see:

And, finally, here is the finale. I can't sing Steve Perry to save my life, and I wish the vocal track from my Mic was turned all the way off, but at this point, it's not even about sounding good or even looking good; at this point it's all about having fun and finishing an epic night with motherfucking JOURNEY, goddammit:


One last time, I want to thank Sean from Harmonix for supporting this event, Lee and Joe and everyone else at Phoenix Comicon for giving us the room and the time to make it happen, but most of all, everyone who came out to be part of the event. It was something really special to me, and though we'll certainly do this at future cons, this is where it all began and you were part of it. Tell your kids and make them jealous.

boating our software

Yesterday, I started writing a monthly column for Amazon's End User Blog. For my first column, I looked at a really cool device that's battling something I call Feature Creep:

...it’s increasingly difficult to find things that do just one thing, and do it very well. I blame this on something I call “Feature Creep” which I suspect comes from too many meetings, too much input from marketing, and not enough product managers and engineers who are willing to stand up and say, “You know what? I don’t think this coffee maker really needs an MP3 player in it. It’s fine just making coffee.”

Feature Creep is everywhere, bloating our software, lengthening our startup times, cluttering up our menus, and draining our batteries, so when I come across something that has successfully resisted it and stayed focused on doing one simple thing very well, I have a little bit of a pants party.

One of the best examples I’ve come across in the last year is the Netflix player from Roku. It’s a tiny little box that streams anything from Netflix’s on-demand library straight into your television, and that’s all it does.

So I'm pretty excited to have an opportunity to do for blog what I used to do for InDigital, and I'm looking forward to examining various gadgets and technology trends in the mysterious future. My column will update on the final Thursday of every month.

(If you missed this on Twitter and don't know what the title of this post means: I put a really stupid typo into this column that snuck past me and my editor, and I was originally lamenting how feature creep is "boating" our software. Mmmm. Boating. It's since been corrected, but I can't help giggling about it.)

in which my already nerdy office gets a little bit nerdier

So ... I'm not even going to try to introduce this, because I can't do it justice with my words:

Yes, Angie K., who makes awesome things, figured out a way to make a freaking paint by numbers painting of the infamous Velvet Wesley Crusher painting being held by me, and then she painted it.

Angie K. is awesome (as is Mister Angie K., who is better known as Ted, but will always be Mister Angie K. to me, the way I'll always be "Anne's boyfriend" to our friend Burns!) I saw them at the Phoenix Comicon this weekend, and she gave me this most lovely gift that I was not worthy to receive. I'm not sure if the photo captures its majesty, but the frame matches the fame on the infamous Velvet Wesley Crusher painting almost exactly.

Thank you, Angie K., for nerding up my office that much more!

(Click photo to embiggen, and see the entire set at flickr.)

of angels and angles

I recently had one of those "so crazy it just might work" ideas, and I was at a meeting very, very late last night talking about it. When I got home, the entire house was asleep, but my dogs (who must believe that I'm never going to come back every time I walk out the front door) ran laps around the living room when I walked though it on my way to my office.

"Hey, quiet," I said, dropping to one knee and scratching their heads. "You're going to wake up your mom and I'm going to get in trouble because of it!"

The two of them ran out toward the kitchen, and met me in my office with gifts: Riley brought me her knotted chew rope, and Ferris brought me her poorly-named indestructible chew ring.

"Yes, that's quite a collection of toys you have," I said.

They thumped their tails on the floor, and looked expectantly between their toys and me.

"Sorry girls," I said, "it's too late. We'll have to play in the morning."

Riley dove down with her little dog butt up in the air and whipped her rope around like crazy.

Oh, right. "blah blah girls blah blah PLAY blah." I thought.

I may have engaged in a little tug of war with both of them, before I sat down to copy my notes into my computer and ponder if this idea is so crazy it might work, or is so crazy, it's just crazy.

It took me a long time to unwind and quiet my brain, but I eventually made it into bed without waking up my lovely wife and ending up on the wrong end of The Wrath Of Anne. I slept peacefully and dreamlessly until Riley decided it was time I got up (about an hour before I would have chosen to get out of bed, but there are worse things to see first thing in the morning than the unconditional love of your dog who just wants you to hurry up and get out of bed so I can walk around the house with you!)

I dragged myself to the kitchen and kissed my wife on the top of her head. Both our dogs came in behind me.

"How'd your meeting go?" She said.

I told her about it.

"That sounds cool," she said.

"It's so crazy, it just might work," I said. "Are you going to finish your coffee?"

I pointed to her half-filled mug, which had a picture of me on it.

"I'm finished," she said. "Go ahead."

"Thanks. Riley decided that I needed to get up earlier than I did, so I need coffee."

"Well, that means I get to see you before I go to work!" She kneeled down and scruffed Riley's little face. "Thanks, Riley!"

She picked up her keys and purse. "I love you. I'll be home this afternoon."

"Okay," I said. "I found out when I got home last night that I have an audition at five, so I may not be here."

"What for?"

I told her.

"I hear that's a cool show," she said.

"I have also heard that," I said. I sipped my coffee. "I think I can nail it, too." I told her why.

"Break your legs," she said. "I have to go."

We kissed each other goodbye and I watched through the window until I couldn't see her any more.

While I made myself breakfast, the phone rang. Caller ID said it was my son Ryan.

We talked for a minute while I washed quinoa and sliced bananas. When I hung up the phone, I said to Twitter, "Nothing is as good as the unexpected, "Hey, I just wanted to say hi and I love you" phone calls from my son. I really miss him."

While my breakfast cooked, I got an idea and dialed the phone.

A second later it connected.

"Hello?"

"Hey dad," I said. "I just wanted to say hi, and I love you."

evil, parallel universe wil says ...

Oh man, I love this so much.

(created by Patrick K.)

everyone calm down

I don't want to ruin the joke, but since people on the internet seem to be sarcasm-challenged: Aaron is kidding. We are members of the mutual admiration society, fellow hockey goaltenders, and share an affinity for as much beer as we can find. No joke: we contributed to the drying up of the Guinness tap at the sportsbar across the street from the hotel in Phoenix.

I've done two shows with Aaron, and I've been lucky to sit next to him both times. He's what we call Good People™ and even though he totally fucked up the beard curve at the convention, I hope to see him again sooner than later.

did my time, took my chances, got my geek on

YouTube user ewingsquadron put together a really cool overview of our Rock Band party at Phoenix Comicon:

And here I am doing Eye of the Tiger:

And here's We Got The Beat, which was crazy fun and much more tiring on drums than I was expecting. It does have a drum solo, though, which is pretty awesome. The lighting isn't great, but I think you can get a sense of how much fun we were all having, which is all that matters:

If you have a video of your own, feel free to link it in the comments here, and I'll do a link roundup at the end of the week.

LA Daily: analog folding @ home

A teacher once told an improv class I was in that performers should always work to amuse themselves and have fun while they're performing, because "when you're enjoying yourself on stage, the audience will relax and have fun with you."

It's one of those things that seems completely obvious, but for a group of first-year students, it was incredibly valuable advice that made a big difference for a lot of us.

I mention this because I really amused and enjoyed myself while I wrote this week's LA Daily, analog folding @ home:

"Excuse me," I said to the bored teenage girl who didn't know how lucky she was to have a job, "I can't seem to find the Far Side calendar."

She stopped texting and gave me a look.

"There isn't a Far Side calendar," she said.

I laughed at her hilarious joke.

"Seriously," I said, "make with the Far Side calendar."

She gave me another look. "They. Did. Not. Make. One. This. Year."

I began to feel frightened and confused. "They always make a Far Side calendar! How can there not be a Far Side calendar? This is the worst thing since the Holocaust!"

"I'll be sure to let the company know that." She said.

My wife put her hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry. He gets like this when he hasn't taken his pills."

The girl gave my wife a look, my wife gave me a look, I gave them both a look, and before I knew it, we were walking to the bookstore.

"I don't think she appreciated my unique brand of tasteless humor," I said.

"Jee, do you think?" My wife said.

A few minutes later, we stood in the calendar area at the bookstore.

"I can't believe there's no Far Side calendar," I said.

"Yeah," my wife said, "I got that."

We looked for several minutes, finding a few possible candidates, but nothing as good as the Far Side calendar that, in my mind, had classics like Midvale School for the Gifted, How Birds See the World, and That One With The Cows Where They're All Standing Up And One Of Them Says "CAR!" So They Get On Four Legs While The Car Drives By And Then They Stand Back Up.

I took in a breath and opened my mouth to speak.

"No. You're not going to say another word about it."

...man, I really miss The Far Side.

we are all of us living in the shadow of manhattan

Um. Wow.

Even if you're not counting down the minutes until Watchmen comes out, if you are of a certain age, this is pretty much a perfect recreation of the time it's supposed to be, well, recreating. My nostalgia centers are currently well above the flood stage, and it's not just because of the production quality. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the dialog is taken almost directly from the book I loved and read over and over as a teenager, but I don't have time to take mine out and fact check at the moment.

Still. Wow.

the best mashup of van halen and asteroids you'll see today

One of my colleagues at LA Weekly, who clearly doesn't want me to get my column turned in on time today, sent me the best mashup of Van Halen and Asteroids that I've ever seen. Check it out, before some jerk with no sense of humor gets it sent to the land of wind and ghosts. Sammy Hagar, I'm looking in your direction. And will never buy your lousy records again. Again. Never again. Never again...