Week Nine and I'm Feeling Fine

But unfortunately Amy is not. At this point, the notion of 'morning sickness' is absurd since she basically feels nauseous to some degree 24 hours a day. Typically when I'm feeling like I want to throw up I just want to lay down and die, yet Amy handles it all like a champ. Smells, tastes, movement, and now even colors will make her sick to her stomach, yet she never complains. In fact, the only way I know she feels bad is because I ask her every few hours how she is feeling (which I'm sure she is sick of as well).

I had no doubt that Amy was tough, but she is the first place winner of the the tough it out championships.

In other news little Peanut is now little Teddy Graham. Next week we will be going to our next ultrasound in which we may actually get to hear the heartbeat and Teddy will look more like something resembling a human. The journey is just beginning!

Rock Band Weekly - 11/25

I got just two songs today - Mr. Brightside by The Killers and Red Devil by Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force.

Mr. Brightside is like The Killers other Rock Band song, When You Were Young, not too difficult yo play yet not too easy, and really fun throughout. The guitar part is constantly moving up and down the fretboard yet isn't really all that complicated.

Red Devil is, really, really freaking hard. I failed at around 73% on six straight runs. It's a shame too since the main riff and chorus sections are great, and the song is really catchy, too bad I can't finish it. I'm sure I'll get through it eventually but it wil have to wait for another day.

I might pick up the Laid to Rest by Lamb of God later, but it was never really a favorite of mine form Guitar Hero 2, so I may just save my points.

Review - Rock Band 2 Stratocaster

I've been using the second generation Rock Band Stratocaster for a few weeks now, and I'm finally ready to give a verdict on it. I never used the first version guitar, instead using the Guitar Hero 3 wireless Les Paul. The positive reviews for the new guitar lead me to try it out at best buy and eventually pick one up. Since I used the Les Paul for so long, much of this review will be comparing the two.

First thing you will notice is the aesthetics - this guitar looks great. The two tone wood finish make it the most realistic looking fake plastic guitar on the market. The buttons are placed such that it looks like a real Strat, which is a nice touch - but it makes for awkward placement of the whammy bar (more on that later).

So it looks good, but how does it play? Well depending on where you are coming from you might have mixed results. First, the buttons are not raised up from the fretboard like all previous Guitar Hero controllers, they are flush on the neck which may trip you up if you are used to raised buttons. Once you get used to it though it feels natural, and it's actually easier to move your hand up the neck to play the orange note. The buttons are also more closely spaced, which is good and bad. When I first started playing on the Strat I was accidentally pushing two buttons at once because of the spacing, but once I got a feel for it I was able to move up and down much faster, plus green/orange chords are much easier than with the Les Paul.

The strum bar is built for speed and as a result, it's really sensitive. I'm used to resting my thumb on the strum bar when not actually playing but I've found that this is unwise since even a small movement of the bar can cause a strum. On the positive side, strumming fast sections is much, much easier than with the Les Paul. Since Rock Band 2 features many fast strum songs, this is a good thing. The strum bar is also very quiet, with the slightest of click when strummed, which is nice when you are trying to jam with the music and not the clicking of the bar.

So it's all good right? Well, not everything. The whammy bar is placed directly below the strum bar when you stand the guitar straight up and down. This is a really unnatural place for the bar to be, making it really tough to reach, especially when you need to get to it quickly. The Les Paul's whammy bar is really perfect, directly underneath your hand for really quick access. I would say this is the only aspect of the Les Paul that is clearly superior to the Strat. I applaud Harmonix for making a realistic looking controller, but I wish they wold have modified this aspect of the design for ease of use.

Overall I'm very happy with the guitar, my scores are up overall, my solos are improving, and fast notes/chords are much easier to manage now. It is worth the price, especially from Deep Discount where it is $59.00 shipped.

One Plus One Equals Three

Even though it seems like the most basic of human achievements, conception is still one of the most unpredictable events there is. How else do you explain everyone's different surefire method to get pregnant?

Full moon? Sure! Listening to soothing music? Why not! Eating pineapple and coconut? couldn't hurt!

The reality is, at least from what I've read and what I've now experienced, is it comes down to timing and chance. I'm not a real believer in luck, but I do like to think that some karmic rays shined down upon us and gave us a boost, and provided us that extra little bit we needed to conceive our first child. However, I know that in reality, everything happened as it should, at the right time, and nature took over and is now doing its thing (and making Amy, my wife sleepy and nauseous at the same time).

Whatever the explanation, be it hocus pocus, star and planet alignment, or good timing, it feels great to say that we have a baby on the way in July of next year.

The (blurry) pictures here represent our first ultrasound that was performed at 7 weeks. At the time of the ultrasound our little guy* was the size of a Tic Tac, and so that was his name during that week. We are currently in week 8, and now he is roughly the size of an peanut or large jelly bean, and has naturally been renamed peanut.

There are many things in life that you look forward to, many times your expectation of that thing can be better than the actual event, and many times things just can't live up to what everyone else has said is so great. Every day I looked forward to the ultrasound, and I must say that when I saw our child on that low resolution screen, and his beating heart was as clear day, my expectations were so far exceeded it was a feeling that I can not describe. The sight of our child, a combination of Amy and myself made into something completely new was a truly awesome, albeit blurry, sight.

1 + 1 = 3.

* By the way I'm using the pronouns 'he' and 'him' here in a general sense because I think 'it' sounds crazy. We do not know the gender and I'm not rooting for a male, nor have any guesses at the gender. Honest.