Grimlock and the Happy Camper

I've mentioned Optimus Prime before, but while he may have wanted to change his name to Optimus before, his real favorite Transformer is the character of Grimlock. I know he's used Grimlock in one form or another for passwords, he's got mini versions, and talks about how cool the new version in the animated series is. He's gone on about the history and the different versions of Grimlock before as well, so he's well versed in Grimlock history (well, he's well versed in all the Transformers' stories), and even relates to the brute in his own way.

In a nutshell, Grimlock is the leader of the Dinobots and transforms into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The original animated series had Grimlock, along with two other dinobots, created by the human, Spike, along with the Autobot Medic/Mechanics, Wheeljack and Ratchet, giving them simple personalities but remarkably strong contructions to where they were stronger in their dinosaur form than their robot form. Another timeline places the dinobots having landed on Earth chasing a Deception leader, Shockwave. Since dinosaurs are the indigenous life form when they arrive, they take on those forms. They defeat Shockwave, but end up in a tarpit until the modern Autobots find them.

The new animated series of Transformers produced a new line of toys, and Optimus comments once about how much he liked the new design of Grimlock, since the creators redesigned the majority of the Transformers for the new series. I guess the Walther P-38 was no longer an acceptable toy for Megatron.



Can't think why this would be a problem.

Anyway, last night while we were doing our grocery shopping at Walmart, we ran across the new animated series toy version of Grimlock. I tried to call him, but got no answer. I figured if there ever was a character I could proactively grab for him, it would be this Grimlock. I snapped a couple of pics and then tossed him in the basket. I figured I've show him the pictures (lovingly referred to as "toy porn"), and gauge whether he had him or not.



So this morning, I showed him the pics, and it took him a moment to figure out what I was showing him. Finally, he gasped and said, "which Wal-Mart was this at?" I said, "the one behind my PC, and for $15 it can be yours." I scooted back and tossed him the bag containing the Grimlock. His mouth dropped as he held the wrapped box. Slowly, he peeled the bags away and viewed the toy right there in his hands. His mouth remained open as he gazed at his beloved favorite character. Finally, he managed to get out, "oh yeah, that's totally worth it."

I've seen him in a good mood before, but never be as happily enraptured as I saw him today. I don't even think he looked that way after he got his house. But one thing is certain: my instincts were right on this time. I did a good thing.

Drum Pads

So I did get Rock Band the day it came out, as you know, but one week later, tragedy struck. As I was playing with The Engineer (who actually stayed until 2AM that Saturday night/Sunday morning I picked it up), the yellow drum pad all but stopped working. If you tapped it in the right place or pounded on it really, really hard, it would respond, but tapping it normally produced no results. The Engineer was initially concerned that he had broken it since I'd harped on him a couple times that evening for pounding a little harder than I liked, but he would not have caused the damage. After all I saw people pound the snot out of the demo drums at Wal-Mart when it first came out, and those drums kept on ticking. The green one gave out first over there after a month of abuse.

So I looked up the address for the warranty. It was a very, very easy process online and after some encouraging messages on EA Games' site stating a replacement assembly would be sent within 48 hours, I fully expected my replacement drum pads to show up before or just after we left on our Roaring River trip. No drum pads came. The Engineer checked for these when we were gone, and they didn't come. I waited Monday and Tuesday, but still nothing.

So I checked for emails. The only email I'd gotten was the original confirmation email, which stated another would be sent once the item was shipped. No other email was received, so I immediately started looking for their phone number, which I knew full well I'd seen in the original process, and that it was a 24/7 number. No dice. The number did not exist anywhere I looked, so I just sent an email, to which they responded very quickly.

So I'm waiting again for another confirmation email that the item was shipped. I was hoping to have my replacement pads by this weekend, so we could all play on the drums again, but no email yet. For the quick and painless process it appeared to be in the beginning, it's getting tiresome. the most amusing part, though, is that I'd sent my email stating all my numbers, and that I had a Wii, and that while it requested proof of purchase, it also said don't worry about it since the Wii version just came out. My canned reply I got said the warranty period was extended and my replacement peripheral would be shipped right out. I think I got the wrong canned reply...

All the same... Still waiting...

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

Sunday July 1st brought the release of the second Guitar Hero game for the Wii only a week after the release (finally!) of Rock Band. What's the music geek to do? Why, buy it of course! After all, I'd had enough left over from my birthday money to get this game in addition to getting Rock Band. What surprised me initially, though, was the game was priced at nearly $60. This was odd considering Guitar Hero III was only priced at $50, and in all honesty, despite the fact that Aerosmith only contains a little over half the number of songs on GH3, I expected a $50 price tag. I went ahead and got it, but The Queen wanted to get online as soon as we got home to see if anyone had a special price on it, since Wal-Mart honors competitor ads.

Didn't take long before we found a 49.99 cost on the game, so I marched myself back to Wal-Mart to get a reduction from my 59.74 to 49.99. Initially, the person behind the counter said that for competitor ads that reduce a price by $10 or more, they required the ad. Never heard of this before, but I argued that the reduction was only 9.75, not 10 (thank you very much, weird Wal-Mart pricing). After he checked with someone else, I got the reduction.

Now to play it. GH: Aerosmith was a refreshing and interesting change from GH3. The charts were constructed a bit differently. Medium was actually medium, and not "hard without the orange button". Hard was a bit more difficult, but not "expert without three button chords". Expert requires some fascinating finger positions that remind me of actually playing the guitar, instead of an overwhelming focus on three button chords and cripplingly fast solos. It has a lot of challenge to it, but instead of being insane and frustrating to play, it was a lot of fun. While difficulty is a nice factor in a game, frustration is not. It's entirely possible that Raining Blood on GH3 is actually that hard to play in real life, but it's too much for a video game played on a toy guitar. On Aerosmith, I completed the hard level fairly quickly, though they also enhanced the "pling" sound when you miss notes, so I admit that on some songs, I sounded more like I was playing the slots instead of Aerosmith. No jackpots, unfortunately.

But it's a fun game, and I hope when they come out with Guitar Hero: World Tour, it retains the sort of style of charts that this version has. Definitely worth playing. The only thing I wish it had was a co-op career like GH3 had instead of plugging the co-op under multiplayer.

Coming Back To The Blog

A lot has happened since my little tirade on the 23rd of June. I did get Rock Band. I survived two weeks of my computer job. Fourth of July festivities and vacation weekend. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Where do I begin? Well, July Fourth weekend is the closest, so I figure I can work my way back from there.

We went out of town, naturally, to Roaring River in Missouri because the Queen's family likes going there, and it's nice to get away from it all for a little while. We actually left in the afternoon on the 3rd. I had arranged to get off at 1 so we could leave early enough to get there before dark. We were out of town by 3 and out there by 6. It's not a bad drive as long as you don't mind the three hours. The only point of interest en route was the car flipped over on the interstate in Arkansas.

Once in Missouri, we spent some time with her family, and got settled in our room in the little hotel up there. What amuses me sometimes is that when the Queen's grandparents talk about going to Raoring River, they talk about "going down," when if you think about it, it's actually at a higher elevation than where we are in Oklahoma. Even when you loook at a map, it's up, but they always say down. Never could really figure that out.

Anyway, the 4th brought us up bright and early to go fishing (which my enjoyment of remains undecided), and though we did catch fish, I still refuse to "clean" them. Cleaning is a really odd term for what really goes on at that table. I always leave it to the Queen's grandfather to handle this, though she naturally and reasonably feels I should learn how to do this since the princesses may want to continue fishing when they're gone. She's clearly forgotten that she mandated that they live forever. However, I'm all for the catch and release program.

The rest of the time brought time with her family and swimming. She went out with her brother and sister-in-law while I stayed with the princesses and watched a movie while they slept. At night, I watched a movie (or two) before going to sleep. All told, I watched 5 movies on my iPod over the weekend. That was pretty sweet and made for an overall very productive weekend. It also means that just like my weeks have been going, I got very little sleep...well, except for Saturday when I was allowed to sleep till 9, although there was a downside to that.

Imagine being sound asleep. You're in that state where there is no world, and you're very, very comfortable just curled up under the covers. Now, while I am a night owl and neglect to go to sleep early, I know I have to get up when it's time to get up, but I often have trouble doing so, much to the irritation of the Queen, at times. So, I am awakened by an incessant pounding on the door of my hotel room. Immediately, my mind goes to a dream I had some weeks ago where some not-so-very-nice people with guns pounding on my hotel room door and proceeded to blow everyone away when I answered. But back to reality, I looked around and no one was in the room with me. The Queen and the Princesses were gone. My immediate thought was, "Oh crap," I didn't get up, they left and did something without me, and now I'm going to pay for it. I stumbled to the door, and sure enough, they were the ones outside the door pounding. The Queen was exasperated. I braced myself for a lashing for oversleeping.

Turns out no lashing was forthcoming. She apologized for waking me like that. She'd come in with breakfast and it was supposed to be a surprise, but she'd left the key in the room. So I wasn't in trouble after all. Hooray!

We had some very good dinners while we were there consisting of some seriously good steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs, and barbecue. Someday, I really must relax and get some rest while we're down there. Hm, I said "down there." I think they're wearing off on me.