Back in Black

I woke up at 5:59 this morning - which was good since the only alarm I had set was on my cell and it was on silent - so I got up early enough to work out for the first time in a while. I've been fooling around with this thing long enough - it's time to get serious.

Hard Day's Night

After spending a few weeks stuck on level 7, I finally beat Guitar Hero II on hard last night. Once I got through "Carry Me Home" (with the help of the practice function), it seemed almost easier to make it through "Psychobilly Freakout" and all the level 8 songs. I had to start "Misirlou" over a few times, but other than that, I pretty much skated through the other songs (albeit with 3 stars on all of them, as my 6-year-old had to point out). Even "Freebird" didn't seem that difficult. One thing's for sure - there's no way I could've gotten this far without getting comfortable with hammer-ons. I still need practice on the pre-GHIII pull-offs.

Radio Update

And now, "Cult of Personality" (Living Colour) is playing. It can't be coincidence.

Guitar Hero on the Radio

Do you think the Guitar Hero phenomenon has impacted what's being played on the radio? In the last two days, I've had the radio on for less than a total of 30 minutes and I've heard 3 Guitar Hero songs (this was on WVNA, Florence, AL). "Barracuda" (Heart) is no surprise - that's always gotten a lot of airplay. But just now "Surrender" (Cheap Trick) came on the radio and I can't remember the last time I heard that. But the really odd one was yesterday when I heard "Them Bones" (Alice in Chains). I think that's the first time I ever heard that song outside GH.

I've been so slack in getting any workouts in. We've been on vacation and I've been working on several projects. But I guess now is always the best time to start again!

Can't Stop the Music

I've been on vacation, so it hasn't been as easy to get up and work out every day.

But at least I've been able to play every day - and judging by the way my wrists and forearms feel after playing some of the mid-level songs on hard on Guitar Hero III, I'm still getting a little bit of a workout. I'm still stuck on Level 7 on Guitar Hero II (as well as Level 3 on expert), but now I'm stuck on Level 7 on hard on GHIII, too. I don't know how I feel about those guitar battles. But, I was able to beat Slash after about 5 or 6 tries. And even when I couldn't beat him, I was at least making it to the end of the song and was getting beat when he used the Death Drain attack. It took a few minutes to figure out strategy (to attack only when he had a hard set of notes, or when he was about to hit the notes to get another attack), but when I did, I was finally able to beat him.

One of the things I'm really liking about GHIII is the improved hammer-ons and pull-offs. These take some getting used to, but when you get the hang of them, they sure are powerful. They're pretty tough on GHI - I hate having to put down all my fingers when doing the pull-offs - it's hard to coordinate my pinky and ring finger since they both try to pull off at the same time. I need to see if they changed that in GHII or GHIII. I just happened to take a look at the GHIII advanced tutorial and realized you now only use a single finger, making hammer-offs and pull-offs executed in basically the same way. It makes a huge difference for GHIII; and now that I think about it, I'm wondering if they made that change for II. If not, it's going to be pretty hard to move backwards and try to finish GHII.

But at least I can enjoy the process!

And since I'm working with both of these, I'll probably end up waiting for Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. I doubt I'll have the same restraint for Guitar Hero: World Tour. I'm looking forward to the drums and the microphone.