Nearly a month ago, both James’ and my birthdays rolled around. It’s pretty funny that our birthdays are only one day apart; it’s also amusing that James uses this as an excuse to say he’s not actually a year younger than me. No no no…he’s 364 days younger!

Anyway, the whole week around our birthdays was pretty eventful. On James’ birthday, which happened to be on a Tuesday, we had our work Christmas party. Yes, I know that a Tuesday in November is a pretty odd time to have a Christmas party, especially when said party starts at 12pm. However, there was method to the madness–our COO was in town from America for a few days so we wanted to include him. We had a great lunch at the Caxton Hotel (mm…filet mignon wrapped in bacon), and the wine was some of the best I’ve ever had.

Needless to say, by the time I made it to James’ car I was a little bit on the tipsy side.  This was okay though, because we were going out to a big group dinner at a Vietnamese place in West End with all of his friends. James got a bit overzealous on the ordering of food and we ended up with 5 quail, a massive steamboat full of vegetables and seafood, and another appetizer + main on top of that! After my massive lunch there was no way I could eat the equivalent of about two dinners!

As we sat in the Melbourne pub after dinner, it began tipping it down outside. That motivated us to stay that little bit longer, which meant that James was bought quite a few drinks, the best of which was the Terminator–shots of Absinthe, Bacardi 151, and Chartreuse topped with Tabasco sauce. I can’t say how happy I was that it wasn’t yet my birthday so I didn’t have to drink that!

The rain that night only further saturated the already soaked ground in Brisbane. On the Sunday prior, we were hit with a massive storm that had the strength of a category 2 hurricane (and Doug from Ephox has the videos to prove it!). On the night of my birthday, another massive storm came through and smacked down the already struggling suburbs yet again. Luckily I don’t live in the harder hit suburbs and my house is at the top of a small hill so we made it through without serious damage to house or cars.  Driving to work on the morning of the 20th was like driving through a disaster zone though. Many of the houses in Rosalie looked like they had filled with nearly a foot of water and people were already out on the streets at 7am piling up soggy, ruined belongings.

Besides a lot of people being very unhappy about gigantic thunderstorms filling their houses and cars with water, my birthday was quite a good day. At work we celebrated with an apple crumble cheesecake (how can you go wrong with a combination of apple pie and cheesecake?). When I got home, a large wrapped box was sitting on the couch. I was ecstatic because it was a photo box–a wood box with four frames on the outside and pull-out albums that hold 540 pictures–to replace the one that Australia Post mangled two years ago. He was proud of finding the perfect gift for me then, only to get the box back a month later looking like it had been used as a rugby ball. One side had completely broken off and all the glass was shattered. Luckily, he got his money back then and this time he didn’t have to put it through the post so it’s still in perfect condition. Now I just have to get prints to put in it!

For my birthday dinner, James and I went out to a teppanyaki restaurant (where the chefs cook food on the grill in front of you). Our chef was hilarious and gave all of us our money’s worth. Not only was the food delicious (we ate steak, Moreton bay bugs, prawns, and fried rice to name but half of the meal), but we spent a good part of the evening in stitches over his various jokes and games. We got to catch pieces of omelette in our mouths and even better, attempted to catch raw eggs in little egg holders. That didn’t go so well for me, and I was just happy that I’d moved my purse beforehand…since I really didn’t want to go home with egg smeared all over it!

To finish off an eventful week, James, Ollie, and I went to the local golf links the following Sunday, since the Brisbane River was full of debris from the rains and wakeboarding was a no-go. I feel a little sorry for the people following us because they were endlessly watching us hit balls into the next green over or straight into the ground 5 feet away (that was my specialty). It was much more entertaining than I thought swinging a pole and then searching for the next 300m for a little white spot on the ground would be; however, I still think Ollie and James had a lot more fun because they got to laugh at me the whole time. We ended up at +22 (James), +34 (Ollie), and +55 (me) for the 9 holes. Needless to say, there’s a little bit of improvement to be had by all!

I know this post is nerdy, but I originally intended it to be part of a larger post. However, I’m exhausted tonight and don’t have the energy to write a lot…

Anyway, about a month ago now, I bought a copy of Guitar Hero: World Tour. The way I got it wasn’t exactly as I planned it…I was just going to pop by the shops after work, buy the game on its own, and then go home and try it out. Instead, the night before the game came out, I went with James and his friends to see a movie at the shopping centre. Afterwards, one of his friends said he was just going to pop by EBgames because they were open from 10pm-1am for the Guitar Hero launch. I figured that since it was 11.40 already and they could officially sell the games at midnight, I might as well go get my copy too.

The crowd wasn’t too big but it was still enough to fill up the store with interesting characters admiring the few that got to play the game on the big screen TV. One guy was wearing a shirt that said “You read this shirt. That’s enough social interaction for today.” At that point, James got very scared and wanted to leave…yet at the same time, he somehow managed to convince me to stay because “you’ll only have to wait 15 minutes.” Not only that, but he also explained that logically, if I just bought the game, I would only have half of the functionality since I wouldn’t have the drums or microphone, and therefore I wouldn’t be getting my money’s worth. Somehow this convinced me and I ended up with the entire drum kit/guitar/microphone set by the end of the night.

Long story short, I ended up in the very back of the line but still had my game (which came in a large box that James carried on his shoulder) by 12.15. As soon as I got home, I went to sleep, so I didn’t even open it until I got home from work the next day. Even then, I only played the guitar until my flatmate came home and decided to put together the drum kit. It was only then that we found out that they had forgotten to put drumsticks in the box!

Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy, given the price I paid for the entire package. Plus, I did want to try out the drums, as did Ian. Therefore, we started devising other ways we could play them. The plastic handles of our silverware didn’t work too well because they were way too short and the drums never registered the impacts, but we found that wooden spoons did a reasonable job. There were three main downsides:

1) The drums still had to be belted with the drumsticks to register anything on the game (although we later found that this is actually a problem with real drumsticks on the kit as well)
2) We were hitting the drums using the handles and therefore holding the wide ends of the spoons…which caused blisters very quickly on the hands
3) We looked like idiots (but this was very entertaining for everyone watching)

Fortunately the manager at EBgames the next day was reasonable and gave me a set of Ozzy Osbourne drumsticks (although why he has his own drumsticks, I don’t know…) for free. On top of that, Dylan from work gave me a set of his old nylon tipped drumsticks so now we have multiple choices!

To talk about the game itself, I’m actually a bit disappointed with it overall. The drums are fun to play, but I’m not very good at them at all. The guitar parts are significantly easier than on GH3, but I still can’t get the hang of 5 notes and the whole moving my hand thing. That means that hard is too frustrating most of the time and medium is too easy, so I get a bit bored. Plus, I definitely prefer the songs in GH3. I suppose since it was called “Legends of Rock” it makes sense that it has more classic songs. I like some of the songs on GHWT but it just seems like a lot of them are recent songs that are decent but nothing special. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun game, but I guess after playing GH3 for so long I was expecting more.