Life on the Road

Hi, all!

I haven’t posted for a while because I either didn’t have anything to post about, or something happened and someone else posted it. Now, I have decided to write reviews on video games because no one else in the family is a serious gamer so they won’t steal my posts. 

Rock Band was made by Harmonix, who also made Guitar Hero I, II, and III. I also own GH3 and might write a review on it later, but this review is on Rock Band. In Rock Band, 1-4 people can play: one person can go on a solo tour or get together with friends or even people on Xbox Live to do a band tour.

There a 4 positions on the band: guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. The game box, however, only comes with one guitar controller. Because I own GH3 I can just use the guitar that came with it as my bass, so that works out well.

The drums are my personal favorite. They consist of four drum pads and  a foot pedal, all supported on a metal and plastic frame that you have to assemble, but don’t worry. It comes with directions and is easy to assemble without them. They also come with to real drumsticks that would be just as good on a real drum as in this game.

The guitar that came with Rock Band is very cool. It has fret buttons on the neck, and a strum bar on the body, which you strum as you press the frets. The GH3 controller strum bar made a slight clicking noise every time you strummed, but the Rock Band strum bar is silent. There is also the whammy bar, which bends the sound of your notes making them really cool.

The mic is, well, a mic. You have to have a normal Xbox 360 controller to use the mic, which, in some songs, is also used as a cowbell or tambourine.

The game is, if possible, cooler than the equipment. If you make a band, each person chooses the gender, height, weight, face style, hair style, hair color, eye color, skin color, attitude, name, and hometown. Then you choose the band’s name and starting city. The first time I played I was the drummer, and I maxed out the height and weight (which makes him buff, not chubby), gave him white skin and hair, red eyes, and dressed him only in black, preferably leather, accented with chain armbands and spikes and the like, and gave him a heavy metal attitude. He is awesome.

When you play a  gig, notes (or words, with vocal) start coming down the track to the target bar. Guitars have to press the correct color fret button, then hit the strum bar when the note reaches the target bar. Drums just whack the right color pad, and vocals have to sing at the right pitch, but don’t have to get the words right.

After each song, you earn stars, between one and five. As you get more stars, you unlock new songs, places and things. You also get money, which can be used to get tatoos, clothes, and instruments.  You will often be challenged for things like a van, a tour bus, roadies, and people to lug all your gear around, and that’s not all!

All in all it is a great game that I would recommend to anyone. Rock on!

Okay, we’re in the last trimester… How about a Baby Pool, just for fun?

Enter your predictions about Baby Blessing here:

Since I’m sure someone’s going to ask, here’s the back story.  One boy and one girl so far.

Jewel’s info:

• Due 5/3/05, born 5/1/05 at 6:56 pm
• 20″ long
• 8 lbs. 12 oz. 

I don’t have Nick’s baby book handy, but it is VERY similar.  I seem to recall him saying he was a tad longer, but she weighed a few ounces more.  Nick was born on his exact due date, around 2 pm.

We don’t do ultrasound (that’s a story for another post), so the gender really is a mystery.

Happy guessing! 

Just wanted to share a couple of cute things I’ve run across online recently:

Elf Yourself

This is a fun/silly activity - see my kids elfed! 

Free Baby Stuff Giveaway!

The folks over at Our Blessed Arrows are preparing for a military transfer next spring, so they’re clearning out the inventory from their online shop by having weekly giveaways on their blog - just comment to enter.  This week’s giveaway is for a pair of Pedoodles baby or toddler shoes.

Happy beginning of the holiday season…  Regardless of the fact that Christmas stuff has been in stores since Halloween!  ICK!!  LOL

This is the second in a series of “Photo Game” themes being posted as part of a contest over at Two Moms in a Blog (go check it out!).

This one is called “See My Name in Lights,” and the challenge was to spell your name out of something around the house. 

Here’s Champion-Photo-Gamer Nick’s creation:

That’s a carrot “N,” cobs of corn and an apple for an “i,” most of one of our famous Buttermilk Pies as “c,” miniature marshmallows in a “k” . . . and Nick! 

This is the second in a series of “Photo Project” themes being posted as part of a contest over at Two Moms in a Blog (go check it out!).  All of them are based on projects from the Kodak Ideas Gallery.

Today’s project is a Photo Memory Card Game.

This project “is a fairly simple one,” she says!  HA!

I had pretty much decided I was not up to doing this… Printing so many pictures, not to mention backgrounds (is my color printer even working?), then precise measuring, cutting, gluing, laminating…  Bleah!  I don’t think I have the time, the energy, or the “craftiness” that project requires as written.

Then Nick decided to take a break from chores and sort out his Yu-Gi-Oh deck for the ten millionth time.  Ah, ha!

His “good deck” is all protected in a set of little sleeves.  The uniform backs keep the play fair, and you just slide the card in…

Or the wallet-size photo, as it turns out…  Hooray!  An almost-instant Memory Game for Jewel to play!  We used only 12 cards (2 each of 6 photos), since she’s only 2 1/2 and this is a new thing.  (Another bonus - it will be a snap to add more, change them out, etc.).

I saw a lot of reps for Discovery Toys on my online networking groups, but I never really gave it much thought. 

Then one Family Game Night I noticed that the garage-sale gem “Bazaar” that we all love is actually a Discovery Toys product from ages past!  Well in that case, I figured I should check out what they have going on now…

For Jewel we got the Roll & Play Activity Game (ages 18 mos. and up). 

Okay, I confess, Jan picked it out, and I thought it looked… well, not like a lot of fun.

But Jewel loves it! 

You roll the color cube (about 6″ square, soft stuffed), then pick a card of that color.  On the back is a simple “activity”:

• Find your shoes
• Spin in a circle
• Hop like a bunny
• Brush your teeth
• Etc.

Sometimes we do them full-tilt.  Other times, when we’re in a more snuggly relaxed mood, we just play at brushing our teeth with a finger… 

Sometimes Jewel will just sit and sort through the cards.  I sure wish I knew what was going on inside her head!

Our next new family game is going to be UnJumble (ages 8+).

We love Scrabble, Boggle, and several number-oriented games that are totally “in our head,” so this seems like a great tool. 

First of all, what a great idea to have the dice set in those cute plastic cases where they can easily be “rolled”, but never lost!

I’ll keep you posted… 

Hello again!

You may not know, but we’ve been working in our storage units trying to downsize from 2 10×15 units into 1. Didn’t work. We got a much cheaper (no a/c) 10×10 unit in additon to the 1 10×15 unit we were keeping. Two words: Head Ache.

Their policy was we had to have a round lock on our unit. We were planning to use the one off the 10×15 we were vacating. But, since it took 3 days to move, 2 of those 3 days we were locked out and had to go to the office to get them to unlock it. Heh…

Then, every time we opened our new unit the alarm went off. The storage people had said they had put our new unit on our alarm-deactivating card, but no. Double Heh… Anyhow, yesterday we finally managed to finish it, and now I basically have a free day.

Among the things I am doing today are: writing this, doing laundry (pretty fun because I can just sit there and play on the gaming laptop while I watch it), playing Xbox (more on that later), and schoolwork.

I really like playing Xbox for a variety of reasons. One, it’s entertainment. Two, the controller setup is really nice. Three, those “Ooohhh… NOW I get it” moments. I got one of those today, beating a level I previously thought was impossible. Gotta love it.

I am also really good at chess, though I don’t get to play much. I came in second in my last (and first and only) tournament, behind a kid who was then moved up to the “advanced” class. He beat me, but no one else could.

We also like to watch movies, but in an RV space is an issue. The answer:

Blockbuster Total Access

They ship movies right to wherever we stay, and we ship them back and get more. Also we can return them to a Blockbuster store, get a free movie there and get the next one on our online list shipped. But wait, there’s more! Once a month we get a free movie or (even better) game rental. Awesome!

But there are dishes to be done, schoolbooks to be read, and games to be played. Bye! Talk to ya later!

Hello there! I’m Nick, age 12, homeschool student and full-time RVer.

I like the RV setup, and my room specifically. There are 3 bunks, 2 on the back wall, 1 on the side. The lowest one on the back wall is reserved for Jewel, my 2 year old sister, though it feels like she’ll never be there. I am glad of that… more room for me! I have the next highest bunk, the one on the side.

It is extra comfy because we took the mattress off the top bunk to turn it into storage and we put it on my bed in addition to a TemperPedic pad. Aaahh… There is also an air conditioner vent that blows right on me when I sit up. Double Aaahh…

It’s good that it’s comfy because I spend a lot of time there; doing homeschool work and playing computer and Xbox and Xbox 360. I just beat Halo 2 on easy and am eagerly awaiting getting Halo 3 for Xbox 360.

I really like it here in Point of Rocks RV park, partially because of being hooked up, but specifically here there is a lot of great rock climbing around. I go out by myself a lot on some really hard parts but it is also fun to do easy stuff with Mama and Jewel.

Aaanyway… got lots of work to do… we just did laundry and I gotta put clean sheets on the bed… Mama wants the computer… gotta go now, bye!