It’s been a bit too quiet on this blog lately, and that’s mostly because I was away last week on a family vacation. My parents rented a lake house in Virginia (in the town appropriately named “Bumpass“), and Shell, my sister, my bro-in-law and myself all joined them. It was a lot of fun and we all really enjoyed our time there. We did quite a few things too. Here’s a brief breakdown of what we did on our summer vacation at Lake Anna:

• Visited the Civil War battlefields at Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, and The Wilderness (info on all three can be found here.)

• Walked around downtown Fredericksburg
• Entered the Confederate Cemetery
• Checked out Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello
• Got some lunch and beers at Blue and Gray brewery

• Saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two
• Grilled some tasty food

• Went boating and fishing on Lake Anna

• Went fishing off the lake house dock

• Hung out pool-side
• Had a picnic at Lake Anna National Park
• Purchased a canary melon from some moon shining farm stand
• Went to a barn sale run by a hippie

• Survived a freak thunderstorm…lightning actually struck the trees outside the house and one did fall into the woods
• Performed wood knockings to lure a Sasquatch in, but no luck

• Ate dinner at a haunted restaurant named Tavern on the Rail
• Sampled wines at the Lake Anna Winery

• Played Rock Band, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories, and Monopoly Deal

• Dropped socks on the family’s head

The lake house itself was very nice. It was three stories tall, and one bedroom was on each story. The bottom floor was where my sister stayed, and it also had a den area where the TV was (not an HDTV, but I was still able to hook up the PS3), a dog room, and the washer/dryer. The second floor was where the master suite (my parents room) was located, and also had the kitchen, dining room, and living room…which for some reason didn’t have a TV. The top floor was where Shell and I stayed, and it consisted only of the bedroom. It was from this upper perch that I was able to drop socks on unsuspecting family members either in the kitchen, dining room, or living room.

The outside was also very nice. There were two main areas, with a deck off the second floor and a massive patio on the ground floor. It came equipped with a grill, smoker, two sets of patio tables and chairs, and a great pool, where we spent quite a bit of time. A walk across the backyard led to the private dock where we tried fishing. There was space there for a boat, but we had decided not to rent a boat for the entire week.

The house itself was surrounded by wilderness and was located on a road that did not show up on my GPS (Droid using Google Maps) or my parents GPS (a Magellan.) This made finding the house quite tricky the first time around. Also, with the house so far off the beaten path, we were far away from anywhere we wanted to go. But the worst part was that there was absolutely no internet service at the house, and virtually no cell phone service either. Not only was it next to impossible to check my e-mail and do other internety things, but it made it difficult to plan out our days. Without being able to google distances to locations, nearby attractions or restaurants, it made the vacation quite a challenge.

Despite the “roughing it” of having no internet access, we all had a great time. I loved dragging my family around to the different historical sights around Virginia, and some good beer, and some great food. I even got tan finally! The house may have isolated, but it still made for an enjoyable family vacation.

Like many gamers, I gave in to the addictive fun that is the music game genre. As a result, I have a few plastic instruments lying around the living room. It was a cluttered mess, and didn’t exactly look all that great in the open. I was also wondering how to safely pack the instruments (the drum set in particular) for the upcoming move.

I then remembered reading about ottomans that were specifically designed for Rock Band storage. I first went to Amazon, but didn’t like the one they had on there. Then I remembered reading an article on co-optimus about them, and went to see which brand was mentioned. It was an ottoman from LevelUp, and I believe the model I purchased is the “Rock Band Double Ottoman”. I searched online for it, and was surprised to find quite the deal for it at Gamestop of all places. It’s available on their website for the price of $89.99, with $20 or more S&H, depending on the speed you choose. The lesser quality ottoman on Amazon was $119 with free shipping, but I wanted this beautiful piece from LevelUp, so I was sold. I placed the order online on Sunday night and  when I came home last night there was a huge box waiting for me.

I was super excited so I grabbed the nearest knife and started opening up the package. I couldn’t wait to see this wonderful piece of black furniture that would be solving my plastic peripheral woes.

It was packaged very securely so that it wouldn’t be damaged during the shipping process. Once I got the ottoman out of the box, I was pleased to see that it came pre-assembled and didn’t require me to do anything with it except fill it up. The ottoman is not only stylish but also very sturdy, and it could definitely double as a seat if you were short some chairs.

It’s not only beautiful on the outside, but on the inside as well. I really liked the inside lining with the Rock Band logo on it. It is really big and I could tell it would have no problem holding all our instruments. There are straps on the bottom of the lid where you can place two guitars, which helps conserve space in the base on the box. The ottoman I found on Amazon did not have these straps, so the guitars would have had to been crammed into the bottom with the other stuff. There are also some little pockets on the inside which proved to be a great place to pack away the microphone, and there are even two little loops on the side to stow away the drum sticks. The ottoman also came with two trays that can be stored over the top of the drum kit once it’s inside…one is designed to hold up to four controllers and the other to hold up to sixteen game boxes. There’s even space for one fat cat!

My biggest concern, and main reason for buying this, had to do with the drum set. It’s huge and takes up a lot of space, and can be an eyesore in an otherwise classy living room. Also, the drums themselves are very sensitive and I didn’t want them getting banged around during the move. Luckily, the ottoman comes with a set of instructions that not only goes over how to safely disassemble the drum set, but also how to store it in the ottoman.

In the end, everything fit in nicely:

We only have the basic Rock Band 2 set, so it’s just the drum set, two guitars, and the mic. While you wouldn’t be able to fit another drum set in there, I don’t think you would have a problem fitting an additional guitar in. You can also very easily stow away all your other non-music gaming devices such as controllers, games, charging cables, cameras, and more. Also, it’s good for any system, so it doesn’t matter if the instruments are for the PS3, 360, or Wii.

I definitely think the LevelUp Rock Band Ottoman is a great piece to have if you happen to be tired of seeing your Rock Band or Guitar Hero instruments piled up in the corner of the room. I highly recommend purchasing through Gamestop as they surprisingly had the best price on it.It looks nice, it’s well built, and it has a ton of room for most of your gaming accessories.

It’s been a tough twenty-three days, but the PSN returned (for the most part) yesterday. The online play, chat, friends list, and trophies are the important features that returned, and the only one missing is the PSN Store, which will hopefully get back into service soon (I just want to sync all my RB songs to RB3.) It’s been a long time coming and I’ve been itching to get online for two main reasons:

• To play Dungeon Hunter Alliance online
• To Platinum WWE All Stars

I’m currently nine online wins away from getting the Platinum in All Stars, and when I downloaded the new firmware and got the PS3 going again, I had a friend request from a guy who wanted to boost All Stars. Pretty soon this guy and I will be sitting back and basking in the glory of our new Platinum trophy! After I get All Stars out of the way, I’ll probably take a break and get some stuff down around the house, then I’ll see if I can’t get a game of Dungeon Hunter Alliance underway.

I missed being able to play online, and I’m so glad I can now. Welcome back, PSN!

I’ve been wanting a second Rock Band guitar for quite some time now. It would be nice to have a spare in case my original one breaks, and I would also like to have two for when we have a couple of people over. I only like to play guitar/bass, so if someone else is over and wants to play guitar, I won’t really play anything else. So after New Years, I started scouring retailers and other online sites to find one, but I was sad to see that they just aren’t manufactured anymore, making them very difficult to find. Then one day I was on Amazon and came across one that looked like it was the same one I already had. The price was right too, and for $30 of my Amazon credit I had the guitar shipped to my apartment. We came back from Dinosaur BBQ tonight to find the package waiting outside the door, and I quickly took it inside and checked it out.

The one with the dark brown neck is my old one, and the one with the yellowish/white neck is the new one. Other than the color, the two guitars are identical, and both are Harmonix, which is good. Aside from the different neck color, I did notice some other differences while playing the new one.

First, the whammy bar on the new guitar is much looser. It’s not bad, but it just feels weird and different. Secondly, the new guitar is a lot more sensitive when it comes to going into overdrive mode. My old guitar is actually getting…well old, and it is difficult to activate overdrive with it. Often times I’ll be swinging the guitar up and down and eventually get frustrated enough that I will miss a note. The new guitar is, if anything, super sensitive, and I set off the overdrive quite a few times when I didn’t want to. However, I won’t complain, since other than that the guitar worked great right out of the box.

So it doesn’t look as pretty, and it’s a bit more sensitive than it should be, but I’m still glad to have a second guitar in the house finally. Now when people come over and I’m not the only one not keen on playing drums or singing, there can be two people rocking out on the guitar.

During September, the fine folks over at co-optimus held a month-long Lego video game contest. They basically had some on-site voting to see which of the Lego video games was the best in the eyes of fans. Each week there was a different winner selected, and I won the first week’s prize. The prize was my choice of any Lego video game, aside from Lego Harry Potter since that was week two’s prize (not that I would have chosen it, based on my feelings about the game.) So my choices were Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones, or Rock Band. In the end I went with Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the 360.

I had rented Lego Batman and both Indiana Jones games through Gamefly, and did not really them. As for Rock Band, I wasn’t all that keen on the set list for the game. As for Star Wars, I had played through the game previously on the PS2 and loved it. I chose the 360 version for the achievements, and because the PS3 version does not support trophies for some odd reason.

So thanks again to the guys over at co-optimus, who are always putting out plenty of contests while also giving up to the minute news on all games co-op!

So I downloaded and checked out the Green Day Rock Band demo today. After playing through the demo’s two songs, Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Welcome to Paradise, there were a couple of ads about Green Day Rock Band, and then the last ad was the above image (except this one is from the 360 demo apparently).  As you can see, there is a icon now that appears to be that of a keyboard. Thus, it is correct to assume (as most of the internet community has done as well) that Rock Band 3 will support a new plastic instrument in the form of a keyboard.

This could be fun, since keyboards are one of those instruments that everyone plays as a child. Also, I can see the keyboard being integrated more functionally in it’s true essence as opposed to the guitar. Also, what songs will there be? Will we be getting a Billy Joel Rock Band? Only time will tell…

Well, I still cant believe it, but tonight is the one-year anniversary of our engagement. I cant believe its been a whole year since I popped the question. Now that Christmas is over, the next few months are gonna fly by, and before I know it, the wedding will be here. Anywho, due to this, we decided to have a nice, quiet night together.

We made reservations at some Thai restaurant in Albany. The restaurant does not have a liquor license, which means we are bringing our own bottle of wine, which should be fun. Afterwards, we will be hitting up the movies. We’re not sure what we’re gonna see yet, it will depend on what time it is. What we do know is that we will either be seeing Avatar or Sherlock Holmes. I dont care which one, since I want to see both, and the other one we will just go see next week.

After the movie we will head home, get drunk, and hang out the rest of the night. If she gets drunk enough I hope to get some Rock Band in or something. Eventually we will settle down to watch the ball drop, and then its off to bed. Tomorrow morning we are leaving early to get to my parents house for lunch and to exchange Christmas gifts, and to stay overnight. Then Saturday we will do the same thing at Shell’s dads house, and we will head back up to Albany Sunday afternoon. Thats the plan for the weekend!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy New Years!

Well, it wasnt a full night of gaming, but there was over an hour of PS3 goodness going on in our house. I started nice and easy and let Shell check out the Peggle demo, which she enjoyed. I liked Peggle a lot also, so it looks like I’ll be snagging that in the near future.

After that, I popped in Buzz! Quiz World, and we played two online matches against four other players. It was my first time playing the game online, and I enjoyed it. However, we both did pretty badly. In the first round I managed to stay in fourth place, and after losing that, we decided to rematch. During this round, I ended up doing horrible, and was in last place for most of the game. That was sad. But I was glad to get some gaming in alongside Shell. Tomorrow we will be playing some Rock Band 2 and the Rock Band AC/DC Track Pack that I bought her for Christmas while we wait for the ball to drop and drink cheap wine.

So Christmas has come and gone. I enjoyed spending it down in South Carolina even though I did miss my family back in New York.

Christmas Eve was pretty busy. We ended up going out to a few shops. We had to pick up seafood and other groceries for Christmas dinner. We then had to brave the mall. My future mother-in-law apparently made some unwise Christmas purchases for me (including canary yellow dress shirts and a babyblue long sleeve shirt), and when Shell found out she made her exchange them at the mall for more practical styles and colors.

After the mall we headed out to church. The church down here in SC was much different from ours in NY. The mass was over an hour and a half long, and the priest sang everything. Also, the priest was an African (as in from Africa), and he ended up singing some stuff in his tribal tongue, so that was odd. He looked and sounded like Mr. Echo from Lost, so I kept laughing at that.

After church, we headed to Rios Brazilian Steakhouse. There was a cold buffet full of cheeses, bread, veggies, sushi, shrimp, and other items. However, the key component of the restaurant is the endless parade of meat. Servers constantly bring by various meat products, which they carve and serve in front of you. Some of the meats included fillet mignon, leg of lamb, lamb chop, various tender cuts of beef, ribs, bacon-wrapped chicken, sausages, and others. It was extremely tasty, and I was extremely pleased with the constant barrage of meats.

After dinner we headed back to the house. We went online and chatted with Shell’s sisters in Vegas via a webcam. After that we watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and then got all the presents together and placed them other the tree.

Christmas morning was very nice. First off, it was the first time ever that Loki spent the entire night laying down with us without attacking Shell’s hair or without running around like a nut.  By 8am we were all up and ready for presents. We started by opening the stocking stuffers, which consisted of toiletries, candy, and scratch-offs. Then we took a break to eat breakfast, and after that we exchanged the main presents. From Shell and her mom I received a variety of clothing (a lot of stuff for teaching, which I needed), DVDs, history books, and other little things. I got Shell the Rock Band AC/DC PS3 game, which she loved. It was the first time I ever bought her a video game, and Im glad she liked it.

After that we started a slow morning. Throughout the day various neighbors dropped by the house to say hi, so there was constantly something going on. Dinner was a ridiculous event tonight. There was just the three of us, but her mom made a ridiculous amount of food. For appetizer we had a variety of things including cheeses, crackers, and meat pie. For dinner we had a bunch of seafood, including fried calamari, cocktail shrimp, shrimp scampi, clams, mussels, grilled scallops, and king crab legs. It was all delicious, but oh so filling!

The remainder of the night was passed away playing a game called Phase 10 with her moms aunt, which was actually a fun game, and I will probably end up buying it. We also enjoyed a variety of Christmas cookies which were all pretty tasty.

So Christmas was a lot of fun. I enjoyed having a relatively chill time, and didnt really travel all that much. Still, I missed my family. I will be seeing my parents New Years weekend, so thats not all that bad. We are heading home from SC Sunday morning, so we hope to be home by 9-10pm Sunday. Hope everyone had a great Christmas!!!

I have a full review partially done and saved as a draft, so I wont get too much into the game here. All Im gonna say is that it is one of the best RPGs on the PS3…it definitely gives Sacred 2 a run for its money. I had it about a week, and have returned it, simply because I know that I have to buy it, and theres no point wasting my Gamefly time on renting it any longer. I will own this game by the end of the year!

I am going for Beatles Rock Band next. I keep meaning to snag it from Gamefly so that Shell and I can give it a run-through, but the past two months have been full of awesome new releases (Uncharted, Borderlands, WWE, Dragon Age), so I kept pushing it back. But now there is nothing else of interest releasing in the near future, so I will go for the Beatles.