In this video, Kevin takes to the stage to see if his expert level 98% completion behind the drum kit in Rock Band is enough practice to get him behind a real drum kit on stage with the band who recorded the track for the game.

Kevin Pereira Taking His Rock Band Skills For A Test Drive

The whole thing brings up that old band joke:

Q: “What do you call someone who habitually hangs around musicians?”

A: A drummer.

Attack of the Show airs weeknights at 7PM EST on G4TV.

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After watching it a few times, I’m not so sure that I should’ve included it. The tones of the bottles during the test runs at the beginning of the video really don’t match with the tones when the theme is playing, making it seem like it might be a hoax.

What do you think? Is this a fake?

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While I don’t advocate illicit activities, the game is amazingly simple and fun, and holds a place as one of those fun family memories for me. If you’ve never seen your grandma getting rowdy at the dinner table, this is the game that will do it. Twenty years from now, I’ll guarantee that you smile whenever you think about it. I know I do.

Number of Players

The game can be played with any number of people, but works best with groups of 8 or more. The more people that you can get into the game, the better it is.

Time Required

30-45 minutes

Materials

• 6 quarters per person
• 6 dice (scavenge them from old games or pick up a set for a couple of bucks)
• A paper plate or bowl to serve as the pot.

Note: Nothing will kill the momentum of this game faster than everyone hunting around for quarters and dice, so if you intend on introducing the game to a group, show up prepared. Estimate the number of people at a party and bring a resealable bag containing 6 dice and at least 8 quarters per person. That will ensure that you can make at least a couple of dollars worth of change for everyone.

Setup

Each player starts off with 6 quarters in front of them and the bowl or plate is placed in the middle of the table to serve as the pot.

Play

The youngest player in the room starts and play passes clockwise. Players roll one die for each quarter they have in front of them, so the in the first round, everyone will end up rolling all 6 dice at once. If on a subsequent turn a player only has 3 quarters, they will only roll 3 dice. If they have more than 6 quarters, they will only roll 6 dice. The following actions are taken for each die rolled:

For each 1, 2, or 3
Nothing. This is a free pass.

For each 4
Put a quarter in the pot.

For each 5
Pass a quarter to the player counter-clockwise from you.

For each 6
Pass a quarter to the player clockwise from you.

Note: If you forget which direction the money should go, don’t worry. Other players tend to make sure that the money travels to them when it’s supposed to.

Special: The Loser!
If a player rolls all 4′s, 5′s, and 6′s, then they will be left with nothing at the end of their turn. Because this is uncommonly unlucky, all the other players must pound on the table shouting, “LOser! LOser!” several times as they pass away all their coins. This may sound mean, but it adds a bit of rowdy fun to the game. No one escapes this rule: Little kids get called loser, grandma gets called loser, and even your hobo blogger friend gets called loser if all of the dice come up unfavorably.

There is no out!
If a player runs out of quarters, they do not roll any dice, but they are not considered out of the game. It is common for a player with no quarters to be passed several during the course of the game to put them back into play.

Winning

The last person with one or more quarters wins all the pot.

Variations

The standard game costs each person 6 quarters to play, but 5 quarters can speed up larger group games. You can also vary the monetary amount per die (e.g. peanuts, M&M’s, dollar bills, etc.) to adjust for the general financial situation of the group.

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According to various sources, it looks like the game is going to include tracks from The Hellacopters, Backyard Babies, Tenacious D, Slayer (!), ‘Sabbath, Weezer, Aerosmith, I. Ron Maiden, the Scorpions, and it doesn’t look like I’ll ever get Foghat out of my head.

Its rumored to include over 70 songs, half of which will be performed by the original artists. That means we shouldn’t be putting up with as many crappy Danzig covers as we did in previous versions. It’s priced about $10 higher than the Guitar Hero II, but this one is set to include a wireless guitar controller.

Some Tracks That I’ve Been Waiting For:

“3′s and 7′s” – Queens of the Stone Age
“Barracuda” – Heart
“Bulls on Parade” – Rage Against the Machine
“Cherub Rock” – The Smashing Pumpkins
“Mississippi Queen” – Mountain
“The Number of the Beast” – I. Ron Maiden
“Paranoid” – Black Sabbath
“Raining Blood” – Slayer
“Rock and Roll All Nite” – Kiss
“Rock You Like a Hurricane” – Scorpions
“La Grange” – ZZ Top
“The Seeker” – The Who
“Welcome to the Jungle” – Guns ‘n’ Roses
“Slow Ride” – Foghat

And One I Haven’t:

“Go That Far” – Bret Michaels Band

More information can be found on the Guitar Hero III Wikipedia page.

Sloooooow Riiiiiide. NAH nah nuhnuh nuh-nuhnuh Take it eeeeeaaaasy.

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Equipment

• 10 kubbs, which are 3″ x 3″ x 6″ wooden blocks
• 1 King, which is a 3.5″ x 3.5″ x 16″ wooden block
• 6 wooden throwing batons that measure 1.5″ x 14″
• 4 corner markers (rocks, stakes, shoes, etc.)

Goal

Be the first team to knock down all your kubbs and then the king, or be on the opposite team of the player that knocks down the king before knocking down all of their kubbs. Knocking down the king without knocking down the kubbs is like sinking the eight ball out of turn.

Setup

Mark off a 16 by 26 foot field by placing rocks or stakes in the corners. Stand the king in the center and evenly spread five kubbs along each baseline.

Game Play

1. Team 1 throws it’s batons at the kubbs on the opposite baseline. Batons must be thrown underhand and must travel straight or end over end. They cannot be thrown horizontally or sidearm.

2. When Team 1 is finished, Team 2 stands at their baseline and throws any knocked down kubbs back into the other half of the field. These become known as “field kubbs”. Team 2 has two chances to throw each kubb into the opposite half of the field. If they throw the kubb out of bounds twice in a row, the offending kubb is placed 6 inches behind the king.

3. Once all the field kubbs have been thrown, Team 1 stands them up. If a kubb was thrown into the field and it hit another field kubb, the kubbs are stacked on top of each other. There is no limit to how many kubbs can be stacked in this way.

4. Team 2 then must knock down all the field kubbs before throwing at the baseline kubbs. Any baseline kubbs that are knocked down before the field kubbs do not count and are stood back up.

5. When Team 2 is done throwing, Team 1 picks up any knocked down kubbs (both field and baseline) and throws them back into the opposite half of the field for Team 1 to stand up.

6. If Team 2 left any field kubbs standing, Team 1 may throw their batons from behind an imaginary line that runs parallel to the kubb that is closest to the king.

Play continues on this way until one team knocks over all their field and baseline kubbs. That team may then attempt to knock down the king. All attempts on the king must be taken from the baseline. Once the king is knocked down, the game is over.

Sound fun? Be sure to check in on Monday to find out how you can build your own kubb set for dirt cheap!

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One of the most common things that people say when I tell them about 1KBWC is that they’ll just make a card that says “infinity points” and win. Because they are thinking linearly in terms of a single winning scenario, they don’t immediately realize that there are a number of ways to creatively trump a seemingly unbeatable number of points in a game with flexible rules. A couple of simple examples are below.

If you can change the rules, games become more about playing and less about winning. And that mentality can provide a lot more laughter, creativity and satisfaction than the win itself.

Below is everything you should need to get started.

Enjoy!

Materials

• 500 3″x5″ notecards cut into 1000 3″x2.5″ cards
• A pack of black ballpoint pens

Black ballpoints are not required, but they are recommended to give the cards a little bit of consistency. Markers and felt tip pens should be avoided because notecards are cheap, and the ink will leak right through. All the materials can be found at an office supply store like Staples (including the card cutting) for about $6.

Deck Preparation

Put a pile of blank cards in the middle of the table
3-4 Players use 40 cards
5-6 Players use 60 cards

Add previously made cards
If you have played before, add 20 (or 30) previously made cards.
If this is your first game, add 20 (or 30) blank cards.

Depending on the number of players, you now have either a 60 or 90 card deck. Don’t shuffle it just yet.

Deal out the starter cards from the deck
3-5 Players: Deal each person 6 blank cards.
4-6 Players: Deal each person 5 blank cards.

Create your cards
Each player then takes a few minutes to turn the blank cards they were just dealt into actual cards. When all the cards have been created, add them back to the deck in the center of the table and shuffle it well.

Playing the Game

Deal five cards to each player. Play moves clockwise from the dealer’s left.

A turn consists of taking the top card from the deck and then playing a card. Cards can be played either on yourself, on another player, or to the center of the table (in which case it affects all the players, including yourself).

If the card has a point value or some other sort of lasting effect, it stays in front of the player it was played on (or in the middle of the table) until it is nullified by another card. Otherwise, it is placed in the discard pile.

If you have a blank card in your hand, you must turn it into a playable card during another player’s turn.

If a player cannot play a card, then they draw a second card from the deck and pass their turn. If there are no cards left in the deck, the game is over. Any cards left in players hands are discarded, and the winner is determined.

Winning

Typically, the player with the highest score wins, unless this is modified by a card during the game.

Epilogue

Take all the cards from the game and spread them out on the table, face-up. If this is only your first or second game, keep only 30 cards. If you’ve played several games, keep 60. If you’re a 1KBWC regular, you may want to keep 90. Divide whichever number you choose by the number of players. This is the number of cards each player can choose as their favorites.

After all the favorites have been chosen, they are collected and put into a pile. You now have a stockpile of the best cards in the game, which will be used as a starter deck for future games. Unchosen cards can be put aside.

Doing this after every game ensures that the deck gets better and better.

Recommendations

If you’re still on the fence about playing or you need some creative fodder to get your card building brain revved up, take a look at a 1KBWC Random card Server to get an idea of why this game can be so much fun.

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(Clicking the shirts will land you in porn, and porn is NSFW)

Note: This post ended up having a link in place of the pictures because the image location of the shirts changed. Nothing like allowing the interwebs to fuck up the flow of a post.

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After Christmas, we tore into all of the new card and board games, and when we all weren’t trying to figure out the obscure rules to games like Munchkin and Killer Bunnies, my sister and I took stole a couple of hours to play co-op and head-to-head games of Guitar Hero II. There is a picture of the event floating around a memory card somewhere that perfectly expresses how we both felt at the time. I was seated and relaxed, my feet up and a pillow behind my back like an musician who needs a stool on stage. My sister, on the other hand, stood in a certified rock stance, with the pained and horrified expression of someone who was playing against the devil for their very soul. To even the playing field, I played expert to her medium, but I have to say that she solidly whooped me a couple of times.

After the first week, the Christmas festivities came to a close and my sister returned to her coast, leaving #1GF! and I with nothing to do but slow down and unplug. The average day would start by waking up naturally at 8 AM without nightmarish earworms being jammed into my brain by the one FM station that actually comes in on our clock radio. On the off chance that I chose to shower, the natural mental quiet would make the shower feel like a real shower, rather than the damp, looping, musical Chinese water torture that I face on most normal work days.

In the interest of conserving nature’s resources, I would usually skip the shower and transfer myself directly to the big, purple couch to enjoy breakfast and an episode of Jerry Springer. Afterward, a portion of the day would be spent on emptying the DVR, watching shows from Peekvid, or chipping away at six seasons of Trailer Park Boys.

My sister gave me three of the six seasons of the Canadian comedy on DVD for Christmas, and once we chewed through that hysterical shit blizzard, we watched the remaining three seasons by searching for them on Daily Motion (Shows are marked with season and episode numbers such like S01E01 for “Season 1 Episode 1″ so that you can watch them all in order.)

To tell you the truth, I may have overdosed on the show, because at one point while playing a web-based game, I told #1GF! that I sucked at the game because I could figure it “oot”. She stared at me and cautiously asked “Did you just…”
“I did,” I said, ” but I didn’t mean it.”

Somewhere around 2 PM, I would eat lunch, start talking like Bubbles from the show, and maybe remember to brush my teeth. Then, I would return to the couch until I got back into bed at 11 PM.

I didn’t think about work.
I didn’t check e-mail.
I didn’t blog.
I didn’t even turn on my PC.

And, now I have returned to the connected world once again. Welcome me back, bitches.

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What do you get when you combine a wireless mouse, a PC that’s hooked up to the TV, and a bunch of flash based games? In my house, you end up with a stinky, bleary-eyed couple who skips showering and orders out for food because they are so focussed on beating each others scores. Good times. Gooooooood times.

Sunday

After washing off a days worth of gaming stink, we raided Michael’s and Home Depot, gathering ideas for all sorts of new and useless projects to eat spare brain cycles. Although we did not go so far as to buy a soap making kit, we bought plenty of stuff that will probably end up being pulled from the back of a closet in a couple of years with a quizzical, “Now, what the hell did we buy this for?”

Monday

We did a small amount of shopping at Ikea to find more junk for our projects, ate baked potato soup in a bread bowl, and watched a movie. I also think we drank tea. I spent the tail end of the day staring at the parts to my project as if my brain could force them to assemble themselves. Despite a lot of advanced raised eyebrow staring, this did not happen. In the meantime, #1GF! secretly continued gaming, to ensure victory lest she be challenged again.

Today

So, this wasn’t a part of the long weekend, because we went to work, but I had to include it for contrast, and to suggest that there is balance in the world.

My morning commute choices were limited to driving behind a school bus, a city bus, a dump truck, or cars filled with morons who couldn’t grasp the purpose of the strange white dashes on the road. Whenever a lane choice presented itself, I inevitably chose incorrectly, adding another 20 minutes to my commute.

After finally making it to work, the hallway containing mailbox that would take the 8 letters off my hands was suddenly under construction, leaving me to stare at the construction like an ant who suddenly has snot wiped across his trail.

I walked back to my desk, picked up my cup to get some water only to find out that not one, but both water machines were dead. I managed to get a trickle out of one, which I foolishly drank.

The water led to an upset stomach and eventual migraine, which I tried to ignore on my lunch hour while raiding Home Depot for more items to take apart and strew all over #1GF!’s clean counter and floor.

Upon arriving at Home Depot, I parked waaaaay in the back of the parking lot, in a spot that was far away from any carriages and only open to company on one side. I even parked far enough from the truck in the next spot that I would’ve had to have left my passenger door open in order for him to hit my car. Feeling satisfactorily safe, I went into the Depot in search of more project related stuff to disassemble.

When I returned, I found that despite my efforts, the driver of the truck next to me managed to use my generously donated extra space to put a dent in the side of my car with what looks like the corner of a piece of sheet rock. The white smear on the side of my black car wasn’t something you could miss, but the fucker tucked his tail between his legs and drove off before I could get back. I exclaimed, “Fuckin’ Douchebags” loud and to no one in particular before shaking my head and returning to work for the next 4 hours before getting in my car and heading home.

And just when I figured that I was in the clear, some jackhole in a barge who couldn’t get his stupid ass to the dock in one of the twenty other non-rush hour hours, forced the Fore River Bridge open, leaving me stranded in a parking lot of rush hour traffic.

Some days, it just doesn’t pay to shower up and shut off the games.

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The catch? The samples are all drums.

Instructions

Clicking on will play the sample. Clicking on will give you the answer. If you were right, click anywhere in the box to turn it green. If you were wrong, click anywhere in the box to turn it red.

Scoring

When you’re done, marking all the colors, click “Score Me” at the bottom to display your score. Because you’re self-scoring, what you call a correct answer is up to you. It can be as strict as whether you know both the title and the artist, or simply whether you can hum a couple of notes. Have fun with it.

Score Me

It should be noted that while I am really, really handy with Perl, I wrote this all in . Because I’m really, really rusty in , you may have noticed a complete lack of posts over the last two weeks while I put this bitch together. It was partly because of the , but mostly because WordPress doesn’t really like to play with without some arm wrestling. I would like to have written it in Flash, but I was stopped by both the $400 entry fee and the fact that I’d probably still be working on it. As always, the only reason that I do this crap is so #1GF! and you might have some fun.

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After instantaneously looking up new and used PS2s online, I found that even a used one couldn’t be had for less than $90. It was at that point that I became aware of my inner geek who said,

“Just what the hell are you doing? A real geek wouldn’t be price shopping for a new PS2 right now. A real geek would get a screwdriver and open that fucker up to find out what’s was wrong with it. It’s dead, the warranty was over 5 years ago, and even if it catches fire, you’re no worse off than you are right now. You’ve got a whole bunch of screwdrivers, a fire extinguisher, nothing to lose, and you’re standing here comparison shopping? I’m actually feeling ashamed of you, right now.”

My inner geek was right. I closed out pricegrabber, and did a little googling on PS2 repair. Eventually, I came across an excellent article showing how to take apart the PS2 to clean and readjust the laser. After successfully performing those tasks, I realized that the disc loading issues were due to a grinding noise coming from the screw that drove the laser up and down its guide rails.

If you hear a grinding from inside a PS2, the lube that you are going to need to fix it is not red lithium grease or plain lithium grease, which you can get at Wal-Mart in the auto section. No. The stuff you need is called white lithium grease. The problem is that while a few forums might mention that this is the stuff you need, no forum or article actually tells you where you can get it. Neither does Google.

I’m here to tell you. You can get White Lithium Grease at Sears in the Tool/Automotive section for about $3 a tube.

You smear the head of a Q-tip full of grease and run it along the two laser guide rails and on snake motor screw, and put the rest back in your tool box, never to be used again. You then gently move the laser assembly up and down the rails until it moves smoothly without catching. Once it does, reassemble the console and pop in your favorite game.

By doing this, you can rid yourself of $87 if not $126 worth of shame and get back into the ring.

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Sure enough, they did. I left the store with 3 games for me, and 2 games for other people, with a marked cost of around $200. I walked out of the store with all 5 games for a grand total of $40. While I’m not particularly fond of button-mashing fighting games, I remembered Def Jam Fight For NY getting good ratings on Gamespot. When it priced out at less than $9, I found it impossible to resist.

The basic premise of the game is that you’re the new guy in a underground fighting gang that sponsors underground fights and you climb your way to the top of the food chain. At first glance, the unique feature of this game is that the all the people that you fight are today’s Rap and Hip Hop stars. The other unique feature that I was unaware of is the game’s brazen brutality. I’m no stranger to violent video games, but after popping the disc into the console, I sat there slack-jawed and almost appalled at the absolute brutal nature of the fighting in the game. This is marked mature for a reason.

You start the game by creating your own character including height weight, build, skin tone, facial shape, nose shape, eye type, eye color, ear shape, and voice preference. In essence, if you’re a guy, you’re building a cartoonish model of yourself. From there, you have to learn one of five skills (street fighting, kick boxing, submissions, martial arts, or wrestling) from the gym master Henry Rollins. What Henry fucking Rollins has to do with hip-hop, I have no idea, but I find it both cool and corny that he actually sends text messages to me to get my ass down his gym to hone my fighting skills (the only person that I might’ve found more amusing in the role might have been Glen Danzig). Did I say my skills? I meant the skills of the 6’0, 210 pound, blue eyed, brown haired, street fighting character with the big ears and crooked nose that I created.

Once you’re “in the game”, the learning curve is a little steep, but once I got the hang of it, it’s pretty fun. There are the basic punching, kicking, and grappling moves, but game also includes specialized moves that can be purchased from Rollins. These moves are similar to finishing moves found in other fighting games, but without the complicated button mashing that is usually required to execute them. This should not imply that the game itself is simple, though. Each opponent has a unique style and takes me an average of 5-10 rounds to beat. While this type of repetition would normally have me shutting the console off in frustration, I find myself happily getting pounded round after round. What is more unusual about this is that I don’t really consider myself a fan of fighting games.

#1GF! finds it more than a little disturbing to watch her boyfriend get his ass kicked by Ice T over and over again, but I have to say that there’s something very satisfying about controlling a fighter that looks and dresses like you. And even if I felt a little bad about eventually kicking Ice T’s ass (he is the O.G., after all), I can tell you that there is immense satisfaction in watching that tiny version of me kicking the shit out of Sean Paul.

Pros:
New level of brutality
Very custom characters
Vast finishing moves with relatively simple execution
Paying back Sean Paul for his music

Cons
You have to buy clothes and jewelery
Long, long load times

Platforms
PS2, XBox, GameCube

Cost
$9 at CircuitCity

Rating
B+

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Unfortunately, playing more than two levels requires registration.

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Check it: Old Grandma Hardcore

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