The Irony of Rum

Just came back from the Motherland -
the land of rum,
the place where it all comes from.
Where good boys and pirates go when they die.
Specifically, St. Croix, USVI. 
[That damn good bit of poetry was completely accidental, by the way.]

There are two rum distilleries on the island of St. Croix: Captain Morgan and Cruzan. They're located generally at opposite ends of the airport. Cruzan is the older brand and rightfully claims to be the native rum of St. Croix. They've been there for 250 years, although ownership has changed multiple times. "Cruzan" itself is the term used to refer to St. Croix natives, whereas Captain Morgan - a real life historical figure - was the Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. There's little to suggest that Morgan, the man, ever stepped foot on St. Croix or that he had any connection to any particular brand of rum. So, two rums, one named after a guy whose connection to St. Croix is tenuous at best and the other a perhaps lesser-known brand with 250 years of history on St. Croix. 

Couldn't contact Cruzan to get reservations for their tour, but we managed to get the tour at Captain Morgan, which is well worth the $10. In addition to a brief walking tour of the facility and explanation of how it's all done, plus a short movie, you get to taste several of the Captain's products. And, THEN you get two rum-based cocktails (your choice from a nice selection). Let me tell ya. . . at 10:00 AM, that's enough to get a good buzz going. Especially when you miss breakfast at the hotel to catch your flight from St. Thomas. The "movie" is really just a compilation of the commercials made for the latest Captain Morgan ad campaign. But, since you will never see these on TV in the U.S. and they're pretty entertaining, sit back with your morning cocktail, ignore the blatant ripoff of Capt. Jack Sparrow, and enjoy.

Rum is essentially fermented molasses, distilled, and then flavored or aged or both. Captain Morgan stresses that their focus is on spiced, NOT aged, rum. They are quite emphatic about it, although they do store their product in barrels for at least some period of time. This technically constitutes "aging," but apparently any effects of this aging are incidental rather than intentional.

Funnily enough, the barrels that they store rum in are used bourbon barrels from distilleries in Kentucky. One simply cannot ignore the fact that a used bourbon barrel will impart a certain quality to the rum - but Captain Morgan does not make aged rum. Just ask 'em. They'll tell ya. Repeatedly. Anyway, they ship these used bourbon barrels to the Virgin Islands where the barrels are reconditioned and filled. The tour takes you as far as the barreling facility where you get to see and smell the product at five different stages of completion, starting with raw molasses and ending with pre-aged, non-spiced white rum. That's what they make at the distillery and that's pretty much where it ends. When enough full barrels of rum are amassed in the off-site barrel storage buildings, they're brought back to the barreling house and emptied into large shipping vessels. This is where things get weird.

Before we go on, you need to be aware that milk in the Virgin Islands sells for $5.00 or more per gallon (as of early 2018) and a case of serving-sized bottles of orange juice goes for $38. On the mainland, milk goes for less than $2 and a case of orange juice might cost you $14. Conversely, a 750 ml bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum sells for around $20 on the mainland.  (You *can* find it for a little less, but that's a fair average price across the board.) In the Virgin Islands, $10. Tops. Usually $9 and some change and occasionally even less on sale at the grocery stores. The only places that sell it for more than $10 are the duty free shops at the airports, proving once again that "duty free" shopping is the biggest ripoff in retail.

It was a little hard to comprehend that rum was cheaper than milk or juice in the Caribbean. Hell, for me, it was hard to comprehend that every grocery store sells hard alcohol. The fact that they do just made it more ironic that the alcohol is much cheaper than the food. That's not even the weird part.

You're probably thinking, "Well, of course rum is cheaper in the Caribbean. They make it there!" Seems logical. Except that ALL hard alcohol is significantly cheaper there: rum, bourbon, Kahlua, vodka, you name it. Clearly where it's made has nothing to do with the pricing. OK, so probably there's just no excise tax on booze, right? That would explain how they sell bourbon, Kahlua, vodka, and every other imaginable kind of booze cheaper in the Virgin Islands than what it costs on the mainland. But, there's more:

I told you they pump the finished rum out of barrels and into shipping containers. Guess what happens next. Those shipping containers, at least the ones from Captain Morgan's facility, are shipped to - wait for it - Springfield, Illinois where it is "spiced" and bottled. That's right. The main ingredient may be made on St. Croix but the Caribbean booze named for an English privateer who was Lt. Governor of Jamaica is really made in Illinois - a decidedly un-tropical, virtually land-locked state. And, there's still more to the story.

After they add the secret spices to Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum and put it into bottles in Illinois, all that rum you can buy in the USVI for less than $10 a bottle is shipped to the USVI from Illinois! In the end, rum should probably cost at least twice as much in the USVI as it does on the US mainland. But, thankfully, it doesn't. Why? Nobody knows, mate.

The Road Not Taken - A Misunderstood Poem

This classic poem by Robert Frost is grossly misrepresented by English teachers and misinterpreted by students.

 

Was the road taken really “the one less traveled by?” No. And, that’s not even the point of the poem.

This poem isn’t an ode to being a rebel as I (and probably others) have long believed. It’s a simple reflection on the timeless impact of seemingly minor decisions.

Frost says he took the road less traveled by, but it surely doesn’t sound like he did. In stanza 2, Mr. Frost says he “took the other (road) as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim [b]ecause it was grassy and wanted wear. . . “ But, then he says the passing there had worn both roads “really about the same.” And, in stanza 3 he goes on to say that “both (roads) that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.” The roads were identical but for one perhaps having a bit more grass on it.

 

Frost didn't take the high road or blaze his own trail. He simply had to choose between two very similar courses of action and his decision is what “made all the difference.” We all face seemingly insignificant decisions every day which alter the course of our lives from that point onward. For a time, we can save the alternate path for another day, but eventually, as Frost points out, way leads on to way and we leave those forks behind us forever.

Frost should have rewritten the penultimate line of the poem. It's misleading. Frost is not encouraging the reader to “take the road less traveled.” He doesn't even make a good case that he took the road less traveled. Frost is simply saying, “Every decision you make in life will alter your course forever.” The subtext being, “So choose wisely.”

Are Taylor Swift and John Mellencamp Related?

I know this is a bizarre-sounding question, but is there a possibility that Taylor Swift (my celebrity crush) and John "Johnny Cougar" Mellencamp (one of my favorite singers) could be distant relatives?

My Apologies to John Who Probably Hates this Picture



Here's how this even came up:

I was curious to know whether Taylor was really a sweet little down-home country girl or if she might possibly be a little hard to deal with on a personal level. I have not only heard that the latter was true but I have surmised it based on the trail of high-profile ex-boyfriends she has created by the tender age of 22. So, I looked her up on Wikipedia.

Sure enough, while Taylor lived on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania for a while, both of her parents were executives in the financial world. She summered at a vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey and spent a good bit of her childhood riding horses.  English style. That's the kind where you wear a helmet and funny pants - not jeans and boots and a cowboy hat. Hardly the life of a Tennessee country girl.

What's more, her mother was raised at least partly in Singapore and her mom's father was an oil company petroleum engineer who worked overseas. (That means he made a boatload of money, in case you didn't know that.) Mr. Swift, Taylor's dad, comes from a long line of bank presidents (three generations' worth, to be precise). The Swifts are not your average American working class family and never were. Not that any of that matters. I still think she's totally gorgeous, but I was curious.

Anyway, among the tidbits I found on her extensive Wikipedia page was this: One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay (née Moehlenkamp), sing.^[8]

Did you catch that? Taylor Swift's grandma's last name was "Moehlenkamp."

Now, I'm no expert - and it's a little hard to tell where Granny is from (she was an opera star in Singapore and a recording star in Puerto Rico) - but Moehlenkamp and Mellencamp look awfully similar to me. They also sound very similar if you say them out loud.

Just made me wonder if there's a family connection somewhere back in history.

Abraham Lincoln - The Great Emancipator, Who Didn't Give a Damn About Black People

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races — that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.” — Abraham Lincoln (Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858; The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145–146.)

Still think Lincoln started the Civil War because he cared deeply about equality among blacks and whites? Hooey. Thanks for the burdensome, overgrown Federal legacy, Abe. 

In Praise of Vinyl Records (CDs Suck)

This weekend I realized just how great the old vinyl records were. This was sort of a watershed realization for me because CDs are one of few technological advances in my lifetime that I liked. Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of technology. I find most new gizmos to be entirely unnecessary. But, when CDs came out in the 80s I thought they were the greatest thing since casette tapes. Which they were. But, it turns out they really aren't that great. After this past weekend, I'm inclined to say records, for all their faults, were better than CDs in virtually every way.



Typical Hi-Fi Rack System

In college, I had a couple of room-mates who were "hi-fi" afficianados. "Hi-fi," for those of you under 40, is the original "-fi." It's short for "high fidelity." That's what audio enthusiasts listened to back in the days before home theatre systems and MP3 players brought quality audio to the masses. Hi-fi guys had separate amplifiers and tuners and equalizers and turntables, literally racks of equipment just to listen to music.


Our Parents' Hi-Fi System

Hi-fi people had a kind of geeky arrogance and shopped in special stores that may as well have had XXX on the windows - like audio porn. The rest of us listened to our music on portable record players from Sears or our parents' console stereo systems which, like their televisions, were cleverly disguised as furniture with speakers and evertything else hidden inside. Lo-Fi.

My Uncle's Reel to Reel

Except for the true purists who listened to very limited selections of classical music on reel to reel tapes, hi-fi and lo-fi types alike listened to music on black vinyl disks called "records." You put a record on a turntable, set the speed to 33 or 45 rpm, placed a "needle" on the spinning record, and music came out of the speakers. (Most turntables had a 78 rpm setting, too, but I've never seen a 78 record in my life. Maybe they were the Betamax's of the record world - superior but undermarketed.)

The Needle

They still sell turntables. You've probably seen the new USB-compatible ones which allow vinyl recordings to be dumped directly onto computers and saved as MP3s. Frankly, I'm a little curious as to how many people still own vinyl records. I mean, CDs have been around for 20 years or so and the only place I ever see records is in unsorted piles at thrift stores. But, I'm glad to know that people are preserving them. Even though virtually everything I ever owned on vinyl is now readily available as a digitally remastered MP3 or CD, I like the idea of preserving physical copies of things rather than reducing everything to 1s and 0s. Someday we may have no way of translating those 1s and 0s back into something meaningful.

Pile of Records

Anyway, a couple of guys I went to college with had hi-fi systems with speaker towers the size of end tables and amplifiers made by companies I'd never heard of. Their turntables were precision machines. The needles were mounted on meticulously balanced arms which were adjustable so that the needles themselves exerted the absolute minimum pressure on the vinyl records. Listening to music involved gently placing a record on the turntable without touching anything but the very edge of the record itself, starting the turntable motor, and then using a velvet lint brush to remove any dust or other microscopic debris from the record before ever-so-gently placing the needle on the desired track. There was also some sort of solution you lightly sprayed on the lint brush to eliminate static electricity. If you were listening to the Eagles' Hotel California and you wanted to hear Foreigner's Hot Blooded, you had to repeat this ritual with a whole different piece of vinyl. In short, listening to music on a hi-fi system was a huge pain in the ass.

The Vinyl Lathe

I had what might be best described as a vinyl lathe - a portable record player that you just plugged into any electrical outlet and threw records on. There was a cheap speaker built into the naugahyde-covered particle board box. It was a mechanical marvel in that the record player itself would drop records down the center shaft automatically and the needle would lift itself up and store itself at the end of a record. Never mind that the effect of dropping a stationary record onto a spinning record was pretty much the same as using sandpaper on both of them. You could throw a stack of records on the spindle and they'd just keep playing automatically until you got to the end of the stack. You didn't exactly feel like you were at the recording studio listening to the band playing, but you could listen to any music that you wanted to buy and it didn't sound too bad. As I recall, a "single" (actually two songs, one on each side of the record) sold for about a buck and a half when I was a teen, about the same as two MP3 downloads today. LPs (long-play), or albums, were about $15. Sometimes a lot more. Hi-fi guys were fanatics about their records, but at those prices even your average teen treated records with at least some respect.

This CD will not Play. . .

When my hi-fi roomie came back from the Chicago electronics and audio exposition in 1985, he described this new medium on which you could store music. He described how guys in the expo hall played frisbee with these little disks and dropped them on the floor and then just stuck them into a little player without even wiping them off! And, they sounded perfect. No scratches. No hiss. No random pops caused by static. Magic! One day these disks and the mysterious players that played them would even be available for sale to the general public for less than a thousand dollars. Unfortunately, the CDs we members of the public finally saw were not manufactured like the original prototypes. Like most things, quality was sold out in the name of profits, and today's CDs are junk.

Will Any of These CDs Play? Who Knows?

Flash forward to this past weekend. My son and his classmates are standing in a recording studio as part of a class project. They've got to take a popular song of their choosing and lay their own vocal track (with their own lyrics) over the music. The studio engineer pops the kids' CD into his computer to lay down the music track and, lo and behold!, the computer won't read it. Who knows why? The very same disk apparently played just fine in the owner's CD player. The studio computer played other CDs just fine. There doesn't appear to be any physical damage to the disk. Still, it will not play. Another copy of the music track was obtained and the show went on. But, not without a significant and probably permanent shift in my attitude toward CDs. I mean, what the hell? Stuff should work, right?

The experience caused me to realize that for all their inconvenience vinyl records were superior to CDs in just about every conceivable way. Every single time I've ever put a record on a record player, it played. Even a record with a crack or a skip in it would play. If one track on an album had a flaw in it, you could still listen to every other track on that album. I once had a record with a hole in it; I couldn't listen to the two songs where the hole was but I could still listen to all the other songs on that album. I just had to be very careful not to let the needle fall into the hole. Easy to do because I could see the hole. You can actually listen to a record on an old turntable with no electricity; it's very quiet and you have to spin the record by hand at a consistent speed, but it can be done. Try that with a CD. Sure, records popped and hissed and sometimes skipped. They also worked.

And, they were tangible. Yes, using the lint brush on every record every time you listened was a pain. But, there was also something satisfying about physically holding your music in your hands. I think I may have to go buy one of those turntables this week.

Rocksmith Guitars - A Mixed Lesson in Getting What You Pay For

One of the coolest things about Rocksmith is that, while you do need a real guitar to play it, you don't need an expensive guitar. You can play Rocksmith with a cheap, no-name knock-off just well as a hand-made custom. With one caveat: Make sure you've got good strings.

[WARNING: If you think Epiphone guitars aren't worth playing simply because they aren't Gibsons, read no further. This blog is not for you. The Gibson/Epiphone argument won't be entertained here. If Epiphone guitars were good enough for Les Paul himself to use in the studio, they're good enough for me. End of discussion.]

A few years ago I decided to get electric guitars for my kids for Christmas. My kids were only 8and 10 years old at the time, so I got some really, really cheap guitars. They cost maybe $40 each. Somebody was selling a bunch of blemished guitars on-line - really cheap and perfect for my purpose. If the kids tore them up, I wasn't out much.

I doubt those guitars had been played in the past 3 years. But, I put down my Epiphone Les Paul this weekend and grabbed my son's old guitar just to see what it would do. As cheap as it was, this guitar worked just fine with Rocksmith. To my surprise, it was still pretty close to being in tune after many months of lying around in a gig bag (even though it's got the same strings on it that came on it over 3 years ago). The ability of a guitar to stay in tune is probably one of the most important things to look for in a Rocksmith interface - or, really, any student guitar. Sustains may be a little weak on a cheap axe and this might cost you a few bonus points when playing, but crappy sustain won't actually hurt your score in most Rocksmith songs. The most important thing is that when you play a G on your guitar, Rocksmith "hears" a G and not a G-flat.

Plenty of wanna-be rock stars on Internet forums will tell you that you absolutely must spend at least $300 on a student guitar, but that's a load of crap. My son's $40 thrasher is easy to play, doesn't buzz, and stays in tune. For playing Rocksmith, that's all you need. Unless you plan to play in front of other people for money, that's probably all you'll ever need. Period. (Plus, my son's $40 thrasher weighs about half as much as my Epiphone Les Paul, which is lighter than a Gibson Les Paul by about 3 pounds; a cheapie is much easier for my son to handle. A 12 lb. guitar gets very heavy after a while, even for a grown man.)

You don't need a great guitar to play Rocksmith, but there's a limit to how far you can take the cheap road. For example, don't buy your guitar strings at Wal-Mart.

Because I had been playing my guitar a LOT lately, I decided to restring my Les Paul this weekend. I had ten sets of strings lying around so I grabbed a set, put them on, and fired up Rocksmith for another session. And, suddenly, instead of getting better, my scores on songs that I've been playing for a few weeks started dropping. I couldn't get a Phrase Level Up no matter what I tried. And, just about every note I played was either sharp or flat. There were more yellow arrows and Phrase Level Down and Late and Missed Pull-off messages on the screen than notes. Didn't take long to guess what the problem was.

A year or two ago I found a bunch of guitar strings on sale for a really, really good price. Now, I have a pretty good understanding of both metallurgy and economics and I'm not generally a betting man. But, when I find something marked down to give-away prices - in this case, full sets of brand new guitar strings for $1.00 - I'm almost always willing to take a chance. So, I bought 10 sets. Since I'm not really a guitar player, don't play a lot, and rarely change strings, 10 sets represented a virtual lifetime supply of guitar strings for me. And, ten bucks is roughly what I'd normally spend on one set of strings. So, I think I can be forgiven for ignoring the fact that these were First Act brand strings on the clearance aisle at Wal-Mart. What I had were toy strings for toy guitars. Apparently they're made of recycled beer cans because they sound like crap right after tuning and then they go out of tune and sound worse.

Lesson: Do NOT use cheap guitar strings, not even on a cheap guitar! Cough up ten bucks for some decent strings.

Before I tanked my progress on Rocksmith, I had to make an emergency run to my local big-box music retailer to buy some real guitar strings. I actually found a promo 3-pack from a very well-known guitar maker on sale for less than $7.00. It was hard to believe the difference in sound and the effect on my Rocksmith scores. In a way, this makes sense. On an electric guitar, the strings are really the only things making sound; there's no guitar body to resonate that sound, just some electrical pick-ups to translate the sound into electrical signals. Of course you can spend more money and get nicer sustains and better intonation, but keep things in perspective. Most of the songs in Rocksmith (and rock in general) use considerable amounts of distortion and reverb; a $40 cheap-o guitar is going to sound just as good as a 1952 Gibson Les Paul Custom. And, if you're playing Rocksmith, you probably aren't going to pay $1000 for a guitar anyway. The good news is you don't need to!

So, don't even let the fact that you don't own an electric guitar keep you from checking out Rocksmith. Go buy a cheap guitar and play! Just make sure you get some good strings.

(Rocksmith and Epiphone also offer an official bundle which includes Rocksmith and an Epiphone guitar. Not a bad option for anyone who doesn't already have a guitar lying around.)

A Rocksmith Review by a Drummer

As a drummer who has owned a guitar for nearly 35 years, I love Rocksmith. I bought an XBox 360 just so we could play Rocksmith at our house. That's how much I love Rocksmith. My kids, neither of whom have ever had a music lesson, also love Rocksmith. It's an absolute blast for a wide range of ages and skill levels. Even if you're already a Professional Guitar Player, this game could be some fun.

And, contrary to what a lot of know-it-all's have spouted on forums all over the Internet, you WILL learn something. No, Rocksmith will not show you how to finger pick or teach you music theory. Yes, Rocksmith gives you the latitude to pick up bad habits. But, if you want to major in guitar performance at Julliard or Berklee, you should be taking lessons from Joe Satriani or Stevie Vai. The rest of us can relax and enjoy playing, knowing that guitar greats like Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn taught themselves to play by listening to records. Rocksmith is like playing along with a record (CD for those of you under 30, MP3 for those of you under 20) with tablature streaming simultaneously across your TV.

My kids played Rocksmith at a music retailer before we bought it. When we got home that night, my 11-year old son picked up his guitar for the first time in over a year and played exactly what he had learned from playing RS at the store (Satisfaction by the Stones). When we got our own set-up, I picked up my guitar and - for the first time in over 30 years of guitar ownership - actually learned a song from beginning to end. In about a month, I've learned 15 songs. A few of them I'd be comfortable playing on stage from memory. Anyone who says you won't or can't learn to play guitar from playing Rocksmith is just being an ass.

The premise of the Rocksmith game is that you are starting out on your Journey to become a rock star. Rocksmith creates editable Setlists of three to five songs each for you to learn from a library of about 50 songs. Once you reach a minimum qualifying score on each song in a Setlist, Rocksmith unlocks an Event for you to play at some fictional venue. You start your Journey as an Amateur and advance by increasing your overall score. Venues get bigger as you climb toward the 11th and highest level of achievement - Rocksmith. (I'm currently a Local Headliner, the 4th level.)

If you just want to play some songs on a your guitar, you can do that. The entire song library is stored in a big alphabetized list under the main menu and new DLC is added to the on-line Store all the time. You don't have go on "the Journey" at all, but I personally find that the scoring system and unlock incentives make it challenging and fun to practice.
Scoring 70,000 or higher on a song will unlock a new effects pedal which you can actually use to modify your guitar's sound within the Amp portion of the software. (You can also unlock new guitars, but these are nothing more than achievement "badges," which - unlike the armor upgrades in Halo - you can't even actually see in the game itself.)

I've played more guitar in the past month than probably the previous 3 years put together. I continually find myself saying, "OK. Once more through this song and I'm quitting for the night." And, then I play that song again. And again. And again. The Riff Repeater lets you learn songs piece by piece before you ever try playing through the entire song, or you can use Riff Repeater to drill the hard parts of any song. There are Technique Challenges with olympic-medal style incentives. And, there are Guitar-Cade games to which make boring stuff like scales more fun. So, there's a considerable amount of flexibility in how you use Rocksmith. Much more fun than sitting in a room by yourself running scales for hours at a time.

Qualifying a song for an Event is often pretty easy, but really getting it down is a different story. When you do get good enough, there's a Master Level where it's just you, the backup band, and a thousand screaming fans. You have to play the songs from memory. I don't know what that takes to reach the Master Level. I've scored over 100,000 on one song so far and still haven't made it there.

There's a multiplayer feature which lets two people play at the same time - without being on the same skill level. My son and I can play at the same time, either playing the same part or splitting rhythm and lead. Doing something creative with your kids or friends rather than sitting on your ass shooting aliens? That alone makes Rocksmith worth every bit of $79.99 - even if you DO have to read the set-up instructions and run analog audio cables. (For multi-player mode, you will need an extra True-Tone cable which will cost you another $30. Still well worth the price.)

There are some things about the design that I'd change if I had the smarts to write game software but overall it works fine like it is. Most of the songs that come with Rocksmith are pretty good. There's only a small handful that I would delete. You can download new songs for about $2.00 each through XBox Live. Not sure how DLC works for PS users.

To play, you need a guitar (just about any guitar with a pick-up on it will do) and a game console, currently either an XBox or PS. A release for PCs is due out this Spring. You don't need an expensive guitar, but it's helpful if your guitar will at least stay in tune. Otherwise, it'll be very hard for you to make any progress in the game and you'll sound horrible.

You'll also need some way to run analog audio from your game console to some speakers or headphones - through a home theatre receiver, for example. This game is unplayable if you insist on ignoring the very clear on-screen directions for hooking up your system. The audio delay that you'll get using HDMI cabling or your TV speakers makes Rocksmith virtually impossible to play. This issue is already widely known and Rocksmith addresses the issue right on the screen before you ever play the first note. As with most things in life, if you read the directions first you'll have no problems with audio latency.

Overall, Rocksmith rocks. The detractors are entitled to their opinions, of course, but I wouldn't give their opinions much weight. Unless you already think you are some kind of guitar god, you will really, really enjoy Rocksmith and also learn quite a lot from playing it, kids included. Best $110.00 (with extra cable) I've spent in a long, long time. And, when you consider that you can use Rocksmith as a practice amp - with a whole bunch of effects pedals built-in - even the additional $299 I spent on an XBox makes Rocksmith look like a very, very good buy.

One Month of Rocksmith

Exactly one month has passed since Santa Clause left a new XBox and Rocksmith game under our Christmas tree, but we've really only had access for a few weeks. First, we went out of town for a week the day after Christmas. Then there was the latency issue, now mostly resolved. So, we've really only been playing Rocksmith for something like two weeks.

We may still have some minor adjustment to do on the audio-to-video latency. If I watch the video while playing, I seem to be "off" just a bit. If I don't watch the video part too closely and just listen to the back-up music and vocals, I do fine. Of course, I can't do that until I've learned the song somewhat. I'm sure we can tweak this using the adjustment provided within the game, but it's livable as is.

I've got an industrial-strength callous on the tip of my left index finger that goes down to the subdermal layer. I've even got a pretty good callous on my left pinky finger. In short, I've played more guitar since Christmas than I've played in the combined 35 years since I bought my first guitar. Say what you like about whether Rocksmith is an effective teaching tool. It's a darn fine motivator to pick up a guitar and play, which is ironically what many detrators of Rocksmith advocate as "the only way" to learn.

In 35 years, I've never been able to do much more than strum a rather limited selection of chords. As of today, I've worked my way pretty well through a dozen whole songs - chords AND single notes - to a point where I'd play them in front of people. As I indicated, I've owned and played at the guitar for many years. But, my son has not and he's also learning (with a few often ill-received pointers from me). So, it works for young beginners as well as adult learners who half-way know their way around the frets.

Bottom line: Rocksmith is a ton of fun and will teach you to play songs on your guitar. Will it prepare you for Julliard? Probably not. But, keep in mind that most successful rock musicians never formally studied music - at Julliard or anywhere else.

Here's the status so far:

Me:
Local Support Act (Level 4) with roughly 1,600,000+ RSP (Rocksmith points, I assume).
Played 4 gigs so far, two with 2 songs each plus an encore or two and two with 5 songs plus another couple of encores.

Quite a few of the fifty or so songs that come with Rocksmith are songs I've never heard before. For that matter, most of the artists represented on Rocksmith were completely new to me (indicated with *'s below).

Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
My Next Girl - The Black Keys *

In Bloom - Nirvana
Higher Ground - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Go With the Flow (encore) - Queens of the Stone Age

Vasoline - Stone Temple Pilots

Slow Hands - Interpol*
I Can't Hear You - The Dead Weather*
Surf Hell - Little Barrie*
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon*
Angela (encore) - *

Unnatural Selection - Muse*
Outshined - Soundgarden
Number Thirteen - *
Playing with Fire - Rolling Stones
Where is My Mind - Pixies *
(encore) -

Encores are sort of like bonus songs that get thrown at you at the end of an Event if you don't totally suck. In my case at least, the encores were songs I'd never played - or even heard - before, so my encores didn't add much to my Event scores.

Which brings me to my first major gripe with Rocksmith. It's not a deal-breaker, but it does tie into the navigation issues I have with the game.

There is no E-stop. No way to quit something once you've started it. No do-overs.

This week I was presented with my fourth set-list (above). By some twist of fate, I managed to qualify two of these songs for my 4th Event on my very first play. In fact, these were not just the first time I'd played these songs but the very first time I'd ever heard them. I qualified the remaining 3 songs within 3-6 plays through. Mind you, qualifying is one thing. Actually knowing the song and being able to play it well is another thing altogether.

So it was that I ended up accidentally playing Event 4 (The Red Velvet Room) after having played - and heard - about half of my setlist only once in my whole life. As I've pointed out previously, once you qualify a song for an Event, it no longer appears under that event. In order to practice it, you have to scroll through the whole song library in the main menu. I don't like this quirk. All songs on a setlist should stay in the Event until the event is done. On top of that, I'd prefer it if the game at least kept a record of your Events, setlists, and scores. I do this myself in a notebook, but it would be nice to have that feature in the game.

So, somehow while attempting to practice for Event 4, I accidentally clicked on my Event when I intended only to bring up the setlist. Once I did it, the show was going down. There is simply no way short of a cold shut-down to stop an event or even a practice run through a song once it begins. Thus, as you can imagine and since I didn't play at all Wednesday night, Event 4 did not go too well for me. Frankly, the fact that I got an encore song makes me suspect that you ALWAYS get at least one encore no matter how bad you suck.

The Genius of the XBox Live Money Machine

I could hardly believe this when I saw it. It's a move of pure genius which proves beyond any doubt that you will never go broke, to paraphrase, underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer. If you sell it, they will buy.

As you know, I recently became an XBox owner. And, within the very few weeks that I've been a part of this game console culture I have come to realize that the XBox is the perfect consumer product. Probably better than cell phones in terms of being a revenue engine. Buying the console is just the beginning. Of course you've got the endless stream of new game releases to buy, not to mention lots of accessories like programmable controllers and chargers and cooling fans and storage cabinets, etc. etc. etc. But, that's just the tip of the iceberg!

One of the primary attractions (to many) of XBox is the whole XBox Live! scene. For a mere $8.00 or so per month, you can buy access to a vast new virtual world. A sort of Internet within the Internet. (You've got to have Internet access to get to XBox Live! but I can only wonder how long it might be before XBox starts its own ISP.) First, there's NetFlix and several other online content streaming services - all of which charge for access after the obligatory free trial period. And, I can hardly imagine that Microsoft isn't getting a little commission on each and every one of those sales.

I've just begun to explore this world, mainly just editing my online avatar, a mythical animated representation of myself which doesn't seem to appear to anyone except me but is all kinds of fun to play with. But, I've seen enough to know that once you've shelled out the monthly $8.00 access fee, you have only opened the door to a multitude of spending opportunities!

XBox Live! has its own little online economy where you can buy (for real money) "points" to spend within the XBox Live! world. Much like buying game tokens at Chucky Cheese. Currently, 400 points cost $4.99 USD. Interestingly, 800 points will set you back $9.99 - so it's actually $0.01 cheaper to make two 400 point purchases. But, how many people would actually do this even if they realized that they're being ripped off, however minutely? Guaranteed MS is making thousands just off of this little pricing glitch! If I could get every XBox owner in the country to give me a penny every few days? Hell! I could quit my job!

Points can be used to buy all sort of stuff. I bought 400 points the other night so that I could purchase an additional song for our Rocksmith game. Each song add-on goes for 240 points or approximately $2.99. Not bad, really. You'd pay a helluva lot more than that to get a guitar teacher to teach you how to play Don't Look Back by Boston - IF you could find a guitar teacher these days who's even heard of Boston. So, I don't consider this whole XBox Live! thing a ripoff. I'm simply amazed at the profit-making potential. Because there is just sooooo much stuff being sold for "points." Which you buy for REAL money.

The disconnect between real money and points is genius in and of itself. Points have got to spend easier than actual money, right? They're not even "real." Let the spending begin!

Apparently you can also buy virtual gadgets for use within specific games, too. Although I haven't pursued that and cannot imagine that I ever would, the idea that I could sell stuff which requires absolutely no manufacturing, no testing, no actual engineering is staggering.

Not to mention the gift-giving opportunities created here. Need a birthday present for your kids' friend's birthday or your grandkids for Christmas? I'm sure there's a way you can buy XBox Live! points for others. I know for a fact you can buy pre-paid XBox Live! gift-cards.

But, what absolutely blew my mind was what I found while editing my avatar. There's all kinds of stuff you can do with your avatar for free, but I found this tab entitled "Marvel Superheros" on the editing page so I clicked to check it out. In exchange for points - which, remember, you buy for REAL money - you can get your avatar any of a number of licensed Marvel comics superhero T-shirts or accessories. I kid you not. You can spend real money to buy imaginary clothing for digital paper dolls.

Amazing.

Rocksmith Audio Latency Problem Solved

Done!

My XBox came with just the plain, old composite AV cable (not HDMI), so that part of the audio delay issue was resolved for me. I never had an HDMI output from my XBox console to cause a delay. Still, the latency issue in my setup was so bad that we pretty much abandoned Rocksmith for a week or so. It was just unplayable.

Fortunately, this is really easy to fix. In a perfect world, you could buy Rocksmith, load it on your XBox (or whatever console you have), plug in a guitar and go to town. But, it would appear that this latency issue is unavoidable. It's just physics; electrons can only move so fast and sound is slower than light. That's just how it is. The audio output is addressed right in the "game," so I have no beef with Ubisoft/Rocksmith about this and neither should you. They could perhaps include some actual written documentation with Rocksmith that explains this and includes some specific setup tips, but apparently I'm the last person in the world who still prefers hardcopy manuals/directions over "readme" files and online help.

After consulting the many forums already addressing this issue, I tried a few of the most commonly posted solutions, including setting my TV to "game mode" or the closest audio setting I could find in the setup menu. My Hitachi LCD TV doesn't really have a "game" setting for audio, and my next best guess at the equivalent setting didn't really help the audio latency issue at all. I was a bit discouraged at that point, but I still had the option of running my audio out to some computer speakers.

Instead of doing that, I replaced my already dead home theatre receiver with a new one and ran my XBox outputs - all of them - through that. I fully expected that the delay might actually become worse. But, using no effects and just the regular stereo setting got Rocksmith working great. There is probably still some latency because it simply takes a certain amount of time for the electrons to get from my guitar pickups to my TV screen after passing through all those wires, cables, the XBox console, and an amplifier (not to mention the time it takes vibrations to get from my guitar string to the pickups). But, humans perceive anything which happens in less than about .3 seconds as "instant," so I'd say I've got my electron travel time down below .3 seconds. If I've got some latency left in my setup, I can't tell it. And, based on the dramatic improvement in my scores, neither can Rocksmith.

Probably due to the specific model and make of receiver, I also had to run a composite video (RCA) cable from my receiver's video output to the TV even though I have an HDMI cable running from the receiver to the TV for everything else. Apparently my receiver is not able to upconvert an analog composite signal to HDMI, so any analog inputs to the receiver require an analog output to the TV. No biggie. Just something to be aware of.

So, we're back to thinking Rocksmith is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I've got 70,000+ on at least a couple of songs so far and the blisters on my fingertips to show for it! So, now I guess I'll join in the nationwide snivel-fest over what songs should be included next. My vote would be for some Eagles (specifically Hotel California and Life in the Fast Lane) and possibly some Pink Floyd. But, it's not like I've mastered any of the songs that came with the original release, so no rush!

Rock on.

Jean Brandau's About.com Blog is USELESS

I wouldn't normally attack someone's blog directly, no matter how badly written or how vehemently I disagreed with the content. But, this is not a simple matter of opinion or taste or difference of viewpoints. This is a matter of someone putting out incorrect and apparently unvalidated information.

Jean Brandau writes a blog on About.com which presumes to include a calendar of events for the Huntsville, AL area. To my detriment, I consulted her calendar of events twice this holiday season, once regarding a skating event at the local ice-plex and again (my mistake) to find out when the Messiah Sing-along would take place.

On both counts Jean's calendar was WRONG. Her dates for both events were off by a week.

I was smart enough to call about the skating event before we drove all the way across town to the rink. The kid who answered the phone had no idea what I was talking about at first. After several hints and clues, he realized that I was referring to an event that had taken place a week before I called. And, while Jeans' blog made the event out to be a public skating session with carols being sung by the Huntsville Chorus, the actual event (which had taken place a week earlier) was in fact a figure skating show with the Huntsville Chorus providing musical accompaniment. So, she was not only wrong about the date, she misrepresented the entire nature of the event.

Which sort of makes me the idiot for trusting Jean's website to provide accurate, correct information regarding the premier event on my holiday calendar - the Messiah Sing-Along. According to Jean's bogus blog (a blogus?), tonight was the big night. The night I await for a year at a time. The night I get dressed up for and make the kids dress up for. The night I pull out my complete Messiah score and set out to enjoy one of my very favorite musical compositions of all time.

It was over before we ever left the house. It was 6 nights ago. I figured this out after we drove 18 miles across town - and 18 miles back - wasting an hour of one of our last evenings before Christmas, when we arrived at the designated location to find one guy in a pick-up truck waiting for a buddy to play basketball in the adjacent gym. Not sure why I waited until tonight to check the website at the actual church where the event was to take place. (At least Jean got that part right.) But, that's how I found the correct date. I signed up for that church's e-mail newsletter just to be sure I don't miss out next year. Because I damn sure won't be checking out Jean Brandau's blog for ANY other events. Ever.

Jean Brandau, you suck. Your blog sucks. And, you owe me four round-trip airfares to Washington, D.C. to catch one of the very last Messiah Sing-Alongs scheduled this year - the one at the Kennedy Center. If there's an admission charge, you owe me four of those, too. And, a hotel room.

The Involuntary Manslaughter of a Book

I hope you read this one day, son. Because it's really the only way I'll ever be able to let you know just how much what you said hurt.

We were out Christmas shopping a couple of weeks ago when my son pointed out a book that he wanted. It was a newly released title in a series of books that he had been reading for a while. Mental note made, I decided to pick up a copy for his birthday, shortening his wait to Christmas by a couple of weeks.

On a later shopping outing, I had the opportunity to buy a copy of the book without him even suspecting. That's kind of an accomplishment in and of itself. I hid it in our van and got it upstairs to our bedroom where I had another book hidden away for his upcoming birthday.

On his birthday, before I wrapped his gifts I hunted down a good pen - one that wrote nicely - and made an extra effort to neatly write a note on the title page. I put the date in the upper, right-hand corner. Below the title of the book I wrote, "Happy 11th Birthday. Love Dad and Mom." Then I wrapped it in tissue paper and put it in a gift bag with the other book.

If you're reading closely, you may have deduced that my son was only getting two gifts from us on this particular occasion. That's not because his birthday is so close to Christmas. We've always said that should not factor into it. We don't make a big deal out of birthdays at our house, but Christmas is Christmas, and your birthday is your birthday. The relatively modest "take" had nothing to do with that. What it really boiled down to was that my son wanted to take several friends to go play paintball for his birthday party. As usual, however, he didn't express this until it was far too late to make all the necessary arrangements. For starters, the paintball facility required a minimum of one week's notice and a downpayment. For another, the smallest birthday party package they offered cost a little over $200. That's FAR more than we usually spend on birthdays for any member of our family. My son typically changes his mind about what he wants to do on his birthday at least four times, two of which usually occur within a week of the actual date. At any rate, since there was no time and the weather wasn't really all that conducive to outdoor activities, we agreed to set up a paintball outing at a later date. That would be his real present. But, I do like to give my kids something for their birthdays that they can keep and remember. Hence, the books.

I didn't expect him to be overjoyed by the books, but I did figure he'd be somewhat pleased with them. One was a softcover picture book about Navy SEALS, one of my son's latest passions. The other he had flat out told me he'd like to have. And, it was a hardback, first edition. So, I expected him to be somewhat appreciative, which he was at first.

What I wasn't prepared for was his reaction when he opened the hardback book and saw my handwritten note on the title page.

"Why did you write in it? You killed it?" he said.

I don't even know what I said in response. I was stunned. I wrote the note with the intent of adding some personal value to the book, not to ruin it. Perhaps my harping about taking care of his things had gone too far. He's not typically devoid of sentiment. I don't know what I'd say now, given days to think about it. All I know is that those words cut to the bone.

His sister had gotten him a movie, which we watched after he had unwrapped his books. After the movie, I picked up the book, opened it to the title page, and tore it out. Then I wadded up that page and threw it in the trash. What else could I do? I couldn't return the book and he clearly didn't want a book with a handwritten note in it.

I have a letter that my dad wrote me when I was younger than my son. Dad was working in Virginia and we were still living in Indiana. My mom kept it all these years and sent it to me last summer. My dad is still alive. It's not like I'll never hear from him again. But, we don't see each other often. Time and distance simply make it impractical for us to visit in person. The vast majority of our communications are by e-mail; eventually they'll disappear without a trace. So, I'll hold onto that letter from my dad until I'm gone.

I figured I'd give my son something to hold onto in the event that he and I find ourselves separated by time and distance the way my own dad and I have. Maybe he's still too young to get that. Maybe he doesn't even comprehend that there will be a day when I won't see him off to school and I won't tuck him in at night. Or, maybe that just means more to me than it does to him.

RockSmith - XBox - Internet TV Update

This just in: Ubisoft plans to release a PC-based version of RockSmith some time this coming Spring (March 2012)!

This would tie in nicely with my Internet TV plans since I was leaning toward hooking a PC up to my TV for that purpose.

This news does not, however, necessarily rule out the possibility of an XBox finding its way into my house. (In fact, don't tell my kids, but there may already be an XBox hiding somewhere in my bedroom as we speak. Just in case.) XBox-es also serve as wireless Internet TV streamers, so rather than upgrading an old PC for this purpose or purchasing a separate box it may make more sense to just go with an XBox. I'm prepared for that possibility.

I have learned one thing in my research on gaming consoles: PS3s will play Blu-Ray disks. XBoxes will not. Yet. Makes little to no difference to me as I will not be replacing our rather significant collection of DVDs (including complete boxed sets of M*A*S*H, Friends, and I Love Lucy) with Blu-Ray disks. Ever. For one thing, I don't think our TV is really good enough that the difference in quality between a DVD and a Blu-Ray would be noticed. It would be like playing CDs through the amp and speaker on my old portable record player. For another, if I was in the market for a Blu-Ray player, I'd just buy a Blu-Ray player. They can be had for under $100 on sale. The cheapest PS3 I've seen was easily twice that amount plus some change. You don't buy a game console to watch Blu-Rays. You buy a game console to play games.

Anyway, even if I go with the XBox, being able to play RockSmith on a PC could still be a very good thing. You can't run recording software on a game console. Nor composing software. Etc. Many studios have a PC in them but not a game console. Mine, for example. And, it would be much easier to run RockSmith on the computer I already have in there than to move the XBox into the music room every time I feel like playing in there.

I also popped into an Apple Store this past weekend with my family - at my kids' behest. Yes, yes. They're very nice. But, still grossly overpriced. I checked out Garage Band on a Mac desktop system and watched part of a computer-based lesson by Rush guitarist Alex Leifson which showed users how to play the guitar part to Tom Sawyer. While it was sort of cool to get this info straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, it didn't hold a candle to what you do with RockSmith. And, notably, RockSmith is not scheduled to be released for Macs (although I suppose it might be possible that you could run the software on a Mac).

PayPal Does Indeed Suck

Start with this latest article about a truly evil, greedy, mismanaged company:

http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9252348-paypal-says-our-bad-on-regretsy-charity-scandal


I'm talking about eBay's little puppet online payment site, of course, which I've long referred to as "PayCrook." Stories of how badly PayCrook sucks abound. There's a whole website called "PayPalsucks.com."



My story will follow, after a list of alternative online payment service sites. I welcome additional sites; just put them in the comments and I'll add links here as they come in.

AlertPay.com
dwolla.com
ZashPay.com


Also, I've read that Visa plans to start their own online payment service soon. I'll see what I can find out about that.

There's also a site called payjunction.com that allows merchants to process credit card payments, but that's a little beyond the scope here.


My own experience with PayCrooks was fairly extensive as an eBay seller for several years. It ended suddenly when they ripped me off for approximately $90. My use of eBay also ended soon after that due to eBay's increasing attempts to coerce both buyers and sellers to use the "service." Eventually, as many of you know, eBay bought PayCrooks. Seems almost impossible to believe, but I hear that PayCrooks actually got WORSE after that. But, I digress.

I listed for sale on eBay a used video editing VCR which I had bought a few years before for several thousand dollars. The listing clearly identified the unit as "USED." I was in rather dire straits and needed money, so I provided a Buy It Now option at $500.00. A fraction of what this unit would cost even used from any source. Some zipperhead from Texas bought the VCR using Buy It Now within what seemed like minutes of my listing going live. Great! Money was deposited into my PayCrooks account. I prepared the unit for shipping - in its original factory packaging - and sent it on its way. Everything was wonderful.

A few days later I got an e-mail from Zipperhead saying that there was a superficial scratch on the faceplate of the VCR and he wanted either a substantial refund or a new faceplate. This being Sony equipment, a new faceplate was going to cost about $200. A substantial refund after selling a fully functional, nearly new $3500 VCR for $500? That wasn't going to fly either. Basically I told Zipperhead to go screw himself. But, I was fairly nice about it.

He filed disputes with both eBay and PayCrooks, and, significantly, both disputes were denied. End of story, right? Nope.

Zipperhead filed a dispute with his credit card issuer, which then went to PayCrooks and got a chargeback on the purchase. Fortunately, I had already transferred all but $90 from my PayCrook account to my bank account. PayCrook took the $90, claimed that I owed them another $410, and then locked my account when I declined to pay up. I reminded PayCrook that they had themselves declined the buyer's dispute. Didn't seem to matter. PayCrook bent over for the buyer's credit card company and was a little miffed when I didn't return the favor for them.

I told them they could sue me for the $410 and I looked forward to seeing them in court - in MY county of residence. I also told them they need not bother unlocking my account because I wouldn't use it again even if they gave me back my $90 and apologized for ripping me off.

So, for all I know, I still have a PayCrook account because I cannot close it. Presumably after this many years (it's been at least 5 years) they would have closed my account due to inactivity and the fact that any lawsuit they might launch would be thrown out upon presentation of a SoL defense. Basically, it's too late for them to come after me. Not that I was remotely worried about it. If they ever do try to sue me for it, I've still got all the e-mails from PayCrook and eBay denying the buyer's dispute against me.

I just hope the VCR shorted out and electrocuted the little bastard in Texas who bought it.

RockSmith Might Make Me a Believer (in XBox)

Those of you who know me well or know my kids know that our house is XBox/PS-free. I'm against kids sitting around playing video games all day when they could be outside. Even if that weren't the case, I have three computers within arm's reach as I type this, plus another desktop system in my garage and my wife's laptop downstairs. Oh, and an old system in the music room that I just haven't parted with yet. So, we have no shortage of computer systems on which we could play games if I were inclined to buy and play computer games. No need to spend $300 on an XBox or Playstation, right?

Until now.

Before we go further, I should explain that IF I break down and buy a gaming system it will be the XBox rather than the Playstation. That's a holdover from when I used Sony video cameras and editing equipment. Great gear, but I learned the hard lesson that once you buy into the Sony regime you are stuck with it. Besides, Microsoft is at least nominally an American company. So, let's not have an XBox versus Playstation argument. My kids are just lucky I'm considering either option. If they had any idea I was considering this possibility, my status as coolest dad in the world would be etched in stone.

So, why now? Why, after thirteen years of making my kids feel like the only Jewish kids on the block at Christmas, am I suddenly not just able to consider but actually enthusiastic about the idea of getting an XBox? Because you cannot, as yet, play RockSmith on a PC. (Nor on a WII.)

If you haven't heard of RockSmith yet, don't feel left out. It was just released this past October. I had never heard of it until this past weekend. And, then, it was only because our new music store in town had a fully-functional display set up when I went to buy drum sticks the other night. The kids and I played it and at least two of us were hooked. You may not have anything about RockSmith yet, but you will. In fact, allow me to be the first to pass the good news along.

Remember Guitar Hero and Rock Band? Utter waste of time. I've always said that. While Guitar Hero looks like it might be marginally fun to play for about an hour, it's basically air guitar with a plastic prop. Apparently I'm at least partially correct in my assessment of GH's/RB's ability to stay relevant. I haven't seen either one of them on store shelves this year. They may be there, but they aren't the "rock stars" they were last Christmas season. I mean, you can still find Bee Gees records, too, but that doesn't mean they're still relevant.

Anyway, I've always said if you're going to spend the time learning to play GH/RB, why not spend that time learning to play an actual guitar? Apparently the folks at Ubisoft agree with me. RockSmith is essentially the GH/RB game (the guitar part) except that you use A REAL GUITAR.

That's right. You plug an actual guitar with strings and frets into your XBox/PS and start the game. Instead of doing a half-assed air guitar thing with some plastic, guitar-shaped game "controller," you play actual notes on actual guitar strings. The system compensates for tuning, and it takes care of the messy amp settings to get the right "sound" for the song you're playing. But, you're actually playing a guitar.

Like (from what I remember) GH/RB, the better you get, the harder the game becomes. Until you're playing the entire song note for note on your guitar. And, what you learn transfers. My son came home after his test drive and played exactly what he had learned on RockSmith on his real guitar. Quite unlike anything you can do with what you "learn" by playing GH/RB, huh?

And, here's another thing. You don't need a $400 Fender Tele to play RockSmith. Any cheap-ass guitar with an output jack will work (acoustics, too, if you have a pickup attached). I got a real piece of crap online a few years ago for about $25 and it will work just fine with RockSmith. The cheap plastic game controllers go for anywhere from $40 to $150 and what are you going to do with them when you aren't playing GH/RB? Nothing. Waste of money. You can get a perfectly nice electric guitar for $150, which you can actually play independently of your game system.

At $79.99, this isn't the cheapest game you can buy for your Xbox or Playstation, but you get what you pay for. Not to say your kids wouldn't get bored with it, but what they learn before that happens will be real. Still not sure I'm going to rush out and buy an XBox, but the fact that I'm even thinking about it speaks volumes about RockSmith. If you already have an XBox this would be well worth the money. Even if you had to buy a cheap guitar to use with it.

LG HB336 Blu-Ray Home Theatre System

Bought one of these over the Thanksgiving Day weekend for a good price - $299. Wasn't too sure about it, but my wife encouraged me to go ahead and get it while the price was low and while there were still some (two, actually) in stock. We returned it to the store Sunday.

Setting the unit itself up and getting it connected to the TV and speakers is easy. And, it sounds absolutely GREAT. I mean amazing. Other than that, I hated virtually everything about it.

On the down side, this thing doesn't come with a wireless adapter. Since the wireless access to Internet TV was one of our primary reasons for going down this road, not being truly wi-fi ready was a huge downside. To me, "wifi ready" means ready to connect to my LAN. NOT ready to accept a separately purchased wireless network adapter. For damn sure it doesn't mean buying a proprietary adapter for between $25 and $70 more. You can't just grab one of the extra network adapters you have lying around in your den and plug it in; this unit recognizes only the LG brand adapter. That alone was a deal killer for me.

The unit is ethernet capable, but I'm not running 25 feet of CAT5 cable from my router, down the stairs, and across the living room to my home theatre system.

We didn't even bother putting in a disk to watch. But, I did listen to the integrated radio tuner while I puzzled over why my wireless adapter wasn't working in this thing. As I said, the sound is amazing. It would almost be worth having this just to listen to music - except that the user interface was just too awkward. We only had the thing set up for about 12 hours before it went back into the box, but it appears that this unit and your TV become one. You can't watch TV without turning on the unit, and you can't use the unit (not even the radio) without the TV on. That's a problem for me. I don't need incredible audio when I'm just watching the news. And, when I want to listen to the radio, I don't want to pay for the electricity required to run a 42" LCD TV.

This thing comes with an iPod docking dongle. If you use an iPod or an iPhone or whatever, more power to you. You'll love this little feature. But, I don't want to pay for an accessory that I will never use. Plus, the whole interface sort of smacks of the sort of tech-toy awkwardness that iType people love but which I hate. When I want to listen to the radio, I just want to push the ON button and have the radio come on. I don't want to pick up my phone and use it as a remote. I don't even want to use the actual remote sometimes.

In short, using this system was too much like setting up a computer for the first time. We have decided to try some other options, starting with the purchase of a good stand-alone A/V tuner-amplifier with HDMI inputs. We have a perfectly good DVD player, and I have no particular desire to "upgrade" our movie collection to the more expensive Blu-Ray media, so no need for the Blu-Ray player. We can get a network TV box for about $50 - WITH the necessary wireless adapter built-in. So, I think we'll just try that.

Or, I'll just put a video card with HDMI outputs into one of the computers we have sitting around the house and hook up an actual computer to the TV. The guy at the store said I'd get more options doing it that way anyway. Ironically, he said the network ready units like the one we tried were for people who didn't want to bother (or didn't know how) to hook a computer up to their TV.

If You're Poor and You Don't Know It. . .

Speaking from a purely financial perspective, I have marveled for over two years that I am doing the best I've ever done and yet, compared to many others, I'm not doing very well at all. Today I was listening to an NPR story about the new paradigm for defining poverty and you can imagine my shock when I realized that, not only am I not driving a Maserati or living in a $500,000 McMansion, I may actually be living in poverty!

OK, I don't actually fall below the poverty line by either the new or old definition. But, as part of the story, an NPR reporter interviewed the head of the food stamp program in Mississippi. The interview revealed that a family of four in Mississippi may receive up to $650 or so in food stamp benefits per month.

I recently launched what I consider a conservative but livable home budget for my family of four. Our monthly allocation for food? $600.00 per month. Plus another $75.00 per month for dining out (mainly trips to McDonald's or Arbys on the way home from late nights at the ball park). A total of $675.00 per month, to include school lunch expenses. Total.

And, according to John Davis, the SNAP Director in Mississippi, food stamps aren't even supposed to be the sole source of food for recipients. They're supposed to be a supplement. Which means most qualified SNAP recipients are expected to spend more per month on food than I do!

Every time I see one of those commercials for Feed the Children or some similar charity program where they tell you it only costs $0.30 per day to feed a child, I ask myself, "Where do they do their grocery shopping?" That's where I need to shop. My wife actually does an amazing job of keeping groceries in the pantry on our present budget. Still, the idea that I could drop that food budget down to roughly $36.00 per month? Approximately 5% of what "poor" people are expected to spend on food in a month? That's pretty alluring.

My point is that I don't believe either the previous nor the new formula for determining poverty could possibly be very accurate. Either that, or there's a pretty easy solution to the whole poverty problem.

Mr. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation says, "Over 80 percent of poor families have air conditioning, two-thirds of them have cable TV, half of them have computers, a third of them have widescreen HDTVs." Not sure where he got those numbers, but I'd say he's probably about right. I'd love to know the numbers for poor families who smoke or own pets. Or who make car payments.

If I'm doing as well as I am and I'm spending less on food than food stamp recipients, we definitely have a disconnect from reality somewhere in this chain. Perhaps part of the problem is the current atmosphere of "political correctness" (a misnomer if ever there was one) which discourages us from calling a spade a spade. Maybe there should be more of a stigma attached to being "poor." If I'm going to be poor, I should know I'm poor. Then I'd realize that I should probably watch my spending. Maybe drop the cable TV, sell the big screen, and perhaps eat some raman noodles a couple of times a week. Like I did when I was really, truly poor.

Crop Picking

When I was growing up in corn/grain country, teenagers eagerly signed up to detassel corn because the pay was awesome. The work sucked - out in the sun, hot, dusty, and corn leaves are surprisingly sharp, but the money was great. Parents dropped off their kids or the older kids drove to a central meeting point where buses picked them up and took them to the fields for the day.

Of course, back then, our parents didn't just hand us $100 and the keys to a new car and send us off to Bridgestreet Mall to hang out with our friends getting our hair and nails done. So, we actually had some incentive to earn our own money. It's past time for us to get back to that ethic. The reason we have so many lazy adults in this country is because we make so many lazy kids. When you spend the first 18 years of life being indulged and pampered, you're unlikely to rush out the door on your 18th Birthday to find some good, hard work to do to earn your own way.

So, I guess my point is this: We need to send not the unemployed, not the welfare cases, not prisoners out to the fields to get the crops in. We need to send our teenagers.

(Now watch as the comments about child abuse and child labor pour in!)

Occupy ESPN

Why are we occupying Wall Street? There's no clear objective. To me, this is all just pointless venting against income disparity with no proposed solutions. The whole movement is misguided. If you're pissed off that someone makes more money than you do and more money than they'll ever need, you should be "occupying" arenas and stadiums where the MLB, NFL, and NBA play games, not business districts where people actually do work.

I'll be among the first to say that pushing papers around on a desk or creating PowerPoint presentations for one meeting after another is not exactly "work." But, neither is playing sports. Nobody ever says, "Let's go work football." You PLAY football. We call football games GAMES - not jobs.

According the an AFL-CIO executive paywatch website, the average pay for CEOs at S&P 500 companies is a touch under $11.5 million per year. Chief executives on the AFL-CIO's 100 Highest Paid CEOs list rake in between $17.5 to $85 million per year. That's for CEOs - very likely the very highest paid position in any corporation. But, it's still quite a bit LESS on average than many professional ball players, golfers, etc.

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/top100_2011.cfm

Average salaries for sports players? NFL: about $1 million to $2 million per year depending on position. MLB: over $3 million per year. NBA: $5.2 million per year. NHL (which I consider underpaid relative to all other sports): $2.6 million per year. That's average. Plenty of individual players get paid a LOT more than average.

Tiger Woods got paid $97 million in 2006, more than the CEO of Viacom - the highest paid CEO in America according to the AFL-CIO. Tiger got to knock golf balls around for his full time job. Mr. Dauman at Viacom probably only managed to squeeze in 18 or 36 holes per week.

David Beckham signed a $50 million/year contract to play soccer for a professional soccer team in LA. Hardly anybody in America even watches soccer unless their kids play. Which begs the question, who is paying this guy $50 million per year to play a sport that hardly anybody in America even watches?

Kobe Bryant, who was actually charged with rape, brought in about $35 million back in 2007. Michael Vick, notable animal cruelty offender, signed a 10-year contract in 2004 for $13 million per year. Vick got paid about $5 million for his first season back after spending 2 years in jail. You can argue that many CEOs are criminals, but not many CEOs get their jobs back and get a raise after they get out of jail.

Muhammed Ali (Cassius Clay) brings in a cool $55 million per year just for letting advertisers use his assumed name. And, he doesn't even have to take a punch. At least Michael Schumacher (F1 race car driver) actually put his life on the line for the $80 million he netted in 2006. Most pro-sports types risk little more than a side-lining injury - and they still get paid even if that injury takes them out for the entire season. Steve Jobs kept working with pancreatic cancer, right up until he died of respiratory failure.

I could go on. And on. And on. While I've only cited a handful of the very highest paid athletes, the point is that there are hundreds of them and they all get paid more in a year than you or I will likely earn in 20 years. And, that's if we are both well paid and very lucky for 20 years in a row. They get this money not for doing anything resembling productive work but for playing sports.

Most of the companies represented on the AFL-CIO's list of 100 Highest Paid CEOs are good, solid American companies like Ford, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, CBS, Coca-Cola and Disney. These are BIG corporations that have been around a long time and virtually NONE of them are banks or investment companies that conjur up visions of "Wall Street." These companies employ thousands and thousands of people. Which is why their CEOs get paid. A lot. Even though the actual day-to-day work is done by employees and front-line supervisors, manning the helm of a corporation that size is a pretty big responsibility.

So, tell me again why it is that we're so angry about a relative handful of white collar workers who make more than we do when there are hundreds of sports figures who make even more?

Think about who pays the multimillion dollar salaries of these sports figures. YOU do. Attending an NFL game will cost you around $75 - minimum - just to get a seat. I know people who pay this kind of money regularly to watch something that they could see on TV for free. Then they'll pay another $70 or so for a (fake) jersey to wear to the game, $25 for a foam finger, $20 for a hat, and $8.00 for each beer. I don't pay anywhere near that amount of money in bank fees in a year. If you do, perhaps you should be more mad at yourself than at the bank. Maybe it's time to check into switching banks. But, I just don't see the point of occupying Wall Street when the big money is at Yankee Stadium and other places like it.

The New Rolls-Royce/Bentley

Saw on of the new Rolls-Royces yesterday, ironically pulling into an outlet mall. UGLY doesn't begin to describe this rolling eyesore. Wow. Rolls has really hit rock bottom with their latest crew of designers. Apparently they're now marketing a once-distinguished motor-carriage to makers of rap videos. The latest Rolls looks like a cross between an overgrown Kia (in the back) and a Chrysler 300 (at the front). Blechhhh! If somebody gave me one of these grotesque abominations of automotive "styling," I'd take it to downtown Atlanta and sell it to the first guy I saw wearing a fur coat and gold-framed glasses (in other words, a pimp or Elton John).