Thimbron

Rockband 4 is a multiplayer Rock Band simulator that lets players play guitar, base, and drums, and also allows players to sing into a microphone. Right now I only have two guitar controllers (and no other instruments).
I was initially skeptical of this game since I’m a trained classical violinist and … well it seems like cheating. It turns out that playing the game is a lot of fun somehow. The way it works is each player hovers over an infinite flowing fretted guitar neck. “Notes” that correspond to buttons on the controller fret stream towards the player from the horizon and the player must hit the correct fret button and flip the strum control just as the “note” passes under a line near the base of the screen. The “notes” are color coded, usually, although sometimes they are all a single color for certain sequences though at this point I’m not clear on why that is.

The songs that come with the game are all rock songs from various eras. It is very easy to get into the flow and thoroughly enjoyable to hit the notes at the right time to keep the melody/base going. I find myself kind of dancing or “rocking out” where I sit while playing the game.

One downside I’ve found so far is that in 2 player, with two guitar controllers, one person has to play the base, and it’s very difficult (for me at least) to hear the baseline - if I miss notes for example I can’t seem to usually notice any effect on what I hear.

My daughter hates the competitive mode - it’s way too hard for her and for some reason ever since she started playing video games she takes losing them very seriously^[1], but she loves the endless solo mode, which is pretty much all she plays.

1. I do not recall ever taking losing video games either by myself or against someone else as seriously as she does - to the point of tears. ↩

The past year has been a year of failures for me. I failed to persuade any of my old friends about any of my strongly held beliefs concerning morality, politics, and economics.
Not only did I fail to persuade them, I failed to maintain them as friends. I can count 3 friends from high school and college and early startup days who actually cut me off (i.e. won’t reply to emails, left a chatroom, skipped birthday text).

On top of that there are some who I may still exchange pleasantries with, but will no longer discuss Bitcoin with, since, seeing how it went with the others and where they’re starting from, there’s no point.

I am bemused to say the least at how little influence I have over others concerning areas I’ve taken the time to learn a lot about and in which I have significant SITG and, although I do not often make new friends I will have to consider very carefully who I will associate with going forward, as it is clear I have been hanging out with people that have zero respect for me. And although it may actually be that I don’t deserve any respect from anyone, I would rather be alone and aware of that than delude myself that I have actual friends.