Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Rock Star in My Dreams

The wedding was fabulous. Despite the several inches of snow that fell on the ground that morning, or that continued to fall into the next day. And the afterglow couldn't even be ruined by the fact that we drove back home in blizzard conditions—snow galore and driving winds. It was just that great of an event, that the uncooperative weather didn't matter, and I'm sure it's something we'll all laugh about in years to come. Even the fact that the zipper broke on my winter jacket the day we arrived in Dayton, and I couldn't zip up my coat the rest of the weekend. Or now, in fact. Doesn't matter! It was a beautiful ceremony and a rockin' reception.

Driving back to Cleveland, the closer we got, the worse the weather became. It became clear we had some choices to make: the dog was at my sister's house (far West side of town), the cat was at my parents' house (nearer West side) and the eventual destination was our own home (near East side). Which direction should we aim the car?

We chose my sister's house, because we could take major highways almost all the way, and only brave local roads for the final two miles. Luckily, she and her husband are gracious hosts and let us crash at their house for hours while we waited for the storm to abate. They fed us, they entertained us, I even got in my third quarter nap, snuggled on their couch with the dog!

Other than napping, a main source of entertainment was playing their Play Station 3 game Rock Band. It's similar to Guitar Hero, except instead of one person playing the "guitar" you can have a whole band playing guitar, drums, and singing.

I took the easy way out and just sang. Erin played the guitar for a while and Keith played the guitar, and then Josh rocked the drums and Keith switched to guitar. It was fun to play, although certain elements were harder than I expected.

Particularly, I learned that I don't actually know the words to any song. Not really. Songs like "Black Hole Sun" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go Now," which I've "sung along" to for years, were a complete revelation. That's what he's saying?!? I had no idea!

The most difficult song we did, at least for me, was "Wanted: Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi. Those vocals go all over the place. And I guess it's stuck with me because, for the past three days, I've woken up in the morning with that song stuck in my head. I'm assuming that, over night, I had dreams of rock star glory, singing that song. When I wake up, I remember nothing of the dream, but just hear the song's refrain in my mind.

4 comments:

FitGeGe said...

Hee! First off, I want to reiterate: I love your blog!

Secondly, I'd like to say that for a while I was taking a Kickbox Bootcamp class at the YMCA, but stopped because the song the instructor made us cool down to was none other than "Wanted: Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi. And she tried to make us play the damn air guitar every damn time.

DO NOT WANT!

Bren said...

Oh wow! That game looks sooooo cool. Maybe I will upgrade the old PS2 after all. It's not due here til the end of Jan 2008, but it'd be so worth it. My mate has guitar Hero 3 and I'm itching for her to bring it over!!

And I tried doing Dead or Alive on Karaoke once... WOW! The verses were easy as... but I sooooo don't have the range for the chorus!!

Amy said...

I was just listening to my Bon Jovi greatest hits CD yesterday!

I'm intrigued by the whole Guitar Hero/Rock Band thing, but I think I might not like it once I've tried it, and I don't have a video game system anyhow. I also think I might like to take guitar lessons, but since I never practice my piano* as it is, maybe I shouldn't make the investment on that, either.

In other news . . . The office Christmas luncheon wasn't as horrible as in years past. I showed the card you made to Tammy, and she was suitably impressed.





*Not that I have a piano in my eensy apartment — just a fairly large keyboard I think I got for Christmas when I was in junior high.

M. Lubbers said...

Gege: So glad you like the blog! I always love to hear it:)

Kickboxing instructors can be hit and miss, in my opinion. I used to take a kickboxing class where I really liked the instructor, but then she was gone for a couple weeks and the usual step aerobics instructor filled in. She wanted us to be hootin' and hollerin' the entire time and clapping and whatnot. Um, not happening. But at least we didn't have to do air guitar to Bon Jovi!

Bren: We actually have my sister's hand-me-down PS2 games from when they upgraded, and we bought a PS2 for cheap. So I guess if you don't want to pay to upgrade, you just need to know someone who will upgrade and have you over to play the new games!:)

Amy: I've heard the argument that if a guitar hero master had actually spent all those hours learning to actually play a guitar, wouldn't that be time much better spent? I can see the validity in that. But just for fun every once in a while, it's very entertaining!