And in no time flat the two soon-to-be-Battjer-ladies came out into the living room to see what all the commotion was about - and ended up being in our first band.
...and to get drunker. Once you surpass a certain number of drinks, Guitar Hero will no longer satisfy your urge to drunkenly sing along with songs you love and you invariably end up deciding that you should go sing KARAOKE!
I was so tired I apparently fell asleep mid-round with the buzzer in my hand. Hahaha. And that ends the most-epic first day of vacation I've ever had. (Can you believe that this all happened in one day???)
The ride back to Bernadette and Phil's was a soggy, gritty, sandy affair, but at least we didn't get caught! We stayed up super late playing a trivia video game called "Buzz."
They loved it! And, they were also hands-down, the two best Guitar Hero players I've ever seen. It was RIDICULOUS. They totally slayed every single person they faced off against.
Spy Hunter! They have Spy Hunter there! The only place that had this game when I was a kid was the roller skating rink that I used to go to! I was surprised to learn that it's a whole lot easier to use the gas pedal when you're not wearing roller skates.
...and Sarah broke out some KARAOKE VIDEO GAME she'd recently gotten! Some eventually figured out to take this game, combine it with Guitar Hero and add a drum set and it became Rock Band.
After dinner, we fired up Guitar Hero! Yes! Here's an action shot of Scott tuning up as he prepares to take on little miss Leigh Lezark (bonus points to Max and Meredith who are on opposite extremes of the "excitement spectrum" in this photo). Hahaha.
I closed out karaoke and on my late night walk home I ran into my neighbor Kathleen who I'd met for the first time just a few weeks earlier. She and her friend weren't ready for bed yet either, so I invited them in to play Guitar Hero (at 4:15am). Hahaha. I like living in New York because there are so many other crazy people here that it makes me feel less-crazy.
Then after the show, I went upstairs to sing karaoke and found that Guitar Hero had REPLACED karaoke for the night. WHOA! I also found that Shandi had dressed up (complete with face paint!!!) as Lars Ümlaüt, her favorite Guitar Hero character. Amazing.
A little past 1am all the bands finished playing downstairs. So Jasper busted out his Playstation and set up Guitar Hero on the big screen (with the audio patched through the club's PA system! Rock!) Here's Shandi.
GUITAR HERO IS THE NEW KARAOKE! Er, or at least it was for a few short weeks at Pianos! Late at night, after all the bands had finished playing, Jasper (the guy that books all the bands at Pianos) would bust out his Playstation and run the video to the bigscreen projector and the audio through the club's PA system! It was amazing.
Or at least he tried to play Guitar Hero. Antony joins Brandon in the "I'm a real guitar player who can't, for the life of me, figure out how to play a fake guitar that only has five buttons" Hall of Shame.
After karaoke, Amanda came over to play Guitar Hero (probably so she'd no longer have to listen to me say "DUDE! You HAVE to try it, it's so much fun!!!"). Here's Meerkat and Squinty, browsing and rocking respectively.
I'd been playing a lot of Wii bowling at home and figure I'd totally dominate, but it turns out that Leigh and Jackson were even more obsessed than I was and I totally got my ass handed to me.
After dinner, we headed back to my parents place and played Wii until the wee hours of the night! Here's my mom and Elyse squaring off in tennis. Happy 60th, Dad! I love you!
A few weeks prior to my dad's birthday, I called him and asked him what he wanted for his birthday. When I'd been home for the holiday in December, I'd brought my Wii along and my loved the golf game...so he told me he wanted a Wii for his birthday! (This was back when Wiis were pretty much impossible to find, but I put a couple of extra to dollars to work on eBay and managed to get one for the birthday boy!). We set it up immediately and got our Wii golf on! Here's the birthday boy getting ready to tee off!
