Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it and happy holidays to those who don’t and howdy to those who prefer it.

Last night, we opened presents and Kaye had a couple pleasant surprises (the Twilight novel and juggling balls) and, of course, THAT BIG BOX she’s been waiting to open forever which was absolutely no surprise but eagerly anticipated.

She insisted that she get to hook it up and play a bit despite it being a school night and having tests all day today (yes, the joy of Taiwanese school life, massive banks of exams on Christmas).

So, Guitar Hero World Tour seems to be quite the hit.  Kaye wailed on the guitar while Lorraine and I took turns on the microphone.  We left the drums in the box as I am still hurting from my surgery and can’t rock out (I played drums long long ago and was never really very good at it but it is my instrument still and I do have some sticks and a pad in my office for when I’m bored).

I told Kaye I think her game is broken as the microphone seems to be way off . . . according to the game, I can’t sing.  My daughter, who I know loves me in her own way, laughed in my face as if to say "it’s not the game that’s broken."  I have an unfortunate sneaky suspicion she may just be right.  Back in university days I was in the musical Grease (I majored in theatre so was in every performance I could get my grubbies into).  Well, I was playing the nerdy Eugene and when I went to private singing coaching explained that I was supposed to be a bit off and not a good singer to which the coach exclaimed that if I was supposed to suck then I was doing perfectly.  I did get better coaching in graduate school when I was in Three Penney Opera but can honestly say that while I do have the talent required for professional acting and the skill for professional directing, musical theatre will never come knocking on my door.

For those of you in the States who live with American rock all around you, there are a LOT of songs in the Guitar Hero world that have no meaning to my daughter who considers Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart and the likes to be where it’s at musically . . . it was pleasant to see she was able to pick up the guitar and play perfect games to rock songs she had never heard before.  She even recognized a couple tunes . . . but not in contexts others might get (for instance, there’s "the song from the end of Twilight" and there’s "the song that Dean pretended to sing in the end of an episode of Supernatural" . . . songs she’d heard once but could immediately bring up from her memory store . . . she has no problem remembering misc. songs from odd places but can’t for the life of her remember certain homework facts and figures . . . I turned to her and said "what is wrong with this picture?" which gave her a chance to learn an American idiom and then go back to her intense concentration at not paying attention to me).

We had a nice time for Christmas Eve.  Subway sandwiches while watching Terminator then Guitar Hero World Tour.

Merry Christmas.

All the best,
Brian, Lorraine, Kaye, Quanah, Midee, and Elric