The cost of Rocking

So I sat down and had a think about how much Rock Band/Guitar Hero has cost me so far and it all got a little out of hand...

Xbox 360 Elite: £240
GuitarHero WT Band box: £100
Beatles Rock band: £40
Guitar Hero Greatest Hits: £30
AC/DC Rock band: £30
John Lennon Rickenbacker guitar: £90
HD TV to play it all on: £450
Mic stand and extra mic: £50

Total so far (not counting DLC): £1030

Ho hum!

Get back... get back... get back to where you once belonged.

Sooooo, it's been altogether far too long. Or not long enough, depending on your viewpoint. The last four months have been eventful, that's for sure. Two holidays, a new xbox, a summer with no football, a new season of fantasy football and much much more has transpired since the last post in April. I'll be back blogging regularly again so do stay tuned for my usual mix of random thoughts on stuff what does interest me.

First up. Scotland vs Holland tonight at Hampden in World Cup Qualifying. A win is almost certainly required if we are to secure a play-off spot. The country is buzzing again after a decent second-half display against a not bad Macedonia side and whilst victory over the Dutch might be somewhat far-fetched given that they are ranked 3rd in the world at the moment but stranger things have happened in football and especially to the Scottish national team so we shall see. It's a huge blow not to have the talismanic McFadden available after the yellow card debacle just before half time on Saturday and one does wonder who amidst the side can cause problems for the Dutch defence. We shall see... 'Mon the Scotland!

In other news, today sees the release of Beatles Rock Band and I have to say I am wetting my pants in anticipation. Plastic instrument-based karaoke has never been so good! :) I expect to spend a lot of my free time with this for the foreseeable...

Some people are on the pitch...

Scotland 2, Iceland 1. Not amazingly convincing but it really is the result that counts at the moment. Job done. I think qualifying for the Finals is still something of a long shot because if you look at some of the teams currently in second place in the other groups... Well, let's just say, I wouldn't fancy our chances over 2 legs against too many of them... We don't play another competitive international now until August so attentions can once again turn to domestic matters (and fantasy matters!)

Big week in fantasy land. Only 8 rounds of fixtures left and following the disaster I had last time (curse you Gerrard and curse you no clean sheets for Man Utd and Chelsea) I find myself again with a lot of ground to make up. I've studied the fixture list quite extensively looking for opportunities to milk every last point I can in this run-in so hopefully I can make it back into 4th (or even 3rd) before the end.

The 'Well are at home to Aberdeen tomorrow in what is yet another must-win game. With Dundee Utd and Hibs facing each other at Tannadice (draw please!) it's a chance to move into the top 6 again and close the gap to the European places in preparation for the split. Hopefully McGhee has had the lads working hard this week as not too many of them will have been off on international duty (Clarkson is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, as Craigan didn't figure for Northern Ireland due to an injury). 3 points please lads. Nothing less will do.

Shearer takes over at Newcastle. I have to say I really didn't see that coming. I mean, obviously if you cut him open his blood is black and white but he has always stated he'd move when the time was right, both for him and for Newcastle. I'm not so sure that time is now. We shall see. It's hard to imagine a club of the stature of Newcastle being relegated from the EPL but when you take a glance at their remaining opponents there's not much comfort to be found for the beleaguered Toon army. Can their next Messiah lead them out of danger?

Friday drinks tonight, undoubtedly, then more drinking tomorrow (in the name of charity) and a haircut on Sunday. Rock. On.

Played some of the new Rock Band DLC last night. A couple of tracks from Offspring (moar plx!) and Get Up (Sex Machine) by the godfather of soul. Funking it up with JB on Rock Band is pretty f'n cool!

Have a good weekend folks.

It's Monday, bloody Monday...

Wow, Monday comes around fast doesn't it? I had a wicked weekend of doing very little in the way of anything other than chillaxing with my favourite munchkin. I did introduce her to the joys of Rock Band though which was jolly good fun! I think the Hot Spring Perverts have a potential new lead singer...

On Friday I saw Watchmen. Quick capsule review: Not terrible, not amazing. A bit overlong at 2 hrs 45 but otherwise, nothing to write a blog about. I hadn't read the comic first so can't really join in on the debate raging about the ending, or Alan Moore's disassociation with it. I can only take it as I saw it. Distinctly "OK".

No game for Motherwell this weekend due to the cup matches. We lost in midweek to Hearts despite dominating them to bring to an end our 9 game unbeaten run and effectively put to bed our hopes of finishing third. Guess it's between us, Dundee Utd, Aberdeen and Hibs for the final Euro place and we're far from in the driving seat there. On current form, I'm fairly confident we can do it though.

Not much to talk about in fantasy land either. Sneaked up into 4th place in the league, level on points with 5th. REALLY need Blackburn to score on Wednesday night, preferably about 13 goals please, thanks. An Andy Johnson hat-trick wouldn't go amiss either.

Played some live poker last week which was really fun. It's been ages since I've played either live or online and it was good to be flopping cards again. Finished in the money on one and narrowly missed out on the cash places in the other so I'm not too rusty it would seem! Might take a wander up to the casino tonight for a game...

Stay frosty people.

Catching up

Wow. Quite a lot has happened since my last post, despite it being but two short days ago. So let's start in order...

Motherwell lost. 1-0. To St Mirren. *sigh* Mark McGhee described it as one of the "worst experiences and disappointments of my managerial career". We were shite. St Mirren's new stadium has a lovely pitch which I'd hoped would be ideal for the style of football the 'Well have been trying to play ever since MMG took over but alas, the players didn't live up to it and there should a few of them looking at each other and asking questions. Once again our man of the match was loanee Cillian Sheridan. The rest of them need a kick up the arse. Tomorrow we play Sheridan's parent club (Celtic) which means the boy wont be allowed to play so we're really screwed for that one! With Hibs going down to bottom of the table Inverness today, a point against Celtic would move us above the Edinburgh side. We can but hope.

Thursday night was also the launch party which was a brilliant night. There's always something added to a night on the piss when people you never get the chance to see smashed (particularly your bosses...) are there and having a right good time. The food was good, the drink was free (thank god, £6.50 a tequila!) and the casino was good hearty fun (and more than a little competitive given that there was an iPod touch for the overall winner). As it was, it all came down to the last spin of the roulette wheel and my number just didn't come up. I had to make do with the "That's how I roll" prize (a bottle of nice champagne which I dutifully drank from the bottle) for my scrupulous honesty when it seemed everyone else was pooling winnings or colluding in one way or another. The irony of it all is not lost on me... Afterwards a party set out to go to Reflex, which was sadly closed. We ended up in the real casino where I placed one bet, won £100 and cashed out. All in all, Thursday was great.

Friday I had booked off for the inevitable hangover (which wasn't as bad as I anticipated) and spent most of the daylight tucked up in bed watching DVDs. At night I rolled down to Matt's for GTA4 goodness only to find he had loaned the disc for the original game to a friend and couldn't get it back for a few days. Bummer! We played some Tony Hawk and the new Street Fighter game along with some Rockband well into the early hours. The new White Zombie DLC for RB was good fun to sing! Finally we learn the lyrics of More Human than Human! Fun.

Saturday was spent meandering around the shops, contemplating whether to buy Dawn of War 2 or not. Decided against it on account of buying the complete edition of the first game just two weeks ago. I have a bad habit of doing that. Got home and checked the football scores and to my delight Beattie had grabbed a late double for Stoke against Pompey. Yes, of course he is in my fantasy team. All in all it was a pretty good day actually and I climbed to 4th place in the league ahead of tomorrow's matches. I'll not be in that position after tomorrow because most of my team has played where my rivals haven't but I'll be a pretty happy man if Everton and Liverpool dont keep clean sheets tomorrow. Ronaldo scored again, although he did get booked for diving, the cheating bastard. I watched it on Match of the Day and the gelled tumbler wasn't even touched. Honestly, it almost hurts to put aside my personal feelings in the hunt for more fantasy points where this twat is concerned.

One last thing of note about the football today which highly amused me is that Man United finally conceded after, wait for it, 1337 minutes of league football. Ho ho ho. (Half you are scratching your head going 'wtf?' right now I know, so allow me to link...)

So I wrote quite a lot today to make up for the day (and a bit) of radio silence. Well done if you made it to the end of this pointless drivel. I see my musings here have (at least partially) inspired a couple of you to start/pickup blog writing of your own. I look forward to reading your pointless drivel too. ;)

Jode out.

For those about to rock...

We salute you!

Picked up this for the 360 last week and gave it a good try out on Thursday. One thing. How the hell does he keep that up for an entire gig! His throat must be made of steel. I woke up on Friday spitting blood and feeling like i was swallowing sandpaper. And that had nothing to do with the beer, no sir.

Back to the game and the classics are all there. Thunderstruck, TNT, Dirty Deeds... The list goes on. The game is standalone but comes with a code you can tie in to your xbox live account to download the content for use with RB or RB2, so Matt O was the happy recipient. Makes sense really. I don't have a 360 and he's paid for the rest of the RB fun we'd had over the last year. The instruments and all that DLC probably add up to quite a scary figure... My £30 seems a small contribution.

Buy it. Today.