One Hundred and Fourty-eight, Fifty-eight Songs and Five Hours

It's done. The lousy "10 Gamer Points" matter nothing in the face of our personal sense of fulfillment of this essentially useless achievement. We played the Endless Setlist (a lie I tell you, a LIE!) which consisted of all original 58 songs from Rock Band. We played the songs when our hands began to hurt; we played the songs when our legs hurt; we played the songs while our shoulders and backs ached; we played the songs while our feet were giving out.

We...just...kept...playing...

It said we finished at some point. We only knew this when we received no more notes, no more cues, no more movement from the television screen in front of us.

Never again. I can tell my grandkids, "Yes, I did play Rock Band straight for five hours and fifty-eight songs. Never be so stupid in your life."

Fifty-five, Pain in Video Gaming

I'm a sucker when it comes to physical pain. Dish out all the mental pain you want and I can take it but try to pinch me and I'll squeal like a pig. So it comes as no great surprise that a video game that causes me physical anguish will not long be a favorite of mine. I know that unless I suffer through said physical anguish, I will not rise up in my experience level and so I will hold back others that I am playing with. But this is the sad truth.

The previous weekend of Rock Band has made my left wrist sore. And I don't particularly like having a sore wrist over a video game. I guess that means I'm just not a gamer? Ok, I guess my 2+ hours of Bioshock the other night means that I am still a gamer, just not a gamer who loves the music-playing games. I won't say I get no enjoyment out of them, but the enjoyment comes from playing and participating in something with my friends. Not from being able to beat a video game song on Hard difficulty while hurting myself.

I offered my roommate a deal: Every time Mario died during his game of Super Mario Galaxy, I would hit him in the head with a baseball bat. He turned me down. So at least I'm not the only one who has a limit when correlating physical discomfort and video game satisfaction (after all, it would provide extra incentive to keep Mario alive!). I'm ok having a different level to my discomfort/game relationship. Everyone is different.

To anyone who disagrees, Place it up thy butter churn!