Technically a post to be paired with "Out with the bad..." but it's an idle rant on an inauspicous beginning to the new year, so only one half is going to see the light of day. Plus, I ranted to a good many in a fair number of venues already, so the first half is pretty much unnecesary.
Did find the recover post option, that might've salvaged the lost post of yesteryore, but it's well beyond that horizon of salvation now, passed on to the land where all good datums go.
Getting with the Times
So, with the Blogger Beta I decided to update the Layout -- but really, I'm kinda attached to the random lighthouse in the background. Less so now that it's adding miniatures to my posts; if you're going to be doing that I need to look into like a Dragon theme, just for minature Dragons near my post titles in ornate wrought-iron bookholder style.
So, the Layout is pretty much the same, slight change to the archiving display and post display, including re-enabled comments. Updated the Header, though it'll probably roll-back to Lighthouse comments in about 2-5 weeks, right about the time I do something new with the RadioBlogClub section there, but Storywriter was a good initial song. I'll admit the colors need some tuning to go with the background, but there was no good way to try and line two seperate screens up in IE to compare them.
Probably will be adding some sort of link-tree at the bottom of the sidebar, Webcomics and Anime Blogs of note, though precisely how I want that sorted and tiered is still in the works, so it'll be a bit before I render decision there.
Hero of the Guitar
Beat Guitar Hero 2 on Medium, close to straight 5 Stars, but I haven't taken the time to do it yet. Only 3 Gold Star songs at the moment (For the DDR versed, that's basically a AA, or a AAAAA I guess, since Guitar Hero has a digital hit or miss system). Started doing Hard, which was a pretty tremendous learning curve; adding the 5th fret really expands the options. I'd had one Orange note on Arterial Black in Medium which had been very unexpected, but going Hard adds it as a regular note and makes Triple-Fret Chords occur. Took some adapting but I'm through the first 2 and a half sets with 3 and 4 star results, a few 5* on songs I've retried. I'm not very good at Arpeggiation or speed yet, but I'm working on it.
Much like everyone else who plays GH, you play it and immediately think 'Yeah, song x would really be good." Now, obviously you want bands that are fun to listen to in there, but the trick is finding songs by them with good guitar licks, so while I'd love to have the SSX3 or Burnout Soundtracks (EA picks about 65% great songs) there's not a lot of Guitaring inherent in Dance Dance. What I look for is the noticable and repetative Guitar Riffs that really get a song stuck with you. For reference - Killing in the Name Rage Against the Machine, Take me Out Franz Ferdinand, No One Knows Queens of the Stone Age - would be the core examples of this. If you just think about the song, you think about the Guitar parts.
With that in mind, the heaviest suggestions I have are
Realistic - Walk this Way Aerosmith/Run DMC, Hanging Around Counting Crows, Shiny Happy People or Losing my Religion REM
Unrealistic - Tank The Seatbelts, Sleepy Head or We Have Theme Song The Pillows (Really, any of their works would fit the bill, they pretty much utilize guitar riffs in all their songs) Biaxident Liquid Tension Experiment (YYZ already almost sounds like it, but it's one of the few LTE songs that wouldn't be overly long and overly hard) and anything involving Luca Turelli (Kings of the Nordic Twilight or Rhapsody -- Though perhaps that type of music would go over very poorly)
I can't really think of any Guitar-rich Fallout Boy, Panic! at the Disco, or Shiny Toy Guns.
Wildcards as soon as I can pin down a definitive reccomendation - Yes (I'd say Run with the Fox, but it's Flute featured, not Guitar), Trans-Siberian Orchestra (Something off of Beethoven's Last Night), Basement Jaxx, Black Mages (Probably Those who Fight Further or Via Alla Flamenco or Battle on the Big Bridge), System of a Down, Black-eyed Peas, and Emmerson Lake and Palmer.
Sadly, I can't really think of a good Mindless Self Indulgence song for these purposes. Bitches is all about the singing, and not the guitar.
