It's all part/of my rock 'n' roll fantasy

OK. Those of you who made it past the Internet's only Bad Company reference so far in 2008, let me explain myself.

A benefactor who shall remain unnamed--we'll call them Terry and Helga for anonymity's sake--provided me with Guitar Hero II for Christmas. Yes. A video game in which I pretend to me a badass axe-slinger.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me sketch the electronic ridiculousness out for you. There's an XBox 360, right? And you put the game in it. Then you plug in the controller, which happens to be shaped like a guitar. On this guitar-shaped controller are five buttons, which represent frets. There's a little flange where you normally would strum, and just below and behind that, a whammy bar for really making that sustain wail.

The game puts you on tour with a band. The band has a set list. You are the guitar player. And instead of reading music, you kind of follow these notes scrolling down a guitar neck, strumming, fretting and whammying in sync with the guitar part. And since I'm doing a great job of making this sound boring, here's an example of what it looks like onscreen:



So anyway, having gotten that explanation out of the way, let me get to the point. Or the solo, as it were.

Guitar Hero is just. Plain. Fun. It's addictive. The temptation to do "just one more song" is as hard to fight off as a pack of star-stricken groupies. When the songs get more complex, if you squint your eyes just right you can imagine that you're actually playing the guitar.

Yes. I'm a huge dork.

I used a few of the stickers that came with the guitar to decorate it. One of them is an ace of spades.

Did I mention the part about me being a huge dork?

Anyway, I had to get this off my chest. Think of this as an electronic AA confession, except my "problem" doesn't hurt anyone. And I can quit anytime I want. Honest.