Yesterday a bunch of the ladies got together at Ray and Christine’s place to make an ungodly amount of holiday cookies. They had arranged this weeks ago and were all ready to rock with recipes, ingredients, and cooking gear. It so happened that Ray’s old school D&D; game was pushed back from last weekend to this one. This meant that while the ladies were baking in the kitchen, the menfolk were playing D&D; in the living room (with Evan playing Niks’ character since she was busy). I thought it was pretty funny that our manly activity was not watching football but killing carrion crawlers and evading giant ochre worms.

When both game and cookies were done, many of the remaining folks descended into the basement for some Rock Band. We had a full band going, with Ray on drums, Jess on guitar, Nik on bass, and me singing. My utter ineptness as Guitar Hero is well known, but I was happy to find that rocking the mic is much more my speed. The nice thing about the game’s design is that you don’t have to be a good singer in a technical sense to score well. It’s more about timing and tone. You also get to do backup percussion (tambourines, cowbell, etc) with the mic during long musical interludes. To no one’s great surprise the songs I got 100% on were by the Buzzcocks and the Ramones. More amusing was my 98% on (Don’t Fear) The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. Only one thing accounts for this: more cowbell!