Pelicans, Goatees and Guitar Hero

There a pelicans in Central Illinois. Hundreds of them - although they don't generally congregate in large flocks as to possibly not call attention to the wacky sign of the apocalypse they so clearly must be. The only real comfort here is that they're probably just as disturbed by fishing in Lake Decatur. I mean, it's one thing for your hometown to erect a Starbucks after a couple stray decades or finally get a Best Buy - but import tropical water fowl just seems a tad much.

This is all just backdrop to what is rapidly evolving into a mini Spring Thanksgiving of sorts for both The Girl and myself as three birthdays converge all into the span of about three weeks and we once again find ourselves trying to shove three household visits into the span of two days.

If that whirlwind tour metaphor wasn't enough, we ended up playing a decent amount of Guitar Hero on Saturday and I'm glad to find out that I'm not the only one to find medium difficulty to be nearly the apex of the game's realistic goal. I don't know who these people out there are that have the time and finger dexterity to master hard or beyond - but suddenly images of a certain South Park episode go dancing through my head. I love the game, really I do, and had a great time virtually rocking and all - I just wish the game focused more on the campaign and managing a band or whatnot and a bit less on insane levels of finger memorization.

Guitar Hero actually came on the tail of end of a long run of games. We played Kill Doctor Lucky - the kind of odd inverse Clue which relies heavily on board placement. Red Dragon Inn, a board drinking game without real booze which relies heavily on the draw of the card (but still fun in that random virtual drinking game kind of way) and Cthulhu Munchkin - which is essentially just Munchkin with different graphics (but still fun in the that Munchkin kind of way). Finally upon return to my own household, I think the family had some kind of game envy which resolved itself in the form of Monopoly (Canadian edition - a family tradition). I know there's plenty of board game snobs who look down on Monopoly as being overly simplistic and often dragging out a game which has already created a foregone conclusion for hours on end ... but there's something to be said for the weird random dynamic between haggling, trading and personal strategy. I was positive Big Brother was going to win as he gained monopolies all along one street and literally surrounded my own - but throwing all my cash into one set worked out in the end.



This doesn't have much to do with the trip, but I thought it was funny

There was also the mandatory bout of Wii Tennis, a game to which my mom is hopelessly addicted to and would probably use an excuse to get a Wii if she thought she could get my stepdad to actually play on a regular basis (talk about wacky signs of an apocalypse). Big Brother and SisInLaw pretty much kicked our asses all over the place - but in defense I had had a decent amount of Glenmorangie at this point...

And on a random note - my brother, myself and my dad all have short hair and goatees. It's a weird little addition to an already confusing discussion of how much who looks like what. I haven't entirely decided what to do about it yet - but it's probably a good thing my hair couldn't survive another dye job.