Guitar Praise?!?!?!

I love the Lord. That's a very simple statement. I made a vow last night make sure people know who I am and what I stand for. More on that later. Again, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, and am a devout Catholic (most of the time, but hey....we all fall short, right?). But the following dismays me.

Guitar Praise. Yeah, it's Guitar Hero with Christian music. What boils my water is that this isn't some cute add-on to Guitar Hero or Rock Band. No, it is its own little entity. It even has its own controller. Here's the link, if you don't believe me.

No one can deny that Christian music is a huge industry. While the spiritual lift is great, the money gleaned from it is obscene. I guess the first question that anyone can have here is "why not just have Christian music added to Guitar Hero?", and it's a valid one. I can tell you from experience that although the goal of every Christian should be to live our entire lives for the Lord, sometimes people go too far and eliminate completely harmless things from their lives and the lives of those around them. I serve as a counselor at a camp for young people every summer, and one year, they needed to do something with a large group of kids whose activity wasn't going to work out for that hour, and so they chose to show a couple of episodes of Jimmy Neutron. One girl ran out, and when asked what happened, she said that she wasn't allowed to watch Jimmy Neutron. Months later, I had a TV on in the background, and I heard the name Darwin there. A mention of the father of evolution is probably all it takes to get this poor girl to be prohibited from watching a poor cartoon. This is clearly the same thing. Even if there were to be a TON of David Crowder, Tobymac, DC Talk, and Newsboys in the established guitar simulation games, the fact that David Crowder is 8 bands away from Black Sabbath will NEVER fly with very Christian parents. Thus, Guitar Praise.

That being said, let me make my clear statement that I am very wary of this kind of treatment of eager minds, particularly children. Let's take evolution again, although I know it's a touchy subject. Going out and directly saying that intelligent design is the be all and end all is an insult to the intelligence of the children people are trying to raise. If your children are going to believe that God created the earth. Let it happen. But at least let them ask themselves what it exactly was that he created. If you don't do that, someone will get into this talk with them, and make them cry. Again, I'm not pushing the idea that it's all evolution. I'll always wonder and sway and debate until the day I die. But come on.

Guitar Hero is the same thing. Let's keep them away from music. I bet moms would be appalled to find out what kind of influences most Christian bands have. Ramones -> Reliant K, anyone?

If anyone knows, does Guitar Praise support either Guitar Hero or Rock Band controllers? I don't know which games operate with USB.

Don't Call It A Comeback

Alright, from this point on I'm determined to train myself to post more. In 4+ months, I won't be returning to Berklee ever again, and I'll need to keep my dear friends in the loop.

That being said, I'm excited to get back into the city (although I've only been gone since the 15th). I know this is going to be my last semester, but it certainly doesn't feel like it will be. I suppose it'll be a rude awakening come the middle of December when it's time to get out of there.

Another thing I'm excited for is Season 2 of Heroes. Those of you who are like "Dude, don't you mean you're excited for season 3?!?!?!" will be dismayed to know that since I'm not a HUGE fan of watching tv shows in large groups (I tend to miss things when people get excited/laugh too much) I didn't watch the first two seasons when they were aired. I finished watching the 1st season a couple of weeks ago, and the 2nd season came out on DVD today. So I'm going to pop through that tonight and tomorrow, probably (only 11 episodes from the damn writer's strike, so it'll be short). Oh, and I've also caught up on the comics from the 1st season. Wow, those make everything so much clearer. I'm just plain excited for Heroes, ok?!

Also excited for the Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer album that comes out on September 23rd. I've gotten to see a lot of the clips that will be on the DVD from Chris himself, but I can't wait to hear the stuff that ends up on the album. A few people will be getting that CD as a gift haha.

One last thing that excites me...some would call this song "boring", but I think it's terribly pretty.