So I got a guitar for Xmas this year (an acoustic guitar). I have no idea how to play it as of yet, but my cousin Greg is a professional guitar player who has given lots of lessons (as well as having played lots of big shows, such as opening for Bruce Springsteen). I saw him today, and we talked about getting together for him to show me the ropes.

Meanwhile, for Xmas, my nephew got Guitar Hero for the PS2. He, my niece, and my sister were up visiting from North Carolina, so we all sat around playing it for a while. Before I go any farther with this commentary, let me say this to all the writers reading this: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. Actually, I should amend that to DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME, because if you play it, I’m certain you would want to buy it afterward. That’s what happened to me.

As I was saying, we were playing Guitar Hero. It’s an immediately fun and addictive game, and the soundtrack is surprisingly good–probably, I suppose, because all the tracks are somewhat guitar-driven, and I think fancy guitar-work is the fastest way to my musical heart. Since I first heard of this game, I’d been saying "If it actually taught you to play guitar, I’d buy it in a second." Well, it doesn’t teach you to play guitar, not really at all, not even a little bit, I don’t think, but holy Moses, it’s so goddamn fun.

But, as the title of this post implies, it might just be a bit too addictive and may lure you away from the keyboard before you’ve finished your daily word count. Not to mention that the repetitive motion the game requires is sure to be the leading cause of carpal tunnel for an entire generation to come. When I sat down to write this post (just moments after finishing up with the game), my fingers were actually stiff. For righties, it’s much worse on your left hand, as that’s the one on the fret board doing all the button mashing.

I mentioned the soundtrack earlier. Much to my surprise, there was actually some metal songs on there, and I’m happy to say that I seem to be best at playing those. I’m certain if I keep at it, I can play "Iron Man" and "Symphony of Destruction" perfectly. As it is, I think I played "Iron Man" with only one mistake.

Admittedly, I’m talking about doing this on the Easy setting. Medium is another story entirely. On Easy, you only use three of the five fret buttons to play notes and chords. On Medium, you use four of the five. It’s really kind of amazing how much harder that makes it.

If you’re going to successfully avoid being ensnared by this insidious drug, beware the video game stores; the in store game displays will call out to you, and you’ll think "Oh, just one game won’t hurt." But it will. The in store display is what finally did me in.

Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ve got to go soak my hand in some ice water.