Huh

My allergies are breaking up and so are the clouds.

CrossPoint Guitar Hero Tournament

Yes, we are putting together a CrossPoint Guitar Tournament.  It's primarily for fun, and all proceeds will go to CrossPoint.  Since we're inviting everyone at all levels to play, we've gotten the question a few times on how we'll play out the tournament.  So, though I put this information on the Facebook Guitar Hero Tournament Page, I wanted to let everyone who doesn't have a Facebook account know how we planned on playing out the Guitar Duels. 

We did a lot of thinking about this. What we wanted to do was to make sure that everyone could come and have fun, regardless of what level they were at. But, without a ton of time, and a qualifying round, how do you break people up into brackets? This is not something that’s easy to do, especially with our time limitations, and not knowing how many people we’ll have, so we settled on what we thought would be the most fair. Plus, we didn’t want to make it too complicated. Not sure how well we succeeded on that front.

Basically, we’ll start with two brackets: Beginner and Advanced. If you play on Easy or Medium, you’ll start out in Beginner. If you play on Hard or Expert, you’ll start out in Advanced. We started out this way to make it a little quicker, but to also give people more chances to play. This way, everyone gets to play in at least two guitar duels, even if they lose. [Note: If you tend to 5-star just about every song on Medium, you’ll probably want to start in the Advanced bracket.]

We’ll randomly draw names in each bracket to find out who will play each other in a Guitar Duel. Who wins this round will determine which bracket each person goes to in the next round. Everyone in the Beginner bracket will play their first round on Easy; the winners of the Beginner bracket will advance to the Medium bracket. Everyone else will advance to the Easy bracket. This way, everyone that loses in the first round gets to play again against someone else who lost in the first round. Both of these brackets will advance the normal way, until there is an overall winner in each.

The same thing will happen for the Advanced bracket. All of the duels in the first round will be played on Hard. Winners advance to the Expert bracket, while everyone else advances to the Hard bracket. Duels will be played out in the same way until there is an overall winner.

We’re hoping that this gives everyone a chance to play, and still be fair in who gets to play who.

What’s to stop people from being dishonest about what level they’re in, or sandbagging on the first round so they get to play easier on the second? Well, nothing. We hope that, this being a CrossPoint event, everyone will be honest, and come to have fun and do their best.

For early registration, feel free to click on the picture below, and print it out.  Give it to me, or Joe with your registration fee.

Thanks, and hope everyone comes to play (or at least watch)! I'm hoping we'll have time at the end for some free-form play and Guitar Duels.  Maybe we'll even break out the instruments and get another band going.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Max is still talking

Krista teaches him some great stuff!

I Feel Lucky

Really? In this kind of economy? People are losing their jobs and people are going hungry, and there's still a market for $60 jeans for your infant?

Yay for Friday

But good grief - how many people are going to cut me off today?

Rude

Update.

Ok; while there's an advantage to pre-picking your seat at a theater like the Monaco, the downside is when you get rule-follower nazis that don't realize they're picking seats right next to you. So when they walk into an empty theater after picking seats right next to you they sit right next to you. Duh.

oh cool - Watchmen trailer

A Darkened Movie Theater

Here am at the Monaco in Huntsville (by myself in the theater) about to see Push. Why? Well because it's not in Florence, of course. I'll let you know if it's any good.

Aw, crud...it looks like I might not have the theater all to myself. Oh, well. The trailers are about to start.

Coraline

Julianna and I are at the movies ready to see Coraline in 3D!! (Julianna suggested that I add two exclamation points.)

Big Ben

This weekend at church Don McLaughlin was talking about Big Ben, and it reminded of this picture I took a number of years ago, the first time I visited London.  The sun was at the perfect spot.

Special

Caught an interesting movie last night - Special.  It stars Michael Rapaport (one of those guys you may not know by name, but you'd recognize him if you saw him) as Les, who begins to participate in a drug study, and find the drug begins to give him superpowers.  It's a pretty amazing film, if you like independent movies.  If you've got kids my age, you'd also recognize Josh, from Drake and Josh, though it's not a kid's film (it's got quite a bit of language). 

Here's my review if you're interested.

Sunlight Breaking Through the Clouds

Wish I'd had a better camera so I could've zoomed in...

What's Up with The Dark Knight?

Just saw the list of IMAX theaters that The Dark Knight got re-released to today. Is the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center on it?

Nope!

What's up with that?!?

Hmmmm...is it worth it to drive all the way to Nashville to see it on the IMAX? I'm still kicking myself for not going to V for Vendetta.

Anyone up for a road trip?

Snow

I was surprised to find a light dusting of snow on my car this morning. Would it have hurt to have a few more inches?

Smart Girl

Our small group met tonight at Fiesta Mexicana for dinner, followed by some bowling.

Julianna made a new friend - Katie, our soon-to-be optometrist.  I had to share something she told Katie tonight.  (Katie told me this after the fact.) Katie asked her what kind of music she listened to.  Julianna replied, "It starts with an 'R' and ends with an 'L'." 

"What group is that?" Katie asked.

"Rock and Roll," my Julianna replied.

That's my girl!!

Christmas Fun!

Here's a hint - whatever you do, never let Santa get your family the stomach virus for Christmas.  Max was the only one who didn't have it; he got over it a couple days ago.  I didn't leave the couch all day.  It's not as fun opening presents on the couch.

We had crackers and water for Christmas dinner.  But, I think we're all doing better today.  Maybe we'll actually break out Guitar Hero World Tour tonight.