judyonthenet

I’m planning on having a Chinese banquet for my reception, and traditionally, this means I’m supposed to change my attire like 5 times throughout the meal. (It’s a sign of wealth.) Like many other Chinese-Americans have done, I’m compromising Chinese traditions and American traditions by sticking to two dresses: a white wedding gown and a qipao (AKA cheongsam, basically a traditional Chinese gown). Since I’m in Taiwan, I figured I may as well look for one here. Also, as a wedding gift, my father is covering the qipao, which certainly helps the wedding budget.

My dad and his wife Annette did some research online to find a good qipao store in Taipei. Apparently, qipaos aren’t very popular in Taiwan, as there are very few stores specializing in this kind of dress. I noticed when I took my studio photos that most of the locals choose to have multiple evening gowns for their photos and forget the traditional attire, so I guess people here are sick of traditional Chinese stuff. The original plan was to get a custom qipao, but because of the amount of time to go completely custom (a couple weeks), I wouldn’t be around for the final fitting after the qipao is made. This is pretty risky, so we decided to stick to finding an existing qipao and getting it altered by a professional.

The store they found to have good reviews online is 吉祥如意 (jí xiáng rú yì - “lucky” + “matches ones wishes” according to chinese-dictionary.org). It’s located in this small, random mall of boutiques a couple blocks away from Sogo. The store is a very hole-in-the-wall the joint: very tiny and little or no advertising as to its existence. The store is run and owned by Ms. Ding (or Ting? I dunno the official translation), a very, very nice lady who has a great eye for figure and is very accommodating to her customers. All her qipaos are expertly constructed at her shop in Shanghai (the birthplace of the modern-day qipao). They rent qipaos for events, as well as make custom qipaos for purchase. Despite being a small shop, there is a large selection of qipaos already made and ready to try on in store.

I told her I was hoping to stick to the traditional red color for the qipao, and she immediately picked out three dresses for me to try on. Strangely enough, they all fit me pretty okay, so little or no alterations would be needed. I didn’t fall in love with any of them though; I think I thought they were too traditional or plain. Maybe I watch too much TV, but I was hoping for something more modern or edgy.

As I was trying on the third dress, the store owner had recommended I try one of her specialty dresses: a qipao made of an exquisite Japanese silk/linen fabric. The fabric is imported from Japan, made into a qipao in Shanghai, and sold in her Taiwan store. An interesting hybrid of Japanese and Chinese elements… kinda like me and Kelvin’s relationship :) My father, Annette, and Kelvin were strongly favoring this dark purple number with gorgeous flower embroidery. I tried it on and wasn’t immediately impressed; I was still thinking it was too traditional, and it felt loose. It also wasn’t red, the color I wanted. However, the material felt AMAZING. So smooth and silky, unlike traditional qipao silk material, which tends to be stiff. Dad, Annette, Kelvin, and Ms. Ding all thought the purple dress was spectacular, but for some reason I didn’t see it at first. I tried a similar dress that was red, hated it. I tried the purple one on for the second time, liked it more, but still wanted to see other dresses from other stores before making my decision. Plus the dress was on the high end: regular qipaos she had were around 4000NT, while the Japanese qipaos were 8000NT because of the quality of the fabric.

My mother had given me a business card of a store in Wufenpu earlier that week. She had passed by it while out shopping. I told my dad I wanted to check out that store “just in case”, and everyone was okay with that. We told Ms. Ding that if we don’t find anything there, we’d get the purple dress. She was totally okay with it, and she said she would put it in the back for now. ZERO pressure to buy. No pissy faces when I showed her the business card of the other store, just stayed in her consistently cheery demeanor. Given the harsh, competitive nature of Taiwanese retail, that alone is quite exceptional. It’s hard to go into any store without being given a hard sell.

And unfortunately this was the case at the store in Wufenpu. It was a much larger store, and there were at least five saleswomen in the store. I tried on 5 different dresses, none of which fit well or looked exceptional. They had more modern looks, but nothing particularly different. Plus all the materials felt bleh; even the stiff silk seemed better at the first store. And MAN were the salespeople pushy. The lady working with me kept telling me I looked good in everything and was trying to tell me what I liked. She was also insisting I buy it that day. Everything was major rush rush rush; I did NOT like being there. Kelvin said he left the store to take off his jacket, and the old lady in the front yelled at him to get back inside. AND their qipao prices were astronomical; they had qipaos in the 10000NT range (without any sort of special fabric or whatnot)! Sure, alterations were “included”, but come on. I tried to get out of there ASAP, telling them I had to think about it and ask my mom for her opinion. Then they didn’t get that Annette was not my mother, and I told them she was just my divorced dad’s wife, but they didn’t understand me or something as they kept looking at me puzzled and want to me to explain more. Then I just got frustrated and bitchfaced with them and just left. UGH. Terrible. My dad, Annette, and Kelvin all disliked being there. The only thing I liked about their qipaos is that their chinese buttons are actually functional as opposed to be purely decorational. Other than that, the first store’s fabric quality and just the shape and make of the dresses were superior.

As we headed back towards the first shop, I mentioned the purple qipao seemed kind of loose and that I probably would want it altered to be tighter. Ms. Ding had said it shouldn’t be tighter, as the material tends to cling to the body anyway and will accentuate the figure in the way the fabric falls. When we got back to the store, she reiterated that the qipao is ideal in its current state and continued to insist that alterations were unnecessary, despite the fact she’d make more money doing alterations at the my (ignorant) request. I really feel the store owner is a sincere and honest person.

I asked to try more dresses which she happily obliged. I tried some with openings in the front (which were bleh), and then I tried a more dramatic one with a train that I thought was pretty decent. Then I tried on the purple one again for the third time and decided it really was the dress for me. It’s weird how it took me three tries to see what everyone else was seeing, and I finally understood what she meant in terms of the fabric fitting the body. So we bought the purple dress, conveniently with zero alterations. I tried it on in front of my mom and grandparents later, and they were in agreement: the fabric and embroidery were lovely, and the construction was just expertly done. The seams shape the body so well;this was also obvious in the dresses of cheaper fabric.

I’m really excited about my dress. It wasn’t as dramatic as I had originally hoped, and sure it isn’t custom-made or haute couture, but I love it. It’s not red or a flashy pattern like I had originally wanted (Kelvin apparently is very opposed to flashy, Asian patterns), but the simplicity and color of the dress has significantly grown on me. Ms. Ding said the fabric used on the dress has been discontinued in the deep purple color, so that along with the embroidery (which was hand-done and took *4* days) makes my dress one-of-kind. And it fit me perfectly on the first try, so clearly this dress was meant for me :P

Some background info I gathered about Ms. Ding and her store. I think Ms. Ding was a salewoman several years ago before she quit her job to pursue her dream of opening a qipao store. She went to Shanghai to study under some qipao-making master or something and used her newfound knowledge to set up a shop in Shanghai and opened her store in Taipei. She designs all her dresses and helps with construction, though most of it is done in Shanghai. Her store has been open for 5 years, and aside from her website, it seems like she has very little advertising. She says her business (which also does a lot of dress rentals) has depended on client recommendations, and it seems to be working well for her.

So yeah, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND 吉祥如意旗袍 for a place to get a qipao. Ms. Ding is so kind and honest and easy to work with, and she’s clearly skilled and knowledgeable when it comes to qipaos. The quality and fit of their dresses is amazing. And after checking out that other store, their prices are quite reasonable.

New thing I learned today: In In the Mood for Love, Maggie Cheung wore 46 different qipaos, though a few didn’t make it into the final cut of the film. She wore a different qipao in every scene.

I’ve heard great things about this movie ever since this movie came out, but somehow I still managed to avoid seeing it (sorry Rodney). I wish I had checked this movie out before I came to Taiwan to get some inspiration for qipaos, but that’s okay. Even if I liked something in the film and was able to find something similar, the fact that incredibly gorgeous Maggie Cheung wore it already would make me wearing a similar dress look pretty pathetic in comparison.

I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday trying to recover from whatever weird stomach bug I got earlier this week. This consisted primarily of laying around in bed in a fetal position when in pain, and when not in pain, laying in bed playing New York Times Crosswords. I was really proud of myself for finally getting an A- on a Monday (AKA easiest level) crossword puzzle after many, many Ds. I still had to go out occasionally, as our photo shoot with Sophia Ritz on Thursday required some things.

I got five different outfits for the shoot, while Kelvin got four, which means he needed to get another outfit unless he wanted to repeat one of the rented outfits. Kelvin planned on getting a suit while in Taiwan, so we went to buy one on Tuesday. We went to Kelvin’s favorite store, G2000 (known for nice, but affordable, suits). It’s the brand of suit he got while he was in Taiwan last time. We couldn’t bargain-hunt because of lack of time, so we just went to a chain and got whatever was available there (which is still quite reasonable compared to the US… and it actually fits Kelvin well). The last suit Kelvin got was all grey, so he went for one with stripes this time around. Of course, the first suit (grey with faint blue stripes) he tries on fits him like a glove and looks spectacular on him. Because the matching pants weren’t available in his size that night, we picked up the outfit (jacket and pants) along with a couple shirts and a silk tie the next day. Also on Wednesday night, Kelvin and I had to get some last minute supplies for our Sophia Ritz shoot on Thursday. While trying to get to our destination (one of the large super-marts they have here), we got lost and probably walked twice the distance we needed to AND we never go to our destination, but we found all the necessities at a smaller chain supermarket.

Thursday was our Sophia Ritz shoot. I will go to it in greater detail when I review the place, but let’s just say it took ALL DAY and was FUCKING exhausting. Thankfully, my stomach was MUCH better, so I didn’t die during shooting. Today (Friday), we picked out our photos (30 out of 290!), which also took all afternoon, and on Monday we have to go back to look at final, Photoshopped photos. I swear I’m spending half of my vacation at that godforsaken place. Anyways, looking at photos, they present us all the good pictures, supposedly leaving out bad ones, like ones with blinking and whatnot. As a testiment to Kelvin’s amazing ability to look inadvertently goofy in photos, I present to you two “best of the worst” pictures Kelvin managed to sneak photos of:

Kelvin doesn’t look particularly bad in this; we just thought it was hilariously cheesy.

Man, I wonder what the BAD pictures looked like. The first time I saw this, I couldn’t stop laughing at this for several minutes. I mean, I was crying from laughter. Every time I see this picture, it’s the same process over and over again: laugh until tears start pouring. I swear the Australian couple behind us at Sophia Ritz (who were taking this experience way more seriously than we were) probably thought we were the most obnoxious people on the face of the earth.

I would like to emphasize there were many much, MUCH better pictures than these. I’ll post the good ones when I get them. These (plus a couple candids) will have to for now (ahem Robin).

Tonight, Kelvin and I had dinner with my “Uncle Teacher” (my mother’s late sister’s husband) and my two cousins at this yummy shabu-shabu place called White Sugarcane something… can’t remember. What’s great about this was that we passed by this place while we were lost, and Kelvin had mentioned we should eat there while we’re in Taiwan, looking at the food and patrons inside. I think it lived up to his expectations.

New thing I learned today: The logo for Volvo is the same as the male symbol.

After an almost-14-hour flight early Saturday (in the US), we arrived in Taiwan early Sunday (in Taiwan). I’m not a fan of flying, but our flight only had light turbulence, making it pretty manageable. Especially since I zonked out for like 9 hours on the plane from being exhausted prior to getting on. Aside from obnoxiously shrieking baby (with a black eye??) in front of us, it was a decent flight.

Even though it’s winter, Taiwan is fairly warm at the moment with its thick humidity. We haven’t done anything particularly exciting since I got here. I visited my dad in his fancy shmancy new house, napped a lot at my grandparents’ house (where I’m staying), and played a lot of New York Times Crosswords on the DS (a last minute impulse buy at Target before we left). Kelvin has been playing Rune Factory (a Harvest Moon RPG with more action) nonstop, trying to get level 100 radishes and enslaving bees.

We made a trip to Sophia Ritz for the consultation of our engagement/wedding photos session. We’re taking the actual pictures on Thursday, but I don’t know when we’ll be able to get proofs. I’ll talk about it more after I take the photos.

A couple food disappointments coming into Taiwan. 1) My favorite beef noodle stand located a block from my grandparents’ house closed shop some time during year-and-a-half since I was last here. It is always one of my goals coming into Taiwan to eat beef noodles every day, and the closing down of the closest and my most favorite noodle place greatly depresses me. I’ve eaten there every time I’ve come back to Taiwan! So sad… 2) Something I ate yesterday apparently didn’t agree with me, and I’ve been having painful stomach issues since then. Going to Sophia Ritz to try on dresses didn’t help things. The girl putting dresses on me should be thankful I didn’t pass gas when she was crushing me with those dress tops. (I did let a little burp go one time tho.) I haven’t really done anything today except try to get over the stomach thing. It seems to be getting better, so hopefully I’ll be able to get back to eating abrasive, spicy foods again.

New thing I learned today: An awl is a tool used by leatherworkers to punch holes in leather.

I’m learning a lot of useless vocabulary playing New York Times Crosswords. The sad thing is that a lot of the things I’ve learned, Kelvin already knew. Ah well, makes him a useful crossword puzzle solver helper.

I’ve been really busy lately, so I haven’t been able to post. For those that don’t know, I’m heading to Taiwan this Friday for a couple weeks. I’ve been rushing to get things done and buy presents for my cousins and whatnot. So even though I haven’t had much time, my life hasn’t been that interesting either. A few notables:

My mother left for Japan last Sunday, so we went to check out my first choice restaurant for reception the night before she left. I won’t mention it for now; I’ll wait for until I book this place. (Hint: It is one of my favorite Chinese restaurants.) In terms of restrictions, it seems pretty okay. The only thing I’m worried about is that we probably won’t be able to have a dance floor because of the limitations of the banquet side room. I think a dance floor is more typical in larger, American weddings, and I was planning to have one. However, I like the restaurant more than I want a dance floor, so I don’t think I’ll really miss it. (Because of complicated family structure, we wouldn’t do any of the typical family dance thingies anyway.) I’m curious as to what other people’s opinions are though… so time for a poll!

Would you miss the dance floor if I didn’t have one at my wedding reception?

• Yes
• No

View Results

 Loading …

Andrew dropped by our place on Sunday, and we dragged him to an all-afternoon shopping trip to the Great Mall. Man, that place was exhausting. I gave up any more shopping after leaving the war zone that was KB Toys. I did manage to buy some clothes before though. Apparently, Andrew randomly dropped by our place to give us Christmas presents. (Yay! Presents!) Ever since I bought Seasons 1 & 2 of Arrested Development, Andrew has been greatly disappointed that I didn’t get Season 3 to complete the collection, scoffing at my cheap-ass-ness. Well, he fixed that this Christmas by getting me my own damn copy. For Kelvin, he got him Victorious Boxers for the Wii, since Andrew had recommended the anime (Hajime no Ippo) and Kelvin loves Wii boxing. Sweet, more games for the game collection. I’m hesitant to watch Kelvin play it, as I really want to watch the anime first. Anyways, thanks Andrew for the well-thought out gifts!

Monday evening, I actually had some free time. Instead of doing anything productive or playing games I’m currently working on, I decided to download and play Princess Maker 2, an abandoned game that can be downloaded at Home of the Underdogs. I remember playing this when I was younger. Last weekend, I started playing Quest for Glory 1 (VGA version) since Mike found his QFG Anthology. I got caught up in the stats, so I switched from playing an adventure game with stats to playing a game that’s ALL stats. Princess Maker 2 is basically a daughter simulator, where you raise a girl sent from the heavens from age 10 to 18 and how she is raised determines the ending you get. The game is kinda PG-13ish, with some mild sexual references and weirdness (like kinky bondage dresses and… being able to marry your own daughter). Last time I played this game years ago, my daughter ended up becoming a prostitute :( I kept my daughter (Kimchee Kohala) good this time, and I tried to make her a chef, but she just ended up a housewife because she lacked charisma or something (which is very obnoxious cuz making her cook all her life was hella boring!). Even tho her picture didn’t look it, my princess was also pretty chunky (5′2″, 148lbs!). Anyway, despite getting the boringest ending, it’s still a pretty neat little game, so I’d recommend it to anybody. There’s 74 different endings.

Yesterday was Krang’s 25th b-day, so a handful of us went to Cheesecake Factory. I got him a Spider-Man Mr. Potato Head as well as the official WWE DVD Board Game, the latter of which Chris and Gordon came over to my apartment afterwards to try out. It’s… interesting… kind of. I’d say the main perk to the game is that there’s this awesome cardboard ring to roll your dice in.

*** Note: I finished this post like 6 hours ago. This post is supposed to have a lot of pictures, but they’re all on Kelvin’s computer since we’ve been using his new camera more than my camera. (It’s a Canon SD870IS, so much better than my T100.) I picked his shit-faced drunk carcass up from his office a couple hours earlier, where his very kind coworkers had called me and waited with him outside in the cold. Obviously somebody had too much to drink at the Ask.com Christmas party. He apparently puked a couple times on the bus back from SF. Oy. Anyways, until I actually get some pictures from him, here’s pictures of Kelvin passed out in front of the bathroom (where as he attempted to shower, he accidentally hit the tub plug switch, threw up again, and ended up soaking in his own vomit for a bit… don’t worry, he eventually cleaned himself up). He’s still sleeping in the same spot at the moment.

Bleh, I must have been really tired today, as I was passed out from 9:30PM to 12:30AM. I should probably attempt to sleep again soon… Anyways, check again later for more pictures.

Edited 12/14: Pictures added.

New thing I learned today: Sephora is a European chain of make-up stores that started in France in 1983. The first US store opened in New York City in 1998. “Sephora” is the Greek form of the Hebrew word for “bird”.

I wanted to get some gifts for people in Taiwan, so I dropped by Sephora. I got Vincent Longo and Clinique lipsticks for my dad’s wife, and one of each of these cute lip-gloss tins from Pop Beauty for four of my female cousins. I love the make-up they have on display (it’s probably just the way they display it); maybe one day I’ll figure out how to use make-up…

I finally got my copy from Amazon.com today. Even though I just got it, I’ve already been listening to the album at work since Kelvin bought it off iTunes last week. If you buy it online, you get the whole album in digital form along with a digital book (in PDF) of pictures in the limited edition. Here’s my opinion of Daft Punk’s second live album, along with a comparison of the physical album versus what you get off iTunes.

It’s hard for me to review music, as music tastes are so subjective and sometimes arbitrary. Oh well. I’m not Daft Punk’s biggest fan or anything, but I am a fan of their stuff. I also went to their concert at Berkeley in July, so I also have somewhere in my head the visuals associated with all the music in album. Listening to this album brings me back to when we were at their concert, and it was awesome. Even without the insane light show, the music is still engaging and hard not to dance to. Their mixing of all their best hits into a single 90 minute dance party, with the catchiest portions intertwined with each other, results in a somewhat distracting listen at work. There are some sections that are slower than others, but before you have the remote chance to lose interest, the music draws you back in. I’m not really into live albums, as I don’t like hearing the audience and sometimes the music is a bit… rougher. However, the audience noise doesn’t hinder from the music and only accentuates that giant house party feel (and also makes it easier to reminisce on the concert). And it’s electronic music, so it can’t really sound “rougher”.

I’ve listened to this album several times, but I usually just let the album go through in its entirety over and over again, so it’s hard to pick a favorite track. I think I’m partial to the first track, as I very strongly remember the feeling that came over me at the concert as “Robot Rock” transitioned to “Oh Yeah”. (I remember strong beats and the crowd uniformly rocking out.) I still can’t stop listening to “One More Time”, so I repeat that track often as well. I’m also quite fond of the encore. Weakest parts… ack, can’t pick them. This album rocks.

The physical limited edition album is basically a hardcover book, with each of the 2CDs inserted in each cover. In the middle are 50 pages of photos, most of which can be found in the digital PDF equivalent. Some of the pictures are more cropped in the PDF, others are more cropped in the book. The book has 3 or 4 pictures that aren’t in the digital PDF (including one showing the giant “FUCK” in background for Technologic), and it has liner notes including tour date and locations, list of concert production staff, and track listing. The book/case is a very nice change of pace from the typical CD case.

The limited edition also features a second CD that contains a bonus track (the encore), and it’s also an enhanced CD with a music video for the “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Live)” single off the album. The music video is basically a bunch of fan video footage from the New York City concert edited into a 4½ minute clip. The video sucks. While there’s a lot of decent footage that give you a general idea of how spectacular the light show was (at least for that song), the editing in this video is totally ridiculous. I think the longest uncut sequence is one second long. I mean, fan footage is already pretty shaky; to have it edited in this ADD-on-sugar-and-caffeine manner makes it a headache to watch. And I would like to see the what was going on the stage in its entirety, not see it from 16 different angles (at least not all in a 10 second period). And do we really need to see video clips of… video on a jumbotron? Turning upside down? WTF? And that’s it for the second CD: a 10-minute song and one music video (along with a bunch files to run the video with fancy flashy whatever on your computer). It seems like a lot of wasted space; I wish they could have added some more random junk on the CD.

Overall, it’s a fantastic album. I’d recommend getting the limited edition, mainly for the encore. I give this album 9.5/10 KPs, docking half a KP for a somewhat weak second CD. Probably my only CD purchase of the year (CDs? Psh, whateva), but definitely worth the $15.99 I spent.

By the way, did you know Kelvin and I are visible in one of the pictures on the album? That’s right, we’re in the album booklet.

Kelvin already pointed this out in his own review of the album.

Yeah, so I got bored with the theme again and switched to a new one. This one is called Blueline by GPS Gazette. The theme is widget-enabled, which means dealing with the sidebars is way easier now.

Since I’m playing around with my blog, I figured I’d try to see if there were any other interesting plugins I could add. So far, I haven’t downloaded anything aside from upgrades to WPG2 (Gallery plugin) and SexyComments. SexyComments wasn’t working earlier; I kept getting this message:

The SexyComments Theme used to render comments does not exist or it has not yet been initialized. Please check the Comment Display Theme setting in the SexyComments options.

I’d go to the SexyComments options, and there would be a pulldown menu to select the comment display theme, but it was empty. I couldn’t find a solution online anywhere, but I looked through the code and figured out what the problem was. The plugin uses the function get_template_directory() (which gives the directory location of your theme) to figure out the location of the plugin/templates. I accidentally had my theme in a deeper folder, so instead of wp-content/themes/theme_name, it was in wp-content/themes/theme_name/theme_name. Being off one folder level screwed up the SexyComments script’s finding of its own files. It was looking for get_template_directory().’/../../plugins/sexy-comments/templates’ when it wanted get_template_directory().’/../../../plugins/sexy-comments/templates’. Anyways, I fixed my theme directory structure back to typical, and the plugin worked again.

Not like anybody is going to use it. If you want to take advantage of its features (mainly forum-like comments), you can get an avatar at Gravatar. I could also do MyBlogLog instead of Gravatar; I know Kelvin and some people he knows uses it. Meh, I’ll contemplate it later and just use Gravatar for now.

New thing I learned today: Aside from being used in text to point out unusually or incorrectly spelled words, “sic” also means to incite or urge an attack, usually with a dog.

I thought Kelvin was spelling it wrong when he typed “sic balls” instead of “sick balls”, but apparently “sic” is the right spelling (tho “sick” is also acceptable).

Last Saturday, Ravi and Jessica held their Crazy Hat Potluck Party at Ravi’s apartment. In summary: There was great food, great people, silly hats, and Rock Band, resulting in a super-fun party.

After Kelvin rushed to get his dog-gnawing-head hat finished, we dropped by Chevy’s to pick up chips, salsa, and guacamole for the party. I love their chips, salsa, and guac, and I can’t cook worth anything, so good opportunity to get some. Chris brought a tiramisu cake which seemed familiar to me. Despite ~being 20 minutes late, we were still the first ones there. Well, Wonsop was already there, but he doesn’t count since he lives in the same apartment complex.

We munched on the chips and Wonsop’s stuffed mushrooms (*sigh* mushrooms) until more people arrived. The guys tried out Rock Band as I chatted with Jessica about our knitting/sewing experiences. Calvin arrived with pies, while Anna and Norm seemed like they’d be there later, so we started eating. Jessica made a giant casserole dish of mac & cheese, which somehow managed to be tasty without being salty. Ravi made a jambalaya dish that had a lot of flavor (including yummy sausage) but wasn’t overwhelming. Man, I need to learn to cook. Anna and Norm arrived while we were eating, and she brought a giant pot of green curry. I never got to try it, as I ate too many chips and filled up on mac&cheese and jambalaya.

Crazy hat-wise, the ratio was decent. From the ten people that came, I think only Calvin, Norm, and Gordon were the only ones without hats. Calvin contemplated buying one, Norm forgot his Goofy hat rushing to get to the party, and Gordon decided to drop by at the last minute so he was unaware of the “crazy hat” part of the party, so forgivable offenses. Wonsop wore a hat, but I don’t think it was crazy. Ravi wore the Where’s Waldo hat that Jessica knitted for him for Halloween, and Jessica wore another knitted hat that she made in a day. Chris wore a giant rainbow stovetop hat he found in storage at work that still had the tag on it (and he purposely left on). I had my Batman chef hat, and Kelvin had his dog-gnawing-head hat (craziest hat at the party, IMHO). Anna’s hat was pretty crazy, too: an unfinished knit wig. While I’m sure it will be awesomely cute when its done, it was funny as is. She had her knitting needles stuck in the sides, and the knitting loop thingies were still on the edges. And she was walking around holding a skein of yarn.

The rest of the night, we played Rock Band. Now, I’m not a fan of Guitar Hero: I find the songs too long and the gameplay and animations not that interesting to watch. However, Rock Band is way, way more fun of a party game than Guitar Hero, despite still having long songs and same basic gameplay. The added microphone and drum kit elements make SO MUCH of a difference for group interaction. First of all, I greatly enjoy Karaoke Revolution. I don’t like karaoke, but I like karaoke in a game, where you check songs off and unlock stuff (surprise!). So clearly, I liked the lead singer portion of Rock Band, which is almost identical to Karaoke Revolution. It required little hand-eye coordination, and the portions where you had to clap the mic to make tambourine or cowbell noises were easy. Plus with the mic, more people can play along and sing with the lead singer, allowing greater group participation.

The drum kit is a whole different level of gameplay than the guitars, it seems. I didn’t try it, as it seemed way too intimidating to me. The drum section was not a straightforward venture for anybody, except for maybe Wonsop. (I don’t get Wonsop. I don’t think he owns any console games himself, yet he masters everything so quickly.) Man, Wonsop killed at the drums, but there were still songs (at that time at least) that Wonsop hadn’t practiced and still found very challenging. Regardless, watching anybody (particularly somebody who actually kinda knows what they’re doing) play the drums is itself an entertaining activity. You can tell very easily if they’re good or sucking, as the tapping of the drum controllers is audible and the movements are obvious, unlike the subtleness of the guitar controllers. Add this with the great band animation on the screen, the game becomes actually fun to watch.

The two guitar portions seem similar to Guitar Hero, and I didn’t play them so I can’t compare. While they’re not as entertaining to watch, I’m sure the two people playing the guitar/bass sections are thoroughly entertained. The songs are still long… really long. Particularly painful is the 8 and 1/2 minute song “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who. (I had no idea what that song was until I heard that distinctive “Yeaaah!”.) I think anyone playing an instrument on that song had some majorly cramped-up hands.

I had told Ravi and Wonsop to, instead of playing the same 12 songs they’ve already unlocked, to do the campaign mode so we could unlock things as we play. The songs would be random, but at least we’d make some progress, unlock things, and not have to play the same songs over and over again. I wish I knew more of the songs, but luckily Anna (who knew a lot of the 90s and later stuff) and Gordon (who knew a lot of the 90s and earlier stuff) were there, so I think they got a unlocked a bunch of stuff that night. (I know Jessica is probably reading this and laughing at my continual obsession to unlock things. Hey, it’s what gets me through games!) I wonder how fun this game is without the party setting.

I did have a really stupid moment tho. While singing “Highway Star” by Deep Purple (an older song I didn’t even know I knew how to sing… apparently it was in Elite Beat Agents, so I knew how it went), I clapped the mic against my thumb too hard. It took me a few seconds to realize my thumb was in total pain and had swollen to the point I couldn’t bend it. Dude, I didn’t even drink! I have no idea how I did that and not notice it! I had to put my thumb on ice all evening, and I couldn’t bend it in any degree until middle of Sunday. Man, that sucked.

Outside of that, I greatly enjoyed the game, and I greatly enjoyed the party. Thanks again Ravi & Jessica for having us over!

New thing I learned today: The Who are from England. (Seriously, I know nothing about classic rock.)