And...done.

I didn't post a single thing the entire last school year. Was it because I was busy? Maybe. Was it because I didn't have any funny stories to share? No.

So what was it? Facebook.

It's so easy to put a story in a Facebook status, knowing that soon people will be liking it and commenting. I've deliberately separated naming names on this site, so there's not much in the way of feedback.

So in the interest of brevity, conciseness, and being an attention whore, I'll keep posting new statuses on Facebook and officially stop making entries here.

It's not like I'll have any more teaching stories to tell in the coming months anyway. I managed to get laid off AGAIN. So I'm currently looking for a new job, whether it be teaching or not.

Forward on.

Before I move on...

When I appeared on Jeopardy, my interview with Alex Trebek was about how places I'd worked at (summer jobs in retail and food service) kept closing. Unfortunately, this has extended into my teaching career. I've now worked in two districts where my position has been eliminated after two years of working there. Next week starts my fifth year of teaching in my third district.

I have two more adventures in teaching stories from kids in district #2. I am sure they will be followed by adventures from district #3.

Story #1:

A boy is receiving a cello lesson. I was on my prep and using the computer in the music room. I'd been reading an email from the school regarding a upcoming schedule change that was particularly inconvenient for the music classes. I called the strings teacher over to tell him about it, remarking that it was "baloney," since there was a kid in the room and I couldn't say "bullshit."

"You want to know what's baloney?" remarked the boy with the cello. "You should have seen my lunch!"

Add the fact that this kid has severe emotional disabilities and is rarely in a joking mood, and I almost fell out of my chair laughing.


Story #2:

Sixth grade choir. They were singing a version of the popular Spanish folk song "De Colores." Every kid in the school has to take Spanish, so I was trying to see which words they could recognize in the phrase "y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores me gustan a mi." They were stuck on "amores."

A lot of people in this district are of Italian descent (this is Jersey, after all) so I asked "Have you guys heard the song 'That's Amore?' It's pretty much the same..."

A lightbulb went on over a girl's head. She gasped.

"Amores means PIZZA!"



So that's all I got for now. And I'd like to say that since my new job is 7th-12th grade, the stories won't be like this, but we all know that's not true...they'll probably just be less adorable.

And now it's time for bad decisions in childcare.

I saw two videos on YouTube this week that made we wonder why people do the things they do with their children.

First up, a dad tells his son that he could never be a single lady and therefore, cannot sing along with Beyonce. He bawls, inconsolable.

Second, some school thought it would be a good idea to have the elementary school play be Scarface. There are so many things wrong with this video, but I love the giant pile of popcorn on the desk.

COOOOOOLLEEEEEAAAAGES!!!

I don't know why, but this is my new favorite commercial.

Adventures in Teaching, Part 562

Two interesting stories from recent weeks.

Number 1:

There are many kids in my school on the autism spectrum, but are mainstreamed. One of them, when I had him last year, would prove to be extremely sensitive to loud noises. For example, if the class split into groups and played percussion instruments, he would retreat into a corner, rocking in place with his hands over his ears.

This year, when the kids first start in my cycle, I have them write down their favorite kinds of music. What did this same kid write?

"Anything but soft."



Number two:

I was telling my fourth graders a biography of Scott Joplin. The story mentioned that he had perfect pitch. I explained to the kids that I had it too, and it meant that I could play piano by ear really well. I'd told them that in a voice lesson I'd taught the day before, I'd picked out the Taylor Swift song "You Belong with Me" for the student, even though I'd never played it on piano before.

One kid, upon hearing that, exclaimed "Can you play 'Forever?'"

"Please," a girl chided him, "She's not that funky fresh."

I turned toward them, "The Drake song or the Chris Brown song?"

The girl gasped. "Maybe she is that funky fresh!"

Current Events through the Eyes of Sixth Graders

It kind of interesting to see how what's going on in the world is viewed by my students. These two examples are from sixth grade students.

One:

In their language arts classes, the kids wrote poems using hyperbole. They'd pick an adjective, and write a bunch of hyperbole based on it. Example: "It was so loud babies across the world cried."

One wrote, "It was so happy the Iraq war ended."


Two:

A kid was having a conversation with a teacher about cell phones. The teacher mentioned that he is probably due for a new one, remarking "My phone needs change." The student looked confused for a second, and then said "Oh! You don't mean change like quarters and nickels. You mean like Obama change."

The Beatles, 2000s-Style

I'm fully aware that I have owned Beatles Rock Band for almost four months, and the stereo remasters for almost two, and I haven't talked about them yet. I have been busy, obviously, and it's been hard to form what my thoughts are. But here goes.

I was weary of getting the remasters. I'm not much of an audiophile. What was I really going to get out of all of this? Was it really going to sound better to me?

I decided to listen from beginning to end, Please Please Me to Abbey Road. (I listen in chronological order of recording, not release.) I had it all in my iPod, and I connected it to my stepmom's car stereo as we drove into the city before the Yankees championship parade. The difference in sound was instantaneous. It was like I was in studio two at Abbey Road, it sounded that clear to me.

As I made my way through the catalog, I began to hear things that I'd never heard before. There's an extra guitar solo bleeding through in "I'm Down?" There's a piano doubling the brass at the beginning of "All You Need Is Love?" I heard them both for the first time, and I've been listening to these songs in headphones for years.

The mini-documentaries that came along with them were like icing on the cake. So yes, it was worth it, and I don't care if Jonathan says I should have gotten the mono instead.


Beatles Rock Band ended up being more of a delight. Most of the Beatles community that I follow online is just a bunch of older people who just don't get what all the fuss is about with the video game. So it was hard for me to explain how much fun it is. I mean, sure, I can learn how to play the music for real, but this is still a video game, after all. I have photos to collect and achievements to earn!

(By the way, after getting five stars on every song, and not gaining all the locked videos, I realized that to truly beat the game, not only do you have to five-star every song, you have to five-star every song twice. Oy. I was not happy when I found that one out.)

The game has its drawbacks, don't get me wrong. For one thing, you can't use the Xbox 360 headsets as microphones. The game makes you connect a separate microphone for each vocal line, and of course they only give you one to use. I don't have two extra USB microphones lying around.

Secondly, like I predicted, they can't accurately portray the instruments all the time. Many of the "guitar" parts are actually keyboard parts, or other stuff that's not guitar. These things are not meant to played with guitar technique, which makes playing some of them accurately impossible. For example, I downloaded every extra song you can get so far. The guitar part includes the random calliope tape loops in "Being for the Benefit for Mr. Kite!" How is that supposed to be played?! Or when you play the guitar part for "When I'm 64," you're actually playing the clarinet part. When the real guitar part starts, does it switch? Nope, stays on clarinet.

I'm fine with things not being historically accurate, like seeing George play the guitar solo on "Taxman" (It was Paul) or Paul playing bass on "She Came in through the Bathroom Window" (George) or Ringo on drums in "Back in the USSR" (Paul). They had to do that for the sake of the game. But being musically accurate is a different story.

It's just fun for me being able to physically react to these songs that I love so much. I love that you can sing any vocal line when it's set on "harmonies," even when you only have one microphone. I love that with the mixes created for the game, I'm hearing these lines of music like I never have before. I've been getting some of the lyrics wrong too!

And you know that I'll download the other albums when they become available. Can't wait to see how they'll deal with "Revolution 9."

Why I root for those Damn Yankees.

In a few minutes, game six of the 2009 world series will start in the Bronx, with the New York Yankees up three games to two. They have a chance of winning their 27th title tonight.

Before the series started last week, the New York Times, on their website, asked readers who were diehard Yankees or Phillies fans to relate the time they decided that this was their team. By the time I saw this, and thought about what I would say, there were hundreds of responses up.

I decided to put it here instead. Here goes.

I'll start with a secret: In my 1995 elementary school yearbook, I said my favorite sports team was the Mets.

Yes. The Mets.

I didn't care about sports at all then. But I had a blank to fill in, and the last sports event I'd been to was a Mets game during summer camp.

The next year I went to my first Yankee game with my dad. (Actually, my dad was there for my first Yankee game that I ever went to, but he wasn't there with me. Long story.) We left in the seventh inning or so, with the Yankees leading, and came home to find out they'd lost. Made me realize that baseball was a game with interesting outcomes.

Later that year I happened to walk into my parents' room while the 9th inning of game six of the world series was on tv. Even I, who knew almost nothing about baseball, had predicted the Braves to win the series, and there I was watching Charlie Hayes catch that final out for a Yankee victory. I started jumping up and down and cheering. I found that yearbook, crossed out Mets and wrote in Yankees.

But this did not make me a diehard fan. I became one of those people who only started really caring when the team made the playoffs. And for this stretch, for a Yankee fan, that was really easy to do. The Yankees won the world series on my 14th birthday, and my cake that year looked like a baseball.

Then 2004 happened.

I watched the ALCS, game four, then five, then six, then seven, still believing that the Yankees were that team that could always come back and win. And they didn't. The Red Sox won the pennant just after midnight on my 20th birthday.

Somehow, this felt different than the end of the 2003 world series or the 2001 world series. It didn't make me sad, like Josh Beckett did in 2003, or numb with shock, as Luis Gonzales did in 2001. (Although the latter had some part to do with 9/11 I suspect. New York was supposed to win, dammit!) No, this made me angry.

I was going to stick with this team. They needed to beat other teams. And I needed to stick with them, even if sometimes they didn't accomplish said beating.

Starting with opening night 2005 (a win against the Red Sox, more incentive to watch), I've tried to watch every game since. And go to at least one game in person every year.

I have now a mental checklist of Yankee game events I'd like to see in person. One I accomplished this year was attending a playoff game. And I know that sometime in the future, I will check off attending a world series game on that list.

Speaking of, it's game time. Let's go Yankees!!!

New Jersey Crazy Is a Special Kind of Crazy.

Tomorrow is Election Day, and New Jersey is actually one of the few states that people are giving a crap about this year. We are one of two states (Virginia being the other) with a gubernatorial election going on. Obama and Biden have visited the garden state quite frequently lately.

(Side note: My computer did not recognize the word “Obama” just now, and suggested that I replace it with “Osama.”)

Every candidate had to write a personal statement of 500 words that went out on the sample ballots we received last week. I read through them all, and let me say…there are some bat shit crazy people running for governor of New Jersey. The democratic and republican statements are at least coherent, make sense, and have no grammatical or typographical errors. The others? Not so much.

I’ll just give you the highlights, but I’d really like to see how many people actually cast their votes for these lunatics. You might not think people would support them, but as my stepdad said…”this is probably how Schwarzenegger ended up governor of California.”

Gregory Pason, Socialist: Supports raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour. Rejects “No Child Left Behind” mandates, despite the fact that it’s federally mandated and has nothing to do with state law.

Kenneth Kaplan, Libertarian: Wants to legalize marijuana, but is in favor of school vouchers. Recommends a website for you to take a quiz on which political party you belong to…because “you may have been a Libertarian all along!”

Alvin Lindsay, Independent: Wants to freeze taxes for the next four years, and increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour.

Gary T. Steele, Independent: Counts his six years as an accountant and his time as head coach of an ice hockey team as valid experience.

Jason Cullen, “People not Politics:” Wants to eliminate sales tax.

Gary Stein, JUST IN TIME: Calls himself an “idiot,” says “up theirs” to the “elite media.” Wants to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses, and boycott Mexico. All in a plan to get illegals to stop coming. Also might want to eliminate the department of education. His is the most incoherent of them all, so I’m not exactly sure what he was trying to say. But it’s all kinds of crazy rambling.

Kostas Petris, Independent “For The People:” If you’re going to talk about not voting democrat or republican, don’t quote the part of the declaration of independence about abolishing government. Just saying.

David R. Meiswinkle, Middle Class Empowerment: Wants to conduct a “complete, thorough, and objective investigation of what happened” on 9/11.

Christopher J. Daggett, Independent: No wonder this guy came to the debates; he’s the only independent that doesn’t sound like he’ll put on a tinfoil hat any time soon.

Joshua Leinsdorf, Fair Election Party: Lieutenant Governor running mate owner of “Ultimate Car Care in Neptune.” Believes that the state economy will be fixed by making high schoolers take public buses to school, and starting school at a “reasonable hour.” (Never mind that school starts early because most parents go to work by nine.) By having high schoolers take public transit, you fight childhood obesity, and save enough money to buy each child a laptop. Kids with computers excel in school, and they will succeed and get jobs later on, which leads to paying more taxes. Oh, and he wants to get rid of county government entirely, among other things.

Happy voting, everybody!

Yankees/Twins. 10/9/09. ALDS Game 2. I was there.

Two StubHub tickets to the upper deck: $100 each, plus 10% commission and a $5 "delivery fee" for an email.

Bus and subway fares from North Jersey to the Bronx: $19.

Seeing A-Rod hit a 2-run home run in the bottom of the 9th to the the game, having no runs score in the top of the 11th with the bases loaded and no one out, Mark Teixiera hitting a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th, and cheering with thousands of Yankees fans all the way down the ramp to the street? PRICELESS.

(Yes, I shot those videos.)

(Oh, and hearing a boy no older than seven pass me on my way out saying "Boston sucks ass"? AWESOME.)

School Days, School Daze

I've been pretty busy lately, mainly because it's the start of a new school year. Here's the best classroom story I have so far.

An early lesson I had planned was for groups of students to draw three cards out of a bag. Each card would have the name of a common household item written on it (rubber bands, plastic bottle, etc.). Their task was to see what kind of instrument one could create with said items.

One group of eighth graders ended up with a plastic soda bottle, a paper bag, and a pencil. Here's what they came up with:

"The musical sounds would be from stabbing the plastic bottle with the pencil. You wear the paper bag on your head to hide the shame."

Sigh.

And since I teach a class where kids are frequently pulled out for one reason or another, leaving the majority of students not feeling accountable for their actions, I wanted to stand up and applaud when I saw this YouTube video. Too bad it's not real (it was recorded for a different school than the one mentioned in the video, but never used in the official school system), but I'm sure many teachers relate to this one.

End of Summer Wrapup

Tomorrow morning I have to report to school. I actually don't have to be at school again until the kids arrive next Tuesday, but this is pretty much my last day of summer, even though I've been slowly lesson planning for the last month or so.

What did I do this summer? Mainly things baseball related or genealogy related. (Unless Jarret wants to point out something else.)


Baseball stuff:

I went to three Yankees games during the summer. Their record while I was there was 2-2, and unfortunately, the 22-4 pwning they got from the Indians in April is the most interesting Yankees game I've been to all year.

The last Yankees game was on my dad's birthday, and it my family was going to surprise him with the tickets and have his name put on the screen saying happy birthday. Unfortunately, he figured it all out beforehand. If he hadn't figured it out before then, three cameras suddenly focusing on the scoreboard in the middle of the sixth inning would have.

In July the AA All-Star game was being held in Trenton, so Jarret got us tickets. We were seven seats away from winning a pair of old Yankee Stadium seats. Nuts.

Took my first trip to Citi Field with my dad to see the Mets play the Dodgers, days after Manny's suspension was lifted. We waited an hour for Shake Shack, missing the entire first inning, and yes, it was worth it.

Jarret and I spent a weekend in Baltimore to finally have Jarret see his Orioles at Camden Yards. They were playing the Red Sox, so we could both root against the other team. And this was days after David Ortiz's name got dropped in with the steroid issue, so there was some interesting heckling. This also meant that downtown Baltimore was crawling with New Englanders carting cases of Yuengling into their cars and yelling to each other "Are you going to the innah hahbah?" Since John Smoltz started the game, Baltimore actually almost won the game...but didn't.

I saw a Sportscenter #1 top play in person twice this summer. Neither were at Yankee Stadium.


Genealogy stuff:

Last summer, I managed to track down living descendants of my paternal grandmother's maternal uncle in Ireland. Though I obviously didn't expect to hit that big of a jackpot this year, I hoped I could uncover some interesting things.

I obtained a copy of my grandmother's other maternal uncle's (Patrick's) death certificate. It contained the information that we were looking for: where he's buried. Still haven't made the trip yet, even though it's less than an hour from my house. Not much reason to go other than to take a photo of the gravestone and send it to the cousins in the old country.

I didn't have as much luck obtaining my grandmother's father's birth certificate. He's the only one of my great-grandparents born in the US, and the city of New York can't find it. It's likely it was never registered; according to their website, birth certificates weren't required until 1910, and about 25% of births before then weren't recorded.

We wanted the birth certificate to see if it had any information about his parents, and to pin a date down on his birth year; I'd seen everything from 1865 to 1872. More searching within the census tried to find out if his parents were married in this country or in Ireland. It's likely that they came over because of the potato famine and married here, but their names are too common to do an accurate search. This is the same reason I can't find any of my great-grandmother's family on an Ellis Island record; everyone has the same name and lied about their ages.

The only way that I could track my great-grandfather down now would be to look for a baptismal certificate. And you'd think the New York diocese would have some sort of central database, but no. I'd have to ask every catholic church in town. So that side of the family has been put on hold for a while, and we turned to my dad's father's side.

I tracked down my grandfather's family in the 1930 and 1920 census, but not 1910. I knew they were in the country by this point, due to an older brother being born in 1907, but I couldn't find them in ancestry.com's search.

Dad and I decided to travel to the town where my grandfather was born: Lansford, Pennsylvania, about a two hour drive. There was a large mine there, which is now a museum. We decided to go on the tour and see if they had any information about the people who worked in the mine. They didn't have any, and were rather surprised that we'd asked. An hour in a 50-degree mine for nothing.

Dad and I drove around the town. The mine had brought in a lot of immigrants, so there seemed to be a church for every ethnicity. We eventually discovered that yes, there was a Slovak church, and it was old enough to have been there when my family was.

When we got home, I found that the church had a record of names that had recorded a birth, marriage, or death there. And there were my great-grandparents, with "birth" listed next to their names - my grandfather's. Next to that were the towns in Slovakia they came from! Score!

Later that night, I found them in the 1910 census, with the last name horribly misspelled. The father was listed as a coal breaker - he didn't work inside the mine, he just waited outside for the miners to bring it out! We definitely had toured the inside for nothing!

Last week, I started to enter information into the family tree program at ancestry.com. With the information you put in, they run searches for you. While some of what they turn up isn't your relative, we believe they found a big one: the manifest of the ship my great-grandmother came on. It was listed as Hungarian instead of Slovakian (which happened a lot in that time), but the age is about right, and it said she was going to meet her sister in Hoboken, and we knew she had a sister in Hudson county...it's very likely her. So that's cool.

I also did some research for my stepmom, and was able to track members of her family quite a ways, but I've already typed enough. And if you're wondering why I'm not researching my mom's side of the family...I am. I just can't find anything.


Well, now I've typed way more than I thought I would, and I must go to sleep now. I've got school in the morning!

D'oh, a deer

While Jarret and I were driving to a movie on Saturday, I saw some deer grazing on the side of the road.

"Aw, look, baby deer! And they're with their mommy deer!" I gushed. Jarret nodded, keeping his eyes on the road.

A few seconds later I saw a large flock of birds congregated on the same side of the road. These were huge birds, birds-of prey size. As I wondered about why so many of these birds would be together on the ground, still babbling to Jarret how cute the doe and her fauns were, I realized what the birds were doing.

Eating a baby deer.

My subsequent freakout after that was considered hilarious by Jarret, since he didn't see anything.

Beatles Rock Band set list? For real this time?

Lots of Beatles Rock Band news this week. First, a general description of the game here. It talks about how it doesn't do the parts of the regular Rock Band game that piss me off, which is good. It also talks about how you're going to hear studio chatter that's never been released, and you can unlock such rare things as the Beatles' 1963 Christmas record. (Which I found funny to read, as that's only rare to own, not to hear.)

Bu the big news was that Game Informer magazine supposedly has the game's final track listing. And yes, it's different than the one leaked two months ago. Mainly because they're still keeping one track a secret.

Once again, here's the list, and I'll compare it to the one I made. Even though I had the handicaps of not knowing about the three vocal lines (and that the Love album was fair game), I do realize that I made some mistakes in compiling my list. (How could I miss "While My Guitar Gently Weeps?" It's got the word guitar in the title!) But there are some things that are taken into consideration in this list, such as making sure tracks with George and Ringo on lead vocal are well represented. Little bit of revisionist history, there.

This is what Game Informer lists. Tracks that I predicted will be in bold. Tracks that made my short list but were cut at the last minute will be in italics.

Singles
I Want To Hold Your Hand
I Feel Fine
Day Tripper
Paperback Writer
Revolution
Don't Let Me Down

Please Please Me (1963)
I Saw Her Standing There
Boys
Do You Want To Know A Secret
Twist and Shout

With the Beatles (1963)
I Wanna Be Your Man

A Hard Day's Night (1964)
A Hard Day's Night
Can't Buy Me Love

Beatles For Sale (1964)
Eight Days a Week

Help! (1965)
Ticket To Ride

Rubber Soul (1965)
Drive My Car
I'm Looking Through You
If I Needed Someone

Revolver (1966)
Taxman
Yellow Submarine
And Your Bird Can Sing

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Getting Better
Good Morning Good Morning

Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
I Am The Walrus
Hello Goodbye

The Beatles (White Album) (1968)
Back In the U.S.S.R.
Dear Prudence
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Birthday
Helter Skelter

Yellow Submarine (1969)
Hey Bulldog

Abbey Road (1969)
Come Together
Something
Octopus's Garden
I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Here Comes the Sun

Let It Be (1970)
Dig a Pony
I Me Mine
I Got a Feeling
Get Back

Love (2006)
Within You Without You/ Tomorrow Never Knows

26 out of 44, 31 if you count the italicized ones. Out of the ones I did not pick at all, four have Ringo on lead vocal, and three have George.

However, some of the ones I picked and are not on this list include "All My Loving," "Things We Said Today," "I'll Follow the Sun," "I've Just Seen A Face," "Michelle," "Girl," and "In My Life." Some big names there. I know we'll be able to download Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper and Rubber Soul right away, and probably the rest soon after, but come on, there's already much coin being dropped here.

This might be my new favorite PSA.

Check this out.

It starts off like a sterotypical breakfast commercial, and then BAM! Johannes Brahms and his piano burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man!

I'd seen some of the other PSAs like this on TV, but I hadn't seen this one before. So when it turned up in a Hulu video I was watching, I was quite amused.

Slightly weird, but mostly adorable.

Found via the mental_floss blog: A 5-year-old plays Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues."

Maybe if I'd praticed more as a kid...

I'm a decent piano player, but more for function than actual performance. I blame it on my lack of drive to practice, especially when I was eight and supposed to be taking such things seriously. (Back then, I performed in a recital here, but other people in my studio were performing across the street.)

Anyway, here is a guy who arranged a bunch of 80s hits to be played in ragtime piano style. I can find no definitive evidence that the tape was sped up.



Maybe I could be like these two ladies instead and arrange the works of Bach for the giant piano at FAO Schwartz.



Nah...I'm way too much of a klutz to do that. Oh well.

FSA Fail

What's the FSA, you ask? Family and School Association. It's a fancy modern term for the PTA.

In April, my school's FSA decided to hire photographers and take pictures of the kids, a la class picture day. Why class picture day in September wasn't enough, I don't know.

Anyway, a couple of weeks later, the photos were delivered and I was instructed to give the photos out to my homeroom. I couldn't remember collecting payment for these photos, so I remarked to another teacher that it was nice of the FSA to provide free portrait photos.

"Oh, they have to pay for them," the other teacher replied, "If they want to keep them. If they don't want to pay for them, they have to give them back."

Let's figure out what's wrong with this scenario.

These kids are 10-14 years old. Some will be reliable. Others will not. Some will turn in money for the photos and return the ones they haven't paid for. Others will throw the packet of photos to the bottom of their locker and forget about them.

The principal has been announcing every day for the last week for a return of the unpaid photos. Because "if you don't return them, the FSA will have to pay for them."

Notice how the principal is not teaching any sense of responsibility to these kids. He's basically telling them, "It doesn't matter if you are unreliable, someone else is going to cover your ass." (By the way, about 20% of the school didn't return anything. That's hundreds of dollars the FSA has to pay. Not the kids.)

Sorry Mr. Principal. Sorry parents. Sometimes, the teachers know the kids a lot better than you do.

Beatles Rock band Setlist Leaked?

According to a website, this is the track list for Beatles Rock Band. (Love the cartoon at the top, by the way.)

Up against my list, I'm 32 for 45, not too bad considering I didn't know about the three microphone thing. There are some things that I'm glad the ones who chose the set list agree with me on ("Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and my Monkey!" That's going to be so much fun to play!) And then some where I'm looking at it and wondering how I could have thought they wouldn't be on there (I left off "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand?!")

But some neat points:

• I was perfect on only one album; Revolver, three for three.
• I was right about there being a lot of songs from Let It Be due to the simple instrumentation of the songs; however, I picked six and they picked four (and matched three).
• I picked the same four songs from Abbey Road, but thought they would also include "The End" because of that bitchin' guitar solo. But I heard the whole album will be available for download.
• Only one song there that made my shortlist that got cut: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Of course, this might not be the correct list, as the game's rated T for tobacco references. Two Beatles songs refer to cigarettes or smoking, neither of which are on this list. So we'll see.

More Info about Beatles Rock Band

The world premiere of the Beatles Rock Band game is today, even though it's not being released for another three months. I am so excited over what I'm seeing here.

This website includes a partial track list: ten out of the forty-five songs they said there will be in the game, not counting the songs available for download. There might be some differences from the list I came up with, since I didn't know that there will be three microphones for singing harmony (eeee!), but so far, I'm eight for ten.