I scored Rock Band for Wii last summer, and we had a lot of fun with it, but it was disappointing that I was unfamiliar with lots of the songs.  Or I just plain hated them.  So, hey, Beatles Rock Band… Everybody likes The Beatles, right?

Yep.

As it turns out, my daughters weren’t particularly familiar with them (the shame!), but, impressionable souls that they are, they picked up a fondness for the group pretty fast.

One nice thing about The Beatles Rock Band is that you can hook up three microphones and sing harmonies.  (And get a triple fab bonus for hitting them.)  And The Beatles have lots of cool harmonies.

I play drums (in the game, not in real life, though I like to think they might be similar).  I’ve always been kind of dismissive of Ringo as the least talented Beatle, but he’s actually pretty fun to drum along with.  And no, I can’t keep up, even on the simplified game riffs.

It’s super annoying that the Wii version has a bug that doesn’t allow one to slow down the songs to practice.  And ordering extra songs is unbelievably annoying (and expensive).

Still:  Big thumbs up.

So I already mentioned my daughters’ response last year when I wanted to take them out of school for a week to go to Disneyland.  “We don’t want to miss school!”  Weirdos.

This year I didn’t give ‘em a choice.  We went.  It was fun.

When you go to Disneyland on a weekday during the school year (especially the fall), it’s fairly vacant.  We only waited in line for more than 15 minutes three times, and one of those was because the ride (the Roger Rabbit Car-Toon Spin) broke down.  We did every major ride at least once, and all the good ones 2-6 times.

Only a fool would pay as much to go to Disneyland as we did (it was $600 for the four of us for five day passes), but it was really fun.  And it was nice to take it at a leisurely pace — we could show up late, leave early, and take our time goofing around without feeling that we were wasting precious amusement minutes.

I think my new favorite ride is the Hollywood Tower Hotel/Tower of Terror.

Splash Mountain was pretty awesome, too, and we found that in the Single Rider line you can pretty much ride it all day long with no waiting in line.  You’ll probably be pretty drenched after a couple of passes, though.

We ate lunch at the Blue Bayou once, with a lovely table right on the water.  Outrageously expensive, but the jambalaya may have been even better than the famous Monte Cristo.

I’d like to be critical of all the fake scenery at Disneyland, but it’s so well done that it’s hard to complain.  It just feels like a great place to be, and who cares if it’s a sham?

During a conversation mocking animal psychics, my friend Guy brought up Rumpology, the practice of reading someone’s fortune by looking at their butt.

Yes, it’s real.  Complete bullshit, of course, like all psychic claptrap, but people really do read asses for a living.

We  hypothesized all sorts of useful information one could probably get from checking out a moon.  Possible readings might include, “You need to shower more often,” or “You should lay off the donuts.”

Mira had the best one, though:  “You have dandruff.”

We’re off to Los Angeles for a week, so probably no updates from me for a bit.  Wish us luck!

My daughter, Lyra Meadow (9), wrote on her bedroom door in fake blood:

Kids are awesome.

How many times can our problems be solved by a big plate of hash browns?

I have a soft spot for zero budget movies.  Paranormal Activity, with a budget of $11,000, definitely qualifies.  (That’s way less than, say, The Blair Witch Project.)

And this is definitely reminiscent of Blair Witch — a shaky camera scary movie.  But the actors are likeable, and the mood and tension build nicely.  And no gore or sex.

Pleasing.

Here’s a thing I wrote in 1990, and used to put in all our manuals:

Our Stand on Copy-Protection
We at Delta Tao think that copy-protection is an evil thing that could damage the growth of the software industry and the computer industry as a whole. We hope you’ll boycott all copy-protected products. Here’s why.

We believe people have a certain amount of money to spend on software. After they blow their software budget, they still want more software. If copy-protection is preeminent, they are out of luck. The software they buy is the only software they have. They find their Macintosh less useful, and don’t encourage their friends to buy one. The hardware and software industries dwindle and die.

On the other hand, if things aren’t copy-protected, people pirate software once they’ve blown their software budget. They learn what programs are good and useful first hand. The next year they will make informed decisions about what software to purchase. In the meantime, they find their computer more useful and friendly. They recommend it to their friends, who go on to become software purchasers.

There are two problems. Number one, in a world where some programs are copy-protected and others aren’t, people may buy copy-protected software (since that’s the only way they can get it) and pirate the unprotected software. This rewards the businesses who are damaging the industry, and punishes those who help it along.

Number two, publishers without copy-protection can’t sell bad software with massive advertising. Since people tend to try software before they purchase it, companies only sell their products to people who find it useful. This means companies with inferior products, but big budgets, should like copy-protection.

We don’t mind problem number two so much, but the first problem scares us. The solution: boycott copy protection. Make sure it isn’t profitable to copy-protect software.

Before the Software Publisher’s Association has us lynched (they claim that “billions of dollars of revenue are lost every year to piracy”) we’ll invent at least a little bit of evidence for our theory. Remember back when the cassette tape was invented? People could now copy records indiscriminately, and there was nothing the record company could do about it. “We’re doomed!” they shouted. “Now we’ll only sell one of each record!” What really happened? The music industry took off to previously unimaginable levels, generating more profits for more artists than ever before.

When VCRs were first available, people could copy movies indiscriminately, and there was little the movie companies could do about it. “We’re doomed!” they cried. “Now we’ll never sell another movie!” What happened? The movie industry took off to previously unimaginable levels, generating more profits for more people than ever before.

Pay for software based on its quality, not its advertising, packaging, and copy protection.

In my opinion, premature.  I love Obama, and hope he does, indeed, promote peace in the future, but I don’t think he’s done much so far.  That said, it’s not as surprising as, say, Henry Kissinger or Yasir Arafat.

It is pleasing how quickly his election has led to a huge improvement of opinion of America and Americans on the world stage, though.

I think this prize is more of a criticism of G.W. Bush than anything else.  Stopping the advance of the neocons is, in itself, a pretty major achievement, I guess.

Last year I suggested to my daughters that we cut school for a few days, drive down to Los Angeles, and go to Disneyland.

Their response?

“Please, no, Dad!  We don’t want to miss school.”

What’s wrong with kids nowadays?  Forgoing Disneyland so they get a perfect attendance certificate?  That’s just wrong.

So this year we’re not giving them a choice.  In a couple of weeks we’re going to L.A., darn it.  And Disneyland.  I know they think school would be more fun, but sometimes you have to do something hard to build character.

Hey, if anybody has a connection to get us into Club 33, let me know.