So I went to video games live on May 11th and it was awesome. For those of you who don't know, Video games live is a live show where an orchestra plays music from video games like metal gear and mario bros. They came to Regina for the first time and it was definitely AWESOME. They had all 3 indiana Jones movies playing in one corner with some couches, Mario Kart wii and NHL 09 in the middle of the hall and Guitar hero setup in the other corner.

There was a Guitar Hero Competition too where everybody lined up and played Sweet Emotion on Hard. I was the first to get up there and I guess I set the bar cause out of around 50-100 people nobody came close to my score. You know it's good cause legendary Video game composer and former co-host of G4's reviews on the run, Tommy Tallarico is hosting this thing. He declares the winner and calls out my name! I was shocked, surprised and excited all at once. So I go back stage during the intermission and chat it up with Tommy about how I'm gonna come out later and what to do. He's asks me if I can play expert and I was like, "heck yes I can." So after I'm told exactly what to do I go back to my seat and wait for the end of the Mario brothers section.

After the AMAZING Chrono-trigger piece he announces me and I walk out on stage. That was the greatest thing I have ever done in my life. Thousands of people looking at me and cheering, I felt like having a heart-attack. So he tells the audience I'm going to be playing Sweet Emotion on hard and, as instructed, I tell him to raise the difficulty to expert. The crowd gave a huge cheer and I finally got started. I have to tell you it was the hardest song I have ever played just because my fingers were shaking so much. But still I managed a 350 note-streak and I hit the solo's perfect. During the song, Tommy came up behind me, rocking out on his guitar and started grinding his back into mine. You can imagine my surprise and I was like, "wtf?" I had to beat 175k to win the prize and I ended up getting about 254k so that was pretty good.

In the end I won a hat, a t-shirt, a copy of the video games live soundtrack, Atari classics and Atari Arcade games for the PC, $100 gift certificate for Future shop and the Earth Worm Jim soundtrack composed by Tommy himself. Not a bad haul just for playing Guitar Hero well. After that I gave a bow and exited the stage. The rest of the night was just amazing and people actually came up to me and shook my hand. One girl gave me a double high-five! The next day I went to Future Shop to do what else, but buy video games. Three of the employees came up and congratulated me. Telling me good job and what was it like?

Here's a picture of me and Tommy. (I have a mohawk under that hat... But you could never tell from this picture.)