Halo 3: ODST is the fourth game in the series developed by Bungie and has promised to take Halo in a new direction, offering new game play mechanics and weapons that will take the player on a journey through the eyes of a new hero.  The ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers also known as Hell Jumpers) are an elite group of soldiers that love to drop into combat by means of an orbital drop pod similar to what you would imagine a futuristic parachute to be.  The ODSTs do not have the cybernetic enhancements that Spartans like the Master Chief would have, so there have been some game play changes that limit the player to make them feel more human.  You are physically weaker so your melee damage has been reduced.  Your jumping ability has been stunted and you can no longer dual wield weapons and you don’t have the recharging shields.  But ODSTs do have their own exclusive toys to play with such as a visor mode that enhances your vision in dark places, reveals enemies, weapons, and key items:  two new suppressed weapons (an SMG and another attempt to resurrect the Halo 1 pistol).

This new installment into the Halo series takes place in New Mombasa. After your squad is dispatched, you find yourself separated from the group, lost in an unfamiliar city.  You need to locate your teammates and you have an entire open world environment to explore.  Along the way you will find equipment left behind by your comrades rewarding you by revealing their presence in certain locations.  After finding one of these items the player is given the opportunity to play a small segment telling the story of that particular soldier.  New Mombasa offers a rich and immersive environment to explore and the main campaign can be played cooperatively so that you can explore the ruins of New Mombasa with a friend.

Halo 3 ODST also includes a firefight mode where you and three other friends can take on countless waves of enemies racking up points with every kill.  All of the famous skulls from Halo 3 also come into play and with each wave of enemies changes the round with things like giving enemies extra health or resistance to certain weapons.

If value is your concern Halo 3: ODST comes bundled with a Halo 3 multiplayer disk that gives you full access to Halo 3’s multiplayer with every map from all of the available down-loadable content and three new maps that are exclusive to the Halo 3 multiplayer disk.  Halo 3’s multiplayer community is still going strong and you can still play with friends who don’t have the Halo 3 multiplayer disk as long as you only play the maps that shipped with Halo 3 or the available down-loadable content.  Along with full access to multiplayer, you also have Halo 3’s forge function to play with.  The forge function allows you to edit and build your own maps and game types to share with friends.  The overall value of the game rests on whether or  not you own a copy of Halo 3 and how much money you have already spent on downloadable content, but if this is your first Halo game than this is definitely a good deal.

I would give it a 7 out of 10 rating



Dragon Age Origins is a fantasy RPG developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts (EA), it is rated Mature. This game is called the “spiritual successor” to Baldur’s Gate, a popular computer RPG made by Bioware from 1998 to 2001, which is based off the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). Now I have not played Baldur’s Gate, but I have played a lot of D&D, and from that standpoint this is very similar. This game is also like playing Knights of the Old Republic,Before I started playing I was thinking…, since both of those games were good, this one, as a mix between both, should be decent. Well I was right, as always, this is a fun and a good RPG.
another one of Bioware’s popular video games.

1. Wicked

Opened October 30, 2003 – still running

Wicked is, without a doubt, the most successful new musical of the decade. Since hitting Broadway in late 2003, Wicked has been constantly breaking records for weekly grosses. The show broke yet another record just last week – the week ending January 3, 2010 – making over $2.1 million with just their Broadway production. The North American box office gross for that week – including Wicked’s two national tours, and the long-running San Francisco production – exceeded $7 million. And the success is, if I do say so myself, very well deserved.

I saw Wicked when it did a recent, month-long stint at the Paramount Theater. From beginning to end, I was thrilled. I laughed, I cried, I applauded madly during the standing ovation. I even went back to see it a second time towards the end of its run in Seattle. The show is produced by Universal Studios, so it is one of those big, flashy musicals. Thousands of lightbulbs illuminating the stage, six or seven costume changes per ensemble member, and, well, the story begins with a prissy-looking girl riding onto the stage in a giant mechanical “bubble.” I love the charm of a high-energy, low-production show just as much as the next theatergoer, but there is something so deliciously exciting about a completely over-the-top production.

Wicked is a Wizard of Oz spin-off, based on a novel by Gregory Maguire, about two accidental college roommates, who just happen to later become “Glinda the Good Witch of the North,” and the “Wicked Witch of the West.” At first, the outcast, green-skinned girl simply loathes the shallow, blonde popular girl, and the feeling is mutual – but eventually, the two become best friends, connecting on their differences. It’s a story about being the outcast – you’re bound to feel outcast if you were born with green skin like Elphaba (the “Wicked” witch), whose character is introduced by one her first lines: “No, I am not seasick; yes, I have always been green; and no, I didn’t eat grass as a child!” It can also be seen as a story about strong women, struggling with friendship and self-identities. It’s one of the few musicals with two female leads, rather than two males, or a male and a female.

The music, composed by Stephen Schwartz (who also penned the scores of Godspell and Pippin), is a delightfully complex score for both the orchestra and the performers. The vocal performances follow an all-encompassing path to match the emotional journey of the characters in the show, and range from soprano opera (No One Mourns the Wicked, “Goodness knows, the wicked’s lives are lonely; goodness knows, the wicked die alone.”) to perky pop (Popular – “I’ll show you what shoes to wear, how to fix your hair – everything that really counts to be popular!”) to classic, Broadway-style belting number (Defying Gravity – “I think I’ll try defying gravity, and you can’t pull me down!”), creating two of the hardest leading roles I’ve ever witnessed in musical theater. After careful study of most of the women who have ever played Elphaba or Galinda (who towards the end of Act I, changes her name to Glinda), I have found that no one less than spectacular has ever been placed in either role. The vocals required for a performance of Wicked are so stunning that it is absolutely worth seeing the show, even with understudies on for both leads.

It’s been said by many reviewers greater than me, there’s something in Wicked for everyone: kids, teens, and adults, all genders, and all types of music fans. I would give it an above-top rating – an eleven on a scale of one to ten. Anyone who enjoys musicals, or music in general, or even a good, heart-wrenching, emotional story should absolutely see Wicked if they get the chance.

Images taken from webblogs.ctlv.com and idina-here.com.

2. Rent

Opened April 29, 1996 – closed September 7, 2008

Rent opened in the 90s, receiving a swarm of media attention even before it hit Broadway, due to the tragic but very exploitable fact that the show’s composer and playwright, Jonathon Larson, then 35, died on opening night. What a ride he missed. Rent’s 12-year run on Broadway (the 8th longest Broadway run in history) didn’t come to a close until rather recently (September 2008), and it won over a dozen major awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for drama and several Tonys, along the way.

The very idea of Rent is drastically different from any other musical on Broadway today, and was even more shocking back in the 90s. Very realistic to the appearance of lower Manhattan in 1989, where the story is set, most of the characters are starving bohemian artists – and quite a few of them are living with HIV/AIDS. Characters include a heroin-addicted, HIV-positive exotic dancer; a bisexual, outspoken performance artist and anarchist; and an indiscriminately kind and generous cross-dresser who is, rather appropriately, named Angel. Add the raw rock music that makes the score, and the simple but emotionally provocative lyrics by Jonathon Larson, and you have a musical for the young generation.

I will confess to never having seen Rent live onstage. However, I watched (and re-watched) the final performance on Broadway, which was released on DVD, as well as the musical movie of the show, featuring six of the eight principal members of the original Broadway cast. Even through a TV screen, the energy of the young actors in the cast and the emotional arc the characters travel is overpowering. I had never been so emotionally attached to a musical, but this one had me on the edge of my seat (and, I’m not going to lie – crying). The story is pretty harsh for younger kids (since it includes AIDS, drugs, death, and sexuality issues), but Rent has been very well-received by its target audience (young adults), because of its young, fresh look and sound, and the all-summarizing philosophy repeated throughout the show: “Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road, no other way – no day but today.”

The original Rent was conceived to be a modern take on the Puccini opera La Boheme, set in late 20th century Manhattan rather than early 19th century France. (It is worth being noted that, by now, the show has been translated into several different languages, including La Boheme’s original Italian.) But although many of the characters draw their names from, and many small plot points are based on the original opera, Jonathon Larson’s music is drastically different. Rent opted out of having an orchestra like most musicals. The live music is supplied by just a few rock musicians at the back of the stage, armed with two electric guitars, a bass, keyboards, and a drum kit. Most of Rent’s conversations are also in song (the number “Light My Candle” is a brilliant piece of story-telling through song), and it is considered to be one of the first rock operas. This deviation from classic musical numbers coupled with the radical storyline means that even if you’re not a fan of musicals, you may want to try Rent. It defined a generation when it opened back in 1996, and still affects youth today.

Images taken from blogwaybaby.com and idina-here.com.

3. Young Frankenstein

Opened November 8, 2007 – closed January 4, 2009

The New Mel Brooks Musical: Young Frankenstein is the full, official title (talk about vanity, eh?). Personally, I feel city pride about Young Frankenstein, since it made its world premiere (pre-Broadway) at the Paramount, in summer of 2007. Unfortunately, its Broadway run was not as successful as was anticipated. Over a year is a considerable run for a Broadway show by a nobody, but people have come to expect more from a Mel Brooks musical. (Also, a side note: the theater Young Frankenstein showed in, the Hilton Theater, is jokingly considered to be “cursed.” That may have had something to do with it, but who knows.)

Despite its commercial failing (no doubt a shock to most, considering Mel Brooks’s last musical movie adaptation, The Producers, set box office records and ran six years on Broadway, remaining in the top 20 longest running musicals until rather recently), Young Frankenstein is, really, a quite brilliant piece. It rings more of a classic musical, in the style of the music and choreography numbers, than anything else. It is based on the movie Young Frankenstein, which, in turn, was a parody on Paramount Pictures’s movie based on Mary Shelley’s novel. It tells the story of Frankenstein’s grandson, who is a serious scientist embarrassed by the legacy of his family that was created by his grandfather. He’s even gone so far as to change the pronunciation of his name to “Fronkensteen,” to avoid any association with his grandfather, Victor von Frankenstein.

The main selling point of Young Frankenstein, to me, was not the multi-million dollar production values, but the humor of the story. It’s nice to go to a musical once in awhile that doesn’t make you cry or leave the theater feeling depressed. Everyone knows the story of Frankenstein, and the story plays off of that. Good bases for jokes include the heavy Transylvania accents of most of the townspeople (leading to a confessional song titled “He Vas My Boyfriend”), the typical “bumbling servant” character of Igor, and of course, the seven-foot-tall monster. It wouldn’t be a Frankenstein spoof without a monster! In this case, the monster was created with a 6′4″ actor, platform shoes, some green makeup, and a nice dented forehead prosthetic to finish things off. I have to say that the monster is far more amusing and entertaining onstage. I have always had more respect for special effects that have to be created in front of an audience, rather than on a screen.

For good, wholesome Broadway-style entertainment, I’d suggest you go with Young Frankenstein. I would comment on the sets and special effects, which are rather impressive and high-budget, but I don’t think they’re important. Save for the monster’s costume, I think the show would be every bit as good if you cut all the special effects. The choreography, the songs, the plot that includes the basic questions of the original Frankenstein (what is alive, what is dead, and what happens when one tries to combine the two?), as well as romantic comedy and crude humor, make the whole show come alive (no pun intended).

If you have the chance to see Young Frankenstein, I wouldn’t pass it up. It is definitely among the best I have seen in the past decade, and it may not be around to be seen much longer. I’m already hoping that the national tour will make its way back to where the show really started, and that the Paramount Theater will get to showcase this wonderful musical again.

Images taken from wikipedia.org and buzznews.net.

4. Beauty and the Beast

Opened April 14, 1994 – closed July 27, 2007

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme…Beauty and the Beast. If, by some miracle of disconnection from society, you’ve never seen the animated Disney movie with the adorable singing teapots and candlesticks, everyone at least knows the old fairytale. A snobby prince whose attitude earned him a transformation into a hideous beast, and the young beauty who had the heart to see past his appearance and fall in love with him. It a story that appeals to something deep down in everyone. And nothing feels more like pure, Disney magic than watching the whole story come to life on a stage.

Beauty and the Beast was Disney’s first Broadway musical, with the lavish sets and costumes that have come to be expected from any Disney production. And while some may argue that the effects and such have only gotten better with time, I still maintain that Beauty and the Beast has the best special effects and production values I’ve ever seen onstage. For anyone who doesn’t know the story already, at the end, Belle’s love for the horrible beast turns him back into the handsome prince he once was, but with a new heart. The onstage transformation of Beast to Prince is an absolutely astonishing thing, and gave me chills all over when I first saw the show on Broadway at age 5. Hell, even my dad, who is a great appreciator of theater and very critical of Disney, thinks it was the best effect he’s seen to date.

All this over-the-top production (for God’s sake, the ensemble is all dressed up as various household items – a closet, spoons, even an eggbeater!) is balanced out by the simple, classic story and even more classic music. The music for the original Disney film was composed by the wonderful duo, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, but Ashman passed away shortly before the movie came out. That being the case, Menken chose to collaborate with Tim Rice for the new songs that were added for the Broadway musical (including some particularly stirring numbers, such as “Home” and “Human Again”). Those songs combined with the unforgettable “Be Our Guest,” and, of course, “Beauty and the Beast,” and other songs from the movie gives just enough new stuff to appease fans, and just enough old stuff to provide familiarity.

I find it really a tragedy that Beauty and the Beast had to end its run in this decade. It was one of those shows that can intrigue a child who’s never seen a musical into a lifetime of theater appreciation, and at the same time, can satisfy adult critics with its charming story and songs. But its time had really come. The run would, in fact, not have even gone on as long as it did, if Disney executives hadn’t cut certain parts of the production (even on Broadway), such as various ensemble and chorus members. My feelings on that particular matter are rather divided, since the show’s closing broke my heart, but I also feel that anyone who saw the show after those cuts were made weren’t seeing the true show.

I’m sorry if anyone never got the chance to see this musical. Although it’s in a different category of “classic,” I consider it as integral a part of the musical theater experience as Les Miserables or Phantom of the Opera. While I can’t recommend to you the onstage production (except for any regional productions, which, to be frank, never quite come close to the Disney-produced version, no matter how wonderful), I do suggest that you get a DVD of the animated film, sit back, and let the magic of Beauty and the Beast enchant the young child in you.

Images taken from amazon.com.

5. Aida

Opened March 23, 2000 – closed September 5, 2004

What do you get when you cross Disney with a hundred-year-old opera, and then add Elton John to the mix? Aida. Yet another version of the famous “Romeo and Juliet” plot, Aida is the story of two forbidden lovers in ancient Egypt, and the Broadway musical has a fun, pop/rock score composed by Elton John, with lyrics by the legendary Tim Rice (Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and The Lion King are just a handful of his musical theater credits).

After the huge commercial success of Disney’s first Broadway venture, Beauty and the Beast, the company was understandably excited, and ever since, Disney has been producing some of the most lavish, expensive musicals on Broadway. Most of their successful (and not-so-successful) endeavors have been based off of Disney-owned animated musicals, such as The Little Mermaid, Tarzan, and The Lion King, aimed at young audiences, for whom there isn’t a lot of entertainment on Broadway. But they also had a big hit with Aida, a show aimed more at adults than children.

The original story of Aida was written in 1870 and turned into an Italian opera by Verdi. And at the turn of the millennium, Elton John and Tim Rice rewrote the show into a rock opera produced by Disney. The forbidden love story also deals somewhat with interracial relationships, as the two leads are traditionally played by a Caucasian male and an African-American female who fall in love, much to both their families’ disgust. Radames is the son of an Egyptian military figure, and Aida is the Nubian princess. At a time when Egypt and Nubia were in constant war, this was deeply looked down upon.

I can’t emphasize just how much I love the music in Aida. It’s so very rock, and so very Elton John. I personally do not have a taste for opera, and found the Disney Aida much more to my liking. In addition to the hard-edged, fast-paced songs riddled with light cues (such as “Another Pyramid,” where Radames’s power-hungry father sings of his plans to assassinate the Pharaoh, and “Fortune Favors the Brave,” the anthem of Radames and his ship crew of young explorers and adventurers), there are gentle ballads that feel like classic love songs (“I Know The Truth,” sung by a heartbroken woman who has caught her fiance with another woman the day before their wedding, and the theme song for Aida, and forbidden love in general, “Elaborate Lives”). There’s music on the Aida soundtrack to match any mood. I will interject, though, and admit that my absolute favorite is the not very story-relevant “My Strongest Suit,” the first song I heard from this show. It’s the character-defining song sung by Amneris, the Pharaoh’s daughter and Radames’s fiance, who from a distance appears to be a shallow princess, who values her looks and her fashion sense above all else. The lyrics crack me up every time, and combined with the pop/rock music and the impressive belter-style vocals, the song seriously leaves me breathless. It’s an excellent dance/performance number.

Quite possibly the best thing about this show is that Disney, miraculously, did it full justice. Aida is, at heart, a tragedy, and I was so relieved to see that that wasn’t downplayed in the slightest, with no happy fairytale endings. Disney’s musicals have also always had more adult-aimed humor than their movies, since theater is considered to be an art for the more mature, and Aida also upholds that. (I always love a good laugh, so how many jokes in a musical make me laugh out loud is a big part of the rating for me.) If you want to experience what an extravagant Disney musical production looks like, but aren’t quite ready to dive into the sugar-coated world of The Little Mermaid or Mary Poppins, Aida is an excellent choice.

Four years may be considered a short-lived run compared to the Disney hits The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, both with runs over a decade long, but Aida actually did much better than was anticipated. (In the Disney record books, Aida actually beat out the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid, which was expected to be a huge success, in both ticket sales and run length.) However, it has been over on Broadway and hasn’t toured in quite a few years, and Aida is now a show available for high schools and regional theaters to perform. So any chances you get to see it from now on will probably be small-scale productions, but the very heart of this great story can’t be broken down, no matter what light effects or fancy set pieces are cut. I don’t think many non-theater people would like this show, but anyone who does enjoy the art, seeing Aida would definitely be a worthwhile way to spend an evening.

Images taken from amazon.com and last.fm.

Borderlands is a science fiction role-playing shooter (a first-person shooter with RPG elements) that was developed by Gearbox Software for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. First off the bat, this game is fun, I like playing it immensely, and I was amazed by how many hours went by from just me testing out new weapons. This game is fun because of the action, the guns, and, for me, the humor element which come together to make an excellent time-wasting game.

The game starts with you choosing from between four different classes, each with their own name and back-story, (Roland as the Solider, Brick as the Berserker, Lilith as the Siren, and Mordecai as the Hunter). Each class has a cool power that only they can use. Roland can deploy a turret that shoots people with bullets, and later rockets; Lilith can turn invisible and fire out a waves of energy; Brick can fly into a rage and kill stuff with his fists; and, Mordecai can summon his pet, called a bloodwing, that murders enemies for you. All the classes have different skill trees that you can use skill points on to make them better at something. Roland can increase his ammo capacity for all his guns; Lilith can increase her damage with elemental weapons; and, to cut things short, all the classes have skill trees that you can upgrade to get better at killing people. Your goal is to find the legendary “Vault”, a supposed treasure trove of alien artifacts, technology, and of insurmountable wealth hidden somewhere on Pandora, the planet where the game takes place. There are a few problems in your way, almost everything on the planet can and will try to kill you: from feral dog-like skags, to the crazed bandits that were once convicts forced to mine the planet by off-world companies, to giant bugs that spit acid and try to rip your face off. However, lucky for you, there are guns, lots and lots of guns. The game has a cool system called the “Procedural Content Creation System” to create these weapons and items, which can alter their firepower, rate of fire, and accuracy. Add in elemental effects such as a chance to set foes on fire, and at rare times other special bonuses such as regenerating the player’s ammo. A color-coded scale is used to indicate the rarity of the weapon or item. It is estimated that the random system can generate over 17 million variations of weapons. Not only does this system make guns for you, it also makes your enemies change their attack patterns, abilities, and at high enough level, starts spitting bosses at you like crazy.

This game is fun, the guns rock. You are always on the look-out for more enemies, to get more guns, to kill more enemies. A fun and rewarding cycle of violence that leads you around Pandora, putting tons of lead into almost everything you don’t run over in your slick car. The guns also have really cool elemental effects: shock elemental weapons explode in bursts of lighting when you hit the enemy, corrosive guns (my favorite) splash your targets with acid, and when they die they turn into green goo! Now that is fun.      However fun this game is when you are playing by yourself, the fun is turned to 11 when other players join you. More players means tougher enemies, tougher enemies mean better loot, that you and your teammates can fight over in a special “duel” mode. This game is made for co-op, this a great game for two people and you can have a full party of four by hooking up another game system to it, or play online with your computer.          There are some problems with this game, sometimes you randomly stick to a piece of terrain; you have no place to store items, which is a drag, and it can get challenging if you try to rush through the game. You need to do almost all the quests and other stuff to have enough health to beat some of the later parts. But besides these minor issues, this game is a excellent buy for anyone. They have already released two DLCs for it: the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot
and are planning on making more, so go out and get this game, if you like shooters at all, you will like this game a lot.   5 Claptraps out of 5

I interviewed as many of the video game fanatics I knew about what they wanted the next big video game innovation to be and I was surprised to find out that just about everyone said that they just wanted improvements to the games we already have.  But this makes a lot of sense because if everyone could think of new innovating video games, everyone would be releasing hit titles.

It makes sense that out of the people I interviewed improvements to the games they played was the most common answer.  They are the people most likely to know what improvements to games are needed because they spend every available waking hour playing them.  The most popular changes people wanted were more balanced multiplayer experiences and more games that support player-made content.

There are already many ways for players to create and share their own content.  Just last year Microsoft released XNA so that people could share their indie games with the Xbox Live community.  Some companies like Valve release software developer kits for their games allowing people to create their own custom modifications, maps, or even entire games.  Harmonics, the creators of Rock Band, have just launched the Rock Band Network that lets musicians work their own music into the game and even gives them a chance to share what they’ve got with the world.

Multiplayer gaming is not an easy feature to include in a game.  Not every developer chooses to include it in their games and few perfect it.  With online gaming communities growing larger and larger there have been increasing demands for multiplayer experiences to be fairer but it is not easy to make sure that a game can have an even and fun multiplayer.  Every game is built differently and plays differently so there is no one sure fire way to create a perfect multiplayer.  The best way to create a good multiplayer is to develop your game specifically for that purpose instead of making it just another bullet point on the back of the game box.  Centering the focus of your game on the multiplayer experience is something expertly demonstrated by Team Fortress 2.

Team Fortress 2 was developed with the intention of creating a well balanced multiplayer experience that is fun for everyone and so far it has been one of the most successful games to hit the industry.  The game maker uses a class based system so that the developers can focus their attention on each individual character keeping them all in tune with each other making sure that no one was over or under powered.  The classes were all balanced so well that upon the game’s release new weapons and items were added so that players could customize their characters to their own personal playing style.  Along with online gaming having players connected to the Internet also allows developers to update their games weeks, months, or years after the game is released to the public because with thousands of players someone is bound to find a bug that needs fixing.  I think video gamers have a bright future to look forward to whether it is filled with new and exciting innovations or just improvements on old ones.

We’ve all been there. You’re looking for affordable instruments, when all of a sudden you see a beautiful electric guitar/bass/stringed instrument. It’s on sale. But it’s still more expensive than you’ll ever be able to afford. You just want to beat it up, but don’t know how to go about doing it? Well, look no further, because this is the definitive guide to beating up electric guitars.

First off, don’t smash it on the ground. Not only will you have to pay for it, the guitar’s life dream is to be smashed on the ground, on stage, by a rock star. While you’re probably not on a stage, or a rock star, it still counts. You also can’t set it on fire, even if you aren’t Jimi Hendrix. Because being on fire is cool, and all guitars strive to be cool. Don’t kill or beat up the guitar in a cool fashion, because you’ll only be doing it a favor.

Physically abusing the guitar doesn’t work either. It doesn’t feel pain, don’t even bother. It will just laugh at you and your feeble attempts to make it feel worse about itself. Instead, physically abuse the strings. How do you do that, you may ask? First put your non-dominant hand on the neck of the guitar, and depress the strings. Next, strum with your other hand. Now move your neck hand randomly up and down the neck of the guitar, while strumming as fast as you can. The guitar hates it when it’s being used to make bad music, making this one of the most effective ways of beating up a guitar.

Even more effective, however, is playing a song poorly. This is more difficult, however, because you must know how to play a song before you can play it poorly. To play the song poorly, use the whammy bar at inapropriate times, and put your fingers in between frets occasionally. This works because guitars really hate bad cover bands, and being in one is even worse.

The only known method in which you do not play the guitar badly to beat it up, but you still play it, is to play Stairway to Heaven. Or Free Bird. Or Green Grass and High Tides. Or some other song with a really famous guitar solo. Why? Because it’s already seen this done a million times while it’s been sitting around in the store. The repetition is unbearable for the guitar.

Finally, the only known method to beat up a guitar without playing it is to hide the guitar. The guitar wants to be the center of attention, to be in the spotlight. Hiding the guitar robs them of this opportunity, and it will hate life until it is found again. To be extra ironic, hide the guitar in the bass section (if you’re beating up a bass, hide the bass in the percussion room).

And that, my friends, is how it’s done. Beating up a guitar will fill you with a new sense of pride, the feeling of knowing that you have just taught that guitar a lesson it will never forget: don’t be an expensive guitar. Your friends will be so jealous of your guitar beating-up skills. But be warned, if the word spreads too far, you may find yourself forbidden from going to any concerts involving string instruments, for fear of the instruments getting a good pummeling.