First off, thanks to everyone for the welcoming comments. I promise, I'm not nearly as hostile and "tough girl" as I might come off. I'm a big old mushy giggle-kitten at times too. Oh, did I mention I have footy pajamas? Nobody tough and "grr" could ever get away with rubber duckie footy pajamas.

Until now.

SOOOOO.. Rock Band 2. Let me give you a little segue into the situation that started my Rock Band career. First off, my band is called "Totes Goulet" which is an homage to Robert Goulet (I hope you all saw Will Ferrell's skit on SNL as Robert Goulet.) and my favorite shortened word for "Totally". Anyways, my friends and I got really excited when EA sent me the Special Edition for Rock Band last year and we must have spent nine months killing it daily. We trashed the guitars, the drum set is dented and we went through two microphones. There was no stopping Totes Goulet and we didn't stop playing until all of us could breeze through Expert.

Alas.. when we were at E3, my friends and I were the first at the booth to play the new setup. Amy sat down at the drums and the lovely man from Harmonix let us know that we were the first people to play the new instruments that were not developers. We got tingly, we opened up with a blazing rendition of "Still Alive" and then played until other journalists came over to snap the controllers from our sweaty palms. We were on fucking FIRE, people. To us, E3 was like a stop in our nationwide tour of destruction..

And then we saw the setlist.

Now, I gave Rock Band 2 a solid chance when I saw the eclectic varieties of music they had chosen for this go around. I really, really wanted to get in there and wreck shop but I realized I didn't know HALF the damn songs. Sure, I knew the classics and some of the new ones were there.. but then I kept catching the songs that were vague. How the hell did Dinosaur Fucking Jr. get on the setlist? What were they thinking when they put RATT with my beloved Rock Band? I was just mortified.

Still, I plugged on. You haven't seen hilarity until you see me screaming to "Testify" by Rage Against the Machine at three in the morning in a garage. Oh, did I mention that? Yes, I set up a big Rock Band setup in my garage. Rugs, LCD monitor, chairs and an upcoming microphone stand. In my garage, I rocked the hell out to music I didn't even know and I think it might be soul crushing. Now I know what it's like to be a twenty-year old band that has their music written for you. No soul, no life in it.. just plugging away through your tour and praying for the next bottle of Jack Daniels on your tour bus. Every night I ended my set, I felt defeated.

The first Rock Band was like an explosion of joy all over my face, you know? Every time I played a song, even if I didn't know it, I wanted to learn it. I would buy the tracks off iTunes and learn them, I'd play fanatically -- but Rock Band 2 isn't giving me that. I almost feel dread when I flip my garage lights on now. Why is that? Where did the love go that created the ever popular "Totes Goulet"?

Man, I need something to believe in.