Come On Back

There is nothing nicer than listening to your parent's vinyl. It gives you a sense that good music is omnipotent and will never be forgotten. What I first found in my parent's music collection were the Beatles albums. They had a nice selection of all the albums being released since the 60s. There were a lot of Beatles songs, which I had never heard before. Since discovering them I have become a great fan of the Beatles and have begun to listen to their songs on a regular basis.

I may even claim for sure that I am addicted to some of the songs: I bought a CD The Best of Beatles and listened to A Girl on a repeat for several days! I can always go back to this Beatles song and listen to it over and over again. Also, I am a great fan of The long and winding road, the saddest Beatles song in my opinion. I can listen to Yellow Submarine when I am depressed, because it always cheers me up.

Well, it is not only about the three above-mentioned. Actually, for me every Beatles song released has an enticing appeal. I can listen to their albums for weeks, and never got sick of them. What I like is not only the music, but also the meaningful lyrics. It is always nice to hear that the long and winding road that leads to your door will never disappear. It reminds me of a beautiful love story, buried underneath the centuries. Shes the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry, still you dont regret a single day- is there a more touching way to say that you are deeply and unhappily in love with someone?

The best thing about Beatles songs and lyrics is that there are a lot of different moods, carried on with their songs. You can always rely that you will find songs that match you mood, songs that make you happy, or songs that make you sad. There are so many of them , and they are all like pearls of a hidden music treasure. You can find a lot of CDs being released that combine the Beatles songs in Best compilations. It is indeed the perfect present to someone you like: no matter what kind of people they are, or how old they are. Everyone likes Beatles. Their music is irresistible and speaks directly to the heart.

Morgan Hamilton offers expert advice and great tips regarding all aspects concerning music. Get the information you are seeking now by visiting Beatles Songs

AP - The attack on India's financial capital bears all the trademarks of al-Qaida - simultaneous assaults meant to kill scores of Westerners in iconic buildings - but clues so far point to homegrown Indian terrorists, global intelligence officials said Thursday.

Worth The Money

I recently bought Rock Band for my Nintendo Wii gaming system. I'm not actually a huge video game player so I thought it may be a mistake considering the very high cost of the system (over $180 including tax.) But I am a huge music lover and it looked like fun, so I splurged on it. I'm glad I did. It is easily the best video game ever.

Forget Guitar Hero

I already had Guitar Hero for my Wii. I had played it quite a bit at first but quickly grew bored of it as while it can be fun at first - after awhile it seems pointless as it doesn't have anything to do with playing a real guitar.

Drumming & Singing

For me what makes Wii Rock Band so awesome is the drumming and singing portions. Sure the guitar part can be amusing. But it's the drumming and singing that make it awesome. Why? Because when you become a good drummer on Wii Rock Band you actually improve your real life drumming abilities! That's because it's such a lifelike representation of what it's like to play real drums. Sure it's not exactly the same, but it's close enough for Government work (as the old saying goes.)

Similarly with the singing part of the game. If you can learn to sing a song on Rock Band at a very high level on the expert setting then you are not merely beating a video game, you are becoming a much better singer who has greatly improved their ability to sing in key. How cool is that?

CLICK HERE for more information on Wii Rock Band.

Consumer Reviews.

AP - It's not just families that are getting together this Thanksgiving week. The three brightest objects in the night sky - Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon - will crowd around each other for an unusual group shot.

Sony's PSP is a great handheld device. The games available for it might not be a very large one (without Homebrew), but what it lacks on that, more than makes up for it in media capabilities. It's an all entertainment system packed inside a single portable unit. I would say it is the best handheld in the world today.

I have compared using my PSP versus using my brother's Nintendo DS. I came up with this conclusion: Lets say that I'm going on vacation, have my PSP, I can listen to mp3 files thru my PSP music. I could play a game if I feel like it. I could watch a movie, or video clip. Show my loaded pictures to friends. I could read a magazine or even the Bible thru the browser. The Nintendo DS is just limited to playing games.

If you go get a PSP at your local electronic store, you will be able to do all the mentioned above. I have had my PSP for about 3 years and I remember that the usage I gave my PSP was o.k. But then, found out that not all PSPs can do the same things. Everyone on the internet kept talking about Homebrew. According to Wikipedia Homebrew is a term frequently applied only to video games that are produced by consumers on proprietary game platforms. Well I did my research and found out that I had not unlocked the true gaming potential of my PSP. Now I do believe that if I count the games the PSP can hold, it would be the largest list, beating any other game console out there. Why? Because the PSP can emulate so many other consoles, for example NES, SNES, SEGA GENESIS, MASTER SYSTEM, GAMEBOY, NEO GEO, and much, much more.

Installing the latest custom firmware will let you run Homebrew on your PSP. What this means is that you will be able to emulate many game consoles of the past like mentioned and download games that are design to only run on the PSP. This is all possible by just acquiring a memory card, since this will all reside in memory. I recommend getting a 4GB or 8GB memory card, so there will be lots of space for games, movies, video clips, pictures, music and more extra content. The usage I give my PSP now is much more than it used to be before knowing about Homebrew. I have nearly 100 games on it, plus all my media needs.

For more info about the PSP functions and Homebrew, please visit http://pspgamesandmedia.com/

AP - Britain's spy agencies had little warning of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, which bore some al-Qaida hallmarks but appears unlikely to be linked to the group's core leadership, officials said Thursday.

In part 2 of this series we took a look at Creative Expression and Escapism, two significant motivators of the common gamer. The week before that, we covered Challenge and Competition. This week we have a look at Socialization and try to tie it all together.

Social interaction is a subject on which we gamers take a fair bit of static from our non-gaming peers. Sometimes this is because they mistake differing priorities for introversion. Wanting to talk about the relative merits of the Western Plaguelands against Winterspring as a post 55 grinding location isn't really any different from wanting to talk about the strength of the Bill's secondary, its just that one of them is relevant to a somewhat narrow audience (give it time.) Sometimes, however, the criticism is merited. We tend to be somewhat socially awkward folk, in part because the hobbies in which we invest a sizeable amount of our time have rigid rules governing most interactions, making them poor training for the free wheeling reality of human discourse. For some gamers, the Social Interaction found in the gaming experience is a primary motivator.

Social activity in gaming occurs on many levels. At a very low level, gaming can be a reinforcer for existing social groups. Think of a group of friends getting together to play a board game or some Half Life. The social activity found in modern online games can be much broader in scope. MMORPGs, to which discussion of the current state of gaming always seems to gravitate, are essentially groups of people that already share some primary common link. The friendships formed through online cooperation and friendly competition can be one of the biggest draws of such games. Anyone who has ever stayed up later than they should because their guild needed them or because someone asked them to has experienced this. These online relationships are no less real, no less significant than their offline analogues. They are, however, different.

The interaction that takes place within a game is structured and often, online gamers see only part of one another. It is difficult for a group formed around a particular activity to bond as deeply as a group of friends that exists solely for the purpose of supporting one another. To avoid turning to diatribe on not forgetting your real loved ones we'll stop following that chain of thought. The important thing is that some game players are purely Socially Motivated. Such individuals thrive online, where other players can be met and interacted with. For these people, the heavier the social component of the game, the better. Interestingly, many games with a high degree of social complexity also have a large amount of the mathematical complexity that may drive away socially motivated gamers. In pure form, this type of gamer is seeking an experience that blurs the line between games and chat environment.

Challenge. Competition. Creation. Escape. Socialization. Five different motivators, all of which combine to make up the motivation of a particular gamer. We could add more, certainly, but these will do for now. So where do we go with this? I'm having to physically restrain myself from drawing a pentagonal map and plotting individual gamers on the five motivational axes. While it would look neat and might be an interesting topic for an esoteric role-playing text, it wouldn't get us anywhere.

A more useful tack, perhaps, is to think about what motivates us individually. Knowing yourself and what drives you can help you figure out what sort of games you should be playing and, more importantly, which will never give you anything but frustration. Understanding the motivations of others can give us insight that will better help us relate. Many arguments over what to do in online games arise because the different party members are motivated differently. A Creative and a Challenger aren't likely to crave the same activities from a night of dungeon delving. Nor are an Escapist and a Competitive going to even speak the same way about a game. For one, a game may be a world waiting for his immersion. For the other, a game is a matrix of numbers waiting to be solved and conquered. We all have a little of each in us and if we can understand what drives us we can both better interact with one another and increase the joy we find in gaming.

Steve is a member of the GrandMatrix team. They provide a broad range of pc games, puzzles, articles and reviews. Read more articles, download and play the latest free PC games plus enjoy thousands of user submitted puzzles, quizzes and word games at GrandMatrix Free Game Downloads

AP - President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, said their young daughters will still have to do chores in the White House, including picking up after their new puppy.