Stay tuned… and in the meantime, hit my Twitter stream for updates.

The other issue I have with FF is in stock form, it’s ugly.  The form widgets and stock theme are really unattractive and don’t fit with the “look” of OS X at all.  Us Mac users (especially those with designer in us) like our stuff perty.  The form widgets in FF2, especially, are a hideous crime against humanity.

Good news… Firefox 3.0 beta 1 fixes both of these issues (especially if you install the “Proto” theme, which I’m told will be the default OS X theme upon release).   FF 3.0 is fast in beta-uno form, which is a good sign of things to come when it goes release.

I’ve been using it as my main browser for a few days now, and I’m honestly not missing Safari at all… which says a lot.  Since Firebug isn’t FF3-aware (yet), I’m still using 2.0 for development, but for day to day use I’m loving 3.0b1.

• It seems Easy and Medium are MUCH MUCH easier than Guitar Hero II or III.
• You have to be a lot more precise with your strums.
• Drums are farkin’ hard.  But I’m not even close to a good drummer.
• Vocals are fun.
• The box is HUGE.  No, really… huge.
• The songs are almost all original artists (same with GH3).
• I don’t like the feel of the Strat controller.  The fret buttons click, the strum bar doesn’t.  This is the opposite of a GH controller.
• The “effects” using the 5-way on the Strat is novel, but kind of gimmicky.
• Drums are hard.
• Overall, the whole package is very well executed.  I need to see it on my HDTV at home (I’m at my inlaws for Thanksgiving right now) to really test out the graphics.
• Rush rules, there’s a Coheed & Cambria track on there too… and of course, Enter Sandman.
• The damn guitar should be wireless.  The 360 has built in wireless, there is NO reason they couldn’t have used it on a $170 package.

Overall, I’m not saying it’s as good as GH3… yet.  The guitar part of GH3 is much more exciting (some of the guitar parts are boring in Rock Band), but the full-band thing is great fun with friends/family.  It’s a solid effort from a solid developer and I’m reserving my judgement until I get into it a bit more.

The SP pack is larger than a Turbo 2×2, but it has the added advantage of using a Panasonic-style sealed lead acid battery pack (you know, the big camcorder batteries from the 80s)… they’re both cheap and easily available. It’s very easy to swap a new one in, even in the field.

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I’ll admit it, I was trying to do Arca-QR on a budget. What a waste of time. I ordered two of these from B&H because they were significantly cheaper than the alternatives and they came with plates (not totally useful plates, but plates nonetheless). Well, the first time I was tightening down the clamp after mounting it to my monopod, the knob snapped off. Prolly a fluke, but the knob is designed very very badly, it has a thin tubular section that basically takes all the stress from the knob. DUMB. In any case, I’m sending this and the one that’s not defective back to B&H (if they’ll take the defective one back) because I can’t really tolerate this knob snapping off when I need it most (like when trying to RELEASE my camera).

I’ve since ordered two Really Right Stuff B2 Pro clamps…

Death metal band members take themselves way too seriously considering they’re basically really noisy clowns.  You really need to check out LOLMETAL… I really can’t correctly describe it, so just visit.  And make sure to check out the reader submissions too.