Thursday, January 3, 2008

Parental Overrides

As mentioned in the previous post, we had some friends and family over for New Years. Ok...1 family that wasn't related and 1 family that was.

One of the families brought their new Wii. They had Wii Sports (comes with the system if you didn't know) and Lego Star Wars. We put that system upstairs in the loft. We had Rock Band setup in the family room. I fully expected the adults to be hanging with Rock Band and the kids to be hanging with the Wii. That didn't happen. There were a few adults and kids upstairs playing Wii Sports and the rest were downstairs with Rock Band. I had played Wii Sports on Christmas Day and to be honest, it is quite fun but limited. I'm a graphics whore and it just doesn't have it. I'd still love to have one though.

The kids were pretty much running the show on Rock Band with parental overrides on which songs they were allowed to play. The kids ranged in age from 6 to 11. The younger kids definitely have more issues picking up the rhythm of the song on both drums and guitar. None of the men felt brave enough to sing on the mic and the one that was forced to help his youngest daughter out didn't fare well at all. It was a blessing that the song was over.

The kids have played GH2. One of the songs on it is War Pigs by Black Sabbath. All the kids have played it many times. I've downloaded the song for Rock Band. The kids really, really wanted to play it. One of the parents overrode and said no. The parent then started pushing the song Roxanne as a better alternative.

So....in case you aren't following: the parent was against the anti-war song without any bad words. I double checked. Just google war pigs lyrics to see for yourself. However, it was ok for the kids to play a song about love of a prostitute. I found it funny. Kept my mouth shut though. Scary Black Sabbath vs. Popular Police. Police wins.

Note that I do respect the opinion of this parent very, very much.
I'm also all about parents being able to parent their own kids how they want. In other words, it's none of my business. It's just amazing what stereotypes about a band can do.

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