The thing is, since I bought the guitar, I got busy with college, and… other things… terribly bad, awful, horrible things that are public if you know where to look but have no business being on Online Onslaught… got in my way. I’ve strummed the instrument maybe three times, and I’ve never attempted to take any formal lesson. I don’t know anyone immediately nearby who has the time or effort to teach me, and I can’t afford professional lessons, so I’m basically left with teaching myself from Guitar For Dummies and whatever YouTube footage I can dig up. It sucks, and I just haven’t been focused enough to try.

And yet, I read the announcement from IGN that Rock Band 3 has just gone ahead and made the “controller” an ACTUAL guitar. The neck essentially has a touch sensor that reads where your fingers are fretting, and it senses whether your fingers are in the right place when you strum. You actually PLAY THE SONG on the game, provided you play along with the in-game notations and rhythms. Even better, the instrument can be hooked up to a computer (for music software) or a guitar amp (which of course I have now) for actual, non-game playing. On in-game Expert difficulty, you basically play the whole goddamned actual song. Throw in easier warmup difficulties and in-game tutorials on the extreme basics (“This is a string!”), and I think I might have a “teacher,” however virtual, so I can actually learn to play it.

I’m not stupid here: I know that a human teacher would be better, and I hardly think the game would make me an “expert” or anything. But having some sort of, essentially, interactive training tool is a hell of a lot better than I’ve got going on right now, especially considering that I currently don’t even know if I’m doing FINGERING correctly on the neck with no one to ask for help. It’s turned Rock Band 3 from “Fuck that game, Rock Band 2 is good enough and I don’t need to throw down even more money” to “I NEED IT!!!” status with just that one announcement.

Okay, I’ve blathered and made Rick sigh and shake his head enough. [Ed. Note: I was self-taught with the help of an inanimate object, too. My "teacher" was Nirvana's "Nevermind." When I used my ear to stumble across the bass-note progression of the main riff of "Lithium" and then combined that with my rudimentary knowledge of three-string Power Chords, I had my Eureka Moment and was off to the races. So: to each his own.] Hey, Supreme Webmaster Overlord, it could be worse: I could have gone on for four paragraphs about Def Jam Rapstar. Even I’m not that far gone.

Segment 1: CM Punk is out here to talk, blathering about this weekend’s PPV and how he’s so totally going to win his fourth World Heavyweight Championship. Punk’s only regret is that Undertaker isn’t around to see him become the four-time straightedge world champ. No one seems to care.

As Punk gets in the ring, he gains some cheap heat with his usual rhetoric. He reminds us that he made Taker tap out once, obviously not bringing up the controversy surrounding that one, and moves on to Taker’s vegetative state, including saying the phrase “vegetative state” about half a dozen times in two sentences.

Punk goes on that he wishes he was the one who put Taker in a Veggie Tales state, but does say that he’ll totally shake the hand of the one who did it. This is because SmackDown is so totally better without Taker in it.

Lights go out.

Lights go on, and we see Taker from the back standing the ring… but it’s clearly not really him due to being shorter and with longer (and more) hair. Punk feigns fear, but then pushes “Undertaker” a couple times, and surprise, it’s Luke “Mr. Mediocrity” Gallows, and this is so totally a hilarious prank they just pulled.

Punk takes the Taker hat, poses with it (by mocking Taker’s taunt), then ruins it by stomping on it. This summons Kane, but Jack Swagger jumps him from behind. The masked SES man joins in on the fun too, and the four-on-one assault makes pretty short work of him, ending with three Jack Swagger-delivered corner rebound splashes.

Rey Mysterio and Big Show (Big Show? Aren’t you on RAW, buddy?) then hit the ring to make the save, scattering the four heels and sending them for the back. Kane starts to recover in the ring, using the ropes for support… which causes Rey Mysterio to 619 him, and Show follows up with a Chokeslam as Kane bounces from that. Huh, that was a bit unexpected.

Rey retreats, and Show kneels. He screams in Kane’s ear that he had nothing to do with Taker’s Veggie Tales state… but that he will win the World Heavyweight Title, jerkface, so prepare to lose at Fatal Four-Way.

Segment 2 [Tag Match]: Curt Harkins & Vance Archer defeat Christian & MVP by pin. Match was formulaic and not very interesting. Match ended with Christian getting the hot tag but not being able to finish the fight. Curt wiggled out of a Killswitch, Archer jumped Christian behind the ref’s back, Curt did the Macho Man Elbow as his finisher, then made the pin.

After the match, Archer tossed MVP in the ring, beat the shit out of him, and Curt did the MME on him too. Meh.

Segment 3: Michelle McCool, Layla, and Kaval (their NXT rookie) are WALKING~!, and run into Rosa Mendes. Blathering ensures, but god knows what exactly it was about, other than Layla calling Rosa fat. Which made Rosa cry. So we’re redoing the Mickie James storyline with a demonstrably skinnier chick? Fuck that shit.

Segment 4: Vickie Guerrero is in her office, and Dolph Ziggler appears wearing tight daisy duke shorts with a tool belt. Vickie admires his body, then orders him to hang a picture on the wall so she can sexually harass him with her eyes.

Segment 5 [Singles Match]: JTG defeats Chavo Guerrero by pin. Whatever. Story here is that Chavo wasn’t prepared and got his ass kicked, though he has zero credibility after jobbing to a midget for the whole of 2009.

Segment 6: Josh Mathews interviews Kofi Kingston in the back, who gives a generic promo to put himself over. Meh.

Segment 7: Drew McIntyre hits the ring, and then we hear Teddy Long’s music. T-Long doesn’t appear, so Drew demands he comes out now or, he reminds us, he’ll be fired. T-Long’s music fires up again, and this time T-Long hits the ring, though he’s dressed in a suit without his glasses.

Drew says that he doesn’t care if T-Long is in a suit, he’ll still kick his ass. But to make sure there is no interference from the faces, he summons his Private Security Staff to surround the ring. Drew then demands the ref pat him down, then goes on and trash talks T-Long, convincing him to fight, since if he doesn’t, he’ll have nothing, seeing as the wrestling industry is all he’s got.

T-Long is conflicted, but eventually caves… though Drew doesn’t want to fight specifically. He coerces T-Long to get on the his knees, then coerces him to declare that Drew is “The Chosen One,” and finally coerces him to lay down on his back in the middle of the ring.

Drew calls him pathetic, then demands the ref ring the bell. Drew lays a foot on T-Long’s chest, the ref counts to three, and the bell rings again for the conclusion of the match.

T-Long gets up and starts to leave in tears, but Drew stops him with a hand on his shoulder from behind. After a pregnant pause, Drew starts to put him in the Future Shock. Kofi’s music fires up, but the Private Security Staff stops him. Drew exits the ring and beats the hell out of Kofi, who is held back by the PSS, and even eats a big boot.

Drew is pleased, but then Matt Hardy comes through the crowd and jumps Drew. The PSS is a bit slow to react, but they manage to pull him off and hold him for a similar assault from Drew. Drew even relieves the PSS of Matt, tossing him in the ring, then hitting a Future Shock. The PSS tosses Kofi in the ring then, and Drew hits a Future Shock on him too.

We fade to commercial as Drew poses over the corpses.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Kelly Kelly (w/ Rosa Mendes) defeats Layla (w/ Michelle McCool) by pin. Lame. Rehire Mickie!

Segment 9: Josh Mathews interviews Jack Swagger in the back, who blathers about how awesome he is thanks to Daddy Swagger’s advice, so how awesome is it that the next PPV is on Father’s Day? As if any of us care?

Segment 10 [Singles Match]: Dolph Ziggler (w/ Vickie Guerrero) defeats Chris F. Masters by pin. Explain to me again why CFM has a job and Shelton Benjamin doesn’t? Anyway, the match was lame, with CFM overselling from the opening bell, then slapping on the Full Nelson of Doom and Despair after a time-compressed endgame. However, Ziggy got to the ropes, and on the break, Ziggy hit his jumping reverse DDT finisher, which put CFM out. Well, at least CFM found his proper place on the card.

Segment 11 [Tag Match]: Rey Mysterio & Big Show defeat Jack Swagger & CM Punk (w/ Straightedge Society) by pin. Match was pure formula. I’ll admit, I’m lacking a bit of objectivity here, because the rest of the night has been boring, and this wasn’t much better. Rey was Face in Peril, but wound up pulling off the win for his team after a secondary hot tag from Show.

Post-Segment 11: After the match, Kane came down and chokeslammed everyone. Literally: everyone, except Big Show of course. Kane gets a mic and declares that he’s going to trash whichever man is guilty behind Taker’s Veggie Tales state. He blows his corner pyros, and we’re done.

Final Thoughts: Meh. The show wasn’t very entertaining tonight. It might be because it was delayed four fucking hours due to baseball, or it might be just because it wasn’t that entertaining in general. I’d give this one a pass: anything interesting will be shown on the PPV, and for the post-PPV RAW.

I’m sure Rick will have full PPV results on Sunday night or Monday morning, so keep checking back to OO for the latest. And because we’re saving your wallet the $40 for the (most likely) abortion that will be Fatal Four-Way, the least you can do is drop a few bucks in the OO coffers via PayPal to keep us going for the next hundred years. Or when WWE starts getting good consistently again. Whichever comes first. Probably the former.

Rating (out of 5): 2.0