[bisonbison]

A week ago I played Guitar Hero for the first time, a couple rounds before mahjong with the office asians. I was pretty [censored] amazing, beating up on two poor saps who were dumb enough to play on hard while I played easy. Many comments were made about my ability to play Guitar Hero well at the easiest level.

I said to myself: You should go to Fry's and buy this game. But why would I want to be great at Guitar Hero when I could pay more to be terrible at guitar? So Saturday morning I went out and resurrected my lifelong dream of learning an instrument and fulfilled my weeks-long dream of maybe getting a guitar.

Having bought the epiphone les paul special ii rowland microcube amp guitar cable strap gig bag picks and stand, I then took the time to decide whether buying it was a good idea:

Pros:
- I have almost no music playing experience or ability, thus no bad habits.
- My singing has been described as "tone deaf", allowing me to focus solely on guitar.
- I tend to pursue new hobbies for a couple weeks and then abandon them, so I have few competing interests.

Cons:
- Ned does not fear the guitar. He may eat it.
- The guitar will not plug into an Xbox 360.
- I have not named my guitar, and thus cannot start a band that I also haven't named with musician friends I don't have except for the drummer.

The pros win by roughly a light year, but the last six days have made clear that playing guitar is not as easy as failing to hook up with girls I like from my office.

I have a lesson scheduled for Monday, but in the meantime, OOT guitar guys, please instruct me on:

1. Good first songs to aim at. Please note that my metal meter stops at GNR.
2. Good sites/books for music theory.
3. Good sites/books for exercises.
4. Whatever.