So I put the Nintendo Wii down for a little while, but only to pick my new favorite game, Guitar Hero for the PS2. Who’s a flippin’ rock star? I am! I can thank my buddy Nevling for getting me on this kick. He got the game for Christmas and the first time I played it, I was hooked. I went out to Circuit City last Friday, spent a little Christmas cash and ended up standing and jamming with my mini guitar in front of the TV all day Saturday. While some people may play the game and think, “This is awesome! I love playing this!” I on the other hand . . . well okay I am thinking that while I’m playing, but I’m also thinking, “Wow, my brain is adapting ridiculous fast to learn how to play this.”

For those of you new to the conception known only as Guitar Hero, let me explain a little. In this game you play the guitar. End of story. You rock out to such fabulous classic rock songs such as Jessica by The Allman Brothers, Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns ‘N Roses and of course Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd (if you’re good enough). Your guitar has 5 buttons on the arm, a strum button on the face, and a whammy bar to rock the eff out of any song. You watch the TV and as the fret buttons scroll to the bottom of the screen you push those buttons on the guitar, and the strum button at the same time. Voila! You’ve got the note that needed to be played for the song. String a whole slew of notes together and you’ve got a kick a** tune!

So anywho, back to my original thought about the brain. Basically when you pick this game up and start playing you need to make some neural connections to play. The connections will assist you in moving your fingers to the right fret when your eyes see the note on the screen. The more you play the more neural connections and networking, thus the better you get. What’s amazing is how fast those connections can be made. In just a few short hours I went from a darn poor rendition of Shout at the Devil on easy to a pretty solid performance of Crazy on You. Do you realize what the brain has to do to accomplish this? No one really knows how it does it, but it does. And in record time. As children these networks branch out quicker and bigger than when we are older. It’s why kids learn so much faster than us. And it’s probably why this 8-year-old kid can play at a level that I’m pretty sure I won’t achieve unless I abandon my life and become a Guitar Hero monk living in Timbuck Tu for the next 50 years. And that ain’t happening anytime soon.

How fascinating and complex our little brain is. I wonder what it will be able to do in another couple thousand years . . .