Ever dreamt of living the life of Rock & Roll stardom?

This was the first line in a press release I recently received, somehow I knew plastic guitars with coloured buttons were going to be involved! Ladies and Gents, I present to you..

Before you get too excited, this is not the next Guitar Hero game, it’s a competition to be IN the next Guitar Hero game. You need to submit videos of yourself rocking out while playing Guitar Hero, an air guitar, a tennis racket or what ever else tickles your fancy. The best entrant will be flown to LA to be motion captured for the next game. There are all sorts of other prizes too so get your webcams warmed up and put on your best rock face.

There are some awesome examples of Rocking Out with plastic guitars in the Ready Up @ i33 video that should be ready for your viewing pleasure very soon. Watch this space.

Head over to http://www.releaseyourrockstar.com/ to see some of the entries so far and to find out how you can enter. You have until July 13th.

Check out this video for a peek at one of the judges, it’s only bloody Lemmy from bloody Motorhead! Take that Simon Cowell.

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Have you ever noticed Luigi being bullied by Mario & Princess Peach in the Mario Kart Wii opening?

Luigi has always been the shadow of Mario. He’s the less recognised character and too many times have I seen people have trouble recalling his name. Is our taller brother really that under-appreciated?

I wonder how he puts up with his Nintendo brother always taking the credit, beating the baddies and getting the girl. Ghost hunting with a vacuum just doesn’t really settle well for Luigi.

However “Good things comes to those who wait” as the Guinness adverts say. So maybe someday our green plumber will step up to equal fame. Perhaps he’ll find a girl of his own too.

Now I’ll leave you with an awesome flash movie series, “Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom”. There’s four brilliant episodes and thanks to the work of Randy Solem, you can admire the true hero that Luigi is!

A while back a friend asked me how many hours a week I actually spend on gaming or gaming related activities. After thinking to myself “well it’s only a couple of hours a day… maybe three… on weekdays” it then occurred to me that in an average week I spend around 25 hours online. This is a scary thought but the puzzling part is this - how do I find the time to spend so many hours with my beloved Xbox? I have a job, qualifications, my Ready Up commitments, an upcoming wedding and a pretty good social life for a gamer(!). So how and why do I make time every week just to game?

It occurs to me that I should be madly panicking at the thought of spending a seventh of my life sitting in front of the TV but my life is really no different to any normal member of the public, I simply swap the latest mind-numbing reality show for a games console. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not someone who believes all TV is evil but I actually feel quite smug at the thought that I sacrifice watching TV for gaming. Whilst the majority come home and turn on the TV I simply turn on my Xbox as well.

The intriguing thing is that despite increasing commitments my gaming time does not appear to be decreasing and I’m not aware of any other areas of my life being rushed. I sometimes wonder what else I could do with the time (take up a new hobby, throw fabulous dinner parties, learn a new language etc.) but I’m happy with my life the way it is. At the end of the day I guess it comes down to prioritising and as long as gaming is high up on my list I can’t see anything changing and I’m pretty comfortable with that.