Tuesday, March 31, 2009

See the Macas Live once again!

For the second time in two weeks, the Macas will be performing Live! This time it will be from 12:00 to 14:00 tomorrow (Wednesday) at the University of Ottawa (2nd floor of University Centre, near the Tim's) for the Amp Energy Rock Band Tournament!

Thanks for the support two weeks ago at our first competition. We hope to see you there again tomorrow!

Fanmail #5 - You Sir, are a Twit!

From: Phil D.
Sent: Monday, March 30th, 2009
Subject: What's next?!

Though you didn't get first place, congratz on the competition guys! What's next, will you be in that amped thing dman suggested? It'd be cool if you could win $100,000!

You guys should post on your blog more often so we know what's going on.

Phil

Phil, dude, thanks for the email and the congratulations.

As for your comment about more frequent blog updates, you have to understand that it takes a lot of time and energy to create even a mildly entertaining blog post. I mean, you have to take the time to figure out a subject, write about it, proofread it (in my case, several times), and then delete it and start writting again because its just too cheesy (if you don't do this, you end up with posts like this).

Now, if only there was an easy way of posting blog entries without having to write whole paragraphs, like some kind of microblogging tool... We could keep all our fans up-to-date by only writing small short 140 character entries... It would be little bits of information, kind of like a bird's single tweet...

Wait a minute...!

Ah no, that won't work...

No wait, maybe...

Nah...

But what if...!

Yes!

DMAN is now a Twit! ... um, I mean a Twitter!

That's right, want to know what the Reject does with his time? Want up to the minute 3MaaR news? Then subscribe to http://twitter.com/dman3021 today!

You'll know everything the reject is doing, from entries like "Out walking the dog..." to "Watching a good ol' fashion X-Files..." and "Currently picking the belly button lint from between my toes..." There will also be some Rock Band related stuff, like session results and contest updates!

So don't delay, follow me today!

DMan... (aka the Reject)

PS -> I can not be held responsible of how entertaining my twitter entries will be. Heck, even I wouldn't read them given the choice!

PPS -> Thanks to everyone who sent in fanmail. We read every single one of them, so keep em coming!



Have Fanmail you want to send us? Then open up your email and write to: "rejected.fans@live.com"!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

The Macas are now 12th with 123M points!

This week we reached our optimal goal by gaining more than 500K points! We are now in 12th place in the real leaderboards ahead of ""COME GET SOME"", plus we passed the 123M point mark. We played 10 songs, getting an average increase of 52K points per song.

Highlights:
- We now have a basic path for every song! There were 9 songs left to path and we played them all. Thanks again to our pathmaster Trapper for the help! Now we can work on even more precise paths
- Phoenix makes our first manual path ("Chop Suey") and it pays off nicely (biggest increase of the night)!
- Bongoo suggests a path change for "We Got the Beat" that moves us up to less than 30K from 1st place for that song
- DMan has the most FCs for the night (6), followed by Bongoo (4) and Raikan (2)
- Our best increases were for "Chop Suey" (151K, 33rd to 17th), "We Got the Beat" (91K, 25th to 6th), "Let There Be Rock" (89K, 38th to 25th), "American Woman" (87K, 9th to 4th) and "Hello There" (69K, 36th to 12th)
- We practiced the songs we might play next week if we have a chance to participate in the competition at Ottawa U

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Goal for tomorrow: move up to 12th place

This week our main goal before playing some random DLC will be to gain 267K points to beat ""COME GET SOME"" for 12th place in the real leaderboards. We will also plan our strategy if we want to participate in next week's competition.

We are currently in 22nd place but we would be ahead of 9 bands if their scores were not inflated (at positions 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 15).

Minimum: Gain 134K points, to be halfway to beating ""COME GET SOME""
Main: Gain 267K points, to beat ""COME GET SOME"" for 12th place
Optimal: Gain 496K points, to get to 123M points
Bonus: Play some random DLC

Friday, March 20, 2009

Rock Band Competition - Finals

Today was the finals of the Place d'Orléans Rock Band Challenge, organized by Hot 89.9! You can see our first day results here.

We were up against 3 other bands:

Monday winners "X-Aldin":
Tuesday winners "JATTM" (Jesus and the Thunderstorm Monsters):
Thursday winners "Loonie Crush":
In a round robin style first round, we faced off against each band by playing a Tier 6 Expert song. The 2 bands with the most wins would move on to the final round to play a Tier 7 song.

1st Round 1/6: "X-Aldin" vs. "JATTM" (Let There Be Rock):
-----------------
In a very close duel, "JATTM" gets 21K more than "X-Aldin", with the "JATTM" guitarist "Paden" getting 98% of the notes, 6% more than the "X-Aldin" guitarist. It gets pretty suspenseful at the end as "JATTM" needed to get the "Big Rock Ending" to win this round.
Stats (Bass, Drums, Vocals, Guitar):
"X-Aldin": 1,595K (99 99 94 92)
"JATTM": 1,616K (98 99 85 98)

1st Round 2/6: "3 Macas and a Reject" vs. "Loonie Crush" (Everlong):
-----------------
Our first matchup was against "Loonie Crush", a talented group with a very precise drummer. His skills are the key to their victory as he gets 98% versus 82% for Phoenix, with all other instruments tied at 99% or 100% (DMan). Phoenix points out that he would be closer to the high percentages for pretty much any other song.
Stats (Bass, Drums, Vocals, Guitar):
"3 Macas and a Reject": 1,109K (99 82 100 99)
"Loonie Crush": 1,483K (99 98 100 99)

1st Round 3/6: "X-Aldin" vs. "3 Macas and a Reject" (Spoonman):
-----------------
Stats (Bass, Drums, Vocals, Guitar):
Our second match was against "X-Aldin". DMan and Raikan get higher percentages plus we follow a good path, leading to our first victory of the day.
"X-Aldin": 864K (97 99 93 93)
"3 Macas and a Reject": 1,043K (98 99 94 93)

1st Round 4/6: "JATTM" vs. "Loonie Crush" (Carry on Wayward Son):
-----------------
In another close match, "Loonie Crush" wins by less than 100K, with the key being their performance on guitar and bass.
Stats (Bass, Drums, Vocals, Guitar):
"JATTM": 1,065K (95 99 95 94)
"Loonie Crush": 1,134K (98 100 95 98)

1st Round 5/6: "Loonie Crush" vs. "X-Aldin" (Aqualung):
-----------------
X-Aldin needs a win to stay in the competition, having lost their first two matches. They make a valiant effort, but eventually coming about 100K short of triple round 1 winners "Loonie Crush". Once again, the difference was in the skills of the "Loonie Crush" guitarist. "X-Aldin" goes home with the remainder of the 5$ gift certificates (100$?)
Stats (Bass, Drums, Vocals, Guitar):
"Loonie Crush": 1,867K (98 98 99 99)
"X-Aldin": 1,764K (99 98 98 96)

1st Round 6/6: "3 Macas and a Reject" vs. "JATTM" (Down with the Sickness):
-----------------
With the 1st place and 4th place round robin winners already determined, the stakes increase as this final 1st round match would determine who goes to the final round. A great performance by everyone and a good path seals the deal as we beat "JATTM" by about 100K. DMan and Raikan both get FCs! A 3rd place finish by "JATTM" rewards them with a worthy 200$.
Stats (Bass, Drums, Vocals, Guitar):
"3 Macas and a Reject": 2,195K (100 99 100 99)
"JATTM": 2,073K ( 98 99 98 99)

Final Round: "Loonie Crush" vs. "3 Macas and a Reject" (Ramblin' Man):
----------------
Having won the round robin, "Loonie Crush" gets to choose the song and they pick "Ramblin' Man". We win the coin toss this time and get to pick who gets to play first. Naturally, we choose to go second. "Loonie Crush" has a great performance, which we fail to match by about 140K. Except for DMan who gets his 3rd FC of the day, we all miss in at least one key area where we don't usually miss (nerves? calibration?). We would love to have this one back, but getting to the final round and pocketing a neat 400$ is a great way to finish the competition!
Stats (Bass, Drums, Vocals, Guitar):
"Loonie Crush": 2,174K (99 99 99 99)
"3 Macas and a Reject": 2,036K (99 99 100 97)

This was a great setting for our very first competition! A big thanks to all who helped organize it and to everyone who were there to support us. Congrats to "Loonie Crush" for their well-earned victory! Every band did great and we hope to see you all at the next Rock Band competition!

Photos (courtesy of Sylvie):

Start of song:Here we go:
Phoenix and Bongoo:
Raikan and DMan:
Other angle:
End of song:
Announcing the results:
The finalists:
Phoenix rides the bus:
DMan wants to join:
The pathmaster:
Phoenix and Sylvie:
DMan the Spoonman:
Bongoo reflects on a great competition:

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Rock Band Competition - Day 1

Today was our first live gig and our first competition! A big thanks to Ryan Lindsay and the rest of the Hot 89.9 crew for organizing this great event!

The competition started interestingly as we were introduced as the "Macaws" instead of the "Maacas". ;)

Round 1:
We play "White Wedding (Part 1)" on Medium difficulty. We each miss 1 or 2 notes except DMan, possibly due to the wacky calibration. Our opponents get a lower total score and we advance.

Round 2:
We play "Carry On Wayward Son" on Hard difficulty. The best 2 out of 3 bands will advance to the final round due to there only being 6 bands today. We go first once again and do pretty bad, mostly due to calibration issues. Bongoo tries to adjust his timing during the song but doesn't succeed, leading to many unison bonus misses.

The second band, "Totally Nuts" plays next, and they beat our score, even without their optimal line-up. So we are nervous as the third and final band goes on stage to play... Even though it appears that they would beat us, we are happily surprised at the end of the song to discover that they didn't! Phew!

Final Round:
So we go up against "Totally Nuts" in the finals. They are an amazing band (see their SH scores), with their superstars being "CanadienBakon" on drums (#3 PS3 drummer for RB1 and master squeezer), and "curtistheninja" on guitar (#3 PS3 guitarist on SH for RB2).

The bands can't agree on the pick for the final song, so we flip a coin, and guess what, our bad luck continues... "Totally Nuts" gets their pick and we get to play "Bodhisattva" (their choice perhaps due to Bongoo's bad run in Round 2?)

It's their turn to be first so they go on stage to calibrate. After some unsuccesful calibration runs, they finally get a chance to set a calibration that allows them to finish the song.

We are up next and also get a chance to calibrate. After the bad luck with the calibration and the coin toss, things finally start to gel and we all have an amazing run! Bongoo redeems himself for the round 2 debacle and we finish more than 100K ahead of "Totally Nuts" to win the day's event!

Congrats to "Totally Nuts" for giving us some great competition! With better calibration, who knows what would have happened. With the amazing scores they posted on SH (done while unconnected as they're not in the official Leaderboards), they definitely have the potential to be one of the top bands (for example, see the video of their Visions run...).

With our win we now play on Friday, where from 1:00 to 3:00 PM the 4 winners from Monday to Thursday will face off for the big money! A big thanks to those who came to support us and see you all again on Friday!

Video:



Pictures (courtesy of the event's Facebook page):

Phoenix and Bongoo:
DMan:
Raikan and DMan:
Phoenix:
Bongoo:
Crowd + Sylvie, Phoenix and Seb:
CanadienBakon:
curtistheninja:
Victory!
Oh yeah!

Ready to rock live!

Tonight we had a good practice session and we are looking forward to today's competition at Place d'Orléans from 1:00 to 3:00. See you all there!

While practicing we improved on "Get Clean" by 43K (33rd to 23rd).

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Goal for tonight: practice for our Live Gig!

Tonight's session is a special practice session for the Place d'Orléans Rock Band Challenge. We will be playing on Wednesday from 1:00 to 3:00 PM near the fountain at the mall.

The only goal is to practice for the competition. If we so happen to increase one of our scores, then that's an extra bonus!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

3 Macas and a Reject Live!

Unknown Caller: What would you say if I told you one of the greatest bands in the world - 3 Macas and a Reject - are coming to Place d'Orléans this Wednesday?

Phoenix: We'll I'd say you should go see them!


The unknown caller in the snippet above is Hot 89.9 Radio DJ Ryan Lindsay, who informed Phoenix last night of our band's selection in the Place d'Orléans Rock Band Challenge happening at 12h30 this Wednesday, March 18th, in front of the West 49 store in Place d'Orléans.

So we invite all our fans to come and show your support this coming Wednesday at Place d'Orléans as we show people how Rock Band is played!

Contest specifics (taken from here):

Preliminary Rounds

A minimum of eight (8) ‘bands’ will compete per preliminary round (Monday, March 16th – Thursday, March 19th, 2009).

In the first round, bands will be paired up and will have to complete the same song (chosen randomly) as their competing team, starting on an easy level. The team that garners the highest score will move on to the next round. For each round, the difficulty and song will change, with the winning teams moving forward. The final two teams competing each preliminary day will be required to complete a song on the ‘Expert’ level, with the highest scoring band advancing to the Finals.

Finals

The winning band each day will automatically move to the Final Competition on Friday, March 20th between 1pm - 3pm.


There will be a total of three rounds of competition for the Final Competition. The first round all eight (8) bands will be paired up. During each round, paired up teams will be required to play the same song. The song difficulty, like in the preliminary events, will increase throughout the Final competition during each round.

The winner of each pairing in the first round will move onto the semi-final round – four (4) teams in total. During the semi-finals the four (4) bands will be randomly paired up again, with the winning team from each pairing moving onto the final round.

The two teams that make it to the final round will have to play the same song (chosen at random), on the same difficultly. The team who receives the highest score will win the grand prize. The runner-up team will therefore win the 2nd place prize.

The two teams that lost in the semi-final round will also compete against each other. The team who garners the highest score/most points will take home the 3rd place prize.

Prize Details

The winning team of four (4) will win the grand prize: $1,000 worth of Place d’Orleans Gift Certificates (that can be split evenly amongst the band members).

The 2nd place team (or runner-up) will win $400 in Place d’Orleans Gift Certificates and the 3rd place team will win $200 in Place d’Orleans Gift Certificates.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Drummer injured, but we still gain 12K!

Tonight we played mostly DLC due to Phoenix's right leg being injured, but we still managed to increase our RB2 career score by 12K points!

We'll have to try to make up for this small increase next time, as this was the first week in a long time where we do not pass "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND".

Highlights:
- DMan is "Top Performer" on the most songs (10), followed by Bongoo (9) and Raikan (4)
- Bongoo gets the most FCs (8), followed by DMan (5), Raikan (3) and Phoenix (2, with his left leg!)
- Our two increases were 7K for "Hungry Like the Wolf" (32nd to 30th) and 5K for "My Own Worst Enemy" (20th, no rank change)

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Goal for tonight: come get some 323K points

This week our main goal before playing some random DLC will be to gain 323K points to beat ""COME GET SOME"" for 12th place in the real leaderboards. In doing so, we will also once again be passing our friends "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND".

We are currently in 19th place but there are 5 bands ahead of us with inflated scores (at positions 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8).

Minimum: Gain 279K points, to beat "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" for 13th place
Main: Gain 323K points, to beat ""COME GET SOME"" for 12th place
Optimal: Gain 552K points, to get to 123M points
Bonus: Play some random DLC

Monday, March 9, 2009

Beer of the week #10

To celebrate the 10th edition of "Beer of the week", here is a very short list. ;)

1- Mill Street Coffee Porter: This is an interesting beer brewed with coffee. It is 5.5% and is not for everyone, but I enjoyed it even if I don't like coffee that much. :)

2- We had the good ol' Old Engine Oil again :D, but no need to describe it a 2nd time... ;)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Duels, Happiness and DLC

This week there was a trifecta of fun, as we dueled on drums, beat our friends "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" for 12th by gaining 265K points, and played some random DLC.

Highlights:
- Raikan brings his drumset to the session, leading to some fun drum duels. Phoenix emerges victorious!
- Bongoo breaks DMan's FC win streak, with the most FCs for the night (5), followed by DMan (1) and Raikan (1)
- We make three new paths, and our point gain was big enough to be close to our main goal. The songs were "Kids in America" (105K, 30th to 5th), "Man in the Box" (90K, 38th to 13th) and "PDA" (31st to 14th)
- Raikan gets a nice devilish streak on "Kids in America"! (666)
- We take a break to try some Wii Fit meditation. You wouldn't think that just sitting still would be difficult... (Raikan survives the longest)
- We play 30 random DLC, but not on our regular instruments, with Bongoo being "Top Performer" on the most songs (19), followed by Raikan (5), Sylvie (4), DMan (1) and Phoenix (1)
- Some band members have now formed another group with real instruments. It's neat to see Phoenix and DMan playing real Bass to the Rock Band songs!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Goal for tonight: be Happy to play some DLC

This week we will have another fun random DLC session, but that won't stop us from having a few small "Original 84" goals. Our friends "Happy People Playing ROCK Band" are not too far away, so we will attempt to pass them once again.

We are currently in 19th place but there are 6 bands ahead of us with inflated scores (at positions 1, 2, 3, 6, 13 and 16).

Minimum: Gain 150K points, to beat "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" for 12th place
Main: Gain 300K points, to be at 122.5M
Optimal: Gain 600K points, to beat ""COME GET SOME"" for 11th place
Bonus: Play some random DLC

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Beer of the week #9

The list is still a bit short this week but maybe I am just trying to prove I am not addicted to beer? :p

I find it is important to try beer more than once... and try many different types. Did you ever run into someone who simply said: "I don't like beer... I've had it once in a party in college and it was awful."

Let me tell you that if the only beer you ever had was a beer at a "party in college", you are probably basing your prejudice against beer on Budweiser, Coors Light, Molson, etc..., any of these cheap 24-pack beers.

I URGE you to give it another try and get our economy rolling! :D

Enough ranting... here are today’s beers:

1) Blanche de Chambly: Another good beer by Unibroue. It is a white beer with 5% alcohol with a nice spicy taste. I find it a great light summer beer.

2) This next one brings up my rant again: "OCHAKOVO" (it's a Russian name, probably pronounced "usnakova"? ... my Russian is VERY rusty...) A 4.5% Russian lager with NO aftertaste and a very light taste. If you say you don't like beer, do yourself a favor and at least try this one!!! It’s PERFECT to introduce you to the world of beer. Even to the experienced beer drinker, it is light but still refreshing.