Six! That is how many times I have seen Queens of the Stone Age. It sounds a bit obsessive, and it is to an extent, but you can’t deny a man of an epic night of rock music.

Tonight’s show was quite the bittersweet one. While they played a few songs that I haven’t heard live yet (“In the Fade”, “Run Pig Run”, “You Can’t Quit Me Baby”, “Avon”, and “Millionaire”), the set was far too heavy with songs from the new album. That isn’t my complain though.

Rock bands like to do the “your city is the best!” routine quite often. It annoys me when this happens, because most of the time it’s complete crap. Tonight, Josh Homme (lead singer) declared that “we have looked forward to Chicago for the entire f—ing tour.”

Woo! At first I thought he was just buttering me up, but he quickly proved that he really does love Chicago. After the next song, he went to the side of the stage and asked the roadie for something. He came back out with a glass of tequila, to which Josh said, “Whenever we come to Chicago, we always get f—ed up. We just love it here.”

He wasn’t lying. The band became so sloppy towards the end that Josh’s guitar solo during “No One Knows” was just a series loud squeaks instead of the finesse and mastery of the axe that I have grown accustomed to from him. Hell, I was actually drumming (air-drumming, but work with me here) more accurately to “Song for the Dead” than the drummer was. Tisk tisk.

In the end though, the band was honestly not that bad. I’ve just seen them so many times that I am able to really pick up on the subtleties of their performance. Even at their worst, Queens of the Stone Age still puts on a better show than 90% of the crap that is out there today. 97.6% when they are mostly sober.

Tanookiness
Tanooki Playoffs: Red Sox vs Yankees Game 1
First 18 minutes of Zack and Wiki

News & Information
Tony Hawk talks Wii Balance Board possibilities
Maegawa, Treasure interested in Sin and Punishment sequel
Okami Wii not much more than a port
Trials and Tribulations now available for Nintendo DS
RUMOR ALERT: Next Animal Crossing to go MMO?
Tim Schaefer breaks our hearts: No Psychonauts game in development
Research Shows Brain Age in Schools Improves Performance
Official DS Flash Card and Virtual Console coming?
BWii: Battalion Wars 2 site goes live
Sega Confirms Samba de Amigo for Wii in Press Release
Nintendo unveils TV Tuner “lite”
PAL Virtual Console – October 26, 2007

Sales and Business
Sega intends to win holiday sales title with Mario
Nintendo’s Stock Value Continues to Reach New Heights
Nintendo Cracks Down on Piracy Operations in Hong Kong
The Next Reggie: Nintendo hires Dunaway and Takahashi
Japanese hardware sales, October 15-21

Screens, Scans, and Video
Smash Bros. site updates with Donkey Kong Makes His Stand
Mega Man ZX Advent videos (complete with voice acting!)
Gamer’s Day screens of We Love Golf
Smash Bros. site updates with Target Smash
Smash Bros. site updates with King Dedede
Cover your eyes children, Manhunt 2 trailer

Society & Culture
The Sonic the Hedgehog piano marathon
Zero Punctuation LOVES Super Paper Mario
Hey! Look! Twilight Princess gashapon figures
Watch out for your ear: Mike Tyson’s “Brunch Out”