After many, many months, we're finally retiring our Rock Band 2 drums. We showed them a lot of love... probably too much love. I mean, look at those drumsticks! Did someone chew on them?

Some folks from Harmonix came by our lab to chat, and I guess they were impressed by our obvious devotion to their game. The hacked-together plastic-tape solution was less impressive. (They still work!) So yesterday we found a whole new set of drums, shipped from the west and on our doorstep. Thank you, Harmonix!

Let's not forget the good times we've had. Here are a couple of pics of the old GAMBIT drums to remember them by, next to the the shiny, new ones taking on the mantle.

This is actually the fourth set of videogame drums in the office. The first one was a knockoff set for Drummania, and it's still sitting around just in case Bemani fever breaks out again. The second was my kit from the original Rock Band, which has a dead red pad but probably just needs a little solder. The white drums were a gift from David Nieborg of Gamespace.nl fame, and we never properly thanked him either. (Thanks, David!) This doesn't count all the various drum machines that have come through the lab. We've got a real percussive thing going on here.