"Digital buds" is a term that I first heard from .tiff. What does it mean? To me it means friendships without an analog interface (typical programmer). I have a ton of digital buds on Vox and Warcrack. People that I may never meet in person in my lifetime, but will have experiences with them via digital interfaces. For my Warcrack peeps, this is usually just questing/raiding or doing a little PvP together, "all real time" and a full shared experience. For my Vox digibuds, it comes across in the sharing of experiences via posts or comments. Not real time but still there is some sort of bond formed. Now and then we enter the real of IM when we're are not all that busy at work ("Hey Steve, have you found this bug yet?"), really have to tell someone something ("OMG Steve, check out the setlist!!"), or when someone has to log onto their sister's computer and they pop up on Google Talk.
Last night, through Rock Band I was able to finally play with some of my digital buds. With much trial and error, .tiff and I were able to do some Quick Band play (with her sister hopping in for vocals). It was the first time we heard our voices (actually I had heard .tiff's voice from her other gigs in gaming journalism), so in reality this was the first time she heard my voice. And even though we have known each other for over a year, it's still a little nerve wrecking to speak to someone and not hide behind the text for once. Anyway we had a blast and I am certain that last night was the first of many nights in which we will meet under the guise of rockers.
After .tiff left, Steve came in for a bit of head to head guitar playing. While .tiff and I did the more co-operative path, Steve and I went the competitive path (sadly he didn't have his mic on). Steve and I have talked Guitar Hero for sometime usually just giving each other progress reports. "I just got past X on Expert" or "I just beat the game on Hard". Last night, we could actually see how well we played (of course this was extremely late at night for me during my 5th-6th hour of playing the game non-stop). I really wanted Steve to get his drum kit hooked up so we could suck .tiff in for some Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But with no voice communication and the lack of Steve's presence on an IM platform, it wasn't gonna happen last night.
I can not express how happy I am with Rock Band allowing me to play with two of my digital buds. It opens the avenues to play with other Heroes of the Plastic Guitar (or drums).
Damn, I can get this song out of my head!!! We need to play this...