Hullo, friends. You know what I’m doing for the first time in five years, starting today? I’m taking a vacation. Like, a real vacation — beach and everything. So I’m not going to be around this week. I mean, at all.

Now, now, don’t despair: I’ll only be gone a week, and posting should resume at its normal frequency on Monday, August 23 (just in time for a very special day — can you guess what?). And here, I’ll leave you in good hands: Tommy at RockBandAide will take good care of you in my absence if Rock Band news is what you crave, while Dan at One of Swords will keep you up to speed with any major Hero-style developments.

For everything else, you can consider this an open thread to share any music-game news you’ve come across on these great internets of ours. But remember: Any comment with two or more links in it will go into a moderation queue…and it’ll sit there until I get back, because I ain’t checking e-mail once while I’m away. (Yeah, I’m old-school like that.) So if you want to share more than one link, you’ll want to do it in separate posts, dig?

Be kind to each other while I’m away…and nobody announce anything important, OK? See you soon.

You know, as much as I love going to E3, it’s such a treat to come home afterward. But as much as I love coming home from E3, it can be a serious pain to get caught back up on work, e-mail, and all that other life stuff that gets pushed off while you’re neck-deep in games. So really, what I love most of all is coming home from E3, and then being done with all the catch-up.

I’m not there yet.

But I wanted to drop a quick line and let you know I’m back, really, and in the process of putting together posts covering my experiences, as well as some of the things that slipped through the cracks while I was away. At the moment, here’s my plan for the next few days:

Today:

1. A massive RBN update — 20 new songs since last Tuesday’s post!
2. Hands-on with Rock Band 3.
3. Hands-on with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.

Tuesday:

1. Details on the new tracks hitting the Rock Band music store (Miley Cyrus!).
2. Details on the new RBN tracks hitting PS3.
3. Details on the new Guitar Hero 5/Band Hero DLC.

Wednesday:

1. A look at the other new music games shown at E3. [In retrospect, there wasn't a lot to talk about in terms of games, so I lumped a bit of Power Gig talk in with #2.]
2. Some discussion of peripherals.
3. Perhaps some additional discussion of peripherals.

Thursday and Friday:

1. Whatever I don’t get to the previous three days.
2. And, presumably, an announcement of next week’s Rock Band DLC.

Sound good? Good. Look for this stuff to start rolling out in an hour or so. Got anything specific you’d like to know about the show? Drop me a line in comments!

And I’m out! I’m heading off to Boston for a weekend of videogame-related debauchery at PAX East. This is home turf for Harmonix, so I’m expecting a lot of Rock Band-related events and festivities, and I’m particularly excited to be visiting Harmonix and doing my best Billie Joe Armstrong impersonation. (To be clear, my best Billie Joe Armstrong impersonation is not terribly good.) This assumes, of course, that everything goes well with my flight. I ought not to assume such things.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that tomorrow may be a bit light on posting around here. I’m hoping to be able to update the site regularly as I come across interesting stuff at PAX, but I don’t know how realistic that hope is. They do have a media room, but my E3 experiences have taught me that you can’t always count on such things.

However, if I can get reliable access, then look for me to be posting clear through the weekend, because there’s bound to be lots to talk about.

Either way, I should at the very least be able to update the Plastic Axe Twitter page regularly, so stay tuned to that for snippets of PAX-related goings-on.

And of course, if you’re going to PAX East yourself, and you happen to run into me in the halls, make sure to say hello! (I look sort of like this. Well, a lot like that, actually.) Look for the nearest music game or music-game peripheral. You will probably find me there.

With all the Rock Band Network craziness last week, I suspect this may have gotten lost in the shuffle. So in case you missed it, here’s another link to the exclusive Plastic Axe Omega GM-1 review.

True story: I’ve been trying to finish up this review since January, but kept getting handed new freelance projects I simply couldn’t turn down. So I’ve had my drum set sitting in my office, right behind my chair, for nearly two months now.

Yesterday I finally moved it back down into the basement, and now my office feels frighteningly large and echoey. I may have developed agoraphobia in the past few weeks. I don’t recommend it.

Anyway: I made you a review. I hope you like it.