There's something screwy with the way Rock Band counts fans.

OK, I can understand the fan cap thing... with that in play, you know that the bands at the top of the charts are truly playing at the Expert-Expert-Expert-Expert level. Rather than just an Easy-Easy-Easy-Easy band playing for a month straight for quick fan wins.

And I can understand why my band loses fans when we fail a gig. Makes sense. Fail out the song and four thousand people stop buying your albums.

But why does my band cease to gain fans when we fall back under the fan cap for our particular level? Shouldn't we at least gain fans back up to the cap? It seems like you only gain fans when you play at a new venue... go back to a previously played gig and you can't get fans, you can only lose them. I'm completely missing something here.

Can't decide on what to do before Smash Bros.

I've got an eye on Burnout Paradise, but now I hear they bumped No More Heroes up into January as well. If I have to choose one, I would lean towards No More Heroes, unless the first reviews come back crap. Although the Burnout demo really showed off some great stuff, and, if they went to the trouble to include PSEye support in an hilarious way, I bet the full game has even more surprises in it.

Either way, I want to keep my schedule relatively clear for Smash Bros in February.

And I noticed Target selling GTA IV pre-orders for a March release. (Comes with a free PS3 console skin, WHO CARES.) Is that even definite?

I dropped JLA/JSA Classified

They were just getting way too uneven for me. I love the idea of rotating story arc/creative team/non-continuity books, but even when they start out well, eventually they all devolve into somebody's uncle's cousin doing the art.

In other DC news, am I crazy or is Countdown finally making sense and getting really good?

The PS3's photo slideshow thing is really nice.

We discovered this when we popped in a Pro Duo memory stick while at Chad & Dana's for New Year's. First of all, the clicky slideshow effect for browsing photos is slick... but the full blown arty presentation is just phenomenal. It pans across your pictures as if they are being lightly tossed onto a table. Some appear as Polaroids, some regular 5x7 prints, sometimes negatives or little film loops. Aside from some crappy text work showing the date, it is really amazing in action. Blows the doors off the Wii's Photo Channel. Even looks better than Apple's Coverflow.

Shame nobody knows the PS3 even does this sort of thing.