Give the man a Guinness

Here's an item we wanted to make sure you saw. It was published online, along with the accompanying photo,  by the Daily Texan at the University of -- you guessed it -- Texas:

   Junior Matt Smith broke a world record Saturday playing all 84 “Rock Band 2” songs on the drums, recording the highest score.
   Shards of red, yellow, blue and green video-game targets were blasted apart Saturday as a UT student smashed his way past the official Guinness World Records achievement for highest full-song set-list score on the Xbox 360 game “Rock Band 2.”
   Civil engineering junior Matt Smith played all 84 “Rock Band 2” songs on the drums over the course of seven hours to beat the May 16 record score of 10,687,033 points, according to Guinness World Records. Like the previous record holder, gamer Robert Paz, Smith played at the hardest difficulty level — expert. He accumulated a score of 14,727,919 points and unofficially beat the record around 4:55 p.m. after he finished his 58th song, “Pinball Wizard” by The Who, with a score of 10,719,466 points.
   Smith said he practiced video-game drums for 45 minutes to an hour a day after he finished his UT coursework.
   Smith said his parents and Castilian residents supported him throughout his months of preparation.
   “Pretty much my entire floor has been rooting me on; I’ll practice, and all of my residents will come in and support me,” Smith said. “My parents didn’t really support playing video games, but they support getting world records. They’re kind of in a weird position, I guess.”
   With only a few songs left to play, he said he could not feel his pedal-side foot and that he was playing through the pain and letting his body go through the motions. He stood up, stretched and sprinted between songs toward a nearby water fountain.
   “For a while, I did long stints where I played for four hours at a time on the weekends, just to see if I could physically do it,” he said.
   Human development junior Sarah Sorce said she was able to watch Smith practice before he attempted to break the record.
   “As he practiced and practiced and practiced, he got more and more points, and he could get a higher percentage on each song,” Sorce said. “If he met a goal, he’d make a new one, and he would keep on going and going. It was awesome to watch.”
   Guinness World Records will inform Smith if his attempt was accepted for the Guinness World Records in four to six weeks.

Way to go, Matt! We're all for goal-setting. Frankly we don't see enough of this among our promising but misguided youth.  You might only receive a certificate for this accomplishment, assuming the record is upheld, but a keg of Guinness Stout would seem more appropriate. Skol!

That said, here are some obvious questions:

1) Is civil engineering not challenging enough at UT?
2) Wouldn't Matt's time be better spent playing with Legos?
3) Could any real weekend drummer obliterate this record?
4) Do you suppose this helped Matt get laid?
5) Is Matt now ready to play drums for Grand Funk Railroad?

We're just wondering.  In no way does this diminish Matt's accomplishment. I mean, we haven't even tried Rock Band 1. The dude's in a league by himself.