My friend Howard, who coincidently is also yours and My Robot Friend, turned me on to the Yamaha EZ-EG electric guitar trainer. Howard does electronic music and an elaborate live show, so he bought the EZ-EG to customize and hack as a unique MIDI controller (electronic music playing thing). MIDI is a sound interface. The guitar out of the box comes programmed to play sounds very much like the sounds of a guitar string being plucked. You can however program it to play any sounds and thus make something much different. That's Howard's bag and a story for a different post.
When Howard's arrived at the office, I played with it for two minutes and then ordered one. I have a problem with impulse gadget buying, you see. It's so much fun. I can almost play Take Me Home Country Roads already! I'm not sure if this will actually teach me to play a real guitar, but I don't care. It's like playing a really hard version of Guitar Hero.
Speaking of Guitar Hero, the EZ-EG could theoretically be hacked to actually play Guitar Hero AND teach you to play guitar. I was thinking of doing this for a brief second, but gave it up because 1.) I am lazy. 2.) Someone else will do it soon. 3.) It's not long before the makers of Guitar Hero do it. I'm off to learn the chords for Day Tripper now. Wheee.