Tuesdays with Muerte

Be sure to watch it in High Definition! This is how my old roommate Chen saw ALL American ping pong players, including me. I have been skunked at the hand of Master Chen more than once. BTW, if you can't see videos on your work or school computer, but you can download video files follow directions 1-7 on this previous post to work around that little dilemma. You can also click the link if you want to see that timeless "BLOOUD" YouTube video again. ---------------- Listening to: BYU Singers - How Can I Keep From Singing

Should Batman have been R-rated ? Yep. The first time I watched The Dark Knight in theaters I felt uncomfortable enough to have agreed with an R-rating . But the second time I watched it, I loved it and was even able to see past the questionable subject and content, which I first found offensive. IMDB reports that Dark Knight is rated PG-13 for "intense sequences of violence and some menace". But it also won 2 Oscars and another 46 wins & 47 nominations on Oscar Night last week. I still think it should be rated-R . I saw Slumdog Millionaire a week before it was released in theaters. I was so taken with the film that I immediately recommended it to my most-innocent sister, Belle, and her straight-laced husband Bill. (Sorry guys.) Only this week did I hear word that Slumdog actually was, rated-R for "some violence, disturbing images and language". Having said that, it stole the show at the 2008 film awards with 8 Oscars wins and 64 other wins & 28...

This dream is from 3 or 4 days ago. I recounted it to Riz Rinker when I went over for a chat earlier this week. Thankfully, I remember enough to write it down. I had a series of dreams throughout the night, tied together by a recurring theme of justification and eternal judgment. The segment I remember best is right at the end. My mind created an anecdotal conclusion to make sense of the night's events in the form of a stick-figure comic strip. Maybe later, I'll update this post with a depiction of what I saw. For now, I a written explanation will have to suffice: The Stick Figure Comic Strip In the first pane, a religious scholar approaches the gates of heaven and is stopped by St. Peter. In the second frame, Peter asks the man, "What beliefs did you adhere to during your visit to Earth?" The man adjusts his glasses in the third frame and offers a laundry dogmatic list of tenants and what-have-you regarding his belief system. i.e., All Orthodox Jew...

Defintion au·then·tic ôˈTHen(t)ik/ adjective 1. of undisputed origin; genuine. Getting to the Primary Source It not enough for me to just write my opinion about stuff any more; I require primary sources. I have felt this way about all of the topics I have chosen to write about these last couple of weeks. After spending hours researching people and subjects, I feel justified in contacting the people or leaders in the field in order to try to get them to verify what I've written and offer them the opportunity to comment on what I've written. For example, here is a list of people I have tried to contact in the last two weeks: 1. Provo Temple President - President Merrill J. Bateman (Provo Temple, 801-375-5775) 2. Credit Crisis Expert - Stock Market, yet Homeowner-aware Tychoon, Shah Gilani 3. Mafia Originator - Dimitry Davidoff (Could not be found) 4. Gwen Stefani's Music Agent - Mitch Okmin (323-653-0427) 5. Jaleel White ...

Many of you know that I enjoy a ritual of watching Star Trek TNG (The Next Generation) before bed. I usually watch episodes on my laptop while blogging, so I usually get through a full episode (and sometimes two episodes) before I finish publishing a blog post. When I am compelled to finish a certain post late into the night, the episodes always seem to become funnier. In high school, any time I was up, writing papers, after 11pm my body seemed to automatically shut down. I always referred to this phenomenon as "Happy Hour"; the hour when I become drunk on exhaustion. Here is an video example of what it would be like if you were me watching Star Trek past "Happy Hour": . . . This ridiculousness must come to an end. I'm not a Trekkie , but I would definitely classify myself on the nerd side of the spectrum. (Trekker?) It was Monday of this week that I realized, what was once a fascination with blogging had grown into an addiction. Three posts a day...

The 1973 Disney animated film Robin Hood has been translated into languages from all over the world, which has to be a difficult job since most of the story is told through songs. Andy Baio at Waxy has collected over a dozen translations of the opening song “Oo De Lally” for your listening pleasure. The singers are quite talented! My favorite is the Arabic version. (Thanks Andy)

Watch this educational video. It's 11 minutes of your life that you won't regret. There's been a lot of differing opinions surrounding the cause for our current National Financial Depression. I'd been meaning to really research this for a long time. Fortunately, someone already did the work for me . . . AND, posted it online. If you know of a resource that is more accurate or offers a clearer explanation regarding the current credit crisis, please leave the contact information in the comments section of this post.

I was first introduced to Mafia in 1995 at a Family Home Evening activity. With only 6-players in our family, we selected one Narrator, two Mafia gangsters (murder one person/night), one Detective (ask the narrator about the identity of one person/round), and sometimes we played with a Guardian Angel (who can save one person/round); everyone else were innocent citizens. THE WEREWOLVES OF MILLERS HOLLOW Review and Detailed Explanation Werewolves is essentially the same game. I played it on Monday night for an FHE activity as well. We played 2 games with 10 and 11 players respectively. Each game lasted about 10-20 minutes. IT WAS SOOO MUCH FUN! I can totally see my immediate family enjoying some of the new rules associated with Werewolves . Here is a list of differences between my family's version of Mafia and the way we played it last night. Three main differences 1. New Characters 2. Voting is performed by pointing. (Much more efficient.) 3. The game is pla...

History of Mafia The first thing you must know is that Hitler was not Mafioso, and he did not invent the game of Mafia (although he was apparently a Lady Killer). Russian University Professor, Dimitry Davidoff invented Mafia , as we know it, in 1986. Davidoff had a web page upon which he described the origin of the game. Unfortunately, his site is no longer available. [ Crowd moans .] However, I found a mirror of his original site on archive.org . [ Crowd cheers .] Davidoff believes this game to have originated in England in the 1970's. It quite probably goes back much further, though. Davidoff also recalls a Russian game called Ubiitca, which he translates as "Muderer." In Ubiitca, there is not night, and the lone murderer kills by "winking" at his victim during the day. The victim, seeing the wink, must say "ouch" and die. The game is constantly evolving. Since its modern re-conception in 1986, Davidoff's rules have been greatly "...

Mr. T pities the Sith . . .

So I got this feeling about an hour before dinner group(s) began to check online to see where I'd be eating at tonight. (The reader should be aware that I am a member of two dinner groups that overlap on Mondays and Wednesdays.) I pulled up Google Calendars and discovered 2 names: Jon King (apartment 125) and my OWN! The time was 5:20. My dinner group of 8 was due to arrive at 6:30. That gave me 5 minutes to panic, 15 minutes of total travel time, 15 minutes at the grocery store, 4 minutes for unpredictable friend-encounters along the way (which I completely used up), 30 minutes to cooking and 1 minute to catch my breath. I stood up from my chair, put a different shirt on (backwards), grabbed my keys and took off for Maceys. Fortunately, I backed into my parking stall, shaving 5 seconds off of my driving time. Everything went according to plan. I was totally in the zone at the super market. I cruised around the perimeter of the store like a man possessed. Celery looke...

Random? Or racist human-verification program? How to take a screenshot on a Mac: Apple + Shift + 3

In honor of Black History Month, I thought I might attempt a bit of literary analysis. I offer a liberal interpretation of a poem by the great entertainer, Ms. Gwen Stefani, entitled Long Way to Go : We've got a long way to go When snow hits the asphalt, cold looks and bad talk come We've got a long way to go It's beyond Martin Luther, upgrade computer. Based on my limited and stereotypical familiarity of Gwen Stefani's anthology, and Pop music in general, I'm going lead with the assumption that this song is about e xtramarital sex. The work's protagonist is either longing for a promiscuous relationship, escaping from a promiscuous relationship, or possibly, it's just about Japanese Harajuku Girls. Stefani immediately builds suspense from the outset, "We've got a long way to go." I'd like to say that this is an asexual statement about race equality, but I can't.  Based on my original premise and from the artist's dissat...

In celebration of February being National Black History Month, I thought it would be appropriate and interesting to appreciate our favorite actors, celebrities, or people in general. It could be your mother. It could be a best friend growing up. It could be too difficult to choose, if you live in a high-density black demographic area. But for Provo-ites like myself who know only 2 black people, the choice is much more simple. Before I reveal who my favorite black person is, I want to give a shout out to my two black friends, Bismarck and Josephine. Bismarck Odei is my Elder's Quorum President and Josephine is a Young Ambassador at BYU. Both are talented, beautiful people whom I respect greatly. It was Bismarck who corrected me when I used the term, "African-American" in reference to his race. "I'm from Jamaica; I am black, not African." [He's from Ghana.] Although these friends are dear to me, I still hold another individual in even highe...