The best reason to go to your parents' house for the holidays is...

BOARD GAMES. And at the Knight household we go old school, pulling out ones from the 80's when board game invention was at its height.

Here's the inventory of games played so far (in order of most fun to slightly less most fun):

1) BANDU
This game is probably less known than the origins of carrot cake. Wrongfully overshadowed by the blast-off fame of Jenga, the object of Bandu is to stack up the assorted objects and be the last tower standing. But where the difference comes in is that every object is awkwardly shaped making this not only the thinking man's Jenga, but one of the best drinking games of all time.



2) CLUE
We're going back to the basics. Clue is the origin of all things awesome and you could not have grown up in the U.S. without having Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlet a part of your vocabulary. We brought out the who-done-it game in a recent family trip to the Oregon coast and then my brother and his wife surprised us by bringing the updated version home for the holidays. It is nice to know that not much has changed since the game was first released in 1948 other than a few murder weapons (a trophy?) and rooms (the final guessing room has changed from a stairway to a pool).



3) GUESS WHO
The suggested age of this deduction game is 4-12 and rightfully so. I have fond memories of asking "Does your person wear glasses?" and then proudly flipping down all those classless losers who weren't important enough to be picked at random from a pile of cards. But unfortunately at 26 this game has become a bit less challenging where after two rounds of guesses a winner is clearly defined. Nostalgia wins over game play.



4) PICTIONARY
Because yelling "banana hammock" at the top of your lungs is rarely socially acceptable.

Today I Consider Myself To Be...

A tribute to AAG:

What to do with GM?

I don't own a car, but lately I find myself very concerned over the fate of the American auto industry.  Over the past week, I have been trying to decide which side of this debate I should support, but I still can't make up my mind.  It seems that there are compelling reasons for both cases: to let the auto makers file for bankruptcy and begin their own restructuring or to shore them up temporarily with a government bailout.  Obviously, people far smarter and better-informed than me have been weighing in on this discussion in recent days.  In some of the national newspapers, Michael Levine and Mitt Romney have made the case to leave the market alone and let nature take its course. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Sachs and Robert Samuelson have argued for an immediate bailout tied to stringent conditions of reform for the industry.  

Right now, I think I am leaning toward the latter solution.  It seems better to be proactive and forego arguments of principle and ideology in a time of crises, but I can also see the potential benefits of waiting until these firms are in Chapter 11 to guarantee loans.  Any thoughts?

Talk Show Fail?

Without Question



Et tu Questlove?

Captain Jack Sparrow Strikes Again

We all have that friend who wants to grow up to be a pirate someday.  Well, maybe you don't, but I do, and the good news for him is that this path still seems to be a viable career option.  On Saturday, pirates off the coast of Kenya pulled in their biggest ever haul of booty.  In some ways it is astounding that actual piracy still exists in our modern world, but with potential returns like these it makes sense.  As ridiculous as my mental image of a swashbuckling Johnny Depp swooping onto a Saudi oil tanker may be, this line of work might appeal to those of us struggling to find traditional employment due to the economic downturn.

Entourage Season 44

If you are following the current political narratives making the rounds on the 24 hour news channels, then you are aware that we've elected our first "celebrity" President who then went out and chose "Ari Gold's" brother as his Chief of Staff (coincidence?). And is it just me or does Robert Gibbs looks like "E" 20 years from now?.

Anyways, if there are any further parallels to Entourage (although I hear that Rahm Emmanuel has more in common with Josh Lyman off of "The West Wing"), here's to hoping that the Obama Presidency achieves "Aquaman" or even "Queen's Boulevard" level success, as opposed to the complete catastrophe that was "Medellin"... I don't think anyone wants to relive that experience from Season 4.


RECOMMENDATION:
If you can't afford Adobe Photoshop but you want to emulate the terrible photoshop skills displayed above, then you should check out GIMP. It's free and extremely easy to use, though somewhat harder to master.

Quiz Time

In the first ever international factoid quiz from the fine people here at Onestop, I'd like to pose the following trivia question: What ingenious plan did the president of the Maldives recently moot to insure against global warming?

First of all, you get one point if you even care where the Maldives is located. That's right. Easy money just for being interested.

You can have two points if you can successfully find this island nation on a world map.

And you get three points if you knew the answer to the question.



This plan is so unorthodox that it just might work. But the trivial nature of the quiz notwithstanding, this scenario really does highlight some of the legitimate dangers of global warming: namely, potential resource scarcity and sudden migration of large populations. These are problems that the world cannot just throw money at after the fact. An ounce of prevention and all that...

As an added bonus, if you read the answer linked above, you get to see a rare instance of almost complete digression within the usually all too focused writing of the Economist. My favorite off-topic line:

"And Barack Obama, committed to uniting America, could defuse the nation’s culture wars by purchasing an alternative homeland for those of his countrymen who want more use of the death penalty, less gun control and no gay marriage. A slice of Saudia Arabia’s empty quarter would do nicely: there’s plenty of space and the new occupants would have lots in common with the locals."

"Quit snorkelin' in the grass and playin' mumbly peg!"

Coach Dan Green, the legendary track and cross country coach at The Woodlands High School, has announced he is calling it a career at the close of this season. As outlined in this article, Green has been at the school for 33 years and managed to put together a decent resume of 14 state championships, 26 regional championships, and 31 district championships. If you add track on top of that, the man has captured over 50 district titles, which is astounding.

While Green will be fondly remembered at The Woodlands for his noted accomplishments, the young men who ran for Coach Green will certainly remember him for other reasons. You see, Green is no ordinary coach. While sleepy headed teenagers would roll out of bed and still be wiping the sleep out of their eyes at the outset of their runs in the morning, Green is singing, making gorilla noises, and generally causing everybody to glance at each other as if to say, "what is wrong with this guy?" The camaraderie created through running for Coach Green continues on far past high school. In June, I ran a marathon with an old track friend in San Diego. We spent the first twenty miles of the race firing Green stories back and forth, and became so entrenched in this that we lost track of how fast we were running (the answer...too fast. The race did not end well).

As a sample of what you might have missed by not running for Green, I will give you a sample of the top five quotes I can recall from my time. Old Man, thanks for your years of hard work and ability to make boys into men.

1). "You need to quit waiting for the Easter Bunny to bring your a** some cotton candy and get up and run!!!" -Green to me after a poor showing in part of a workout. Nobody is certain on if the Easter Bunny actually brings cotton candy.

2). "You boys need to quit snorkeling in the grass and playing mumbly peg!" -Green, apparently using his synonym for what is called "grabass." Nobody is clear on what it means to "snorkel in the grass."

3) "You might just want to put a skirt on and run for the girls team. Hell, you might be worth a damn!" -said to a teammate after a poor workout

4) "Boys, it's all about mind over matter. We don't mind, and you don't matter." - said during the thick of just about every workout.

5) (Singing) "I know a girl name boney maroney. She's as skinny as a stick of macaroni" (this of course is followed by a gorilla yell). -sang usually during the toughest part of a workout while half of the team is laying lifeless on the track, while the other half is losing their breakfast.

World Diabetes Day

Today - Nov. 14th - is World Diabetes Day.

Those who are closest to me, or hell anybody who is around me for more than 5 minutes, knows that I have what Wilford Brimley calls "The Diabet-is." Today around the world people are wearing blue, lighting blue candles, sending virtual candles, lighting their houses in blue, not being blue, and marching to raise awareness for this huge but largely misunderstood disease.

So to impress your friends at parties, here are a few quick facts:

• 23.6 million people in the US (7.8% of the population) have diabetes
• Almost 1/3 of people who have it do not even know they have it and are undiagnosed
• Since 1987 the death rate due to diabetes has increased 45% while the death rates due to heart disease, stroke and cancer have declined
• If current trends continue, 1 out of 3 Americans and 1 in 2 minorities born in 2000 will develop diabetes

But anyone who really knows me also knows that I do not want to be a downer about this and will take any opportunity to tout how diabetics are superior to other, feeble humans, so would like to note that:

• Diabetics are known to have larger brains, shot put bowling balls, eat small airplanes and win CLUE with a single guess.

So be educated and be aware of how diabetes is affecting millions in the US, and get on board to help cure this growing epidemic.

Now. For what you really came here for... Keep reading to watch a trailer for the new Jean-Claude Van Damme movie...

Cheers,

Awesome Break: JCVD

Ready for an awesome break? I know you are...





Cheers,