When the vacuum sealer from Woot showed up, I was hooked. I got a good deal on the unit, I spent a total of $24.99 for the sealer which was very reasonable for an entry level machine. The unit came with four bags, so I went to the store and bought some bags in the form of a FoodSaver roll that lets you custom make bags to your choice of size. And within a few days I was really enjoying the ability to vacuum seal food and finding the Rival unit to be decent but lacking in the ability to cut off the vacuum and move directly into sealing if I didn’t want to completely remove all the air. Also the Rival unit operated by applying pressure to the lid until the hands free operation light came on, at which point it would then take over and continue sucking out all the air until it could suck out no more then activate the sealing mechanism. The lid required quite a bit of pressure to activate it, which is fine, but I could see the complaint I later saw from a lot of people commenting on the unit in online reviews. But ultimately, I decided I was going to need a fancier vacuum sealing unit for my needs.

The Rival Vacuum Sealer was great as an introduction to the joy of vacuum sealing, but since I felt like a fancier unit would meet my needs better, I started to look around at what my options were. It seemed that the more higher end machines are made by FoodSaver or rather are branded under the FoodSaver name. It turns out that the company that owns Rival, also owns FoodSaver and Seal-A-Meal, meaning all three brands are made by the same company and are able to use the same bags interchangeably. Coincidentally, the same company also owns Ball and Kerr brands of mason jars and with a special hose (included with the fancier vacuum sealers) and a jar sealing adapter (available separately) the vaccum sealer is able to vacuum seal mason jars as well.

So now that I was looking for a fancier model vacuum sealer and it looked like it was going to be a FoodSaver brand one, it was now to figure out where to get the best deal on one. I looked at local stores and it was pretty much a choice between Wal-Mart, Target, Bed Bath And Beyond, and Costco as the most likely local options. I didn’t much like the selection available on the machines. Ultimately, I ended up checking out QVC.com and watched a couple of presentations for the various units and decided I liked the one that was able to be folded up against the counter. It was $95 and was available for four payments, so with the shipping and tax charges made it about $28 a month for the next four months. Not a bad deal in my opinion. The nice thing with this unit is that it had room to store the vacuum bag rolls inside the machine and the folding up against the counter makes it nice to get it out of the way (in fact, it’s right behind the Sous Vide Supreme Demi featured in the photo at the start of this blog entry in case you didn’t notice it in the picture.)

One of the selling points they made in the QVC presentation I viewed for the vacuum sealer was that the FoodSaver bags are able to be microwaved and boiled as ways to prepare the food that’s been sealed into the bags. Well I’m not so sure I want to be microwaving food in plastic bags but I thought I would Google what things would be best to cook by boiling the FoodSaver bags. And in the process of researching this I came across the process of cooking known as “Sous Vide.” Sous Vide is French for “under vacuum” and the process entails vacuum sealing food and cooking it in a precisely controlled temperature water bath. So I changed my focus of my research and started investigating the Sous Vide method of cooking.

Sous Vide cooking has been employed in high end restaurants for years. In fact, highly rated Michelin star restaurants have been knocking the socks of customers with this method and it’s amazingly simple and more difficult to screw it up than it is to just do it right. The main reason why it hasn’t become better known is that the equipment to employ Sous Vide style cooking is very expensive that basically it was only practical for high end restaurants to use. The water bath essentially uses immersion circulators to circulate the water at a very precise temperature (think a very fancy Crock Pot that’s able to maintain temperature within one degree plus or minus of the temperature it’s set on). And up until recently, it’s required the use of equipment designed for science labs to achieve this.

Using steak as the example, the so called “perfect” steak is one that is prepared to a medium rare temperature where the center of the steak reaches a temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit. Using traditional cooking technique, in order to cook a steak, the steak is grilled at a high temperature and flipped while cooking to get the internal temperature up to the 134 degrees, however, by the time the center of the steak reaches 134 degrees, the exterior has already been over cooked at a higher temperature trying to get the middle up to temperature. The traditionally cooked steak ultimately looks like a cross section of the earth and the various layers indicating the different temperatures the steak had been while cooking.

In Sous Vide, the vacuum sealed steak gets put in a water bath set for 134 degrees and is kept in the water bath long enough for the entire steak to be cooked through at 134 degrees all the way through. It’s impossible to overcook the steak because the highest temperature it can achieve is 134 degrees to match the temperature of the water. So the advantage here is that the steak gets perfectly cooked to 134 degrees and can remain in the water bath indefinitely, it doesn’t require being removed at precisely the right time like traditional cooking to ensure it gets cooked properly. For restaurants, this is fantastic, because they can cook the steaks all day and then when a customer orders the steak, they can remove one of the pouches from the water bath and then finish preparing it just before serving it. The steak stays moist and juicy cooking in its own juices in the sealed pouch until it’s ready to serve.

But there is an additional step for cooking a steak with the Sous Vide method. Essentially the water bath is “poaching” the steak, and the edges of the steak don’t look all that appetizing fresh out of a Sous Vide pouch. So what to make the steak perfect, we just need to give the steak a seared crust. So whether the steak is seared for about a minute on a pan, or a grill, or a cooking torch. Here the purpose is just to give the exterior of the steak a little caramelization, as the interior is already perfectly cooked, we don’t have to sear it for long. Essentially Sous Vide allows any one to make a perfectly cooked steak without being a culinary master. And it’s not just steak that can be done, pretty much any kind of protein such as chicken, turkey, pork, fish, and even more exotic options like duck and lamb or whatever kind of protein you want to cook. Vegetables can also be done to amazing effect in Sous Vide.

I personally love steak and while I usually like my cooked to medium well or well done (which most steak lovers consider blasphemy) but I want to make sure mine is cooked. I don’t want my steak still mooing which is what I consider the rare and medium rare steaks to be. But I was fascinated by the Sous Vide cooking method. One of the reasons why I don’t do more cooking at home is I’m not a cook, but if it’s possible to perfectly cook foods and not have to be stuck in the kitchen preventing my food from being over cooked, I just might be willing to cook more often. I love the “set it and forget it” aspect of Sous Vide and the fact that the method is also able to take cheaper and tougher cuts of meat and turn them into tender and delicious meals, it looks like it would be a cost effective way of eating better at home too. Now the trick was to find to get a sous vide cooker for a reasonable amount of money.

Naturally when I was researching Sous Vide, the Sous Vide Supreme kept coming up in my searches. The Sous Vide Supreme is a device made for the home market to bring Sous Vide simply into the home kitchen. The flagship model of their cooker is $399 and their newly released Demi models which are slightly smaller sell for $299 and come in a variety of colors. Another option for the home cook are “Do It Yourself” kits where you can add a temperature controller to an existing crock-pot or rice cooker you already own. While these could be bought for about $150 they create more of a “science experiment” looking device than a kitchen appliance because you have the crock pot or rice cooker hooked up to a separate device which has loose cords running into the crock pot for the temperature sensor. Not very appealing. And on the higher end, places like William Sonoma offer a home immersion circulator but it’s very expensive at $799, and requires either a giant stock pot or a commercial plastic tub to hold the water and not to mention is noisy to run while it circulates the water.

Ultimately, I decided on a Sous Vide Supreme Demi for several reasons. The immersion circulator was too expensive and far too noisy for me. And the Do It Yourself kits weren’t really much savings over the Sous Vide Supreme Demi because I don’t already own a rice cooker or compatible Cock Pot cooker, and by the time I added one, I’d be spending just as much as the Sous Vide Supreme Demi and I think the “science experiment” look would be too tacky to have in my kitchen. I’ll detail my decision more in a separate blog entry as this one is already running long. Suffice to say, it all started with a Woot deal on a entry level vacuum sealer and it ended up resulting in a purchase of a much better vacuum sealer and a new kitchen appliance that cooks the most amazing meals and easily making the two subsequent purchases the best combination of products I’ve bought in a very long time.

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Why would I be not happy about the news? Well first off, I’ve been a very happy T-Mobile customer since 2003. I originally switched to them from my first cell phone carrier, which was Sprint. I didn’t leave Sprint because I was not happy with their service, I switched because Sprint is a CDMA technology carrier and I wanted to go to a GSM carrier as it’s more of a world standard service and since I do like to travel outside of the United States, I wanted a phone I could easily use outside the US. T-Mobile also offers to unlock their phones when you’re one of their customers so that when travelling abroad, you can easily switch out your T-Mobile SIM card with a pre-paid SIM card in the country you’re in to get a local number there. It’s a great option.

Also T-Mobile has great customer service, that have always been helpful whenever I needed to call. And for the last couple of years, I’ve been using a jailbroken iPhone as my phone of choice. And even though T-Mobile doesn’t carry the iPhone or officially support it, their support staff have been very helpful with getting all the settings correct on the phone to be able to use the phone with T-Mobile’s service. The only bad part about using an iPhone on T-Mobile’s network is the incompatible 3G data networks, so my data use has been stuck using legacy EDGE technology. This makes for frustrating data use as it’s just slow. Couple this with the iOS 4 firmware for the iPhone which turned this once near perfect iPhone into a miserably slow and frustrating experience. I had been hoping that since Verizon now has the iPhone and Apple has stated they no longer have any exclusivity contracts with any carriers in the US any longer, that it meant a T-Mobile iPhone would be coming with the next iPhone release, but it seems this merger with AT&T is squashing that hope like a bug.

In fact, I’ve been very tempted to upgrade my phone as I’m in the position that I’ve been out of contract for over a year now and I have the freedom to move to a new carrier if I want without penalty or I can upgrade and get the best upgrade deals. I love T-Mobile and am very happy with both my existing plan and service, so naturally staying with T-Mobile is my preference. I am also happy to enjoy an iPhone as well, and ultimately, what I would have preferred was T-Mobile carrying the iPhone and I would be a happy camper. I’ve been spending some hours in their stores lately checking out the their new 4G phones for Android and have been giving them some serious thought.

I was very tempted to get the G2, but ultimately, I didn’t really want a phone with a physical keyboard, and it’s lack of a front facing camera made it a less than ideal choice. The MyTouch 4G is tempting because it has the front facing camera and no physical keyboard, but it has a proprietary overlay to the Google Android which would make it slow to get firmware updates. And the recently released Samsung Galaxy S 4G is near perfect, but I’m currently boycotting Samsung products over a fight I had with one of their rebate processing companies. So with my hesitation to switch from an iPhone despite the number of friends who’ve switched from iPhones to Android phones and love their new phones and the lack of acceptable 4G phones at the moment, I’ve been stuck in a holding pattern of waiting for phone I am happy to get. And now with the potential of an AT&T merger, I’m not sure I want to get locked down into a contract again either.

As for AT&T, the reason why I hate them so much, stems from a time during my college years when I had a really bad experience with one of their customer service agents, the irony, of course, is I have never been one of their customers. How did I have the problem with their customer service agent? Well let me tell you.

In college, I signed up for a student discount card from Student Advantage. The sole reason I got the card the card was the discount for Tower Records which I regularly went to and spent lots of money at. (God I miss actual record stores). Well AT&T happened to be the major sponsor of the card and so each card was able to be used as a calling card. This was also back in the late 1990′s so cell phone use wasn’t quite as prevalent as it is now and I had only recently gotten my first cell phone back at the time as well. I had no intention of using the card for phone calls as calling card phone calls were flat out a rip off. I had pre-paid phone cards for long distance and international calls at the time, so I had no need for the service.

A few months after getting the card, I suddenly received a bill from AT&T for some calling card calls that were billed to my Student Advantage discount card. The calls originated from some where in Ohio and the calls were being made to someone in Florida. As I live in California, it wasn’t hard to see that I didn’t make the calls. So I called up AT&T and they took the calls off no problem.

The next month, I got another bill. This one show the credits for the calls that were billed but because I never sent them a payment, they sent me a late charge even though the balance they were sending the late fee on was zero. I called up AT&T again and the late charges were removed. This time I told the customer service agent, that this was annoying to have to call up twice to get phantom phone calls and phantom late charges removed, so I asked them to just deactivate the calling card feature so I wouldn’t have to be bothered again because I was never going to use it. They assured me it would be no problem.

A few months go by and then I get another bill for more calls from Ohio to Florida. Annoyed by this, I call up AT&T yet again, and this time there was a problem. I got this woman, who for lack of a better term, was a total cunt from hell. When I told her these calls weren’t mine and I wanted them removed, she gave me nothing but attitude. I’m sure she saw the previous calls that were removed, and decided I was lying to her, so she tells me they would be conducting an investigation into the calls and if they determined that the calls were mine, they were going to charge me again, add late fees, and an investigation charge to penalize me for the waste of their time. Since she was basically accusing me of fraud, I ripped her a new asshole.

I yelled back at this cunt of a woman, “Look you stupid bitch! If you can explain to me, why the hell I would drive or fly from California to Ohio to place a couple of calling card calls to Florida, when I could just make the calls directly on my cell phone for no additional charges, I’ll pay your stupid fees.” The stupid bitch hung up on me, but I never saw another bill for any more calls again on this calling card. Sure I wasn’t nice, but she just pushed me over the edge with her accusatory tone. This is the only time I’ve ever told off a customer service agent on the phone to such a nasty degree, but as far as I’m concerned, she deserved it.

Now I realize, AT&T has been bought out, and their wireless division is really Cingular, a different company altogether, but they have chosen to adopt the AT&T brand name, and for all intents and purposes, that makes them the same company as the one that pissed me off that day. And that is why I have no desire to be an AT&T customer. If this merger with T-Mobile goes through, then I’m not sure what I will do as to switch would mean having to switch to a CDMA carrier and I view CDMA as legacy technology that’s not on par with the world standard, these phones would be useless outside the United States. I don’t really like the idea that a monopoly on GSM phones would essentially be formed here in the United States, as that just means prices are going to get out of control. It just seems like some grim times for customers are coming and if I end up being an AT&T customer it will be reluctantly so.

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Naughton points out that in Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me”, Spurlock consumed over 5,000 calories a day, which by anyone’s standards, would be likely to make anyone fat. But Spurlock had three rules he was going to follow, he ate only three meals a day, would try everything on the menu at least once, and would super size the meal if asked by the clerk. Naughton pokes a hole in this because there’s no way he could put together three meals a day and hit that calorie level without adding extra food. Spurlock gained over 25 pounds during his experiment, and it’s Naughton’s claim that Spurlock intentionally “Mc-Stuffed” himself because had he only gained four or five pounds, it wouldn’t have been as dramatic a film. And repeated efforts to contact Morgan Spurlock to review his food log were refused.

Tom Naughton uses humor to poke holes in various assumptions that critics of fast food tend to make. Some of those arguments that fast food restaurants make you eat their food, poor people are stupid, and that you can’t say no to “Do you want fries with that?” Naughton then proceeds to illustrate how opportunistic lawyers and consumer advocacy groups make broad generalizations and create pressure on fast food companies and law makers under the assumption that fast food companies are evil and the general public is too stupid to make smart choices.

Then the government gets taken to task because of this supposed epidemic of obesity. Part of the reason why there is such an “epidemic” is that the standards by which the statistics were measured. The definition of obesity was redefined so that more people fall into that category. While it’s true people are larger than they were before, the impression the statistics are giving you is that people are 50 to 100 pounds larger than they were years ago, when the truth is the average is about 5 to 10 pounds more than in the past. Not to mention the average age of the population has increased over the last thirty years because people are living longer, and minority population groups account for a larger percentage of the total population.

The scientific community in conjunction with the government get taken to task as well because scientists that do uncover the truth, aren’t funded where scientists who’ll skew their studies to come up with results that match what the government or private companies funding the studies want to hear get rewarded with more press and more importantly more grants to continue research. Starting with the Lipid Hypothesis in the 1950′s which created the whole idea that heart disease was linked to saturated fat.

Much of the information contained in the film “Fat Head” is what Jorge Cruise has been advocating in his “Belly Fat Cure” program. Sugar and high carbohydrate diets are truly the culprits of a bad diet, and the health industry has a vested interest in not letting you find that out. Also taken to task are the unnatural fats such as corn and vegetable oils, which are linked to cancer. While Jorge’s been promising a documentary of his own on the dangers of Sugar, Tom Naughton has created his own documentary that not only explains exactly what Jorge wants to share, and does it in a very entertaining manner. If you think the film is pro-fast food, you’d really be selling the movie short. It’s more proactive about accepting personal responsibility for your choices, which can include fast food, but ultimately, it’s up to you what goes into your body. Naughton just shares what you really should be avoiding.

Some of the experts showcased in the film are, Doctors Michael and Mary Dan Eades (co-authors of “Protein Power“), Dr. Al Sears (author of “The Doctor’s Heart Cure“), Dr. Eric Oliver (author of “Fat Politics“), and Dr. Mary Enig (author of “Know Your Fats“). Also mentioned several times in the film are the works of Dr. Gary Taubes (author of “Good Calories, Bad Calories“) but he wasn’t interviewed. What especially made me take notice was the presence of the Michael and Mary Dan Eades. I had just recently learned about their involvement in the creation of a cooking appliance known as the Sous Vide Supreme (which I have recently ordered and will be reviewing in an upcoming blog post) and they are big proponents of high protein, low carb meals. So while it seems the movie is advocating fast food, the fact of the matter its advocating making smarter choices, but to do that, you have to know what is a smarter choice is. And when the government’s guideline for a healthy meal reflects what farmers feed their animals to fatten them up before slaughter, you have to take a serious look at the information you’re being fed by the government.

By learning that cutting carbohydrates and sugar, would it be any surprise that Tom Naughton not only found out that he lost weight on his 30 day fast food diet, but also found out he improved his numbers for his cholesterol counts? Naughton then decided to spend an additional 30 days exploring how a low carb/low sugar diet with a more homemade approach worked and found he lost more weight but what truly surprised him was that he had more energy than ever. It seems that all the so called “recommended” ways to eat by the government are the recipe for obesity, heart disease, and a lifetime dependent upon drug companies selling products to treat symptoms created by the poor diet in the first place.

It would be well worth your time to check out Tom Naughton’s “Fat Head” Film. At the time of this writing, the movie is available to be viewed instantly by Netflix subscribers (how I happened to come across the film). In fact, if you’re a Netflix subscriber, both “Super Size Me” and “Fat Head” are available for instant viewing and you may want to watch “Super Size Me” first and then “Fat Head” to clear your head of the “Spurlockian Logic.” If you want to purchase a copy of the film, you’re best bet is ordering directly from Tom Naughton’s blog website for the film, which is located at fathead-movie.com. Check out the movie and it will inspire you to eat better, even if you do include some fast foods in your diet.

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What is it about Monopoly that has made the game such an enduring success for so many decades? San Diego based filmmaker, Kevin Tostado decided to find out. Not only did Tostodo explore the history of the game, he traced the enduring legacy of the game in popular culture, met with serious collectors that like to collect just about anything that the Monopoly brand has licensed, and even spoke to a winner of the million dollar grand prize in McDonald’s annual Monopoly game. Perhaps the highlight of Tostado’s exploration of Monopoly was following some of the game’s most competitive players through the 2009 international championships, where every four years the national champions from over forty countries compete in hopes of being crowned the newest World Monopoly Champion. Kevin Tostado compiled his findings and presents an extensive look at the world of Monopoly in his new movie entitled “Under The Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story.”

In creating a movie that not only is entertaining, but informative, Kevin Tostado has done a really expert job balancing the movie between the historical aspects about the game and the more human element of the people who play the game. To start with Tostado provides a brief overview of the game, and then showcases how the game is so well loved around the globe because as one man in the film puts it, the game doesn’t get translated, it get’s localized. The game is the same the world over even though the names of the properties are different in the various localized versions. Could the game of Monopoly be a universal language? Perhaps as the world championships often show, it doesn’t require a common language to be able to play the game together.

The origins of the game prove to be quite interesting in that the game was originally created as educational tool under the name “The Landlord’s Game” created by a woman named Elizabeth Magie who’s purpose for the game was to promote an anti-capitalist stance about the unfair advantages land owners had over renters. Magie did try to sell the game to Parker Brothers but was rejected as it was far more complicated of a game than most on the market at the time. Magie showed the game to a business professor who in turned taught it to his students, one of his students made his own version, where it was introduced to other friends who in turn introduced it to another professor, and essentially this journey of “beta testing” with modifications seemingly made with each introduction, for example the naming of the properties after Atlantic City streets occurred closer to the end of its journey before being introduced to Charles Darrow, who in turn is credited with the modifications that have become the Monopoly game that was licensed to Parker Brothers (now Hasbro) we all know and love today.

That’s right, the game was LICENSED to Parker Brothers as even Parker Brothers rejected Charles Darrow’s version until Darrow took matters into his own hands and started creating homemade versions until he needed a printer to keep up with the demand for the game. When Parker Brothers came knocking, Darrow no longer wanted to sell the rights to the game, and that smart decision ensures the Darrow family still continues to receive royalties for the game to this day. One of the gentlemen who used to head Parker Brothers that was interviewed for the film said that generally if a game is marketed and lasts five years, it’s good, 10 years even better, but for Monopoly to last 75 years, he described it as a dream.

The movie even spends some time offering tips and strategies. Perhaps the biggest complaint about Monopoly is how long the game game can take. I know in my home growing up as a child, we played the game many times, but I don’t recall a single game that actually ended because anyone won the game. It was usually because we got tired and bored of playing. According to the Monopoly enthusiasts featured in the film, the people who perceive the game as taking forever, don’t actually read and follow the rules as specified in the game. Apparently people have invented variations such as prize money pots for landing on Free Parking (which I will admit my family did) which aren’t actually in the rules for the game. All this does is prolong the game, and a properly played Monopoly game can be completed in about an hour to an hour and a half. Who knew? Perhaps the biggest eye opening tips were which properties to be trying to collect and when it can be advantageous to land in jail.

I was fascinated by the section of the film that explored the game’s role in World War II where the British licensee for the game was able to help the war effort. I don’t want to steal the film’s thunder by telling what happened here. I will say it was very clever and lives were saved as the result of what was done.

When focusing on the pop culture aspect of Monopoly, the game has taken on a life well beyond the board game. The many clips of the game’s appearance in television shows and movies, just prove how pervasive Monopoly is in the culture. The amazing variety of licensed merchandise covering the gambit of creativity, such as shoes, towels, clothing, and spawning spin off games. Probably the most enduring proof it’s its ability to be adapted, are the specially licensed versions of the game which essentially merges Monopoly with another pop culture brand including Disney, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Simpsons, The Beatles. All of it started with a local San Diego based company that licensed the Monopoly game to create local versions of the game, starting with a San Diego edition, but quickly exploded into specialty versions of the game, which not only appeals to Monopoly enthusiasts, but fans of those other properties that have also been licensed to merge into the game. I have been tempted many times to get the Star Trek: The Next Generation version of Monopoly, but never ultimately did. Perhaps I should try my luck on eBay to get one of these out of print sets.

The driving human element of the movie is showcasing the diehard fans and competitive players of the game. While most of the focus is on American competitors looking to claim the 2009 US National Champion title including the reigning 2003 national title hoping to defend his title, some of the national champions of other nations are featured surrounding the international championship that was held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The competitors come from all kinds of walks of life, such as a teacher, a student, some lawyers, and even a show manager for one of the shows in Las Vegas. Where Director Kevin Tostado shines is in presenting these folks who happen to really love Monopoly without making fun of them.

A true highlight is Tim Vandenberg, a sixth grade teacher from Victorville, California. He uses Monopoly to teach his students better math skills and in the process is instilling a lifelong appreciation for math through a fantastic game. Not only is he creating a lasting skill set for his students, he’s providing practical application for those skills so that the kids can see a connection to why they need to learn those skills.

About the only featured person who comes out looking like a real jerk is Ken Koury, one of the lawyers. While early in the film he’s showing off what is probably one of the Charles Darrow hand made sets which is very interesting and he’s likable there. Things change where he declares Tim Vandenberg and Dominic Murgo as cheaters in a semi-final competition prior to the US Championship. Never mind the fact his practice team includes the very first Monopoly champion, and another championship player, he singles out these two for minor infractions that ultimately Hasbro had to officially declare were not cheating. Vandenberg on the other hand is excited to have won his first competitive game against adults since he mostly plays the game with 11 year olds in his classroom. Koury comes across as such a bad sport when he makes it his personal vendetta to eliminate Tim Vandenberg from the US national championship, and I was applauding and cheering on Koury’s bankrupting out of each of his rounds in the national championship ensuring he had no chance to act upon his vendetta. The end credits do show a little redemption for Koury as he’s seen playing with both Vandenberg and Murgo on the giant life size board of Monopoly in San Jose.

Kevin Tostado’s “Under The Boardwalk” is a wonderful documentary and does a wonderful job showcasing the game of Monopoly in both a historical perspective and pop culture perspective. The look at the lives of some of the game’s most diehard fans presents the fans of the game as mostly likable people and most importantly, the film makes you want to play a game of Monopoly. Fortunately there’s many options on how to do that these days, whether it’s over a physical game board with some friends, or a virtual game board on computer, online, on cell phones, mobile gaming devices, and there’s even a version of it that plays on the Amazon Kindle. I’m sure even Charles Darrow would have been surprised by the longevity of his little game he first started selling to feed his family.

If I had to single out one thing that I was disappointed not to see a mention of in the film, was that Monopoly had been adapted into a game show in 1990 as a summer game that aired on the ABC network on Saturday nights through the summer. It actually was a really neat game and I liked how it was played to fit the constraints of a half hour time slot and the theme song from it was a lot of fun too. It was the sole reason why I picked up the CD of game show themes it was featured on and it is on my iPod to this day. Why the show never translated into something beyond that one summer, I’ll never know, but at least one episode can be found on YouTube to help relive Monopoly as a game show.

For San Diego residents, do yourself a favor and go see “Under The Boardwalk: The Story of Monopoly” at the UltraStar Cinema at Hazard Center March 4th thru March 10th. The director Kevin Tostado will be on hand for question and answer sessions during the evening screenings all week. My friend Dan Baggett and I attended the first matinee screening and had the opportunity to meet and get autographed DVD copies of the film from both Kevin Tostado and Craig Bentley, who both produced the film.

As the movie has been independently produced and distributed, the producers of the film are trying to raise $20,580 (which is equal to the amount of money that a game of Monopoly comes with) to help bring the movie to more cities around the country. If you’d like to help pledge your support, please visit kickstarter.com by clicking here to pledge your support before March 11th. It’s a great movie and deserves to be seen in a city near you.

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I will admit I wasn’t a big fan of the show but watched it because in the rural areas outside of Calgary, we didn’t have access to cable television and didn’t have more than three channels to choose from so a lot of things we watched because it was all that was on. So I watched many hours of Little House, but would be very hard pressed to say any specific memories other than just knowing that Laura Ingalls was the main character, Nellie was the evil child, and the show was about good moral values. I got the basics and enjoyed it but wouldn’t necessarily say I was a fan.

Fast forward to 2010 over the summer and I was listening to the Derek and Romaine program on Sirius XM satellite radio and they had Alison Arngrim on as a guest of the show to talk about the release of her book, “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated.” Alison was nothing like the Nellie character in the interview and was completely entertaining that I immediately signed up to follow her on Twitter and was considering getting her book because she just had the best stories on the radio program. I was going to get the Amazon Kindle version of the book but was a bit hesitant to spend $12.99 for a digital book. So I added it to my wish list and checked back periodically to see if it would ever drop to $9.99 or less, but wasn’t going to spend that kind of money without getting a real physical book to show for it.

Over the months, I’d been enjoying Alison’s frequent tweets on Twitter and just felt like that Alison would be fun to meet if she ever came to San Diego for a book signing or hopefully better yet, bringing her “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch” one woman stage show to town. So when I heard Alison was going to be doing a book signing at the Borders store in Mission Valley as part of the World AIDS Day Charity signings for Lifebeat, I was definitely going to go and instead of getting the Kindle version of the book, I bought two copies of the book so that I could have one for me and give one to my mother for Christmas.

The two nights before the signing I saw a tweet on Twitter from my friend Brian Hill, who would be bartending the night before the signing at the local bar Pecs, and that Alison would be stopping by to promote the signing. So I decided to go say hello that night and had a great chance to say hello and get a photo with Alison the night before the signing. I was a little shy at first but Alison’s friend, Vladimir Reid, nudged me to say hello and when I did say hello I was greeted with a wonderful hug and was allowed to get the wonderful photo I have with her. Alison loved the t-shirt I was wearing which was a comical take from Woot on Star Trek and Star Wars that had Captain Picard and Commander Riker playing poker with Darth Vader and Admiral Akbar and even took a picture of just the shirt to show her husband. I got to enjoy a couple of stories before I had to go because I had to work later that night and before I left I said I would be there for the signing and was looking forward to it.

The next night, I attended the book signing with my friend Vito Grandolfo and enjoyed Alison’s Q&A before the signing commenced. There were a number of diehard “Little House” fans there and it was fun to see their obsession over the show as an outsider to it. I’ve been a diehard fan of other things so I could relate just with different things. Alison was certainly one of the most gracious celebrities I’ve met and she greeted everyone at the signing table with a smile and let them each have their moment whether they wanted just an autograph or also get a photo. She even brought a Nellie style wig for fans to try on and get photos with if they wanted. I got the two books signed to me and my mom and because Alison is the child of Canadian parents, I had the books signed in reference to Canada. Following the moment with Alison at the signing, Vito and I hung out for a few minutes with Vladimir and he said Alison was going to be going back to Pecs following the signing. Vito decided he wasn’t up for going to the bar, so he bowed out for the night and I headed over.

A short while later Vladimir arrived with Alison and this time I got to enjoy a lot more stories as I didn’t have to run off to work. I also had a great time chatting with Vladimir and quickly became Facebook friends with him as well. I didn’t think I was going to stay long at the bar having been up all night at work and basically not sleeping since before I met Alison the night before, but ultimately, I ended up closing the bar with Alison and Vladimir having really enjoyed more amazing stories. Just for Alison I wore another amusing T-shirt from the same place I had gotten the one I wore the previous night and she loved that shirt too and quickly became known to her as Ryan with the best t-shirts. I even tried on the wig and got a photo with it on.

Alison would be returning the following week to appear at a movie screening for a independent movie she starred in called “Make The Yuletide Gay” where she plays the mother of the former girlfriend of one of the main characters. So I said I would come for the screening. I had previously seen the film on Netflix and found it to be quite enjoyable so it would be a pleasure to see it again on a big screen with an audience.

In the meantime I cracked open Alison’s “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch” book and found it to be one of the most fun biography books I’ve ever read. Usually biographies seem a bit stuffy and not that much fun to read, but definitely not the case with Alison’s book. I could not put it down and ended up finishing it in just a few hours from the moment I started to read it. The book was just as engaging as Alison is in person and it really felt quite conversational. There were stories to make you laugh and stories to make you feel uncomfortable with some of the not so wonderful experiences Alison has gone through in her life. It’s just amazing that she’s come out of the experiences she’s been through with such a great sense of humor and love for life that she has. And having heard so many great stories right from Alison herself, I can say I am looking forward to her next book that will no doubt be coming and it will be just as amazing as this book.

Additionally the book mentioned a “Little House” episode called “Bunny” which seems to be what most people around the world consider their favorite episode where essentially happens in it, is Nellie gets into an accident involving a horse, but decides to pretend she can’t move her legs and then manipulates Laura into being her slave out of pity. As Nellie was faking the injury and Laura catches her, Nellie gets her comeuppance when Laura takes Nellie in her wheelchair up to the top of the hill in town and pushes her down the hill where Nellie goes flying down the hill and lands in the creek where her faking gets revealed as she jumps out of the water. I don’t particularly remember the episode but I went ahead and rented the first disc of Season 3 of the show to see the episode and appreciate it since it warranted its own chapter in Alison’s book.

The night before the screening I got a note on Facebook from Vladimir to invite me to a happy hour at his place with Alison but unfortunately I had to work that night and didn’t get much sleep all day so I was unable to attend. So I sent back a note of thanks for the invitation but unfortunately wouldn’t be making it to that, but would definitely be seeing him at the screening.

The screening of “Make The Yuletide Gay” arrived and Alison was joined by fellow stars of the movie Keith Jordan, and Kelly Keaton as well as the director Rob Williams. The movie was very well received by the audience and many of the audience members stuck around for the Q&A following the film. And there was a chance to purchase the film on DVD and get autographs following the Q&A. When Alison saw me she was seated next to Kelly Keaton and she remembered me from the previous week and introduced me to Kelly as Ryan with the great t-shirts and of course, I wore yet another amusing one for her to enjoy. I picked up a copy of the movie to have it autographed. I was looking forward to seeing the bonus material on the disc as one of the disadvantages of Netflix instant streaming is that you only get to see the main features and none of the extras. The cast members in attendance were all really friendly and they all seemed to really enjoying being there to support the movie.

I asked Vladimir if he and Alison were going to make it over to Pecs or not as the screening was partnered with another bar in town where the movie tickets are redeemable for a free drink following the screening. Vladimir said they might go to the other bar to make an appearance but would definitely be coming over to Pecs, so I said I’d meet them there.

Vladimir and Alison arrived a short while later. This night the bar was packed so there were lots of people to meet Alison and she had a great time. A number of the folks I had attended the screening with were there as well and they enjoyed the chance to meet Alison in a very informal setting. She was very gracious to pose for photos and share stories and put smiles on everyone’s faces.

Again I ended up closing the bar with Alison and Vladimir and had enjoyed even more stories and really felt like I had built a good friendship with both Alison and Vladimir that when it came time to leave and they were about to grab a cab, I wouldn’t stand for it, and offered to drive since my car was close and the offer was accepted. I drove both Alison and Vladimir back to Vladimir’s place and got one last hug from Alison before the end of the night. I still can’t believe I’ve had THE Nellie Oleson in my car and can call Alison Arngrim a friend. I’d have never have believed it when I first heard Alison interviewed on Derek and Romaine those few short months ago.

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Pac-Man was hitting pop culture by storm, appearing everywhere such as t-shirts, lunchboxes, board games, toys, and several incarnations in the arcade including the very popular Ms. Pac-Man. The popularity even spawned the creation of a Saturday morning cartoon series based on the game. If people were excited about Pong, the first video game, Pac-Man was the equivalent of Beatlemania taking it to a whole new level. Pac-Man was so popular it even inspired a song entitled “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner & Garcia and it even incorporated sounds from the popular video game. If you’re interested in hearing the song, I’ve included a YouTube clip containing the song at the end of this blog entry.

As Google likes to transform their logo on the search engine site from time to time to mark significant anniversaries, the marking of Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary was not left unnoticed as the Google Logo was transformed into the walls of Pac-Man’s maze and for the first time ever became Google’s first playable “doodle” image. All 256 levels of the original Pac-Man game were created in the playable image for those Pac-Man masters who’ve mastered the game. To play, the usual button on Google that normally says “I Feel Lucky” has been replaced with a button that says “Insert Coin” which activates the game, or if you wait a few seconds the game starts automatically. While originally meant to last for just a couple of days, the popularity of the interactive Google version of Pac-Man led Google to announce the game has earned a permanent home on the Google site and can be accessed at any time by visiting Google.com/Pacman.

I opted to celebrate the anniversary of Pac-Man by wearing my Pac-Man face t-shirt I bought a couple of years ago. I don’t usually wear it because I find the yellow to be a bit to bright, but for a special day to celebrate an icon of the 1980′s, I was more than happy to put it on. I also took advantage of the sale the iTunes app store had on the Pac-Man games. For some reason the original Pac-Man was only discounted by $1 to a price of $3.99 while all the other Pac-Man variations including Ms. Pac-Man were discounted to a price of 99 cents. So I just bought Ms. Pac-Man, which ultimately was a better Pac-Man game because the mazes changed unlike the original Pac-Man.

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While moving I found all my old Dave and Buster cards, including a couple of unused play cards from the birthday party I had there several years ago. I figured they probably had no value left and all the previously collected tickets that were put on my card, I was sure after this long they’d probably been wiped out. To Dave and Buster’s credit, all the points were still on the cards and I still had tons of tickets to redeem on the crap they have available to redeem points for. But I always like to collect the tickets and so I opted mostly to play the games that spew out the tickets and I was surprised my old favorite machines that were cash cows for tickets for me in the past were now down to only one machine and it wasn’t working. I was disappointed with that.

Vito and I tried a trivia game that shot out tickets, and then we found something that looked like a the wheel from the Price Is Right, except it was themed as a fishing game. You run the play card, then lift a lever and then pull down on the lever to spin the wheel. They have several ticket levels, the big prize ones are a little tricky because they have little lines to indicate instead of anywhere on that panel gets the full tickets, just a narrow strip in the middle. Anything closer to the top edge or lower edge only gets 4 tickets. On one of my spins I managed to hit the 500 ticket prize, just watching the tickets spew out of the machine. I suppose it’s almost like how slot machines used to spit out coins, but not quite the same effect.

Before we left, we checked to see if all the various cards I had could be combined into one and sure enough they could, and comes to find out I was really close to the point level necessary to upgrade the card to their gold card. And the value I had left on the game cards had enough value to allow me to play the necessary points to get the gold card. So back to the arcade for a few more spins of the ticket prize wheel. And putting a few more tickets on the card before heading back to the front counter to trade up the card. Apparently the benefit to having the gold card is that they discount the games 10% for gold card members so the games cost a little less to play. Nice.

We also signed up for their email program and will get an additional $10 voucher for more play in our email and they also handed us a coupon that will give us $10 on a subsequent day when we buy $10 worth of play. So ultimately, we if we redeem everything, we’ll get $30 worth of play with only $10 investment required. Not too bad a deal. It was fun, so I think I’ll be back again soon.

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As I arrived at the Disneyland resort, I notified both Michael and Chuck that I had arrived. Michael sent back a text saying he and his friend were just finishing Tower of Terror in Disney’s California Adventure Park and would be crossing over to Disneyland right afterwards. Chuck indicated he was on a park bench near the central hub of Disneyland. I was going to wait outside for Michael and his friend outside Disneyland when Michael sent a text saying he and his friend would be making a quick stop to the car, so I opted to go into Disneyland and meet up with Chuck and would catch up with Michael and his friend later as the trip to the car would add at least half an hour to the wait time for them.

I was also playing my second round of “Wishing Stars” the fantastic GPS game that takes place in the Disneyland park and I had a couple of quests that had items on Main Street USA that I wanted to hit since I was in that part of Disneyland before I made my way down to find Chuck at the other end of Main Street. So after standing next to the items I needed to be near to collect my goals in the game, I rushed down a busy Main Street to find Chuck. Chuck had spent most of the morning going through the Fantasyland and Tomorrowland sections of the park with Flat Stanley, and he showed me some of the pictures. Probably my favorite was the one from Space Mountain where Flat Stanley was stuck onto the seat and the photo was of the ride photo that they show at the exit of the ride.

Since most of the Wishing Star Items I was looking to collect were in the Adventureland/New Orleans Square section of the park and Chuck hadn’t yet gotten any Flat Stanley photos from that area of the park, we headed on down hitting both our missions. I helped out Chuck with a few photos that needed a helping hand for posing Flat Stanley in front of a few attractions such as the Tarzan Treehouse and Splash Mountain. It was funny, everywhere we pulled out Flat Stanley it seemed a mom would point and yell out “Flat Stanley” so it was good to know others were familiar with what we were doing because Chuck said he’d never heard of Flat Stanley until he was asked to help get some photos.

As Chuck and I helped each other with the Flat Stanley and Wishing Star quests, I was still waiting to hear back from Michael and his friend. It ended up being closer to an hour before I heard back from them. Chuck was finished with the Flat Stanley photos he wanted to get for the day, and decided to head home, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to have everyone meet, but another time, I’m sure. I got another update on where Michael and his friend were at before we finally just said, lets meet outside Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I’d already been past the ride so I knew it wasn’t operational that day, so I just waited to sneak up behind Michael when I saw him and his friend outside the closed ride. It looked like Michael was about to text me about the status of the ride when I walked up behind and said, “Uhm, Big Thunder Mountain is closed today.”

Michael introduced me to his friend Bruce Lau, who was visiting San Diego from Belgium. They had come up for the day and were enjoying the parks. They apologized for their delay of having to run to the car, and I said, no worries, I had a good time with Chuck in the meantime. And without further ado we were taking in all the fun and crazy stuff to do at Disneyland. We even suffered through a showing of Captain Eo.

We had a lot of fun, on Splash Mountain, the three of us got seated at the front of the log and I’m sure the larger size of both Michael and I contributed to making the log front heavy and as a result we got incredibly soaked through the course of the ride, in fact, we were really wet even before the big plunge from some of the smaller drops inside the ride. When we got on to the big drop, I tried to keep my eyes open through it, and managed to be successful through most of it but went to blink just as we were hitting the tunnel under ride and when I opened my eyes I saw just a wall of water in front of me a mere second before that wall drenched us all from head to toe. I have never in my life gotten so drenched on that ride, I quickly grabbed for my phone to make sure it was okay because I literally got covered in water. I was so drenched, it took my wallet a couple of days to dry out.

We had to make a couple of attempts to get on Indiana Jones as the ride went down the first time we were in line for it. We did manage to get on pretty much everything we wanted to get on to except Big Thunder Mountain as it was shut down. We ended the day with a Fast Pass ride through Space Mountain. The line for Space Mountain was long, but the Fast Pass allowed us to bypass pretty much 90% of the line. Space Mountain is always a favorite and never disappoints. By the end of the day, still trying to dry out from Splash Mountain, and a bit hungry, Bruce, Michael, and I met up at a near by Carl’s Jr. for dinner and had another chance to chat before we made our way back to San Diego. It was a fantastic and fun day. It was great to spend the part of the day with Chuck, and then later on with Michael, and I am happy to have Bruce as a new European friend.

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The last time I saw Paula was when she was back in town to visit some family at the end of 2008, so I took Paula to see the Xanadu production at the La Jolla Playhouse, and when I saw her online on Facebook and I said hello using the chat feature of Facebook, we ended up discussing some music. I was so excited about the live album “Kristina At Carnegie Hall” coming out and I’d just gotten it in, I sent her “You Have To Be There” to share my excitement about the show. Paula really liked the song and we both commented about how it starts out similar to “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” but ends up being a much more powerful song. Paula thought it might make a great addition to her show the following night.

So I scrambled to put together an announcement email for my ABBA friends to invite them to tune into the broadcast. While I suspect a number of them already have the Kristina album, it’s a fun excuse to tune into a show to hear it played on the radio, no matter where in the world you are. In case you missed the broadcast, you can listen to Paula’s introduction of the song and her comment after the song by clicking here (Note: Song was edited out so not to violate copyright restrictions). If you want to hear the song, you can play samples of it (or buy it) from Amazon or iTunes by clicking on the respective online store name. And you can also e-mail Paula’s radio program and ask her to play it again and tune in when she plays it. Information about Paula’s Picks program and how to reach Paula can be found on her show webpage by clicking here.

KBOO is a community sponsored radio station, that is member supported (similar to PBS television stations) and as such they often have to do community pledge drives. Every little bit helps keep programs like Paula’s Picks on the air. Check out her show the first and third Thursdays of every month between 8 pm and 10 pm Pacific time. Consult Timeanddate.com to figure out what time her broadcasts are in your time zone. You can tune in to her show in the Portland area at 90.7 FM, or listen online with the help of the KBOO FM listening guide by clicking here. And Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users can download the Public Radio Tuner application from the iTunes App Store by clicking here and find KBOO FM on the app to listen remotely.

Be sure to tune in and tell Paula that Ryan sent you.

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