If you were asked to name the first board game that comes to mind, would that game you name be Monopoly? Arguably, Monopoly is the most celebrated board game in the history of board games. It has recently had its 75th anniversary and there is no sign of it’s popularity slowing down. Monopoly is as much part of pop culture as it is a board game. And there are so many ways to play the game, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone these days that hasn’t heard of the game. With a game as popular as Monopoly, you almost have to wonder why it took so long for there to be a documentary about it.
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.”








I had no plans on going to Disneyland but caught the tweet on Twitter of one of my local friends, Michael Carrera indicating he was on his way up to Disneyland. I sent him a post back saying I wished I had known he was going because I would have gone. So he said, just come on up, and after thinking about it for probably the briefest amount of time possible, I wrote back saying I would be on my way up shortly. My Twitter conversation was picked up by another friend, Chuck Salerno, who was at Disneyland helping out with a “Flat Stanley” project for one of his family members. (If you’ve not heard of “Flat Stanley” (as I had not) essentially it’s just an elementary school project consisting of a cardboard cutout in the shape of a person (aka Stanley) that gets sent to people to photograph in random places to create a photographic travelogue of the cardboard cut out. Essentially a neat way to travel vicariously through photos and the creativity of the people Flat Stanley gets sent to.)
While out and about on some errands, I came across this public transit bench ad for a San Diego realtor named Mary McTernan, who has elected to promote herself as a “hassle free” listing to sell your home with the tagline “You Can Fire Me Anytime!!” But one has to wonder if this is sending the right message to prospective clients.
If you can find a way to make something most people don’t want to do, fun and pleasant, people will do it. Recycling has certainly caught on in San Diego, but Waste Management has teamed up with
On my way out of Palm Springs along Interstate 10, I found an A&W Restaurant just outside the Morongo Hotel And Casino. This was not a combination A&W store with another one of Yum! brands like Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, etc. This was an A&W restaurant that was just an A&W restaurant. This was exciting since all the San Diego A&W’s were combination stores and all of them withdrew the A&W portion of the stores, it means the only chance to sample A&W is on the road outside of San Diego.
When it comes to ABBA Tribute Bands,
Would you believe, I’ve lived in San Diego since 1986, and not once have I ever gone to Palm Springs? My only excuse is that I never realized how close to San Diego, Palm Springs really is. It’s about 135 miles from San Diego, which according to Google Maps, is a little more than a two hour drive. I never really looked at the maps to see how close it was to San Diego and just always figured I’d end up seeing it sometime, well that sometime has finally come. My reason for going was because my favorite ABBA tribute band,
On May 1st, Jorge Cruise introduced a bunch of his clients former and present know about a brand new version of the Belly Fat Cure, which he is calling the “Fast Track” version of the program. While I can’t get into the specifics of the details of the program until he launches a more public announcement for the program, what I can say is that the program was developed to be as a super turbo charged version of the program that in the San Diego test case group he’s been trying it out with for the first last two weeks, the results have been astonishingly good.
When I was asked to be an evaluator of the first paid Belly Fat Cure coaching group as someone who’s been in the program and had great success with it, the last thing I expected to happen was to actually make some new friends in the process. I wasn’t really looking to have regular interaction with any of the folks in the program, just serve as an independent observer lurking in the shadows. However, one of those clients, Amber, who had started a blog entitled, “
I was originally planning on spending today at Disneyland with a friend and possibly some others, however my friend had to cancel earlier this week, so since I had my heart set on going up to Disneyland and I was going to be going by myself, I opted to go yesterday instead of today as it would just work out better for me. And while I was there I took the opportunity to play a wonderful iPhone app game designed to be played at Disneyland called “
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