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.”

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On May 21st, Google celebrated the 30th Anniversary of Pac-Man. For those not present in the early 1980′s Pac-Man was a phenomenon that took the world by storm. Arguably the first video game since the invention of the format that created a pop-culture frenzy. Pac-Man machines were all the rage, everything from traditional arcade machines, to cocktail table machines, and even home machines modeled after the arcade model and even appearing on popular home gaming consoles at the time like the Atari 2600.

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.

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A few months ago one of the popular videos on YouTube being passed around was a commercial for a piece of exercise equipment known as the Shake Weight. The barbell like apparatus that is supposed to tighten and firm arm muscles and allegedly is quite a good exercise, however, it suffers from an unfortunate comedic effect for how it resembles more adult activities.

The original video was a bit suspect as to whether or not the Shake Weight was a legitimate product or not as no phone number was shown in the video in the spot where it would have been expected to be seen for ordering the product. There was even a second video for a larger Shake Weight aimed at being for men. So imagine my surprise when a recent visit to the local Target store had the original Shake Weight sitting upon the shelf. Now how long until the Shake Weight For Men makes it way to the store shelves?

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To get ready for tomorrow’s book launch of the Belly Fat Cure, Jorge Cruise has prepared a series of “Ask Jorge” videos on YouTube to answer the most common questions people have about health and wellness. Jorge also invites you to visit his YouTube Channel to submit your own questions on fitness, wellness, motivation, nutrition, and health.

Jorge will be drawing from the submitted questions for future Ask Jorge videos. So if you have a pressing question about the Belly Fat Cure or health in general, then just click here to visit Jorge’s YouTube page for “Ask Jorge” and click on the big red “Submit A Question” button. I personally find YouTube’s page for the Ask Jorge videos a little annoying to navigate so I’ve gone ahead and provided all of the Ask Jorge questions so far and put them in order and you can check them out below. If you’re interested in picking up Jorge Cruise’s “Belly Fat Cure” book from Amazon, just click here.

We’re starting with Video # 22 because of the way YouTube is set where the most recent video is the first video you see, so the Introductory video is labeled # 22, and Jorge’s first 21 Ask Jorge Questions appear below it.

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We’re just a couple of days away from the launch of the Belly Fat Cure book and if you’re new to hearing about the Belly Fat Cure, you may be curious what it is. For me personally, the Belly Fat Cure has resulted in my being able to shed 74 pounds and 10 inches off the circumference of my belly. I still have more I want to lose, but I’ve already lost about 25% of my starting weight and I’m looking to lose about half of the weight I had when I started the program.

My opinion is that you should just get the book, it’s on sale at Amazon.com for about $10 and it’s loaded with information about how and why you store fat, how to get rid of it, and then tons of recipes and food items to show better alternatives to what you’re probably already doing. But I can understand a little bit of hesitancy and skepticism especially if you’re not sure what it is. Jorge Cruise understands this and has prepared a short series of 5 YouTube Videos to help introduce the program. Just invest a few minutes of your day to check out the 5 videos, which I’ve included below for your convenience. And then if you’re interested in the program, click here to get the book from Amazon.com.

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The year 2009 has really raced by way too quickly. It really seems like only yesterday the year just began and here it is so close to the end. While it’s been both a good and challenging year, Christmas time is the perfect time to take a moment out of it all to just think about family and friends.

This year, I kind of hit a milestone. This was the first year in ages that I’ve actually been in the mood to listen to Christmas music at Christmas time. I’d worked discount retail for far more years than I care to admit. Let’s just say Christmas time brings out the public’s worst behavior in discount retail stores and the non-stop playing of some of the worst versions of Christmas music non-stop during the month of December in the stores I worked in, I haven’t been in any mood for Christmas decorations nor Christmas music since the early 1992. I thought I’d never find the desire to hear another Christmas song at Christmas time again, but this year I actually wanted to hear some. It’s been six years since I last worked a Christmas in retail, so I’m guessing there’s hope yet for me to find the Christmas spirit again. It could take several more years, but I’m pleased by the sign of hope I had this year.

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When Susan Boyle knocked the socks off Simon Cowell, she soon after stated that one of her dreams was to sing a song with her idol, Elaine Paige. Within days of the hubbub, Elaine Paige, who is not nearly as well known appeared on US Cable Network, CNN’s, Larry King Live program and gave an interview about Susan Boyle and said she would be open to singing with Susan. Now that dream has become a reality.

Sadly, the duet does not appear on Susan’s recently released album (which gets it’s name from the song Susan sang on Britain’s Got Talent, “I Dreamed A Dream”) but made it’s debut on UK television. The song selected for the two ladies to sing together is hardly an original choice, especially for Elaine. The duet selected was “I Know Him So Well” from the musical CHESS, which was a hit for Elaine Paige and her original duet partner Barbara Dickson way back in 1984. In fact, the song still holds the record in the UK for the longest running #1 song in the UK charts sung as a duet between two women. The song is a staple for Elaine whenever she goes out on tour and it’s a special song for ABBA fans as well as the song was co-written by ABBA’s song writing team, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus along with lyricist Tim Rice.

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The Internet has certainly made the world a more interesting place for people to connect with one another. Recently I was contacted by Kirsten Sherlock. Kirsten found me on YouTube through Jorge Cruise’s “Death By Sugar” video that showcases the sugar experiment I assisted Jorge with. (Click here to see the video on YouTube and click here to read more about the experiment.) I had left a comment on YouTube identifying myself as the Ryan in the video, and Kristen found the comment and got in touch with me.

Kristen is a distributor for a brand new product called Yoli. It’s a new beverage product that employs a brand new technology called “Blast Cap Technology.” This innovative technology is designed to counteract three problems with the current beverage industry. Those problems are heat pasteurization, plastic leaching, and loss of nutrient potency.

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Last week when I was introduced to Rosalind Russell’s “Auntie Mame” film from 1958, one of the hosts of the screening referred to the Lucille Ball lead musical version simply called “Mame” from 1974 as an abomination. Naturally, I felt obligated to see for myself how allegedly terrible this version is. And I didn’t find it horrible at all, in fact I quite enjoyed it.

To preface seeing both films, I should admit, I was actually introduced to the Original Broadway Cast recording by my Australian friend, Graeme Read, who is a big fan of the song “Open A New Window” and as a result of his introducing me to the song, I’ve actually had the cast album for a number of years now. I knew of Angela Landsbury through the “Murder She Wrote” series and Bea Arthur through both “Maude” and “The Golden Girls.” Also my grandmother looked a lot like Bea Arthur, I’ve always felt like anything Bea did was a larger than life version of my grandma. So anytime I see Bea Arthur on “The Golden Girls” or play a song from “Mame” I am always reminded of my grandma.

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I’ve been checking out some of the Sirius XM Satellite Radio stations I’ve never really checked out thanks to their new iPhone app which means I now have a radio on me all the time instead of my Sirius Stiletto radio which I leave at home so it will record the early morning programs that I want to listen to that are on while I’m at work. One of the stations I’ve been enjoying lately is the Raw Dog comedy channel.

On the talk stations I usually listen to the commercials are all the same kind so I was under the impression that commercials are pretty much the same on all the talk channels, but I encountered a commercial that I thought was a fake comedy commercial but turns out to be a legitimate commercial. It was for a website called “Cougar Life” an online dating portal for older women who want younger men. So the ad was soliciting men to sign up for these sexually mad cougars to ravage them. I was laughing at the commercial because I thought it was fake. So imagine my surprise when Google actually results for Cougar Life and links to multiple pages on their site, and short of signing up for it (as I’m not interested in the site) I checked it out.

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