Oklahoma Entertainment

If you were to make a list of your favorite indoor board games what would you include? Would chess be one of them? Or are you Life or Scrabble fan? There are a large number of board games that are classics and have stood the test of time. These people often have a large collection of them and they are always looking for something new. But, the fact is, that some games are must-haves. These games have transcended generations and we hold them dear to our hearts. This list has been compiled after aggregating results from several sources. Our global top 5 list is:

1. Monopoly: This is one of the world’s most well known board games. The game is a game of real estate, purchasing property, developing it and then making sure others lose their money before you do. This board game has a number of different versions to reach from young kids to the most sophisticated of all professionals. There are deluxe editions as well as fun loving Disney editions, sports editions, and even cat and dog-opoly! One or more of the various flavors of this game is likely to hang around for years to come.

2. Scrabble: Another classic that has diehard followers. A lot of people start playing scrabble to improve their vocabulary. In this game, the goal is to outwit the other player, scoring more points by creating more high-scoring words. A game that most people fall in love while they are just picking up the English language. Some of these hang around and make a career of it. The true testament that this game is truly global is that the current world champion hails from Thailand.

3. Chess: Chess goes as far back as the 7th century. The game is strategy at its best. It is one game that many will study, learn, and spend a life learning again. It’s a game you learn to love as you pick up more strategies with time. Chess has an extremely large following of people.

4. Checkers: is another popular board game. Everyone recognizes the black and red checkered board and it is one of the simplest of games to learn. It has been around since about the 1500’s where people began playing with far less interesting pieces.

5. Life: This is a relatively newer game in comparison to the other four. This is designed to be, well, like real life. Go through and make choices that will eventually effect what you can and cannot do in life. A game with plenty of options and each choice will take you in a completely different direction. This game and its different varieties such as the Simpson’s version continue to hold promise for many years to come.

Mike Singh is a successful webmaster and publisher of chess-made-ez.com . He provides the basic chess rules and excellent chess tips to take your game to the next level.

Dear Taxpayer,

Your none too humble servants all too rarely express their deep appreciation for all you have done to make America all that it is today. We hope this message will correct that oversight.

First and foremost, we thank you for guaranteeing the national credit. We would be lost without it and debt free. We would be a prosperous nation with a government restricted to its enumerated powers. We would have few jobs for our friends and relatives. There would be so few benefits for us we would be forced to serve out of civic mindedness. We would be unable to reward our international friends or punish our perceived enemies, foreign and domestic, if not for your credit guarantee.

We thank you for providing us junior taxpayers for the future so we can let you off the hook for the deficits we will continue to run up in your name. For that matter, thank you for your name, in which we do all things. That has been exceedingly helpful.

We thank you for assisting us to bully the rest of the world to bend to our will. We thank you for minding your own business and leaving us free to do ours, which really isn’t ours exactly. We thank you for assisting us to serve private corporate interests, that will give us well paid jobs should we leave public service and finance our campaigns until then. We thank you for voting and legitimizing the great good we do in your name.

We thank you for pursuing pleasure and entertainment, leaving you little time for servant watching. We thank you for responding to crisis in such a panic we can tell you anything and manipulate your mental state. We thank you for taking your news and entertainment from the media we regulate and control. We thank you for sending your children to our schools so we can teach them what is most important in life. We thank you for incorporating when you go into business, making us partners and extending our control. Most of all, we thank you for your general disinterest in the world around you. For all you do, this screw’s for you.

In Gratitude,

Your Hired Servants

Ed Howes sought and found, knocked and entered. Now he sees things differently. To see more of what he sees, please visit http://www.justanotherview.com or do an author search here at Ezine Articles.

Creative Writing Tips -

Your theme has to be something you can prove in your story – It doesn’t have to be a universal truth. This means that your theme doesn’t have to be something that happens in real life all the time (providing our logic can accept it, in order for us to believe it).

Whatever story you choose to write, be it a contemporary or a story which requires elements of fantasy such as in horror, science fiction etc the events of that story have to appear logical.

What is not logical and consequently not believable is

A character that has no knowledge of computers and overnight becomes a computer whiz

A car that goes over a cliff, bursts into flames and the character manages to escape unscratched

Etc

These are not believable because they can’t and don’t happen in real life and our logic doesn’t accept them.

Your theme will be believed when you prove it (providing of course you can.) Let’s see how you can do that.

We’ll start with a theme

“Hard work leads to success.’

Our story is about a character whose goal is to reach a managerial position within the company that he works. For the reader to see how the character will reach his goal I will show him

• Working hard

• Working long hours

• Using his initiative

• Being responsible

And all those qualities, in the end, will secure him the promotion he has been aiming for.

So my theme here will be proved that ‘Hard work leads to success’ because my character succeeds in the end.

>From the examples I have given so far, you may have noticed that my stories end on a happy note. Yours don’t have to. The ending will depend on the story you are writing and how you, the writer, prefers to end it.

I could have done the reverse with this theme. I could have said,

“Hard work doesn’t lead to success.”

My story will be the same but in the end I will have the character missing out on the promotion. Both themes will be proved because I have proved them in my story.

Any theme can work in a story providing you can prove it.

Have you proved your theme?

About The Author

Besides his passion for writing, Nick Vernon runs an online gift site where you will find gift information, articles and readers’ funny stories. Visit http://www.we-recommend.com

Here are some tips for the solo wind musician.
If you play, woodwinds, brass, strings, or any single line instrument.
You can make a substantial amount of money using your play-a-long library.That’s right!…Your play-a-long library can be a goldmind of income.

I know it works because I’ve done it.
If I can do it, anybody should be able to do it.
Here’s the plan.

First: You have all of these wonderful play-a-longs that you use to practice with.
You have spent many, many hours learning these songs, and perfecting your talent.
A lot of these play-a-longs are really great accompaniment, and some are recorded by professional musicians.

Well!…Why not put together a nice sounding PA, or sound system, (what ever you can afford)use all of those wonderful play-a-longs you’ve had for years, put some song sets together, go out and target all the venues in your area that would be great for a solo musician as yourself to perform in, and make some easy money.
Sound crazy?…think again, you will be surprised to find out just how many places want live entertainment, but dont have the room, or the budget to hire a full band.

Here’s an example from my real experiences.
I have played a restaurant in early afternoon, a coffee shop after work hours, and played with my regular band that night.
The result,…Three times the income that I would have normally made that day.

I charge $50-$100 for small venues, $100-$200 for larger establishments, and parties, $200 and up for high dollar fundtions.
You have to be the judge as to how much you need to charge per gig.
Also keep in mind your expenses.

Oh!…I forgot to mention the tips.
That’s extra bravy , or icing on the cake.

So go ahead!…Make that money!
Put those old dusty play-a-longs to work.

Since I play mostly jazz, I use this source for my play-a-longs:

http://www.jajazz.com

Patrick is a blind jazz saxophonist, his intense, improvive style of playing is both soothing, and captivating to the listener.
Patrick owns, and operates a Texas based recording studio: Curse Buster Sound.
Patrick is producing some of the best sounding jazz on the market today.

http://www.cursebustersound.com

And a dreadful thing from the cliff did spring,

and its wild bark thrill’d around,

His eyes had the glow of the fires below,

’twas the form of the spectre hound

One of the most chilling omens of death in English folklore is the large, spectral demon dog called Black Shuck. A death omen comes to collect souls and if you have the misfortune to see Black Shuck – expect death to come within a year.

Ghostly Black Dogs are distinguished from normal flesh and blood black dogs by their large yellow or red glowing eyes (sometimes only one), and their ability to appear out of thin air, or into and out of the ground. The demon dog is about the size of a calf and sometimes even appears headless !

When the Black Shuck comes to claim his victims his bone-chilling howls can be heard rising above the wind. His feet make no sound, but people can feel his hot breath on their necks.

A common place to see the Black Dog is at a boundary. He lurks where people move from one locality to another, roads, footpaths, old trackways, bridges, crossroads, gates, doors, stairs and corridors. He can be seen near graveyards and barrows, along Leylines, and running down Corpse Ways or Spirit Paths. Folklore tells us that these ancient paths used to run to churches and spirits would travel along them from graveyard to graveyard.

In the 1890s, a teenage boy rescued from the North Sea told how he had been forced to swim further and further from the shore by a huge dog that chased him through the waters, its teeth gnashing at his neck and shoulders. In the 1920s and 30s, fishermen off Sheringham told of hearing the hound’s howling on stormy nights. And as recently as the 1970s, he was seen pounding over the beach at Yarmouth.

Black Shuck is not confined to Norfolk. Another location is along the Sussex Downs with its old burial mounds, once the principal means of travel before the weald was cleared of its inpenetrable forest. And once, on a summer afternoon in 1577, he made a fateful trip across the border into Suffolk and attacked the congregation of St Mary’s Church in Bungay. As the dreadful dog flew from the church, sated with blood, he is said to have left deep scorch marks on the door.

In 1933 the door was cleaned and burn marks were there for all to see. They remain there to this day.

There are many names for this terrifying visitor. Galleytrot, Shug Monkey, the Hateful Thing, Hell beast, Skeff or Moddey Dhoo and in the south of England you will hear names like Yeth or Wish Hounds. In Yorkshire he is known as The Barguest.

The name Shuck seems to go back to Old English (at least pre-1000 BCE). The Old English epic poem Beowulf describes the monster Grendel and his mother. Grendel is called a Scucca (demon)- and Scucc would have been pronounced pretty much then as it is today. The poem also says of Grendel that him of eagum stod ligge gelicost leoht unfaeger , ‘a fire-like, baleful light shone from his eyes’, Sounds like the Black Shuck to me.

The origins of the Black Dog have been lost in the mists of time but most likely originated from the Vikings who feared the hound of their god Odin All-Father, and brought their tales and lore to England. The word Barguest comes from the German ‘Bargeist’ meaning ’spirit of the (funeral) bier’.

In the folklore of old Europe, the dog is seen as both the guardian and consumer of dead spirits, as in the ‘Wild Hunt’ where a pack of dogs with a master of the hunt flies through the sky looking for lost souls. He also turns up in Egypt, Siberia, and North America. According to the Vedic mythology of ancient India, the dead must pass by the four-eyed dogs of Yama, king of the dead, and Greek mythology tells of the dog Cerberos, popularly endowed with three heads, who watches the entrance to Hades and there is the Egyptian Anubis, with the head of a dog. The Celts have their legends also, of white, red-eared hounds. But the concept of the underworld watchdog reached its fullest and most complex expression among the Germanic peoples.

Whatever the origin of the Black Dog, beware of him, he is still to be found in the wild lonely places of North England today.

About The Author

Susanna Duffy is a Civil Celebrant, folklorist and storyteller who creates rites and ceremonies for the milestones of life www.funeral.yarralink.com