Ok, this video totally rocks. It is a must see.

In the How Sad Is This column, GameStation in the UK announced that it legally owns thousands of souls.

Thinking about this, what is probably even sadder is that I rarely read the Terms and Conditions of the software that I install therefore I would fall prey to this as well. It just goes to show you that you really should read everything you sign and agree too.

In the How Sad is this column, GameStation in the UK announced that it legally owns thousands of souls.

Wow, this is an amazing sermon that tells it like it is. America needs more Pastors who are willing to not be ashamed of Jesus and stand on the word. Watch this powerful clip of his message.

This is a surprising little short film. Here is the official description

“Mr Roberts finds himself awoken inexplicably in a white room. A man sits before him at a desk and in between them stands a black button. If Mr Roberts pushes it, he will receive a briefcase filled with millions of dollars. Or he can take the key to the door and leave penniless. The catch? Pushing the button will result in the death of a human being. What would you do?”

I was surprised at the ending of this film. It really hits you and makes you think about your own situation

After almost 19 years of marriage to my first wife, This Post gave me a chuckle and should give you one as well. I really love Trey’s blog because of his transparency that allows us all to join in his world and life and Jesus Christ. So, hope over and read the post and enjoy

I read this article on ABC News site and I was amazed. Have a read yourself as I have included the text.

Get Out of Jail Free: Monopoly’s Hidden Maps

It’s a story that will forever change the way you think of the phrase, “Get Out of Jail Free.”

After years of Boardwalk and Park Place, Monopoly gets a makeover.

During World War II, as the number of British airmen held hostage behind enemy lines escalated, the country’s secret service enlisted an unlikely partner in the ongoing war effort: The board game Monopoly.

It was the perfect accomplice.

Included in the items the German army allowed humanitarian groups to distribute in care packages to imprisoned soldiers, the game was too innocent to raise suspicion. But it was the ideal size for a top-secret escape kit that could help spring British POWs from German war camps.

The British secret service conspired with the U.K. manufacturer to stuff a compass, small metal tools, such as files, and, most importantly, a map, into cut-out compartments in the Monopoly board itself.

“It was ingenious,” said Philip Orbanes, author of several books on Monopoly, including “The World’s Most Famous Game and How it Got That Way.” “The Monopoly box was big enough to not only hold the game but hide everything else they needed to get to POWs.”

British historians say it was effective enough to help thousands of captured soldiers escape.

So how did a simple board game end up in a position to help out one of the most powerful military forces on the planet? Silk and serendipity.

Silk Maps Were Key Escape Kit Elements

Of all the tools in a military-grade escape kit, the most critical item was the map. But paper maps proved too fragile and cumbersome, said Debbie Hall, a cataloguer in the map room at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England.

For hundreds of years, even before World War II, silk was the material of choice for military maps, Hall said, because it wouldn’t tear or dissolve in water as easily as paper and was light enough to stuff into a boot or cigarette packet. Unlike maps printed on paper, silk maps also wouldn’t rustle and attract the attention of enemy guards, she said.

“Initially, they had some problems printing on silk,” Hall said. “It’s quite technically challenging.”

But then MI9, the British secret service unit responsible for escape and evasion, found the one British company that had mastered printing on silk: John Waddington Ltd., a printer and board game manufacturer that also happened to be the U.K. licensee for the Parker Bros. game Monopoly.

“Waddingtons in the pre-war era was printing on silk for theater programs. For celebration events for royalty and that kind of thing,” said Victor Watson, 80, who retired as chairman of the company in 1993. “It made a name for itself for being able to print on silk.”

He was just a child during the war but said his father Norman Watson, president of the company at the time, worked with British secret service to embed the maps in Monopoly games.

He said a secret service officer named E.D. Alston (known around Waddington as “Mr. A.”) used to come by to place the orders in person.

“Because he was in the secret service, I never knew who he was,” Watson said.

Maps, Compasses, Tools Hidden in Monopoly Boards

Watson said his father formed a small division of the company that first printed silk and rayon maps for the British military and later embedded escape kits in hundreds of Monopoly games.

Before leaving for missions, British airmen were told that if they were captured, they should look for escape maps and kits in Monopoly boards and other games delivered by charity groups. They were told that “special edition” Monopoly sets would be marked with a red dot on the free parking space.

Watson said that in addition to the concealed compass, tools and maps, real bank notes were hidden under the fake money.

During the war, the Official Secrets Act prevented anyone involved from disclosing the plan, and Watson said his father was concerned that the company could be targeted by the Germans if they were tipped off

“It was very special and very secretive,” Watson said, adding that he didn’t learn about the company’s role helping the military until years later.

Different Maps for Different Regions

Waddington printed six different maps that corresponded with regions surrounding six different German camps, Orbanes said. Monopoly kits bound for a camp in Italy, for example, would include a map of Italy and Italian currency (lira).

To make sure each set reached its destination, the secret service devised another code.

“Each game was pinpointed as to the camp it would go to,” Orbanes said. To innocuously tag each board game, a period was added after different locations on the board.

A period after “Mayfair,” for example, meant that the game was intended for Norway, Sweden and Germany. And a period after Marylebone Station meant it was a game destined for Italy. (It being a British version of game, London streets replaced the Atlantic City streets used in the original American version.)

Hundreds of Thousands of Silk Maps Helped POWs Escape During WWII

While “Mr. A.” may have been responsible for bringing the war to Waddington’s door, map experts credit another MI9 officer, Christopher Clayton Hutton, with hatching the master plan.

“He put two and two together,” Hall said, adding that Hutton was likely not alone in implementing it. “He was the first who had this idea to get maps into camps concealed in board games. It looks innocent, they wouldn’t arouse any suspicion… it just looked like someone was being charitable.”

Hall and others familiar with the Monopoly maps say not wanting to compromise the integrity of the Red Cross, the secret service created fake charity groups to smuggle the games into the German camps.

Barbara Bond, Pro-Chancellor at the U.K.’s University of Plymouth who is writing a book on silk maps, said Monopoly games weren’t the only vehicles used to conceal escape maps. Decks of cards, the board game Snakes and Ladders and pencils also concealed maps for prisoners.

“There was a whole industry going on,” she said.

During the war, hundreds of thousands of silk maps were used to help prisoners escape. And she said it marked a change in the way the military viewed POWs.

During World War I, she said, “If you were captured in battle that was it.”

But after Winston Churchill and others shared their experiences as POWs, she said, the perception of them changed.

“The POWs could still do a job,” Bond said. “Not only was it their duty to fight if they were captured, it was their duty to escape.”

The silk (and rayon) maps and the clever ways they were distributed, she said, reflected that philosophy.

All ‘Special Edition’ Monopoly Sets Destroyed

Though silk maps from that era exist in libraries, homes and museums around the world, none of the original rigged Monopoly sets still remain.

After the war, everything was destroyed, Watson said.

But though the games themselves are gone, their legacy is a source of pride for the makers of Monopoly, past and present.

“Since Charles Darrow created Monopoly in the 1930s, the game has had a rich and interesting story. The use of Monopoly by the British government to sneak maps, money and supplies to prisoners of war during World War II is a little-known, but important part of our history,” said a spokeswoman for toymaker Hasbro, Inc. “We are always honored when this iconic game becomes an important part of the fabric of a family’s, or a country’s, history and memories.”

In the 1970s, Watson had the chance to meet a few former POWs who actually used Wadddington’s maps to escape from a prisoner camp at Colditz Castle, near Leipzig, Germany.

“It was really exciting,” he said. Although it’s impossible to know precisely how many prisoners escaped with the help of the hidden maps, experts estimate that about 35,000 members of the British, Commonwealth and U.S. forces who were taken prisoner during the war returned to Allied lines before the end of the war.

“We reckon that 10,000 used the Monopoly map,” Watson said.

I saw this on the Trey Morgan blog and thought this was a neat idea. So, here we go.

1. My Favorite Movie: (Uh…there are a few…)

• Comedy – Galaxy Quest
• Action – Iron Man
• Drama – Ever After
• Sci-Fi – Star Trek (the new movie)
• Series – Star Wars
• 3D Animated – Wall-E
• Fun Movie – A Knight’s Tale
• Chick Flick – The Notebook

2. My Favorite Restaurant:

• Of All Time – Texas de Brazil (The best restaurant created).
• Steak House – Saltgrasse
• Mexican Food – Abuelos
• Pizza – Ti Amos (although you guys just can’t make real pizza here in the south)
• Deli Style Food – NYPD
• Fast Food – Whattaburger

3. Bands/People/Shows I Have Seen Live In Concert:

• Tina Turner (before I was saved)
• Wayne Watson (first christian concert)
• Carman (volunteered as an usher to help with offering and was fun)

4. Preachers That Are Currently Mentoring Me Through Materials (Books, CDs, Podcasts, Videos, etc):

• Bill Earley (my pastor)
• Kenneth Copeland
• Jesse Duplantis
• Jerry Savelle
• Creflo Dollar
• Kenneth Hagin

5. The Coolest Places I’ve Ever Been:

• Disneyworld
• Sea Island, Georgia
• Montreal, Canada

6. Some Places I Want To Visit One Day:

• The Bible lands
• Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria Germany (with my wife because this is her favorite castle)
• Hawaii
• The West Coast
• Egypt (to see the pyramids)
• Greece and Italy (to see the ruins)
• Israel (to see where Jesus walked)

7. Some Things I Want To Do One Day:

• See the Holy Lands
• Preach God’s Word
• Take my family to Disneyworld
• Take my family on any vacation (as I have not been able to yet)
• Be in a movie

8. Things I LOVE To Do Now:

• Spend time with my family (playing games, watching movies, whatever)
• Dating my wife
• Talking with my wife
• Play the Wii
• Play board and card games (but so hard to get people to play)
• Attend Church (just for the fun of it!)
• Listen to my kids play music
• Read to James

9. Some Things I Want To See Before I Die:

• I want to see God.
• I want to see my kids grow up to serve the Lord
• I want to see another planet (I know pie in the sky, but I really want to see one)
• I want to see space up close (again pie in the sky, but I would love to travel in space)
• I want to see Christian films take it up a notch and become the A-List movies
• I want to see my whole family (full extended and everyone) saved
• I want to see God heal people in my shadow

10. Some People I Would Love To Hang Out with for a Day:

• Jesus Christ
• Kenneth Copeland
• Kirk Cameron
• Bill Earley (it would be great to spend a day hanging out with my pastor)
• Sarah Palin (I think she would have been a great vice-president)

11. Some Things That Keep Me In Awe:

• That God loves me. He really really loves me.
• That God forgives me.
• That my wife loves me. She really reall does. I many times don’t feel worth of her love.
• That my kids are awesome.
• That God is moving in my family’s lives

12. Something you may not know about me…

• I met Vicky, my wife, in college when I was chasing everyone else and not really knowing what I wanted. She asked me out and I was taken. Although she thought I was trying to politely bail out because my first response was “I don’t have any money.” This was because I was raised that the man paid and since I had no money I could not pay. She offered to pay and I accepted. My father told me when he heard that Vicky was paying, “To marry that girl” and I did! When we were at Pizza Hut, my father had loaned me some money to pay for it but Vicky would not have it. She insisted on paying to the point of stealing the check and running up to the cash register to pay. From then to til now, I have been in love with her.

Ok, now it is your turn.

For today’s post, I got shocked and inspired by Trey Morgan’s (““What Bible Translation Do You Like?”). The reason is that he listed two Bible facts. They are:

Now, I don’t know about you, but that second one surprised me. I guess I can understand why, but really? Stealing a Bible. My daughter summed up this situation best when I told them these facts by saying, “Obviously they really need it!”

So, I thought I would it would neat to post other Bible Facts. I hope you enjoy what is next.

Most facts found on the What Saith The Scripture website.

We finally have our living room back and I hope to be home to enjoy it as work is looking at winding down some from overtime, but we might be doing some traveling for installations to Alabama which I would really prefer not to have to do but it comes with the job. I am praying this gives me more time to get back to the things I have going online like the Marriage Study and the Podcast. But in the mean time, I found this heartwarming, touching and even sad story out of Hollywood.

Every now and then, we find a story that underscores why we do what we do here, and this is one. It’s the story of a terminally ill 10-year-old California girl whose last wish was to screen the Disney/Pixar movie Up and the noble people at Pixar who granted it just in time.

The story’s been the buzz of the Internet since it broke on the Associated Press (via The Orange County Register) last week. We don’t need to go into the details—mainly because they tear our hearts out—but here’s the gist:

Colby Curtin desperately wanted to see Up, but the cancer-stricken girl was too sick to go to a theater. Thanks to a family friend who got in touch with the movie studio Pixar, an employee of the Emeryville, Calif.,-based company arrived at Colby’s home with a DVD copy of the movie. Because she was too ill to keep her eyes open, Colby’s mom described the movie to her as it played. Asked afterward if she enjoyed the movie, the girl nodded. She died later that night.

Here’s what’s sad and awful and wonderful about this story, aside from the obvious. It shows there are still people—even in Hollywood—who care more about a child’s dying wish than they do about money or copyrights or legal niceties. It shows that a film story still has the power to give hope and comfort and joy and solace to people in the most extreme circumstances.

And it shows that Up really is something special: The message of the movie, after all, is that even in the depths of loss and grief, love can reach across the vastness of time and space to touch us, to allow us to go on. Love is the true adventure.