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“How do I buy a violin, (or fiddle)?”

That question has risen to the top of the fiddle FAQ list, even above “What’s the fiddleguru.com/violin_fiddle.html difference between a violin and a fiddle?”

This is an account of how Richard Blackwell, my student, actually purchased a violin.

He had been using a good quality student violin on loan from his sister. He was ready to upgrade to a better quality violin when his sister asked for her violin to be returned.

A violin was already on its way to him from a shop in Philadelphia, when he scheduled an appointment with a violin dealer in Plant City, Florida. Royce Burt, the part-time dealer had a good inventory of instruments ranging in price from about $500 to $8000.

He has a regular job as an accountant and does this other business part-time from his home. Aubrey Haney, a prominent Nashville session fiddler, buys violins from him when he is in Tampa visiting his folks.

Richard brought me along to hear the violins with him and also to play them. Many players recommend having an other violinist (or fiddler) with you when trying out instruments. Violins often sound quite different right under the ear, as compared to a few feet away.

He also had his current instrument with him to keep the base line of comparison.

This turned out to be a very good move.

When we got there we went right into the violin room. Royce began to hand Richard violins, making just a few comments about them. I kept Richard moving from violin to violin, not getting hung up on any one instrument. Then he would circle back and retry ones he had played earlier.

In between I played them and made comments about their sound and appearance. There was one that I found really intriguing, with a certain mystery quality to its sound. I wanted to keep playing it until I solved the mystery.

At one point Richard seemed to hit an indecisive stall in the process. It was at this point that he pulled out the fiddle he’s been playing. The comparison made Royce’s violins stand out. He could hear the superior quality of tone immediately.

That gave him fresh encouragement as to his inclination. And he was drawn to one violin in particular. It was a truly fine instrument suitable for a professional player.

By this time it had come down to choice of two fiddles. Going back and forth settled the matter. Even though the one he chose was much more expensive, he made his decision. He knows he has a violin that won’t let him down as his ability improves.

There is one thing about Florida that you should know. Land may be pricey, but moveable goods are not. Almost everything costs less here than it does up north or out west. Royce’s prices are on the low end of the spectrum.

When Richard was clearly gravitating towards the one he chose, Royce reminded him of his complete satisfaction guarantee. I don’t believe I would buy a violin without such a guarantee.

Richard left with a violin he really liked. He also knew that he would be receiving on trial one more instrument to compare to it. That trial violin did not displace his choice.

This is not the only way to find a better violin to play. You might know a fiddler who has more than one violin and would be ready to let one go.

In some cases you might even be able to take the violin home for a week or so.

You could find a sleeper in an estate sale. Or, even a yard sale.

When it comes to trying out violins, there are three factors from Richard’s experience that are key in making a wise choice.

1. Take someone with you who can also play, as well as listen. If you can find someone knowledgeable, that’s ideal.

2. Take your current instrument with you. At some point, take it out and compare it to the violin or violins you have been playing.

3. Make your evaluation in a stress free, no pressure setting.

If the dealer brings out a violin exclaiming, “I have just the violin for you!” and he proceeds to rip off a few cadenzas, then hands it to you, make a quick exit. I was with one of my students when a “respected” dealer pulled this stunt.

Noticing how echoey the room was, I asked him if he practiced in this room. He said he didn’t.

You should also play the candidate violins in a room with normal acoustics. That’s another aspect of stress free environment.

One last point may be: know what your budget is. Don’t sell the cow to get a violin. There are more violins down the road.

Elan Chalford, MM.
fiddleguru.com Learn How to Play Fiddle without Reading Music

There seemed now to be a lull in the world’s ancient races; siren lived in her tree castle for may years thereafter, with the kings and leaders from all around the globe, coming too visit her: such as Blaze, Scoriae, and Blezza e’l, and the Cliff Dwellers representatives, and even representatives from the bear country: all brought it to what was called the Quiet Mound, her castle in the trees. The Great Forest behind her, the Grasslands in front of her, one-hundred acres in between, that was her mound area, her land, and her territory.

And accordingly the Manticores even came to visit, now able to survive the drastic elements of the atmosphere, by changing their chemical imbalance within their system; that is to say, they were not subject to the allergic reactions they once had, anymore; that a certain tree had gave off (a certain chemical) into the atmosphere, because Siren had found an antidote, and sent it ahead for the Manticores. Thus, everything had a solution: or so it seemed for the moment.

And all came as often as they could to see Queen Siren of SSARG: queen of the orb, the world, the planet. Mother of the serpents; leader of the rodents, friend to the living cliff people and emissary to the bears and jackals. However she was know she was greeted as the queen, nonetheless.

The Mound and Stone Castle

It came to pass, Siren build a castle on the mound, out of stones and forever it would stand (so she hopped); so she believed, should she leave and come back in ten-thousand years or her off spring, impervious would it be to the elements of the land, and weather. The tree house remained as a visiting place, a place for her visitors to rest after their long journeys. And the quit mound became quiet after a while, as it was called. In time a village formed outside of its castle doors, people wanted to be close to the queen, and feeling it safer to live there, away from their governments of the world, and thus, governed by Siren herself. Be it human or animal, they all lived in peace if they chose to live on the mound.

—Siren could not figure out where the races or species of her planet all came from, that is no legends to explain their beginnings of origin existed.

It was the 51st year of her life when she had bore a child; female Moirommalit’s are self-duplicating. She named him Anatolo, and Anatolia; she had twins, one boy and one girl, fraternal twins. This of course was a part of her roots, her planet’s roots you could say so their race would not fade into extinction.

When the inhabitants of Moiromma, had to abandon the planet because of a tilt in its orbit, causing the whole planet to become an arctic region (for the most part), they biologically reconstructed, or produced offspring as well as building into their systems a form of resurrection upon death, that was merely a transformation process, and regeneration, thus giving them as many as one hundred lives to live, within a period of 200 to 550 years.

The residue part of her soul would appear on anther planet (upon death), and like vapor transforming into a flesh, she’d appear as a mature creature, in full form on some selected planet, with perhaps a few modifications from the process. This was of course how she came to be here on SSARG.

See Dennis’ web site: dennissiluk.tripod.com dennissiluk.tripod.com

Anybody that has watched poker on television knows that some hands are referred to with distinctive names, such as Pocket Rockets, Cowboys, or Big Slick. Lots of Texas Hold ‘Em starting hands have nicknames, and my next couple of articles will give you some of the more common ones, as well as some you may not have heard before. In this article, we will focus on what to call your pocket pairs.

With the explosion of televised poker has come an explosion in the terminology of the game. People that don’t know a flop from a flush can sit down and watch a broadcast of the World Poker Tour or the World Series of Poker and gain a relatively good understanding of the jargon in a few hours. There are certain starting hands with distinct nicknames, and we will be taking a look at those now. Most of these have been around for a while, but are becoming a big part of the language of poker thanks to the WPT’s Vince “Lady of Spain is going off in his head” van Patten and ESPN’s Norman “How many jokes about divorce can I fit into a one hour broadcast” Chad.

Pair of Aces: Pocket Rockets, American Airlines, Bullets, Weapons of Mass Destruction

Pair of Kings: Cowboys, King Kong, Ace Magnets (depending on how your luck is running that day)

Pair of Queens: Ladies, Hilton/Gabor Sisters (depending on what generation you’re from), Siegfried and Roy (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Pair of Jacks: Jokers, Fish Hooks

Pair of Tens: Dimes, Binary, Boxcars

Pair of Nines: Meathooks, Phil Hellmuth (Hellmuth won the final hand of his World Series of Poker Main Event championship with a pair of nines), German Virgins (the German word for “no” is nein), Wayne Gretzky

Pair of Eights: Snowmen, Two Fat Ladies, Double Infinity

Pair of Sevens: Walking Sticks, Hockey Sticks, Mullets (short in the front, long in the back)

Pair of Sixes: Route 66, Mario Lemieux

Pair of Fives: Speed Limit (old school version), Nickels, Presto

Pair of Fours: Magnum (thank you, Dirty Harry), Sailboats, Luke Skywalker (May the Fours be with you), Darth Vader (specific to two black fours, which would be the Dark Side of the Fours)

Pair of Threes: Crabs, Hooters

Pair of Twos: Ducks, Swans

Those are all the nicknames that you can use for pocket pairs in the game of Texas Hold ‘Em. The next article you see from me will deal with nicknames for unpaired hole cards. Until then, here’s hoping that your Cowboys don’t get shot by any bullets and your Hilton Sisters don’t end up with crabs!

Want to crush the casinos? Desire to make your bank account so large that Donald Trump will ask to borrow meal money? Then arm yourself with the knowledge available at

Here is a collection of “Dice Advice” for your edification and amusement. Do with it what you will. No guarantees. Some of these ideas seemed to make sense to me for a while. But then some other completely contradictory instruction comes along and it too makes sense, in its own superstitious way. The whole thing is rather confusing. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.

What to wear:

Never thought about the best things to wear while gaming? Well don’t worry, you don’t have to get dressed up to have good luck. In fact, according to the traditional stories surrounding the game of Craps, “Dirt brings luck. Wear dirty clothes and you’ll be lucky.” (Hey, that explains that odd odour wafting out of my local game store the other day. There must have been a lot of REALLY lucky gamers in there!)

Where to sit:

Well, sitting on a handkerchief while gaming is supposed to be lucky. (Best not to combine this one with the “Dirt brings luck” concept… ewww.)

Sitting astride your chair is lucky too. (Tipping your chair back is not lucky however, especially when we were teenagers and anyone’s mother caught us doing it. Ouch.)

Storing Dice:

“Never leave a d20 sitting with the #1 facing up. It will get used to sitting that way, and roll 1’s more often.” The “scientific” excuse for this belief says that there is a “molecular drift” or “dice creep” due to gravity, causing the die to become bottom heavy. This would make more sense if dice were semi-liquid, but last time I checked all my dice were solid. Check yours now, just to be sure.

On the other hand, “If you leave a d20 sitting with the 20 facing up, it will get tired of being that way, and seldom roll any 20’s.” Hmmm. Besides, how can I tell which way all those dice jumbled up in my dicebag are sitting all week between games? Oh, such anxiety! I think I need a transparent dicebag!

Where to throw the dice:

Well, on the table is good… but not just any table. Highly polished tables are bad luck… something to do with mirrors reversing things, giving you the opposite of what you want I guess.

But having the dice roll off the table onto the floor is bad luck too. When playing Craps the next roll after that is sure to be a 7 (the least desirable number). Plus you might lose the die, a) in the cat’s dish, b) down the heating vent, c) amongst the collection of cheesies, chip crumbs and dust-bunnies under the gaming table. Any bad luck associated with the dice falling off the table can be remedied by having the “Dealer”, or the in our case the GM, pick up the errant die and give it back to you. Of course, some GM’s don’t like to come out from behind the screen for anything… so if you keep asking them to chase down your dice you just might find you luck gets a LOT worse all of a sudden “Why do all the monsters seem to be going after me tonight?! Oh, would you pick up my d6, again?”

What (not) to say:

Never say “You need anything but a 1″, because that jinxes the roll. This goes along with the idea that while playing Craps no-one is to mention the number 7. By mentioning undesirable numbers, you are summoning them. So, logically (if I may use that word in this context) calling out “Come on 20!” would be summoning a 20. Someone told me he always says “Hit! You bloody bastard!” while rolling to hit. (Apparently swigging beer before exclaiming this, is part of the charm.)

Blessings:

The Hackmaster Player’s Handbook has a great section in the back of the book on dice rituals et cetera. In it they outline a method of blessing a die by rubbing it on the signature of a famous gamer… complete with diagrams! Be sure to check it out.

Rubbing your dice on someone’s head is a way of blessing the dice. Apparently red-headed people are not good luck though. (I don’t understand this at all. Some of my best friends are redheads!)

Cleansing dice of bad luck is another method of blessing your dice. This can be done by burying them in salt, or washing them in cold water or mineral water. (Holy water might work extra well, but maybe not for evil characters.) Just don’t use alcohol to remove bad luck from your dice… it may remove the ink from the numbers too! Of course, cleansing dice when they have been performing well, would be counterproductive. You’ll only be washing away the good luck (and all that “lucky dirt”!).

A “friend of a friend” used to put his dice in his mouth and spit them onto the table, for good luck. No-one ever borrowed his dice. Another person, used to keep her dice down her bra. “Boobs bring luck!” she maintains.

Punishment:

“Bad dice! Go sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done.” Uncooperative dice can be coaxed, cleansed, blessed or… punished for their bad deeds. Some folks will leave the offending dice at home when they go out to play: “House Arrest”. Some gamers will bring the dice to the game, but not let them out of the dice bag. The bad dice have to sit there listening to their other dice friends having fun and rolling merrily, while they sit in the dark. Other bad dice get out of the bag, but have to sit on the sidelines and WATCH the other dice frolicking around. (That’s really too cruel, I think. It reminds me of high school gym class, when I so often waited for the turn that never came. Sniffle. Sob. I’ll be okay in a minute.)

The worst things I’ve ever heard of people doing to poor unsuspecting dice are, a) putting them in the toilet (not flushing though), b) ejecting them into the atmosphere with a slingshot, and c) taking a blow torch to them. (This latter, as a dice lover, I regard as outright murder. “Someone call the cops, an innocent die is dying!” The dice, in this case, actually were innocent, and not “bad dice” at all. They were sacrificed to the gods of luck in order to bring good fortune to a newly created character.)

Testing Dice:

I’m not talking about Chi Squared tests here. That’s for another article.

I’m talking about testing the loyalty, balance and general luckiness of dice through such highly rigorous methods as “dice stacking”. During a lull in the game, stack up your dice on top of one another. If any fall off the stack they are obviously not very loyal to you, making you look foolish like that… so don’t use them any more that night.

If any fall off the stack and land on really good numbers, well, that’s different. Maybe they are going out of their way to prove how lucky they are, and you should give them another chance. Kindness counts, I figure. (I’m not the murderous type, as you know.) Call me soft, if you like, but I like my dice, and if I’m nice to them maybe theyll give me that natural 20 when I really need it!!

Thanks to Maddman, Rogan, Voz, Ashtal, Kyle, SolomonGrundy, Jangling Jack, Dr A, Bregh, LurkMonkey, Bagpuss, Keith, Rob, Jason, Kim, Cor, and Lawrence for input for this article.

Brigid Skelton is an illustrator and writer, and has helped to run the online store Advancing Hordes Dice and Miniatures at AdvancingHordes.com AdvancingHordes.com since 2003. Advancing Hordes specializes in unusual Polyhedral dice and fine miniatures from around the world. They carry dice with 3 to 100 sides, handmade dice, stone and metal dice in a myriad of shapes and sizes.

It is a common problem. Your have captured some adorable photographs of your new baby boy and can’t wait to show them off to your friends and family only to be disappointed, when you look at them on your computer or pick them up from the photo lab, by the terrible red eye. Your precious child looks like a demon or something from a scary movie. This problem is commonly referred to as “red eye.”

Red eye is caused by the light from camera’s flash reflecting off of the retina in the back of the eye. In low light conditions the iris of the eye is larger providing for a larger surface to appear red in your photos. Unfortunately, it is in low light conditions that a flash is needed the most.

Red is becoming more and more of a problem and this is partly due to the emergence of digital photo technology. Since digital cameras do not need the same internal mechanics or space for film they are becoming smaller and smaller compared to their film counterparts. This means that the flash is much closer to the lens. In fact, in most new point and shoot digital cameras the flash is directly above the lens. This is the problem. When the flash is closer to the lens it causes the flash to enter the iris directly and reflect straight back to the camera causing the terrible red eye that has ruined your family pictures.

Most digital cameras have a red eye reduction feature built in which causes a pre flash immediately before the camera exposes the image. This causes the iris to become smaller for the actual picture. Unfortunately, this function rarely completely eliminates red eye from your photographs. Since most point and shoot digital cameras do not have a hot shoe allowing the photographer to add a flash away from the camera the only option for eliminating red eye is to fix it after the fact.

This is where Adobe Photoshop comes in. Photoshop makes it easy to correct even the worst cases of red eye in photographs. Are you concerned that Photoshop is too complicated or difficult to learn? Don’t be. Even someone with no experience at all can quickly and easily learn to fix red eye like a pro using Adobe Photoshop.

Master The Basics Of Adobe Photoshop In Under 2 Hours With Easy To Follow Online Photoshop Video Tutorials. Full Details Here: learnphotoshopnow.com learnphotoshopnow.com

Most audio files, from MP3s to tracks on a Compact Disc, contain textual metadata. This metadata contains information such as song title, album name and the compression rate. I say most because some songs that were ripped by an amateur may not contain this information. If you downloaded the song free over the Internet using Kazaa or the alike, it may not contain this important metadata. On the other hand, if you downloaded the song from a service such as the iTunes Music Store then you’re guaranteed this metadata.

Metadata is not a necessity to play your MP3 collection but it’s a nice addition to have. Music players will read this metadata and display it (artist name, album, genre, etc.) when the song is played, rather than just displaying track number or file name. If you have MP3s that are missing metadata, you can easily add this information using a tag editor. A lot of PC music players come with such an editor but there are other alternatives out there.

If you rip your own MP3s from compact discs, or you’re simply interested in cleaning up your MP3 music collection, then you have several choices in obtaining accurate metadata for your audio files. CDDB (which stands for Compact Disc Database) is a database for software applications to look up CD (compact disc) information over the Internet. There are also great sites, such as www.freedb.org and musicbrainz.org, that make this a snap. I personally use MusicBrainz and I love it.

If you’re a MusicMatch Jukebox fan, you can not only add metadata to your MP3s but you also can add album covers and even song lyrics. There are now Web sites dedicated to album cover images, such as slothradio.com/covers/ and cdcovers.cc/. As for song lyrics, there are hundreds, if not thousands of sites offering song lyrics – simply Google it.

If you’re interested in an all-in-one package, including a player, tag editor and converter, check out MediaMonkey at mediamonkey.com. The free version comes fully loaded and ready to get your music collection in order.

In conclusion, be sure to include this metadata when converting your MP3s in preparation of burning the audio files to compact disc. In some audio converters this is not always set as a default but as an option, such as with the DBPower AMP music converter.

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For more information on MP3s, visit theMP3plug.com theMP3plug.com.

Blake Daniels is the author and creator of theMP3plug.com theMP3plug.com.

I divide human into two complete different categories: “commoner” and “philosopher.” Why philosopher retains the highest social status? And not commoner? Why some commoners never want to be philosophers? This article would serve as an introduction to philosophical studies.

There is only one element that makes anyone a philosopher or a commoner. This element is that “the commoner never wants to reach the goal”, but “philosopher’s vision is the goal.”

Why commoner never wants to reach the goal? Imagine you are eating very delicious food in a posh restaurant. The goal of eating is to be full, but you never want to reach this goal, right? As you eat, you always want to retain your appetite and be hungrier, so you can carry on eating and enjoying yourself in that restaurant.

The second example is “sexual intercourse.” As you are having sex, you never want to reach the goal. I know that this example seems disgusting to some of you, but to make you deeply understand, I have to pick a very practical example.

According to the above-addressed two examples, commoner values daily funds: eating, having sex, comfort and other worldly cares and always want to remain the status quo. But they do not know or want to reach the goals of those worldly cares. “Indulging with daily, worldly cares make us commoner.” Philosopher does walk on a very different path: reaching the goal as the result from what they are devoting for.

Philosopher always wants to reach the goal. Martin Luther King strives for equal opportunities and civil rights for Black Americans was not daily comforts or worldly cares for him. What he desires for is not to keep on doing this everyday, but he just wants to reach the goal: equal rights and opportunities for Black Americans.

Second example is that reading Law is not the goal or that a Law student wants to keep on reading, but successfully defense dissertation and consequently eligible for Doctoral degree is the only goal. To say the truth, Law student never wants to read, but the commoner always want to be hungry for food or sex and never wants to reach the goal which is to be full and the last stage of having sex. For philosopher, having attained the truth and Doctoral degree is the gold.

To wrap up, philosopher and commoner are the two different kinds of people. The commoner always want to do the worldly cares (eating, drinking, sleeping, and having sex) and never want to reach the goals of these worldly cares. Philosopher, on the other hands, never enjoy worldly cares (reading, research or dissertation-defense), but what he/she desires for the most is “the goal.”

So decide what category you want to stand to; philosopher or commoner? Take philosophical approaches if you want to be a philosopher and take commoner’s approach if you want to be a commoner.

Lay Vicheka is a translator for the most celebrated translation agency in the Kingdom of Cambodia, Pyramid Translation Co.Ltd.. He is now hoding other two professions: freelance writer for Search Newspaper; focusing on social issues and students’ issues and Media Liaison Officer for Asia’s first free on-line IELTS consultation website. Lay Vicheka is the expert author for ezine and prolific article contributor to other websites around the world such as articlecity, 365articles, spiderden, talesofasia, etc (Just google him). He is also a volunteer Cambodian-newspapers columnist (Rasmey Kampuchea and Kampuchea Thmey). Lay Vicheka has great experience in law and politics, as he used to be legal and English-language assistant to a Cambodian member of parliament, migration experience (home-based business) and in writing. He is also member of a New York-based research company. Posting address: 221H Street 93, Tuol Sangke quarter, Russey Keo district, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Tel: 855 11 268 445, mailto:vichekalay@yahoo.com vichekalay@yahoo.com

An ukulele is very effective for strumming chords to songs. You can also use this instrument to play melodies. Let’s learn a melody with ukulele tab and without sheet music!

Here is the first verse and refrain of Yankee Doodle, as often sung today:

Yankee Doodle went to town
A-Riding on a pony
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called it macaroni

Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle dandy
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy

Well, it’s time for you to pick up your ukulele and play this melodi!

Here is the first line of lyrics and corresponding melody with ukulele tab:

Yankee Doodle went to town

0/1 0/1 2/1 4/1 0/1 4/1 2/1

Now I guess you ask: What does the numbers and slashes mean?

This is a special form of ukulele tab notation with numbers that indicate what fret to press down and what string.

4/1 for example means: Press down fret 4 on string 1. Number 0 means that you play on a string without pressing down a fret. This is also called an open string.

On my site you will find a more common ukulele tab notation with staffs but the notation I use here works better on article sites.

I hope you understand my ukulele tab notation now so here is the next part of the melody:

A-Riding on a pony

0/2 0/1 0/1 2/1 4/1 0/1 4/2

You can use your right hand thumb to play the strings or alternate between your right hand index and middle finger or thumb and index.

Time for the next line:

Mind the music and the step

0/1 0/1 2/1 4/1 5/1 4/1 2/1

One more ukulele tab to go for the verse:

And called it macaroni

0/1 4/2 0/2 2/2 4/2 0/1 0/1

What about your left hand?

If you want to you can play the melody using a professional fingering like this:

Press down the notes on the first fret with your index finger, the second fret with your middle finger, third fret with your ring finger and fourth and fifth fret with your pinky.

Maybe a little bit tricky at first but when you get used to it you will find that it is much easier to play this way!

Now when you know how to read this ukulele tab notation I will give you the refrain in one chunk:

Yankee Doodle, keep it up

2/2 4/2 2/2 0/2 2/2 4/2 0/1

Yankee Doodle dandy

0/2 2/2 0/2 2/3 1/3 0/2

Mind the music and the step

2/2 4/2 2/2 0/2 2/2 4/2 0/1

And with the girls be handy

2/2 0/2 0/1 4/2 2/1 0/1 0/1

This is the melody and here are the chords your ukulele playing friend can use assuming that you use C tuning on your soprano. That means that the third string is tuned to C and the first string to A:

A major: 2/4 1/3 0/2 0/1

D major: 2/4 2/3 2/2 0/1

E7: 1/4 2/3 0/2 2/1

And the chord changes:

verse:
A / / / A / E7 /

A / / / A / E7 /

A / / / D / / /

E7 / / / A / / /

refrain:
D / / / D / / /

A / / / A / / /

D / / / D / / /

A / E7 / A / / /

Peter Edvinsson at Capotasto Music invites you to download your capotastomusic.com free ukulele sheet music, ukulele tabs, ebooks, music lessons and read his capotastomusic.blogspot.com music blog at capotastomusic.com capotastomusic.com

Meet the Fockers – 3 Stars (Good)

Meet the Fockers is the best comedy I have seen in a long time. It was not overdone and not underdone.

This movie could have been easily over-the-top with its descriptive title, but there is no hint of it in the presentation. The Motion Picture Association of America was not going to allow the title to be used unless the producers could find an actual family with the surname “Focker” in North America.

Focker is not exactly the best choice of a name to be called the rest of your life. Meet the Fockers was a sequel to Meet the Parents, which raised the question “what sort of people name their son Gaylord M. Focker (Greg Focker’s full name)?

Despite the easy shots this film could fetch in name alone, Director Jay Roach and Writers Grey Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke (characters), Jim Herzfeld and Marc Hyman (story) and Herzfeld and John Hamburg (screenplay) kept the name calling in check. I think they did an incredible job and the PG-13 rating speaks volumes.

A believable story line and an all-star cast with former Oscar-winners Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand (yes, Streisand won as Best Actress in Funny Girl) gave this comedy a real boost of professionalism.

By reducing Ben Stiller to a lesser role and playing up the acting and timing talents of Hoffman and De Niro, this movie is so much better than the first that there can be no comparison between the two.

Meet the Fockers may well be the first sequel to a movie that is better than the original, and that is saying something in Hollywood.

The reason is De Niro (as Jack Byrnes, father of the bride), Hoffman (as Bernie Focker, father of the groom) and Streisand (as Rozalin Focker, mother of the groom) are believable. I have known people very similar to the roles they are playing.

I have yet to see a movie with Ben Stiller (as Greg Focker) in which I thought he was believable. I have never known anyone like Stiller’s character. Adding De Niro, Hoffman and Streisand makes this movie talent rich.

I highly recommend this movie for its straight comedy in a very human situation, parents of the bride and groom who are polar opposites meeting for the first time. Having said that, I do not think this is a good movie for youngsters.

This film does not revel in the filth, sex and drug culture as some comedies do, but who wants to answer pertinent questions from youngsters when trying to be entertained? Finding Nemo is a more appropriate film for youngsters.

Everyone seemed to enjoy making this movie and I enjoyed watching it.

Meet the Fockers was short on awards but not short on humor. As is often the case, it generated $279 million at the U. S. box office and a staggering $515 million (as in half billion) worldwide. Not a bad payday by any measure.

Most critics gave Meet the Fockers an average pass while noting that Meet the Parents was much better. I saw it as just the opposite.

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley

Ed Bagley is the Author of Ed Bagley’s Blog, which he Publishes Daily with Fresh, Original Articles on Internet Marketing, Jobs and Careers, Movie Reviews, Sports and Recreation, and Lessons in Life intended to Delight, Inform, Educate and Motivate Readers. Visit Ed at . . .
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Are you ready to win money playing an online poker tournament? Advancing to the money in one of these multi-person tournaments takes some luck but the right strategy can help you to overcome the challenge of trying to win one of these tournaments.

First, start off by playing a low entry-fee tournament. One-dollar and five-dollar entry fees are the way to go if you are first beginning. Don’t be intimidated by the amount of entrants in these tournaments. About 10-15% of these people are just in it to try and get lucky. Don’t fall victim to their early raises or perhaps all-in bets. In the early stages of the tournament, don’t try and cash in on a good hand right away. Some idiot will call your pocket aces with a seven three and beat you with two pair. Simply call and only bet if you know you can’t be beat. Many players will go out early and it is critical that you just survive and pick up a few chips along the way.

This strategy will enable you to move on to the second stage of the tournament. By now, half of the players are gone and you can try to build your chip stack now. Start playing more aggressively and beware of players with bigger stacks trying to push you around. If you have a good hand, don’t be afraid to play it. Now is the time to put yourself in position for the final run and get yourself in position for the money.

If you are lucky enough to make it to the end, the pressure will build drastically. By this time in the tournament, some players are weakening and just waiting for the hand to go all-in on. Stay focused mentally and think about the odds carefully before playing your hand. Try slow-playing that killer hand and trap your opponent into thinking that you have nothing. Chances are he will think you are bluffing and you can bury him.

Finally, don’t get frustrated if you don’t make it very far into your first few tournaments. Work on developing your skills and becoming a good tournament poker player. Stick to your strategy even if you lose a couple of good hands. Chances are, your patience will pay off in the end and you can happily accept your prize money with a feeling of great satisfaction.

Tonni Taggert is an experienced online poker player, and publishes online-poker-secrets.com Online Poker Secrets. She also operates texas-holdem-talk.com Texas Holdem Talk and the-poker-forums.com The Poker Forums.