Back in August I turned on my tv, and the show "Forged in Fire" was on. Three contestants were standing before the judges, and one of them - a guy with red hair and brown eyes - looked vaguely familiar to me. I thought something about him looked like someone I knew, but I couldn't figure out why. I thought maybe he looked a bit like my high school civics teacher and maybe that's why he looked familiar.

Then later on that week, my father came home from my grandmother's house, and said that his cousin's son - who's does blacksmithing - was just on some Forged in Fire and won the championship and got $10,000. My father's cousin had actually called my uncle before the episode aired and told him about it, which is how my father later found out about that. So I looked and found the episode of the show on History's website, and it had the schedule for when that episode's reruns would air. It was the second last episode of the show, I think. Anyway we watched the rerun, and it was really him. So no wonder the guy looked familiar to me: he's a distant relative.

Another year another July 4, and the summer's going by too dang fast! Well, today is Independence Day in the U.S. The day where we enjoy fireworks and barbecues in order to celebrate our independence from those wig-wearing, funny-talking Brits and their tax grubbing hands and our important rights and freedoms like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or as Locke would say "property") as well as freedoms of religion, speech, the press, and of course the right to bear arms (yeehaw!)

Because what's more American than fireworks and freedoms? Maybe Picking?

God Bless America!

Happy Memorial Day Guys! This past weekend I ended up watching two patriotic/war movies: American Sniper and Lone Survivor. Good movies.

And tonight Texas Rising airs! Yeehaw! Don't Mess with Texas and Don't Mess with America!

I have been meaning to write this blog for a while, but I have kept forgetting or not getting around to it and now I am more than a month late! Oh well, better late then never. This April 6, the day after Easter, was my 25th birthday. From what I understand historians usually use the term "generation" to refer to those born in a twenty-five year period (biologically a generation would be a a different group in a family descent, so grandparents would be one generation, parents, aunts and uncles another, and their children another generation, but on a society-wide scale this does not work so 25 years is usually the time period given to define a generation). So now I am a generation old, and the people being born today constitute a whole new generation.

A couple days, late but better late than never.

Happy Easter folks!

It doesn't seem like it, but today is Christmas Eve. Tomorrow is of course Christmas, and this year the government of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan has proclaimed Christmas to be an official holiday.

Of course it is only appropriate here to post a picture of a Christmas tree. Here's a nice one I found on Google images:

What a nice set-up, so cozy-looking.

And, and as has been my blog tradition in recent years, the song of the day is: Here Comes Santa Claus. And if you want to know where he is, you can track him here, as of the time of this writing he is in Banja Luka in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And because it's Christmas Eve, why post just one carol when I can post two. Here is O Holy Night performed by Josh Groban, the first video I found when looking for that song.

Today is Thanksgiving no doubt many chubby people's (and some skinny people's as well) favorite holiday. What makes Thanksgiving even more fun is that it leads up to Christmas and usually within a few days of Thanksgiving people start putting up their Christmas trees and lights and other decorations.

On Thanksgiving people have parades and eat turkey and stuffing and ma'dadas (mashed potatoes for you proper English speaking folk) and cranberry sauce and all kinds of stuff (chips, sangwiches, mentos, skittles, all kinds of delectables, oh wait those things aren't Thanksgiving, they're at the beach).

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving, you jive turkeys!

P.S. If you want to try a different recipe for your turkey next year consider this turkey recipe that uses maple syrup to brine the turkey.

So I just beat Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition today (on normal difficulty). I had been playing it since last summer (after I beat Halo:Reach) so it's good to have finally beaten it. I decided while playing Reach that I would try to go through and beat all my Halo games in order, so that I could follow the storyline. So after Reach I started playing Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition, I planned on re-beating Halo 3 (Halo 2 is not available for Xbox 360) and then playing Halo 4. However I have decided to take a break from Halo and instead play Grand Theft Auto V next (I may play Halo 3 on the side). My Cousin has GTA V and has been talking about it for a while, he says its his favorite game (he already beat the game now).

Halo was a pretty fun game to play. It's got ten levels which probably take about 2 to 3 hours each to beat. It took me a year to beat the game because I had long stretches of time when I didn't play the game because I was busy. The game is a remake of the original Halo game made on its tenth anniversary. The Anniversary Edition has new graphics, but you can push the select button to see the old graphics. It's kind of cool to see. Amazing how well the graphics have improved in 10 years, the old graphics remind me of a computer game like Minecraft (they old graphics are also a bit darker and harder to see). Sometimes the newer graphics include newer features that aren't shown in the old graphics (for example in one level that takes place at night you can see the moon - a full moon - in the new graphics but not in the old graphics).

Well, it's that time of year again: Independence Day. Today is a day that we here in America celebrate our Independence and our freedoms. And speaking of our freedoms, earlier this week the Supreme Court issued a land-mark ruling defending "our first, most cherished freedom" (i.e. the freedom of religion) against the Obama Administration. The ruling on the Hobby Lobby case ensured that Americans do not forfeit this freedom when they decide to open a business. As Thomas Jefferson once said: "No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority." That's one of the things that makes America great, the fact that individuals who feel their rights are being impinged upon by the government can go to the courts and get a fair trial and maybe even a favorable judgment from the court. In many other countries that is not the case; the courts there do what the government wants.

Now there are many traditional ways in which Americans celebrate the Fourth of July: The most obvious way is fireworks. Many cities and towns have their annual firework displays, and people usually shoot off their own fireworks (not all of which are legal for them to use) at their family gatherings. The other way is to have family get-togethers and usually eat picnic foods such as burgers and hot-dogs and various kinds of BBQ food (though today it seems at our family gathering, we'll be having steak and lobster, and my dad is making clams. It's not really the traditional Fourth of July Food, I think the steak and lobster was my cousin's idea).

So enjoy the food and the fireworks. And speaking of fireworks, here's a funny video involving fireworks.

Happy Fourth of July!

Although it doesn't really feel like it, today is Christmas! It seems like it came fast this year.

Merry Christmas!