“Fill the center of your mind so as to have your plot of land moistened and watered by fountains from the family estate.  Accordingly, he who reads [the Scriptures] much and also understands is filled; he who has been filled [like a cloud] sheds water upon others.” –Ambrose of Milan to Constantius

Reading the Bible is important.  Completing it is even more so.  Reading it regularly over the course of a lifetime is better than the first two scenarios.

Image © Daniel Hanna 2017

In the early church, there were many people who read the Bible regularly.  Among the more memorable examples, Aphrahat the Persian is reputed to have the read the Bible over 1,000 times in the course of his life.  John Chrysostom read and completed the epistles of Paul once a week.  Even as recently as the early 20^th Century, Abraam of Fayoum completed the entire Bible during the Great Lent every year.  These three men are saints.  They are saints not simply by virtue of their reading the Bible often; they are saints because of the transformation and renewing that the Bible had in their lives and because of how that transformation radiated to those around them and changed those people as well.  Even now, these people still teach us how to live, and this way of life comes through the teachings of the Scriptures.

When we look into the lives of those who read the Scriptures regularly such as the above three, we see that reading the Bible transformed these people immensely, and it can transform us as well.  Three ways the Bible transforms us is:

1. Reflection: How we view our lives and work

One time I was at a church convention, and I was talking to a person I met there who does not read the Bible.  During our discussion, I mentioned and explained the verse, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).  I explained how we do not seek our goals and then pray about them, but we pray first and let God guide our path.  This is one way of viewing our lives differently than those who do not access the Scriptures.  To be honest, I have never seen such interest in and receptivity to the Bible like I saw in this person.  He had never heard or understood the verse before.  At that point he began to experience the transformation and renewing that the Scriptures bring.  He began to view his life and work much differently than how he had been viewing it his whole life.

The above verse alone has changed people’s lives.  I read a story once about a man who lived in Abu-Dhabi in the 1980s, who was a Christian in name only.  His wife, however, was a faithful, practicing Christian.  He was successful, arrogant, and a smoker.  He never read the Bible.  Eventually, he began reading spiritual books that his wife gave him, and he came to the above verse.  As he prayed and became serious about his faith, he eventually found his character and habits changing; he became humble and dropped the smoking.

Then, he lost his job, and for 3 years he was unemployed, but this did not bother him.  Anybody else would have been in despair and frustration.  He rather saw it as an opportunity to grow in his faith through prayer and reading.  His reaction was due to the way prayer and the Scriptures had changed him.  In 1990, he received two job offers.

The Scriptures are a “sea… which has within it profound meanings and the mysterious depths of the Prophets.  Into this sea many rivers have entered.  Delightful and clear are these streams; the fountains are cool, springing up into life everlasting.” –Ambrose of Milan to Constantius

Image © Daniel Hanna 2017

Almost 60% of Americans pick up the Bible 4 times a year or less.  This statistic comes from a report conducted over a six year period by the American Bible Society.  In that report, however, 62% of Americans wanted to read the Bible more often.  Yet, only 17% of Americans read their Bibles on a regular basis.

These statistics become even more interesting when the majority of the American public thinks that if people read the Bible more often and let it inform their lives we would have a much better society.

Well, that begs the question, what is stopping Americans from reading the Bible?  The report does not answer those questions.

From what I have seen, it usually comes down to 3 obstacles, which can be quickly overcome if identified.

1. Developing a Plan (time, place, and length)

The problem today is we live in a culture that celebrates spontaneity and impulsiveness.  We do things when we feel like it.  However, if we wait on the impulse to read the Bible, then most of us will never read it regularly or even read it at all.  Instead of waiting for when we feel like it, we must develop a plan, a schedule, to read the Bible.  This plan must include the time of day, place, and length of text we will read from the Bible.

We can begin by looking at our schedules.  For some, the mornings are best; for others, their lunch breaks work better for them.  So, we could develop a plan like this:

“My pain may be the reason for somebody’s laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody’s pain.” –Charlie Chaplin

Cyberbullying has become such a large phenomenon in the past several years.  This has become especially true since tweens and teenagers have gotten their hands onto smartphones connected to the internet.

Often, I hear people talking about how they and their generation were bullied, and they ended up fine, and how today’s children need to build up some grit.

On the other side, I often hear the people who are cyberbullied, usually tweens and teenagers, explaining how upset they feel, and often times, how they feel like harming themselves or worse.

Cyberbullying is not simply a grit issue or an issue of self-esteem.  It is much more serious than that due to the nature of the bullying and how it is different from pre-digital bullying.

There are three ways cyberbullying is extremely different from the bullying that existed before the digital age, and these differences have somber ramifications for all involved.

1. Cyberbullying does not end when the school day is over

In pre-digital days, bullying usually occurred at schools or other places and ended when we left those places.  When significant time passed, we evenforgot the bullying that took place, and even the bullies.

The people who stare at screens

Think there they can find their dreams.

Young and old and dumb and wise

Thus ensnared with roving eyes

Are the ones who stare at screens.

Very few things irritate me as much as interruption.  This is especially true when I am talking about something important.  However, we now live in a world where constant interruptions reign.  Our phones flash or vibrate every few minutes with notifications; our smart watches flash with every new text message.  This is in addition to all the traditional forms of interruption like phones ringing, people knocking on our office doors, and our children calling for us while we are in the middle of a task.

While interruptions cannot be eliminated (and many should not be), we should limit some forms of interruptions because interruptions affect us in three ways.

1. Lowering the quality of work

In this Sydney Morning Herald article, Sarah Berry discusses “attention residue.”  This is a term to describe the effects of interruption and task switching on productivity.  The basic idea is if we are interrupted and switch tasks, then the quality of our work on the second task will be low.  It will also take several minutes to refocus to our optimum level.  Interruptions hurt our attention and our productivity.

2. Losing Flow and happiness

I have written in my article, “The Notification Went Off,” about Flow and how it helps us and actually contributes to our happiness.  In order for Flow to be achieved, we must be wholly focused upon the task we are engaged in, but interruptions break Flow.  So, interruptions will actually take a lot of our happiness from us.

3. Missing Life

Some of us have become enslaved to our notifications; we live for notifications, and we refresh our apps every few minutes to see what has happened in the last few minutes whether it is our social media apps, our news apps, or our fitness apps.

How can we solve this problem?

While we cannot (and should not) eliminate all forms of interruption from our lives, we should definitely limit the different types of interruption especially the unimportant ones.  I recently got a smartphone, and I have made sure to silence notifications, so they do not distract me as I am working, speaking, or simply living.  I choose when to look at my notifications, and I do not let them interrupt me.  It may be good for all of us to do so as well.  This way we will not miss out on life, beauty, serenity, and peace.

How often are you interrupted per day?  How many of those interruptions are unimportant?  Have you been able to limit the unimportant interruptions and keep them in your control?  How?

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” –Frederick Douglass

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.” –Kofi Annan

As a teacher of Language Arts and Reading, I see every day the effects of reading ability.  It is generally one of the best indicators for whether a child will enjoy school or not.  To be clear, if a child can read well, he or she will generally enjoy school; if a child cannot read well, then he or she will generally not enjoy school.  There are exceptions, however, but we should not look at the exceptions; we should look at the trends.

The problem with this trend is that as students go into the real world, reading ability becomes an indicator of success or of failure and trouble with the law.  According to this Huffington Post article, 70% of prisoners in America read below the ability of a 4^th grader.  This has led the Department of Justice to state, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.”

Picture © Daniel Hanna 2013

National research carried out in the 1990s and early 2000s showed that 14% of the population read at a below basic level, and a further 28% at a basic level, and that statistic had not improved in over 10 years.  Below basic is a technical term that means reading ability is limited to understanding basic sentences, signs, and instructions.  Basic means they can read very simple texts usually not higher than a 5^th grade reading level.

These numbers present a real problem because reading is the basis of our modern civilization.  All institutions in our civilization whether it is the church, schools, and work are based on reading.  With the church, reading is especially important because at the heart of the church is a book: the Bible.  If people cannot read, then they cannot participate in our civilization and are at risk of ending up in prison.  For that reason it becomes the moral duty of parents, teachers, and churches to educate the masses to read well.  Only when all three groups participate in helping children read will the state of reading ability in America change.

I have often been approached by parents who ask me how they can help their children become better readers, and I answer with the following five steps that I use in my classroom any time I have my students read an assigned text.  These steps are the result of research by many scholars and educators as to what produces effective readers.  It is also the process recommended by AVID, a national program that provides teachers and students with effective methods for instruction.  I also teach these five steps to my students so they can use these skills independently to become effective readers.

The following five steps of the reading process are used to help readers understand what they read:

1. Set a purpose for reading

The most important action one can do for any endeavor is to set a purpose.  The same is true for reading.  What is the purpose of a specific reading?  Is to learn about a subject?  Is to practice a skill such as identifying themes or comparing different views on the same subject?  A purpose must be set before one reads in order to read effectively.  Setting a purpose also helps readers process what they read carefully and meaningfully.

2. Background building and pre-reading activities

One time I had training at work that required me to leave the classroom, so I wrote lesson plans that included students reading an unfamiliar text with a substitute teacher.  I did this on purpose, so I could show students how important the reading process was.  I had not spent time in background building for students.  When I came back the next day, the majority of my students told me they had not understood the story they read.  They could not even remember more than a few details.  After I came back and built background with them, the students not only understood the story very well, but they also enjoyed it, and they scored high on an analytical essay they wrote on the story.  A simple building of background that took less than 20 minutes made the difference between the total darkness of not understanding and the light of comprehension and enjoyment.

3. Vocabulary building

It is extremely important for children to build their vocabulary as they grow as readers.  Without expanding their vocabularies, children cannot grow as readers (or as thinkers).  One way parents can help their children here is simply by reading to them.  The child can hear how the word is pronounced, used, and ask his or her parent what the word means and receive an answer.  When a child asks about the meaning of a word, then he or she is less likely to forget the meaning of that word because it was out of interest that the child asked.  What people are interested in understanding, they hardly forget.

4. Interaction with the text

Just as we do not understand how things work in the world unless we interact with the world, we also cannot understand texts unless we interact with them.  In a family this can be as simple as asking your children what they read about, and their thinking back about the text will make them better readers especially if this becomes a routine at home.  In schools, comprehension questions help students process and integrate the details and ideas they read about.  So next time we want our children to comprehend what they read whether we are parents or teachers, then we should prompt them in some way to reflect on what they read whether they are verbal questions or written ones.  This helps students process what they read, and processing leads to understanding.

5. Extending beyond the text

The ultimate goal of reading is to extend beyond what we read and make connections to ourselves, ideas, and the world.  How this is to be done can take a variety of forms.  In a family, this can be a discussion during dinner about what your children read.  It will prompt them like interaction with the text to process what they read.  After you determine comprehension, then ask about connections.  Ask them if they have read something similar, or whether a character in a story was similar to another one, or how what they read is different from something else they have read or seen.  Teachers give these same types of prompts in class to help students integrate what they read.

I cannot exhaustively stress and talk about how important reading is; I could take all day.

If we as parents, teachers, and churches do not teach our children how to read effectively, (and give them adequate practice doing so) then we are effectively denying them the ability to participate in our modern civilization and the chance to be successful, happy, and free.

The first time I consciously watched the Olympic Games was in 1996. I remember the opening ceremony, and the hype around all the exceptional athletic feats. I was still too young to appreciate the Olympics and what they meant. As the Olympiads went by, and I watched more in Nagano, Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens, Torino, Beijing, Vancouver, London, Sochi, and today’s Rio de Janeiro, I began to realize something. The Olympics are the only event in which the world forgets its divisions. Instead, the focus is on humanity itself.

Picture © Rebecca Siegel, “Tiki,” 2013

There are so many divisions right now in the world whether it is between countries, political parties, states, neighborhoods, churches, co-workers, and even within families. These divisions have resulted in widespread sadness, depression, and frustration. But, the Olympics are the only event in which the world forgets it divisions. Instead, nations march together into the Olympic stadium of whichever city is holding the games together. They march as equals.

As I watch athletes compete in many different sports, I am encouraged to see that regardless of the outcome of the competition, there are usually friendly gestures, handshakes, or even hugs between athletes. The focus is on the love of the sport, the extreme discipline that goes into one training his or her mind and body as well as his or her focus into executing his or her skills to the utmost of not only their ability but the ability of humanity itself. That is why we see most athletes approaching world records because they have pushed themselves to the actual potential of humanity itself. There is a type of fellowship in that: between athletes regardless whether they know each other or not, but for them to meet each other and compete together in the same competitions pushing themselves to the potential of humanity itself, that is a beautiful sight to see. That is a type of unity among humanity.

There are several athletes I have particularly enjoyed watching over the years like Michael Phelps, Apolo Anton Ohno, Usain Bolt, and Shaun White. In the cases of Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, I have enjoyed watching repeat performances in which we relive the same hype, excitement, and awe of human discipline, ability, and performance. It is also interesting to see the personalities of these athletes and to get into the minds of people who have so disciplined and trained their bodies to reach these levels of performance. It also reminds us that they are humans like us, and that reminder builds a hope in us that we can one day do the same.

When it comes to the character of the athletes, I find that the best performing athletes tend to be balanced by being focused and disciplined to an extreme degree when it comes to their sports but being laid back and positive when it comes to dealing with others. It shows us that we do not have to either be grievously serious all the time nor laid back all the time, but that striking the balance allows us to reach our potentials, and also allows us to be happy.

The fellowship, unity, balance, and hope that the Olympics give us a chance to see in humanity shows that in the depths of each and every one of us, a pattern emerges. It shows that regardless of what our backgrounds are, where we are from, what languages we speak, what educations we have, or even what ideas we hold fast to, we are all reflecting a deeper reality. It’s a theological one. We bear the Image of a magnificent and majestic God who has created us with the ability to think and to discipline ourselves and push ourselves beyond what we think is possible. We are self-aware, and we are oriented toward perfection by training ourselves. That’s what the world is missing, the training. But in the Olympics, it is so obvious because that is how one arrives to the Olympics.

What are your favorite Olympic memories? Who are your favorite athletes? What do you admire about them?

A life is like a structure; if it is balanced, good, and strong, then it lasts for a long time; if it is unbalanced, it falls and causes a disaster not only for itself but for all immediately around it.  This was a thought I had recently as I considered the lack of balance I see in most people around me.

In modern society, especially in America, competition at work, school, and in investments is at an all-time high, up to sickening levels, literally.  I was recently visiting relatives who live in a major metropolitan area where competition at work is high, and they voiced that reality to me: that competition is so high that people in that metropolis are becoming depressed or turning to drug usage for alleviation.

This brought to mind something I never forgot from the day I heard it.  It was at a convention I attended in 2010 about living a balanced life.  The speaker was H.G. Bishop Youssef of the Coptic Orthodox Christian Church of the Southern United States.  There he mentioned how to prioritize our lives around four categories.

The categories were:

1. Spiritual Life
2. Occupation
3. Service
4. Personal Endeavors.

It has stuck with me since, and I have generally tried to guide my life by what I learned at that convention because it has allowed me to live a life of balance.

If we live a balanced life, then six areas of our lives will be transformed.  If not, there will be negative consequences.

1. Family

The family is the most important unit in society.  If the family unit is generally strong and healthy, then every other part of society will be too.  Without a good family, good churches are impossible; good communities and good schools are impossible; and good character will be missing.  That will affect everyone and everything around us whether it is education, work, investments, or even the physical environment around us.  If the family is sacrificed in pursuit of more hours at work or more service in the community or your friends, then it is only a matter of time before everything else collapses.  This is generally what we see in the West as the family unit has weakened.

2. Faith

Our spiritual lives are the most important aspect of who we are.  What we believe about God, the universe, the world, our fellow humans and ourselves are the largest motivators and good restraints that we have.  We need to pay attention to going to church, reading the Bible, and receiving and following pastoral advice in our churches, not only for ourselves but for our families.  This will help our families, our work, and our individual selves grow.  It also usually helps much in helping us maintain balanced lives. Morals (including living a balanced life) can only be grounded through what we believe about God and our fellow humans and from the pastoral guidance we receive.

3. Work

Other than our homes, we spend most of our time at work.  Time does not equal impact nor does it equal effect.  Since we spend most of our time outside of our home at work, we cannot perform poorly at work.  We have to see our work as an extension of ourselves and our lives, and put in much effort and produce good results in our work.  We must put in our best, and we should seek opportunities to grow, build our knowledge, and refine our skills regularly.  Otherwise at the end of our careers we will have wasted our lives and those also of the people with whom we dealt closely in our jobs.

4. Service

If we want to live a life a balance, we cannot only live for our families and our jobs, but we must also give back to the community and serve.  This can be through services at your church, or volunteering at after school programs, or at local non-profit organizations.  Take, for example, former Olympian Kip Keino.  After he retired from his sport, he and his wife opened up an orphanage, which has nearly 100 orphans today.  Later on, he opened a school in a region of Kenya where there was no school.  It serves 300 children.  Then, he opened up an athletic training center for aspiring athletes to become skilled at their sports.  He was awarded the first Olympic Laurel for his philanthropy at the 2016 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in Rio de Janeiro.

5. Hobbies

We need to have hobbies; they are among the most powerful aspects that differentiate us from other people and highlight our uniqueness and character.  I have met people whose whole lives consisted of studying, examination, and working even when they were no longer students.  When I ask them what they do, they answer with working and taking more exams related to work.  That is not a life; that is a type of machine.  Not only do they lose their time, but they eventually lose themselves.  If this is the type of life we will lead, then it becomes highly unbalanced, and our families will suffer most.  Take up a hobby like art, music, reading, or sports.  This can then be shared with your family, church, or community and everyone will grow together.

6. Rest

In today’s society, sleep is seen as an obstacle to productivity; however, recent studies show how important rest is to productivity.  According to this Harvard University article, adequate sleep helps in focus, memory and retention of newly learned information and skills, mood, motivation, and judgment.  Don’t these characteristics drive productivity?  But, sleep often becomes an “obstacle” to our productivity.  That is why coffee, espresso shots, and energy drinks have become very popular; people use them to be more “productive.”  If you notice that no matter how much coffee or energy drinks you are taking, your productivity is not going up.  Please do yourself, your family, and everyone around you a favor and get some extra sleep.  It will go a long way not only to helping your productivity increase but to also helping you attain a balanced life.  At that point our families, churches, jobs, and communities will see strength and growth.

A building has pillars, supports, and just the right amount of tension to stay strong and balanced.  By paying attention to each of the above six areas of our lives, then our lives will be strong and balanced and also the lives of those immediately around us.  If we neglect one aspect or the other, then it is like a building losing a pillar or support; it may remain standing for a while, but there is no telling when it will come down.  You don’t want that to happen to you.

Do you have a balanced life?  What are the obstacles preventing you from attaining it?  Are you able to adjust certain aspects of your schedule in order to attain a balanced life?

Pokemon has always been popular.  I remembering watching the TV show when I was in 3^rd grade and playing the games from middle school onward.  The games have always been engaging and imaginative.  So, when last week a brand new Pokemon game came out being the first major Pokemon game released for mobile phones, I thought to myself sure it will be popular, but I did not expect this.

Within 24 hours, the game became the top downloaded free app in the Apple Store and Google Play Store surpassing all social media apps.  In the past week, according to USA Today, more than 21 million users have downloaded the game in the U.S. and use it daily.  According to Forbes, the game is set to overtake Twitter in the number of daily users.

In case you don’t know what the game is about.  It was conceived by a Japanese man named Satoshi Tajiri based on his childhood experiences of going out in rural Tokyo in the late 1960s and early 1970s (when there were still areas that were rural) and catching bugs and collecting them.  As Tokyo became more urbanized, he realized that his childhood hobby would never be experienced by others in the way he had.  This led him to create the Pokemon video games in which the player assumes the role of a character that moves in a virtual world made up of cities, forests, and deserts, and catches creatures called Pokemon and uses them to battle other people’s Pokemon for sport.

I took a walk in the park last week, two days after the game came out, and I saw at least 30, maybe up to 50, people playing the game in the early afternoon all totally focused on their phone screens.  Later that evening, I saw two cars come in to my church (because it is designated as a gym, as many churches automatically are, for people to battle others’ Pokemon), and I found out they were playing Pokemon Go.  As I was driving home, I saw the same park almost totally packed with cars after dark.   This park is never crowded at night.  Yesterday, I saw at least 500 people walking in the park in the evening all staring at their phones, no doubt playing Pokemon Go.

With the advent of this game, there are positives and negatives.  However, the negatives outweigh the positives.

Positive # 1: Getting people to go outside

I saw a meme joking that what Michelle Obama tried to do in eight years which is getting people to become more active and go outside and walk, Nintendo did in 24 hours.  It’s true; I have not seen parks packed like this ever.  The first positive of the game Pokemon Go is that it has made people become more active, go outside, and actually be in the world.

Positive # 2: Keeping people away from social media

As mentioned above, people have been using Pokemon Go more than social media in the last several days.  For younger people especially, this is great.  Teenagers should not be using social media because of the complaints I as well as most of you have heard from countless teenagers and their parents about the type of treatment they see on social media.  Children are still forming an idea of how to interact with others, so the last thing we should do is give them more time interacting with each other and without supervision too.  I think social media requires a grown-up mindset in which people do not mistreat each other.  So, this is the second positive from Pokemon Go, which is that people spend less time on social media.

Positive # 3: Beginning to create a community

What I noticed while walking at the park last Saturday was that people were interacting in real life over the game, and in a sense they began creating a community over the game.  However, this type of interaction leads to several of the negatives described below.

Negative # 1: Loss of placefulness for a virtual world

I have written about the importance of placefulness in another article, but while Pokemon Go gets people to go out into the real world and walk around, the reality is they are looking for and catching creatures that are not really there, so their preoccupation is over virtual reality and not reality.

Negative # 2: Distraction

The second negative and where the game begins to get dangerous is in the distractibility it poses for individuals.  I have seen people driving while playing the game.  I have seen people on bikes playing the game.  Forget the people running into others or walls or falling down and getting hurt silly or even beginning to walk on the crosswalk without looking to see if everyone has stopped to let them pass.  People can get seriously hurt because of this game.

Negative # 3: Strangers coming onto private property

On Saturday night of last week, I saw several people coming into my church’s parking lot, and on Sunday, and on Monday, and so on.  This is because my church, like countless other churches across the U.S., is designated as a gym in the game.  This means it is one of the few places people can use their Pokemon to battle.  This was done by the game’s producers and designers without any church’s consent, and the process to get it removed is tedious.  Churches are supposed to be places of familiarity, not places where 20-30 year-old strangers gather to play a child’s game.  Think of the things that can go foul.

Negative # 4: Talking to strangers

Like mentioned above, the game has encouraged people to talk to other players.  Just because a 27-year-old is playing Pokemon does not mean that person is a nice guy.  Also, just because nearly everyone you see now on their phones is playing Pokemon does not mean you should approach strangers and ask them if they are playing.  Take this story for example, a 21-year-old in Oregon was playing the game at the park at 1 o’clock in the morning when he saw someone on his phone.  He went up to the person and asked him if he was playing Pokemon Go, to which the guy answered “What?” and pulled out a knife and stabbed the 21-year-old.  In total disregard for himself, the 21-year-old continued playing Pokemon Go that night, and then went to the hospital where he got eight stitches.

Negative # 5: Wandering around to areas where you have not been before 

Satoshi Tajiri has always wanted to replicate his original experience of hunting and catching bugs in rural Tokyo in the 1960s and early 1970s.  Pokemon Go is the closest that any game has come to his original vision.  It encourages people to wander around to find Pokemon by showing them on their phone screens grass tossing up and down even if it is far.  So, people naturally walk to those areas to find Pokemon.  However, this is not 1960s Japan, and society is not as conservative as it once was.  Take this story, for example.  People were lured to a secluded area to find Pokemon only to find robbers with guns pointed at them.  The reason they were able to do this in the first place is because they placed a lure on one of the objects in the game called a Pokespot which indicates to players that there are a lot of Pokemon there.  The people got lured into a trap.

Overall, the negatives of Pokemon Go far outweigh the positives.  The game’s producers should not automatically make churches gyms for players to come and battle their Pokemon in, which takes away from the sanctity of churches, and turns every place just like every other place with no difference in value, which I discuss in my article, “Placefulness.”  People should be careful, and parents should be extremely cautious, and be the parents and tell their children “no” unless they are supervised by their parents.  If you want an alternative, play the Nintendo DS Pokemon games; they are much higher in quality and pose no risk to people playing them other than sitting long hours at the couch.

What are your experiences with the game Pokemon Go?  What funny things have you seen related to people playing the game?  What dangerous stories have you heard from people that are close to you related to the playing of this game?