Story of Glory - World of Warcraft Noobs Cruise

This is my favorite story of my days playing WoW and I recently submitted it to DLC with the hopes it'll be read on the air. Figured I should post it here as well.

When 5 of my college buddies and I decided to buy World of Warcraft and start a guild themed around the movie Point Break, safe to say we were ... impatient.

We all got to level 10 or 20 or so and decided it was time for our Horde guild to take it to the Alliance.

Keeping in mind we were on a PVP server, we somehow didn't die to any of the hundreds of level 30+ Alliance players between Orgrimmar and Stormwind and made our way to the dock - the dock for the Alliance.

Still don't know how we all made our way here without dying.

We snuck our way onto the Alliance ship that departs from the Alliance friendly dock and eventually lands in a neutral spot on the Horde side.

We literally hid from the NPC guards until the ship departed and then, since we couldn't attack the Alliance players on the boat right away, we'd "befriend them" by dancing and doing other things. The Alliance players, while confused, would always end up dancing too and "hanging out" with us.

Then, the loading screen would appear. And the Noobs Cruise began. Me and the guildies (Johnny Utah, Angelo Pappas and the like) would take advantage of our PVP server and massacre our new Alliance friends on their own ship.

For non WoW players, the loading screen represented the programmed transition from the Alliance friendly side of the game to a neutral PVP zone. That is, the transition from us not being allowed to attack Alliance players over to ... game on.

We made 3 or 4 laps that night and massacred a dozen or so confused Alliance players who never knew they had set sail on ... the Noobs Cruise.

Grommet napping in the cabin waiting for the cruise to begin.

Horns on Jam by Michael Jackson vs. Horns on Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars

Not that I'm upset about Bruno Mars attempting to make this kind of music popular again, but hard to deny the similarities in the horns.

Jam by Michael Jackson (4 minute 50 second mark)

Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars (1 minute 16 second mark)

It ain't too much for me to funk you up ... if you will.

The best Tom (Thomas Jackson) Cruise movies

So Rolling Stone put out this list: http://bit.ly/bestTJmovies

We could go back and forth about the specific rankings for a long time, but the top 10 seems pretty easy to lay out, right? These are objectively the "classic" Cruise movies that also came along with some critical acclaim and are generally liked by the public.

How is this not the top 10 (in no particular order)?

Jerry Maguire
Rain Man
Top Gun
M:I 1
Color of Money
A Few Good Men
Collateral
Risky Business
Born on The 4th of July
Magnolia

And my personal top 10 (make that 11) would be:

Jerry Maguire
Rain Man
Top Gun
M:I 3
Oblivion
A Few Good Men
Collateral
Vanilla Sky
Minority Report
War of The Worlds
Days of Thunder

Lip Sync Battle. For your consideration, Jimmy Fallon.

The video below (along with this one) has been our most watched YouTube item in months. It's just all so good. And all hail Jo Go-Lev.



And repeated viewings of that video inspired the one below. Pardon my language but I had to at least try to do The D proud.


Lip sync battle. For your consideration, Jimmy Fallon. from Luke Johnson on Vimeo.

How to rule on every NFL challenge in 60 seconds

I was just watching Monday Night Football and there was a pass in the backfield from Michael Vick to LeSean McCoy that was batted down by a defensive lineman.  Everyone gave up on the play except for 2 Redskins who picked up what they thought was a fumble (backwards pass) and then did the slowest 90 yard run for a touchdown ever.

Chip Kelly challenged the ruling on the field of a backward pass.

ESPN then showed the replay 3 or 4 times.  Then they cut to commercial.  They came back from commercial and showed the replay SIX MORE TIMES!

The refs still weren't done with their official review.  How is this possible?

I looked up the rules for review here and this is what it says:

See that highlighted part? It says the play on the field will stand UNLESS there is indisputable visual evidence that the call should be reversed.  Do you know how easy this makes things?  This means there is no other way to handle a review other than this:

You're welcome, NFL.

Please Hold

I've been getting this interaction a lot lately when calling places with operators ...

Person: "Hello, how may I direct your call?"
Me: "[Extremely clear answer where I also indicate who I am and why I'm calling]"
Person: "Okay ... please hold."
Me: "Okay."
[Hold music]

[Comes back.]
Person: "I'm sorry, this is my first day. Please continue to hold."
Me: "Okay."
[Hold Music]

[Comes back.]
Person: "Please continue to hold."
Me: "Okay."
[Hold Music]

[Comes back.]
Person: "How can I direct your call?"
Me: "I was already on hold waiting for [so and so]."
Person: "Please hold."
Me: "Okay."
[Hold Music]

[Comes back.]
Person: "Please continue to hold."
Me: "Yeah, I was holding. I figured that's what the hold music was meant to do ... have me continue to hold. Count me in for some more holding!"
[Hold Music]

[Comes back.]
Person: "Please hold."
Me: "Thank God you came back. In the last 15 seconds since I heard your voice, I was beginning to wonder if that hold music was trying to insinuate that I should hang up ... or worse."
[Hold Music]

[Comes back.]
Person: "Continue to hold."
Me: "Look. It's getting bad out here in Hold Land. Is the sun still shining where you are? Is there food? And laughter?"
[Hold Music]

[Comes back.]
Person: "Okay, here's [who you asked to speak to.]"
Me: "Chaos. Reigns."
[Phone clicks.]
Person: "Hi, Luke."
Me: "Oh, hey, Tom! Listen. About those TPS reports ..."

All I'm saying is ... I already agreed to hold. I don't care if it's your first day and I don't need all the check ins. I'll hold. That's what speaker phones are for.

F You, Footloose Remake

Look.  I was already livid with the Footloose remake because ... it's a Footloose remake.  A film that spawned this scene (that Zach and I have repeatedly re-enacted on the streets of Aspen by the way):

Which in turn spawned this spoof:

... is clearly without reproach.

But then they did something absolutely horrific.  They stole the Friday Night Lights signature music and style for their preview:

That's it.  That's the last straw.  You've now treaded on 2 untouchable classics: Footloose and Friday Night Lights.  In the words of Coach Taylor ... You have a nice day.