Brandon, Barb & Maya too!

I always found this pretty fascinating. Back in 1924 a silent movie was made that received some very high reviews and is considered one of the better movies of the 1920's -- its title is "The Red Lily."

What is interesting about this movie is that two of the main characters were named Madame Charpied and Messieurs Charpied, a husband and wife played by Rosita Marstini and Sydney Franklin, respectively. Franklin was a highly respected actor, director and producer in the United States and Marstini was quite a Hollywood starlet of her own, for her acting and other news makings (such as murdering her fiance in order to steal the long lost crown jewels of a fallen Russian Czar...she was never convicted though).

IMDB.com lays out the movie as follows:

Jean and Marise, two young lovers, are forced from their homes by disapproving parents. To escape the oppression in their homes, the couple flees to Paris. When they arrive, Jean leaves Marise briefly to arrange their wedding when he is arrested for theft from his own father. The couple is irrevocably separated, and their lives deviate into the slums and hard labor of low-class French society. All the while, the two desperately search for their lost love.

A Paris-based silent film with the surname 'Charpied'? Sounds quite odd considering the Charpied's left the Alsace-Lorraine region in 1685 upon King Louis XIV of France authorizing the Edict of Fontainebleu which set out to destroy all French Huguenots and protestants.

Frederik Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, put forth the Edict of Potsdam in response...

To make a several hundred year long story short, the Charpied's were protestants and had to move to save their lives. They took up the offer from Frederik Wilhelm, which included land, money, labor, food and materials in Berlin for any French citizens that fell under the French "Sun King's" disgusting edict.

The Charpied's resided in Berlin until the early 1800's at which time they moved to Bonn, Germany. From Bonn, three brothers left for Hamburg to come to America -- Herman, Wilhelm and Johann Adolf. Upon reaching Hamburg in approximately 1900, Wilhelm and Johann Adolf (my direct relative -- and yes, Adolf WAS the family name...) came to the States while Herman remained in Hamburg not wanting to leave. Herman's son, also named Herman is the last remaining Charpied in all of Europe.

The point of this is that the Charpied's had not been anywhere near Paris in hundreds of years, making this name of French-origin an odd one to choose. And at this point in 1924 when the name was selected out of Hollywood, there were no Charpied's in California. It seems a bit more than a random coincidence considering that 1) there are only a handful of Charpied's in the world, and 2) through research it is thought that the name has altered over time anyway, being translated perhaps from a French/Latin-based root of "Carpete" to the German pronunciation that is now "Charpied".

Anyway -- here is a snippet from the movie that I found on Google Video. Enjoy!

On Saturday night, after months of speculation and anticipation, Zombies were finally found in Carolina Forest and proceeded to attack International Homeowner Celebrities, Juliet Wood and Matthieu ChanTsin. Barb Ritter, Yoav Wachsman and BT Charpied also were victims, but nobody really cared since they were never on TV. Yoav Wachsman arrived late because he thought he was a celebrity watching himself on Channel 13, but the rest of us know he was simply eating hummus and doing his disco disco dance.

Zombies were in the Mall, they were in the Town, they were in the Farm...Zombies were freaking everywhere! They even fell asleep in Piper's bed!

The games were a welcome addition our vast collective library of EuroGames that have become a hit within our little group of friends. Allegiances were formed, such as the mighty Parking Garage controlling "GOP" of Brandon & Matt, and the pathetic ass-kissing used by Mr. Disco Disco on Barb -- and allegiances were broken (go back to town square now, sucka!). All in all it was an excellent night with a lot of fun, a lot of laughs and a lot of lemon muffin tops.

After about 5-hours of Zombies it was finally time to call it a night...at which time we proceeded to attempt to dislodge Yoav's head from Barb's ass (which took about an hour, give or take a few).

Disco Disco Baby!

Oui Oui! It is true! The Frenchman won the pumpkin carving contest hands down this Halloween with a carving so good that it should quite honestly make him question whether he is in the right profession (which might just be the case with any more Coastal Carolina University budget cuts!).

The field was limited this year due to illness (the entire Keene clan had to pull out) and some no-shows. We also had some non-participants. Ken Small removed his pumpkin from competition after reading the 2008 amended rules that stated no financial equations allowed. His preparation of carving the infamous Hamada Equation thus went down the drain.

The Krupkas simply wished to keep their fingers in tact, so no carving for them...

Yoav was too busy working on his Dracula accent to get to his pumpkin...

Barbara was too busy answering the door for all the kiddies looking for goodies...

And Kay Keels couldn't find a pumpkin...so she stopped at the store to buy a Spaghetti Squash that ran her $10+; therefore, it was just too damn beautiful to cut open and gut.

This left two contestants: Brandon Taylor Charpied and Matthieu Chan Tsin -- which really wasn't much of a contest at all.

While Brandon was at a creative loss, the only thing he could come up with was creating a 'support sign' for Barack Obama to show his support:

It was tough finding an Obama-Biden sign, so this was the next best option.

Matt on the other hand wanted to do something to represent Coastal -- the Chanticleer. After the group laughed at him for a bit considering how detailed the logo is, Matt jumped on the laptop, found the logo and sketched out his creation.

If you aren't familiar with the Chanticleer logo, here it is:



And here is Matt's amazing creation:



You have to admit, that is damn impressive! Coastal would have paid someone to carve that at a University gathering. So, Matt was the winner hands down. His prize? Well, he received two prizes for this masterpiece -- 1) Hannah Montana crayons (a 3-pack no less!), and 2) Belly Dancing Music compact disc. The prizes just keep getting better and better every year!

We did have a new unexpected competition fall into our laps -- "Lost Children of the Stars"

Basically, what would happen if two stars got together to have a child?

Contestant #1 (Pink & Davis Love III)