722: The Lost Riddle

Well, hi there, everyone. I've been visiting some colleges during my break this week and it's starting to make me realize just how little time I have left until it's time to move on to a new stage in my life.

Well, Grover Cleveland, that was a rather dim way to kick off this review.

College hunting was also fun to check out different campuses and ask questions and do awkward things (like normal), but I had to do a lot of investigating this week. You might say in fact, as much investigating as EMILY AND MATTHEW DO IN TODAY'S REVIEW.

Oh, come on. Was that a great tie-in from real life to review or what? Just wait till the next review: Groundhog Jay. Haha, alright, let's get serious (not) and head into a Jones/Parker/Jacobs mystery.

THE ODYSSEY TIMES (Facts, notes, and quotes about Odyssey from this ep):
-I sympathize with group partners not doing their fair share.
-Emily grunts quite loudly when banging herself against her locker.
-As Ben Warren noticed, in all the years since the riddle has been in the locker, NO ONE HAS NOTICED IT? Hey eyedoctors, there's a great opening for you at Odyssey Optometry.
-"I have never been, am always to be; no one ever has, nor ever will be a witness to me. You cannot touch me or taste me, I neither grow nor decay; but if I did not exist, you would all pass today." - #riddlemethis
-Matthew and his wry comments on Emily's case-naming skills. Love 'em.
-Whit taught 25 years ago. My deduction is that if 25 years ago in the real world was 1987, and Whit was at Whit's End then, Odyssey time either runs slower, or this mystery happened over five years ago. I won't know until I review the other seven hundredish episodes I have left. That shouldn't take too long.
-Mrs. Mays w/ motorcycle is played by Mary Pat Gleason. I searched her up, and she's been in dozens, if not hundreds, of TV shows and movies, including Guiding Light, 1600 Penn, and The Island.
-I appreciate the sound design in the filing room, as I do with the rest of the show.
-"Dale Jacobs of the Odyssey Times? Dale Jacobs of the need for pimple cream." - Emily and Mrs. Mays
-THE SOUND OF DALE JACOB'S VOICE ON ODYSSEY ONCE AGAIN; IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE...oh wait, he was in The Labyrinth. Never mind, nothing to see here, carry on.
-Secret Codes 101: Put water on laminated cards and messages can appear as the ink outside of the card rubs off. When you put all the letters all together, it'll create groups of words. Then you put them all together into a simple message. Lemon juice can be used for invisible ink and can be viewed when you put heat on it.
-The Science of Secret Codes 101: The acid of the juice weakens the paper fibers.
-Whit tells Emily and Matthew "happy hunting" - inspiration for the name of the episode two eps prior?
-Kenny Rutherford writes the Big Jack Brannagan mystery series.
-From AIO Wiki: It is revealed that Whit was a teacher while Dale Jacobs was still in middle school over 25 years ago. As Whit stated that he that he was teaching part time this means that Whit was either in his 50s or 60s at the time putting Whit in his 70s or 80s now and putting Dale in his 40s or 50s now which would make sense taking into account Robyn and Melanie are living on their own.
-In addition to all of that, if Dale was in middle school 25 years ago, yet Robyn and Melanie were already preteens 25 years ago, the timeline gets screwed. The time paradox continues...
-"And I'm a big fan of your books, Mr. Rutherford! And I'm...her friend." - Emily and Matthew
-"With my guilt, I read into everything you did and didn't do." - Kenny Rutherford

REVIEW:
I've developed a special relationship with the Jones and Parker Detective Agency mysteries over the years. I enjoy reading them in Ally's Clubhouse, but the first time I was introduced to them was through Game for a Mystery. My, oh, my, have times have changed. While definitely disenchanted with the Agency at first, they've steadily improved from Stage Fright to The Case of the Missing Appleberry (name coined by me) to Something Old, Something New. This mystery continues off where Something established, which was to make us care about the case. Quite honestly, Barrett's voice was so irritating and annoying back in Album 51 that I didn't really care that he'd lost his video game. Emily hadn't been established long enough to make me want to care about her solving the ghost problem (that, and the fact that it was once again all a ploy by a reality TV show). But as the characters of Emily and Matthew have developed, I've started to care, and the writers have latched on to that whole "caring" notion by connecting Penny and Connie in their last case.

The Lost Riddle brings back Dale Jacobs to our ears to help Emily and Matthew solve this case, so we already have someone we know and love to care about, and since Emily has been made much more sympathetic and vulnerable with her character arc, we care about the crime-solvers as well. Since this case was about a riddle, there were elements of this case that the listener could try and solve for themselves, something that fans complained about back when Game for a Mystery first came out.

I must admit that I was one of the fans who complained that Odyssey had once again ripped off a past show, in this case, Buried Sin. But after relistening to the show for the review, I had to slightly retract that thought. The idea, skeleton, and structure for the show were similar, but it was the tone that was different; I guess you could say that this was slightly more comedic. Nonetheless, I'm still disappointed that Odyssey has to resort to recycling old ideas after steadily coming up with new material for 20 years, but hey, that's another article for another day.

The music and sound effects sounded even better when I listened via headphones. The scenes really came alive, especially in the aforementioned filing room scene with Mrs. Mays. The tie-in with Jay fit, and not only was a case solved, but a lesson was learned by the case solvers.

The Lost Riddle takes an old Odyssey idea and adds some new elements that work, with excellent production design, although it lacked some originality. Nonetheless (and partly in thanks to the very presence of Dale Jacobs), I give it a 89/100, or a

B+

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Buy this episode and 11 others on Album 56: The Grand Design via CBD
Talk about this episode and a bunch of other Odyssey stuff over at Campbell County

Kelly Washington, Day Trader

Happy Valentine's Day/President's Day everybody! Great time to fix that Odyssey fix with great stuff like "The Last I Do" and "Lincoln," among others. The Oscars are also right around the corner, so since I'm in award season mood, I'll discuss the results of the latest Averys soon. 

THAT CANDID KONVERSATIONS UPDATE: So, here's the thing. Our one holdup is recording our theme song, and since we have to drive somewhere to get access to one of the instruments, that's why we're having this delay. I'm somewhat (haha, not somewhat) of a perfectionist, and since I can't have this, I HAVE to have to try as best as I can to make it the best it can be. After that, it's simply a long list of technical steps to put it on a feed and on iTunes and we're there!

I read an article this morning about a 16-year-old named Rachel Fox (Kelly Washington, that one girl from Passages: Darien's Rise) WHO IS A DAY TRADER AND HAS ALREADY GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL. Well, William Howard Taft and call me crazy, but that girl is one heck of a quadruple threat (acting, day trading, academics, AND music). Anyways, I'm sharing that article with you now. If you click on the link below, it'll take you to the original source of the article - where you can also watch a 9-minute interview with her and see what she looks like!

If you're interested in more Rachel Fox or day trading or investing tips, visit her website at foxonstocks.com. And while you're at it, listen to some Kelly or Darien's Rise! (So if she's the same age as me, and she last appeared four years ago, she was 11/12 when she last recorded for Odyssey.

The Lost Riddle ended up getting lost in a sea of work and has been pushed to next week. If time permits, I'll also hit up Groundhog Jay.

[The following article was written by Jeff Macke for the Breakout blog on Yahoo! and can be accessed in its entirety, with video attached, by clicking here. Out of Control in Odyssey has no malicious intent to capitalize on Mr. Macke's work and gives him full credit for his writing; the reprinting is to give its readers an easier opportunity to access Mr. Macke's work.]

Rachel Fox isn’t an ordinary 16-year-old. She's already graduated from high school and has been a working Hollywood actress for years, appearing in shows like Desperate Housewives as evil Kayla Scavo and in the film Dream House with Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts. When she’s not on set she can often be found on stage, singing and playing guitar in an indie rock band.

That would be a packed schedule for most of us, but Rachel has another activity that’s a real passion. For the last year-and-a-half she’s been actively day-trading stocks with her own money. She says she's been racking up stellar returns, claiming a 30.4% gain in 2012, versus the benchmark S&P 500 which gained 13% for last year.

While she’s doing it all, she’s also helping teach people about investing via her websiteFoxOnStocks.com. On the site she updates her thoughts on the markets and posts videos for those new to the game; teaching them how to do the basics like finding quotes and understanding what a stock option is. For now, the blog is just for fun, she has no plans to monetize; just teach others how to invest, the way her Mom taught her.

From the time she was 8-years-old her mother would read to she and her sister from a book on finance that was kept in the house. Even as she was teaching her daughters fundamental investing, Rachel’s mom was warning them about the stock market.

“She had explained that the market is different nowadays; it’s not so ‘oh you buy something, you hold it for a long time, and can grow with the company,'” Rachel says in the attached video, casually dismissing 100 years of stock market theory. “Nowadays we have day traders, institutional investors and people who just rip the market up and make stocks go like crazy.”

Which is why Rachel started trading stocks with virtual money, until she proved to her parents that she had a knack to make smart investments. In November 2011, she began trading using her own income from acting.

“Last year I made 338 day trades,” she says proudly. Trading that often is not just a hobby. Rachel is up at 6:30am every morning, looks through her account, scans headlines and then makes her picks for the day. She uses a standard brokerage account and makes use of an app that enables her to trade on her smartphone.

“The days when I’m working on set in between takes I’ll be on my iPhone trading; it’s a solo project,” she shrugs, “I’m just doing this.” There’s not a frenetic stock exchange vibe surrounding her at work, just a young actress trading stocks on her phone. Most of her co-workers probably just assume she’s texting the way people her age are “supposed” to. She doesn't talk about trading with other Hollywood-types; she only shares some investing ideas with her parents on occasion.

Her methodology for stock picking isn’t going to be in one of her mom’s textbooks anytime soon. For the vast majority of her trades she’s going strictly by her gut instinct and technicals, or stock charts. She tries to ignore the news flow that fundamental players live off, and instead watches price action and lets the charts guide her on when to buy and sell.

Her dream targets are companies that have been pushed too far away from their normal trend. It’s what traders call overbought or oversold.

“If the stock is seriously sick with one of those cases I’ll just go right at it,” she says sounding just a little like a grizzled trading floor veteran being channeled through a teenage girl. “I’ve got some shark instincts.”

Rachel’s best trade so far in 2013 is a short sale on high-end jeweler Tiffany & Co. (TIF). “The stock kept going up and up and up and was really overbought and I had the instinct,” she explains. After putting on her short position, she woke up the next morning to find a trader’s dream: the shares were collapsing on weak earnings. “I short sold it and the next morning when I woke up it had dropped $3 or $4; it was perfect,” she says.

Not all trades are wonderful though. Rachel says her first trade was her worst trade. When she was 15-years-old, she got a stock tip from a family friend at Thanksgiving dinner. It was a $2 stock, sure to go to $10 she was told. The stock is now trading under a penny. But the beating she took didn’t make her want to quit; it motivated her to start generating her own ideas.

“I learned not to take stock tips from people because I think it’s so important that you enter and exit trades on your own instinct.”

In the bigger picture Rachel sees no reason why she can’t trade and act at the same time. “It’s going to be Oscars while day trading,” she says about her future. “I’m going to be acting until I can barely see anymore and the same with stock trading. I’m going to be stock trading forever.”

She also plans to continue blogging and expanding her video content. The topics she covers aren't just for traders like herself. Rachel wants to give people the basics and let them decide how to best fit it to their personal temperament and goals. “I’m just doing what my parents did with me. I’m saying ‘here’s the market, here’s how it works.’”

And she's even tackled questions about her age in a recent blog post. For now, she leave us with some advice you just wouldn't expect from the average teenager:

“Learn how to make your money grow, it is one of the most empowering things you can know.”

721: The Holy Hoopster

THE ODYSSEY TIMES (Facts, notes, & quotes about Odyssey from this ep):
-NEW: the Odyssey Owl Radio Network
-Coach Chang Fang is back!
-Camilla takes a new career as a watergirl, while Nelson spends time as a benchwarmer.
-Ally's favorite character sorta Ryan Cummings is there! :D
-New team name: Trenton Knickerbockers
-"Prayer isn't about working or not working. Or winning and losing. Prayer is about a relationship with Jesus. That's what's important." - Ryan
-"Has it occurred to you that the reason he's nice is because of all that prayer stuff?" - Nelson

REVIEW:
Surprisingly, I didn't find that much to say about this episode. I did really enjoy the real-life parallels (Jeremy Lin and Tim Tebow) to the Odyssey world - but if you wanted to hear more about that, you could just check out Ben Warren's review over at The Changing Times. 

The introduction of the Odyssey Owl Radio Network was interesting, but was it really necessary? Why didn't they just broadcast it via Kids' Radio like they usually do - are Odyssey residents really gonna turn on the radio to get the latest updates on middle school basketball as much as the NFL or NCAA? Regardless, Jay was a definite highlight of this episode with his color commentary work and great lines.

Don't get me wrong; I loved this episode. I'm mostly nitpicking to give feedback on what could have been better. The middle got a little slow for me as Ryan went into a slump. Another interesting angle that the plot could've taken could have been to have Ryan have some big "mess-up" or "scandal" that made everyone question "just how holy the Holy Hoopster" is. But those are moot points; the chemistry with all of the characters felt great, and the music/sound design was as on-point as ever. The Lightning Livingston made the Odyssey Nerd in me feel very satisfied, and the acting continues to be terrific. 

Overall, The Holy Hoopster is another engaging sports plot by Marshal Younger with a lesson that applies to our times and appeals to both kids and adults, with terrific chemistry between all of the actors. Although the pacing is slow at times, I give it a 90/100, or a

A-

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Buy this episode and 11 others on Album 56: The Grand Design via CBD
Talk about this episode and a bunch of other Odyssey stuff over at Campbell County

Garrett Vandenburg & Blimey Cow on Worship

With a little help from Garrett Vandenburg, blimeycow creates a video that exposes just how repetitive worship songs can be. When we worship, let's put our all into praising the Creator, the King of Kings, instead of telling him, "Whoo hoo. Hallelujah. Yeahhh."

Worship should come from the innermost part of our soul. We were made to worship after all - so why shouldn't we settle for the very best?

Wishing everyone a happy Sunday Morning Scramble School wherever they are - I'm working to put another one out in the spring. Reviews for Holy Hoopster/The Lost Riddle coming Sunday and later in the week, respectively.

Two steps away from finishing the pilot for Candid KOnversations.