Halloween Tweets: Trick-or-Treat Invasions

Greetings to our beloved blog-readers in Scotland, Switzerland and Kuwait.

Today is not only Halloween; it also marks the sixth anniversary of our blog "The Daily Vampire." Perhaps some of you remember 2008, The Beatles had just arrived in America, Chairma Mao Tse Tung became the leader of China and a marijuana-inspired cartoon with a talking dog named "Scooby Doo"debuted on television..........:)

In case, you are wondering the bottom image is from the Turkish horror film "Drakula Istanbul'da/Dracula in Istanbul"!

Here are some unique tweets from Halloween night:

1) News&Record: Trick-or-treaters invade Greensboro neighborhood.
 
2) UNC Swag: Everyone in Chapel Hill tonight, please be safe and careful in what you do.....

3) Abraham Lincoln: Tonight in 1865, Lincoln, Mary, and Miss Clara attended Grover's Theatre for opera "The Magic Flute." She was with them at the assassination.

4) Bill Amend (the cartoonist from "Foxtrot"): All right enough with the sad Halloween boredom. Booze, meet Springsteen. Booze and Springsteen, meet Bill Amend.

5) Top Conservative Cat (a satiric tweeter): Next on Fox News, President Obama lures children to pagan festival at the White House.

6) Marc Maron (stand-up comic, star of "Maron" on IFC): "Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhh! WTFHaloween!!!!"

7) The Coffee Bean (a LA-based coffee producer): "Spooky Halloween greetings 2 U from Ur friends at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Have fun and be safe tonight."

http://www.visitgreensboronc.com/

http://www.visitchapelhill.org/

http://www.foxtrot.com/

http://www.wtfpod.com/

http://www.coffeebean.com/

Survey of the Best Comic Strips from the Sunday Washington Post (Oct. 19th edition)

Greetings to those of you reading this blog in Germany, Ukraine and Cyprus, and special greetings to those of you have just joined us after watching the Florida gubernatorial race debate between incumbent Rick Scott (R) and his challenger Charlie Crist (D) or for those of you who are already bored with the World Series, which is starting tonight.

This week, we really liked the "Pearls Before Swine" take on the old Abbott and Costello skit "Who's on First," but it was a week full of great comic strips in the Sunday Washington Post. The Danish import WuMo had Yoda, Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh meeting in the children's section of a public library, perhaps they were in Hartford, Conn. (we have a gag about how we are posting from the Hartford Public Library even though we've never been in that building). "WuMo" got second place in our survey.

The bronze medal went to Turkish weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu, no, we just said that to keep you from daydreaming; it actually went to "Rhymes with Orange" which features selfies from the whole family. We're sure our friends at the Urban Dictionary who have coined terms like 'shoefie' and 'brofie' got a hoot out of the Hilary B. Price strip (http://www.urbandictionary.com) The selfie gag is the reason why Kim Kardashian is in our top image slot.

We also enjoyed the educational comic strip "Mark Trail" which focused on various spiders like tarantulas (pictured center) and scorpions; the strip revealed that some spiders actually dine on fish?! Perhaps, they would like Red Lobster.

The cutting edge comic strip "Candorville" had a take on man seeing a shrink, and for that we are featuring an image of Lucy from "Peanuts," a nice comic strip that will probably be in newspapers until the year 2073, when Lucy will be 116 years old.

Here is our top ten:

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. WuMo

3. Rhymes with Orange

4. Speed Bump

5. Sherman's Lagoon

6, Dustin

7. Lio

8. Big Nate

9. Mark Trail

10. Candorville

http://www.hplct.org/ (The actual web site of the Hartford Public Library)

http://www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/ (The actual web site of the Salt Lake City Library in Utah; they have 12,711 followers on Twitter)

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

http://marktrail.com/

http://rhymeswithorange.com/

http://www.candorville.com

Comic Strips Survey from Sunday Roanoke Times (Oct. 19th edition)

Greetings to our blog readers in Australia, Uganda and Finland; and to our domestic friends in New Jersey, Utah, and Florida.

This week, we resume our look at our favorite comic strips from the Sunday, Oct. 19th edition of "The Roanoke Times," for our favorite strips from last week, visit our sister blog at http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Our favorite comic strip of the week was "Pearls Before Swine," by Stephan Pastis which did a brilliant take on the Abbott and Costello (top image) skit "Who's on First," but in this satire, Rat asks Goat "Which band did Keith Moon play for?"; the answer is The Who, and all the shenanigans roll from there.

"Dilbert," which has substantially jumped in our rankings in recent weeks, features an office visit from a robot (center image) who actually doesn't speak in Scott Adams' strip, which finishes second in our survey this week.

The bronze medal goes to East German ice skater Katarina Witt (we were just trying to see if you were paying attention). Actually, the third place finisher is Dave Coverly's "Speed Bump," a single long panel strip that has some Tennessee raccoons (actually, we have no idea what they are from) digging up trash through backyard garbage cans as well as community recyclable bins that one might find in a hip college town like Boulder, Colorado.

Here is our top ten:

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Dilbert

3) Speed Bump

4) Get Fuzzy

5) Non-Sequitir

6) Zits

7) Agnes

8) Doonesbury

9) Garfield

10) Jump Start

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

http://www.dilbert.com/

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

http://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy

http://www.boulderweekly.com/

Last Ten Films I've Seen (as of Oct. 16th): Watching a Three-Hour Doc on a Friday Night

"The Autobiography of Nicolea Ceausescu" is a three-hour documentary about a Romanian Cold War dictator who was eventually executed by gunfire by his own people after 22 years of dictatorial rule, and last Friday night was soooo boring (as Moon Unit Zappa would say) that I ended up watching it on Netflix! The film uses official footage and has no narration. One shocking thing I learned from the film was that American Richard Nixon actually traveled to Bucharest to meet Nicolea Ceaucescu.

Other films on the list include "Au Hasard Balthazar," a brilliant, but depressing film about the life of a donkey, which could have been filmed in Greece or Turkey as easily as France. "4:44: Last Day on Earth" is a dire film with Willem Defoe about what the end might be like. Lastly, "Alan Partridge," starring Steve Coogan as the title character who is also a radio dj, is quite hilarious; the green coffee cup above is in his honor. We tried to use a Manchester United coffee cup, but we believe those images are perhaps copyrighted.

Here is the list:

1) Au Hasard Balthazar. France. 1966. Director: Robert Bresson

2) For All Mankind. Documentary. 1989. Dir: Al Reinert

3) McCabe and Mrs. Miller. 1971. Dir: Robert Altman

4) Lebanon. (Israeli film). 2009. Dir:Samuel Maoz.

5) Chico and Rita. Animation. Spain. Dir: Tono Errando, et al

6) 4:44: Last Day on Earth. Dir: Abel Ferrara

7) Alan Partridge. 2013. Dir: Declan Lowney.

8) Marwencol. Documentary. Dir: Jeff Malmberg

9) Zanjeer. India. 1973. Dir: Prakash Mehra.

10) The Autobiography of Nicolea Ceausescu. Documentary. 2010. Romania

http://www.criterion.com/

http://www.netflix.com

http://www.tcm.com

http://www.filmlinc.org

The Last Ten Films I've Seen (as of Oct. 2nd): Some Depressing Dramas

Greetings to our blog readers in Libya, Dubai and India, where we assume the top image might cause us problems.

Amazingly enough, seven of the ten films on this list were seen via Netflix dvds or Netflix streaming, while one film "My Old Lady" was actually seen in a movie theater.

"Prime Cut" is a vintage early '70s action-drama with the late, great Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, and Sissy Spacek in her film debut, some four years before she became Carrie White in "Carrie."

"For the Bible Tells Me So" illustrates the rift between conservative evangelical Christians who believe in literal interpretations of the Bible, in terms of viewing homosexuality as a sin, as well as gays and lesbians, and their liberal supporters, who strongly find this views reprehensible.

"My Old Lady" is a humorous English-language film set in France, in which Kevin Kline discovers that the home his father left him in Paris is occupied by Maggie Smith and her grown-up daughter played by Kristen Scott Thomas.

Here are the last ten films we've seen:

1. Prime Cut. 1972. Director: Michael Ritchie

2. Free Samples 2012. Dir: Jay Gammill w/Jesee Eisenberg

3. Fruitvale Station. 2013. Dir: Ryan Coogler. w/ Michael B. Jordan

4. For the Bible Tells Me So. (documentary). Dir: Daniel G. Karslake

5. Mandabi. Senegal. 1968. Dir: Ousmane Sembene.

6. Xala. Senegal. 1975. Dir: Ousmane Sembene.

7. My Old Lady. 2014. Dir: Israel Horovitz.

8. Take My Eyes. Spain. 2003. Dir: Iciar Bollain

9. Paradise: Hope. Austria. 2013. Dir: Ulrich Seidl

10. Block-C. Turkey. 1994. Dir: Zeki Demirkubuz

 http://www.netflix.com

Quotes from Famous Authors (5 of 5): Dorothy Parker

Greetings to our blog readers in Denmark, Montenegro and Yemen.......well, perhaps it's a boring Sunday afternoon in Aden!

Here is our quote from Dorothy Parker:

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

Now to get back to watching Sarah Silverman host "Saturday Night Live."

Quotes from Famous Authors (4 of 5): F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."

Quotes from Famous Authors (3 of 5): Mark Twain

"The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug."

If one is in the Hartford, Connecticut, area, we highly recommend visiting the Mark Twain House where Ghost Walk tours are being offered on Friday nights this month in honor of Halloween.

http://www.marktwainhouse.org