Top 10 Comics Washington Post: WuMo Gets Political (well, sort of....)

Greetings to our readers in Azerbaijan, Qatar and Chile....

Happy 70th birthday to Turkan Soray, the queen of Turkish cinema..........

The highlights include "WuMo" making fun of DC lobbyists as fat cats, a perfect strip for the Post (Image #1 is of politician turned lobbyist Trent Lott, a Republican who still spends more time on Capitol Hill than in Biloxi), "Lio" illustrating how a big spider gets everyone's attention (image #2 is a tarantula) and 3) a frustrating phone call with a cable company rep in "Candorville" (Image #3 of the 1996 Jim Carrey black comedy).....

Here are our top ten comic strips from today's Washington Post:

1. WuMo

2. Lio

3. Rhymes with Orange

4. Brewster Rockit

5. Pearls Before Swine

6. Candorville

7. Speed Bump

8. Sherman's Lagoon

9. Knight Life

10. Prickly City

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.denverpost.com/comics

Ten Songs on Steve (106.1-Roanoke,Va): In Prime Time

We took notes last night from during the 8:00-9:00 p.m. hour last night and we jotted down the first ten songs played by Steve-FM (106.1-Roanoke, Va.) which is a variety mix radio station, which means you can hear a song from Peter Gabriel and then Taylor Swift?!!!

Our images above are in reference to 1) Song #9, which is Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" featured Christie Brinkley (pict. top), Joel's love interest at the time, in the music video; 2) Judy Garland and "The Wizard of Oz" film still is in homage to Song #1; and 3) the Kangaroos are, of course, in reference to Song #2:

1. Home Sweet Home. Motley Crue. 1985.

2. Down Under. Men at Work. 1981.

3. Animals. Maroon 5. 2014

4. Rag Doll. Aerosmith. 1987

5. Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?. Rod Stewart. 1978.

6. Hole Hearted. Extreme. 1990.

7. Talking in Your Sleep. The Romantics. 1984.

8. Who Are You?. The Who. 1978.

9. Uptown Girl. Billy Joel. 1983.

10. Dark Horse. Katy Perry. 2014.

http://www.1061stevefm.com/main.html

To see which ten songs we heard on Simon-FM (98.7-Greensboro, NC, another multi-mix format station), go to http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

This marks our 1,750th blog entry!

Comic Strips Survey from Father's Day Roanoke Times: We Like This Week's Doonesbury

Greetings to our blog readers in Dubai, Bulgaria, and Indonesia.......

A lot has happened since we last tweeted one week ago today: 1) There was a mass shooting that resulted in the deaths of nine African-Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, here in America, sparking a national debate between guns and racism. 2) President Barack Obama surprised the world by sitting down for an interview with edgy comic podcast host Marc Maron in Los Angeles. 3) And, Muslims around the world started celebrating Ramadan, which according to the Turkish English-language newspaper "The Daily Sabah" is quite challenging in Iceland where there is 18-22 hours of daylight per day. There are about 770 Muslims residing in Iceland, and adjustments have been suggested for the holiday period's fasting period.

Our images for the week are of: 1) The Jetsons family as "Doonesbury" tackles how fathers are adjusting to modern parenting; 2) Since "Dilbert" features a character who looks just like Turkish shadow puppet Karagoz (center image, the dude with the long beard and a drum; Hacivat is his frenemy; 3) Doctor Who for "Pearls Before Swine" which features a British alien (not in the E.T. sense)

Here are our ten favorite comic strips from Sunday's "Roanoke Times":

1) Doonesbury

2) Get Fuzzy

3) Dilbert

4) Pearls Before Swine

5) Zits

6) Jump Start

7) Non Sequitur

8) Agnes

9) Mutts

10) Speed Bump (this comic strip was number one for four weeks in a row!, but not this week).....

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.denverpost.com/comics

Our Top 10 from the Sunday Washington Post: WuMo's Take on Noah's Ark

Greetings to our blog readers in England, Slovakia, and Cameroon........

Our top two Sunday comic strips from the June 14th "Washington Post" issue both refer to the Bible. As "WuMo" features two cheetahs who want to get on board Noah's Ark and "The Argyle Sweater" includes a take on what the childhood of Biblical characters experience including John the Baptist being nearly drowned the Jerusalem Public Pool.

Third place goes to our friend Keith Knight and his strip "Knight Life" features mom, dad, and an older brother giving an infant advice.

Other strips in the top ten include a  "Candorville" with a satirical look at arguing with those who supported the Iraq War promoted in and planned by George W. Bush, "Lio" building a model giraffe, and a brief history of wasps from "Mark Trail."

Here is the top 10:

1. WuMo

2. The Argyle Sweater

3. Knight Life

4. Frazz

5. Foxtrot

6. Candorville

7. Lio

8. Speed Bump

9: Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

10. Mark Trail


http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.gocomics.com

Top 10 Dinner Party Guests We Would Invite: Meet Bruce Bruce

Greetings to our blog readers in South Korea, France and Canada........

This is our very first entry of this kind; it is an idea that was inspired both by a regular column in the magazine "Washingtonian" http://www.washingtonian.com and the NPR show "Dinner Party Download" http://www.dinnerpartydownload.com which airs on radio stations such as WFDD (88.5FM; Winston-Salem, NC) http://www.wfdd.org

We would like to see a collection of politicians, entertainers, dignitaries and people with radically different politics, such as right-wing pundit George F. Will and liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore http://www.michaelmoore.com

Those pictured here are: 1) Film director Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights," "There Will Be Blood"), 2) stand-up African-American comedian Bruce Bruce and 3) young adult fiction writer John Green ("The Faults in Our Stars"). As it turns out, we actually know none of these people:

1) Paul Thomas Anderson

2) Bruce Bruce

3) Cong. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)

4) John Green

5) Zola Jesus (a musician-performer)

6) Ambassador Serdar Kilic of Turkey

7) Valerie Kondos-Field, UCLA women's gymnastics coach

8) Michael Moore

9) Cong. David Price (D-NC)

10. George F. Will

Top 10 Comic Strips from the Sunday Washington Post: Lio Takes Gold

Greetings to our blog readers in Switzerland, Sweden and Turkey........

Today, we once again rank our ten favorite comic strips from the Sunday edition of "The Washington Post," which carries 40 comic strips, including some that rarely make the cut, ie. "Hagar the Horrible," which was brilliant 40 years ago..........oh well.........

Since, there squids in both "Lio," which came in first, and "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy," which came in third, we thought we'd start off with an image of an animal that you can eat in most Greek restaurants. The late Soupy Sales is the image in our middle slot as "Rhymes with Orange," the second place strip had a pie-in-the-face gag which Sales was famous for, but the strip actually has clowns as the subject of its joke.

Finally, a map of the United States marking where Kansas is will be used for our final image as the always hip Garry Trudeau nailed Gov. Sam Brownback (R) in a financial fiasco which messed up the lives of countless educators and school students across 'The Land of Oz.' According to our iPhone, Topeka, Kansas, and Washington, D.C., are almost exactly 1,000 miles from each other. Brownback was also a Republican member of the U.S. Senate.

Here is our top ten:

1. Lio

2. Rhymes with Orange

3. Brewster Rockit

4. Doonesbury

5. Pearls Before Swine

6. WuMo

7. Speed Bump

8. Knight Life

9. Prickly City

10. Sherman's Lagoon

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Next Ten for Netflix: English-Language Films

Greetings to our blog readers in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong.......

Here is a look at the next ten English-language films we hope to watch on Netflix even though we will be watching the Scottish film "Gregory's Girl" with subtitles as it can be an accent that those of us here in the United States may have trouble understandings.

The images above are of: 1) A scene from "Taxi Driver" with Robert DeNiro, 2) the late Canadian magician Doug Henning (we are using his image as a play on words for "Before I Disappear," a film which is not about magicians) and 3) "King Kong" for "The Immigrant," though she lived a full life, we still miss Fay Wray.

Here is our next ten to watch via Netflix streaming; the order is in order of ranking by the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), (to the right) for a look at documentaries and foreign films, go to our sister blog http://www.politics.cultureanotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

*-Films we have previously seen before:


*1) Taxi Driver. 1976. Dir: Martin Scorsese.  8.4/10

2) Before I Disappear. 2014. Dir: Shawn Christensen. 7.2

* 3) The Dark Crystal. 1982. Dirs: Frank Oz and Jim Henson. 7.2

*4) Gregory's Girl. 1981. Dir: Bill Forsyth. 7.1

5) World War Z. 2013. Dir: Marc Foster. 7.0

6) The Immigrant. 2013. Dir: James Gray. 6.6

7) Trishna. 2011. Dir: Michael Winterbottom. 6.0

8) The Lifeguard. 2013. Dir: Liz W. Garcia. 5.7

9) HairBrained. 2013. Dir: Billy Kent 5.5

10) As I Lay Dying. 2013. Dir/ James Franco 5.4

http://www.netflix.com

http://www.imdb.com

http://www.filmcomment.com

Last Ten Films We've Seen: Trying to Catch up on Netflix....

What do Captain America, indie film queen Parker Posey (pict. center) and a silly Dudley Moore/Kirk Cameron movie from 1987 have in common? They all relate in one form or another to the last ten films we've seen.

"Like Father, Like Son," is also the English-language title of a Japanese art film which is more like Dustin Hoffman's "Kramer vs. Kramer" in nature as it deals with a family who learns that their son was switched at birth with another boy. Adding to the tensions is the fact that the families are in two vastly different economic classes.

We got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine.

Here are the last ten:

1. Like Father, Like Son. 2014. Japan. director: Hirokazu Koreeda

2. Goodbye to Language. 2014. France. dir: Jean-Luc Godard

3. The Babdook. 2014. Australia (in English). dir: Jennifer Kent

4. Wild Tales. 2014. Argentina. dir: Damian Szifron

5. Lovers and Other Strangers. 1970. dir: Cy Howard w/Diane Keaton

6. Price Check. 2012. dir: Michael Walker w/Parker Posey

7. Inside Out. 2011. dir: Artie Mandelberg w/Posey

8. Nothing Lasts Forever. 1984. dir: Tom Schiller w/Bill Murray

9. Avengers: Age of Ultron. 2015. dir: Joss Whedon

10. Far from the Madding Crowd. 2015. dir: Thomas Vinterberg w/Carey Mulligan

Top Ten Sunday May 31st Roanoke Times Comics: Hi and Lois is Actually Hilarious........how did that happen?

Greetings to our blog readers in Mexico, Russia and New Zealand.............

Here is a look at our ten favorite comic strips from the latest Sunday edition of "The Roanoke Times," the daily newspaper serving Roanoke, Va., and surrounding areas, including the hamlet of Boones Mill, Va., which is reportedly one of the most notorious speed traps in the country.

Our top comic strip is "Speed Bump" by Dave Coverly which this week features a regular Joe green lizard meeting a hipster green lizard; we imagine he is waaay past The Decembrists or Arcade Fire.

For our second place comic strip, which is "Pearls Before Swine," we go with an image of Lily Tomlin from her "Laugh In" days when she played Ernestine the annoying phone operator, who would be unemployed today. In the strip, Rat is writing a letter to a major company after being forced to hold on the line for an unfathomable amount of time .....(we've all been there, right?!).........

Lastly, our image of the '80s home video game classic Pitfall, for an unexpected gem from "Hi and Lois" as the dad realizes he has a vast collection of casualties of modern technology. It's almost enough to make one wish they had held on to that 8-track tape player or that vinyl copy of "Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits."

Here is our top ten:

1) Speed Bump

2) Pearls Before Swine

3) Hi and Lois

4) Get Fuzzy

5) Dilbert

6) Doonesbury

7) Zits

8) Garfield

9) Agnes

10) Jump Start

http://www.roanoke.com/comics

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.lilytomlin.com