(10 for 10; 6th Entry): Virtual Postcard from Maryland

Greetings to our blog readers in New Zealand, Jamaica, and Sweden......

Today, we feature an image of Keyote (pictured) the mascot of the Frederick Keys in Frederick, Maryland, a Carolina League affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles.

We had a chance to visit Frederick and meet Keyote back in August on a surprisingly hot day in which Frederick was actually hotter than Myrtle Beach, South Carolina! (The Keys play the Myrtle Beach Pelicans in the Carolina League; the Pelicans won the league title earlier this week).

While we were in Frederick, we also had a chance to dine at Ayse Meze Lounge, a Turkish restaurant downtown, where we feasted on lahmacun, also known as 'Turkish pizza.'

Hope you are enjoying your Saturday afternoon (or evening/night in other parts of the world). We are currently listening to "The Moth Radio Hour." This week's NPR show has a story performed by former American astronaut Michael Massimino who talks about what earth looks like from outer space. The radio shows airs at 8:00 p.m. on WNYC (New York).


http://www.visitfrederick.org/

http://www.downtownfrederick.org/

http://aysemeze.com/

 http://www.visitmaryland.org/

http://www.themoth.org

http://www.wnyc.org/

Breaking News Tweets: Riots in Baltimore

Here a compilation of tweets regarding the rioting in Baltimore which escalated yesterday; the top image is from the 1968 riots which these incidents have been compared to. The middle image is the logo for the Baltimore Orioles; the bottom image is of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. The riots were caused by alleged criminal wrong-doing by the Baltimore Police Department which resulted in the death of Freddie Gray, 25, while in police custody:

1) Occupy Wall Street: The 'riots' in Baltimore are not a 'civil disturbance' they are a primal scream to fix a systemically racist world.

2) Jeff Barker (Baltimore Sun): There is a doubleline blocking North Ave- row of police and a line of people with arms locked urging non-violence.

3) Mayor Rawlings-Blake: And to those actively demonstrating, I call for peace. Tonight we must be OneBaltimore. Thank you for holding the line.

4) Talking Points Memo: Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) is sending 150 state troopers to join the 2,000 national guardsmen bound for Baltimore.

5) Baltimore Police: A crowd continues to block intersection of Pennsylvania Ave and North Ave. We are asking motorists to avoid this area.

6) Christopher Hayes (MSNBC): Situation is being managed by protestors w tremendous discipline and care right now.

7) Ben Casselman (Five-thirtyeight): The unemployment rate for young black  men in Baltimore is 37 percent. For whites, it's just 10 percent.

8) Reason (Libertarian right journal): Barack Obama on Baltimore_ We need 'political mobilization' to solve problems.

9) Justin Fenton ("Baltimore Sun"): Many comments from officials about looting being 'kids.' Police clarify there were 235 arrests, only 34 of which were juveniles.

http://www.baltimoresun.com

Things To Do List Satire: Calling the Baltimore Sun

It's a Sunday night here in Roanoke, Va., and that only means one thing: Listening to music from the '30s and '40s on our local NPR radio station (to the folks at WVTF, just kidding, we love what you do for us and I am actually listening to '30s and '40s music........even though Steely Dan and Supertramp are really my speed)......

Oh, about our last entry, yeah, that was an April Fool's Joke, but we did watch the Final 4 games on tv. And, we didn't tape them, so there was no avoiding the annoying Southwest Airlines ads.

So, since there is not too much going on tonight until "Mad Men" comes on, we thought we would do a satirical things to do list for this coming week:

1. Get the current issue of "Writer's Digest"

2. Actually write something, even a haiku.

3. Drive to Winchester, Va., to find the late country singer Patsy Cline's grave (pict. center)

4. Call "The Baltimore Sun" and ask them to send today's Sunday edition of their newspaper to my address even though I live six hours away from them (the Baltimore Orioles start their season tomorrow....we think)....

5. Mapquest directions to Portland, Maine, so you can see a Portland Sea Dogs minor league baseball team, even though Maine is pretty freaking far from Virginia.

6. Play Ms. Pac-Mac for 6.5 hours

7. Watch the entire first two seasons of the '70s BBC comedy series "Are You Being Served?" (pictured bottom......I think my friend Chris Knight is the only person my age who actually watches this show regularly....)

8. Laundry

9. Carwash

10. Dishes

http://wvtf.org/

http://www.writersdigest.com/

http://www.visitwinchesterva.com/

http://www.baltimoresun.com/

https://www.facebook.com/portlandseadogs

http://www.aybscentral.com/

http://www.theknightshift.com/

Retro Opening Day Tweets: Let's Go Mets, Orioles, Nationals and Reds...

Yes, these tweets from a week ago were meant to be posted by April 2nd, oh well!

1) Anthony Orisses: "Happy Opening Day! A day for hope and optimism and a changing in the season. Let's Go Mets!" (Image at the top is of Mr. and Mrs. Met)

2) Baltimore City Paper: "Two hours to game time...get psyched for some Orioles Magic! O-R-I-O-L-E-S.......!"

3) Joe Sheehan: "Baseball!!! Baseball!!! Baseball!!! Baseball!!! Baseball!!! Baseball! Baseball! Baseball!! Baseball!!!"

4) CMich Crushes: "If you're reappin' the Detroit Tigers then you're my crush."

5) Brian Murphy: "I like America. And, by that, I mean I like hamburgers, Bruce Springsteen and baseball. Happy Opening Day, everyone...!)

6) Cincinnati Reds: "There's no party like a Reds Opening Day Party!" (the bottom image is of Reds' great Dave Concepcion, now age 65)

7) New York Mets: "HOME RUN! Andrew Brown crushes a 3-run HR! 3-0 Mets!" (the Mets were playing the Washington Nationals. The middle image Capitol Hill is located in Philadelphia.....just seeing if you were paying attention! Of course, it's in Washington, DC!)

8) Washington Nationals: "Andrew Brown sends a 2-2 pitch from Stephen Strasburg into the left field center seats and the Mets take a 3-0 lead.

9) Keith Olbermann: Man down. Bryce Harper kicked in the head. (Harpers plays for the Nats).

http://www.baseballamerica.com/

http://espn.go.com/mlb/

http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb

http://cincinnatizoo.org/

http://citypaper.com/

http://thehill.com/

Friday Night Tweets: Terror Suspect and Major Storms

With so much chaos going on in Boston and the fact that a major rain storm struck our mid-Atlantic part of the country from Greensboro, NC, to Philadelphia, which got particularly nasty in Washington, DC, Baltimore and Annapolis (Maryland), we were more or less stuck inside.

We should point that image one, a recreational boat in Smith Mountain Lake, Va., (near Roanoke) was used because the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev, a son of Chechnyan immigrants, was hiding inside one such boat. The second image is because it is raining in Baltimore, where major league baseball's Baltimore Orioles play. And, the third image is for the four victims of the bombing and police shoot-out. Boston University student Lingzi Lu (her name has also been spelled Lu Lingzi) was among the three killed in Monday's blast.

So, here is a look at some of the more interesting tweets we saw tonight as a real-life episode of "The Fugitive" unfolded before our very eyes. Some tweets have been reworded to avoid confusion:

1) Boston Globe News @GlobeMetro: BREAKING NEWS: Police have taken the cover off the boat; the man believed to be the Marathon bombing suspect is inside.

2) Capital Weather Gang @capitalweather: "Wow, a gust of 70 mph clocked near Charles Co., MD, as storms roared thru.

3) Will Wheaton @Wilw: New York Post reporting, CNN confirming: D.B. Cooper is in the boat (not to point out the obvious, but this is a joke)

4) Boston College @BostonCollege: "Also thanks to all students and parents who tweeted appreciation. It did not go unnoticed."

5) Politico @politico: "Injured man (Jeff Bauman) who helped ID Boston suspects is uninsured."

6) Jake Updegraff @OnAirJake: "Poor Dzhokar Tsarnaev, apparently he never watched Disney movies or any movies at all. The bad guy always loses."

7) The Boston Globe @BostonGlobe: "BREAKING NEWS: Police appear to be preparing a robot with a camera to approach the boat."

8) Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof: "And our awareness of geography is such that Czech Republic has to explain that it's not Chechnya." (Chechnya is a part of Russia)

9) Lucas McNelly @lmnelly: "This is generally the part of the story where I start wondering if I could have gotten away."

10) The Fix @TheFix ("Washington Post" political reporter Chris Cillizza): "Serious Q: More reporters or more cops on the scene in Watertown?"

Tweets of the Night_ Politics, Sports and Religion

AAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! This just in: The Washington Nationals have lost in the deciding Game 5 to the St. Louis Cardinals by a 9-7 score.

In case you are wondering, the third image is of an Armenian Orthodox priest. Since I am a Turkish-American, I thought of no greater irony, my favorite word in the English language, than to use an image of him for this entry. Above him is the American vice president Joe Biden and a kid playing little league baseball.

Here are 12 tweets from about 2.5 hours ago:

1) @MLBJesus (Major League Baseball Jesus): Thou shall pitch Strasburg in Game 5.

2) @JournalNow (Winston-Salem Journal): High Point University poll shows post-deabte bump for Romney among North Carolina voters.

3) @cnni (CNN International): Report says Turkey to avoid Syrian airspace.

4) @_faris (Faris): Saturday morning, the life version of "The Walking Dead."

5) @timesland (Roanoke Times Sports): Halifax County comes back from 20-0 and defeats Franklin county 37-36 in double over-time.

6) @seattletimes (Seattle Times): "Arrest in Seattle Tour de Banks robberies."

7) @katrinanation (Katrina vanden Heuvel, managing editor of the liberal journal "The Nation"): "Joe Biden may have bracing set of old teeth but Paul Ryan lying through his young teeth."

8) @sesameworkshop (Sesame Workshop): "We are a non-partisan, non-profit organization. We do not comment on campaigns, but we're happy we can agree that everyone likes Big Bird!"

9) @thekinghtshift (Chris Knight, blogger from Reidsville, NC): "Big Bird is a monument to all your sins #obama #romney."

10) @mtaibbi (Matt Taibbi, liberal reporter for "Rolling Stone"): "Apparently, Obama needs to rush the passer more."

11) @BigBird (a liberal blogger who is not related to "Sesame Street"): "GOPer sent me an email why Obama's out of touch with times, using an AOL account"

12) @BaltSunSports ("Baltimore Sun" sports, alas the Baltimore Orioles also lost tonight): "Memorable season will have #Orioles aiming even higher in 2013."

Special Quote of the Week- Jim Palmer

Today, I am featuring respective quotes from two baseball players associated with the 1970 World Series. Since I was only a few months old at the time, I didn't see any of the games, but the Baltimore Orioles stunned the Cincinnati Reds, known as the Big Red Machine, four games to one.

Brooks Robinson of the Orioles was named MVP of that series, but our quote comes from O's pitcher Jim Palmer who won a game during the series. who is now 65 years old. Thus, thankfully, we will no longer have to see him in underwear commercials!

Here is our quote from Palmer:

"Most pitchers are too smart to manage."

We want to give a shout out to our friend Corrine Ready, well I don't actually know her, but she does apparently read our blog (!), so below is a link to her site about the ten best films dealing with suburban life. Perhaps, one of these films takes place in Bethesda, Maryland.....I wonder if residents there still root for the O's or do they root for the Washington Nationals?!:

http://www.webdesignschoolsguide.com/library/10-best-movies-about-suburban-life.html/

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

In the next few days, we are hoping to blog about another very long road trip and write a top ten list about folks with very, very long lastnames!

High School of the Week- Kalani High School (Hawa'ii)

We temporarily leave the continental United States as we select Kalani High School in Honolulu, Hawa'ii as our 'High School of the Week,' (an additional entry will be posted on Friday for another school).

The Falcon is the school mascot, hence the reason why we posted an image of a falcon though in hind sight maybe we should have gone with '70s cartoon dog Dyno-Mutt's sidekick The Blue Falcon, and red and white are the team colors.

Mitchell Otani has apparently replaced Gerlad Teramae, who was mentioned as the school principal on Wikipedia, as the new principal of the school from what we gahtered on the school's web site.

Kalani HS also happens to have a slam poetry club and a robotics club.

Lenn Sakata who was a member of the 1983 Baltimore Orioles team which won the World Series is an alumnus of Kalani HS.

We tried to find out what they were offering for their school lunch today. I was so hoping not only to find it, but to see if they were offering something with pineapple. But, such is the life of a blogger........

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Sports Mascots

I chose to use sports mascots as my choice for Silly Picture to Fill Space since I made a pledge late last Friday while watching the Orlando Magic-Portland Trail Blazers NBA game on ESPN to give up watching sports for the rest of the weekend.

I made it to Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. to watch the Minnesota Vikings-Dallas Cowboys which the Vikes won 34-3. (Oh well!)

At least, it's not baseball season although the Baltimore Orioles (their mascot is pictured here with Miss Teen Maryland) haven't been good since Cal Ripken Jr. retired.