20-Word Fiction: The Uninvited Guest

The image above is of a police car in Greensboro, NC, but this story has no specific geographical location in mind; it is after all just a 20-word story:

"There was a home invasion on Florida Street last night. The culprit recognized the man of the house. He left."

Best Ten Comic Strips Sunday Greensboro News and Record: Hoorary for the Unicorns

Greetings to our blog readers in Belgium, Cyprus, and Slovakia, all European Union countries. We just got a notice from our server that we are supposed to tell all EU nation citizens who might come to this blog about our cookies. We have no idea what that really means, but we will try to accommodate you in any way you can, or we'll just refer to Cong. Virginia Foxx (R-NC).....we just love making fun of Republicans.

Foxx does not actually represent Greensboro, NC, in Congress, but we gather she represents Winston-Salem, NC, of course, here in the Land of the Free they change the lines often, which doesn't really seem democratic. I guess we should send our complaints to Cong. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) but we don't live in Colorado!

Today we going with  comic strips from the"News and Record," the main daily newspaper for Greensboro.

We really like "Phoebe and Her Unicorn," which is carried by that newspaper, and this Sunday's strip with Phoebe talking to her pet unicorn about crying at the movies was quite touching. We also liked "WuMo" which dealt with archeologists finding remains of a human pyramid in Egypt.

"Judge Parker," a comic strip in soap opera format, featured a conversation in front of horses, unlike Mister Ed, they can't seem to talk. (Bottom image is of Secretariat).

Here is our top ten:

1. Phoebe and Her Unicorn

2. Foxtrot

3. WuMo

4. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

5. Pearls Before Swine

6. Doonesbury

7. Non-Sequitur

8. Jump Start

9. Judge Parker

10. Ziggy

http://www.visitgreesnboro.com

http://www.gocomics.com 

http://www.comicskingdom.com

10 Songs in a Row That We Heard on 98.7-SimonFM (Greensboro, NC): No,No, No, Not Late Aerosmith Again

Here are ten songs in a row that we heard on 98.7 Simon-FM in Greensboro, NC, during the 10:00-11:00 p.m. hour on Friday night.

Tonight, we are actually listening to quite a different out-of-town radio station in WYPR-FM out of Baltimore, Maryland, which is currently airing "Jazz with Andy Bienstock," the host of the program has apparently been working the gig since he was a college student in 1986!

Simon-FM is a radio station which plays a variety of popular genres, mostly pop and rock, and usually songs that were released in the 1970s and the 1980s.

We happen to disdain late-period Aerosmith songs from the late 1980s and the early 1990s, but at least, the radio station spared us of the theme from "Armageddon," a Michael Bay action movie we have only viewed once!

Amazingly enough, as we were also surveying ten songs being played on Steve-FM, a similar format radio station in Roanoke, Va., an hour earlier, we heard both radio stations play the mid-1980s pop tune "Out of Touch" by Hall and Oates, which always remind us of the Republican-led humor (forgive the political humor) and no one person embodies that more that House Speak John Boehner (R-Ohio, pict. bottom).

Here are the ten songs we heard during that prime time hour:

1. Stuck in the Middle with You. Steelers Wheel, 1972.

2. Freeway of Love (pict. top). Aretha Franklin, 1985

3. Cryin', Aerosmith, 1993 (yeah, that's the song we hate)

4. One Thing Leads to Another, 1983 (pict. center, our favorite song of the ten)

5. Edge of Seventeen, Steve Nicks, 1981.

6. Out of Touch. Hall and Oates, 1984.

7. Take It Easy, The Eagles. 1972.

8. Beat It. Michael Jackson. 1983

9. Mama, I'm Comin' Home, Ozzy Osbourne. 1992

10. Break My Stride, Matthew Wilder, 1983.



www.987.com

http://www.yesweekly.com (Greensboro alt weekly)

http://www.triad-city-beat.com (another GSO alt weekly)

http://www.visitgreensboro.com

http://www.thefixx.com

http://www.hallandoates.com

http://www.ozzy.com

http://www.wypr.org

Last Ten Songs We Heard on Simon (98.7-FM,Greensboro,NC): Slow Ride

Greetings to our blog readers in Argentina, Belgium and Italy.....

Last night, we experienced major technical difficulties while trying to listen to Simon-FM, 98.7-FM, Greensboro, NC, but we were able to catch an hour of songs between the 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. (21:00-22:00) hour last night.

The oldest tune that was played on the variety mix 'we play everything' rotation was "Drive My Car" by The Beatles, which is celebrating its' 50th anniversary as it was released in 1965 (middle image, year it's a Delorean, which came out some 20 years later).

The second newest song in the lineup was the last one in this mix: "Slide" by The Goo Goo Dolls (pict. bottom) which hit radio stations in 1998. The Goo Goo Dolls have a post-game concert following a Milwaukee Brewers game on Aug. 15th.

The most current release was actually a cover of a bluegrass standard "Wagon Wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show; the band plays at Clinton Presidential Park in Little Rock, Ark., on July 16th.

The top image of an Andrew Jackson twenty dollar bill is an homage to Eddie Money, but of course, you already knew that! Mr. Money plays at the Santa Barbara County Fair in Santa Maria, Calif., on July 15th.

For those of you in Spain, Twisted Sister, one of the bands listed here, is playing the Barcelona Rock Fest on July 24th.

Here is the list:

1) Take Me Home Tonight, Eddie Money, 1986.

2) Drive My Car, The Beatles, 1965

3) Pump Up the Jam, Technotronic, 1989

4) Don't Stand So Close to Me, The Police, 1981

5) Wagon Wheel, Old Crow Medicine Show, 2004

6) We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions, Queen, 1977

7) Slow Ride, Foghat, 1975

8) Dancing Queen, ABBA, 1976

9) We're Not Gonna Take It, Twisted Sister, 1984

10) Slide, The Goo Goo Dolls, 1998

http://www.987simon.com/

http://www.googoodolls.com/

http://www.eddiemoney.com/

http://www.crowmedicine.com/

http://www.twistedsister.com/

Sunday Comic Strip Survey Feb.8th from the (Greensboro, NC) Sunday News and Record: Brewster Rockit Wins Our Hearts

Greetings to our blog readers in Australia, Sweden and Lebanon.....

Four our usual Sunday comic strip surveys we are entering a new newspaper as we were able to visit North Carolina this weekend where we picked a print copy (??!!!) of the Sunday "News and Record" from a gas station near the town of Mayodan, NC (????!!!!!!!!).

I know this is soooo 1979 of us.

Our favorite Sunday strip of the week was "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy" in which one alien gave another a box of planets in which the planets looked like chocolates (top image, well actually that is of a chocolate fountain, we don't recommend that for people with diabetes) for Valentine's Day.

Second place went to the Danish import "WuMo" where piranha fish (pict. center) are being chased by a knife and fork, Salvador Dali would have loved such surrealism!

Third place went to "Ziggy," an old standard, in which this week, the title character is greeted by Twiki from the cult tv sci-fi tv series of the '70s that is "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" (pict. bottom), well, actually Ziggy is just being visted (and transfixed) by aliens who are not sure what their exact mission is. Perhaps, they should go to that gas station we visited in Mayodan, NC, and ask for directions!

Here is our top ten:

1) Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

2) WuMo

3) Ziggy

4) Foxtrot

5) Pearls Before Swine

6) Doonesbury

7) Garfield

8) Jump Start

9) Dilbert

10) Judge Parker

For the memory of Deah Barakat, Yusar Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salah, the three Syrian college students studying at UNC and North Carolina State University on Tuesday. Deah was a fan of Stephen Curry, the NBA star who plays for the Golden State Warriors.

Last Ten Songs We've Heard on Simon-FM: Disco and the Hair Bands

Greetings to all of our fans in Norway, Slovenia, Moldova and Iraq and Iran.:).....I guess now thanks to modern technology you can listen to 98.7 (Simon-FM, Greensboro, NC) in those parts of the world just as well as you can from High Point, NC!

From the noon hour on Friday, we jotted down the ten songs they were playing; the stations features an eclectic mix of songs from the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s, but while they proclaim to 'play everything' we have yet to hear them play a song from Turkish pop star Tarkan (I guess one can call their hotline and asked for his popular song "Dudu" if they so choose, it can't hurt........well, I suppose!)......


Here are the ten songs they played during that hour in reverse order:

1) You Dropped a Bomb on Me. Gap Band. 1982.

2) Black Water. The Doobie Brothers. 1974.

3) Your Love. Outfield. 1986.

4) What It's Like. Everlast. 1998.

5) Good Vibrations. Marky Mark and the Funky Buns. 1991.

6)  Rock and Roll All Nite. Kiss. 1975 (pict. bottom)

7) Sister Christian. Night Ranger. 1984 (pict. center)

8) I'm Your Boogie Man. KC and the Sunshine Band. 1977.

9) We're Not Gonna Take It. Twisted Sister. 1984 (pict. top)

10) Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye). Steam. 1969.

Whew! We almost typed 1069 for that last song's release year. Now, we can't get the imagine of Vikings singing "Na Na Hey Hey" out of our skull!

http://www.987simon.com

http://www.visitgreensboronc.com

http://www.visitwinstonsalem.com

http://www.twistedsister.com

http://www.nightranger.com

http://www.tarkan.com

Last Ten Songs We Heard on 98.7 Simon-FM in Greensboro, NC (from earlier in the week)

On Tuesday night (December 30th, 2014), we heard the following ten songs from 98.7 Simon-FM in Greensboro, NC, from the hour of 8:00-8:59 p.m. We are pressed for time, so let's get right to the list:



1) What's Going On. Marvin Gaye (pict. bottom) 1971

2) Money Talks. AC/DC. (pict. middle) 1990

3) Straight from the Heart. Bryan Adams. 1983.

4) Feel Like Making Love. Bad Company. 1973.

5) Tiger Suit. K.T. Tunstall. 2010.

6) All Right Now. Free. 1970.

7) Don't Dream (It's Over). Crowded House. 1986.

8) Cherry Pie. Warrant. 1990

9) Could You Be Loved. Bob Marley (pict. top). 1980.

10) Don't Know What You Got ('Till It's Gone). Cinderella. 1988

www.987simon.com

www.yesweekly.com

www.visitgreensboronc.com 

Last Ten CDs We've Listened To: Folk, Indy and Jazz

Greetings to our blog readers in Ireland, Uruguay and South Africa.

Here are the last ten compact discs we've listened. Yes, we have based this on our regular Last Ten Films We've Seen series, an idea we got from "Film Comment" magazine, as they frequently ask movie directors, such as Quentin Tarantino or Sofia Coppola, what are the last ten films they have watched.

Here's is our list; Bruce Piephoff, a Greensboro, NC, singer featured on this list, is a good friend of our's, alas, we have never met David Bowie. The top image is of the late rock singer Alex Chilton, a song about him was on The Replacements' cd "Pleased to Meet Me" (1987) and the bottom image is of folk singer Sufjan Stevens:

1) Bruce Piephoff. Soft Soap Purrings. 2014. Folk

2) The Replacements. Pleased To Meet Me. 1987. Indy

3) David Bowie. Hunky Dory. 1971.Rock

4) Steely Dan. Countdown to Ecstasy.1973. Rock

5) Pink Floyd. Animals. 1977. Rock

6) Sufjan Stevens. Illinoise, 2005. Indy/folk (the recording features a ballad about a notorious serial killer!)

7) Superchunk. On the Mouth. 1992.Indy/punk

8) Talking Heads. Face the Music. 1979. New Wave/rock/punk

9) The Police. Regatta de Blanc. 1979. New Wave/rock/punk

10) Pat Metheny Group. Letter from Home. 1989.  Jazz.

http://www.reverbnation.com/brucepiephof

http://thereplacementsofficial.com/pages/home

http://www.davidbowie.com

http://sufjan.com/

http://www.superchunk.com/

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/

Quote of the Day: Famous Authors (1 of 5)

Alas, we did not get around to quoting authors of banned books during Banned Books Week last week. We know that Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., and other book stores, such as Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, NC, and the Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colo., probably took part as well.

There is also little doubt in our mind that many libraries and book shops banned D.H. Lawrence's erotic literary masterpiece "Young Lady's Chatterly," which has the distinction of being made into a cheesy sexplotation film that aired on late night cable in the 1980s and a highly respected French art film made just a few years ago.

Here is a quote from D.H. Lawrence:

"Never trust the artist. Trust the tale."

http://www.politics-prose.com/

http://www.malaprops.com/

http://boulderbookstore.indiebound.com/

SIDEBAR: This week, we are also referencing new slang word we have learned from the web site for The Urban Dictionary; they will not teach you these words in an ESL class at Guilford Tech Community College in Greensboro, NC (nudge, nudge, wink, wink):

'Walks on both sides of the street,' this is how someone in a rural hamlet like Welch, WV, will refer to a person who is bisexual; conversely, we presume it's risky to be a bisexual in West Virginia!

http://www.gtcc.edu/

http://www.urbandictionary.com/

http://visitwv.com/

Quotes from Off the Beat Path (6 of 6): Alice Cooper

Greetings to our blog-readers in Iceland, The Netherlands, Austria, Ukraine, Israel and Turkey.

We hate snakes (well the poisonous ones and pythons), but that's the case with the American '70s glam rock/heavy metal star Alice Cooper, who will be playing at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC, on Oct. 22.

Here is his quote from the singer best known for "School's Out" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy":

"The most joyous times of the year are Christmas mornings and the end of school."


http://www.alicecooper.com

http://www.greesnborocoliseum.com

Comics Grand Slam (3 of 4): Khomeini the Wizard

Today, we are citing comic strips from last Sunday's edition of "The News & Record," which is the local daily newspaper for Greensboro, NC. This is not a newspaper in our immediate local area, though some libraries here in my part of Virginia carried the newspaper until just very recently_ one of the latest casualties of modern technology.

Assuredly some of you in Singapore or Dubai might be asking :"Why does he have an image of the American astronaut Buzz Aldrin the late Iranian mullah Ayatollah Khomeini. The reason is that the comic strip "Brewster Rockit" revolves around astronauts and Khomeini is a substation for Merlin the Wizard, since "The Wizard of Id" made our survey,  and we could not find an image of Merlin that would work out here. Well, if Merlin and the late Ayatollah have one thing in common, it is long white beards!

"WUMO," a comic strip which originated in Denmark_ of all places is the top comic strip of the week, and it revolved around animal rights activists at a picnic; no one wanted to kill the army ants (pictured top).

Yes, after this series, we will get to the World Cup and talk about the likes of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, but many people now think blogs have gone the way of the pay phone as it is.

Here are our top ten favorite comic strips from this particular newspaper:

1) WUMO

2) Brewster Rockit

3) Doonesbury

4) Foxtrot

5) Dilbert

6) Ziggy

7) Garfield

8) Judge Parker

9) The Wizard of Id

10) Pearls Before Swine

http://www.nasa.gov

http://www.gocomics/wizrdofid

http://www.gocmics.com/wumo

http://www.news-record.com



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Sunday News and Record Comic Strips: Fruit Cakes and Cubicles

Here we go with our ten favorite comic strips from yesterday (Sunday) in the print edition of "The News & Record" in Greensboro, NC; we will indicate which comics are also in "The Roanoke Times" with a (^) and in "The Washington Post" with an (*). :

1. Pearls Before Swine ^*

2. WUMO *

3. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy (pictured top, the last panel featured a fruitcake gag) *

4. Foxtrot (pictured middle, the strip had a toga reference which, of course, reminded us of John Belushi in "Animal House"). *

5. Judge Parker *

6. Doonesbury ^*

7. Ziggy

8. Family Circus (Surprise! The Oscar theme worked stunningly well) ^*

9.  Dilbert ^* (The reason for image three, the cubicles)

10. Garfield

http://www.news-record.com/

http://www.stephanpastis.wordpress.com

For more Sunday comics surveys, go to our sister blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

The Sunday Washington Post Comics Survey: Lio Gets the Gold in the Giant Slalom

We were initially going to use an image of the Rev. Johnny Robertson from Martinsville, Va., which is some six  hours south of Washington, DC., a person whom my friend Chris Knight has made fun of quite well, but we are going with some little green men instead.

Today, Mark Tatulli's "Lio" comic strip, our personal favorite comic strip from the Sunday "Washington Post" featured the title character enjoying what seemed to be a radical preacher on an old tv with an antenna!

Second place goes to "The Argyle Sweater" in which a familiar Popeye character is at the center of the strip, in a police lineup no place. And, third-place finisher "Brewster Rockit," which is also carried by the "News and Record" in Greensboro, NC, had a great parody of selfies!

Keith Knight's strip "Knight Life" (Keith and Chris are not related; in fact Keith is African-American and Chris is white) poked fun of the 'most interesting man in the world' ads on commercials for the Mexican beer Dos Equis also made it into our survey at #5.

Here is our top ten:

1. Lio

2. The Argyle Sweater

3. Brewster Rockit

4. Sherman's Lagoon

5. Knight Life

6. Pearls Before Swine

7. Reply All

8. Dustin

9. Candorville

10. Prickly City

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.knightshift.blogspot.com

Little Thinker Quotes (12 of 16): We're Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

"You cannot find peace in by avoiding life."

Ironically, this is a quote from Virginia Woolf, who alas committed suicide.

SIDEBAR: According to "Mental Floss" magazine, at some point and place in time, people used to say: "It's colder than a brass toilet seat in the Yukon."

With that in mind, here are some look at temperatures across America and around the world:

48 degrees in Sochi, Russia

37 degrees in Greensboro, NC

37 degrees in Bergen, Norway

29 degrees in Portland, Maine

21 degrees in Kars, Turkey

14 degrees in Port Huron, Michigan

http://www.mentalfloss.com

http://www.virginiawoolfsociety.co.uk

Quote from Che Guevara: Little Thinkers (2 of 16)

Greetings to our blog-readers in El Salvador, Estonia and Egypt.

Since the Myrtle Beach Tea Party in Myrtle Beach, SC, thinks all of us Democrats, even those of us on the center-left are Marxists, socialists, perhaps there is little harm in posting a comment from Che Guevara, the Latin American revolutionist who was assassinated/executed in Bolivia at the age of 40 in 1967.

Guevara was a leading figure in the Cuban Revolution which brought Fidel Castro to power, which makes us think it would be very ironic to see someone sporting a Che Guevara t-shirt at the Greensboro Gun Show, which is happening on the weekend of Feb. 1st and 2nd at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC.

We are also quoting Che as he is one of the many historical figures which have been made into Little Thinkers puppet/dolls (seen above).

Here is his quote:

"I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting."

SIDEBAR: We learned by chance yesterday that the heavy metal Judas Priest is starting their European tour in Katowice, Poland, on April 14th. Perhaps, someone from Chicago or St.Louis may actually get on an Air Poland flight and head out there just for the show!

http://www.marxists.org

http://www.cheguevara.com

http://www.visitbolivia.org

http://www.mbteaparty.org

http://www.greensborogunshow.com

http://www.judaspriest.com

Colder than Siberia: A Look at Temps Around America (plus some around the globe)

Martin Short is shown here as Jack Frost, one of the few good things about the Tim Allen Santa Claus movie sequel that this antagonist appeared in.

Today, the whole east coast of America from Buffalo to Jacksonville, Fla., felt like Jack Frost was nipping at their collective noses.

Here is a look at some of these temps; additional ones will be on our sister blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com


All temps are Fahrenheit:

1) Warsaw, Poland: 42

2) Tromso, Norway (near the Arctic Circle): 30

3) Huntsville, Alabama: 25

4) Anchorage, Alaska 25

5) Greensboro, NC: 24

6) Atlanta: 24

7) Danville, Va. 24

8) Asheville, NC: 20

9) Roanoke, Va. 19

10) Lynchburg, Va. 19

11) Washington, DC 18

12) Knoxville, Tenn. 17

13) Baltimore, Maryland 14

14) New York 10

15) Wytheville, Va. 10

16) Chicago 6

17) Buffalo, NY 5

18) Novosibirski, Russia (Siberia) 5

19) Fort Wayne, Ind. 1

20) Winnipeg, Canada -11

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/

http://www.weather.com

http://www.wunderground.com/

In Honor of Banned Book Week: Passages from Six Books (not all of them were banned)

There is always a thin line between knowing which books or films were outright banned, or if some were just banned in certain parts of the world or country. I am virtually 100-percent that the film version of the Gunter Grass novel "The Tin Drum" was banned in Oklahoma, but perhaps now one can find a copy at the Tulsa Public Library: http://www.tulsalibrary.org/

My friend Tommy Trull, a playwright in Greensboro, NC, made a suggestion on Facebook this week, that everyone should take a book (I suppose it can be either fiction of nonfiction) and go to page 52 of that book and write down the fifth sentence from that book.

Well, here this evening, we are going to do that with 12 books: Six of them will be here, the other six will be on our sister blog: http://www.politcscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

The answers will be at the very end of the entry

1) When we asked him to sum up his impression of the girls' emotional state at that point, he said, "Buffered but not broken."

2) You learn to stay away from fat citizens in python suits, any swelling or protuberance is something to avoid and pregnant women have the streets to themselves.

3) "He knows," Jody said.

4) "W-who did it, Lou?"

5) The container had been packed half full of steel cylinders of some sort, each with a protective wooden box with a lid.

6) 'Well, said Georgie, 'if you must have it, have it then.'




Answers:

1) "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides

2) "The Wild Boys" by William S. Burroughs

3) "You Suck: A Love Story" by Christopher Moore (pictured bottom)

4) "The Killer Inside Me" by Jim Thompson (pictured center)

5) "The 100-Year-Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson

6) "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess (pictured top)


 http://www.malaprops.com/ (Bookstore in Asheville, NC)

http://www.boulderbookstore.net/ (Bookstore in Boulder, Colo.)

http://www.politics-prose.com/ (Bookstore in Washington, DC)


http://www.hplct.org/ (Hartford Public Library in Hartford, Conn.)

http://www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/ (Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake City, Utah)

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

Coming Soon to This Blog Near You (No Promises): What You Might Expect in August

Greetings to our blog readers in Estonia, Ghana and Italy or wherever you might be today. It's now mid-noon in New York and Atlanta, 5:30 p.m. in London and 7:30 p.m. in Ankara, Turkey. If we are wrong about any of this, we will blame Javier the Intern and Zappa the Family Cat.

Today's image is of the early year American comic actor W.C. Fields (1880-1946), who once professed that anyone who hates children and puppies couldn't be all bad. Of course, he said this a full seven decades before Dick Cheney became vice president (forgive the political humuor-we prefer the Brit spelling).

Fields is buried in Glendale, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, which is home to a very large Armenian-American population. Ironically, we know this because the person blogging this info is a Turkish-American.

If you need to explain the irony, I suggest you go to the Facebook pages for the Turkish and Armenian embassies respectively.

Here are three items we hope to post within the next few days, months or perhaps years:

1) Ten More Things To Do in Roanoke, Va: Perhaps we may even discuss some of the more unique attractions in the southwest Virginia area, including a pet cemetery in nearby Cloverdale and Mini-Graceland as well as some of the nifty places to hang out, such as Alejandro's Mexican Grill in downtown Roanoke.

2)  Ten Things to Do in Greensboro, NC: Though I am no longer a resident of North Carolina, the state holds a dear place in my heart for me. The Green Bean Coffee Shop in downtown Greensboro and the a/perture Cinema in nearby Winston-Salem, which is showing the indy dramedy "The Way, Way Back" along with two other films, would be among the places we would plan to profile.

3) Virtual Postcards: We are hoping to resume the series, which was fairly popular, in some way, shape or form.


Stay tuned.....

DULY NOTED: The links below will actually be for the Armenian Consulate in Glendale, Calif., rather than the embassy in Washington, D.C. Conversely, turkey.org is a web site for information on Turkey, and is not the web site for the Turkish embassy either (see links below).

For those wondering who the ambassadors are (thanks to Google), we can say that it Tatoul Markarian who is Armenia's ambassador to America. His counterpart is Namik Tan for Turkey.

Somehow, we don't expect either of them to be having lunch at Ray's Hell Burgers in Arlington, Va. (a D.C. suburb) any time soon!

http://www.aperturecinema.com

http://www.alejandrosmexicangrill.com

http://www.wcfields.com

http://www.turkey.org

http://www.armenianconsulate.org

Kudos to the Miami (Fla.) Hurricanes

Kudos to the Miami (Fla) Hurricanes for coming into the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC, and winning the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament last week.

The 'Canes defeated the UNC Tarheels 89-79 in the ACC final on Sunday. They also beat another North Carolina school the North Carolina State Wolfpack 81-71. In the first round, the 'Canes won over Boston College 81-71.

ESPN analyst say that the 'Canes have weak offensive rebounding which could make them vulnerable to an early upset in the NCAA tournament.

The 'Canes will first face Pacific University, the Big West Tournament champs from Stockton, Calif., in the first round of the NCAAs.The team's mascot is the beloved Sebastian the Ibis (pictured above).

But, it was not a bad week for all North Carolina schools. The North Carolina A & T Aggies won the MEAC Conference with a win over Morgan State, a Maryland school, in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday.

Yesterday, the Aggies defeated Liberty University, the Big South champions from Lynchburg, Va., in the preliminary play-in game 73-72 in Dayton, Ohio. They fill now face the Louisville Cardinals, the overall number one seed in the NCAA tournament.


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