Top Ten Sunday Comic Strips from the "Roanoke Times:" Yeah, No Room for Hi and Lois

Greetings to our blog readers in Tunisia, Germany and Slovakia...........

Today, we are blogging while listening to "The Best of Bread," a compilation of hits from the '70s soft rock band Bread fronted by David Gates, who is alas like the last or next to last guy from the band who is still alive. And, we are also one hour away from the series finale of "Mad Men," which might possibly end with a song from Bread.

Here are our top ten comic strips, which include an independent business owner who wants to protest the government ("Pearls Before Swine") which reminded us of the comic book guy from "The Simpsons," a dragon preparing to snack on a knight ("Speed Bump") and Garfield coming in second to Odie at a talent show ("Garfield"), perhaps next time the 37-year-old cat should take up juggling or tap dancing:

1. Speed Bump

2. Pearls Before Swine

3. Garfield

4. Doonesbury

5. Get Fuzzy

6. Non-Sequitur

7. Agnes

8. Dilbert

9. Mutts

10. Jump Start

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

http://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy

http://www.gocomics.com/Agnes

Top Ten Sunday Comics from The Washington Post: We Love Lio

Greetings to our blog readers in Australia, Chile and Honduras.........

We have not ranked comic strips from the Sunday papers since February! This week, the comic strip "Mike Du Jour" cracks the top ten for the first time.

Among the highlights were a "Lio" homage to Ridley Scott's "Alien," "Brewster Rockit" making fun of an aging robot called Oldbot, and "WuMO" examining what might happen if fish have taosted bagels for breakfast. Additionally, "Sherman's Lagoon" revolved around a husband and wife's spat over what to watch on tv. Perhaps, we can all agree on "Mad Men" tonight?!

Here is our top ten:

1) Lio

2) Brewster Rockit

3) WuMo

4) Foxtrot

5) Pearls Before Swine

6) Sherman's Lagoon

7) Knight Life

8) Speed Bump

9) Prickly City

10) Mike Du Jour

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/

Last Ten Films I've Seen: Mostly Netflix Week

Greetings to our blog readers in Sweden, Brazil and China.

Why do we have images of a map of Italy, the Athens, Ga., indie rock icons REM, and photo of a grizzly bear chasing a salmon in Alaska? They all relate to the last ten films I've seen; it should be pointed out that one of the films "The One I Love" shares its name with a song by REM, hence the reason why we have an image of the band fronted by Michael Stipe that was one of the best during the 1980s.


All of these films, except "The Trip to Italy" and "The One I Love," which were both showing at the local art house cinema, where viewed either through Netflix or Netflix streaming; two of the films, "A Trip to Italy" and "What Maisie Knew" feature English actor Steve Coogan:

1) "Point Blank." France. 2010. Dir: Fred Cavaye (no connection to Lee Marvin film with the same name)

2) The Trip to Italy. 2014. Dir: Michael Winterbottom.

3) "The One I Love" 2014. Dir: Charlie McDowell w/Elisabeth Moss from "Mad Men."

4) Grizzly. 1976. Dir: William Girdler (yes, it is a guilty pleasure film)

5) "Passion" 2012. Dir: Brian De Palma (remake of the French film "Love Crime")

6) Trance. 2013. Dir: Danny Boyle (Films features a very nude Rosario Dawson!)

7) What Maisie Knew. 2012. Dir: Scott McGhee, et al.

8) The King of Thieves. Slovakia (in German). 2004. Dir: Ivan Fila

9) "Paradise: Faith" Austria. 2012. Dir: Ulrich Seidl (first film in a triology)

10) Buddy. Norway. 2003. Dir: Mortem Tyldum

http://www.filmcomment.com

http://www.netflix.com

Our Favorite TV Shows of 2013: Of Course, "Breaking Bad" is Numero Uno

A good friend of mine had this awesome blog dedicated just to tv and films. That was it! But, he was on top of everything. And, he was amazing. Whenever the Golden Globes aired, as they are tonight here in a half-hour, he would blog about the awards as if he were right there.

As an homage to that blog, we are putting our very first Ten Best TV Shows of the List, which is astonishing because as a movie person who also likes college sports (except football) I always thought watching sitcoms like "Roseanne" and "8 Rules About Dating My Daughter" were a complete waste of time.

But, cable tv offered amazing fare this year! And, we didn't even watch any network like "Scandal" or "Hannibal" or Netflix shows like "Orange is the New Black" or "House of Cards," plus we don't have HBO, so no "Veep" either.

But, we saw 12 good shows, two of which, "Bates Motel" and "Top of the Lake" didn't make the cut, but these ten shows did:

1) Breaking Bad (AMC; pictured top): Paste Magazine, Slant Magazine, Rolling Stone, Penthouse (well, we've never subscribed to them, but....), well, it's possible if "Mother Jones" and "National Review" readers agreed on anything this year, it was that this the best show of the year. Some have even said it's the best show ever made. We'll let tv historians sort through that. The image above is of a certain pink teddy bear which fanatic followers show feel is a symbol of how Walter White lost his soul.

2) Portlandia (IFC): Amazingly this show which has a season premiere again in February, didn't make any of the lists we saw! But, it's absolutely hysterical! In fact, perhaps, IFC should send Fred and Carrie over to Portland, Maine, instead of Portland, Oregon, for an April Fool's show!

3) "Rectify" (Sundance): As good as any independent film one can watch!

4) "The Americans" (F/X): This is the reason why we have an image of the Soviet flag at the bottom; this show should have been awful. Soviet agents with perfect American accents posing as a suburban couple in Arlington, Va (or somewhere around there) who happen to neighbor a FBI/CIA agent?! But, it somehow works quite splendidly.

5) "Homeland" (Showtime): Hmmm....yeah, we can't say much without issuing a Spoiler Alert as Season Three had quite the shocking finale!

6) Mad Men (AMC): This is still an exceptional show at every level.

7) Orphan Black (BBC-America): Like "The Americans" this show seemed way too implausible as it revolves around seven young women who look exactly alike living across America and Europe (plus, one in Canada), but it is quite an adrenaline rush.

8) Masters of Sex (Showtime): Wow! What-a-show!

9) Maron (IFC): A sitcom passed on a podcast?! The results are hysterical.

10) Archer (F/X): Like the comic strip "Zippy the Pinhead," this foul-mouthed Millennials version of "Get Smart" didn't work for me at first, but it gradually won me over; Season Three starts tomorrow night!

http://www.ifc.com


http://www.amctv.com/shows/breaking-bad

http://www.sho.com

Today We Mark Our 8th Year of Blogging

It was a very dark and stormy night (apologies to the late Charles Schultz, the creator of "Peanuts"), on that fateful day on Sept. 21, 2005.

Hmmm.....this reminds me.........one of my favorite comic strips is "Sherman's Lagoon" which has underwater creatures, such as sharks, sea turtles and crabs as its main characters; I'm not sure if I've seen an octopus yet (?!)

When we began blogging, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, no Miley Cyrus, no Sarah Palin, no "Breaking Bad," no "Mad Men" and no "Parks and Recreation." The oxy-moronic good Samaritan serial killer series "Dexter," which concludes tomorrow night, was on the air but it was a very new show at the time. 

One of our earliest entries on "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," which is our sister (please visit it, we need the hits!) was a mere shopping list!

I'm sure like all shopping lists I've ever written it included bananas.


Here's to the next eight years............

(We used an octopus for our image because it has eight tentacles; one can see live octopuses at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, or the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta).

http://www.peanuts.com

http://www.aqua.org

georgiaaquarium.org