10 for 10 (4th Entry): Say Hi 2 a Calico Cat...

Greetings to our blog readers in Turkey, Slovenia, and Mexico....

We are continuing our trying to catch up series of blog entries with one dedicate to the calico cat, a popular breed of cat here in America and perhaps the world.

No, we don't actually own one.

There are many cats available at animal shelters here in virtually every community in the United States.

Today, we are choosing these three at random:

http://www.hsaconline.org/ (Humane Society of Alamance County (Burlington), North Carolina

http://plannedpethoodrockymount.com/ (Franklin County Animal Shelter in Rocky Mount, Virginia)

http://foothillsanimalshelter.org/ (Jefferson County, Colorado Animal Shelter near Denver)

Friday Night Tweets: Big Ben and Domestic Politics

Greetings to our blog readers in Turkey, France, and Mexico........


We are closing out July with three consecutive blog entries (hmmm.....yea, we changed our mind), this one is dedicated to tweets that were posted during the 9-10 p.m., eastern US time, many of which dealt with the partisan political divide in the country.......

1) Big Ben (yeah, that clock in London, pict. top): BONG BONG

2) UbertFacts: Osama bin Laden was obsessed with Whitney Houston (pict. late) and wanted to make her one of his wives (alas the pop singer died a few years ago as did Osama)....

3) The Daily Signal: Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky; pict: bottom) commits to Planned Parenthood defunding vote next week (He does NOT have the support of comedian Sarah Silverman who mocked pro-life groups with a video that is causing quite a stir)

4) Urban Dictionary: White Man_ A term used to describe a group of people who are blamed for all the problems in the world.

5) Adam Owens (A tv news reporter for WRAL, Raleigh, NC): Raleigh Police investigate fatal accident on Roy Road....

6) Psychological Facts: If you think someone is starting at you: 1. Yawn 2. If they yawn, they were staring

7) Martin DeGarmo: The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers (a quote from Ralph Nader as the tweeter cited)

8) Jon Winokur (Advice to Writers): Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. (a quote from Maya Angelou as the tweeter cited).

9) The Job Guy: "The only limits are, as always, those of vision," James Broughton, a late American poet.

http://www.dailysignal.com

http://www.urbandictionary.com

http://www.job-guy.com (This might not be the same job guy we mentioned!) 

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

Top 10 Comics from the Mother's Day Sunday 'Washington Post:' It's Not Easy Being Green

Greetings to our blog readers in Malaysia, Malta and Mexico....maybe, we should go with Greece instead of Malta; it's a larger country.....oh, ooops, sorry for thinking out loud!

Today, our ten favorite comic strips from "The Washington Post" included "WuMo" bringing in Hulk, a Gremlin, and Yoda, to the office, to show off that they are now being green. Get it? Well, it's funny if you see it: http://www.gocomics.com/wumo ......our assumption is that Kermit the Frog feels a bit snubbed.

In second place, "Lio" continues a great tribute to filmmaker Ridley Scott with a comic strip homage to "Blade Runner" http://www.gocmics.com/lio  featuring all the characters for the film which will be midnight screened at the Tower Theatre in Salt Lake City, Utah from June 12th to the 14th. Here is the link: http://www.saltlakefilmsociety.org

Dave Coverly's single-panel strip "Speed Bump" features a kangaroo who carries a puppy in her pouch: http://www.gocomics/speedbump

We also really liked "Mark Trail," an educational science comic strip which informs us about those dreaded doodlebugs (pict. center): https://comicskingdom.com/mark-trail

Here is our top ten: http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

1. WuMo

2. Lio

3. Speed Bump

4. Foxtrot

5. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

6. Reply All http://www.gocomics.com/replyall

7. Rhymes with Orange

8. The Argyle Sweater http://www.gocomics.com/theargylesweater

9. Dustin http://comicskingdom.com/dustin/2015-05-10

10. Mark Trail

For our look at our ten favorite strips from "The Roanoke Times," go to our sister blog (not my sister's blog) at http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

New and Improved Top Ten American Cities We'd Like to Visit: From Miami to Vancouver

Since we returned back from Costa Rica on Black Friday, we've been thinking about where else would like to travel during our time here on earth, and if we die a premature death like Austrian pop star Falco, we hope we can come back to life as the Buddhistst suggest, so we can visit Detroit (actually a city which just missed making this life).

For this list, we are focusing on North American cities, and our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com we look at cities we would like to visit in Europe.

It should be pointed that cities we adore, like Denver, New York and Baltimore are not on this list because we wanted to focus on cities we've never visited.

And, without any further interruptions, here is the list:

1) Miami, Florida ("Miami Vice" is pictured top)

2) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (The logo for the Vancouver Canucks is pictured center)

2) Seattle, Washington (pictured bottom)

4) San Francisco, California

5) Portland, Oregon (but, we have been to Portland, Maine, this Portland is the one where "Portlandia" takes place)

6) Guadalajara, Mexico

7) Los Angeles, California

8) Minneapolis, Minnesota

9) Dallas, Texas

10, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

http://www.miamiandbeaches.com/

http://www.tourismvancouver.com/

http://www.visitseattle.org/Home.aspx

Top Ten Olympic Lists (1 of 10): The Flag Bearers; 55 is NEVER Too Old to Compete

Greetings to our blog readers in Kenya, Honduras and Taiwan (yes, we are aware none of these countries are Winter Olympics contenders). We intended to start this whole project on Thursday, in conjunction with the 2014 Sochi Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which is somehow two hours ahead of Trabzon, Turkey, even though the two cities are across the Black Sea from each other.

Here are ten flag-bearers; there will be ten more on our sister blog http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com


Here we go:

1) Greece. Panagiota Tsakiri. Women's Cross Country (pictured top)

2) Mexico: Hubertus von Hohenlohe. Men's Alpine (actually a 55-year-olf European prince who was profiled in "Mental Floss," pictured center)

3) Finland. Enin Rukajarvi. Women's Snowboarding (pictured bottom)

4. Australia. Alex Pullin. Men's Snowboarding.

5. Belgium. Hanna Marien. Women's Bobsled.

6. Sweden. Anders Sodergen. Men's Cross-country Skiing.

7. Jamaica. Marvin Dixon. Men's Bobsledding.

8. Great Britain. Jon Eley, Short-track Speed-skating.

9. Germany. Maria Hofl-Reisch. Women's Alpine Skiing.

10. Slovenia. Tomaz Razinger. Men's hockey.

http://www.mentalfloss.com

http://www.redbull.com

http://www.sochi2014.com/en

http://www.nbcsports.com/

http://www.visitrussia.com/

Little Thinkers (8 of 16): Mahatma Gandhi

Greetings to our blog readers in Turkey, Croatia and Mexico.

Today, we quote the great Mahatma Gandhi, who was the subject of "Gandhi" (1982), which won the Best Picture Oscar as well as a Best Actor Oscar for Ben Kingsley, who played the Indian leader.

Here is the quote, which people as vastly different as conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Sister Helen Prejean, America's leading anti-death penalty advocate, can perhaps agree on:

"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth's the truth."

SIDEBAR: We are shocked and saddened to hear of the death of BBC journalist Komla Dumor (1972-2014), who was only 41 years old. A source in Ghana, his native country, reported that Dumor died of a heart attack at his home in London, but that was not verified by the BBC. Dumor joined the BBC in 2007. He leaves behind a wife and three children as well as a tremendous journalism legacy.

http://www.incredibleindia.com

http://www.sisterhelen.org

Presidential Quotes (4 of 12): Zachary Taylor

Greetings to those of you in Poland, Mexico and Japan.

Our quote today is from Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), the 12th president of the United States who was one of four American presidents from the Whig Party and one of four American presidents to have the dubious distinction of dying in office from natural causes.

Taylor was born near Charlottesville, Va., and he apparently had little formal education. He was replaced by his veep Millard Fillmore.

Here is Taylor's quote:

"It would be judicious to act with magnanimity towards a prostrate foe."

Yeah, one does not hear the word magnanimity much today!

http://www.millercenter.org/president/taylor

Before We Take a Week Off: Top 10 Embarrasing Ways to Die

Greetings to our friends in the Netherlands, Turkey and Mexico.

We went back and forth on this, but we decided it would provide relief from a subject matter that makes sitting through episodes of "Six Feet Under" difficult to sit through. Speaking of which if actor Michael C. Hall has time on his hands and visits this blog, we just have to ask: "What the expletive are you gonna do after 'Dexter'"? Hopefully, those of you in Utrecht, Gaziantep and Puebla got the joke (those are cities in Holland, Turkey and Mexico).

Here we go with the Top 10 Most Embarrassing Ways to Die:

1. Drowning while fishing in the New River in West Virginia.

2. Choking on a Pay Day candy bar.

3. Trying to take a photo of Gustave the man-eating crocodile while vacationing in Burundi (We heard about him through "Mental Floss" magazine)

4. Tripping into an on-coming DC Metro subway train (a DC-Metro map is our middle image)

5. Getting hit in the head by a foul ball at a Detroit Tigers baseball game.

6. Getting hit by an on-coming car after shopping at K-Mart.

7. Smoke inhalation from smoking Camels in bed.

8. Getting struck by lightning while trying to fix satellite tv.

9. Getting run over by your very own car or truck (Alas, this did actually happen to a mail carrier in Charlotte, NC)

10. Slipping on a banana peel

http://www.wvtourism.com

http://www.vistwv.com

http://www.wmata.com (DC Metro web site)

http://www.goturkey.com

http://www.mentalfloss.com

For a link on our sister blog about 10 more embarrassing ways to die:

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Image to Fill Space: Summit Skull

Greetings to our friends in Hungary, Pakistan and Mexico..........we are working on a few things for the blog.........in the mean time here is a Summit Skull..........it retails for between $25-75 depending on the collectability.

Word of the Day: Zeitgeist

Greetings to those of you blog readers in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey (you have to love our sense of humor) as well as any of you who might be checking us out domestically from Maine, Hawaii or Wyoming. Welcome to "The Daily Vampire"!

Anyway, we are aware that Jimmy Carter is trending on the Internet as is the controversial "Rolling Stone" cover, but we will stick with our basic plan, which is to secretly invade Albania (just kidding)!

For those of you who reside in Bolivia, Honduras or Mexico, we imagine the English language must have its challenges and that is certainly true with the word 'zeitgeist' which actually derives from German.

A zeitgeist as it is defined by Wikipedia means: "Intellectual fashion or prevailing school of thought which influences at the same juncture or 'spirit of times.'

We can use it in the following sentence: "I felt the zeitgeist in Ingmar Berman's film 'Persona,'" the classic Swedish film which is pictured above..........hmm.........yeah guess that doesn't help much, but we tried!

Mexican Soccer Results (from weekend of March 15-17)

We continue our look at soccer/futbol results around the globe with a look at Mexican Premiere League games that were played during the weekend of March 15-17.

This week, virtually all super leagues were on hiatus for the week as the national teams played either friendlies or World Cup qualifiers.

Team USA tied Mexico 0-0 in a World Cup qualifier played this week in Mexico.

Most of the Mexican league games for the week we are profiling ended in ties.

But, there were some exceptions.

These games included Pachua's 2-1 win over Puebla. For most of the match, Puebla, based in Mexico's fourth largest city of the same name, was winning thanks to a goal from Mexican national Diego De Buen (27th minute). But, two literal last minute goals from both Angel Reyna (90th min.; pic. here) and Dario Carreno (90th min.) for Pachua changed that.


Santos Laguna, which will face the Seattle Sounders from the MLS (American soccer league) in the CONACAF Cup, beat out Atlas 2-1. Santos Laguna trailer much of the second half due to a goal from Omar Bravo for Atlas (64th min). But, Santos Laguna won with goals from Mexican national Rodolfo Salinas (79th min.) and Colombian futboler Darwin Quintero (89th min).


Monterrey which tied Tijuana 2-2 will also face an MLS in the Los Angeles Galaxy in the next round of the CONACAF Cup; that particular game will be on April 2nd and televised in the United States on the Fox Soccer Channel.

Here are the scores:


Chiapas 1 Moreila 1, tie

UANL Tigres 1 Guadalajar 1, tie

America 1 San Luis Potosi 1, tie

Pachua 2 Puebla 1

Queretoro 1 Toluca 0

Santos Laguna 2 Atlas 1

Cruz Azul 3 Atlante 0

Tijuana 2 Monterrey 2

Pumas 0 Club Leon 0

(The other image in this entry is of the Mexican wrestling legend Santos)

Olympics Host Cities Distance Quiz (6 of 6) London to Rio de Janeiro

We conclude our six-entry series on the distances between Olympic cities as we look at how London, England, United Kingdom, the city that will host the Olympics next week, is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the city that is scheduled to hold the summer games in 2016. Rio de Janeiro will be the first South American city to host the games, and the first Latin American city since Mexico City hosted the Olympics in 1968.

One of the most interesting questions that many Olympic spectators have is which country will be most competitive with the American men's basketball team. Joining Team America in Pool A are Argentina, France, Lithuania, Nigeria and Tunisia; the first game for the American squad will be against France on July 29th.

For those of us who are Turkish-Americans, we will be in a bit of a delicate situation as far national loyalties as the United States faces Turkey in both women's basketball (on August 1st) and women's volleyball (on August 5th). But, shockingly, Turkey's men's national basketball team with NBA players Hedo Turkoglu and Mehmet Okur apparently did not qualify for London.

For American travelers, it should be pointed out that I read in a magazine article recently that an American tourist who had traveled all the way to Brazil had to return home because he did not get a visa beforehand! 

So, how far are these two cities?

A) 5,567 miles

B) 5, 667 miles

C) 5, 767 miles

D) 5, 867 miles

SIDEBAR: Of course, our sincerest condolences go out to to family members and surviving victims of the shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, which killed at least 14 people, during the midnight premiere of "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises." We are planning a possible blog entry to explore how the tragic event was discussed in various social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter.


UPDATE: The answer is C....yeah, it's a very long flight!

Quote of the Day/Week- Frida Kahlo

Greetings to those of you in Thailand, Greece and Norway who have been visiting us lately.

Today, we start a series of quotes from persons associated with the Unemployed Philosphers Guild, a toy/novelty production company which offers everything from Russian Leon Trotsky (who was friends with Kahlo) to Albert Einstein. Today, there are advertising a Leonardo Da Vinci plush toy for $17.95.

The manufacturer also offers a plush toy of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, pictured here, for the same price, and there is also a Frida Kahlo puppet for $5.95.

Here is Frida's quote; it is reference to her relationship with fellow Mexican painter Diego Rivera:

"There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst."

www.philosophersguild.com

www.fridakahlo.com

http://www.fridakahlofans.com

Quote of the Day/Week_ Reinaldo Arenas

We are continuing our quotes from Latin Americans with a quip from the Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990) who left his island nation in part because of the country's political suppression of homosexuals, such as himself.

Arenas became the subject of the 2000 film "Before the Night Falls" featuring Spanish actor Javier Bardem in the starring role in a film that also included Johnny Depp and Sean Penn. The feature was filmed in Mexico instead of Cuba.

Here is the quote from Arenas:

"I have always considered it despicable to grovel your life as it were a favor. If you can not live the way you want, there is no point in living."

Quote of the Week/Day- Frida Kahlo

We continue our month-long series of quips from famous Latin Americans with a quote from the legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), who died a mere week after her 47th birthday, but she had been ill for a very long time before that.

When I was in Antigua, Guatemala, back in 2005, I noticed there was a trendy place called Frida's, which had like a two-hour wait. I've gathered from other people who have visited Guatemala that essentially it is easier to get a bar stool at 419 West, a popular gathering place in my hometown of Roanoke, Va., during happy hour on Fridays.

Here is the quote from Frida:

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly."

SIDEBAR: It's that time of the year again. Actually, I was not thinking about Christmas, but rather that the popular funky Chapel Hill, NC-based band Southern Culture on the Skids will be performing their annual hometown charity show on Saturday night at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro (a suburb of Chapel Hill); the band also plays on Friday night at Ziggy's in Winston-Salem, NC.

Things We Learned on Google Today- The Kid for Chivas

Since the Mexican team Chivas Guadalajara (not to be confused with the American MLS team Chivas in Los Angeles) played Italian powerhouse Juventus in Raleigh, NC_ of all places this week, we thought we'd mention Chivas in today's entry in our "Things We Learned on Google Today" series. Alas, Chivas lost the game 1-0 as Fabio Quagliarella, 28, who should qualify for our next "People with Long Names" list, score the lone goal of the match for the Italian team.

The turn-out at Carter-Finley Stadium was a disappointing 16,124 people, but it was the first time a game between two international clubs was played in the Raleigh-Durham area.

So, we actually asked Google two questions pertaining to Chivas. The first was 'how many first division soccer teams are there in Guadalajara?' (it is Mexico's second largest city). And, the answer is three with Atlas and Tecos, being the other two squads.

We then asked Google who the star player for Chivas is, and it appears to be Marco Jhonfai Fabian, 22, (pictured here) who scored his Mexican first division goal during a 6-0 route of the team Jaguaes (the Jaguars) on Nov. 10, 2007.

Fabian scored his first international goal for Mexico just a month ago in a 1-0 victory over Ecuador.

We expect he will have a great career, and perhaps he may end up playing for a European like....well, Juventus!

Quote of the Week- Leon Trotsky

Today, we quote the Russian, Marxist philosopher/revolutionary figure Leon Trotsky
(1879-1940) who lived a life that would be worth of a 985-page biography that we have no time to read.

Instead, we can tell you a few things we already or learned from Wikipedia about this major figure of the October Revolution and Russian Civil War:

-Lead opposition to Joseph Stalin

-Ideas formed the basis for Trotskyism

-Exiled to Turkey in 1929, he spent four years of his life on Buyukada, the largest of the four Prince's Islands off the coast of Istanbul. This period of his life was the subject of a documentary film called "Exile in Buyukada" (2000, Turkey), which might still be available in America from Facets in Chicago.

-In 1935, Trotsky moved to Mexico where he befriended the famous artist couple of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Trotsky went on to have an affair with Frida, but amazingly enough Diego was not the one who tried to kill him.

-Trotsky was however succefully killed by a Spanish man named Ramon Mercader, who was working as a Soviet agent, at his home in the village of Coyocan, Mexico, in
1940.

-On film, Trotsky was played by Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush in the film "Frida."

Here is our quote from Trotsky, which pretty much indicates why supposedly smart people, like John McCain (note: I am not a Republican, but McCain is a lot smarter than many in his party) chose Sarah Palin as a running mate:

"If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes."

MONDAY LEFTOVERS-In our last entry, we talked about the Duke-UNC game for the ACC tourney championship. As everyone in Durham and Chapel Hill knows, Duke won the game 78-58, but that might be news for those of you in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.

In my hometown of Roanoke, Va., many people are unhappy today because the Virginia Tech Hokies were snubbed by the NCAA selction committee. "The Roanoke Times" quotes Hokies' coach Seth Greenberg as saying that 'there might be someone with a strong personality who views the Hokies as a fungus.'

We noted in another previous entry that Sofia Coppola's new film "Somewhere" is playing at the Galaxy Cinema in Cary, NC; the film is also playing up the road at the Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC. "Marie Antoinette," the film she directed before "Somewhere," will be shown on IFC on March 30 at 5:00 p.m.

Lastly and obviously, when we posted an entry which mentioned the devastating tsunami in Japan there were only 60 confirmed casualties. Tragically, that number now appears headed to top the 10,000 mark in the city of Miaygi alone. Anyone who wished to help can go www.redcross.org

Media outlets, such as MSNBC, are warning people to be fully aware of scams trying to take advantage of the tragedy.

Oscar Predictions_ Best Picture (s)

Roger Ebert said that he thinks "True Grit" will win the Oscar for Best Picture because it got ten nominations. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" projects voters will choose "The Social Network" because last year's winner "The Hurt Locker" suggests Oscar-voters may be slightly more hip than the ones who chose "Driving Miss Daisy" just over ten years ago.

But, ultimately, even though I think it's only a moderately good film myself, I have to agree with David Thomson of "The New Republic" who feels the voters are going to pick "The King's Speech." Ironically, his magazine wrote an article questioning how historically accurate the film was. As Thomson states the film has picked up momentum, both critically and with the public, as it has surprisingly made over $100 million at the box office. And, it's later release date seems to make it a more likely choice than previous favorite "The Social Network."

So, here is a run-down of who I think will win/should win or in some cases who I would vote for (not always the same choice I think is the best).

This is the first of six entries of two blogs, so I will not overwhelm blog readers with all of the categories, including Best Sound Mixing here today.

But, I am going to focus on the four feature-length film categories in this particular entry: Those are Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Animated Feature and Best Documentary Feature.

On our other blog "Politics, Culture and Wastes of Time," I will make projections regarding the four acting categories.


BEST PICTURE:

Who will win: "The King's Speech"
Who should win: "The Black Swan" (which was my overall pick for best film of the year.)
Who I would vote for: "The Social Network." David Fincher's film was a close second on my 20 best films of 2010 list, and it would be great to see a solid film win rather than a movie that is essentially, as well-acted as it might be, a royal family soap opera- and, one that is not quite as witty as "The Queen."

Best Animated Feature:

Projection: "Toy Story 3." I have not seen the other nominees, but this as of a guarantee as the fact that Duke University would assuredly beat Roanoke Catholic High School in a basketball game.

Best Documentary Feature:

Will win: "Restrepo"_ this is a gut feeling, but it seems like this apolitical documentary about American soliders figthing in Afghanistan is the kind of film that Oscar-voters will go for even though I thought the film was disappointing myself. It is more or less like "The Hurt Locker," but not nearly as well-done.

Should win: "Inside Job"- along with most film critics, I think this hard-hitting film about Wall Street insider trading is the best documentary of 2010.


Best Foreign Language Film:

Will win: "Bitiful" (Mexico). The film has a familiar actor in Javier Bardem who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for "No Country for Old Men" which gives it a major advantage.

Should win: "Dogtooth" (Greece). I have not seen the film, but it has garnered the best critical praise of the five films nominated.

For more Oscar projections, go to our other blog:

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Beer Week Promo

No, we are not encouraging drinking alcohol, but rather our focus on the world's most unique and fascinating brews. It is actually the continuation of a series that we've been putting together for a while, but we haven't featured any new entries since December.

To be timely, we may choose Sakara Gold, an Egyptian beer we featured on one of these blogs in our Beers of the Muslim World series, or if there is another revolution in let's say Amman, we may go with the Jordanian beer Petra to be more timely and hip.

Of course, we could also go with Bohemia Beer from Mexico, but since there are reportedly beers with that same name in Brazil and the Czech Republic, it could be confusing!

We will leave with this post that I put up on Facebook yesterday:

"Things we learned from Twitter today- Mubarak will step down; Mubarak will NOT step down; the College Inn in Boulder, Colo., reportedly has the best Happy Hour in the Denver-metro area."