Special Quote for the Birthday of Charles Dickens

It is actually Mon. Feb. 7, which is the birthday of Charles Dickens who is of course known for "Oliver Twist," "A Tale of Two Cities," "David Copperfield," "Great Expectations" and "A Christmas Carol" among many others.

The Bundange Park Palyhouse in Randolph, NJ, is currently performed the stage rendition of "Oliver Twist" that is "Oliver!" this month. A film version of the musical play won the Oscar for the Best Film of 1968.

Of course, since he is no longer around, Dickens is about the only person who has not said who he is rooting for in the Super Bowl. We know that the very liberal filmmaker Michael Moore is professing allegiance to the Green Bay Packers, so perhaps right-wing nut Glenn Beck is rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And, one can only imagine who terrorist leader Osama bin Laden might be rooting for from his apartment in Karachi, Pakistan, or his cave in Kandahar, Afghanistan, but assuredly if he put out a videotape saying who he was rooting for it would cause tremendous upheveal, which they have seen enough of lately in Cairo, Egypt. (forgive our cheeky sense of humor, yes we know bin Laden is a dangerous man, and the riots in Egypt are a delicate matter).

Here is our quip from Dickens:

"An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to little before it will explain itself."

Happy New Year from Tintin

Happy New Year from all of us here at The Daily Vampire and our beloved Belgian comic book reporter Tintin. Though we hate fessing up to mistakes here, we must admit that we wrongly identified Tintin's white fox terrier dog earlier this week. For the record, the mutt's name is Snowy, not Fluffy.

But, since Tintin's creator Herge (1907-1983) we may not get yelled out for making this blunder. Titin debuted in 1929, and it has been translated into 80 languages.

I discovered Tintin back in 1978 when I was eight years old and we were living near Zonguldak, Turkey, and I came across "Tintin Tibet'te" which was a Turkish translation of Herge's 1960 book "Tintin in Tibet, a book that remains a favorite among Titin fans.

While researching this, we found out that The Tintin Shop in London (there are other Tintin stores in Belgium and France) will be closed in May of this year, but it will be replaced by a coffee house called Haddock's, which will pay homage to the Tintin character Captain Archibald Haddock.

The New Zealand '80s New Wave band Thompson Twins ("Hold Me Now") also took their name from Tintin characters.

A museum devoted to Herge was opened up near Brussels, Belgium, in 2009.

SIDEBAR: One can still see photos of deep-fried turkeys, a specialty of my friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, on his blog "The Knight Shift" (http://www.knightshift.blogspot.com).

Today is also the birthday of my friend Devrim Kale in Edirne, Turkey.

And, we wish to congratulate Jocelyn Skye Jimenez of Elizabeth, NJ, Keegan Lee Kinzel of Huntington, WVa, and Roxana Santos of Rockville, Md. Each of these New Year's babies were among the first babies born after midnight in their respective localities today.

50 Beers from Around the World- Castle Lager (South Africa)

Former president Bill Clinton (see last entry) was among those who attended the World Cup in South Africa over the summer. Clinton was there to watch the game between the United States and Ghana, in which the west African nation prevailed in an exciting overtime victory.

Today, we feature the South African brew Castle Lager in our 50 Beers Around the World series (we are about halfway through now). In South Africa, beer in its traditional sense was first introduced by British immigrants in the late 1800s.

According to Wikipedia though, the native Zulu and Xhosa tribes were both brewing forms of sorghum and maice beers prior to the British immigrants' arrival.

Soccer season is in full-swing around the world. Those of us who root for the Turkish team GalataSaray, out of Istanbul, (I am a Turkish-American) were irked to hear that the gold and red lost to TrabzonSpor 2-0 over the weekend.

We profiled the Turkish beer Efes Pilsen as well as the American brew Pabst Blue Ribbon earlier in the series. Perhaps, there is a bar in Paterson, NJ, which has the largest conticencies of Turkish-Americans, which serves them both!

Quote of the Week- Alfred Hitchcock

Yes, I am aware that something royally effed up with the image of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), but for right now let's move on with our Quote of the Week from the late, great Alfred Hitchcock.

Of course, we're doing this because Halloween is just around the corner:

"I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach."

SIDEBAR: What am I doing at the moment you ask? Well, we don't have time to post this on Facebook or Twitter, but I am in fact: "Having a halal beer with Juan Williams at the Paradise Hookah Bar in Paterson, NJ."*

*-Yes, there is such a place. Paterson, NJ, has one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States. The Fox News commentator was literally fired from his day job at NPR for saying Muslims in garb scare him on airplanes. I have a similar fear of Mormons, actually (that is just a joke, Marie Osmond fans!).Halal beer is actually a product that is served in Malaysia!

50 Beers Around the World- Foster's

Greetings from the lobby of the Lollipop Motel in Wildwood, NJ, (which is not remotely close to where we really are!), where today we post about the familiar Australian brew Foster's, which everyone between here and Tashkent, Uzbekistan, knows is: "Australian for Beer."

According to Wikipedia, the Foster's Group, which owns the brand, announced in 2008 of the release of Cascade Brewery's 'green' beer that will not actually be green in color, but rather it is fully carbon offset in terms of agriculture, manufacturing, and packaging.

Bonus Silly Picture to Fill Space- Big Pig!

We are posting this image of a Vietnamese pig (George Clooney apparently had one like this for a pet!) in honor of the 28th Annual Hillsborough Hog Day, which gets underway in Hillsborough, NC (near Chapel Hill) tomorrow morning starting at 9 a.m. The festivities are scheduled to conclude around 6 p.m.

I actually went to this fest two years ago, and it was quite the interesting occasion. I wanted to jokingly invite a Turkish friend who was taking classes at UNC on a lark, but I'm not sure that Mustafa (pse) shares my twisted sense of humor.

This year, I was reminded of the event through an ad in "The Carrboro Citizen" (weekly newspaper in Carrboro, NC, which is also near Hillsborough).

The ad featured the following tidbits:

Admission is Free!
Crafters, games and contests.
Live music all day Saturday.
Fun for the whole family.

There will also be lots and lots of barbecue!

For those who live in the Tarheel State, but have other plans, there is also a b-b-q place called 'The Pit' in Raleigh, NC, on West Davie Street which claims to provide 'everything but the squeal.'

Now, I must profess that even though I am a human secularist, as a Turkish-American who had a Muslim father (alas he died when I was 13) I still feel guilty indulging in pork.

But, apparently, one gave ham and bacon without eating pork when they dine at The King's Family Restaurant (no relation to the chain of the same name in the Altoona, Pa., area) in Newark, NJ, as they offer halal meats. According to the New Jersey restaurant's web site, King's also offers omelets with beef or turkey bacon instead of pork.

Somehow, I can't imagine this would go over very well at the Omelette Shoppe (a regional chain open 24/7 with restaurants in Virginia and West Virginia) in Beckley, W.Va., which presumably has a very small Arab-American population.