Top Ten Things To Do List (Satire): Catch Up on Michael Caine Flicks

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We haven't done this for a while, and we experienced tech glitches. Where is Javier the Intern when we need him?

Here is a satirical top 10 things we need to do list:

1 ) Read "The Great Gatsby" again

2) Plan 2016 trip to Peru (pict. center)

3) Watch four Michael Caine films even if you have seen them before, perhaps you can watch them with Zappa the Family Cat

4) Watch stars at night

5) Play Angry Birds for 4.5 hours in a row

6) Mow the neighbor's lawn

7) Wash Car

8) Laundry

9) Read the latest issue of "The Economist"

10) Find a missing pug

The World Cup Lists (1 of 4): The Captains

Greetings to our readers in Bangladesh, Turkey and Peru, where assuredly folks are still depressed because their respective nations are not competing in the World Cup, but we are here to cheer you up.

Well, actually, this list may not help_may not help at all in fact.

We begin our long overdue World Cup coverage with a list of 11 players who are captains of their team. Of course, just because one is a captain does not he is the best player. The disgraced soccer version of Bela Lugosi, Uruguay's Luis Suarez, one of the best players in the world, was not the captain for Team Uruguay which will try to defeat Colombia today without him.

Here is our list, good luck to everyone in Brazil:

1) Thiago Silva. Brazil. Age 29. Paris Saint-Germaine (France; pictured top).

2) Giorgis Karagounis. Greece. Age 37. Fulham (England; pictured center)

3) Clint Dempsey. USA. Age 31. Seattle Sounders (MLS/USA; pictured bottom)

4) Robin van Persie. Netherlands. Age 30. Manchester United (England)

5) Hugo Lloris. France. 27. Tottenham Hotspur (England, he plays goal-keeper)

6) Lionel Messi. Argentina. 27. Barcelona (Spain)

7) Vincent Kompany. Belgium. 28. Manchester City (England)

8) Gokhan Inler. Switzerland. 29. Napoli (Italy; he is the son of immigrants from Turkey)

9) Claudio Bravo. Chile. 31. Barcelona (Spain, the player is a goal-keeper)

10) Philipp Lahm. Germany. 30. Bayern Munich (Germany)

11) Mario Yepes. Colombia. 38. Atalanta (Italy)

http://espn.go.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport

Presidential Quotes (6 of 16): Franklin Pierce, the Only President from New Hampshire

Greetings to our blog-readers in Canada, The Bahamas and Peru.

When one plays the "Name All the Presidents" trivia game on the web site for "Mental Floss" magazine, President Franklin Pierce, the 14th president and the only to hail from the Granite State, New Hampshire, may be one of the names one is most likely to forget.

But, Pierce, who served in office from 1853-57, was able to overcome the tea party radicals of his day, and defeat the conservative Whig Party candidate Winfield Scott by a 50-44 margin. Pierce's veep was William King, from Alabama, who alas died of tuberculosis a mere 45 days after becoming vice president.

Here is his quote: "Frequently the more trifling the subject, the more animated and protracted the discussion."

http://www.millercenter.org/presidents/pierce

http://www.mentalfloss.com

http://www.visitnh.org

Free Form Blogging: Famous Female Athletes

Greetings to our blog visitors in Dubai, Slovenia and Peru.

It has been a good while since we posted a free form blog where we just use words, topics, things which are trending on Twitter, yada, yada, yada, and tonight, we are going to come with a short piece involving female athletes, many of which we saw on ESPN's "Nine for IX" documentary on female athletes.

The six athletes we are using former American gold-medal winning gymnast Mary Lou Retton (pictured top), soccer star Mia Hamm who lead the USA to a World Cup title in 1999 (pictured center), Gabrielle Reece, a beach volleyball superstar (we expect she help us get hits from Dubai, Oman and Yemen), Indy race car driver Danica Patrick, East German gold-medal winning figure skater Katarina Witt and tennis Wonder Woman Martina Navratilova.

Witt and Reece both posed for "Playboy," Hamm posed for the cover of "Washingtonian Magazine" and Retton for those Wheaties boxes.

Here we go:

"Mary Lou Retton, a country girl from Fairmont, W.Va, won gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and assuredly if Twitter had been around back then, she would have trending for a full six weeks. Mia Hamm went on to play for the Turkish soccer team Fenerbahce, an Istanbul powerhouse, and she broke a huge gender barrier for women (this is a joke, but there is now a women's soccer league in Turkey and ironically not one in America). Gabrielle Reece is probably driving a Prius with a bumper sticker that says: "Real athletes don't wear shoes." Amazingly enough, she is now 43 years old. But, Katarina Witt and Martina Navratilova are older than that. Witt was manipulated by the East German regime. Navratilova is now a gay rights activist and a novelist/writer; we assume she doesn't live in Topeka, Kansas. Danica Patrick is the only one of these athletes who has competed directly with men
in a men's sport. Of course, lots of guys hate her for this, but we think they are really just jealous because she is sooo out of their league."

Hmm....yeah, I don't think we need to file a copyright for this.

And, kudos to our beloved Salem Red Sox who defeated the Myrtle Beach Pelicans 1-0 in Salem, Va., in the first game of a best of three playoff series. The winner plays for the Carolina League championship.

http://www.gabriellereece.com/

http://www.miafoundation.org/

http://www.danicaracing.com/

http://en.katarina-witt.de/

http://www.martinanavratilova.com/

http://marylouretton.com/

Quote of the Day/Week- Alberto Fujimori

Today, we are continuing our quotes from famous Latin Americans with the former criminally corrupt president of Peru; Alberto Fujimori (b. 1938) is of Japanese descent and feld to Japan though he was extradicted back to Peru to face criminal human rights violations.]

The right-wing leader is credited with creating fujimorism, an anti-terrorist free-market policy. Fujimori is also the subject of the excellent documentary film "The Fall of Fujimori," which has the following tagline: "He risked everything to win Peru's war on terror, but in doing so he became an international fugitive, wanted for corruption, kidnapping, and murder."

His daughter Keiko Fujimori (b. 1975) will be quoted in our sister blog; she ran for president with her father in a Peruvian jail this year. In 2009, the elder Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in jail for human rights violations.

One of the prime challenges that he faced while in office was fighting the Shinning Path terrorist/separatist movement in the mountains of Peru. In 1992, when Fujimori was president, Abimael Guzman (b. 1934) the professor of philosophy who founded the Shinning Path movement was sentenced to life in prison.

Here is the quote from Alberto Fujimori: "Poverty doesn't imply neccesarrily violence."