Sunday Best: Honest Abe Makes for Great Gag

Here is our weekly Sunday comic strip survey, and this weekend we turn our attention to the comics section of the May 18th edition of "The Roanoke Times," in which "Pearls Before Swine" made fun of Abraham Lincoln (he is tweeting about going to a play at Ford's Theatre), "Speed Bump" made fun of angels in heaven, "Zits" made fun of lazy teenage boys and "Doonesbury" made fun of Jeb Bush.

As we sip on Zevia zero calorie ginger ale, here are is our weekly top ten:

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Speed Bump

3) Zits

4) Doonesbury

5) Dilbert

6) Get Fuzzy

7) Garfield

8) Funky Winkerbean

9) Agnes

10) Blondie

PS: Earlier this week, we had an entry for graduation commencement speakers across the United States, today we add three more: 1) Col. Michael S. Hopkins, a NASA astronaut, University of Illinois; 2) Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Clemson University and 3) Conan O'Brien, Dartmouth.

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.zevia.com

http://www.dartmouth.edu 

Congrats to UCLA on Team's Women's Volleyball Championship

We were personally rooting for the Florida State Seminoles amongst the four women's college volleyball teams that made it to the semi-finals (apparently, the term Final Four can only be officially used for college basketball) in San Antonio because the team has two Turkish players in stand-out Duygu Duzceler and Fatma Yildirim.

But, the Seminoles were defeated in straight sets by a very talented UCLA Bruins team that went on to win a thrilling match over the University of Illinois by a score of 3-1 (25-23, 23-25, 26-24, 25-16) last night (Saturday).

The Illini, in spite of their loss in the title game, had a banner year which included a semi-final victory over UCLA's main rival, the USC Trojans, in a five-set nail-biter that finished with a 63-second back and forth between the two teams.

In last night's game, the Bruins were led by Rachael Kidder, a 6-3 junior who was also named NCAA Tournament MVP, who had 20 kills and eight digs. Her UCLA teammate Lauren Van Orden added 17 digs, and freshman Zoe Nightingale had 11 blocks and eight kills.

For the Illini, Michelle Bartsch had 22 kills, and Colleen Ward added 17 kills as well.

The Bruins, who were a powerhouse in women's volleyball, had not won a title in the sport since 1991. UCLA has now won four NCAA titles in the sport, and 108 titles in collegiate athletics, with a significant number of titles in men's basketball, women's softball and women's gymnastics.

Coach Michael Sealy of the Bruins, who was also named NCAA Coach of the Year, is also the first coach to win a title as coach and as a player, since he was on the 1993 men's volleyball team at UCLA which won a championship as well.

Road Trip USA (10 of 10)_ Tuscaloosa to Champaign

Well, hopefully, the images below of University of Alabama gymnast Kayla Hoffman and University of Illinois gymnast Melissa Fernandez, both of whom recently graduated from their respective schools (we presume) will hold up. The image we had of Borat at a rodeo in Salem, Va., my hometown, alas ran into technical difficulties.

Hoffman was named SEC Female Athlete of the year. Along with her teammates Geralen Stack-Eaton and Ashley Priess, she help the Crimson Tide win yet another NCAA title in women's gymnastics.

Fernandez was named the female athelete of the year for the University of Illinois; her counterpart for male athlete of the year for the school was NCAA track champion Andrew Riley.

Today, we are going to focus on the distance between Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Champaign, Illinois, where these two school are located.

For this, we chose two random places in both towns. For Tuscaloosa, we went with the Handstooth Sports Bar, which states on its web site that "Sports Illustrated" named it as the best sports bar in the country.

For Champaign, we are going with The Art Theatre, a cinema downtown that is now showing "Tree of Life" and the killer-tire movie "Rubber." (Having seen them both, I would definitely recommend "Tree of Life," but I think that is an obvious choice).

The school's also have two happening college radio stations. WVUA (90.7-FM/Tuscaloosa) is featuring the local band Calooh Callay in their spotlight. As we were working on this blog entry at 5:30 p.m., Connecticut time, DJ Natalie Wontorczyk was presumably playing a band like Arcade Fire for WPGU (107.1-FM/Champaign-Urbana).

So, is the distance between these two college towns:

A) 9 hours 15 minutes

B) 9 hours 45 minutes

C) 10 hrs 15 mins

D) 10 hrs 45 mins

For bonus points, you can guess which one of these two schools is the alma mater for my cousin Kurt Gokbudak (it's the one in the Big 10, which now has 12 schools?!).

SIDEBAR: We gave up on getting out of her on time about an hour and a half ago, but before we leave the office here in Bridgeport, Conn. (not really where I am at), I thought I would mention Crested Butte, Colo. A relative of mine went there last week for the annual Wild Flowers Festival that ended yesterday. But, one can still visit western Colorado and see wild flowers, such as the elephant flowers, columbine, blue flax flowers and Canadian thistle flowers. Alas, according to MapQuest, Crested Butte is a 31-hour-drive from where I am at the moment, and the commute would probably even more arduous if it started in Bridgeport, Conn.

PS: In the Whoops Department, this entry was meant for our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time." But, as it is, we will be 'taking a day off' here to go hiking in Zion National Park (yes, that is a joke!) The Borat image we mentioned was supposed to go with an entry on that blog about Kazakhstan.