Our Top 10 Favorite TV Shows of 2014: We Must Like Sex and Violence

Greetings to our blog readers in the Netherlands, Croatia and Yemen (is our blog available there? Yeah, I don't know either), and a special Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun to our friends in Turkey, my late father's country.

Here is our top ten (amended Jan. 4, 2014):

1. Rectified. Sundance Channel. Second Season. (image #1, the show deals with an inmate coming home to his zip code in small town Georgia, hence the reason for the prison cell)

2. Maron. IFC-TV. Second Season. (Mark Maron continues to impress us, but he could probably care less)

3. The Americans. F/X. Second Season (the reason for the middle image of Ronald and Nancy Reagan)

4. Halt and Catch Fire. AMC. First Season

5. The Affair. Showtime. First Season. (image #3, a postcard of a hotel room from yesteryear)

6. Master of Sex. Showtime. Second Season.

7. Homeland. Showtime. Fourth Season

8. Mad Men. AMC. Eighth Season

9. Orphan Black. BBC America. Second Season

10. Portlandia. IFC-TV. Fourth Season. (Fifth Season starts Thurs., Jan. 8th)

UPDATE: We revised this from the dubious initial version in which we thought it would be a good idea to include three shows we've never seen! They were: 1) Game of Thrones; 2) Orange is the New Black and 3) The Waling Dead, but we shall keep The Game of Thrones tags anyway.......:)

http://www.sundance.tv/

http://www.ifc.com

http://www.sho.com

Comic Strip Dialogue_ Write a Novel in 2013

 

We conclude the year with some comic strip dialogue from the Sunday, Dec. 23rd edition of "The Roanoke Times," we hope you enjoy:

 

1) "Yes, thanks. I was behind on my holiday venting" (from "Baby Blues")

 

2) "Looks like your Uncle Fred has had too muc Christmas Cheer Again!" (from "Funky Winkerbean")

 

3) "Did you find the snake in the cubicle?" (from "Dilbert")

 

4) "Yaaa!" (from "Get Fuzzy")

 

5) "What are you going to do?" (from "Hi and Lois")

 

6) "I'm baking Christmas cookies for Liz!" (from "Garfield")

 

7) "Grampa, have you ever seen Santa Claus?" (from "Pickles")

 

6)

Comic Strip Dialogue_ Work Out More in 2013

Happy New Year to those of you in Istanbul, Turkey, where it will be midnight in ten minutes. We imagine there are a few pilates studios there though one well assume they would be fewer in number than Starbucks places!

Here is comic strip dialogue from the Sunday Dec. 2, 2012,, edition of "The Washington Post":

1) "Good thing I was born with no apparent purpose in life" (from "Sherman's Lagoon").

2) "Clean your room" (from "Zits")

3) "What?" (from "Doonesbury")

4) "Nope that's prograstination" (from "Knight Life").

5) "By the way, when is dad going to call me?" (from "Judge Parker")

6) "The casin's paying him big money" (from "The Amazing Spiderman")

7) "Walk it in and rise up as you release the breath of a new start" (from "Reply All")

Ending the Year with Willy Shakespeare

This month, we have been quoting the great English playwright William Shakespeare who penned a play called "All's Well that Ends Well," which was written in 1603 and published in 1623. The play will be performed at the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London on May 23, 2012.

Closer to home, the Playmakers Rep Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, will be performing both "Henry IV" and "Henry V" on a rotating basis from Jan. 28 until March 4th. That production will be co-directed by Jospeh Haj and Mike Donahue.

Here is our quote, and Happy New Year to all of you, whether you be in Philadelphia, London, Budapest, Athens, Istanbul, Tokyo, Sydney or Buenos Aires:

"My crown is called content, a crown that seldom a king enjoys."

Happy New Year in Six Languages

Yeni Yilin Kutlu Olsun! (Turkish)

Gluckiches Neujahr (German)

Bonne annee (French)

Anno nuovo felice (Italian)

Gelukkige Niewjar (Dutch)

Glad Nyt Ar (Norwegian)