Sports Desk_ College Basketball Teams by Area Code in North Carolina (1 of 2)

We were hoping to add mascots from High Point University, Wake Forest and Western Carolina, but we are pressed for time here at the Hartford Public Library in Hartford, Conn. (not really where I am).

But, here is our first of two looks at North Carolina teams by area code. We have Virginia and Washington, DC, teams by area code on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

There are an impressive 18 Division One colleges with men's basketball teams in North Carolina. Even though the four ACC programs get a lot of attention, there are plenty of competitive teams outside Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. Here is a look at some of them:

336 (Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point)

1. UNC-Greensboro  Spartans(10-12, Southern Con., picture): Next game vs. Appalachian State on Thursday @ 7:00 p.m.

2. North Carolina A & T Aggies (8-13, Greensboro, MEAC): Next game vs. Coppin State (Maryland) 8:00 p.m., tonight

3. High Point University Panthers (7-12, Big South) Next game @ Presbyterian (SC) @ 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday.

4. Wake Forest Demon Deacons (14-6, Winston-Salem, ACC): Next game vs. #2 Syracuse Wed. @ 9:00 p.m.

5. Elon Phoenix (10-11, Elon/Southern Con.): Next game vs. Western Carolina on Thurs. @ 7:00 p.m.

828 (Asheville, Boone)

 1. Appalachian State Mounatineers (6-13, Boone, Southern Conf.) See UNC-Greensboro

2. Western Carolina Catamonts (11-10, Southern Conf.) See Elon

3. UNC-Asheville Bulldogs (10-10, Big South): Next game vs. VMI, Tues. @ 7:00 p.m.


http://www.uncgspartans.com/

http://www.ncataggies.com

 http://www.wakeforestsports.com

http://www.uncabulldogs.com

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- Woody Allen

We continue our month-long series of quips from Oscar-winning film directors with a great quote from Woody Allen, who along with fellow filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, is perhaps the person we have quipped the most on our two blogs.

Allen won his Best Director Oscar for "Annie Hall" in 1977. The comedy film with his then-girlfriend Diane Keaton also won Best Picture, beating out "Star Wars." This year, Allen is nominated yet again for his most recent film "Midnight in Paris," which is also his biggest box office success.

Just this week, Allen's skit segmented film "Everything You Always Wanted to Know Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask" (1973) became the 6,000th film I voted for on the IMDB (I had first seen the film many years ago, but I didn't realize I had never voted on the film).

Since Valentine's Day is around the corner (yes, I hate it with a passion too), we thought we'd get an Allen quip on relationships:

"A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark."

SIDEBAR: We have been reporting on the very impressive Harvard University men's basketball team which remains nationally ranked this week (we believe they are ranked 24th) as they stand a plausible chance of being the first Ivy League team to play in the Final Four since Pennsylvania did it in 1978.

Last weekend, Harvard won back-to-back home games (on Friday and Saturday nights) over Cornell then Columbia.

In Friday's win over the Big Red, Harvard's Canadian sophomore Laurent Rivard scored 16 points. The Crimson won the game 72-60.

On Saturday night, Harvard bested Columbia in a narrow 57-52 win thanks to 20 points from Rivard.

Harvard will play Penn-U in Philadelphia on Friday night, and then on Saturday the Crimson's road game against Princeton will be nationally televised on ESPN-U at 7:00 p.m.

Quote of the Day- LeBron James

Today, we are going to start a month-long series of quotes from professional basketball players from the NBA, past and present.

Since we featured an Italian flag in our last blog entry, we thought we'd feature an American flag neck-tie to go with this entry which will feature a quote from LeBron James so we are not accused of being Soviet sympathizers by right-wing Tea Party nuts from rural Idaho and their Kool-Aid cult leader Glenn Beck merely because we are Democrats here.

The man besides James here is Shaquille O'Neal, who recently retired at age 39. Ironically, both James and O'Neal left the Cleveland Cavaliers after last season.

James is with the Miami Heat and they are currently tied 2-2 with the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA finals; O'Neal finished his career with the Boston Celtics.

Here is the quote from the most famous person from Akron, Ohio, with Chrissie Hyne, the lead singer of The Pretenders, being the second-most famous (she actually reportedly moved back there in recent years):

"With that locker room I could sleep there after games."

Today, We Celebrate Five Years of Blogging!

It was on Sept. 18, 2005, when we started with the original version of "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," a blog which is still active (hmm....free time is beginning to become much like Kuwaiti oil, a thing which once seemed plentiful, but now much less so!).

Today, I run both the new version of that blog and this crazy thing called "The Daily Vampire," which is actually an in-joke about my twisted sleep cycle, but perhaps because of the "Twiligt" film and book series as well as "True Blood," this blog gets about 12 times as many hits per day as "Politics...," yet we seldom post anything about vampires here!

I want to take a moment to recognize my alma mater Glenvar High School's remarkable 3-0 start to their high school football season. Last night, the Highlanders won a home game over the Grayson County Blue Devils by a 27-7 score.

My other favorite high school in Virginia, Floyd County High School, which ironically hosts Glenvar on Nov. 9, won a road game against George Wythe High School by a 17-7 score.

And, of course, I'm equally proud of both the American and Turkish men's basketball teams. The U.S. Team, which featured NBA phenom Kevin Durant and was coached by Coach K from Duke University, won the final game over a very impressive Turkish team which was lead by standout Hedo Turkoglu, who will now play for the Phoenix Suns, in Istanbul last week.

My late father Mehmet Gokbudak hailed from Turkey, and if he were alive today (he would actually be 89 years old!), I'm sure he'd still be telling me to do my math homework even though it's been 22 since I graduated from high school!

PS- I also want to extend my kudos to the NC St. football team. Though I sort of made fun of them earlier in the week, they did win their home game over the Cincy Bearcats on Thursday night by a 30-19 score.

Things We Learned on the BBC Today- Turkish People to Make Important Decision

Turkey, my late father's homeland, should be a united country, at least for the next 24 hours. Thanks to a 19-point effort from Ersan Ilyasova, Team Turkey defeated Slovenia 95-68 to reach the semi-finals of the World Basketball Championships in Istanbul.

But, as the team faces Serbia on Saturday, the Turkish people will be getting ready to make a potentially historic decision at the ballot regarding the country's constitution.

According to the BBC, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is pushing the referendum, is in a virtual war of words with his political opponents, such as CHP (Republic People's Party) head Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The CHP leader effectively says that Erdogan wants to take even more control of the central government in Ankara and the passage of the weekend referendum would allow him to appoint high-ranking federal judges and potentially trespass Turkey's long-standing policy which separates 'mosque and state.'

Erdogan has used arguments that the likes of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, who both ironically oppose the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York, have used in stating the religion is a vital part of political life in Turkey as it is in any country.

The vote also comes as the month-long Ramadan holiday is coming to a close, the ninth anniversary of September 11th, the 28th anniversary of the last Turkish coup in 1982 and the likely prospects of a crazy Florida preacher burning copies of the Koran.

The referendum has some secularist support since it would address concerns that the Turkish military has too much political control of government affairs, but for the most, this is essentially a vote that religious people in Turkey support and secularists strongly oppose.

Eda Utku, a woman who works for a Turkish fashion magazine, stated on a BBC message board that she is voting 'hayir/no' because she think the government has a hidden agenda.

I fully sympathize with her view.

SIDEBAR: While the whacko Rev. Terry Jones is getting ready for his Koran bonfire in Gainesville, Fal., that will assuredly assist radical jihadists in places like Yemen and Afghanistan, the liberal blog Jesus' General (http://patriotboy.blogspot.com) is reporting that Sept. 12 is supposedly Burn the Confederate Flag Day. Though we sympathize with that political viewpoint and one's constitutional right to take up such matters, we also don't recommend that one does that in Fort Mill, SC, or anywhere else south of Frederick, Md.!

More ACC Mascots

Well, we didn't want to snub anybody even though both Boston College and Wake Forest (pictured here) are already out of the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, NC.

With the exception of Duke, this has actually been a down year for North Carolina's men college basketball teams. Western Carolina, North Carolina A & T and High Point University got to the semi-finals of their respective conferences, but alas all three teams fell short.

Appalachian State in Boone, NC, made it to the Southern Conference finals but they lost to Wooford University, which is located in Spartanburg, SC, at the conference tourney in Charlotte.

My friend Olaf Jacobsson (psedonymn) from Wilmington, NC, is an uber-Tarheel fan, but even he thinks that the very best they can do is beat Georgia Tech tonight (tipoff at 7:00 pm).

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Camels

The state of North Carolina has banned smoking in restaurants and bars.

(Editorial Comment: HOOORAY!!!!)

Though there are people like my libertarian friend Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, who are not pleased that the state which had an economic base around tobacco is now going smoke-free.

I read a story in "The Daily Tarheel," the student-run newspaper of the University of North Carolina that the Hookah Bliss hookah bar in Chapel Hill, NC, was not pleased with the measures that went into effect at the start of 2010, several months ago but I have not heard an update on what they were going to do about the matter.

But, this does mean that one can now go into the Flat Irons bar in Greensboro where I saw my good friend Bruce Piephoff, a local folk singer, perform two years ago, without coughing a lung out.

My home state of Virginia passed essentially the same measures which went into effect on Dec. 1, 2009, which now means I can have breakfast at the Waffle House on Franklin Road in Roanoke, Va., and actually taste what I'm eating!

Interestingly enough, one university in NC- Campbell U (located Buies Creek- 45 minutes south of Raleigh) is nicknamed the Camels. Though, I think this is because it is a Christian school rather than any affiliation with tobacco.

The Campbell Camels' men's basketball team pulled an upset over the weekend in Spartanburg, SC, when they beat USC Upstate 82-69. On Thursday night, the Camels face Mercer University in Macon, Ga. There were once conference foes with my alma mater Radford University in Radford, Va. The RU Highlanders defeated Gardner-Webb University from Hickory, NC, by a 75-45 margin last night in a home game. Right now, the team seems to be (pardon the pun....) smokin'!