10 for 10: The Nine Countries Outside America Where Our Blog Is Most Popular

Our original blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," which is still up and existent http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com 

....will be turning ten years old on Sept. 21t. So to honor the occasion, we are posting 10 entries on both blogs commemorating the anniversary.

We start here with a round-up of the nine countries outside the United States where "The Daily Vampire" has had the highest number of hits from. We do want to take a moment to recognize people from smaller nations, such as El Salvador, Gabon, and Laos, where we have seen hits from over the years. But, as one would expect larger countries are in the top nine. We have been stunned by how popular both blogs are in Russia and Ukraine, and we are grateful that Turkey, the country of my late father, is in the top nine for this blog.

The images we have chosen to represent three of the countries on the list are of Misha the Bear (or Mishka) who was the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, Karagoz and Hacivat, two beloved Turkish shadow puppets which have been in existence since Ottoman times, and a still from Federico Fellini's 1969 film "Satyrican" for Italy (alas, the Italian director's name is one we have frequently spelled incorrectly!)

While we are at it, let's take a moment to salute Italian female tennis player Flavia Pennetta for winning today's U.S. Open finale.

Here are the countries and the number of hits from each one:

1. Russia 29,585

2. United Kingdom 27,223

3. Canada 17, 098

4. Germany 15,121

5. France 7,495

6. Australia 7,256

7. *Turkey 2,586

8. Ukraine 2,493

9. Italy 2,371

Parade of Nations (four of four)- Estonia-Sweden

This is the final of four entries listing arbitrary countries and their flag-bearers at the Olympics. Other lists of flag-bearers can be found on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

Estonia_Aleksander Tammert (track and field)

Pakistan_ Sohail Abbas (men's field hockey)

Polnad_ Agnieska Radwanska (pictured above, women's tennis)

Portugal_ Telma Monteiro (pictured below, women's judo)

Serbia_ Novak Djokovic (tennis)

Slovenia_ Peter Kauzer (canoeing)

South Africa_ Caster Sememya (men's track and field)

Sweden_ Rolf-Goran Bengtsson (pictured middle, equestrian)

Quote of the Day/Week-Serena Williams

Today, we continue our series of quotes from African-Americans who were subjects of the great photograph exhibit entitled "The Black List" by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, who is not actually African-American himself. (The above above was not taken by the photographer).

Since we are also quoting American athletes who have won gold or silver this month, we thought a quip from Serena Williams, 30, would be appropriate.

Williams has won over $30 million in prize money, according to Wikipedia. In November of 2009, she received a number-one ranking ranking for the fifth time in her career. In total, Williams has won 27 grand slam titles, and two gold Olympic gold medals in double's play.

She is a year younger than her sister Venus Williams, who is a superstar in her own right.

Currently, Serena is playing in the French Open. Earlier in the tournament, she beat Russian tennis player Nadia Petrova, and (from what we gather) she will face Russian star Maria Sharapova this weekend.

The Black List ran at the National Portraits Gallery in Washington, DC, until April 22.

Here is Serena's quote, it is reference to playing her sister Venus:

"Family's first, and that's what matters most. We realize that our love goes deeper than the game."

SIDEBAR: We were wondering here at "The Daily Vampire" that if former Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes whom we have quoted here were to face former Olympic Turkish weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu, who was actually born in Bulgaria where Turks were the leading minority before defecting from then-communist Bulgaria to Turkey in Australia_of all places, in a game of chess just who would win? Dawes, who is African-American, was not among the subjects of "The Black List."

SIDEBAR TWO:  We thought we'd promote two of our favorite cinemas by mentioning that "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is opening at the a/perture Cinema in Winston-Salem, NC, today., and "Dr.Seuss' The Lorax" will show for a week at the Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg, Va.


http://www.greenfieldsanders.com

http://www.serenawilliams.com

http://www.dominiquedawes.com

http://aperturecinema.com

http://www.thelyric.com

Sports Desk_ More Info on Tennis and Futbol

While the ceremonies at Ground Zero, The Pentagon, and Pennsylvania were making headlines this weekend, there were also lots of things going on in the sports world.
Alas, due to space constriants, we can only talk about tennis and soccer.

Let's begin with the U.S. Open women's tennis final where Samantha Stosur, 27, from Gold Coast, Australia, (pictured above) became the first Aussie woman to win the tournament since 1973: 6-2; 6-3.

In the process, she was able to win over favorite and crowd favorite Serena Williams, 29, who has 27 grand slam titles, including doubles, to her credit.

In the quarterfinals, Williams had defeated one of my favorite players, Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (I love people with long, difficult surnames since I have one myself). But, the 20-year-old should be moving up from her current number 16 ranking after her stellar play in New York.

In the soccer universe, we start in Italy where Juventus beat Parma 4-1 at home in a game that was mentioned a few entries ago. Two of the four Juventus goals game from Italian stars Simon Pepe and Claudio Marchisio.

In England, in a game that was nationally televised in America, Chelsea beat Sunderland 2-1 with goals from John Terry and Daniel Sturridge.

I was under the impression that play in the Turkish Premiere League would be delayed due to a match-fixing scandal, but the league started action over the weekend. Yesterday, my favorite Turkish team (well along with GalataSaray) Bursaspor won a home game over Kayserispor 3-0, in Bursa, with goals from Turkish star Ozan Ipek as well as Gokcek Vederson (who is half-Turkish and half-Brazilian!) and Argentine Pablo Battalla.

Here in the United States, in MLS play, D.C. United traveled from the nation's capital to Los Angeles over the weekend where they beat Chivas USA 3-0. All three goals were scored by Charlie Davies (pictured here).

Now, back to the regular news....

Things We Learned on Google Today- Juventus FC's Star Player Is...

While researching this piece which is continuing to look at famous soccer teams from around the globe, we learned that current Juventus FC star Alessandro Del Piero, 36, holds the team record for most appearances in a team uniform at 635 and team goals scored at 281. Del Pietro is also the team's captain. Juventus FC will face rival Parma on Sept. 11th.

The Italian powerhouse Juventus FC plays its home games in Turin, and the team has a new stadium which is one of the main subjects of discussion amongst European soccer fans.

Del Pietro's teammates include fellow Italians Simone Pepe and Fabio Grosso as well as Serbian star soccer player Milos Krasic.

But, Del Pietro will have to continue playing for five more years to be the oldest player ever to wear a Juventus FC uniform. That distinction belongs to goalie legend Dina Zoff who played until age 41 when he retired from soccer in 1983. Zoff was also the oldest player ever to captain a World Cup-winning team. When he was 40, he tended goal for the 1982 Italian team which won it all in Spain.

Juventus FC won the UEFA Champions League by defeating Ajax Amsterdam in 1996.

SIDEBAR: Starting tomorrow, I will start a three part series on an Australian tourist named Amanda Rigg, who was killed as a result of a suicide bombing by far-left terrorists in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sept. 10, 2001. I happened to walk on the exact same street that she did on that fateful afternoon, which was alas sadly forgotten because of the even more horrific events of the next day.

The series will also discuss my feelings about being so close to one terrorist act as another one happened in my home country the very next day.

SIDEBAR TWO: They were finally able to play tennis today at the U.S. Open in New York. We had mentioned Russian up and comer Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who has perhaps the longest surname in the tennis world. Today, she lost to Serena Williams. But, we wish her well in her seemingly very promising career.

Quote of the Day- Ingmar Bergman

This month, we are featuring quotes from famous film directors and Scandanavians, and perhaps it is fitting that we begin wtih the late, iconic Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman ("The Seventh Seal, "Persona," "Fanny and Alexander").

Here is the quote:

"I am so 100 percent Swedish....Someone has said a Swede is like a bottle of ketchup_ nothing and nothing and then everything at once_splat! I think I'm like that."

For more information on the famed director, we suggest that you read about Bergman in the Australian web journal "Senses of Cinema" (sensesofcinema.org). I was going to try to write a selection on the American film director Stanley Kramer ("Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?") for them, but I never got around to it.

SIDEBAR: We love people with long, difficult names, so we were delighted to watch Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova,20, (we checked the spelling of her name four times!) advance in the U.S Open tennis tournament by defeating Francesca Schiavone, another person with a tricky name, over the Labor Day weekend.

Alas, for the young Russian tennis star mother nature is preventing her next match with American superstar Serena Williams as rain forced postponements of matches in New York for a second misreable day in a row.

People with Long Names List, Part 2

It took an act of Congress to get this image above, and it is not because the Anglo-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (b. 1971), who I have a huge crush though she is married with children, is smoking. There are various versions of this photograph on the web, and most of them were too big for our purposes.

On the first list of People with Long Names we featured men with difficult surnames, including Finnish ski-jumper Matti Hautmaki. This time we are posting women with long names here, and featuring a new men's with long names list on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

Here is the list (apologies in advance to anyone whose name we don't spell correctly!!!)which features women from all over the world:

1. Charlotte Gainsbourg_ The actress who starred in everything from French romcoms like "My Wife is an Actress" to shocking art films like "Antichrist" is also quite a good singer. Her late father Sergei Gainsbourg was one of the most admired singers in France during the '60s and '70s.

2. Nil Karaibrahimgil_ This Turkish singer who is somewhere near 30 years old is heard quite often on radio stations in Istanbul, and she prefers to simply call herself 'Nil.' We understand why.

3. Johana Sigurdordottir- This Icelandic prime minister is among the few world leaders who has publicly acknowledged that they are gay or lesbian. Charlotte Gainsbourg may have problems if she chose to reside in Iceland since the country is reportedly in the process of passing a de facto ban on smoking!

4. Simona Peycheva- Bulgarian rhythmic gymnast; we always try to include at least one eastern European on these lists.

5. Dominika Cibulkova- Yes, there are other tennis players from the Czech Republic or Slovakia with long, difficult names who are more famous (such as the one named Martina), but since this young Slovak tennis star reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals a few weeks ago, we thought we'd put her on the list so we could look hip.

6. Kalliopi Sarasopoulou- She is a Greek pop singer; we also try to include a person with a Greek name on these lists as they can tend to even longer than Turkish names!

7. Lilia Podkopayeva- This Ukrainian Olympian was quite impressive during her years as an impressive international gymnast, especially on the floor exercise. At 32, she would be still young enough to compete for just about any sport besides gymnastics.

8. Severa Nazarkhan- She is a singer from Uzbekistan who wowed the world with her 2003 record "Yol Bolsin," which was released through the English record lable Real World.

9. Tricia Olszewski- This film critic for "City Paper" in Washington, DC, really hated the Rutger Hauer film "Hobo with a Shotgun," but I saw it any way. It was 'ineteresting.'

10. Deepa Ranganathan- She is a leading researcher in sleep/wake patterns...need I say more!

Quote of the Week- Daniela Hantuchova (Slovak Tennis Star)

Ay Karumba! We royally screwed up the first try with this, so we will keep this one simpler. A tip to other bloggers, try to limit your labels and be sure to save your entries, or else.........?????!!!!!!!!!

So, we turn our attention to Slovak tennis goddess Daniela Hantuchova, born in 1983, as we continue to quote 32 people from the 32 countries in the World Cup.

Slovakia was once a part of Czechoslavakia, but the political split which occured some 20 years ago did not prevent Hantuchova from becoming doubles partners with Czech tennis legend Martina Navratilova.

Hantuchova was among the female tennis players profiled in a 2008 feature in "The Daily Mail" (UK) about young, hot female tennis players from eastern Europe. It was a bit tabloid, but very interesting! Though, I think I found out from some place else that Hantuchova studied classical piano for eight years.

She has also posed for lots and lots of swimsuit photos, and like virtually all gorgeous women in the world with the exception of a few lipstick lesbians, Hantuchova (of course!) has a boyfriend but we don't really care about him!

As for accomplishments on the court, Hantuchova reached the semi-finals of the 2008 Australian Open and she will be the 24th seed at Wimbledon.

Here is her quote:

"I guess the attention paid to appearance is something that belongs to tennis too."

SIDEBAR: If you have time, check out the YouTube video featuring replays of the World Cup soccer game between the United States and England with Leggos! It is on the blog "The Knight Shift" (theknightshift.blogspot.com) which belongs to my friend Chris Knight, of Reidsville, NC.

There were other things we were going to post here, but I want to avoid another disaster in the 'chemical lab!"