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

DC Week (7 of 8): Meet the Ambassadors

Wow! I'm amazed that Javier the Intern found this spinning globe for us!

Today, we are going to list 20 ambassadors representing their respective nations in Washington, D.C. (between our two blogs) We must apologize to the likes of Iraqi ambassador Faiy Lukman and Finnish ambassador Ritav Koukku-Ronde for not finding a slot for them.

And, on our sister blog, we will name ten other ten ambassadors, including Dutch ambassador Rudolf Bekink, who we mentioned on this blog last week.

On our sister blog, we also jokingly suggested that Cong. Morgan Griffith (R-Va) meet with Turkish ambassador Namik Tan (pictured top) for lunch at Ezme, a Turkish restaurant in Washington, D.C. This is the link for that particular entry:
http://politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com/2013/10/dc-week-teaser-perhaps-cong-morgan.html

http://ezmedc.com/

The joke was that with a government shutdown, perhaps members of Congress could engage in some activities they never can while working on Capitol Hill. But, as it turns, both the House and Senate members are burning the proverbial midnight oil.

The ambassador pictured below is Jan Mattysen, the Belgian ambassador to the United States. We had a coin flip conducted by Javier the Intern and as a result we chose him over Bulgarian ambassador Elena Poptodorova for the below image.

For the daily goings-on in the diplomat circles, we highly recommend "The Washington Diplomat." http://www.washdiplomat.com/

And we learned from The Washingtonian magazine several months ago that Roble Olhaye of the northwest African country of Djibouti is the longest serving diplomat in the nation's capital.

Here is the list, we have put the serve they started their Washington missions in parantheses:

1. Turkey, Namik Tan, (2010)

2. Slovenia, Bozo Cerar (2013)

3. Israel, Michael Oren, (2009): Oren was actually born in New York.

4. Czech Rep., Petr Gandalovic (2005)

5. Djibouti, Roble Olhaye, (1988)

6. Belgium, Jan Matthysen (2009)

7. Bulgaria, Elena Poptodorva (2010)

8. Egypt, Mohamed M. Tawfik (2012)

9. Azerbaijan, Elin Suleymanov (2006)

10. Mexico, Eduardo Medina-Mora (2007)

http://vasington.be.mfa.gov.tr/

http://www.azembassy.us/

http://74.81.82.58/~bulgaria/

http://www.diplobel.us/

Coming Soon to This Blog Near You (No Promises): What You Might Expect in August

Greetings to our blog readers in Estonia, Ghana and Italy or wherever you might be today. It's now mid-noon in New York and Atlanta, 5:30 p.m. in London and 7:30 p.m. in Ankara, Turkey. If we are wrong about any of this, we will blame Javier the Intern and Zappa the Family Cat.

Today's image is of the early year American comic actor W.C. Fields (1880-1946), who once professed that anyone who hates children and puppies couldn't be all bad. Of course, he said this a full seven decades before Dick Cheney became vice president (forgive the political humuor-we prefer the Brit spelling).

Fields is buried in Glendale, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, which is home to a very large Armenian-American population. Ironically, we know this because the person blogging this info is a Turkish-American.

If you need to explain the irony, I suggest you go to the Facebook pages for the Turkish and Armenian embassies respectively.

Here are three items we hope to post within the next few days, months or perhaps years:

1) Ten More Things To Do in Roanoke, Va: Perhaps we may even discuss some of the more unique attractions in the southwest Virginia area, including a pet cemetery in nearby Cloverdale and Mini-Graceland as well as some of the nifty places to hang out, such as Alejandro's Mexican Grill in downtown Roanoke.

2)  Ten Things to Do in Greensboro, NC: Though I am no longer a resident of North Carolina, the state holds a dear place in my heart for me. The Green Bean Coffee Shop in downtown Greensboro and the a/perture Cinema in nearby Winston-Salem, which is showing the indy dramedy "The Way, Way Back" along with two other films, would be among the places we would plan to profile.

3) Virtual Postcards: We are hoping to resume the series, which was fairly popular, in some way, shape or form.


Stay tuned.....

DULY NOTED: The links below will actually be for the Armenian Consulate in Glendale, Calif., rather than the embassy in Washington, D.C. Conversely, turkey.org is a web site for information on Turkey, and is not the web site for the Turkish embassy either (see links below).

For those wondering who the ambassadors are (thanks to Google), we can say that it Tatoul Markarian who is Armenia's ambassador to America. His counterpart is Namik Tan for Turkey.

Somehow, we don't expect either of them to be having lunch at Ray's Hell Burgers in Arlington, Va. (a D.C. suburb) any time soon!

http://www.aperturecinema.com

http://www.alejandrosmexicangrill.com

http://www.wcfields.com

http://www.turkey.org

http://www.armenianconsulate.org

Blogging in Three and a Half Minutes (or less).........Games Children Play

Yes, today we are just going to use an image of a dodgeball in our effort to save time and energy, and besides our intern Javier the Intern is vacationing in Vermont (this is an in-joke as Javier is a fictitious person, and well, we'd like to be in Vermont actually).

Let us take a minute to greet those of you in Israel, South Africa and Malaysia, who might be checking us out today.And, to generate more hits, we will arbitrarily mention Jon Hamm, Nik Wallenda and the Rev. Joel Osteen.

Wallenda is that crazy guy who walked a tightrope across the Grand Canyon in Arizona last night. Since he is a Christian fundamentalist, he brought Osteen along for support.

Today, we are going to ask a simple question, which one of these sports was the favorite sport of Tilly Gokbudak, our managing editor (well, he is actually moi) while growing up in Roanoke, Va.

Was it?:

A) Dodgeball (pictured)

B) Kickball

C) Volleyball

D) Softball

E) Bowling

The winner gets a free ticket to see Dwight Yoakam perform at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, on June 21:)

http://www.930.com

Times Around the World: From Boston to Baku

 

We were going to look at what our favorite people were saying on Twitter; we are especially curious what comic actor Marc Maron and fellow liberal Turkish-American Cenk Uygur are tweeting, but as it is, Javier the Intern told us to keep it simple tonight.

So, we are looking at times around the world, but rather than going with Grenwich Mean Time, we are going to look at times compares to New York City when it is midnight in the Big Apple.

Here we go:

USA

Boston 12:00 a.m.
Denver 10:00 p.m. (map of Colorado is pictured)
San Diego 9:00 p.m.

South America

Rio de Janeiro 1:00 a.m.
Buenos Aires 1:00 a.m.
Quito, Ecuador 11:00 p.m.

Africa

Nairobi, Kenya 7:00 a.m. (Mount Kenya pictured top)
Cape Town 6:00 a.m.
Casablanca 5:00 a.m.

Former USSR

Moscow 8:00 a.m. (Misha the Bear pictured top)
Yerevan, Armenia 8:00 a.m.
Baku, Azerbaijan 9:00 a.m.

Birthplaces of Star Trek People: The Original Cast, et al

At the last moment, we came up with this crazy idea, well, ok this plan was suggested by Javier the Intern*_ and, it is to name the birth places of various people who are in some small way connected to "Star Trek." Yes, of course, Javier thought of this because there is yet another Star Trek film, what is this 45 so far?

Here we go:

1) William Shatner. Captain Kirk (pictured above): Montreal, Canada

2) Joan Collins (pictured above): London, England; she was a guest star in the episode "City on the Edge of Forever," considered to be the best episode on the original show.

3) Mari Dusay: Hays, Kansas, USA; she was a guest star on "Spock's Brain," which is widely considered to be the worst episode on the original show.

4) Sadri Alisik#: Istanbul, Turkey, he played Tourist Omer in "The Turkish Star Trek" (1973)

5) George Takei: Los Angeles, Calif., USA; he is the original Mr. Sulu.

6) Leonard Nimoy: Boston, Mass., USA: Mr. Spock, we presume.

7) Patrick Stewart: Mirfield (Yorkshire), England

8) Malcolm McDowell- Horsforth (Yorkshire), England

9) Ricardo Montalban#: Mexico City, Mexico

10) John Belushi#: Chicago, Ill., USA

11) Jim Carrey: Newmarket (Ontario), Canada

12) Nichelle Nichols: Robbins, Ill., USA

Belushi and Carrey played parodies of Captain Kirk on tv.

*-Javier the Intern is a fictional character

#-Actors who are now deceased

http://www.startrek.com

http://www.trekweb.com

Last Ten Films We've Seen- The Michael Caine Version

Since we love the series 'Last Ten I've Seen' in the monthly cinema magazine "Film Comment," we occasionally do films that those of us here in 'the office' in Hartford, Connecticut,* have seen lately. Javier the Intern** is really into Japanese Godzilla movies, bu he's been busy these days.

First of all, let's go over the images:

1) A fineral limo- the French film "Holy Motors" (film #1) has some of these, email Javier the Inern for an explanation.

2) The burqini- we are bascially doing this for our reades in Cairo, Doha and Dubai, for the film "Spring Breakers," (film #6) not to be confused with the 1983 teen sex film "Spring Break." We assume both films are hard to find in Eqygt, Qatar and Dubai.

3) A brass teapot for "The Brass Teapot," (film #10)  a new indie film with Juno Temple that screened recently at the River Run Film Festival in Winston-Salem, NC; we need to ask Ken Farmer of "Antiques Roadshow," an auctioneer from Radford, Va., how much this teapot is worth. Actually, we'll ask Javier to do it!

Here is the list:

1. "Holy Motors" (France. dir-Leos Carax. 2012)

2. "Cosmopolis" (Canada. dir-David Cronenberg. 2012)

3. "Elmer Ganry" (dir-Richard Brooks. 1960)

4. "The Day of the Dolphin dir-Mike Nichols. 1973)

5. "This Is Not a Film" (Iran. dir-Jafar Panahi 2011)

6.  "Spring Breakers" (dir-Harvey Korine. 2012)

7. "Alfie" (the Michael Caine version; UK. dir- Lewis Gilbert. 1966)

8. "The Company You Keep" (dir-Robert Redford 2012)

9. Wake in Fright (Australia. dir-ted Kotcheff. 1971)

10. "The Brass Teapot" (dir. Ramma Mosley. 2012)

*-We are not actually in Hartford, but we are in the same time zone

**-Javier the Intern is a fictional character who has 'been working' for us for four years now

http://www.filmcomment.com

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com (Our sister blog)

http://www.kfauctions.com

http://www.riverrunfilm.com

http://www.michaelcaine.com

Greetings from Mister Frog

Even though none of us are biology majors here at "The Daily Vampire," we were startled to learn that frogs are not reptiles, but rather amphibians; we were thus unsure if we should include them as part of Reptile Week or not.

But, the frog lobby in Washington, D.C., lead by Cong. Clarence G. Burton (D-Va)*, made us decide that frogs deserved a blog entry of their own, so here it is.

The image here is of a poison dart frog, commonly found in Costa Rica as well as other Central American countries as well as South American countries, like Peru and Bolivia.

The poison dart frog is known for its bright-colored body. According to Wikipedia, most of these creatures are endangered species, and they live in tropical rain forests.

The Saint Louis Zoo is one American zoo which has an abundance of frogs, though we're not sure which types of frogs they have. We'll have to ask Javier the Intern** when he clocks in tomorrow morning.

And, greetings to those of you in Karachi, Pakistan, where we gather it is between 9:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., according to "Mental Floss," this is the time of the highest Internet traffic during the day, at least during the week. Of course, we should ask "Wired," a monthly technology magazine if their indirect competitors are accurate, but Javier is overwhelmed right now, especially since we're not paying him.

SIDEBAR: We were hoping to cover more women's college volleyball this year than we have, but we did get a chance to watch the women's volleyball game between the University of North Carolina and Virginia Tech live from Chapel Hill, NC, over the Internet at a Denny's (thanks for the good wi fi, Denny's).

Though it was a fairly competitive game, the home team Tarheels (we have also seen them referred to as the Tar Heels, but we have enough headaches right now) won in straight sets 3-0 (25-20, 25-22, 25-21). UNC's standout player Emily McGee, a senior from Naperville, Illinois, guided the 'Heels with 15 digs and 11 kills.

For the visiting Hokies, Samantha Gostling, a junior from Charlotte, NC, had 11 kills.

UNC hosts the University of Virginia for Senior Night on Saturday, while the Hokies head down the road from Chapel Hill to Raleigh to face North Carolina State.

Here are the other ACC women's vollyeball scores from Friday night; the home team is marked with a # sign.

#Georgia Tech 3 Wake Forest 0

#Miami (Fla.) 3 Boston College 0

#Clemson 3 Duke 2 (more on this game on our other blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

#Florida State 3 Maryland 0

http://www.goheels.com

http://www.stlzoo.com

http://www.costaricanfrogs.com

http://www.thisiscostarica.com

*-Cong. Clarence G. Burton was an actual Democratic congressman from Virginia, but he died at age 91 or 92 back in 1982. We figured using a dead member of The Hill would cause us fewer problems.

**-Javier the Intern is a fictional character, though he has been a running gag on this blog for quite a while now.

Dexter Trivia (2 of 4)_ How Many People Has Dexter Killed?*

Yeah, we couldn't resist: This is an image of a cereal killer. We can't tell if Trix Cereal is one of the cereals or not.

At any rate, we are NOT including any people who may or may not have been whacked in the season premiere of "Dexter," the reason for the star* in the header, which Javier the Intern (a running gag) says is re-airing tonight on Showtime, but today's question is "How many people has Dexter killed?"

A) 117

B) 119

C) 121

D) 123

The answer for the last question was A) Raleigh, NC, is the city where Michael C. Hall was born in 1971.

PS_ Yeah, this entry was supposed to be posted like six days ago....

Sports Desk- Radford Wins Bracket Busters Game

In the world of journalism, objectivity is a key element of the profession. In blogging, however, we can show not-so-subtle favoritism. And, I am doing exactly that right now as I am promoting my alma mater Radford University (in Radford, Va).

The RU Highlanders (6-23) have had a tough season but they defeated the visitors from Bighamton University (Bighamton, NY) in a Bracket Busters match-up on Saturday afternoon by a score 64-59. The home team was paced by Blake Smith, a junior guard from Charlotte, NC, who came of the bench and scored 15 points. Javente Green and R.J. Price also had an outstanding game for RU. And, Tolga Cerrah, a personal friend of mine who hails from Ankara, Turkey, added a key dunk during RU's second-half 14-6 run.

But, in all fairness, the key victory on Staurday for the conference arguably came up the road in Lexington, Va., where the VMI Keydets pulled a mild upset by downing William and Mary, from Williamsburg, Va. VMI (13-14) was lead bu Stan Okoye, a junior guard from Raleigh, NC, in the Keydets' 73-65 win.

In another key regional matchup the Winthrop Eagles, a Big South school in Rock Hill, SC, (where my late grandfather Dudley 'Doc' Sturgis once taught economics) lost to Appalachian State, a team in the Southern Conference, in Boone, NC, on Saturday by a score of 79-64.

For the home team Mountaineers seniors Isaac Butts and Omar Carter scored 15 points each and for the visiting Eagles senior Matt Morgan scored 22 points.

Kevin Martin, a forward for Charleston Southern, was named Big South Conference Player of the Week as he averaged 21 points in wins over conference rival Gardner-Webb and bracket busters opponent Wofford.

Here is a list of how the bracket buster results from Saturday for teams in the Big South Conference. The schools from the conference are marked with #s and the home teams are marked with *s.



*Northwestern State 100 #Campbell 86
*# Radford 64 Binghamton 59
*Morgan State 81 *Liberty 69
*#VMI 73 W and M 65
*Ohio 81 UNC-Asheville 62

*App St. 79 # Winthrop 64
*Tenn. Tech 77 # Coastal Carolina 71
*Stephen Austin 69 # High Point 62

*# Gardner-Webb 57 Delaware St. 56
*# Char. So. 77 Wofford 59
* Jacksonville St. 67 # Presbyterian 48

NOTE: We should point out that the image here is of Rowdy Red, who was mascot when I was at Radford U. Ironically, the school might not be happy with me because I am not using the current mascot The Highlander, and if that is the case they should forward their complaint to Javier the intern, who deals with such matters. (This is a joke; there is no Javier the intern here).

Quote of the Day/Week- Vincent van Gogh

We conclude our month-long series of quips from famous artists with a quote from Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), though we are not good at math, we just realized that we have outlived the Dutch master!

There is a new van Gogh exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and we were hoping to read a "Wall Street Journal" piece about it, but someone in our office threw it away by accident (whoever it was, Javier the Intern shall be blamed!). But, there is a similar article from "Newsweek" on the web which seemingly suggests that the exhibit is meant to make the art museum gazer if van Gogh was sane or not.

Here is his quote, and quite frankly we don't care about a dead man's sanity status:

"I often think that the night is more alive and more colorful than the day."

SIDEBAR: Thanks to the PRI/public radio program "The World," which airs on many NPR stations here in America, we have some catch phrases for the day: this coming from a piece about fashion and coupling in Pakistan. These catch phrases are: "What the fatwa" and "ghetto hijab."

And, for some reason, Ferris Bueller, the fictional high school teenager played by Matthew Broderick in the 1985 movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," is trending today on Twitter.

Weekend Road Trip (7 of 20)- Portland, Maine to Altoona, Pa.

You know you've been blogging way too long when you google a term like 'lobster van' on Google Images, and you get a link to your own blog! Such is the case with this image, which is from Myrtle Beach, SC. We have also previously used the Shell Gas Station in Winston-Salem, NC, first built in 1930 which no longer in operation, but has thankfully been preserved as a tourist attraction.

But, today we are actually asking you the devoted blog-reader who has assuredly been with me ever day since we start in September of 2005 how far apart the city of Portland, Maine, is from Altoona, Pa. Of course, since most of our fans are in Uzbekistan and Norway (well, we like to believe that though we were actually linked to an Uzbeki web site--not sure if it still exists!), they are probably confused!

Of course, everyone knows, well everyone outside of Tashkent and Oslo, knows that Maine is known for their lobsters and that is why we chose that image. But, even folks in les etats unis, may not know that Altoona, Pa., is the headquarters of Sheetz, which has like 3.4 million gas stations on the east coast. I have pumped gas at their stations in Ridgeway, Va., Greensboro, NC, Akron, Ohio, and well_Altoona, Pa., among many other places.

Both Portland, Maine, and Altoona, Pa., also have double-A minor league baseball teams in the Eastern League. Friday night, the Portland Sea Dogs lost 9-7 to the New Britain Rock Cats in Connecticut. They host the Binghamton Mets from New York state at 6:00 p.m. on Monday. We were curious to see what a sea dog looked like, and we saw this great image from jellyfishday.blogspot.com, but this blog's managing editor Dennis Alexander* thought the lobster was more suitable.

As for the Altoona Curve, they lost to the Richmond Flying Squirrels (I guess they got permission from the Jay Ward estate as well as the copyright holders of "Rocky and Bullwinkle") in Virginia 3-2 on Saturday.

For this project, we looked at the distance between Longfellow Books, an independent bookstore in Portland, Maine, and Robert's Service Station in Altoona, Pa., which may be one of the three not-Sheetz gas stations in town.

Uh huh, it looks like our Honduran intern Javier**, who is on Spring Break from George Mason University, actually forgot to Mapquest this. Sorry, dear readers. We will have a talk with Javier.

But, we have the answer now; is it:

A) 9 hours

B) 10 hours

C) 11 hours

D) 12 hours

Speaking of indy bookstores, we just saw Sarah Vowell promote her new book "Unfamiliar Fishes" about the American colonization of Hawai'i on C-Span 2 (Book TV). Vowell's talk was recorded at Book People, an indy bookstore in Austin, Tex.

Catherynne M. Valente will talk at Longfellow Books in Portland, Maine, about her new book "Deatless" on Apr. 28 at 7:00 p.m. The book is apparently about the conflict between magical history and actual history.

The answer to last week's Weekend Road Trip Quiz was C) 41 hours, 57 minutes_ that's how far apart Las Vegas and Pawtucket, RI, are. See you back here soon....I hope!

*- Dennis Alexander is my psedonymn and in-joke; it is rarely used

**-Yeah, as you expected, there is no Javier the intern!

Quotes from The Composers- Jean Sibelius

Today, we quote Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) who is Finland's best-known composer. His works include "Finlandia," "Valse tries" and "The Swan of Tvorela" (hope we spelled Tvorela right, if now we'll blame Javier the intern).

There is a statue of the composer in Helsinki, which makes this quote all the more amusing:

"Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic."

SIDEBAR: Speaking of another composer - Brahms, his works will be conducted by the Baltimore Symphony from Jan.27-29, which might be worth a field trip!

DC Diary- Back to Hamburger Hill

So much for a hiatus!

This 'historic' blog entry marks our very first one from the nation's capital, Washington, DC, though we have blogged about this town and its suburb Bethesda, Md, many times over the years.

Even though I am now in DC for a second day, I will reflect on each preious day starting with yesterday, and our musings will continue on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

Yesterday, we left Roanoke, Va., at almost exaclty 11 a.m. to make the four-hour drive to The District.

We stopped for lunch at Mug Shots, a coffee shop in downtown Staunton, Va., which some Christmas albums, including one by Jim Nabors (is he dead or alive), we need to ask our Honduran intern Javiet to look that up; as soon as we find out, we'll let you know).

There were some cute college-age girls behing the counter who were clogging in the kitchen as we eating our chicken sandwiches.

We then stopped in lovely Front Royal, Va., which has a small baseball stadium named after another Christmas-song legend Bing Crosby, but we just had time to stop there for gas. But, from living near the area, I can assure you it is a charming place with lots of horse farms and antique shops, though I have to ask: "Did they really need an Applebees?"

We finally arrived in DC a little before 5:00 p.m. And, then we briefly argued over what to watch on tv before settling on some cooking reality show on tv. Personally, I would have even chosen reruns of "Sanford and Son" on TV Land, but that's just me!

The funny moment during the drive came when we were in Fairfax, Va., a DC suburb. I told my sister and her husband, Sven and Eva Thomasson, who both live in Goteborg, Sweden, (they like me to take radical steps to assure their privacy, these are not their real names or where they actually live) that I was glad we were not going to the Vietnam Memorial again this year.

The reason is not because I am an unpatriotic far-left extremist who has every cd that Rage Against the Machine ever put out (though my zip code is so far right that all Democrats are considered Maoists), but simply because we went last year so my mom could find one of her students from the '60s who went to William Byrd High School in Vinton, Va. Since this student of her's alas died during the Vietnam War, his name was on the wall.

It was a very moving, but also a very somber experience.

As it turns out, Sven's stepfather in Vermont is a war veteran and he wants us to find the names of his fallen buddies on the wall. But, at least, we're not going back to The Holocaust Museum.

Merry Christmas from The Beach Boys

Today's tradition of us finding some kitschy or unusual cultural entity wish everyone a happy holiday or birthday continues as we wish you a Christmas by way of The Beach Boys (if you like this idea, give me credit; if you don't, then send an email to Javier our Honduran college student intern who is on loan to us from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.)

We learned while researching this that The Beach Boys' 1965 album "Smile" was completely shelved and the inferior "Smiley Smile" was released instead. Though Brian Wilson, who was lead singer at the time, rerecorded "Smile" in 2004 as a solo venture.

There were more than 400,000 covers of the "Smile" album which were stored in a Pennsylvania warehouse that were destroyed in the 1980s.

Among the singles from the commercially unsuccessful "Smiley Smile" lp was "Good Vibrations."

So, with that being said: "Merry Christmas from The Beach Boys."

Things We Learned on Twitter Tonight- Right Wing Talking Head Whinning

According to a Lauren Smiley column in "San Francisco Weekly" that we saw via Twitter, ultra conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage who may well be the most extreme one of them all (and he ironically lives in the Bay area), is in a big spat with his employers Talk Radio Network.

Savage apparently wants a professional divorce, but it will cost him about $4 million.

The two parties appear to be heading to court.

And, speaking of court, we are going to refrain from going further into what Smiley talked about because we don't want to get sued! (We make zero dollars and zero cents for our work here, and that goes for our Honduran intern Javier too!).

According to a small article in the Greensboro, NC, alternative "Yes Weekly" from my friend Brian Clarey (who unlike Javier is a real person) the right-leaning blog Lowcountry912 in South Carolina was sued by Righthaven for apparently publishing a column from "The Denver Post" in its entirety.

The incident was also the subject of an entry in a local Denver blog (Broke in Denver).

So, with that in mind, we are going to read some old "Pogo" comic strips now....