Survey of the Best Comic Strips from the Sunday Washington Post (Oct. 19th edition)

Greetings to those of you reading this blog in Germany, Ukraine and Cyprus, and special greetings to those of you have just joined us after watching the Florida gubernatorial race debate between incumbent Rick Scott (R) and his challenger Charlie Crist (D) or for those of you who are already bored with the World Series, which is starting tonight.

This week, we really liked the "Pearls Before Swine" take on the old Abbott and Costello skit "Who's on First," but it was a week full of great comic strips in the Sunday Washington Post. The Danish import WuMo had Yoda, Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh meeting in the children's section of a public library, perhaps they were in Hartford, Conn. (we have a gag about how we are posting from the Hartford Public Library even though we've never been in that building). "WuMo" got second place in our survey.

The bronze medal went to Turkish weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu, no, we just said that to keep you from daydreaming; it actually went to "Rhymes with Orange" which features selfies from the whole family. We're sure our friends at the Urban Dictionary who have coined terms like 'shoefie' and 'brofie' got a hoot out of the Hilary B. Price strip (http://www.urbandictionary.com) The selfie gag is the reason why Kim Kardashian is in our top image slot.

We also enjoyed the educational comic strip "Mark Trail" which focused on various spiders like tarantulas (pictured center) and scorpions; the strip revealed that some spiders actually dine on fish?! Perhaps, they would like Red Lobster.

The cutting edge comic strip "Candorville" had a take on man seeing a shrink, and for that we are featuring an image of Lucy from "Peanuts," a nice comic strip that will probably be in newspapers until the year 2073, when Lucy will be 116 years old.

Here is our top ten:

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. WuMo

3. Rhymes with Orange

4. Speed Bump

5. Sherman's Lagoon

6, Dustin

7. Lio

8. Big Nate

9. Mark Trail

10. Candorville

http://www.hplct.org/ (The actual web site of the Hartford Public Library)

http://www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/ (The actual web site of the Salt Lake City Library in Utah; they have 12,711 followers on Twitter)

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

http://marktrail.com/

http://rhymeswithorange.com/

http://www.candorville.com

Turkey Versus USA Women's Basketball Preview

Though we have not checked the Las Vegas odds, Team Turkey will face Team USA at the 2012 London Olympics as a decisive underdog in a game that is crucial for both teams; assuredly if Turkey pulls of the upset, it would likely be the greatest Olympic moment for the country since weightlifting legend Naim Suleymanoglu lifted for gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Ironically, viewers in Philadelphia, who can watch the game live at 5:00 p.m, will have advantages of television spectators in Istanbul as the game will air at midnight since the tip-off will be at the unusually late hour of 10:00 p.m. local time in England.

Team USA beat Team Turkey by 19 points in a pre-Olympic friendly in Istanbul earlier this summer. Many American players, including stand-out Diana Taurasi (pictured bottom), a star at the University of Connecticut and in the WNBA, have played professionally in Turkey.

Interestingly enough, there is actually one American Quanitra Hollingsworth* (pictured top), who played college basketball for the VCU Rams, who is playing center for Turkey. Hollingsworth obtained Turkish citizenship earlier this year to play for Turkey's national team.

Turkey has defeated Angola 72-50 and the Czech Republic 61-57, which means both teams head into the game undefeated at 2-0.

Hollingsworth is not the only Turkish team player who was born outside Turkey. Esmeral Tuncluer (pictured middle), reported to be the team's strongest shooter, was born in the Netherlands to Turkish parents. Neriye Yilmaz, one of Turkey's top forwards who has WNBA experience, was born in Bulgaria, which until 25 years ago had a significant Turkish minority.

http://www.usabasketball.com

http://www.womenshoops.wordpress.com

http://ww.tbf.org.tr/

*- Her name is not spelled correctly in the tags

Olympics Cities Destination Quiz (5 of 6) Atlanta to Seoul

We could perhaps call this entry "Beauty and the Beast," since we are featuring images of American gymnast Dominique Dawes, 36, and Turkish weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu, 45, as we look at the distance between Atlanta, where the 1996 Olympics were held, and Seoul, where the 1988 Olympics took place.

Dawes and six other American gymnasts nicknamed "The Magnificent Seven," perhaps in reference to the western movie with Charles Bronson of that same name (well, we don't have time to research and verify everything), won team in front of home spectators at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics .

In recent years, Dawes has become a highly touted public speaker and physical fitness advocate. Her teammate Dominique Moceau, 30, has recently published a memoir called "Off Balance" about her trials and tribulations as an elite gymnast. And, another member of that team, Shannon Miller, 35, has survived a serious battle with cancer.

In addition to the team gold, Miller won gold on balance beam, Dawes won bronze on the floor and another American team gymnast Amy Chow, 34, won silver on bars, an event which was won by Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, 33, a feat she repeated at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The 1988 Seoul Olympics were the first ones to have the United States and the Soviet Union since the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and coincidentally they were the last Olympics between the two countries as the U.S.S.R. abruptly dissolved in 1991.

For those games, which were boycotted by neighboring North Korea, Suleymanoglu, 45, won gold  and set new world records in weightlifter. The athlete nicknamed "the Pocket Hercules," sought political asylum from Turkey's neighbor Bulgaria via Australia due to the fact that Bulgarian citizens of Turkish heritage were being oppressed by the communist regime in Sofia. He would go on to win two more gold medals in the sport at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, then in Atlanta.

The 1988 Seoul Olympics were also noted for American diver Greg Louganis, 52, successful efforts, which garnered him another two gold medals. And, Soviet gymnast Svetlana Boginskaya, 39, who would later represent Belarus, won two gold meals in women's gymnastics in South Korea.

So, today's quiz is just far these two cities are from one another? Is the answer:

A) 7,003 miles

B) 7,123 niles

C) 7,223 miles

D) 7,563 miles

http://www.olympic.org/naim-suleymanoglu

http://www.dominique-moceanu.com

http://www.dominiquedawes.com

http://www.shannonmillerlifestyle.com

UPDATE: The answer is B) 7,123 miles, upon further research, we have come to the unofficial conclusion that Dominique Dawes, who is 5 feet, 3 inches tall, is about two inches taller than Naim Suleymanoglu!

Image to Fill Space- The Pocket Hercules

Since I have just recently started working out, for the first time in six years, and on the occasion of the up-coming 2012 London Olympics, I thought it would be ironic (as I will never achieve his kind of muscular build) to feature an image of Turkish weight-lifting legend Naim Suleymanoglu.

Suleymanoglu, now age 45, won Olympic gold in three successive summer games: 1988 Seoul Olympics, 1992 Barcelona Olympics and 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The weight-lifter whose name caused problems for American tv announcers is also perhaps the most high-profile athlete to defect from one country to another. Though there have been some athletes like the barefoot runner Zola Budd who was from South Africa, during apartheid, who moved to England to compete for the United Kingdom during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Suleymanoglu left Bulgaria in a much more defiant manner.

His defection from Bulgaria to Turkey, two countries that neighbor each other, came in Australia, of all places. Suleymanoglu left Bulgaria because ethnic Turks, such as himself, were persecuted by the then-communist regime in Sofia. But, now Bulgaria and Turkey actually get along quite well, the same cannot be said for Turkey and Syria. Suleymanoglu reportedly had a heart attack in 2009, at an incredibly young age, but we were unable to find detailed information on the web about his predicament.

We had wondered what happened to the Soviet weightlifter who was featured in the opening montage of the now-defunct "ABC's Wide World of Sports," and while we researching this piece, we thought we'd dig up that info.

We had assumed the weightlifter was Armenian, but Vasily Aleskseyev (1942-2011), who died last year at the age of 69, is listed as being Russian according to Wikipedia.

But, there is an Armenian weight-lifter Tigran Martiosian who won a world championship in 2010 in Antalya, Turkey, a country which Armenia has complicated relations with.

As for the other famous figure in the opening montage, the Slovenian (which was then a part of Yugoslavia) ski-jumper Vino Bogataj is alive and well; in fact, in recent years, he has been a ski instructor.

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

Quote of the Day/Week- Mark Spitz

Today, we continue to quote American athletes who won medals at the Olympics; next week, we will start quoting international athletes though we suspect it will be very difficult to find a quote from Turkish weightlifter Naim Suleymanolgu, aka The Pocket Hercules, who won gold in three different Olympics.

But, we were able to find a good quip from swimmer Mark Spitz, 62, who actually won nine gold medals over two Olympics. After winning two team gold medals at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Spitz literally made a good splash when he won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics; that record held until another American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The major achievement by Spitz, who is Jewish, was sadly overshadowed by the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

Here is the quote from Spitz:

"I just tried to keep my cool and continue with my race plan: to win."