Salute to NCAA college sports (1 of 3)

The six athletes pictured are 1) Amy Boswell, women's volleyball, BYU; 2) Alex Lyon (the goaltender), men's hockey, Yale; 3) Nadia Podo (in white), women's lacrosse, Towson; 4) Jordan Sheffield, baseball, Vanderbilt; 5) Sophina DeJesus, gymnastics, UCLA; 6) Joergen Brath (from Norway), men's skiing, University of Utah

Last Ten Films We've Seen: Looking for Prozac Nation

Greetings to our blog readers in Cuba, Slovakia, and Finland......we are delighted that full diplomat relations have been established between our country the United States and Cuba!

Here are the last ten films we had seen as of last week. "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" and "Prozac Nation" have been notoriously hard to find, so we glad to have them off of our cinematic bucket list. "Love and Mercy" is the new film about Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. He was played by two actors: Paul Dano (the young Wilson) and John Cusack (the older Wilson).

The pedestrian stop and go lights at the bottom are a holdover from East Germany in Berlin; "A Coffee in Berlin" is the only foreign-language film on this particular list, though "Prozac Nation" has a Norwegian director.

Fun thing we learned while putting this list together is that over $1 million of $7 million budget for "Dazed and Confused" went to film's soundtrack; we assume this means Foghat's 1975 rock hit single "Slow Ride" is expensive!

We originally got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine http://www.filmcomment.com

Here is the list:

1. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. director: Richard Brooks. 1977 w/Diane Keaton

2. Prozac Nation. dir: Erik Skjoldbjaerg. 2003.

3. The Lineup. Don Siegel. 1957

4. Bone. Larry Cohen. 1972.

5. A Coffee in Berlin. Germany. Jan Ole Gerster. 2012.

6. The Immigrant. James Gray. 2013.

7. Trishna. Michael Winterbottom. 2011.

8. Dazed and Confused. Richard Linklater. 1993

9. Entourage. Doug Ellin. 2015.

10. Love and Mercy. Bill Pohlad. 2014.

Sunday Comics Survey from Feb. 8th Roanoke Times: Pastis Goes for the Punt

Greetings to our blog readers in New Zealand, Croatia and France.......

And, our deepest condolences to the friends and families of the three Syrian Muslim college students who killed in their Chapel Hill, NC, apartment yesterday.

On a lighter note, here are our ten favorite comic strips from the most recent edition of "The Roanoke Times," the daily newspaper of Roanoke, Va.

For starters, "Pearls Before Swine," a Stephan Pastis comic strip, makes fun of Norwegian lemmings one of whom goes for a pass thrown by another lemming and well, you can guess the rest. One of the surviving lemming says (SPOILER ALERT) that he will not be going to Disneyland. Our top image of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who won his fourth Super Bowl, is used for the strip, though he is not mentioned in 'Pearls.'

Third place goes to the single-panel gem "Speed Bump" which has a male angel being presumably nagged by his wife about reading a novel instead of going to bed. For this, we chose the late Daniel Foster Wallace novel "Infinite Jest," (pict. center) which is over 1,000 pages long! Perhaps, an inmate at Red Onion Prison in southwest Virginia is reading the novel. If so, they may actually finish it. A literary major at Brown University in Rhode Island, conversely, may not get to the end!

And, fifth place goes to "Agnes" who is questioning her teacher about the overload of homework (bottom image: an algebra calculator).

Here is our survey:

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Doonesbury

3) Speed Bump

4) Get Fuzzy

5) Agnes

6) Garfield

7) Jump Start

8) Dilbert

9) Zits

10) For Better or For Worse

For last week's "Roanoke Times" comics survey, go to our sister blog http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

Last Ten Songs We've Heard on Simon-FM: Disco and the Hair Bands

Greetings to all of our fans in Norway, Slovenia, Moldova and Iraq and Iran.:).....I guess now thanks to modern technology you can listen to 98.7 (Simon-FM, Greensboro, NC) in those parts of the world just as well as you can from High Point, NC!

From the noon hour on Friday, we jotted down the ten songs they were playing; the stations features an eclectic mix of songs from the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s, but while they proclaim to 'play everything' we have yet to hear them play a song from Turkish pop star Tarkan (I guess one can call their hotline and asked for his popular song "Dudu" if they so choose, it can't hurt........well, I suppose!)......


Here are the ten songs they played during that hour in reverse order:

1) You Dropped a Bomb on Me. Gap Band. 1982.

2) Black Water. The Doobie Brothers. 1974.

3) Your Love. Outfield. 1986.

4) What It's Like. Everlast. 1998.

5) Good Vibrations. Marky Mark and the Funky Buns. 1991.

6)  Rock and Roll All Nite. Kiss. 1975 (pict. bottom)

7) Sister Christian. Night Ranger. 1984 (pict. center)

8) I'm Your Boogie Man. KC and the Sunshine Band. 1977.

9) We're Not Gonna Take It. Twisted Sister. 1984 (pict. top)

10) Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye). Steam. 1969.

Whew! We almost typed 1069 for that last song's release year. Now, we can't get the imagine of Vikings singing "Na Na Hey Hey" out of our skull!

http://www.987simon.com

http://www.visitgreensboronc.com

http://www.visitwinstonsalem.com

http://www.twistedsister.com

http://www.nightranger.com

http://www.tarkan.com

Our Favorite Comics from Sunday Jan. 18th Washington Post: Maybe Michelle and the Kids Like Foxtrot Too

Greetings to our blog readers in Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.....

In the Outlook section of the Sunday, Jan. 18th edition of "The Washington Post," journalist Michael Booth made the bold proclamation that Scandinavia was over-rated. This made me rethink my foreign country travel bucket list in which Iceland and Norway are ranked second and third respectively after Liberia..........(perhaps, stand-up comic Gilbert Gottfried applauds us for making fun of Ebla, he might be the only one!).............

The images above are of: 1) Charlie Brown, but "Peanuts" is not our top-ranked comic strip, in fact, since the strip is in permanent rerun status, we disqualify the strip from our surveys, but Charlie Brown was the butt of a great gag in "The Argyle Sweater;" 2) A snowball fight in reference to "Foxtrot," which perhaps First Lady Michelle Obama and her daughters found amusing; and 3) the old Flash Gordon serials with the late Buster Crabbe which is actually being used for "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy" (there is also a "Flash Gordon" weekly comic strip still in circulation)....

Here is our top ten, which also includes "WUMO," a Danish import that this week illustrated what it would be life if children said inappropriate things about fat people who eat too much fast food (Gottfried probably loves "WUMO" too):

1) The Argyle Sweater

2) Foxtrot

3) Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

4) WUMO

5) Lio

6) Speed Bump

7) Sherman's Lagoon

8) Knight Life

9) Prickly City

10) Pearls Before Swine

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Our New and Improved Countries We Want to Vist Bucket List

Greetings to our blog readers in Cambodia, Spain and Portugal, which are three countries which missed our cut.

Since we have recently arrived back from Costa Rica, a country that always made it onto my top 10 countries to visit list, we thought we'd provide an update, which once again has Iceland (see top image) at the top.

Morocco is second (middle image, strawberry vendor in Tangier) and Norway is third (bottom image of Bergen), and with some research as to suggestions by both Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide, countries like Georgia and Macedonia made it on to the list, as did one of the world's tiniest nations.

We were delighted to see Turkey, my late father's country, ranked high in the Rough Guide, but since we have been there 15 times, we thought we'd focus on countries we've never visited.

Here is the bucket list:

1) Iceland

2) Morocco

3) Norway

4) Georgia

5) Chile

6) Panama

7) Scotland

8) Malaysia

9) Macedonia

10) San Marino (the tiny country we were referring to)

http://www.lonelyplanet.com

http://www.roughguides.com

http://www.visiticeland.com

http://www.visitmorocco.com

http://www.visitnorway.com

Last Ten Films I've Seen: Lots and Lots of Imports

Greetings as always to blog readers around the world, including those of you in Australia, Canada, and Germany.

This is our first entry since the catastrophic, seismic, Armageddon nightmare, mid-term elections, which saw the Republican gain more houses in the U.S. Congress and completely take over the U.S. Senate, but fortunately Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va) did prevail over Ed Gillespie.

Even though we differ with his politics and his policies, we want to congratulate Cong. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) who has represented Virginia's sixth district since 1993, and now, thanks to perfect gerrymandering, he probably will be representing the Sixth district until the year 2045 (correction: he turns 103 in 2055), when he will be circa 103 years old. Thus, we are using the image of Goodlatte (center) for the film "Dear White People" which is on this list. We are also looking for photos of Goodlatte in a bathing suit, but alas there are none to be found on Google.

Of the ten films we last watched, eight are from foreign countries, including Kazakhstan, Romania, Israel, the Netherlands, Japan, Turkey, Iran and Norway.

Finally, so none of you are confused, the bottom image is of the Oklahoma Sooners bandwagon used when the team plays home football game; "August: Osage County," a film based on a play takes place in Oklahoma. It stars Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.

Here is the list:

1. "Tuesday after Christmas." Romania. 2010. dir: Radu Muntean.

2. "Uszipin." Israel. 2004. dir: Giddi Dar

3. "Headhunters" Norway. dir: Mortem Tyldum

4. "Ichi the Killer" Japan. 2001. dir: Takashi Miike.

5. "Waiting Room" Turkey. 2004. dir: Zeki Demirkubuz.

6. "Dear White People" 2014. dir: Justin Simien.

7. "Schizo." Kazakhstan. 2004. dir: Gushat Omarova

8. "August: Osage County" 2014. dir: John Wells

9. "Leila" Iran. 1997. dir: Dariush Mehrjui

10. "Abel" (or "Voyeur"). Netherlands. 1986. dir: Alex van Warmerdam

Last Ten Films I've Seen: Mostly Netflix Week

Greetings to our blog readers in Sweden, Brazil and China.

Why do we have images of a map of Italy, the Athens, Ga., indie rock icons REM, and photo of a grizzly bear chasing a salmon in Alaska? They all relate to the last ten films I've seen; it should be pointed out that one of the films "The One I Love" shares its name with a song by REM, hence the reason why we have an image of the band fronted by Michael Stipe that was one of the best during the 1980s.


All of these films, except "The Trip to Italy" and "The One I Love," which were both showing at the local art house cinema, where viewed either through Netflix or Netflix streaming; two of the films, "A Trip to Italy" and "What Maisie Knew" feature English actor Steve Coogan:

1) "Point Blank." France. 2010. Dir: Fred Cavaye (no connection to Lee Marvin film with the same name)

2) The Trip to Italy. 2014. Dir: Michael Winterbottom.

3) "The One I Love" 2014. Dir: Charlie McDowell w/Elisabeth Moss from "Mad Men."

4) Grizzly. 1976. Dir: William Girdler (yes, it is a guilty pleasure film)

5) "Passion" 2012. Dir: Brian De Palma (remake of the French film "Love Crime")

6) Trance. 2013. Dir: Danny Boyle (Films features a very nude Rosario Dawson!)

7) What Maisie Knew. 2012. Dir: Scott McGhee, et al.

8) The King of Thieves. Slovakia (in German). 2004. Dir: Ivan Fila

9) "Paradise: Faith" Austria. 2012. Dir: Ulrich Seidl (first film in a triology)

10) Buddy. Norway. 2003. Dir: Mortem Tyldum

http://www.filmcomment.com

http://www.netflix.com

Little Thinkers (16 of 16): Louis Pasteurized Milk

Greetings to our blog readers in Croatia, Norway and New Zealand. And, to those of you who have the misfortune of being on death row in Huntsville, Texas, perhaps for a murder you didn't commit. Oh....our best regards to Gov. Rick Perry (editorial comment: Thank God, he's not our president).

From what I've been told, we 've had many celebrities visit this blog recently, including Bill Bragg, Toby Keith and Neil Diamond.

Here is today's quote from Louis Pasteur, the last in our series of Little Thinkers quotes:

"It is surmounting difficulties that makes heroes."

Colder than Siberia: A Look at Temps Around America (plus some around the globe)

Martin Short is shown here as Jack Frost, one of the few good things about the Tim Allen Santa Claus movie sequel that this antagonist appeared in.

Today, the whole east coast of America from Buffalo to Jacksonville, Fla., felt like Jack Frost was nipping at their collective noses.

Here is a look at some of these temps; additional ones will be on our sister blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com


All temps are Fahrenheit:

1) Warsaw, Poland: 42

2) Tromso, Norway (near the Arctic Circle): 30

3) Huntsville, Alabama: 25

4) Anchorage, Alaska 25

5) Greensboro, NC: 24

6) Atlanta: 24

7) Danville, Va. 24

8) Asheville, NC: 20

9) Roanoke, Va. 19

10) Lynchburg, Va. 19

11) Washington, DC 18

12) Knoxville, Tenn. 17

13) Baltimore, Maryland 14

14) New York 10

15) Wytheville, Va. 10

16) Chicago 6

17) Buffalo, NY 5

18) Novosibirski, Russia (Siberia) 5

19) Fort Wayne, Ind. 1

20) Winnipeg, Canada -11

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/

http://www.weather.com

http://www.wunderground.com/

Arctic Cold Comic Strip Spectacular (1 of 3): Best Comics NOT in Our Local Newspapers

Even with the imported "Washington Post," there are lots of comic strips which are not in the Sunday editions of the two main newspapers which are commercially available here in Roanoke,Va., where "The Roanoke Times" is the local paper.

In fact, we looked at 42 additional comic strips ranging from the cutting edge "F-Minus," which is available in daily editions of the "News and Observer" in Raleigh, NC, (at last check), to the right wing comic strip "Mallard Fillmore," which ironically started at "The Daily Progress," which serves Charlottesville, Va., the most liberal city in our state.

Neither of those strips made the cut this week, but we will give both of them another look in February. 

Since we have artic weather, which makes one think it might be warmer in Bergen, Norway, today than it is here in southwest Virginia, we had the time to look at all these strips, and we placed a ranking system to put them in their right place in a remotely objective manner.

We have the odd numbered strips on this blog, and the even numbered ones on our sister blog (see link below).

The top  strips in this Top 10 list dealt with an evil computer in "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee" (which is the reason why we have HAL from Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"), an ice storm in "Edge City" (see top image) and a great satire of the beloved American board game Monopoly in "Brevity"  (see bottom image).

The comic strip "Beeker" dealt with an ill-fated backyard hockey game, which probably helped win over Ottawa Senators fans in Canada (we could use some fans in Canada ourselves).

Here is the list:


1. "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee" 8.4

2. "Bleeker" 8.0

3. Edge City 7.7

4. Brevity 7.6

5. Deflocked 7.5

6. Close to Home 7.4

7. The Duplex 7.3

8. Heart of the City 7.2

9. Zippy the Pinhead 7.2

10. Fort Knox 7.1

http://edisonleecomic.com/

http://bleekercomics.com/

http://edgecitycomics.com/

http://deflocked.com/

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Presidential Quotes (5 of 16): Millard Fillmore...........not the duck

Greetings to our blog-readers in Dubai, France and Norway, where the English soccer team Tottenham Hotspur traveled all the way to Tromso, a city inside the Arctic Circle, in which the visitors prevailed 2-0.

Though he may not be a household name in France or even here in les etas unis, President Millard Fillmore was the fourth and final Whig Party member and the 13th man to rise to the presidency. In Fillmore's case, it was not an election but the death of President Zachary Taylor which allowed him the presidency. Fillmore was later on a 1938 postage stamp, and his time in office lasted from 1850-53. He was also a political conservative.

This brings us to Mallard Fillmore, a right-wing cartoon duck whom we must admit is quite amusing even though we prefer the progressive politics of comic strips like "Doonesbury" and "Knight Life" (by the ever-kewl Keith Knight), which is the brainchild of Bruce Tinsley.

"Mallard Fillmore" first became syndicated in 1994, and Tinsley got his start as a political cartoonist for "The Daily Progress" newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., which is ironically the most progressive zip code in Virginia.

Stephen Colbert made fun of Mallard Fillmore in 2006 saying that the duck was to right-wing media as Garfield was to lasagna.

Here is Pres. Millard Fillmore's quote: "It is not strange to mistake change for progress."


http://www.millercenter.org/president/fillmore

http://www.millardfillmore.org

http://www.mallardfillmore.com

Soccer Week (2 of 8): Americans Abroad

We are going to present you with a list of 11 American soccer players, which is the same number of soccer players on a team. All of the players except Orozco Fiscal who plays for Puebla in the Mexican Premiere League play for European teams.

The player pictured is Aron Johannsson who plays for traditional Dutch power AZ Alkmaar.

Here is the list:

1) Jozy Altidore (Sunderland, English Premiere League)*

2) Tim Howard (goalkeeper, Everton, EPL)

3) Geoff Cameron (Stokes City, EPL)

4) Terrence Boyd (Rapid Vienna, Austria)

5) Michael Bradley (AS Roma, Italy)

6) Steve Clark (goalkeeper, Honefoss, Norway)

7) Orozco Fiscal (Puebla, Mexico)

8) Aron Johansson (AZ Alkmaar, Netherlands)

9) Jermaine Jones (Shalke '04, Germany)

10) Sacha Kljesten (Anderlecht, Belgium)

11) Tony Taylor (Omonia Nicosai, Cyprus)

http://www.goal.com

http://www.yanks-abroad.com

http://www.politcscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com (Sister blog)

*-His name is (yikes!) not spelled correctly on our links....

7 Words in Turksih (4 of 7): Dolphin

Dolphin=Yunus

One can see dolphins and other sea animals at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland (see links below):

http://www.aqua.org

http://www.baltimore.org

For our blog series "7 Words in Norwegian," click here: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

7 Words in Turkish (3 of 7): Whale

Whale=Balina........the blue whale would be 'mavi balina.'

This reminds me of the time I saw a Greenpeace activist, dressed as a whale, protesting in front of the Japanese embassy in Washington, DC, which is right across the street from the Turkish embassy.

http://www.greenpeace.org

http://www.visitjapan.jp

http://www.goturkey.com

For the Norwegian word for whale, check out our sister "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" (link below)

7 Words in Turkish (2 of 7): Octopus

Octopus=Ahtapot

For what these words are in Norwegian, go to our sister blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

For Canada Day_ A Quote from William Shatner

Greetings to our blog readers in Kenya, Panama and Norway.

Today, our friends to the north are celebrating Canada Day. The American magazine "Mental Floss" has a list of "19 Things You Might Not Know Were Invented in Canada." We won't give the whole list away, but instant replay was #11. Additionally, there is a quiz which asks you "Are They Canadian?," these celebrities include everyone from Helen Hunt to Pamela Sue Anderson.

And, "The Montreal Gazette" has a "Know Canada" quiz, which seems about as challenging as a Bulgarian literature category would be on "Jeopardy," a show which is hosted by Canadian Alex Trebek.

But, our special quote for the day comes from Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, 82, who was born in Montreal:

"Babies have big heads and big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Rosewell. I rest my case."

SIDEBAR: We are saddened to hear about the death of French acrobat Sarah Guyard-Guillot, 31, a mother of two, who was among the performers in Cirque de Soleil's "Ka" in Las Vegas. She fell some 50 feet to her death over the weekend during a production of the show. Cirque de Soleil is a Canadian troupe, and this was the company's first death in its 30 year history.


http://www.williamshatner.com

http://www.startrek.com

http://www.mentalfloss.com

http://www.montrealgazette.com

Kudos to Duke's Men's Lacrosse Team and Remembering Our Fallen Soldiers

Duke University (16-5) upset Syracuse (16-4) to win a second NCAA men's lacrosse championship for the Blue Devils. The team was helped by Brendan Fowler, who won 20 of 28 face-offs, Jordan Wolf, who scored four goals in the title game that was played in Philadelphia, Josh Offit, who scored the go-ahead goal and Jake Tripucka, who was a member of the all-NCAA tournament squad.

Tripucka is the son of former Notre Dame men's basketball star and NBA player Kelly Tripucka. The Blue Devils had lost the ACC championship to their rivals_ the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.

SIDEBAR: Since my late stepfather Donald Sullivan (1918-2003) was a World War II veteran, we thought we would recognize those who lost their lives while serving in the American military. Though Donald was fortunate enough to come home, many were not and that was especially true for troops from Bedford, Va., where the National D-Day Memorial is located. Donald was fortunate to visit the memorial before his passing.

Here was a tweet from the D-Day Memorial today which talked about those who came to Bedford today: "Over 1,000 came to honor and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice to our nation."

It is interesting that the D-Day Memorial has the flags of all the countries that were allies in World War-2, this happens to include not only familiar friends like France, both also countries such as Norway and Greece.

http://www.goduke.com

http://www.durham-nc.com

http://www.dday.org

http://www.visitbedford.com

PSA- October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month

October seems to be the month for a lot of things, and as it turns out the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, is that the only debate as some animal groups are jokingly asking Americans which do you prefer: cats or dogs?

Ironically, we are cat people here at "The Daily Vampire," but as it turns out, this is National Adopt a Shelter Dog Month across America.

By the way, thanks for those of you in Bahrain, Norway, Panama and Malaysia for checking out our blog today.

Here are some useful links to help you find a good dog that suits your needs, as well as a list (with links) of animal shelters in my home state of Virginia including Arlington, Salem, Richmond and Lynchburg. Virginia  also happens to be a swing state with a competitive U.S. Senate race between two former governors: Tim Kaine (D) and George Allen (R).

In case you are wondering, the dog in this image is a shih tzu; don't leave out the 'h!.

Here are the links:

http://www.americanshihtzuclub.org

http://www.americanhumanesociety.org

http://www.awla.org

 http://www.salempets.org

http://www.richmondspca.org

http://www..lynchburghumanesociety.org

Quote of the Day/Week- Frida Kahlo

Greetings to those of you in Thailand, Greece and Norway who have been visiting us lately.

Today, we start a series of quotes from persons associated with the Unemployed Philosphers Guild, a toy/novelty production company which offers everything from Russian Leon Trotsky (who was friends with Kahlo) to Albert Einstein. Today, there are advertising a Leonardo Da Vinci plush toy for $17.95.

The manufacturer also offers a plush toy of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, pictured here, for the same price, and there is also a Frida Kahlo puppet for $5.95.

Here is Frida's quote; it is reference to her relationship with fellow Mexican painter Diego Rivera:

"There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst."

www.philosophersguild.com

www.fridakahlo.com

http://www.fridakahlofans.com