Tilly Gokbudak is Moving to Bulgaria in August

All of us here at "The Daily Vampire" are pleased to announce that our managing editor Tilly Gokbudak, who happens to be me, is moving to Sofia, Bulgaria, to teach at the American College of Sofia.

He was accepted there for a full-time position teaching English, and Gokbudak will also travel to his late father Mehmet Gokbudak's native Turkey to assist elementary school teachers teach English in the provinces of Edirne, Tekirdag and Kiriklareli.

Turkey and Bulgaria share a common border, and there many ethnic Turks in Bulgaria.

But, we are happy to announce that this blog will not discontinue in any way.

Virtual Postcard from Missouri- Chuck Berry Statue

Greetings from Missouri, yes we really are in the Show Me State though we are pretty far from St.Louis, where one can see this statue of the rock and roll legend Chuck Berry, who is thankfully still among the living.

Good morning to those of you in Dubai, where it is now 9:00 a.m. We're not sure if Fly Emirates has direct flights to St. Louis, but we imagine you can jump on a British Airways flight at Heathrow Airport from London to St. Louis, which was home to the now-defunct American airline TWA (1925-2001).

Missouri's largest city is also known for its baseball team the St. Louis Cardinals, the second winnigest team in Major League Baseball history.

http://www.visitmo.com/

http://explorestlouis.com/

http://www.emirates.com/

http://www.britishairways.com

Olympic Cities Destination Quiz (4 of 6)- Amsterdam to St. Louis

If one takes the quiz on the online version of "Mental Floss" asking which cities have hosted the Olympics, there is a  distinct possibility that Amsterdam, which hosted the games in 1928, and St. Louis, which hosted the Olympics in 1904, might be the ones which one might well forget.

The 1904 St. Louis Olympics were only the third Olympics; the first two were held in Athens, Greece, and Paris, France, respectively. Those games are perhaps best remembered for the story of Cuban marathon runner/postal carrier Andarin Caruajal (1875-1949) who begged on the streets to raise funds to travel to Missouri. He ended up finishing fourth!

The Netherlands hosted the games 24 years later with 46 countries participating, which was up considerably from the mere 12 countries who competed in St. Louis. Among the notable events of those games was American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (1904-1984), who was later cinema's Tarzan, winning two gold medals in men's swimming. The 1928 Amsterdam Olympics were also the first ones sponsored by Cocal Cola.

In case you were wondering, that is a map of St. Louis (there were way too many photos of the Arch to choose from) above. The below image is of KLM, the main airline for The Netherlands/Holland.

So, we are asking just how far these two destinations are from each other, my apologies to folks in Turku, Finland, who use the Metric system, but we are going with miles here; is the answer?:

A) 4,374 miles

B) 4,474 miles

C) 4,574 miles

D) 4, 774 miles

http://www.klm.com

http://www.holland.com

www.rnw.nl

http://www.explorestlouis.com

http://www.mentalfloss.com

UPDATE: Since it has been more than 24 hours since we posted this, we'll go ahead and tell you the answer; it is A) 4,374 miles.

Quote of the Day/Week_ Andy Warhol

Today, we continue with quotes from figures who have been made into plush toy dolls from the American novelty company The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, which usually retail for circa $17.95, as we quip the great artist Andy Warhol  (1927-1987). The man who was certainly famous for more than 15 minutes is mentioned in an excellent article by David Wolman in "Wired" (June issue) about an exemplary money counterfeiter in Germany, who was inspired by Warhol.

Currently, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pa., is showing film and video screenings by Warhol. Across the world in Singapore, there is an exhibit called "Andy Warhol, 15 Minutes" at the Singapore ArtScience Museum.

An interesting thing we learned about Singapore from an article about flight attendants is that Singapore Airlines actually has a corpse on board in case anyone doesn't complete the journey across the Pacific.

I guess if a traveler has that situation, their relatives will need to check with the Singapore embassy in Washington, DC. Incidentally, we first saw this Warhol doll in real life at a Smithsonian gift shop.

Here is the quote from Warhol, and we do wonder if the Rev. Johnny Robertson of Martinsville, Va., who is reportedly a bit over-the-top would make of this:

"I never think that people die. They just go to department store."

SIDEBAR: We learned today from the Urban Dictionary that word 'bittertweet' is about a tweet (which is a message on Twitter for those of you who lives in caves with no wi-fi access) that relays sorrow or disappointment. An example would be: "RIP, Rover. You were a great dog, and you will be missed. We just wish you hadn't gone after the soccer ball in front of a school bus." That may have exceeded 14 characters, but you get the idea. Right?

SIDEBAR TWO: We are making an effort to appear hip and trendy here at "The Daily Vampire," and we thought what better way to do that than to talk about the topics that are trending on the search engine bing.com; these include Channing Tatum, Lamar Odom, Italy vs. Germany (we still can't believe Germany lost!) and, of course, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Ok, that is a joke, but we can tell you that the most famous man named Ahmet in the world (well, perhaps he is second to Ahmet Zappa, the son of the late Frank Zappa) is 53 years old and that he was born in the Turkish city of Konya.


http://www.mentalfloss.com

http://www.warhol.org

http://www.warholdfoundation.org

http://www.philosophersguild.com

http://www.yoursingapore.com

http://www.singaporeair.com

http://www.wired.com

http://www.urbandictionary.com

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- It Might Be Hard to Get to Honolulu

Many of us woke up this morning to hear that a major tsunami and earthquake struck northern Japan while most of us were sleeping. At least, 60 people are reported dead and one presumes that number is going to jump significantly. This somehow made Godzilla a trending topic on Twitter today!

The same tsunami is expected to hit Hawaii and possibly Alaska within a short period of time.

So, this tweet from Hawaiian Airlines came as no surprise:

"Anyone flying Friday on Hawaiian Airlines should check Hawaiian's web site....click on flight status before going to the airport."

Egyptian journalist Nadia El-Awady also tweeted about the possibility of massive political protests in Saudi Arabia which could possibly resemble the early stages of similar demonstrations that occurred in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

This was her tweet:

"Twitter reports of tight security in several Saudi cities. Can't wait to see developments. Lived there 3 yrs. Country truly needs change."

DC Diary- Kamikaze Time

Today, we discuss Day Five of our National Lampoon's DC Vacation which was actually the last day of the trip, but we will have a final entry on both blogs tomorrow with some added reflections.

Day Five featured a very limited schedule because my sister and my brother-in-law had to make their British Airways flight back to London (not where they actually live) from Dulles, so we simply focused on the second part of the National Air and Space Museum which is located near Dulles International Airport.

For me, the most interesting plane on display was a Japanese kamikaze plane. Anyone who has regularly watched the Larry David Show "Curb Your Enthusiasm" assuredly remembers the episode where Larry yells "Banzai," which was what these suicidal pilots did when they crashed into American battleships.

While researching this piece, I found out that Ensign Kiyoski Ogawa, who was 22 or 23, killed himself on an attack of the USS Bunker Hill which also killed some 400 American troops. Some of the kamikaze pilots were as young as 17. The planes were quite devastating because they carried bombs, torpedoes and explosives on them.

The other displays on the site included the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and certainly makes one ponder the devastation it caused. An Air France Concord plane which could take passengers from New York to Paris in about three hours (they have since been retired), Nazi German war planes, Soviet planes and a boat plane!

Afterward, we took my sister and her husband to the airport and waved "Arivederci," or however, it's spelled in Italian. I jokingly asked my sister back at the museum gift shop if she wanted a pilot Barbie. She said no.

As for the kamikaze drink (we couldn't find a good image to use of a kamikaze plane), you might be able to find one at Jack's Restaurant in DuPont Circle. No promises! And, of course, don't drink and drive....