10 Favorite Comic Strips from Sunday Washington Post: The Foxtrot Kids Scream at Ice Cream

We are a bit pressed for time today, so let's just mention which specific comic strips made our top ten for this week (from the Sunday "Washington Post"). We picked "Foxtrot" as our top selection of the week; in the Sunday strip the kids gripe about how limited the choices are in the neighborhood ice cream stand, of course, one of the Foxtrot kids as for Hexagonal Prism?

Second place goes to "Sherman's Lagoon" where lava lamps and garden gnomes (pict. center) are on the verge of becoming house cleaning casualties. But, Sherman promises to save them at any cost.

Third place goes to "Lio," with this week's strip reminding us of "The Addams Family" (pict. bottom) as Lio sees a hand creeping up through wet cement and he resolves this scary conflict in a typical confident matter.

Here is the top ten:

1. Foxtrot http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot

2. Sherman's Lagoon http://www.shermanslagoon.com

3. Lio http://www.gocimics.com/lio

4. WuMo http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

5. Knight Life http://www.gocomics.com/theknightlife

6. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy http://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit

7. Rhymes with Orange

8. Pearls Before Swine

9. Dustin

10. Doonesbury

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Image of the Day/Week- Ice Cream Cone

Spring is underway, and now it seems like the season, especially with global warming (forgive the political humor), to appreciate a nice ice cream cone, unless you live in Fairbanks, Alaska.

We were going to mention Giffords Ice Cream in Bethesda, Md., which had a reputation for being one of the Washington, DC-area's best independent ice cream shops, but they were purchased last year by the Maine-based Giffords Ice Cream, which lead to this headline in "City Paper" (Washington)  from Oct. 25, 2011, which sounds like an April Fool's Joke or a story in the satirical publication "The Onion:" 'Gifford's Ice Cream Is Now Called Gifford's Ice Cream.'

But, we did find an actual non-corporate ice cream place in Boulder, Colo., in the Table Mesa part of town called the Boulder Ice Cream Shoppe. However, we presume it may be easy to mistake it for Boulder Ice Cream, an organic ice cream company which says on its web site that it makes its produce from the milk of Rocky Mountain cows.

SIDEBAR: Speaking of ice cream, we loved this headline's in today's online edition of "Politico," a daily Washington, DC-based newspaper/web page dedicated only to politics: 'Rob Portman: Vice President Vanilla.'

This is in reference to the possibility that Mitt Romney will choose Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) for his vice-presidential nomination given that votes in places like Dayton, Toledo and Akron will matter significantly more than ones in Provo, Utah, or Princeton, NJ, two college-towns which will assuredly go to the respective candidates (the other, of course, being President Barack Obama) who are almost certain to carry Utah and New Jersey respectively.

Portman is liked by moderate Republicans and intellectual conservatives, such as commentator David Brooks of "The New York Times," but fervent right-wingers, birthers and tea partiers, seem to be carrying the mantra of far right Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who is tauting Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Road Trip (2 of 20)- March Madness Journey from Kansas to Utah

We have not had an entry to this blog series since we started it on Feb. 16, 2011, but in our second installment here we will let you guess the driving distance between Kansas State's hometown of Manhattan, Kan., and Utah State's campus in Logan, Utah.

Now to make this EVEN more confusing, we are not going with the distance between the schools themselves. Instead, we have chosen to go with Hamilton Steakhouse in Logan and Kite's Bar in Manhattan (Kan.)instead.

As for the schools, Utah State is nicknamed the Aggies (as is another NCAA tourney-bound school Texas A & M), and they are one of 18 schools in the men's basketball tournament with women's gymnastics programs.

Lyndsie Boone (pictured above), a senior from Winthrop Hills, Ill., was recently named Aggies' student-athlete of the week. Boone, who has a 3.7 GPA, will join her teammates in the last regular season meet which is the WAC Championships in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday.

As for the men's basketball team, which had a 30-3 record this year, Brockeith Pane, a junior from Dallas, Tex., was (like Boone) recently named Aggies' athlete of the week as well.

Utah State also offers a dairy-processing degree program, and one can find the Aggie Ice Cream Shop, which offers ice cream in 26 different flavors, according to a story that was posted on mentalfloss.com today.

As for Kansas State, the school is mostly known athletically for its men's basketball program, which has been to the Final Four four times. The Wildcats are known for their fiery basketball coach Frank Martin (pictured here, we don't know what the story here is either!) and the team features several stand-out players. including Freddy Aspirilla who is from Colombia.

But, there are only two Wildcats' players who are actually from Kansas, including Victor Ojeleye from Ottawa, Kan., and Alex Potuzak from Clyde, Kan.

Kansas State is one of the very few schools in the NCAA with just one official color that is purple. And, they are one of 12 teams in the 2011 men's basketball tournament which feature some of sort of feline nickname (others include the Clemson Tigers and the Penn State Nittany Lions).

So, here is our question:

Just how long does it take to get from Logan, Utah, to Manhattan, Kan.?

Is the answer:

A) 14 hours even
B) 15 hours even
C) 16 hours even
D) 18 hours even

The answer to our last road trip quiz was B) as it takes 85 hours and 20 minutes to get from North Pole, Alaska, to Key West, Florida. Now, that is one long trip!

As for the game between Kansas State and Utah State, it will tip off on Thursday night at 9:57 p.m. New York time from Tucson, Ariz. The Wildcats are a 5-seed and the Aggies are a 12-seed.

I sense personally that this will be a close game, in which the Wildcats will prevail by six points.