Silly Photo to Fill Space: Tofu Turkey

I sure hope my mom in Mount Airy, NC (not where she actually lives) does NOT opt to put tofu turkey on our table, but irregardless if you're a vegan or a right-wing nut or both, or if you live in Provo, Utah, or Provincetown, Mass., we wish you a pleasant Thanksgiving

Friday GeoQuiz-What's the Weather Like in Sydney?

For today's installment of our weekly Friday GeoQuiz, we ask you the blog-reader a mere simple question: What is the weather like in Sydney, Australia, today?

Is the answer:

A) 64 degrees

B) 66 degrees

C) 67 degrees

D) 70 degrees

We dedicate this entry to another Olympic city (well, we say this in jest) Moscow, Idaho, also home to the University of Idaho and Moscow Senior High School. Perhaps, the later has Misha the Bear as their mascot.

The Olympics were held in Moscow, Russia in 1980 and in Sydney, Australia, in 2000.

Yvonne Tousek, one of my favorite college gymnasts of all-time, finished 15th at the 2000 Olympics while competing for her native Canada. Today, she is a performer with Cirque du Soleil and she travels around the globe. Her UCLA teammates Jamie Dantscher and Kristen Maloney got a bronze team medal in gymnastics after the Chinese team who initially finished third was disqualified for having under-age gymnasts.

Halil Multu won a gold medal for Turkey, my late father's country, at the Sydney Games in weight-lifting (flyweight division).

We are blogging today from the Pyongyang Public Library in Pyongyang, North Korea. Well, in all seriousness, it is a public library in a small town like Mount Airy, NC (but we aren't in Mount Airy, where "The Andy Griffith Show" took place). We say this because Twitter and Facebook are banned here, however one can probably access certain 'Danish web sites' here if they wanted to. There's nothing like living in a 'free and open society' is there?

As for North Korea, Open Radio for North Korea is reporting that more people in that country fear their own leader Kim Jong-il than les etats unis. I suppose that's a good thing?!

SIDEBAR: Our friends at The Floyd Country Store in Floyd, Va., (well, we don't actually personally know anyone who works there) are celebrating their 100th anniversary. And, tomorrow night (Sat.), there will be a performance from the bluegrass band Slate Mountain Ramblers at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8 at the door. The band is headed by Richard Bowman from the tiny hamlet of Ararat, Va., in Patrick County. Despite its name, there are reportedly no Armenian-Americans in Ararat, Va. (forgive the ethnic humor!).

SIDEBAR 2: The answer to last week's question is D) Cesme, Turkey

Things We Learned on Twitter Today....Hot as You-Know-What in Richmond, Va.

On Twitter, this p.m., we learned that Richmond, Va., which is relatively close to the zip code I'm in right now, is literally hot as hell.

According to the Twitter site RVaWx (Richmond, Va., weather), the state capital of the Old Dominion is 95 degrees today. There are winds coming into town from the northwest at 14 MPH with mostly cloudy conditions.

The relative humidity in the city where Dave Matthews used to play for five dollars a night (semi-true story!) is at 44 percent.

In other parts of the world, it is about 82 degrees in Bursa, Turkey, 81 degrees in Puebla, Mexico, and 84 degrees in Billings, Montana (wow, it sure is hot out west too!).

SIDEBAR: We were joking the other day about the ambassador to Syria being on "The Charlie Rose Show" the other night. But, the joke was on us as we found out through Google that there is apparently no official American ambassador in Damascus at the moment, but Chuck Hunter is the Deputy Chief of Mission there. Imad Moustapha is the current Syrian ambassador in Washington, DC. Tonight, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be on Charlie Rose.

SIDEBAR TWO: Kudos to our good friend Moviezzz for taking a vacation. He will not be blogging for a while, but we highly suggest that any of you interested in developments in tv or film take a look at his back catalogue. By the time, you're done, you should know which seasons of "The Barbara Stanwyck Show" are available on dvd. *

*-Ok, it's seasons one and two.

Silly Picture to Fill Space- Clocks

Well, I had told my friend Haywood Harvey (pse) in Martinsville, Va., that I was going to post a blog entry about useless things most of us would never buy (like a bobble-head doll of Rambo......actually, I happen to have a bobble-head doll of Rambo).

But, since we are running low on time, I thought it would be best to simply post some images of old clocks. Though I don't reside in the Volunteer State, I would assume that one could find such antique time-keepers at the Willow Creek Gallery in Knoxville, Tenn. (yes, there is such a place--in fact, their phone number is 865-525-1925).

There is also a nice town clock on the island of Buyukada near Istanbul, Turkey, and when we have the time, we may post an image of it on here. Although some photographers are very picky about how their images are used without someone paying up!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

My vegan friends will be happy to know this image is of a tofu turkey. But, I am not having either tofu turkey or the real thing for Thanksgiving this year.

For details, see th entry in my sister blog Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time, available through a link from this blog.