Top Ten Sunday May 31st Roanoke Times Comics: Hi and Lois is Actually Hilarious........how did that happen?

Greetings to our blog readers in Mexico, Russia and New Zealand.............

Here is a look at our ten favorite comic strips from the latest Sunday edition of "The Roanoke Times," the daily newspaper serving Roanoke, Va., and surrounding areas, including the hamlet of Boones Mill, Va., which is reportedly one of the most notorious speed traps in the country.

Our top comic strip is "Speed Bump" by Dave Coverly which this week features a regular Joe green lizard meeting a hipster green lizard; we imagine he is waaay past The Decembrists or Arcade Fire.

For our second place comic strip, which is "Pearls Before Swine," we go with an image of Lily Tomlin from her "Laugh In" days when she played Ernestine the annoying phone operator, who would be unemployed today. In the strip, Rat is writing a letter to a major company after being forced to hold on the line for an unfathomable amount of time .....(we've all been there, right?!).........

Lastly, our image of the '80s home video game classic Pitfall, for an unexpected gem from "Hi and Lois" as the dad realizes he has a vast collection of casualties of modern technology. It's almost enough to make one wish they had held on to that 8-track tape player or that vinyl copy of "Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits."

Here is our top ten:

1) Speed Bump

2) Pearls Before Swine

3) Hi and Lois

4) Get Fuzzy

5) Dilbert

6) Doonesbury

7) Zits

8) Garfield

9) Agnes

10) Jump Start

http://www.roanoke.com/comics

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.lilytomlin.com

Casualties of Modern Technology (9 of 12)_ Pinball Machines

The rock band The Who had a memorable song from their rock opera "Tommy," about a blind pinball wizard who a miracolous sensation. Today, teenagers may have a hard time understanding the song because there are fewer pinball machines in existence that there were in 1976 when that song was popular.

The pinball machine is a coin-operated arcade game that was formally developed in 1931. The flippers were introduced in 1947. And, solid state electronics were formalized with the pinball game "Hot Tip" in 1977.

There was an initial decline in pinball machine useage in the 1980s thanks to the likes of video games, such as "Ms. Pac-Man" and "Donkey Kong." But, the pinball machines industry fought back by developing innovative pop culture games, such as "The Addams Family" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

The machines have again declined in the advanced hom video games Angry Birds era, though according to Wikipedia, the Illinois pinball company PinBall Manufacturing produced 178 reproductions of the the popular pinball game "Bing Bang Bar" in 2006.

Many pinball players are known to cheat by tipping the machines and even attaching a piece of string to a coin and lowering the counter switch to get free games.

Popular brands include "Dolly Parton" (1979) that was the brainchild of George and Dave Christensen who developed the pinball game for Bally.

There is also "Dirty Harry" (1992), which is based on the succesful "Dirty Harry"
(1971) film with Clint Eastwood which spurred many less remarkable sequels. This particular game, which I also saw at a laundromat in the hamlet of New Castle, Va., (near Roanoke) has sold for between $1,800-$4,000 via Internet auctions.

One can find a Pinball Hall of Fame museum in Las Vegas, which has 400 games.

Additionally, there is Rose City Pinball in Portland, Ore., which hosts weekly tournaments.