10 for 10 (3rd Entry): Love Those Zoo Animals

Greetings to our blog readers in Saudi Arabia, India, and France....

Alas, we are running way, way behind in our efforts to post 10 entries in honor of our 10th anniversary of blogging, which is on Sept. 21st.

Life has been crazy and zany lately, and I promise our good friend Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, that it is not due to watching hours of the '70s English sitcom "Are You Being Served?" on Youtube.

Here is a link to the Denver Zoo, the Philadelphia Zoo and the North Carolina Zoo (in Asheboro, NC, near Greensboro) in case you want to see a giraffe or another zoo animal of your choice in real life.

http://www.denverzoo.org/

http://www.philadelphiazoo.org/

http://www.nczoo.org/

http://www.zoo.com.sg/ (A link to the Singapore Zoo for our world audience)

Blogging Free-Style: Let's Talk About Jurror B29

Here is how this works. We go with trending items in the news, such as 'Juror B29' and 'Royal Baby' and then add them in with other things we threw in the pot, such as Egypt, and we make a short blog entry out of it. We'll signal the catch phrases by putting a single parenthesis around them. 

Here it goes:

"Well, I should be watching Charlie Rose, I gather he is going to talk with guests about political instability in 'Egypt,' but the remote is stuck on CNN, so we'll have to hear about 'George Zimmerman,' 'Jurror B29,' 'the royal baby' (yawn!) and how state legislators in Oklahoma are deliberating to decide if jaywalkers in Tulsa deserve 'the death penalty.'

I wonder how is the weather in 'Winston-Salem, NC,' but the remote will not let me visit the Weather Channel either. Perhaps, I can find out that info via 'Google.' I can also find out when 'Ramadan' ends, so I can send Ramadan greeting cards from Target to all my Muslim friends. Wait. Target doesn't carry Ramadan cards. In fact, no one seems to.

Oh, now CNN is talking about 'Anthony Weiner' (yawn), and apparently 'Pope Francis' is set to visit Holland (the Netherlands)."

Random Ten List of Places to Go in Roanoke, Virginia:

Our good friend Jason, well we have many friends named Jason as well as a cousin named Jason (perhaps there are even people in Pakistan named Jason), but I am referring to Jason Turner who has an outstanding web site called 'Roanoke Doesn't Suck.'

It is designed to help local folks and tourists know what is going on in Roanoke. While his blog is more specific to Roanoke, I am going to stray over some city and county lines, and include things which are in relative proximity to Roanoke, such as the Statue of Liberty (ok, New York is an eleven-hour Greyhound bus drive).

But, we will include places in Blacksburg, Floyd and Salem.

Of course, this means we will have to inadvertently snub some places we like in Roanoke itself, including Kirk Avenue Music Hall, the Village Grill and Happy's Flea Market as well as Showtimers Theatre, which is now staging the musical-comedy "Once Upon a Mattress."

However, we think this list will help anyone looking for the proverbial thing to do rather than sit at Starbucks and read "Infinite Jest" (the late Daniel Foster Wallace's novel is some 1,100 pages long):

1) A Little Bit Hippy: An always unique place inside Towers Shopping Mall which offers cool tye-dye t-shirts and organic soap..........yes, they are the reason why we have '60 activist Wavy Gravy pictured.

2) The Bazaar:  This shop across from Towers offers records (we can't promise that you will find David Bowie's 'Let's Dance' there, but you just might), vintage clothing and live music.

3) The Taubman Art Museum

4) Mill Moutain Zoo

5) CUPs: This Grandin village coffee shop features a very large collection of bobble-head dolls. They also have Trivia Night on Tuesdays (yes, they are the reason for the image of coffee beans which we found via Turkish Wikipedia).

6) The Lyric Theatre (Blacksburg): A great place to see movies in Blacksburg; the critically-acclaimed film "Before Midnight" starts there on Friday.

7) Fork in the Alley: A great place to eat outdoors in the Crystal Springs neighborhood.

8) Third Street Coffeehouse: This little gem-of-a-palce is only open on Friday nights and we had a hard time finding it (use Mapquest or ask a friend), but there is some great local music there.

9) Star-Lite Drive-In (Christiansburg): Along with Hull's Drive-In in Lexington, this is the last remaining drive-in within driving distance from Roanoke.

10) The Salem Museum


http://www.roanokedoesntsuck.com

http://www.showtimers.org

http://www.alittlebithippy.com

http://www.taubmanmuseum.org

http://www.cupscoffeeandtea.com

http://www.forkinthealley.com

http://www.salemmuseum.org

There's more on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," regarding Things To Do in Roanoke: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Greetings from Mister Frog

Even though none of us are biology majors here at "The Daily Vampire," we were startled to learn that frogs are not reptiles, but rather amphibians; we were thus unsure if we should include them as part of Reptile Week or not.

But, the frog lobby in Washington, D.C., lead by Cong. Clarence G. Burton (D-Va)*, made us decide that frogs deserved a blog entry of their own, so here it is.

The image here is of a poison dart frog, commonly found in Costa Rica as well as other Central American countries as well as South American countries, like Peru and Bolivia.

The poison dart frog is known for its bright-colored body. According to Wikipedia, most of these creatures are endangered species, and they live in tropical rain forests.

The Saint Louis Zoo is one American zoo which has an abundance of frogs, though we're not sure which types of frogs they have. We'll have to ask Javier the Intern** when he clocks in tomorrow morning.

And, greetings to those of you in Karachi, Pakistan, where we gather it is between 9:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., according to "Mental Floss," this is the time of the highest Internet traffic during the day, at least during the week. Of course, we should ask "Wired," a monthly technology magazine if their indirect competitors are accurate, but Javier is overwhelmed right now, especially since we're not paying him.

SIDEBAR: We were hoping to cover more women's college volleyball this year than we have, but we did get a chance to watch the women's volleyball game between the University of North Carolina and Virginia Tech live from Chapel Hill, NC, over the Internet at a Denny's (thanks for the good wi fi, Denny's).

Though it was a fairly competitive game, the home team Tarheels (we have also seen them referred to as the Tar Heels, but we have enough headaches right now) won in straight sets 3-0 (25-20, 25-22, 25-21). UNC's standout player Emily McGee, a senior from Naperville, Illinois, guided the 'Heels with 15 digs and 11 kills.

For the visiting Hokies, Samantha Gostling, a junior from Charlotte, NC, had 11 kills.

UNC hosts the University of Virginia for Senior Night on Saturday, while the Hokies head down the road from Chapel Hill to Raleigh to face North Carolina State.

Here are the other ACC women's vollyeball scores from Friday night; the home team is marked with a # sign.

#Georgia Tech 3 Wake Forest 0

#Miami (Fla.) 3 Boston College 0

#Clemson 3 Duke 2 (more on this game on our other blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

#Florida State 3 Maryland 0

http://www.goheels.com

http://www.stlzoo.com

http://www.costaricanfrogs.com

http://www.thisiscostarica.com

*-Cong. Clarence G. Burton was an actual Democratic congressman from Virginia, but he died at age 91 or 92 back in 1982. We figured using a dead member of The Hill would cause us fewer problems.

**-Javier the Intern is a fictional character, though he has been a running gag on this blog for quite a while now.

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- Koalas Coming to Arizona

We hope they won't have to show immigration papers to an Arizona state police officer (forgive the center-left political humor), but two cute and cuddly Koala bears, which are native to Australia, will be coming to The Phoenix Zoo via a loan from the San Diego Zoo, according to a tweet from The Phoenix Zoo. The bears will be arriving in Phoenix on Oct. 3.

Things We Learned From the BBC This Week- Beloved Gorilla Dies

Some sad news was reported on the BBC this week as the beloved lowlands gorilla Samantha (not the gorilla pictured here) died after suffering a stroke at The Toronto zoo. She was 37, and was one of the first gorillas housed in the Canadian zoo.

Samantha, a native of the African country of Gabon, was put to sleep after suffering a second stroke in two months. She had lived in the zoo since 1974 when she was two years old.

The gorilla produced five offspring, two of which remain at The Toronto Zoo, with her mate Charles, a silverback gorilla.

Matt Stephenson, the zoo's gorilla keeper said he would deeply miss Samantha, especially her singing at breakfast and dinner time.

The lowland gorillas are an endangered species.

The Toronto Zoo is dedicating its home page with a header that says Samantha (1972-2010) and the zoo is asking for donations to make a memorial in her honor.

SIDEBAR: It has now admittedly become a running joke on this blog, but I am going to name Springfield High School of Springfield, Vermont, as our 'High School of the Week." Currently, I have been naming three American high schools as my "High School of the Week" on both of my blogs.

As silly as this may seem to those of you visiting this blog, especially from places like Eskisehir, Turkey, or Antigua, Guatemala, but I have learned quite a bit from doing this.

Springfield, Vt., made international news in 2007 when it was picked as the town to host the world premiere of "The Simpsons Movie."

As for the school, it is nicknamed The Springfield High School Cosmos, which makes it only the second time I've ever heard 'Cosmos' used for a nickname. The other time was for the New York Cosmos, a professional soccer team from the long-defunct NASL, which went under in the 1980s. The NY Cosmos were famous for bringing Pele to America.

Springfield High School also has some 500 students. "The Green Horn" is the school newspaper. The school web site states that much of the school lunch comes from local farms.

Bob Thibault is the new school principal, and The Cosmos host The Poultney BlueDevils in football on Sept. 3.

Happy New Year's from Grape Ape

While trying to find an image of Grape Ape, the Hanna Barbera cartoon which ran from 1975-76, we stumbled upon a photo of an ape who is purple?!

And, for those of you living in the Philadelphia area, good news! The Philadelphia Zoo is open tomorrow (Jan. 2). Of course, it might be cold up there, but hopefully the monkeys will be out in full force. Somehow, I doubt any of them will be purple though!