Top Ten Comics from the Sunday "Washington Post:" Foxtrot Takes the Blue Ribbon

Since there are close to 30 comic strips in the Sunday edition of "The Washington Post," we weren't able to rank some our personal favorite comic strips, including "Knight Life," "Reply All" and "Rhymes with Orange." But, both "Judge Parker" and "Mark Trail" made into the top ten.

Here is our top ten:

1. Foxtrot (since this week's strip made a reference to an exclamation point, we are using it for our top image)

2. Pearls Before Swine: This Sunday's strip contained 20 panels!

3. Lio

4. Dustin (We definitely agree with the strip's premise that Fanta ads before movies are very annoying)

5. The Argyle Sweater

6. Sherman's Lagoon

7. Prickly City (since the strip has a cactus, we are using an Arizona cactus for our middle image)

8. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

9. Judge Parker

10. Mark Trail (the strip revolved around mountain goats; a goat is also one of the lead characters in "Pearls Before Swine"

Our favorite line from the soap opera comic strip this week, comes from "Apartment 3-G," which is not in "The Washington Post": "I Just Asked You To Be My Wife"


http://www.foxtrot.com

http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/  


PS: While we have a moment, we want to thank those of you in Moldova (?!) for reading our blog. Yes, we know your country is a former Soviet republic which borders Romania.

PPS: Happy 37th birthday to Dominique Dawes, one of our favorite Olympic gymnasts.

The Last Ten Films I've Seen: Novel Ideas

I was completely oblivious to the fact that Angelica Huston (pictured bottom) has written a new memoir called "A Story Lately Told," which she will be promoting on "Fresh Air with Terry Gross" tomorrow when I watched one of her very earliest film roles "A Walk with Love and Death" (1969).

Like "Oliver Twist" (1949), one of many filmations of the Charles Dickens novel, and "Ender's Game" (2013), the current film based on one of Orson Scott Card's signature science-fiction novel, which is number two on the top ten fiction books being sold in the Washington, DC-metro area list on "The Washington Post" (Card lives some six hours south of DC in Greensboro, NC), "A Walk with Love and Death" is based on a novel.

We got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine, the current issue has a photo of actor Oscar Isaac in the Coen Brothers' new film "Inside Llewyn Davis" on its cover, and "Oliver Twist" is one of many films being offered by the Criterion Collection.

Several of these films were also taped from Turners Classics Movies, which has an amazing lineup of films tonight, including "Elephant Man" (1980. dir-David Lynch).

Without further adieu, here are the last ten films I've seen as of Saturday:

1. "Oliver Twist" (1949. dir-David Lean)

2. "Ender's Game" (2013 dir-Gavin Hood)

3. "A Walk with Love and Death" (1969 dir-John Huston)

4. "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954 dir-Jack Arnold)

5. "Memories of Murder" (South Korea. 2003. dir-Joon-ho Bong)

6. "The Beat Generation (1959 dir-Charles F. Haas)

7. "The Defiant Ones" (1958 dir-Stanley Kramer)

8. "Caged" (1950. dir-John Cromwell)

9. "Mrs. Soffel" (1984. dir-Gillian Armstrong)

10. "Gravity" (2013. dir-Alfonso Cuaron)

SIDEBAR: For those in the DC-metro area, graphic novel writer Joe Sacco will be promoting his new work "The Great War...." at Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore in Washington, DC, on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Sacco's amazing work includes graphic novels on the Bosnian war and the West Bank in Israel.

http://www.npr.org/programs/fershair

http://www.politcs-prose.com

http://www.filmcomment.com

http://www.criterion.com

http://www.tcm.com

http://www.hatrack.com (Orson Scott Card's official web site)

College Volleyball Notebook: Radford U and Yale are Among Emerging Small School Teams

While our last entry was on teams in the ACC, a conference with three nationally-ranked programs, we now turn our attention to two smaller schools which are having great years.

The first one is Yale University. The Bulldogs' Mollie Rogers (pictured top) was named co-Ivy League Player of the Week along with Alexis Censke of Penn. With home weekend straight-set wins over Columbia and Cornell, Yale also won their fourth consecutive Ivy League with two remaining games in the season. Brittani Steinberg of the Bulldogs had 15 kills in the win over Columbia.

Meanwhile, Radford University (the alma mater of the blog editor), is gradually pulling ahead in the Big South Conference with one remaining weekend of play, which will include two games on the road.

For the Highlanders, Rachel Wiechecki (pictured bottom) was named Big South Player of the Week. She led her team to a home victory over Campbell University with 22 kills and 19 digs in a game that went to the full fifth set. Additionally, she had 20 kills on Saturday when the Highlanders won another home game in straight sets over High Point University.

Here are weekend scores for the Ivy League, Big South and other east coast games.

Friday:

Big South:

Radford 3 Campbell 2

Winthrop 3 Gardner-Webb 0

High Point 3 Liberty 2

UNC-Asheville 3 Presbyterian 2

Other scores:

Yale 3 Columbia 0

NC A &T 3 Savannah State 0

Wofford 3 Elon 1

Saturday:

Big South:

Radford U 3 High Point 0

Winthrop 3 UNC-Asheville 2

Liberty 3 Campbell 0

Other Scores:

Penn 3 Harvard 2

Furman 3 Elon 1

UNC-Greensboro 3 Wofford 1

Princeton 3 Dartmouth 2

Brown 3 Columbia 0

Yale 3 Cornell 0

Sunday:

Univ. of Rhode Island 3 George Washington 1

College Volleyball Notebook: It Was a Good Home Weekend for UNC and Virginia Tech

It was a busy weekend for the ACC in women's college volleyball play this weekend. Three teams from the conference, Duke, UNC and Florida State are nationally ranked while Virginia Tech has been a team on the rise.

UNC won two home games over Clemson and then Georgia Tech over the weekend. In Friday's win over Clemson, UNC had two outstanding performances from the Tarheels' two international players as Ece Taner, from Izmir, Turkey, had a career high 28 digs while her teammate Jovana Bjelica from Belgrade, Serbia, had 14 kills and 14 digs in the team's four-set win over the Tigers.

On Sunday, Paige Neuenfeldt (pictured top) posted 11 kills and four blocks in the three-set sweep over the Yellow Jackets.

This Saturday, UNC hosts Virginia Tech (pictured bottom), a team which also had a superb weekend which included a major upset over nationally-ranked Florida State.

On Friday, Lindsey Owens knocked down 15 kills in a four-set win over Miami (Fla). Then, on Saturday night, Victoria Hamsher and Samantha Gosling combined for 35 kills in the four-set win over the Seminoles. For her efforts, which included 13 kills versus the Hurricanes, Hamsher was also named ACC Player of the Week.

Here are weekend scores from the ACC:

Friday:

Duke 3 Maryland 0

Virginia Tech 3 Miami (Fla) 1

UNC 3 Clemson 1

Florida State 3 UVA 1

Pitt 3 Wake Forest 2

Saturday:

Virginia Tech 3 Florida State 1

Notre Dame 3 Boston College 2

UVA 3 Miami (Fla) 1

NC State 3 Georgia Tech 2

Sunday:

Maryland 3 Wake Forest 0

UNC 3 Georgia Tech 0

Syracuse 3 Boston College 2

Duke 3 Pitt 1

Futbol Notebook: A Turkish Guy Named Jimmy???

With the images of Portugal international Jose Bosingwa (pictured top), who got a red card over the weekend, who plays for Trabzonspor and Jimmy Durmaz (pictured middle) a Swedish international with Turkish citizenship, who kicked the winning goal for Ankara Genclerbirligi, over Trabzonspor, we are informing soccer fans around the world of the goings-on in Turkish soccer.

Unlike our good friend Ahmet Bob Turgut, we don't blog about Turkish soccer every week,  but the giant match between Istanbul powerhouses Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, which resulted in a 2-0 win for the Yellow Canaries from Fenerbahce, we thought this would be a good week for an entry on Turkish soccer.

The two goals for Fenerbahce, who played on the Asian side of Istanbul, whereas Galatasaray plays on the European side of the Bosporus, came from Turkish international Emre Belozoglu in the 23rd minute. In the second half, a second goal from Brazilian player Cristian Baronir in the 66th minute.

This was a tough week for Galatasaray as they lost to Copenhagen 1-0, thus Didier Drogba, the heart and soul of the team wasn't able to produce a goal and neither was his team.

The other Istanbul powerhouse Besiktas scored a 3-0 win over Kayserispor, but in spite of their win over the team from Kayersi, in central Anatolia, the Eagles' Matta Roman, a Brazilian international. got a red card in the second half.

It was also a good for Sivaspor, a team from Sivas, in northwest Turkey, which beat our beloved Bursaspor 2-1 thanks to two goals from Aatif Chahechouche, of Morocco; Bursaspor got a goal from another African continental player as Taye Taiwo of Nigeria scored the lone goal for the crocodiles (yes, we don't think there are any crocs in Turkey either), which reminds us that if any blog readers are contemplating a trip to the central African country of Burundi to photograph Gustave the man-eating crocodile, perhaps it's just best to say home and watch futbol and "Doctor Who"!

Here are the results from Week 11 of Turkish domestic soccer play:

Fenerbahce 2 Galatasaray 0

Ankara Genclerbirligi 3 Trabzonspor 2

Kayserispor 0 Besiktas 3

Sivasspor 2 Bursaspor 1

Konyaspor 0 Antalyaspor 2

Kasimpasha 3 Gaziantepspor 0

Karademir Karabuk 2 Rizespor 1

Eskisehirspor 2 Akhisar G.K. 0

Elazigspor 0 Kayseri Erciyespor 1

Currently, Fenerbahce is winning the league with 28 points, ahead of Kasimpasa (24 points), Sivasspor (22 pts) and BJK (21 pts).

Turkish national player Deniz Turuc, who is also a Dutch citizen, plays for the Dutch team Go Ahead Eagles, to find out how they fared in domestic play, go to our sister blog http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com


http://www.turkish-football.com/

A Quote from Lee Marvin for Veteran's Day

We heard some touching news today: Richard Overton, age 107, was honored by President Barack Obama at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., just outside Washington, DC for Veteran's Day.

Today was also Remembrance Day in Canada.

Oscar-winning actor Lee Marvin, a World War II veteran, is buried at the military cemetery, which was shut down a few weeks ago due to the federal government shutdown.

Here is a quote from Marvin:

"I only make movies to finance my fishing."

We have another quote from one of Marvin's co-stars Jimmy Stewart (both were in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a 1962 western directed by John Ford which starred John Wayne).

To see Stweart's quote, go to our sister site:

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Top Ten Favorite Comic Strips from Sunday, Nov. 10th "Roanoke Times"_ Brutus Buckeye Wins the Day

Greeting to our friends in Azerbaijan, Cyprus and Dubai. For those of you live in places like Turku, Finland, or Perth, South Africa, you may be unaware that Sunday is the day when large color comi strips roll out across America.

While smaller newspapers like "The Roanoke Times" or "The Akron Beacon" (in Akron, Ohio) may not have as many comic strips as "The Denver Post" or "The Baltimore Sun," one never knows what gems might be found in any Sunday comic strips section.

This week, "Pearls Before Swine" had a hilarious take on Brutus Buckeye (pictured top) who is the mascot for Ohio State University, "Funky Winkerbean" featured a hilarious fake comic book character named Starbuck Jones (yeah, that's the reason for the image in the middle) and "Doonesbury" tarred and feathered the tea party, a fringe right-wing political movement in America which wants to turn America into what it once was: An Artic region covered with ice (we borrowed that from Steve Martin).

Here is our list of the top 10 comic strips from this week's Sunday "Roanoke Times":

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Funky Winkerbean

3) Doonesbury

4) Zits

5) Speed Bump

6) Get Fuzzy

7) Agnes

8) Dilbert

9) Hi and Lois

10) Blondie

http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/

http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/sports/m-footbl/

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com/#

http://www.doonesbury.com

http://www.dilbert.com