Quote of the Week- Forest Whitaker

Forest Whitaker won an Oscar for his chilling portayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland" (2006). Uganda has made news recently as they are trying to become one of the few places in the world where gays and lesbians are executed for their sexual orientation! (We only thought that happened in Iran and West Virginia!*).


Here is today's quote from Whitaker, which is in reference to Amin:

"I'm not trying to defend him. The Amin I found was not a good man."

We also love Whitaker's film "Ghost Dog:Way of the Samurai" (1999), which was directed by Jim Jarmusch.

*-I am from Roanoke, Va., where we make fun of West Virginia all the time. And, to my friends in places like Bluefield,Charleston and Morgantown- I know you guys do the same thing to us. Of course, our put-downs are a lot funnier!

Yay!!! The Olympics are Finally Over!

We are featuring an image of the band Rush, and their lead singer Getty Lee because they are Canadians. And, they are about the only Canucks who didn't come away with a gold medal (Canada won 14 in all). Of course, one has to wonder if the country where even right-wingers wear tye-dye t-shirts will become as fervent and nationalist as us Americans (we will get you back for the hockey game!!!).

In all seriousness, the Olympics were nice and I even watched the women's figure skating competition.

Hmmmmmmm.........perhaps I shouldn't have admitted that publically.

But, like the folks who have actually watched the Japanese film "Eureka" (2000) in its entirety (it lasts 3 hours and 47 minutes- I am not one of those people), it is time to take care of some important matters that we may have neglected while watching women's skeleton at 3 a.m.

SIDEBAR: Speaking of women's skeleton, there was a great audio interview/profile of Katie Uhlaender who represented America in that sport on the NPR radio show "The Story" last week. One can find that segment at thestory.org

Autralian Women's Luger Displays Olympic Spirit

The Vancouver Winter Olympics will conclude tomorrow, but the games were marred by tragedy at the outset when Georgian men's luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, died during a training run.

But, Australian women's luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg, 27, is stepping up to help his family by auctioning off her Olympic suit to help them pay for the funeral expenses.

I have been profiling 25 Winter Olympic athletes on my blog "The Daily Vampire," www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

It has been quite the time-consuming venture, but it has also been rewarding to share their special stories on my blog.

RU Faces Winthrop This PM

There is a big game today my alma mater Radford University (Radford, Va.) and my cousin Mike's alma mater Winthrop University (Rock Hill, SC). The two teams will face off in Radford at 4 p.m. in a regionally televised game on MASN.

The RU Highlanders have won their last two home games thanks to Art Parakhouski (pictured here). They defeated Presbyterian University 75-58 earlier in the week, which included a 10-point effort from one of my favorite players Gorkem Sonmez (my dad came from Sonmez's native Turkey) and last Saturday the Highlanders defeated the UNC-Wilmington Seahawks in a game that was a part of Bracket-Busters weekend.

In the the UNCW game, Parakhouski scored 17 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. He has 23double-doubles, which leads the NCAA. Laz Trifunoic scored 19, and Blake Smith added 15 for the Highlanders in their 76-68 win over the Seahawks.

Winthrop has lost two of their last three games, including a 77-57 setback in Richmond, Ky., in their own Bracket Busters game with Eastern Kentucky. Matt Morgan scored 18 points for the Eagles in a losing cause.

In their home win over UNC-Asheville, Cahrles Corbin scored 19 points and grabbed 15 rebounds for the Eagles in a 68-65 overtime victory on Senior Night.

The Eagles also lost to High Point on the road this week, so today's game is crucial for both teams as they head into the Big South Tournament which starts on March 2.

Locally, the UNC-Greensboro Spartans prepare for their final home game before The Southern Conference Tourney when they face Georgia Southern on Monday night.

The Spartans lost to Davidson this week, but a week ago they were able to beat The Citadel on the road in Charleston, SC, by a 59-53 score thanks to 19 points from Ben Stywall and 18 points from Mikko Koivisto.

Parakhouski was recently named Big South Player of the Week for a fourth time this season.


UPDATE: We won the game 54-52, and Parakhouski got yet another double-double!

UPDATE TWO: Radford is actually replaying Winthrop today (Thurs., March 4th) in Conway, SC, on the campus of Coastal Carolina at 6 p.m. The game is scheduled for broadcast on ESPN-U. We will try to have the results posted on this blog.

Special Screenings- "Big Trouble in Little China"

My friend Joe Scott will be screening the John Carpenter-helmed film "Big Trouble in Little China" on March 4th (which happens to be my 40th birthday) at the Carousel Luxury Cinemas in Greensboro, NC. The showtimes for the film are 7:30 and 10:00 p.m.

"China" is part of the Mixed Tape Series, which started with "The Big Lebowski" last fall. Scott will show another Carpenter-Kurt Rusell collaboration the remake of "The Thing," (which I believe came out in 1987, and I think they are remaking that film yet again! The original film with James Arness of "Gunsmoke" fame came out in the fifties), on March 11th.

Carpenter and Russell also worked together on "Escape from New York" and its sequel "Escape from LA."

"China" also features the ever-sexy Kim Cattrall in one of her best post-'Porky's' films and cult actor James Hong as the evil David Lo Pa.

I must profess that it's been more than two decades since I've seen the film, but I found the following trivia about "China" on the Internet Movie Database:

-The body count is 46

-Russell was Carpenter's only choice, but the studio wanted Jack Nicholson or Clint Eastwood for the lead. Fortunately, both were involved with other projects.

-The post-production period was a mere four months!

-Carter Wong, who plays Thunder, actually worked as a martial arts instructor in Hong Kong.

-Cattrall wore green-eye contacts for the film.

Kudos to Fellow Blogger Chris Knight on Passing One Million Hits

Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, achieved a loyal cult following in 2006 when he ran for Rockingham County School Board because of his radical Star-Wars themed ad which got shown on VH-1, and E! as well as the now defunct "The Jay Leno Show."

Knight now has his own Wikipedia entry, which is more extensive than several Olympic American gold medalists, and a blog (http://www.theknightshift.blogspot.com) which just surpassed the one million hit mark last week.

I must profess that a part of me admires my fellow North Carolina resident for reaching this milestone, but I actually enjoy being 'under the radar.' Especially, since I expected some sort of condemnation for jokes I made about the likes of Clarence Thomas, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin and Pat Robertson, but I never got any though once I did get some flack from a man who may have been Cheney himself?! (And, since he's recovering from a recent heart attack, he may be glancing at this page yet again........well, we actually hope that's NOT the case).

Knight and I have political differences. He is a Libertarian who usually votes for third party candidates in national elections. While I have voted for every Democratic candidate for president since 1988 when I turned 18, and that included Michael Dukakis, which did not go over well with my Turkish relatives!

I also believe global warming is a real problem though I realize Al Gore is perhaps not the best delivery man for this serious situation because he is a partisan figure, but Knight basically thinks it's all a hoax (from what I gather).

Knight is also a devout follower of the cult ABC series "Lost," which I've only watched twice.

But, in spite of these nuanced differences, I really love his blog especially a recent entry on how a statue of Andy Griffith in Mount Airy, NC, was defaced by vandals?! And, he is always up on the latest video gizmos and science fiction films as well as some unique and strange stories that few of us seem to discover. And, there is his feud with the Rev. Johnny Robertson of Martinsville, Va., who is pretty much the Jim Jones of southside Virginia (you can quote me on that!).

So, we congratulate Knight and I expect he will be getting his 2,000,000th in the very near future or at least before that crazy preacher in Martinsville's prediction for Doomsday?!

Funny Tweet from US Speedskater Rebekah Bradford

We just love this quip from the Apple Valley, Minn., speedskater Rebekah Bradford who is performing quite well in Vancouver (at last report). Though I follow over 1,000 people on Twitter, Bradford is not one of them. But, we saw this in "USA Today," and we couldn't resist posting it here:

"Hmmmmmmmmmm.......the lawn is being mowed right now here in the Vancouver Village during the WINTER games."