And, Now a Word from Our Sponsors_ Brush Your Teeth with Astera

Today, we are trying to connect with blog readers from eastern Europe with a Czech beer, a Bulgarian toothpaste and a Turkish cola beverage; none of these are openly available in the United States, though Turkish stores like Haromny Market in Cary, NC, a suburb of Raleigh will likely carry Cola Turka.

We came up with this idea while rummaging through our back catalog of blog entries from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Though a number of name athletes like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps came back for another Olympics in London, three of my favorite athletes from 2008: Alicia Sacramone, 24, USA, gymnastics, Merel Mooren, 29, Netherlands, beach volleyball and Elvan Abeylegesse, 29, a woman who won two silvers running for Turkey who is originally from Ethiopia in Beijing, were not in London. In fact, Elvan just recently had a baby!

But, it was still a fun Olympics, except at the end, I had Bob Costas fatigue and there were all those annoying commercials.

So, in that spirit, we are promoting these three products, which will not find at the Food Lion in Mount Jackson, Va.:

1) Poutnik Beer is a popular beer in the Czech Republic, reportedly this is especially true around Christmas time; it is brewed in the village of the same name.

2) Astera Toothpaste is apparently the leading toothpaste in Bulgaria. The web site for the product actually has this tagline in English: "The toothpaste that care for the whole family."

3) Cola Turka, first introduced in 2003, actually had a series of commercials featuring Chevy Chase_ of all people, a fact made more ironic because there are very few golf courses in Turkey (forgive the "Caddyshack" reference) . 

http://www.merelmooren.nl (in Dutch)

http://www.aliciasacramone.com

http://www.toothpasteworld.com

http://www.astera.bg

http://www.colaturka.com.tr/

http://www.harmonymarkets.com

http://www.czechbeerguide.com

Quote of the Day/Week-Bruce Jenner

This month in honor of the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics in London, we are quoting American Olympic medal winners with an emphasis on gold medal winners.

On our other blog "The Daily Vampire," we quoted Alicia Sacramone, 24, a silver medalist and former Brown University gymnast over Mary Lou Retton, who won two gold medals in women's gymnastics the year that Sacramone was born...oh well!

Here, we are quipping Bruce Jenner, 62, who won a gold medal in the decathlon during the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Jenner may have become a forgotten seventies star, like Marie Osmond, but he happens to be the step-father of Kim Kardashian and her sisters: Kim and Khloe.

Here is his quote:

"First of all, I try to be a positive role model."

Both Jenner and Retton appeared on Wheaties cereal boxes after winning their respective gold medals.

SIDEBAR: We had prematurely said that the men's basketball team from Harvard was the Ivy League champion yesterday. But, now we can say that as Princeton downed Penn 62-52. If Penn had won the game, they would have played Harvard in a one-game playoff for the league title.

Bonus Road Trip (9 of 10)_ Should-Be Ivy League Schools

Today, we are asking blog readers how long this very long road trip between Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, and Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California, would be.

We are saying these are Should-Be Ivy Leagues because they both have high academic standards, and here in the United States, major conference expansion because of major revenues sports is getting so absurd that soon San Diego State will be playing football in the Big East Conference against the likes of the University of Connecticut. For those of you Europe, this would be like Manchester United playing soccer games against teams from Dubai!

For our comparison, we are selecting two coffeeshops: Brew Nerds located in the heart of downtown Winston-Salem and California Cafe which is in Palo Alto.

Both schools lost their respective football bowl games as Wake Forest fell to Mississippi State in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., on Dec. 30 by a score of 23-17. And, the Stanford Cardinal, which had a very succesful season, lost to Oklahoma State 41-38 at the Fiesta Bowl near Phoenix, Arizona, on Jan. 2.

Wake Forest will be playing Virginia Tech at home in men's basketball within the hour. The team's next home game in the sport will be against North Carolina State on Jan. 14 at 1:00 p.m., local time.

As for Stanford, the school has a highly competitive women's gymnastics team which has its home opener on Jan. 22 against Washington.

So, just how far apart are these two schools?

Is the answer?:

A) 39 hours

B) 40 hours

C) 41 hours

D) 42 hours

Yes, we think it would be better to fly too!

SIDEBAR: The answer to yesterday's Bonus Road Trip was C) 6 hours, 45 minutes. We forgot to mention that we used Blake's Tavern in Providence, RI, and the Ithaca Ale House in Ithaca, NY, as our points of destination.

Also, former Brown gymnast Alicia Sacramone actually posed completely nude for the ESPN Magazine photo shoot in which she was standing unclothed on a balance beam, but only the rear portion of her body was visibile to the camera.

We also wanted to clarify that Brady Quinn, the Denver Broncos quarterback she was dating (editorial comment: lucky guy!) is still on the team roster. Though we don't follow pro football very closely, we gather that the team is now starting Tim Tebow instead. The Broncos have a playoff game this weekend, but we are more likely to know how the Russian soccer CSKA Moscow is fairing!

Bonus Road Trip (8 of 10)_ In the Ivy League

Today, we ask you the blog reader how far apart two Ivy League towns are. We are going with Providence, Rhode Island, the home of Brown University (the school nickname is the Brown Bears) and Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University (the Big Red).

Among Brown's most famous recent alumnus is Olympic gymnast Alicia Sacramone, who made headlines by posing partially nude for "ESPN Magazine" last year. Sacramone who was captain of the 2008 Olympics team also dated current Denver Broncos quarterback Brady Quinn who got replaced by Tim Tebow, who has headlines for 'Tebowing,' a religious ritual which has made him popular with evangelicals.

The current Brown University gymnastics roster features gymnast Kasey Haas, who is from right here in the Tarheel state as she hails from Charlotte, NC.

Cornell also has a gymnastics team, which features the likes of Tiffany Chen on their roster; she is from California. The Big Red's gymnastics team will take part in the George Washington University Invitational in Washington, DC, on Jan. 15. Their first home meet will be against fellow Ivy Leaguers Pennsylvania University on Jan. 25.

Brown and Cornell face each other in gymnastics in Providence on March 11. So how far will that trek be?

Is the answer:

A) 4 hours, 45 minutes

B) 5 hours, 45 minutes

C) 6 hours, 45 minutes

D) 7 hours, 45 minutes

Quote of the Week- Steffi Graf

Today, we are quoting two German tennis legends on our two blogs (Boris Becker is the other). Here, we are quoting women's tennis great Steffi Graf, now 42 and married to famed American tennis player Andre Agassi, who is a year younger than his wife (Agassi and I are the same age).

Graf, a 22 grand slam event winner, literally made a splash when she sported a bathing suit for the swimsuit issue of "Sports Illustrated," which put her alongside the likes of swimsuit models, such as Vendela and Elle MacPherson.

Those lines for female athletes between sporting talent and sexual appeal has been even more blurred in recent years as partial nude photographs of gymnast Alicia Sacramone and women's soccer goalie Hope Solo were featured an recent issue of "ESPN" magazine.

Here is Graff's quote:

"It's so difficult to find times besides the tennis."

SIDEBAR: One of the downsides of having two blogs is that I often don't get to read the blogs of my own friends, so I heartily recommend my friend Chris Knight's blog "The Knight Shift," which is www.theknightshift.blogspot.com, which has well over a million hits!

SIDEBAR 2: Since we had an entry about Turkish soccer yesterday, we wanted to mention that Trabzonspor scored a 1-1 tie with Italian powerhouse Inter Milan at home in Trabzon, Turkey, today. The home team's goal came from Halil Altintop.

Halil's twin brother Hamit Altintop as his team Real Madrid decked the Croatian club Dinamo Zagreb 6-2 with goals from Karim Benzema, Gonzalo Higuain, Jose Callejon and Mesut Ozil, who like the Altintop twins is a Turkish player who grew up in Germany (Ozil plays for Germany; the Altintop twins play for Turkey).

In other games, Bayern Munich beat the Spanish team Villarreal 3-1, and the Swiss team FC Basel triumphed over the Romanian team Otelul Galati in a high-scoring 3-2 affair.