10 for 10: The Nine Countries Outside of America Where This Blog Is Most Popular..........

On Sept. 21st, this blog will be celebrating its tenth anniversary, and while we are not completely sure how to celebrate, we have chosen to start by acknowledging our blog readers around the world. Though this following list consists of large countries, we want to also thank blog readers from smaller nations like Malta, Slovenia, and Jordan, who have the time to check us out.

The images above are in conjunction with three of the countries on this list, the Russian dolls are for (of course) Russia, the Hindu love god Shiva is for India, and the women at the bottom associated with a bossa nova song about a beach we can't spell represent Brazil (yeah, that was a bit awkward).....

Here is the list, that we dedicate to Bill Griffith, the artist who draws up "Zippy the Pinhead,"our folk singer friend Bruce Piephoff from Greensboro, NC, and the late, great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune:

1) Russia 34, 974

2) Germany 11,421

3) United Kingdom 10,612

4) Canada 10, 085

5) France 6,320

6) Ukraine 4,407

7) India 3,256

8) Australia 2,467

9) Brazil 1,971

Our sister blog is The Daily Vampire: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

Top Ten Comic Strips from Comics Kingdom: Bleeker Wins the Blue Ribbon

Greetings to those of you visiting our blog tonight regardless if you are from Hagerstown, Maryland (home of the Hagerstown Suns baseball team), or Auckland, New Zealand.......

Comics Kingdom is a comic strip and features (crossword puzzles, Sudoku) distributor which has a blend of traditional comic strips like "Beetle Bailey" and "Blondie" as well as new comic strip aimed at younger demographics, including "Intelligent Life" which is sort of like a comic strip version of "The Big Bang Theory" that revolves around nerd life.

Our favorite Sunday comic strip from Comics Kingdom is "Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog" with a gorgeous illustration of a young boy and his sister going for a tumultuous canoe ride with their pet robots; it reminded us of the New River, which runs through West Virginia and rural southwestern Virginia.

Second place goes to "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee" which depicts what can go awry when a young boy plays with a rocket and a mouse is nearby. Third place went to "Bizarro" which mocked outdoors safety tips pamphlets which illustrated that when one comes across a grizzly bear all bets are off. We also enjoyed Bill Griffith as his cult favorite comic strip "Zippy the Pinhead" made fun of the Tea Party crowd and he did this without mentioning Ben Carson or Donald Trump!

Here is the top ten:

*-Comic strips in the Sunday Washington Post

1. Bleeker

2. Edison Lee

3. Bizarro

4. Zippy the Pinhead

*5. Sherman's Lagoon

*6. Foxtrot

*7. Dustin

*8. Zits

9. Six Chix

10. On the Fasttrack

http://www.bleekercomics.com

http://www.edisonleecomics.com

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

4. Zippy the Pinhead 

Our Favorite Comics from Sunday, Jan. 18th from Comics Kingdom: Bleeker Rules Again.....

Greetings to our blog readers in Switzerland, Malaysia and Zimbabwe as well as those of you who reside in Cong. David Price's (D-NC) congressional district, which I believe includes Chapel Hill, Durham and Fayetville, so Cong. Price represents Chapel Hill on Capitol Hill (Stephan Pastis might like the pun, well maybe not!)....

"Pearls Before Swine," which is Pastis' comic strip is not actually distributed by Comics Kingdom, but "Hi and Lois" is. Today, we take a slight departure from the norm,  and focus on our favorite comic strips from the distributor rather than a given Sunday newspaper. This gives us a chance to rank "Zippy the Pinhead," one of our favorite comic strips that has a loyal cult following but is not in many newspapers, especially those in small markets, like (presumably) Altoona, Pa, Dayton, Ohio, and Charleston, W.Va.

This week, Bill Griffith, who draws "Zippy" featured an homage to the old "Nancy" comic strip from yesteryear.

Our images for today are from 1) bread bowls, which are featured in the Sunday comic strip for "Six Chix" where a café is literally serving everything imaginable in a bread bowl, 2) "Are You Being Served?," an old English sitcom which our fellow blogger and friend Chris Knight from Reidsville, NC, adores for the comic strip "Retail" and 3) a shark for "Sherman's Lagoon."

Here is our Comics Kingdom top ten:

1) Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog

2) Bizarro

3) Zippy the Pinhead

4) Six Chix

5) Retail

6) Between Friends

7) Sherman's Lagoon

8) The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee

9) Take It from the Tinkersons

10) Piranha Club

http://bleekercomics.com/

http://tinkersons.com/

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

http://www.tnaqua.org/

http://www.ncaquariums.com/

http://scaquarium.org/

Off the Beat and Path Quotes (1 of 6): Bill Griffith

Today, we feature a quote from Bill Griffith, the man behind the zany cult comic strip "Zippy the Pinhead," here is his quip:

"The down side of America being obsessed with pop culture is that they kind of like it light."

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Sunday Funnies- Quoting Zippy the Pinhead

Since we 'got in trouble' for hotlinking an image of the Bill Griffith comic strip character Zippy the Pinhead, today we will post an image of the film "Freaks" (1932), which featured a Schlitzie the Pinhead, who inspired Zippy's creation.

Here is a quote from a recent collection of Griffith's comics; this one is from "Zippy the Pinhead:"

"Oh no! Lucy accidentally invaded Serbia! Boy, will Ricky be mad when he gets home!"

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Quote of the Day/Week_ John Adams

No time to make fun of Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, Bill O'Reilly or Nancy Pelosi today (we figured we would be partisan, and even Bill Griffith, the cartoonist behind "Zippy the Pinhead" had made fun of the Democratic congresswoman from California), as it's fish tacos time here in New Haven, Conn. (not really where we are).

So, we will go ahead and quote John Adams, the second American preisdent, who has in recent years been portrayed by actor Paul Giamatti in a HBO mini-series; they might actually like this one in Yozgat, Turkey* (hey, Turkey is the home country of late father, so this is fair game....well, we hope):

"I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman."

*-Along with Konya, Yozgat is considered to be the most conservative city in Turkey; it is the birthplace of the late far, far right political figure Alpastan Turkes.

Virtual Postcard from Virginia- The Big Pencil

Today, we send you a virtual postcard from my home state of Virginia with this image of The Big Pencil in Wytheville, a southwestern Virginia town that is one hour west of Roanoke. Wytheville is also known as the place where highways I-77 and 1-81 intersect, and the town is reportedly exactly half-way between New York and Miami.

The Big Pencil was once featured in a "Zippy the Pinhead" comic strip, that is the brainchild of Bill Griffith. The town is in the congressional district of Cong. Morgan Griffith (R), a Republican from my hometown of Salem, Va., whom I know personally. But......well, I am not a Republican, but of course one should not say negative things about a friend in spite of political differences. It would be great if I could challenge him to a game of chess, bowling or mini-golf, but we doubt the freshman congressman has time for that. We should also point out that the cartoonist and the congressman are not related.

SIDEBAR: Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you probably can not spell the words Gladiolous and Crustaceaology, those are two words that were once used as Spelling Bee championship words in 1925 and 1955 respectively. Gladiolous, hope we spelled that right, is a type of flower; the other term was once used for the study of all things crustacean.

SIDEBAR: We are 'taking off' until Tuesday....We hope....!

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Road Trip- Paris to Moscow

Today, we are not actually you to guess the distance between Paris, France, and Moscow, Russia, but rather the distance between Paris, Texas, and Moscow, Idaho, neither of which are world capitals.

For our points of destination, we randomly chose two family restaurants in both zip codes from Google; we have no idea if either place has been featured in a "Zippy the Pinhead" comic strip, but perhaps its creator Bill Griffith has stumbled upon our blog?!

We start with the Roadhouse Restaurant in Paris, Texas, a town made famous by the brilliant 1984 art film "Paris Texas," directed by the great German filmmaker Wim Wenders. As it is, the town, like Las Vegas, has a replica Eiffel Tower but this one has a cowboy hat on top of it.

Our other destination is Dad's Diner, which is actually located just outside Moscow, in Potlatch, Idaho; the other Moscow is known as a collegetown and the base of operation for the popular singer Josh Ritter.

So, just how far apart are these two places?

Is the answer:

A) 29 hours even

B) 30 hours even

C) 31 hours even

D) 32 hours even

Happy Trails to you, until we meet again, which reminds me there is a Gene Autry marathon on TCM tonight.

Roanoke vs. Greensboro- Drive-In or Bowling? (Entry 2 of 6)

Today, in our Roanoke vs. Grensboro series, we go a little bit outside both city limits, as look at the Lee-Hi Lanes bowling alley in Salem, Va., and the Eden Drive-In in Eden, NC, which is actually 40 miles north of Greensboro.

Lee-Hi Lanes, which are actually just over the line that divides Roanoke and Salem, was once the Lee-Hi Drive-In, an establishment that was in operation from 1948-1982.
The bowling alley features the Strikers Cafe, 40 lanes with automatic scoring, league bowling and moonlight bowling, which is pretty cool.

A movie theatre, which is now the Salem Valley-8, opened next to the Lee-Hi Drive-in in 1976, and caused problems. I remember seeing a James Bond movie "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974) as a child at the old Lee-Hi. Of course, it would have been even more cool to see "Werewolves on Wheels," a combination biker/horror film, but I was a bit too young for it (I was born in 1970). And, I can not verify that it ever showed at the Lee-Hi Drive-In.

The Eden Drive-In is still operating and apparently doing quite well. This week, the drive-in was showing a double-header with "Cars 2" and "The Green Lantern." The rates for seeing movies at the drive-in are quite inexpensive as adults are five dollars, children between ages six and eleven are two dollars and kids under five get in for free.

Though I am a movie person, my inner Zippy the Pinhead (Bill Griffith's counterculture comic strip character) would have to go for Lee-Hi Lanes. Drive-Ins are great except when it rains, and then both you and your car have to deal with lots and lots of mud. And, the money one saves by seeing movies at the drive-ins will go to a local car wash. I haven't read "Freakanomics," but I would gather this fits in with the 'one thing leads to another' realm of thought.

Incidentally, a poster of Nixon bowling was featured in the legendary Coen Brothers film "The Big Lebowski."