The Olympics Lists (10 of 10): The Medalists

Greetings to everyone around the world; I'm Bob Costas and you're not (yes, we are making fun of Chevy Chase's signature line from the early days of 'Saturday Night Live.').

Here is our last list:

1) Erin Hamlin. (pictured top). 27. USA. Women's Luge. Won bronze.

2) Denis Ten (pictured center) 20. Kazakhstan. Men's Figure Skating. Won bronze.

3) Torah Bright (pictured bottom). 27. Australia. Women's Snowboarding. Won Silver. Resides in Salt Lake City, Utah.

4) Pierre Vaultier. 26. France. Men's Snowboarding. Won gold.

5) Lizzy Yarnold. 25. Great Britain. Women's Skeleton. Won gold.

6) Alexander Treitakov. 28. Russia. Men's Skeleton. Won gold.

7) Alla Tesper. 34. Belarus. Women's Free-style Skiing. Won gold.

8) Zbiginew Brodka. 29. Poland. Men's Speed-skating. Won gold.

9) Carina Vogt. 24. Germany. Women's Ski-jumping. Won gold.

10) Matthias Mayer. 23. Austria. Men's Alpine. Won gold.

http://www.nbcolympics.com

http://www.sochi2014.com/en

Top 10 Olympic Lists (4 of 10): Remember The Vikings...........

First of all, we are sending a 'gecmis olsun'/"may it pass closely" (Turkish expression) to Bob Costas, the NBC commentator for the 2014 Sochi Olympics; he is suffering from pink-eye.

Here is a list of ten Scandinavian athletes who are competing at the games; some of them have in fact finished competition. We hope we spelled everyone's name correctly as we don't want any angry emails from The Danish embassy in Washington, DC, which is enduring a major winter storm as is everyone residing from Atlanta to Portland, Maine!:

1) Ragmus Stjerne. 25. Denmark. Men's Curling.

2) Margaretha Sigfridsson. 38. Sweden. Women's Curling.

3) Einar Kristgeirsson. 20. Iceland. Alpine Skiing.

4) Julia Kykkaenen. 19. Finland. Women's Ski-jumping.

5) Andres Bardal. 31. Norway. Men's Ski-jumping. Won bronze.

6) Maiken Caspersen Falla. 28. Norway. Cross-country Skiing. Won gold (pictured)

7) Kjetil Jansrud. 28. Norway. Alpine Skiing.

8) Charlotte Kalla. 26. Sweden. Women's Cross-country Skiing. Won silver.

9) Aleksander Barkos, Jr. 18. Finland. Men's Hockey. Plays for Florida Panthers.

10) Michelle Karvinen. 23. Finland. Women's Hockey. Plays for the Univ. of North Dakota.

http://www.sochi2014.com/en

http://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-olympics/2014

http://usa.um.dk/ (The Danish Embassy in Washington, DC)

https://www.washdiplomat.com/

http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com (Our sister blog with more Olympics Lists)

Our Top Ten Comic Strips from "The Roanoke Times:" Blondie Actually Makes the Top Ten; Speed Bump Wins the Survey

Greetings to our blog readers in Canada, Spain and Switzerland.

And, a shout-out to our celebrity visitors George Lucas, Jane Fonda and Nancy Kerrigan (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Here is our top ten:

1) Speed Bump: In Dave Coverly's one panel strip one of the Easter Island heads acts up, and his mother straightens him out

2) Get Fuzzy: In this strip, the age-old battle of which pet is more popular: the cat or the dog takes center stage.

3) Pearls Before Swine: Stephan Pastis goes autobiographical again, this time asking his own creations, the rat and the goat, how he looks with a beard and a beret. (Hmmm....yeah, I suppose some of you are imagining Che Guevara right now)

4) Doonesbury

5) Dilbert

6) Blondie: Dagwood goes ski jumping?!! This should make the strip more popular in Finland.

7) Funky Winkerbean

8) Zits

9) Mutts

10) Agnes

SIDEBAR: Last night in Boston, Yale actually upset Harvard in men's basketball by a score of 74-67, but perhaps no noticed as everyone in the world is watching Bob Costas and NBC's coverage of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

And, this is our 2,225th blog entry!

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Little Thinkers Quotes (14 of 16): Eleanor Roosevelt

Greetings to our blog-readers in Turkey*, Indonesia and Peru.

We are making this short and sweet so we can watch the 2014 Winter Olympics live from Sochi, Russia, with Jay Leno.....err, we mean Bob Costas (we know one of them retired!).....(and, it is actually 5:00 a.m. in Sochi).

Here is our quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

*- "Gecmis Olsun/May it pass quickly, to the passengers on the Pegasus Airlines flight where an attempted hijacking occurred. The Ukrainian national responsible for this fallacy wanted to divert the commercial airplane to Sochi, but it landed in Istanbul, the flight's intended destination, instead.

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