Top 10 Sunday Comic Strips from the Times-Call: Carlos Gonzalez Makes the Chart

Greetings to our blog readers in the Czech Republic, Japan, and Ireland......

As we are posting this, Wolf Blitzer of CNN is interviewing Republican long-shot presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for his views on the nuclear agreement our government has just made with Iran. Yes, of course, we diligently paid attention to Mr. Huckabee.......zzzzzzzz.....Wait, did Huckabee just say Israel borders Iran?! He may want to check the map again.

Politics aside, this week, we are running our top ten from "The Times-Call," a daily newspaper serving the Boulder County suburbs of Denver, Colo. One of the unique aspects of this paper's comic pages is that they run two King Comics strips: 1) "Take It from the Tinkersons" and 2) "The Pajama Diaries," which are not in some major newspapers' funnies section, like "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" (we're just kidding on the NYT as they don't have a comics section).

For this week's survey, we are going back to strips which ran on Sunday, May 4th. Carlos Gonzalez of the Colorado Rockies (pict. top) is in reference to "Foxtrot," the top strip in our survey, which depicts a kid catching a fly ball as he is taking a selfie of himself in the process. The second image of a colorful fish is for second place finisher "WuMo" which revolves around a fish who want to plug in a toaster in a fish tank. Lastly, the Bulgarian cuisine picture at the bottom is for "Tinkersons" in which a family meal is interrupted by a cellphone, which perhaps ironically belongs to the father as opposed to his wife and children.

Here is our top ten:

1. Foxtrot

2. WuMo

3. Take It from the Tinkersons

4. Pearls Before Swine

5. Get Fuzzy

6. The Pajama Diaries

7. Dilbert

8. Zits

9. Mother Goose and Grimm

10. Hagar the Horrible (this comic strip also finished tenth last week in our poll of comics from "the Martinsville Bulletin in Martinsville, Va.)

http://www.pajamadiares.com

http://www.tinkersons.com

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot

http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

http://www.coloradorockies.mlb.com

We're Back: With a List of the Worst Oscar-Nominated Films That Did NOT win Best Picture

Alas, we have not seen "Airport" (1970) nor "Doctor Dolittle" (1966), but we have seen our fair share of films that got Best Picture Oscar winners that were not worthy of those nominations. Of course, since this blog's editor Tilly Gokbudak is a Turkish-American, who gets 'top billing' will probably not be a surprise!

Here we go:

1) Midnight Express (1978, see image one_ it is of oil wrestlers in Edirne, Turkey, close to the Bulgarian border)

2) Hello Dolly! (1969)

3) Love Story (1970, see image two...we actually like the film as a guilty pleasure)

4) Chocolat (2000)

5) Ghost (1990, see image of Casper the Ghost)

6) The Towering Inferno (1974)

7) District 9 (2009)

8) Seabiscuit (2003)

9) The Reader (2008)

10) Miracle on 34th Street (1946)

No Blog Entry Today as I'm Sick as a Cat

Since I am under the weather today, we will feature this image of a Siamese cat roaming the streets of Sofia or Varna or some other Bulgarian city. We got this image from googling 'Cats in Bulgaria.'

We also want to mention that the great '80s independent rock band Big Head Todd and the Monster, which we believe are from Athens, Ga., will perform at the fabled 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, on Sat. Jan. 18th; the concert costs $27.50, which costs as much as a parking lot ticket in the nation's capital. Somehow, we can't imagine that Congs. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) will be there???!!!

Speaking of Goodlatte, though we are opposed to him politically, he is from my hometown of Roanoke, Va., as is cult film director Charles Cullen, who turns 50 today. His film "The Day the Whole $%#&*@ World Blew Up" is clearly influenced by the films of Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman (yes, we are kidding!).......but, Charles Cullen of Roanoke, Va., should not be confused with the other Charles Cullen.

The other Cullen, who is just three years older than our Charles Cullen, is the most notorious serial killer in New Jersey history!

http://www.930.com

http://www.bigheadtodd.com

http://www.catchannel.com

http://www.cullenstudio.net

Futbol Notebook: Good Day for Valencia

Valencia scored a 5-1 victory over St. Gallen (France). The Spanish team won in part because of two goals from Argentinian national Frederico Cartaba, who had two goals.

Amazingly enough, 23 other soccer games were played in the Europa League yesterday, here are some partial scores:

Liberec (Czech) 1 Seville (Spain) 1 (tie)

Sheriff Tiraspol (Moldova) 0 Tottenham (England) 2

Bordeaux (France) 1 APOEL (Cyprus) 1 (tie)

Valencia (Spain) 5 St. Gallen (France) 1

Wigan (England) 1 Rubin Kazan (Russia) 1 (tie)

Ch. Odessa (Ukarine) 0 Ludogorets (Bulgaria) 1

Other scores:

http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

Image to Fill Space: A Dalmation

Greetings to our blog readers in Senegal, South Africa, Honduras, Jamaica, Chile, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Australia, Japan, France, Iceland, Bulgaria and Slovenia.

Tomorrow, we shall have something more substantive.

7 Words in Norwegian (6 of 7): Oysters

In this case, the Norwegian word for oysters is virtually the same word in English; it is OSTERS.

Greetings to our blog-readers in Afghanistan, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.

And, we wish everyone here in America, a happy Labor Day weekend.

Quote of the Day- Andy Warhol

Greetings to our blog-readers in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Tunisia.

Today, we feature a quote from the late American artist Andy Warhol, who would have turned 85 today:

"I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning."

http://www.warhol.org

And, Now a Word from Our Spnsor- Malev Hungarian Airlines

We were actually initially going to with Bulgarian Airlines, but then we said to ourselves: "Hey, ya know_ Hungary is a larger country than Bulgaria. You'll get more hits if you mention Malev Hungarian Airlines."

Our apologies to all our blog readers in Sofia and Varna (those of Bulgaria's two largest cities, we think!).

http://www.malev.hu

http://www.air.bg/en

Top Five More Countries Turkish PM Erdogan Should Defect To

Wow! The Bulgarian flag (pictured bottom) sure looks funky on this blog, as its white stripe at the time seems invisible.

Bulgaria is one of ten countries, we think disgraced Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan should escape to; the other five are listed on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com


Here we go:

1) Uzbekistan (pictured top): This former Soviet Republic is Sunni Muslim and has close ties with Turkey and lots of open spaces; it is also supposedly a dictatorship. Erdogan should be at home there.

2) Morocco (pictured middle): Unlike other Erdogan critics, I think the prime minister's traveling to Morocco at the height of the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul wasn't a mistake. His faux pas was returning from there!

3) Bulgaria: Why not?!

4) Sudan: Lots of desert, and the dictator of Sudan has a solid partnership with the current Turkish government. In normal times, this was an outrage and embarrassment to those of us of Turkish heritage. But, now if Sudan takes Erdogan, all of us will jump for joy like children at the zoo in Gulhane Park in Istanbul. Oh! I forgot. Erdogan had that demolished.

5) Tunisia: The second country Erdogan visited on his north African tour. Perhaps, he stayed at a hotel in Tunis that he can imagine spending 30 years in.

Word of the Day: Megalomania

Though we are going with an image of the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, the man we had in mind for this entry is Turkey's notorious prime minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A few years ago while visiting Bursa, Turkey, I saw a sticker with a toilet plunger which said: "AK Parti'yi Istemiyoruz/We don't want the AK-Party." And, given that Erdogan is from the ruling AK-Party, which couldn't agree more.

We suspect that our blogs might be blocked in Turkey as we have been very critical of the Turkish government, but hopefully, this can perhaps reach someone in neighboring Bulgaria.

Here is today's word of the day:

'Megalomania" (from Wikipedia): " This is a psychopathological disorder characterized by delusional fantasiesof power, relevance, and omnipotence.

The Weekly Grocery List

Here is our grocery list for the next coming week or so. We should point out that we thought of Donald Duck Orange Juice, which is either difficult to find or no longer in existence, when we came upon what we thought were Finnish Donald Duck comic books, but we now think they are actually Swedish. If you really wanna know, Donald Duck is called Kalle Anka is Swedish.

Bulgarian yogurt is a bit of an in-joke. My feeling is that if a grocer here in America put Bulgarian or Turkish yogurt beside Greek yogurt, neither would sell nearly as well even if it was the better product.

Here is our list:

1) orange juice

2) Life cereal

3) bagels

4) yogurt

5) ginger ale

6) coffee

7) stamps

8) toothpaste

9) cucumbers

10) cat food

Tilly Gokbudak is NOT Moving to Bulgaria (It was an April Fool's prank)

Perhaps, next year, we will tell that little green men have landed in Fargo, North Dakota!

Tilly Gokbudak is Moving to Bulgaria in August

We are extremely pleased to announce that our boss, our own Spacely Sprokets if you will (forgive "The Jetsons" reference) Tilly Gokbudak is going to be teaching English in Sofia, Bulgaria, at the start of this year.

And, we also hope he finds himself the perfect woman for him while he is there!

Rainy Days and Sundays and Weather Around the World

 

 

Rain, rain...........please go away. Obviously, we are not in Iowa where major droughts are occuring.

 

With that, here is a look at weather around the world:

 

Amsterdam 61 rain

 

Budapest 72 clear

 

Bursa, Turkey 68 clear

 

Havana, Cuba 77, heavy rain

 

Islamabad, Pakistan 75 rain

 

Istanbul 77 partly cloudy

 

Madrid 68 clear

 

Mexico City 63 cloudy

 

New Delhi 79 fog

 

Rio de Janeiro 63 cloudy

 

Rome 71 clear

 

Sofia, Bulgaria 70, mostly cloudy

 

Stockholm 55, partly cloudy

 

Tel Aviv 75 cloudy

 

http://www.weather.com

 

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

The Rabbit Ears Quiz (12 of 12)_ Heidi, Girl of the Alps

Today, we close our series on tv shows which aired from the late '60s to the early '80s, with a segment that is actually dedicated to two Japanese cartoons, which were both based on classic German children's stories (we should point out that Heidi was actually written by Swiss author Johanna Spyris in 1880, but it was first published in German).

We'll start with "Heidi, Girl of the Alps," which was part of the anime "World Masterpiece Theatre" productions, which also included Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. The Heidi cartoon ran for a full year in 1972; I saw in on the TRT (Turkish Radio Television) some five years later.

The legendary film director Hayao Miayazaki, now age 71, who directed the films "Spirited Away" and "Princess Monoke" was responsible for the Heidi cartoon's screen design and layout.

Isao Takahata, now age 76, who directed another acclaimed Japanese animated film "Grave of the Fireflies" (1998) about the horrors of World War 2, directed many episodes of the Heidi cartoon.

Another popular Anime cartoon was "Maya the Bee," which originally ran in Japan from 1975-76. It was based on the German book of the same name, which was written by Waldena Bansels in 1912.

"Maya the Bee" was also very popular in Europe. I saw in on the TRT, circa 1978, when I was eight years old, where it was known as "Ari Maya" (ari is the Turkish word for bee). The cartoon was also trendy in Greece, Israel and Bulgaria, as well as many other countries.

Both "Heidi" and "Maya the Bee" lasted for the exact same number of episodes. Today, we are asking what that number was.

Is the answer?:

A) 36

B) 42

C) 52

D) 60

http://www.animenews.com

http://www.funimation.com

UPDATE (July 5, 2012): The answer is C) 52

Congratulations to the University of Alabama for Winning Gymnastics Title

Yes, college gymnastics fans will undoubtedly notice that the headline and the photo of Georgia gymnast Kat Ding, a senior from Sparks, Nev., may not seem to go well, but please read the entry first!

And, before we get to that, I forgot to thank blog readers from Belgium, Portugal and Australia on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire,' in addition to them, I want to thank those of you from Bulgaria and Indonesia who have stopped by here in the last 24 hours.

The University of Alabama did indeed win its seventh NCAA championship in women's gymnastics on April 21, and this was the first time that the Crimson Tide had successfully defended its title.

For Tide senior Geralen Stack-Eaton, it must have been a particularly rewarding weekend for she also won an individual title on the balance beam.

Meanwhile, Ding defender her national title on bars with a 9.875 and she had a 9.995 on floor, which gave her a title on that apparatus as well; Ding edged out Stack-Eaton, the defending floor champ, and Ellyse Hopfner-Hobbs of UCLA, who is perhaps the top Canadian gymnast in the world at the moment.

Kyra Hunter of Florida won both the coveted all-around title as well as an apparatus title on vault. The Gators finished a very close second to the Tide in the team competition with the Bruins of UCLA coming in a close third.

Next year, UCLA hosts the NCAA championships in the sport.

Since Monday was National Children's Day in Turkey, the country of my late father Mehmet Gokbudak, we thought we'd feature this image of a Turkish girl that we believe was taken at a large holiday festival in the resort town of Kusadasi.

During the last year when I lived in Turkey (we resided in Zonguldak province in the western Black Sea from 1977-79) Turkish Radio Television, also known as the TRT, started an international children's festival with delegations from other countries around the world.

This year, the participating countries included Egypt, Finland and South Korea.

Here in the United States, individual Turkish-American organizations, such as ATA-NC in Cary (Raleigh), NC, hold local events in honor of Children's Day.http://www.ata-nc.org

While researching this piece, we discovered that the most-celebrated Children's Day is actually on June 1st. It is celebrated in many former Soviet republics, including Armenia, Azerbaijan and (of course) Russia as well as former communist country, including Turkey's neighbor Bulgaria.

Quote of the Day/Week-Maya Angelou

First of all, thanks to our blog-readers in Bulgaria and Honduras. I've been to one of those countries-Bulgaria, though it was when I was a child 35 years ago. And, I've been close to Honduras with visits to Belize and Guatemala.

Today, we are quoting the great poet Maya Angelou who turned 84 yesterday. This is also National Poetry Month in America.

Angelou spent several years in Ghana during the 1960s. The poet, who is also known for being a Civil Rights activist, has in recent years been a professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, and she recited her poem "On the Rushes of Morning" during Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993.

Here is her quote:

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean."

Virtual Postcard from Washington DC_ The National Zoo

Since we just got back from Washington, DC, we thought we'd share a Virtual Postcard with you of the National Zoo, even though we did not go to the esteemed zoo; in fact, we've never been there?!

To make this fun for you (thanks for those of you who are reading this in Bulgaria, we walked past your embassy), and quick for me, we thought we'd do a DC By the Numbers entry. We think most of these numbers are at least fairly accurate.

In addition, we threw in figures from some silly things we noticed, like the number of women wearing unseasonable shoes (one was even in flip flops?!), but we did not count the joggers or dog walkers, though a part of me wishes we had.

Here we go:

310- Number of miles between Politcs and Prose, an independant bookstore in Washington, DC, on Connecticut Avenue and The Regulator, an indy book outlet in Durham, NC.

61- Number of people we saw riding bicycles, motorcycles or vespas!

32- Number of museums in Washington, DC, this includes the National Zoo, the National Cathedral and Ford's Theatre

31_ Number of women wearing unseasonable shoes. In addition to the woman in flip flops, there was another woman in sandals.

27- Ah, yes, the annoying cute young couples, one can see them everywhere in DC. One couple who smooched as we were approaching Farragut North on the Red Line really took the cake. The girl looked like a fashion model, the guy looked like a chemistry lab geek. Go figure!

13_ Number of players on the Georgetown Hoyas' men's basketball roster.

10_ Number of Starbucks in Washington, DC, alone

7_Number of Starbucks in the DC suburb of Fairfax, Va.

5-Number of Starbucks in another DC 'burb of Bethesda, Md.

3- Number of animal shelters in DC, according to the search engine we used (ok, so it was Google). We certainly hope Helga, a gorgeous, spayed female black cat who is 5 years and two months old, finds a home soon. It has been reported that many pets, like people, are now homeless in DC. Go to warl.org to find out more Helga and other cats and dogs in the city.

2- The number of hours I expect to actually sleep tonight.