10 for 10 (6th Entry): Virtual Postcard from MB, SC

Greetings to our blog readers in Costa Rica, England, and Tunisia.............


Today as the Pope is visiting Havana, Cuba, we go back to our old standby that is the virtual postcard. Today's image is of Splash, the mascot of the Myrtle Beach Pelicans who play Carolina League baseball in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Earlier this week, the Pelicans won the Carolina League title over the Wilmington Blue Rocks from Wilmington, Delaware. Pelicans' catcher Victor Caratini was named MVP of the championship series. The Pelicans are an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.

Though summer is the peak tourist season for the South Carolina resort area, many tourists come in the off-season to get away from it all.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far. We are listening to "Snap Judgment," which airs on Tuesday nights at 9:00 p.m. on WNYC-FM (New York) with host Glynn Washington.

http://www.visitmyrtlebeach.com/

http://www.charlestoncvb.com/

http://www.snapjudgment.org

http://www.wnyc.org

Our Top Ten Comic Strips from Today's Mother's Day Sunday Roanoke Times: Oh, Look, It's a Kangaroo

Greetings to our blog readers in Iran (perhaps), Japan and Costa Rica.........

Our top ten comic strips from today's "Roanoke Times," a daily newspaper in Roanoke, Va., which David Letterman calls the greatest city in the world (we're just kidding, he sez that for New York City), include a "Speed Bump" strip in which there is a surprise:
http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

"Non-Sequitur"  features a man who sees surprise messages in the night sky which his wife is oblivious to: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur

Third place goes to "Get Fuzzy" which features a kitchen argument: http://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy

We also enjoyed today's "Mutts" which features a quote from the late '60s era stand-up comic Lenny
Bruce (pict. bottom) who once said he hated to visit small towns because once you see the canon in the park there is nothing else to do: http://www.gocommics.com/mutts

Here is our top ten: http://www.roanoke.com/comics

1. Speed Bump

2. Non-Sequitur

3. Get Fuzzy

4. Pearls Before Swine

5. Zits
 
6. Agnes http://www.gocmics.com/agnes

7. Dilbert http://www.dilbert.com

8. Doonesbury http://www.doonesbury.com

9. Jump Start

10. Mutts

For our survey of the comic strips from today's Washington Post, go to http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.denverpost.com/comics

Last Ten Songs We've Heard on 98.7-SimonFM in Greesnboro, NC: Please Play Good Genesis Songs

Greetings to our beloved blog readers in Sweden, Costa Rica and Indonesia....

During the 1:00-2:00 p.m. hour (east coast America time), we were 'treated' to a mix of hip hop, disco, classic rock and kitsch pop thanks to 98.7-SimonFM (Greensboro, NC). The hour started with "I Can't Dance," a rare bland pop song from Genesis, a trio led in its later years by Phil Collins, a singer who wrote his signature solo song "I Can Feel It in the Air Tonight" after he came back to England from a tour of America to find she had been cheating on him. But, if anyone from Simon stumbles upon this blog, maybe they can play "Land of Confusion" or "No Reply at All" instead (yeah, of course, they won't pay attention to what we say, but..........)

Here are the last ten songs we listened to on Simon-FM:

1) "Refugee" Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. 1980

2) That's the Way (I Like It). KC and the Sunshine Band. 1975.

3) Another Brick in the Wall. Pink Floyd. 1979.

4) Don't Talk to Strangers. Rick Springfield (pict. bottom) 1982

5) Only the Good Die Young. Billy Joel (pict. center). 1977

6) Broken Wings. Mr. Mister. (pict. top) 1985

7) Someday. Nickelback. 2003.

8) Whole Lotta Love. Led Zeppelin. 1969

9) Every Little Step. Bobby Brown. 1989

10) I Can't Dance. Genesis. 1991

http://www.987simon.com

http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com  

(our sister blog)

http://www.billyjoel.com

http://www.rickspringfield.com

Last Ten CDs We've Listened To: It's All New Wave To Me......

Greetings to our beloved blog readers in Scotland, Mexico and Serbia.......

Welcome to another entry on this blog, which will be 10 years old in September!

Our apologies to our friends in Bodrum, Turkey, a plush beach resort, which we highly recommend. We went with an image of Jaco Beach, Costa Rica (pict. bottom) on a coin toss.

The old AM clock radio is in reference to the last cd we listened to, but it's also a way for us to make fun of Rush Limbaugh, who is probably drinking shots of vodka with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC, as we are typing this (the two are actually close pals).

The middle image is of soccer cleats; our first instinct was to go with Real Madrid striker Gareth Bale, but that proved to be too complicated!

Here is the list....all of these cds are indeed in the New Wave genre:


1) Psychedelic Furs. "Talk. Talk. Talk" 1981

2) INXS. "Kick" 1987.

3) Wang Chung. "Points of the Curve." 1983

4) The Cure. "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me." 1987

5) New Order. "Republic" 1993.

6) Talking Heads. "True Stories" 1986.

7) Gary Numan. "Pleasure Principle." 1979

8) The Clash. Combat Rock. 1982

9) The Fixx. Reach the Beach. 1983.

10) The Police. Synchronicity. 1983.

http://www.bodrum.org/

http://www.visitcostarica.com

http://www.thepsychedelicfurs.com/

http://www.thecure.com/

http://www.neworderonline.com/

Our Top Ten Comics from Sunday, Dec. 14th Washington Post: Bill Cosby Had a VERY Bad Year

Greetings to our blog readers in Costa Rica, Sweden and Australia......

Today, we focus on our ten favorite comic strips from "The Washington Post"(Sunday, Dec. 14th edition). For those of you in Kazakhstan who may have never been to America, Sunday is the day when color comic strips are posted in newspapers and web sites, such as http://www.gocomics.com

"The Washington Post" has substantially more comics than small-town newspapers like "The Register and Bee" in Danville, Va. And, there are comic strips for virtually every demographic, including "Reply All" (young women), "Baldo" (Hispanics), "Mark Trail" (children) and "Beetle Bailey" (Republican senior citizens men with hearing airs...........our apologies to Mort Walker).

Darrin Bell's "Candorville" is our top comic strip of the week for the first time in the survey (there are over 30 comic strips in the Sunday Post) when the title character, an African-American man presumably in his late twenties, overhears two school children talking about why their parents don't want them to watch "The Cosby Show." For those of you in Uzbekistan, there are some serious criminal allegations aimed at Bill Cosby (pictured top), a former stand-up comic and sitcom star.

"Candorville" is followed closely by "Pearls Before Swine" in which Rat declares that he wants to be president of the United States so he can aim drones to spy on every living person on earth. Of course, if he were running as a Republican for Congress in South Carolina, he could say something that outlandish and get elected as Congs. Joe Wilson and Mark Sanford, two of the most dubious members of Congress, did on Election Day (forgive the political commentary).

We used "Three Little Pigs" as our image for "Pearls" because Pig is one of the three major characters in the strip (Goat is the third).

Third place went to "Speed Bump," which depicts a medieval jousting the age of social media.

And, in fourth place, there was a hilarious look at Star Wars fanatics in Keith Kinght's "Knight Life," in which guys dressed like Storm Troopers are camping out for tickets to the next Star Wars film, which is due out next year.

Here is our top ten:

1. Candorville

2. Pearls Before Swine

3. Speed Bump

4. Knight Life

5. Lio

6. WUMO

7. The Argyle Sweater

8. Dustin

9. Prickly City

10. Doonesbury

http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://www.gocommic.com

Our Top Sunday Comic Strips from the Roanoke Times for the Week of December 7th

Greetings to our blog readers in Costa Rica, Argentina and Brazil!

This week, "Doonesbury," which had an exceptional gag with scenes from the comic strip's six main characters and their unique story lines in six different panels. Since the comic strip reminded us of a soap opera, we decided to use an image with the cast of "Young and the Restless" to go with this Sunday's "Doonesbury," but we somehow doubt that Garry Trudeau watches soap operas?!

"Pearls Before Swine" featured a satire of a job interview in which Rat, who has even fewer people skills than Dilbert (for those of you in Slovakia Dilbert is in the comic strip "Dilbert;" we're not making fun as you are our favorite former Yugoslav republic**) tries to be candid and honest to his futility.Oh btw, the snazzy Mexican men's dress shoes are used as our image for "Pearls."

Lastly, "Get Fuzzy," which usually revolves around squabbling between a cat and a third comes in third place as the house pets have it out over a broccoli casserole, or something like that!

Here is our top ten from the Sunday Dec. 7th "Roanoke Times," which does not carry "Rhymes Before Orange," WUMO," Brewster Rockit: Space Guy," "Sherman's Lagoon," "Dustin," "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee"........................but, hey still have "Hi and Lois"!

1) Doonesbury

2) Pearls Before Swine

3) Get Fuzzy

4) Dilbert

5) Jump Start (highest rating ever for this comic on our survey)

6) Garfield

7) Speed Bump

8) Zits

9) Agnes

10) Pickles

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.doonesbury.com

http://www.gocomics.com











**_ This is a joke! Unlike quite a few Americans, I know that Slovenia is the country that was once part of Yugoslavia.

World Cup Lists: MLS Players

There are a number of futbolers in the World Cup who play in Major League Soccer, a pro soccer league consisting of mostly American teams along with three Canadian squads. Not all of these soccer players are Americans.

Here is the list:

1) Julio Cesar. 34. Brazil. FC Toronto (yes, I guess we all know he had a bad day at the office on Tuesday; pict. top)

2) Tim Cahill. 34. Australia. New York Red Bulls. (pict. center)

3) Kyle Beckerman. 32. USA. Real Salt Lake (pict. bottom)

4) Oswaldo Minda. 30. Ecuador. Chivas USA (Los Angeles)

5) Omar Gonzels. 25. USA. L.A. Galaxy

6) Brad Davis. 32. USA. Houston Dynamo.

7) Steven Beitashour. 27. Iran. Vancouver Whitecaps (The player actually grew up in Calif., he is also an American citizen.)

8) Victor Bernardez. 32. Honduras. San Jose Earthquakes.

9) Waylon Francis. 23. Costa Rica. Columbus Crew.

10) Giancarlo Gonzalez. 26. Costa Rica. Columbus Crew.

11) Matt Besler. 27. USA. Sporting Kansas City.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/

World Cup Lists (3 of 4): Dutch League Players

Though Aron Johannsson didn't play today for Team USA in a heart-pounding 2-1 loss to Belgium in extra time in today's World Cup action, he is one of many players seeing action in Brazil from Erendise, the Dutch Premiere League.

Here is a full list of 11 players who also play pro soccer in the Netherlands:

1) Aron Johannsson. 23. AZ Alkmaar. USA (pictured top)

2) Christian Atsu. 22. Vitesse. Ghana.

3) Alireza Jahanbakhsh. 20. NEC Nijmegen. Iran.

4) Bryan Ruiz. 28. PSV Eindhoven. Costa Rica (pictured middle, team captain)

5) Uche N'nofar. 25. Heerenveen. Nigeria.

6) Renato Ibarra. 23. Vitesse.Ecuador.

7) Memphis Depay. 20. PSV. Netherlands (pictured bottom)

8) Jasper Cillessen. 25. Ajax Amsterdam. Netherlands (plays goal-keeper)

9) Daley Blind. 24. Ajax. Netherlands.

10) Daryl Janmaat. 24. Feyenoord. Netherlands.

11) Jordy Clasie. Feyenoord. Netherlands.

Little Thinkers Quotes (6 of 16): Pablo Picasso

Greetings to our blog readers in Iceland, Costa Rica and Tunisia.

Today's quote of the day comes from the great Spanish painter Pablo Picasso:

"Action is the foundational key to all success."

Highlights from the Bucket List: Going to L.A. Anyone?

Yes, we actually made a bucket list this week! We're not sure if that was a good idea or not, but here are some of the highlights. Overall, there were 100 items on the list!:

1. Take an Amtrak train from Clifton Forge, Va., to Los Angeles (an Amtrak station in Hinton, WVa, is pictured on top)

2. Look into going to Costa Rica

3. Read "Infinite Jest" by Daniel Foster Wallace (the novel 1,076 pages long)

4. Go see a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC

5. Go to the village in Bolivia where Che Guevara was assasinated

6. Write a second screenplay (we wrote one, it has NOT been made into a film)

7. Go to the Hot Dog Festival in Huntington, W.Va

8. See an opera at the New York Met

9. Get a Frank Zappa record

10. Read Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace"

http://www.amtrak.com/home 

http://www.visitcostarica.com/ict/paginas/home.asp?ididioma=2 

http://www.fordstheatre.org/ 

http://www.visitbolivia.org/ 

http://www.wvvisit.org/index_pc.php

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/index.aspx?

http://www.zappa.com/ (awesome web site!)

High Schools of the Week- Ragsdale HS to Clairemont HS

Greetings to our blog readers in Estonia, Costa Rica and South Africa. Assuredly, many of you might be unfamiliar with American high schools....we hope this helps (well, at least, somewhat!).

Here are our six 'High Schools of the Week,' let's start with Ragsdale High School in the Greensboro-suburb of Jamestown, NC..........this is not the place the settlers landed, that would be Jamestown, Va:

1) Ragsdale High School (pictured top): Nickname: Tigers.  Jamestown, NC. Principal: Dr. Kathryn M. Rogers. Notable alumni: Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC). The school is also well-known for its marching band.

2) Bluefield High School. Bluefield, W.Va (there is also a Bluefield, Va., on the other side of the border). Nickname: Beavers. Principal: Michael Collins. Colors: Black and White. Enrollment: 650 students Main Rival: Graham High School.

3) Conway High School. Conway, SC. Nickname: Tigers. Principal: Steven Fitch. Colors: Green and Gold. Enrollment: 1,577.

4) Floyd County High School (pictured center). Floyd, Va. Nickname: Buffaloes. Principal: Tony Deibler.

5) Science Hill High School. Johnson City, Tenn. Nickname: Hilltoppers. Principal: Melanie Riden-Bacon. Notable alumni: Matt Czuchry (tv's "Gilmore Girls").

6) Clairemont High School (pictured bottom; the school was the inspiration for the 1982 film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High;" the late actor Ray Walston played Mister Hand): San Diego, Calif. Nickname: The Chieftains. School newspaper: "The Arrow"

SIDEBAR: If anyone is interested or cares, there are 170 calories in a pack of Milk Duds!

http://ragsdalehighband.blogspot.com/

http://www.visitfloyd.org/

http://www.chsarrow.com/

https://www.alumniclass.com/conway/

Top Ten Lists, Obscure World Capitals, Latin America Edition

You know you are getting old when you make a comment like 'don't drink the Kool Aid' and a 19-year-old kid who is going to Duke University in Durham, NC, and should thus be smarter than you,doesn't get the joke.

But back in 1978, one psychotic minister named Jim Jones did indeed orchestrate a mass suicide of around 900 people, most of whom had followed Jones from San Fransico to the small country of Guyana in the northeast corner of South America.

Guyana is one of ten countries that we are listing here as we give the names of various capital cities in Latin America.


1. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (Caribbean)

2. Paramaribo, Suriname (South America)

3. Quito, Ecuador (South America)

4. Bridgetown, Barbados (Caribbean)

5. Georgetown, Guyana (South America)

6. Asuncion, Paraguay (SA)

7. St. George's, Grenada (Car.)

8. Belmopan, Belize (Central America)

9. Managua, Nicagua (CA)

10. San Jose, Costa Rica (CA)

Republican Humor- Dear Casey

The following is meant to be political satire. Just so everyone in Generation Z or those of you from Belarus get the joke, Dear Casey or The Long Distance Dedication was a segment that was "Casey's Top 40," an American fm-radio music show when I was a teenager in the 1980s.


"Dear Casey:


I know that even though you are a political liberal like myself and a fellow person of Middle-Eastern heritage, you may hesitate to play this song for a truck driver I don't know in Sioux City, Iowa, as I am making this request for poltical reasons. Casey, I am afraid that the Republicans will nominate another execution-happy evangelist governor of Texas for their presidential candidate, and should Rick Perry actually become president I would have to flee America for Costa Rica or Iceland. Even though I'm sure those countries are wonderful places, I am not fluent in either Spanish or Icelandic, and I imagine this would make life very difficult for me. So, Casey, it is for these reasons that I am dedicating Conway Twitty's 1973 smash hit "You've Never Been This Far Before" to that truck driver I don't know in Sioux City, Iowa, in the hopes that_ and I never thought I'd say this_ vote for Mitt Romney in his town straw poll."

Conway Twitty (1933-1993) is alas no longer with us. I am actually a fan of his music (believe it or not) even though I'm not usually a listener of country music. Twitty was originally from Helena, Arkansas, and he is also known for his "Hello Darlin'" which was a big hit for him in 1971. Anyone living in the Chapel Hill, NC, area (not where I reside) may find vinyl records of his albums at All Day Records in nearby Carrboro, NC.

Casey Kasem is thankfully alive and well at age 79, which means that if Twitty were still alive they would be about the same age. Kasem was born in Detroit, and is active in both politically liberal and Arab-American causes (I am actually a Turkish-American). In addition to the famous radio show he hosted, Kasem was the voice of Shaggy on the original "Scooby-Doo," which first aired in 1969.

Status Update_ Today Has Been a Fairly Rotten Day

There are always days which fall through the cracks for whatever reason, and for me today was one of those days.

But, while discovering this image of rotten bananas, we were able to research the banana fruit and learn some relatively interesting and potentially useful information.

Bananas are native to South and Southeast Asia. The fruit is grown in 107 countries. Bananas became cultivated in Latin America by the Portuguese.

The top five banana-producing countries are India, the Philippines, China, Ecuador, and Brazil. Costa Rica which produces many of the bananas found on American grocery store shelves ranks eighth in world production.

Top Ten Places to Move to if Sarah Becomes Prez

My good friend Debbie Collins, a public librarian in Bethesda, Md., (pse- see other blog) has told me that if Sarah Palin becomes the next president, she will leave the country for The Land of Blue Frogs (Costa Rica).

I made a similar list in October on our other blog "The Daily Vampire," in which I named Iceland as my top choice, but Ms. Collins is inclined to go with warmer weather.

Interestingly enough, Mrs. Collins picked two Muslim countries in Morocco (she told me she's always wanted to go to Tangiers, the setting of William Burroughs's cult novel "Naked Lunch") and the United Arab Emirates (she said: "I hear there's lots of money in Dubai). She is not Muslim herself.

Two cold countries, Canada and Denmark, made her list, but she professed I was nuts for putting France on my top ten 'Escape from Sarah' list (it was number six on my list).

Canada was also one of three countries to make both of our lists, along with Argentina and Greece.

Here is her list, if you have one of your "Escape from Sarah" lists, email me at tango74@aol.com

1. Costa Rica

2. Greece

3. Brazil

4. South Africa

5. New Zealand

6. Argentina

7. Canada

8. Denmark

9. Morocco

10. United Arab Emirates

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- Former Guns N Roses Member Has a Beef

For those who grew up with Guns N Roses in the late 1980s, the band's anthem "Welcome to the Jungle" has a special place in our hearts.

But, Duff McKagan, a former member of the band, wrote in "Seattle Weekly" that he is not happy the song is now being played to rev up fans at Yankee Stadium.

Duff made his comments in a guest column for the journal, and he said while he is a huge sports fan, the song simply wasn't intended to be the equivalent of Queen's song "We Will Rock You."

SIDEBAR: Hooray for Duke University's hapless football team which beat Navy 34-31 for their first win of the year in Annapolis, Md., last weekend. This week, the BlueDevils host The University at noon on their home turf in Durham, NC.

My alma mater Glenvar High School in Salem, Va., goes on the road to the mountain hamlet of Floyd, Va., to face the Floyd County High School Buffalos. We wish the Highlanders luck, though personally I prefer the other school's mascot to our's!

SIDEBAR TWO: Our fellow liberal friend The Kansan, who is really from Kansas and a Kansas Jayhawks fan, tweeted today that: "One often hears the question: Do you have to politicize everything? The answer is of course yes!

On that note, we invite our readers to insert their favorite Sarah Palin joke in our comment section. I am deliberating as to which country I would move to if she becomes president in 2012. My top three choices are Norway, Costa Rica and Tunisia (we had to choose one Muslim to irk the Christian conservatives, though admitedly it would be quite hot in North Africa!).