Top Ten Things We Should Blog About More in 2015 (our 10th year of blogging) Bird-watching and Girl-watching

Greetings to our blog-readers in Ireland, Mexico and Ethiopia (does our blog reach Ethiopia? Yeah, I guess it does) as well as those of you in Rize, Turkey, an area known for its vast tea resources.......and its small city soccer team which always loses 6-1 to Istanbul powerhouses.......sadeee saka ediyorum, Risedeki dostlarim/just kidding to those of you in Rize..........

We were trying to think about what we should blog more about in 2015, and we decided, well, what the hell, go with the birds..........so, here is our list:

1) Bird-watching in West Virginia

2) Temple Owls mens basketball (top image)

3) Hot blonde woman spottings (image number two: Uma Thurman)

4) The Baltimore Orioles (bottom image of Cal Ripken Jr.)

5) The Pittsburgh Penguins

6) Opus the Penguin

7) Chilly Willy

8) Woody the Woodpecker

9) Jeb Bush's changes of becoming president (editorial comment: $#%&@#$!!!!!!!!!!!)

10) Angry Birds, Big Bird from "Sesame Street" and Bronx Obama* (tie)


*- Bronx Obama is a New York man who impersonates our president..........

Happy 200th Birthday, Richard Wagner

Greetings to those of you in Cyprus, Finland and Ethiopia and other parts to the world for taking time to read our blog. And, thanks to everyone here in America, who chose to read this as opposed to checking out "Dilbert" in their local newspaper. Of course, hopefully, there is time in your day to read "Dilbert" too!

Today marks the 200th anniversary of classical composer Richard Wagner's  birth. We, in no way, support his anti-Semitic views, but we do admire his tremendous body work, including "Rigoletto" which is one of our favorite operas.

So, we are going to quote the German composer here:

"Whatever my passions demand of me, I become for the time being_ musician, poet,director, author, lecturer, or anything else."

SIDEBAR: We want to wish our kudos to American Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman even though she did not win her "Dancing with the Stars" competition with her dancing partner; that honor went to country singer Kellie Pickler. We know one of them was paired with Mark Ballos and the other one was with Derek Hough, and if you want to know which one is correct then go check out Bing:)

IN THE WHOOPS DEPARTMENT: Ok, I just realized I inadvertently referred to "Rigoletto"as a Wagner opera; it is in fact an Italian opera by Verdi. But, as the great western philosopher Billy Joel once said: "You''re only human; you're supposed to make mistakes."

http://www.bing.com

http://www.dilbert.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

Four Who Finished Fourth- The Men

This is a complementary piece to our entry on women who finished fourth at the Olympics at our other blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

1. Bernard Lagat, 37, USA (originally from Kenya), track and field/men's 5,000 meters (pictured below)_ Ironically, a Kenyan runner Thomas Pkerei Longosiwa kept Lagat from a bronze medal. Lagat had successfully competed for Kenya at the 2000 Sydney Olympics (bronze) and the 2004 Athens Olympics (silver). He began running for the USA in 2005. Lagat finished his race in 13:42.99, a mere one second less than the Kenyan who got bronze.

2. Andrea Baldini, 26, Italy, fencing (foil, pictured second)_ We debated about including Baldini as he did win team gold in the foil fencing competition. But, in the individual competition, the globally recognized fencer came in fourth. He lost to Choi Byung-Chui of South Korea in the bronze medal match. Italy came away with seven medals in fencing though, which was more than any other country.

3. Raymond van der Biezen, 25, Netherlands, BMX biking (pictured third)_ This was the second Olympics for the Dutch biker as he came in second at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This year in spite of an outstanding first run he finished fourth, just behind Carols Oquendo of Colombia. Maris Stromberg of Latvia won the event, which was the only gold for his country.

4. Kenenisa Bekele, 30, Ethiopia, track and field/men;s 10,000 meters (pictured top)_ He way well be the only athlete in London to lose a meda to his younger brother as Tarike Bekele, also running for Ethiopia got the bronze medal. But, the older Bekele still has more Olympic medals as he has won a total of three gold medals and one silver medal in Athens and Beijing.

http://www.raymondbiezen.com

http://www/andrea-baldini.com

The Timeless Allure of the Grinch

The classic holiday special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" will air at 8:00 p.m. on ABC on Christmas night. The program first aired just over 45 years ago on
Dec. 18, 1966, exactly 34 years before the "Seinfeld" episode "The Strike" which introduced the world to Festivus.

The tv version of the Dr. Seuss children's book of the same name was directed by two legendary "Looney Tunes" directors Chuck Jones and Ben Washam_ who was credited with giving Daffy Duck the catch phrase: "Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin."

The cartoon features Boris Karloff, the great horror film actor who would die three years later in 1969 at age 81, as both the narrator and the voice of the Grinch. Thurl Ravenscroft, who would later be known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in cereal commercials, provided the voice for the theme song.

Dr. Seuss actually feared the use of Karloff because he thought the actor who first brought Frankenstein to life on the silver screen might scare away children.

But, the show has endured after all these years, even though it was made into a surprisingly awful feature film version with Jim Carrey in 2000.

SIDEBAR ONE: Anyone interested in helping starving children this Christmas might want to contemplate donating to CARE's Somalia famine relief fund. As of July 20, 2011, two regions of southern Somalia were declared famine zones. CARE estimates that some 3.7 million people are starving and in need of medical assistance in the famine, which has also struck parts of Ethiopia and Kenya. For more information go to www.care.org or google the term 'Somalia famine.'

SIDEBAR TWO: On a lighter note, I was going to make the following joking posting on Facebook, but I thought it could be misunderstood, so I am posting it here on this blog, which we sometimes wonder that no one is reading, except for die-hard followers in El Salvador, of all places:

"Got a Tea Partier a Jesus Christ bobblehead doll and an Occupy Wall Street protester a Che Guevara bobblehead doll for Christmas. I sure hope I don't get the packages mixed up."

As I said earlier, this is a joke, but there are actually bobblehead dolls for both Jesus Christ and Che Guevara!

Congrats to Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics

The University of Alabama won their fifth women's gymnastics championship on Saturday in Cleveland thanks to the efforts of Kayla Hoffman (pictured here on floor) and Geralen Stack-Eaton (pictured here talking to Coach Sarah Patterson).

Kylee Botterman (whew!, we almost typed her name with one e!) of Michigan won all-around with a 39.525 as she edged out Hoffman from Alabama (39.5).

For the Crimson Tide, Stack-Eaton won the individual floor exercise event with a 9.937. Other individual winners included Marissa King of Florida who won vault with a 9.875; Kat Ding of Georgia who scored a 9.875 to win uneven bars and Sam Peszek of UCLA who won the balance beam with a 9.9 score.

Other teams had gymnasts who fared well including the Utes who finished fifth overall, but the team had stand-out performances from veteran gymnasts Gael Mackie and Stephanie McAllister.

SIDEBAR: Today was a good day for Geoffrey Mutai as the Kenyan runner finished the Boston Marathon in record time with a score of 2:03:02. His fellow Kenyan Moses Mosop finished second. And, Ethiopian runner Gebregziabher Gebermariam, who will qualify for our top ten list of impossible names (which we hoping to post one week from today) finished in third. Of course, we fully realized that we probably will have to apologize for not spelling his name right!

Stack-Eaton also won the floor exercise event with a 9.937 score.