Chaos in DC: Tweets from the Republican Congress Mess.....

Greetings to our blog readers in Azerbaijan, Ireland, and Switzerland........

Yes, it has been a full two weeks since we last entered a blog entry. In that time, Katie Holmes has reconciled with ex-husband Tom Cruise, and Tim Tebow has converted to Islam, well, of course, neither of those things have happened though the image with Tebow in a turban is quite striking.

As many of you know, Washington, D.C., our nation's capital has been turned upside down this week as House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, abruptly resigned from Congress. Then, today, Cong. Kevin McCarthy, his hand-picked successor 'bailed out' of being elected speaker. Thus, Cong. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc., pict. bottom), the 2012 veep candidate is being recruited though he has told the media he is not interested.

This makes one speculate that just anyone, including actor Kevin Spacey (pict. top) who plays a fictional South Carolina congressman could be in the running! Spacey plays the house member of the Netflix series "House of Cards."

Netflix also made news today as they announced they were increasing their subscription rates by one dollar, which Twitter also chimed in on.

Here are 11 tweets from a group as politically diverse as Rich Lowry, an editor at the conservative "National Review" and David Corn, a progressive reporter with "Mother Jones."

1) The Nation (a liberal magazine): "The GOP has actually been teetering on a chaotic cliff for a long time_as has American conservatism."

2) The Weekly Standard (a conservative magazine): "Just over a week ago, Kevin McCarthy first considered dropping out of the race."

3) Rich Lowry: "Source says it's btwn Ryan and his wife right now. If that's a go, next hurdle will be whether he thinks he can 218 votes or not."

4) David Corn: "You know what we need today? Sarah Palin news."

5) Ryan Grim (Huffington Post): Fun fact: Kevin Spacey shadowed Kevin McCarthy for his House of Cards role.

6) Brian Stelter (CNN): " 'To continue adding more TV shows and movies incl many Netflix original titles, we are modestly raising the price...' "

7) Dave Weigel (Washington Post): "I'm shocked, shocked that Ryan did not elucidate his plans while being chased by cameras."

8) Chad Pergram (Fox News): Paul Ryan is fundamentally about two things: Family and numbers. And, balancing that equation doesn't always work in politics.

9) Washington Post: Ben Carson suggests that gun rights could have kept Hitler from killing as many Jews.

10) Mother Jones: The chemical in cookware and cupcake wrappers might be causing cancer.

11) Washington Diplomat: Imprisoned Saudi blogger's* wife protest at Saudi embassy in Vienna. (That blogger is Raif Badawi).

Well, that's it for tonight, now it's time to go to The Diner on 18th Street NW in Washington, DC**
http://www.dinerdc.com/ where who knows, we might run into Cong. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and pester her about what's going on inside Capitol Hill?! (we actually live pretty far from DC)

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

Top Ten Comic Strips from Sunday, Feb. 8th edition of "Herald-Journal" in Spartanburg, SC: We Love Bizarro

Greetings to our beloved blog readers in Latvia, Ireland and Mexico.

What do Marvin the Martian, Lily Tomlin and U.S. Olympic skier Bode Miller have in common? Well, they each relate to three of the comic strips than we rank in our top ten of strips that appear in the Sunday edition of "The Herald-Journal" in Spartanburg, SC, not to be confused with newspapers with same or similar names in Durham, NC, and Huntington, WVa.!

Marvin the Martian is our ode "Bizarro" in which aliens present a cat to their leader and promise he will make for some nifty Youtube videos. Aliensand UFOs  were also featured in "Ziggy," a strip not carried by the "HJ."

Second place goes to "Doonesbury" which takes in an office. We thought it was somewhere like a call center which made us think of Lily Tomlin though when she did these comedy skits for "Laugh-In" circa 1968, they probably didn't have call centers.

Third place went to "Dustin," where the title characters decide to go skiing over the title character's mother's strong objections. Perhaps, they headed to Telluride, Colorado, or Park City, Utah...........


Here is our top ten:

1) Bizarro

2) Doonesbury

3) Dustin

4) Get Fuzzy

5) Garfield

6) Dilbert

7) Close to Home

8) Snuffy Smith

9) Gasoline Alley

10) For Better or For Worse.....

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..........

Last Ten Films I Saw Before the Last Ten Films I've Seen: Reexaming Freddy Krueger

Greetings to our blog readers from New Zealand, Poland and Egypt.

The images above are of: 1) Freddy Krueger from 'The Nightmare on Elm Street' film series, he is now a Republican congressman from Alabama, 2) Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, who will soon be starring in a reality tv show about narcissists. The film "The Fifth Estate" is about him and 3) well, it's just a human skeleton (we are using it for the movie "The Skeleton Twins," which stars Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig).

1) "Mean Streets." 1973. dir: Martin Scorsese

2) "Nightmare on Elm Street." 1984. dir: Wes Craven

3) "Yeelen." Mali. 1987. dir: Souelymane Cisse

4) "Rush." 2013. dir: Ron Howard.

5) "The Fifth Estate." 2013. dir: Bill Condon.

6) "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One" (documentary/experimental film). 1968. dir: William Greaves (alas the director died this year)

7) "Don's Party." Australia (in English). 1976. dir: Bruce Beresford.

8) "Labor Day" 2013. dir: Jason Reitman (with Kate Winslet)

9) "The Skeleton Twins."2014  dir: Craig Johnson.

10) "Frank." Ireland (in English) 2014. dir: Lenny Abrahamson

Last Ten Films We've Seen (as of Sept. 22nd): Some Pretty Violent Films

Greetings to our blog readers in Ireland, Jordan and Japan.

With two gangster films ("Killing List" and "The Drop") plus one horror film (the "Carrie" remake/reboot) in addition to a Turkish film dealing with domestic violence ("The Confession"), there are some quite violent films on the list.

But, there are light films as well, and since Ben Stiller's film "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," a remake of the 1947 Danny Kaye classic, is about daydreaming, we thought we'd post a photo of a Turkish babe in a hot black bikini, I suppose in Yemen, this entry will be censored.....oh well!

Boris Spassky, the great Russian chess player (top image) is being used in conjunction with "The Master," one of the great films in the acting career of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and conversely the yellow crayon is for "I Am Curious Yellow," a steamy left-wing experimental Swedish film from 1967 which includes footage of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Here are the last ten films we've seen (as of Sept. 22nd):

1. The Master. 2012. Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

2. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. 2013. Dir: Ben Stiller

3. The Lego Movie. 2014. Dirs: Phil Lord; Christopher Miller

4. The Drop. 2014. Dir: Michael R. Roskam (last film of James Gandolfini)

5. Killing List. 2011. Dir: Ben Wheatley

6. The Confession. Turkey. 2002. Dir: Zeki Demirkubuz

7. I Am Curious Yellow. Sweden. 1967. Dir: Vilgot Sjoman

8. The Great Beauty. Italy. 2013. Dir: Paolo Sorrentino

9. Nathalie. France. 2003. Dir: Anne Fontaire

10. Carrie. 2013. Dir: Kimberly Peirce.

The Sunday Washington Post Comics Survey: Dustin Just Misses the Cut

Greetings to our blog readers in Estonia, Ireland and Yugoslavia......err, we mean Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia and.............

We are also hoping to find Dursun Duzen, a 37-year-old man in Sivas, Turkey, a girlfriend as according to the English-language Turkish newspaper "The Daily Hurriyet," he has decided to post posters of himself with his phone number all over town. Perhaps, I should try the same thing...........well, perhaps not?!

There is a reason why we have retro images of tennis star John McEnroe and punk pop rock singer Pat Benatar for this blog entry as well as a photo of a Jack Russell Terrier, as all three of them relate to to our top three Sunday comic strips of the week from "The Washington Post." (Note: Benatar performs in her hometown of Richmond, Va., on Oct. 15th)

We had a unique fork in the road when we could not decide between giving "Dustin" a tenth place finish or going with the Scott Stantis strip "Prickly City," but even though Stantis is known to poke fun of us liberals, we decided to give him the final slot. Hopefully, we can work "Dustin" in next time.


We are also happy to include Keith Knight's autobiographical comic strip "Knight Life," which this week showed the pains of giving a kid something good and healthy for them, especially in the form of a soup or stew!

Here is our weekly top ten. For those of you new to this blog, we alternate between "The Washington Post" and "The Roanoke Times," to see this week's comic strip survey from "The Roanoke Times," go to http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com


1) WUMO (image one, it deals with a talking tennis ball)

2) Rhymes with Orange (image two, it has dogs at a country fair trying out dogs on a stick)

3) Foxtrot (image three, it deals with a teenage girl getting haircut advice from her brothers)*

4) Knight Life

5) The Argyle Sweater

6) Lio

7) Speed Bump (was number one in our "Roanoke Times" comic strips survey)

8) Pearls Before Swine

9) Sherman's Lagoon (last week's number one)

10) Prickly City

*-If you reside near Greensboro, NC, we recommend getting haircuts at Salon Bailey's on Elm: http://www.salonbaileysonelm.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

http://www.gocomics.com/theknightlife

http://www.gocomics.com/pricklycity

http://rhymeswithorange.com/

http://benatargiraldo.com/ (Pat Benatar's web site)

Little Thinker Quotes (12 of 16): Oscar Wilde

"True friends stab you in the front," Oscar Wilde.

SIDEBAR: Since there is a bit of a Polar Vortex around here, we thought we'd post some temps around American and across the world, including Nagano, Japan, where the 1998 Winter Olympics took place:

37 degrees- Nagano, Japan

34 degrees in Richmond, Va.

27 degrees in Hartford, Conn.

22 degrees in Malmo, Sweden

15 degrees in Chicago

5 degrees in Kiev, Ukraine

http://www.oscarwildesociety.com/

Little Thinkers (5 of 16): Claude Monet

Greetings to our blog-readers in Kuwait, Bolivia and Ireland.

Today's quote is from the French impressionist Claude Monet. Some of Monet's painting are on display at the Denver Art Museum's 'Passport to Paris,' exhibit which runs until Feb. 9th.

Here is the quote:

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."

http://www.claudemonetgallery.org

http://www.denverartmuseum.org

UVA Beats Virginia Tech in Women's Volleyball

Greetings to our blog-readers in Ireland, Malaysia and Greece.

Though this blog has a slightly pro-Hokie leading (and an even more liberal bias; our apologies to Jonathan V. Last, a senior writer at "The Weekly Standard"), we did want to salute the University of Virginia's women's volleyball for their home win in Charlottesville over the Virginia Tech Hokies from Blacksburg.

The final score was UVA winning 3-1 (23-25, 25-19, 25-18, 25-19) with Natalie Bausback leading the Cavaliers with 17 kills and six blocks. Toni Jonowski had 13 kills for the 'Hoos and Haley Kole had 11 kills. The Cavs' are now 17-13 overall, and 10-8 in the ACC.

For the Hokies, Kathryn Caine had 17 kills and Lindsey Owens had 11 kills. The Hokies remain the team with a better record at 21-11 overall and 9-9 in the ACC.

This was the first time UVA won both matches against Va. Tech since 2005.

SIDEBAR: Our tweet of the night comes from our good friend Ali Arikan, a film and culture writer for "Slant" magazine. Arikan resides in his native Istanbul, Turkey, where it is now 9:30 a.m. (seven hours ahead of New York and Atlanta). Here is his tweet: "Another weird dream last night. I was at a library trying to pick out a book with Elizabeth Banks, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Peter Labuza."

Banks is an America actress (we believe she played Laura Bush in Oliver Stone's "W"), Ceylan is an acclaimed Turkish film director whose films include the brilliant "Uzak/Distance" and Labuza is a New York-based film critic.

http://www.virigniasports.com

http://www.slantmagazine.com

http://www.weeklystandard.com (not an endorsement)

Presidential Quote (6 of 8): Andrew Jackson

Greetings to our blog readers in Ireland, Italy and Israel.

Today, we continue with our presidential quotes by quoting Andrew Jackson, the seventh* American president and the second Democrat to become prez, after Thomas Jefferson.

There is actually a dispute as to whether Jackson was born in North Carolina or South Carolina as he has born on an estate near the border, but most historians say he was born in South Carolina. Today, there is a high school in Kershaw, SC, which bears his name.

Jackson represented Tennessee at the time of his election to the presidency, and his historic home The Hermitage in Nashville, Tenn., is open for tourists. Jackson, Mississippi, and the town of Mont Jackson, Va., two hours south of Washington, DC, are among the cities and towns named after 'Old Hickory.

Here is his quote:

"Take the time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in."

http://www.thehermitage.com

*- We initially stated that Jackson was the sixth president of the USA; that distinction actually belongs to John Quincy Adams. I assume that the folks at The Hermitage and Mental Floss magazine will hold us accountable!

http://www.mentalfloss.com

For Our International Audience-Let's Get Our Times Right

The novelist Michael Chabon recently told "Mother Jones," more known for its liberal politics that the problem with the Internet was that it has evolved into a deliberate force for wasting time, and a similar point is apparently being made with Sunday's lead story in the business section of "The Washington Post," about wasted time in the office.

With that in mind, we thought we would keep everyone updated on the current time differences with the east coast of America (Philadelphia, Orlando) and the rest of the world. We should have had this posted an hour ago, but we had to check Twitter and Facebook 'just one more time.'

12:00 a.m.

Philadelphia

Washington, DC

Charlotte, NC

2:00 a.m.

Santiago (Chile)

3:00 a.m.

Sao Paulo (Brazil)

5:00 a.m.

Reykjavik (Iceland)

Dublin (pictured, James Joyce statue)

6:00 a.m.

Frankfurt

Venice

7:00 a.m.

Bursa (Turkey)

Rhodes (Greece, pictured)

Sofia (Bulgaria)

Amman (Jordan)

8:00 a.m.

Jeddah (Saudi Arabia, map pictured)

Baghdad

Sannaa (Yemen)

Nairobi (Kenya)

http://www.visitphilly.com

http://www.motherjones.com

http://www.saudiarabiaembassy.net

http://www.visitrhodes.gr/

http://www.visitdublin.com

Our Favorite Olympic Athletes- Don't Mess with Katie Taylor

Here is a sample of our favorite female athletes at the 2012 London Olympics:

1.Fabian Caludino, 27, volleyball, Brazil_ The Brazilian star who is one of the very best spikers in the world will help her team try to win gold over a talented Team America on Saturday; Brazil won the competition at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

2) Elisa DiFrancisca, 24, fencing (foil), Italy_ The Italian fencer is both a star and a sex symbol in Italy as she has often posed in bikinis for photo shoots. During the London games, she won two gold medals. One for individual foil and one for team foil.

3) Evgenia Kanaeva, 22, rhythmic gymnastics, Russia (pictured bottom)_ The competition in this sport just got started today, and it looks to be a battle between Kaaneva who won gold in Beijing and her Russian teammate Daria Dmitriea.

4) Pandelela Rinonog, 19, diving, Malaysia (pictured center)_ The Malaysian flag-bearer won bronze today in platform diving; it was the first medal for Malaysia outside of badminton.

5) Christine Sinclair, 29, soccer, Canada_ One really has to feel for Sinclair for scoring a hat trick in the team's double-overtime semi-final loss to the United States; Team America won gold today by beating Japan 2-1.

6) Katie Taylor, 26, boxing, Ireland (pictured top)_ The Irish boxer won gold today, as many had expected, by defeating Sofya Octigava in the lightweight division. Taylor won the first and only gold for Ireland at the games so far in the process.

Quote of the Day/Week- James Joyce

Although Ireland has had what can be objectively qualified as a dismal Euro 2012 Cup with big losses to Croatia (3-1) and Spain (4-0), they are still among the 16 countries in the tournament so hence we are quoting a famous Irishman.

That person is the legendary novelist and poet James Joyce (1882-1941) whose novel "Ulysses" has been considered to be among the best ever written in the English novel.

There is also a statue of Joyce in Dublin.

Here is his quote:

"Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part that schools cannot recognize."

http://visitireland.com

www.jamesjoyce.ie

Happy Valentine's Day from Olive Oyl

Yes, today is Valentine's Day, and we are having lots of fun here at the Salt Lake City Library in Salt Lake City, Utah (not actually where we are at!).

Olive Oyl is of course the sweetheart of Popeye, who always has to fight his rival Bluto to win her heart. In the real world, this would assuredly lead to a court date.

Today, in honor of the occasion the Sundance Channel is airing the quirky Irish film "Happy Ever After" (2009) about two former lovers who somehow end up at the exact same hotel for their respective wedding days. Awkward!

The film airs at 8:00 p.m., New York time.

SIDEBAR: The answer to our last Rabbits Ears Quiz on "Gilligan's Island" is D.

Special Quote of the Day- Colin Farrell

Today's quote of the day is our final entry for the March quotes dedicated to famous people from Ireland. It was recently revealed that surprisingly Colin Farrell, 34, was close friends with Elizabeth Taylor who died last week.

The relatively young Irish actor is known for his performances in films like "Miami Vice," "Minority Report," "Phone Booth" and "In Bruges."

Here is his quote which hopefully those of you on your lunch break in Burbank, Calif., will have time to read:

"Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me."

SIDEBAR: Well, the whole world literally came to a stand-still in places like Karachi, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India, as the two countries were watching the semi-final game at the World Cricket Championships between the two rival countries.

The game was played in Mumbai, India, and the home team won. India's Sachin Tendulkar made the game-winning score as Pakistan's wicketkeeper (we really know nothing about cricket!) Kamran Akmal looked on in disgust.

India will now play Sri Lanka, the tournament's co-host, in Mumbai on Saturday.

Apparently, no work was done in either India or Pakistan today so everyone could watch the mid-week game.

And, we thought Goodyear executives were presumably horrified that the opening round NCAA men's basketball game between the Akron Zips and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish would result in lost productivity a few weeks back.

Goodyear Tires are based in Akron, Ohio; Notre Dame won that game.

Special Quote of the Week- W.B. Yeats

Today since St. Patrick's Day was last week we thought we'd once again quote someone famous from Ireland. And, we've decided to quip the poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) whose quotes actually appear in the highly acclaimed Chinese film "24 City" (2008).

Yeats is known for poems like "The Second Coming" (1920) and assuredly a teacher at Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Va., is perhaps assigning a paper on his works as we speak (oh, I forgot school is out for today!).

Here is his quote:

"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy."

While we are speaking about all things Irish, we should mention that the 'not Irish' band Coyote Run (they are actually classified as Celtic) from Williamsburg, Va., that I saw perform live recently will be giving a concert in their home state at RavenCon in Richmond on Sat., April 9.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Bill Murray

We thought we'd feature an image of a famous Irish-American for St. Patrick's Day. When my mom told me she was going to go to Dublin a few years ago, I thought she meant Dublin, Va., where Pulaski County High School is, as opposed to Dublin, Ireland!

One of Murray's most famous films "Ghostbusters" will be on Nick-TV tommorow night at 9 p.m., New York time.

We had initially hoped to see how far apart Lexington, Ky., where the University of Kentucky is, from Priceton, NJ, where Princeton University is, were. But, yesterday's blog entries were quite time-consuming! We assume if they weren't playing at a neutral site that the respective team bus drivers would know the way. That game is currently underway, and at last report (well, it was about 30 minutes ago) Kentucky was winning 11-4.

We also wish the University of Asheville (NC) Bulldogs well as they face the top seed Pitt Panthers today as well. If they win, perhaps that means that one day, I might just be able to go on a Starbucks coffee date with Uma Thurman.

Lastly, we want to make readers that many NPR stations are having fund-drives. We are especially concerned about the plight of excellent small market stations like WMRA in Harrisonburg, Va., and KUNC in Greeley, Col.

That Colorado town is also home to the 'other UNC,' the University of Northern California Bears who are in this year's NCAA field. They will play the two-seed San Diego State Aztecs in the opening round.

Quote of the Day- Sinead O'Connor

Today, we are featuring quotes from famous people from Ireland, and today's quip comes from the always interesting and controversial figure who is singer Sinead O'Connor, who came to fame with her version of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U," which is written by Prince.

O'Connor battled breast cancer and in a 2009 blog entry on a breast cancer site, she said that she had lost six pounds after going through several rounds of chemotherapy.

The Irish singer, who is now 43, toured mostly European countries including Slovakia, Italy and Spain last summer in addition to an artistic trek through China.

These comments below were made in regards (we believe) right before a concert that she was to give in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1997, but things didn't go according to plan:

"I cannot put in danger the lives of my two children, my musicians, and my technicians, so I have decided to cancel this concert."

Speaking of controversy, the issue of where our food comes from will be broached again tonight.

The Current-tv series "Kill It! Cook It! Eat It!," which is a British show that airs at 10 p.m. New York time tonight focuses on the killing and eating of growse, a wild game bird.

Participants in the episode will either hunt and kill the bird, while others, like vegeterian contestants, debate the ethics of such a practice. They will gather in the Scottish Highlands during tonight's show for the growse hunt. The bird is apparently available in America as well, particulary in New England states such as Vermont.

Special Quote of the Day- George Bernard Shaw

We continue our quotes from famous people from Ireland with a quip from author/playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) who penned "Pygmalion" which became the basis for the Broadway musical and film "My Fair Lady."

While we our quoting famous people from Ireland, we are listening to Mardi Gras music, including a great tune from Tom Waits, to commemorate today's festivities in New Orleans from WXDU (88.7 FM-Durham, NC), which is the student-run radio station from Duke University, from the net.

Washboard Dave is the DJ at the moment, and according to the station's web site DJ Andy B., who has a program from 10:00 p.m-midnight on Thursdays is the DJ of the Month. Of course, this has nothing to do with Ireland!

Here is our quote from Shaw:

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

I wonder what he would make of blogging? Perhaps, it would have prevented him from writing "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893), another one of his classic plays.

SIDEBAR: At 9:05 p.m., my friend Les Blank's landmark documentary film about a film "Burden of Dream" airs on Flix, a subsidiary of Showtime. You will either come away sincerely admiring filmmaker Werner Herzog or questioning his sanity for shooting a full-scale epic in the Amazon River jungles of Peru.

SIDEBAR 2: Have a morbid side that wonders just when and how someone like acting legend Erroll Flynn died? (I actually never got around to looking that up, but there are better things to do in life and for that matter- even online). Well, you can check out (deadoraliveinfo.com) where I learned that I have now outlived another icon stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce who died around the time when I was born by 75 days.