Very Cheap Things to Buy for the Holidays

On our other blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com we loved at some very expensive things one could get for the holidays, including a $600,000 ocean-front property in Nags Head, NC, in the Outer Banks.

Here we are looking at considerably more inexpensive things, and we will go from the cheapest item to the most expensive, which happens to be a velvet Jesus painting, like the one below.

1) 1984 Topps baseball card for Billy Sample, who is arguably the most-famous pro athlete from my hometown of Roanoke, Va: $0.84

2) Crayola crayons (8-pack) $0.99

3)"Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits" on vinyl (pictured center) $0.99

4) Candy Land Gingerbread Pawns game $4.50

5) Dashboard Buddhist monk (pictured top) $7.95

6) Velvet Jesus painting $32.99

SIDEBAR: Well, we were going to tell you some exciting women's college volleyball games to look for this Thursday and Friday, but we will go ahead and give you our final four selections: Oregon, Penn State, Stanford and USC. The finals will take place in Louisville, Ky. We are going to project third-ranked Stanford as the women's volleyball champ for this year.

http://www.neildiamond.com

http://www.thevelvetstore.com

http://www.gostanford.com

Pre-Election Day Tweets_Should Election Day Be a Holiday?

Before we begin, let's congratulate Marsha Line, the 2012 Cave Spring High School (Roanoke, Va.) homecoming queen; we presume that even though my home state is a swing state which reportedly the closest one in the country, along with perhaps Colorado, that neither President Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney has sought out her endorsement.

The 9th district of southwest Virginia has a fairly interesting Congressional race between Cong. Morgan Griffith (R), who is from Salem, Va., and his opponent Anthony Flaccavento, a successful organic farmer from Abingdon, Va., which is 2.5 hours from Salem and 7 hours from Washington, DC.

Coal has been one of the hot topics in the race in which Griffith is favored as coal miners, normally reliable Democratic voters, have been voting more Republican because of cultural issues and fears of environmental regulations, though climate change/global warming was the issue which made New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the most recognized political independent endorse Obama.

We have tweets from both candidates in this final round-up of Pre-Election Day tweets, taken from last night:

1) @Slate (Slate.com): "Latest polls show President Obama ahead of Mitt Romney in Ohio and Florida."

2) @CNNPolitics (CNN Politics): "Washington Redskins lose, San Francisco Giants win, election still unclear."

3) @lmcnelly (Lucas McNelly, a liberal activist): "I'm spending way too much time cursing at Republican attack ads."

4) @afor9th (Anthony Flaccavento, pictured bottom): "Thought telling truth and standing up for working people would rally folks. And it has. #Flaccavento in Wise County."

5) @MorganGriffith (Morgan Griffith, pictured top): "At the Dickenson County GOP Dinner. We've made over 40 stops and traveled more than 3,000 miles. Two days to go." (John McCain narrowly won the far southwestern Virginia county over Obama in 2008 according to "The Roanoke Times").

6) @CrowleyTime (Michael Crowley, a reporter for "Time" who previously worked for "The New Republic"): "Even weirder if Mark Warner hadn't bailed out in '08, Obama would likely be in the Senate or making first WH bid now." (Comment is in reference to Virginia's Democratic Senator Mark Warner).

7) @DavidFrum (David Frum, a center-right pundit and former George W. Bush speech writer): "Why isn't election day a national holiday?/Aka The Nightmare Before Christmas." (This is why we have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree image)

8) @NeilDiamond (Neil Diamond, the one and only iconic singer): "Working the phones for Obama. If I call you, don't hang up, it's me and I need you."

http://www.flaccaventoforthe9th.com

http://www.morgangriffithforcongress.com

Quote of the Week- Neil Diamond

While you are not likely to hear Neil Diamond on radio stations that play The Clash and Metallica, the legendary singer has endured and remains a favorite of adult contemporary radio stations from Cleveland to Kuala Lampur (we assume!).

His Neilness is not currently on tour, but you might be able to catch a performance of the Carrboro-NC based tribute band The Neil Diamond All-Stars, whose lead singer is Jack Whitebread, who does seem more like the late Joe Strummer (lead singer of The Clash) than Diamond himself but he does a great "Sweet Caroline."

I saw the trib band perform at The Cat's Cradle in Carrboro a few months ago, and they were simply awesome though I don't recall them singing my favorite Neil song "Red, Red Wine," which became a chart-busting hit for the English reggae pop band UB40 in the mid-80s.

The venue hosts the '80s New Wave band The English Beat ("Mirror in the Bathroom") on Aug. 24 which we wish were not a double-expletive school night!

Diamond also sang the national anthem for my sister's graduation at The University of Colorado.

Here is our quote from Diamond:

"I don't like all of the music to be serious and deadly."