Google/Bing Question of the Day: How Many Top 40 Hits Did Pat Benatar Have?

The answer as it turns out is 14. Though Pat Benatar never topped the Billboard charts, she had four top ten singles, including "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," "Love is a Battlefield," "We Belong" and "Invincible."

Benatar is now on tour and she will be playing a number of east coast venues, including Wolf Trap in Vienna, Va., near Washington, DC, on Aug. 20th. She then plays at the House of Blues in Boston on Aug. 21 and the State Theatre in Portland, Maine, on Aug. 25.

She returns to her hometown of Richmond when she plays at the Innsbrook Pavilion (in the Richmond 'burb of Glen Allen, Va.) on Aug. 28.

For info on the tour of another '80s music entity, go to our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" at: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com


http://www.benatargirlado.com

http://www.wolftrap.org

Return of Friday Night Tweets: Bad Weather, Baseball and Politics

As of last report, the Durham Bulls (Durham, NC, pictured top) are losing badly in their home game against the Charlotte Knights. The score was 8-1 in the third inning. Here's hoping you are having a somewhat better night.

From the left and the right, here are the tweets:

1. National Review @NRO ( The National Review is a right wing publication, this is a center-left blog, the late Dale Carnegie would say that they should send us a thank u card): "Major Hasan's attack at #FtHood was terrorism, not workplace violence, and he'll be the first one to say so."

2. WXII 12 News @WXII (A tv station in Winston-Salem, NC): "Thunder and lightning right now in Winston-Salem. Keep an eye on the interactive radar.)

3. Durham Bulls @DurhamBulls: "Prior to tonight's game @DukeU Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Dr. Robert Lefkowitz threw out first pitch."

4.Erin Cunnigham @erincunnigham: Ugh, you have to show ID now when buying nail polish remover at CVS? Seriously America, stop cooking so much meth."

5. Portland Sea Dogs @PortlandSeaDogs_ a minor league baseball team in Portland, Maine: "First pitch set for 8:00 p.m. Henry Owens to make his Hadlock Field debut against Bowie."

6. The Onion @theonion_ for those of you in Azerbaijan, "The Onion" is a fake news publication: "Corpses of 'Lone Ranger' producres hung from Hollywood Blvd. street lights as warnings to others."

7. Tom Perriello @tomperriello_ pictured bottom, Perriello is a former Democratic congressional rep and now a CEO for a progressive lobbying firm: "Passing by Sylvania, Ohio, thinking of my grandfather Thomas Gillooly who spent his career there as teacher, coach, fireman, WWII vet, hero to me."

8. Mustafa Akyol @AkyolinEnglish_ Akyol is a Turkish journalist for "Hurriyet" newspaper: "If you are around Detriot, you are welcome this Sat to my debate on Islam, democracy and religious freedom."

For more tweets, check out my other blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com


http://www,nationalreview.com (We are amused by their story: "Norway's right turn." So, if you find a couple of Norwegian right wingers, this means the country is turning to the Bergen Tea Party? Perhaps, "The Nation," should write an article called Iran's Left Turn).

http://www.wxii12.com/

http://www.theonion.com

http://www.americanprogress.org (Perriello's group)

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com

http://www.thewhitepath.com (Akyol's web site)

Top Ten Even More Things To Do List

1. Catch up on "Bates Motel"

2. Send out Thank You cards

3. Follow the weekend GalataSaray-Fenerbahce Turkish soccer game on Twitter

4. Return library books

5. Buy new pair of slippers

6. Make some Seattle's Best Coffee

7. See what the weather in Ankara, Turkey, is like

8. See what the weather in Portland, Maine, is like

9. Avoid Chapel Hill, NC, at all costs (UNC is having commencement this weekend)

10. Pick up the Xanax (not actually a medication we're taking!)

Perhaps If You're in the Area and Have Time

If you live in North Carolina, and you know a Pakistani student from North Carolina State or an Egyptian student from Duke, and you are wondering what to do or where you can take them, well the Ham and Yam Festival in Smithfield, NC, is a very bad idea.

As the son of a Turkish immigrant and a woman from South Carolina, I have been to village weddings in Turkey and a similar pig-themed festival in another part of the Tarheel State. I'm not sure which one made me feel more out of place, or like "E.T."

But, if you have no moral objections to eating pork, and you will yams than Smithfield is indeed the place for you this weekend, unless you live in Portland, Maine, or Miami! (Both trips would be quite a long drive, although the Smithfield-area Chamber of Commerce would perhaps prefer that I didn't state the obvious).

The Ham and Yam Festival also features pig races, but I suspect that prizes for guessing which pig wins the race will offer substantially less earnings than predicting the winner of the Kentucky Derby.

Smithfield, NC, is also known for being the hometown of the late screen queen Ava Gardner. Her amazing performance in "Night of the Iguana" may be one of the most underrated in Hollywood motion picture history.

What We Are Working On.....

Since a lot has happened in the world since I last blogged on Thursday and I am now done looking at emails from L.L. Bean (apologies to the Maine-based company, but nice white shorts are not my priority right now!), I will give you the reader a glance of what to expect on this blog this week.

1. Since May 1st is a day associated with radical socialists, we will start quoting famous people from the far-left starting on Tuesdays this month. Though I'm not one myself, I love agitating Republicans, well except my good friends attorney Johann Hallbjorn in Bethesda, Maryland (the Icelandic name is a fake name, and Johann doesn't live in the DC Metro area), and journalist Aarne Eerikainen in Knoxville, Tenn.,(the Finnish name is also a fake name as well and Aarne doesn't have anything to do with the Volunteer State---that we are aware of).

2. On Wednesday, we will have a quote from a famous novelist. Perhaps, you've already read his book on Kindle?! Other quips from other authors will follow on Wednesdays in May.

3. On Thursday, we are planning to actually write a serious entry (?!) on how I came close to being at the scene of a terrorist bombing, not involving the now deceased eshol eshek (Turkish word for son of a donkey; it is a high insult there) Osama bin Laden, on strangely enough Sept. 10, 2001, in Istanbul, Turkey. The blast, which was a suicide bombing, killed two Istanbul police officers whom I had physically seen some 20 minutes prior to their untimely deaths. The bombing also killed an Australian tourist named Amanda Rigg, who was only 22.

Rigg's story was the feature of a 2007 "Sydney Morning Herald" I found on the web. Her death unfortunately became a bureaucratic nightmare for her family in Australia as the government would not let them recieve monetary compensation for her death as they had with terrorism victims in more universally recognized incidents, such as the bombing at a resort on the island of Bali in Indonesia. My interest in writing about my own experience again is due to the death of bin Laden, and the impact that terrorism leaves on all of us, irregardless of how large or small such incidents are in scale.

4) On a lighter note, this Friday, we hope to officially start a new series called "Things We Learned on Google Today." It will begin with a look at a country that was a republic in the former Soviet Union. We may not start with Kyrgystan since it was the only country from the old USSR that I could not name on a mentalfloss.com quiz! I did manage to get the other 12 right though.

Incidentally, we've included The Smurfs and their villain Gargamel here because they have been invading my dreams lately. We learned about them in research for this entry, but alas due to time constraints, we will share those unique little things some other time!

Things We Learned on Twitter This Week- Southwest Airlines Thinks We Still Like to Fly

Ahh, yes, the good ole days before 9/11 when it took less time to get through the airport in Albany, New York*, than it did in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Oh well!

With the advent of the new full body scanners which has undoubtedly increased ACLU memberships, people from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, are moaning and of course, I am one of them, even though I was not on an airplane this holiday weekend.

But, Southwest Airlines tweeted on Wednesday that they were looking for some positive tweets for their passengers, and amazingly enough people seemed to be giving them just that:

"I LUV all the travel tweets coming in this morning! Let us know how we're doing on this busy travel day! Where are you headed today?"

In other airplane news, British comic actor Neil Morrissey reportedly made an ass of himself on a British Airways flight from Singapore to London Heathrow by going on a profanity-laced tirade while under the influence of alcohol.

And, according to "The Daily News," an English-language journal in Pakistan, the country's leading airline Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) was completely unprepared for the massive numbers of Muslim pilgrims travel on hajj to Mecca, as there were long delays in most flights from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan last week during the Muslim Eid Mubarak holiday. The journal reported that some 100,000 pilgrims were flying out of Jeddah back to major Pakistani cities, including Karachi and Lahore.

*-Albany is one of the many airports, a surprising number of which are in smaller markets, that has started using the full body scanners.

Status Update- April 19th

"Just finished eating Moo Goo Gai Pan and an egg roll with white rice."

I did not dine at the Wok Inn in Portland, Maine, (which is pretty far from here, though it is closer than Portland, Oregon) but if you're in that area I highly recommend them!