Greetings to our blog readers in England, Pakistan and Malaysia......

Happy 89th birthday to the great Mel Brooks.......

Today, we look at our top ten favorite comic strips from "The Roanoke Times" in Roanoke, Va.

The winner is Stephan Pastis, of "Pearls Before Swine" fame, whom like Jerry Seinfeld did on sitcom television, makes brilliant fun of every day annoying occurrences, like people trying to start a second line for the same bank teller (Image #1: a piggy bank is in reference to the strip).

Second place goes to Dave Coverly's "Speed Bump" in which a third cave man makes stone drawings with his food which seemingly irritates his mates. Our initial choice for an image to go with this was "Captain Caveman," but we couldn't find a suitable image.

Lastly, third place goes to Darby Conley's "Get Fuzzy" in which Satchel the Dog sees a headline in a newspaper that Australia nearly executed Johnny Depp's dogs. We will send Javier the Intern to verify if this actually did happen.

Here is our top ten:

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. Speed Bump

3. Get Fuzzy

4. Non Sequitur

5. Doonesbury

6. Dilbert

7. Jump Start

8. Agnes

9. Garfield

10. Zits

http://www.gocomics.com

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

Our Top Ten Comic Strips from the Dec. 28th Sunday Roanoke Times

Greetings to our blog readers in Dubai, Nigeria and Indonesia....

This week, we look at our ten favorite comic strips from the Sunday Dec. 28th "Roanoke Times" in Roanoke, Va., which unlike "The Herald-Journal" in Spartanburg, SC, does NOT feature "Gasoline Alley.," but they do have "Hi and Lois," which once in a while cracks our top ten.

Our favorite comic strip is once again "Pearls Before Swine," as Stephan Pastis once again delivered a hilarious strip which once again deals with a dispute between Goat and Rat, two of the three main characters in the strip, along with Pig. This spat revolves around whether Rat wants to stay at his fenemy Goat's house or not....the alternative is, of course, staying in a hotel/motel (top image).

Second place goes to "Get Fuzzy," which is reportedly horror writer Stephen King's favorite comic strip, and this week's Sunday strip actually features "Catch-22" (middle image) and "Moby Dick," which are two novels King has not written (forgiven the English major humor).....

And. Dave Coverly's "Speed Bump" has a penguin meeting a polar bear, hence the reason for our image of Chilly Willy (bottom)...

Here is our top ten:

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. Get Fuzzy

3. Dilbert

4. Speed Bump

5. Agnes

6. Doonesbury

7. Non Sequitur

8. Zits

9. Family Circus (wow! Three weeks in a row.......?!)

10. Garfield

SIDEBAR: Here is the top ten from the previous Sunday (Dec. 21, 2014), which we never posted: 1. Pearls: 2. Get Fuzzy; 3. Agnes; 4. Doonesbury; 5. Dilbert; 6. Speed Bump; 7. Non Sequitur; 8. Jump Start; 10. Family Circus

For this week's Sunday Washington Post survey, go to our sister blog's link: http://nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com/2015/01/top-ten-comic-strips-from-sunday-dec.html

http://www.visitutah.com/

www.roanoke.com/

http://www.gocomics.com

http://comicskingdom.com/

http://www.goupstate.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.

Comic Strips Survey from the Roanoke Times: Will Anyone in Portugal Read This

Yes, we are wondering if anyone in Portugal or Romania for that matter reads our Sunday comics strips, but if you are checking us out from Lisbon or Bucharest, we hope the weather is nice in your respective nations today.

We are featuring photos of a random exotic fish, a Siamese cat, and Cong. Morgan Griffith (R-Va), because each of them pertains to the top three comic strips in "The Roanoke Times." (I suppose the next time we choose a photo of a House of Representatives members we will go with Cong. David Price, D-NC, to show we are nonpartisan, even though we make no secret of our center-left politics here).

"Speed Bump" by Dave Coverly was this week's winner as his strip showed a fish who had combed his hair just for his date, who was also a fish. Second place went to "Get Fuzzy" which depicts a mad Siamese cat named Satchel. Finally, the bronze medal goes to "Pearls Before Swine" which ventured into new territory by making fun of how corporate donations to members of Congress taint the political system. "Pearls" is usually an apolitical strip!

"Blondie" edged out "Dilbert" for tenth place. The two comic strips seem radically different, but unusually enough they are the two comic strips which seem to focus most on the workplace, except we never actually see Mrs. Dilbert (if there is one) in Scott Adams' strip.

Here is our top ten:

1) Speed Bump

2) Get Fuzzy

3) Pearls Before Swine

4) Doonesbury

5) Non-Sequitir

6)Funky Winkerbean

7) Garfield

8) Zits

9)  Agnes

10) Blondie

To see our Washington Post comics survey, go to our sister blog: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

Comic Strip Grand Slam (1 of 4): Doonesbury Takes It All

Paintball. Leaving the kid you are supposed to be baby-sitting outside while you go into a bar. Monkeys in Space. Brings Your Kid to Work Days. An out-of-season April Fool's prank.

All of these were topics from the June 8th edition of "The Roanoke Times," for our favorites from "The Washington Post" (also from June 8th) go to our sister blog "The Daily Vampire:" http://www.noctrnalguy38.blogspot.com

Here are our top ten favorites:


1. Doonesbury (paintball image)

2. Pearls Before Swine (beer image)

3. Funky Winkerbean (monkeys in space image)

4. Dilbert

5. Get Fuzzy

6. Zits

7. Garfield

8. Speed Bump

9. Non-Sequitir

10. Baby Blues

http://www.doonesbury.com

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com

http://www.roanoke.com

Sunday Roanoke Times Survey: Doonesbury Brilliantly Satires Dubya

Garry Trudeau hit the high mark in political satire on Mother's Day with "Doonesbury" when he made fun of former president George W. Bush's new painting hobby, which was even the subject of a political story by "New York Times" political beat writer Peter Baker. The punch line of the strip is highly political, and perhaps it will lead to "The Spartanburg Herald Journal" in Spartanburg, South Carolina, dropping the strip (we actually have no idea which strips are in that newspaper). Hence, "Doonesbury" is our comic strip of the week from those published in the Sunday "Roanoke Times" in Roanoke, Va.

"Funky Winkerbean" was a close second with its Starbuck Jones comic book cover series which featured a live octopus. We were unable to find a good image of a live octopus, so we went with this photo of an octopus on a plate in Greece. Our apologies to our good friends at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta (well, we actually don't know a single who works in an aquarium).

Third place goes to "Speed Bump"," which features two dogs sitting on a couch as they watch a cat movie with subtitles. We didn't wan tto violate artist Dave Coverly's copyright, so we decided to go with an image of Cuneyt Arkin, a Turkish '70s action movie icon, which is made funnier with subtitles.

Here is the survey results:

1) "Doonesbury"

2) "Funky Winkerbean"

3) "Speed Bump"

4) "Agnes"

5) "Pearls Before Swine"

6) "Get Fuzzy"

7) "Zits"

8) "Garfield"

9) "Dilbert"

10) "Jump Start"


http://www.doonesbury.com

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com

http://www.speedbump.com

http://www.goupstate.com/

http://www.georgewbushlibrary.smu.edu/

http://www.visitgreece.gr/

http://www.goturkey.com/

http://www.aqua.org/

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/

http://www.roanoke.com

Our Ten Favorite Comic Strips from the Roanoke Times: Speed Bump Takes the Gold

Here are our ten favorite comic strips from the Sunday "Roanoke Times," the daily newspaper of Roanoke, Va. "Speed Bump" which takes first place in our survey revolves around graffiti! The image here is of graffiti in Denver, Colo.

Here is our list:

1. Speed Bump

2. Pearls Before Swine

3. Doonesbury

4. Get Fuzzy

5. Funky Winkerbean

6. Agnes

7. Family Circus (surprise!)

8. Dilbert

9. Garfield

10. Zits

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

http://www.stephanpastis.wordpress.com
 
http://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy

Top Ten Comic Strips from The Sunday Roanoke Times.........yes, Pearls wins again

Stephan Pastis, the man who created Ataturk the Spitting Llama (thanks ok, us Turkish-Americans know our yogurt is better than Greek yogurt), once again wins our sweepstakes with his "Pearls Before Swine" trip in which a family trip to Key West, Fla, to go whale watching takes a Twilight Zone episode turn, which is, of course, hilarious.

"Get Fuzzy" was second as Bucky, Rob Wilco's out of control Siamese cat, goes on a rant about how a kid who has memorized Pi is not really smart of be interviewed on network television.

And, a cat was also featured in "Dilbert" where the title character was curiously absent. Here the cat gives personal advice to Dilbert's boss on how to seem caring around employees since he is a man incapable of empathy.


Here is the top ten from the Sunday "Roanoke Times:"

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. Get Fuzzy

3. Dilbert

4.Doonesbury

5. Garfield

6. Funky Winkerbean

7. Zits

8. Speed Bump

9. Agnes

10. Blondie


http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics/getfuzzy

http://www.stephanpastis.wordpress.com

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.whalewatching.com

http://www.mainewhales.com


http://www.fla-keys.com

http://www.newport-news.org  (Newport News, Va., is said to be a good place for whale watching)

Top Ten Comic Strips from the Sunday Roanoke Times: Can Anyone Top Stephan Pastis?

Greetings to our blog readers in Cyprus, Peru and New Zealand.

Welcome to another edition of "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," which dates back to Sept. 21, 2005! But, our friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight has been around longer than us as he just celebrated the tenth anniversary of his blog "The Knight Shift."

Special greetings to those of you checking us out from The o2 Lounge in Breckenridge, Colo., and Crooks Corner Restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC, which are a mere 26 hours and 45 minutes away from each other! Hope all is well in Colorado and North Carolina.

Today, we look at our favorite comic strips from "The Roanoke Times" in Roanoke, Va. The competition is a little less steep than "The Washington Post," which features "Sherman's Lagoon," "Rhymes with Orange" and "Brewster Rockit: SpaceGuy," but "The Roanoke Times" does have "Hi and Lois," which "The Washington Post" does not.

Our sweepstakes winner for today is once again "Pearls Before Swine," which proves that we are over his character Ataturk the Spitting Llama (Tilly Gokbudak, the editor of this blog, who is me, is a Turkish-American. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is the patron saint of modern Turkey, well in the secular sense).

Today, Stephan introduced a complicated concept for a 'Brain Alert' system for older people who can't remember that Jimmy Carter was president before Ronald Reagan. The last panel ends more perfectly than a season finale of "Homeland." We'll leave it there, so we don't have to issue a 'spoiler alert' (I'm still shocked at the season finale of "Homeland.")

The runner-up strip was the increasingly surprising "Garfield," which seems to have gotten exceptionally more funny since it has been parodied by "Garfield Minus Garfield." Garfield has actually around since 1978, which means at 36, he is older than the world's oldest cat, who reportedly lives in York, South Carolina, a border town with just under 10,000 people (ok, we are making that up).

"Get Fuzzy" was a bit shockingly literate today as it seemed to evoke George Orwell's "Animal Farm" or perhaps we are reading too much into it!

Here is today's top ten:

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Garfield

3) Get Fuzzy

4) Doonesbury

5) Zits

6) Speed Bump

7) "Non Sequitur"

8) Agnes

9) Dilbert

10) Funky Winkerbean

http://www.theo2lounge.com


http://www.crookscorner.com

http://www.stephanpastis.wordpress.com

http://www.garfield.com

http://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy

Comic Strip Dialogue from The Roanoke Times: Any Cheese Will Do

With Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek sandwiched between Gouda cheese, which should hopefully get us some hits in the Netherlands, and a chocolate glazed donuts, which New Jersey's Republican governor Chris Christie can eat by the dozen (well, even if we were Republicans, we'd have to admit the guy is a bit fat, but at least he's to the far-left of Rick Perry, the execution-happy Republican governor of Texas), we give you dialogue from comic strips which appeared today in "The Roanoke Times."

The Gouda cheese is in reference to "Blondie" as Dagwood asks Elmo, who is presumably the neighbor's son, what kind of cheese he wants on his sandwich. Zizek is in reference to a line in "Dilbert" about philosophy. And, chocolate donuts tempted both John and his beloved title character cat in today's "Garfield."

Here we go:

1) "How are you feeling today, Agnes?" (from "Agnes")

2) "I'm trying to develop a new philosophy for my life" (from "Dilbert")

3) "Look, we agreed this wouldn't be easy.....we BOTH have to be strong." (from "Garfield)

4) "How about Gouda? I've got some smoked Gouda!" (from "Blondie")

5) "It's a New Year Tradition" (from "Jump Start")

6) "Exercise is great, but it's important not to overdo it," (from "Pickles")

7) "You sneeze like a gerbil," (from "Zits")

8) "Now Boarding. Rows five and above" (from "Funky Winkerbean")

9) "Nice. So what's our exit strategy?" (from "Doonesbury")

10) "Security." (from "Pearls Before Swine")

http://www.slovenia.info/

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.garfield.com

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com/

http://www.philosophytalk.org/ (NPR show about philosophy)

http://www.rnw.nl/english (Radio Netherlands)

Favorite Comic Strips from the Sunday Roanoke Times: Another Great Week for Pearls Before Swine

We aren't just posting a 1993 photo of Heather Locklear in the hopes that it will generates lots of hit from Cuba to Kazakhstan to New Zealand (though that would be nice), but because a blonde woman named Wanda who looks a bit like a young Heather, is the main guest character in this week's Sunday comic strip.

Wanda ends causing friction to Rat, one of the strip's central characters, and his Uncle Dan, without intention.

Here are our top 10 comic strips from this Sunday's "Roanoke Times" (Roanoke, Va.):

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. Agnes

3. Doonesbury

4. Get Fuzzy

5. Garfield

6. Speed Bump

7. Funky Winkerbean

8. Dilbert

9. Blondie

10. Jump Start

http://www.garfield.com

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.doonesbury.com

Top Ten Favorite Comic Strips from The Roanoke Times: A Bronze Medal for Doonesbury

Why do we have images of: 1) a brown rat; 2) colorful fire hydrants (the one with Oscar the Grouch is our favorite; and 3) a Clemson Tigers football helmet. Well, read below and you shall find out.

Our comic strip of the week for the comic strips in "The Roanoke Times," a newspaper based in Roanoke, Va., which covers much of southwest Virginia is "Pearls Before Swine." In one of the best overall comic strips in recent weeks, artist Stephan Pastis used 20 panels to show one of the strip's title characters, a mouse, having problems with a computer. We didn't realize until after reading the strip that the mouse was having problems with a mouse (as in a computer tool).

Here is our top ten:

1) Pearls Before Swine (yes the brown rat is in reference to this strip)

2) Get Fuzzy (this week's strip features a dog and a fire hydrant with little dialogue)

3) Doonesbury (great strip on a singles e-harmony style group for married people?!)

4) Speed Bump (the reason for the football helmet is because Dave Coverly's strip focused on a football huddle; our first choice was a Northwestern U football helmet)

5) Zits

6) Blondie

7) Agnes

8) Dilbert

9) Funky Winkerbean

10) Garfield


http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/

Our Outline for 2013

With a cheeky teacher's apple in hand, we give a scheduled run-down of what to expect from this blog during the spring semester. We should add that we feel slightly hipper than normal as we are listening to WXDU 88.7-FM (Durham, NC), the student radio station of Duke University, via Internet streaming which is actually working?!, while we are posting this.

A few minutes ago, they were playing a song by Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie Prince Billy, a band with actor Will Oldham, who starred in the indie classic "Old Joy" (2006).  Javier the Intern informs us that we are now listening to "One Million Lovers" by The Growlers. Aren't you impressed?

Here is our slate:


Sunday- (1st and 3rd) Weekend Tweets

Sunday (2nd, 4th and 5th)- Comic Strip Dialogue......hopefully, the creators of "Funky Winkerbean," which is still carried by "The Roanoke Times" in Roanoke, Va., won't sue us.

Monday (1st and 3rd starting in Feb.) Sports Update- gymnastics

             (2nd, 4th and 5th)- college basketball

Tuesday- Quote of the Week

Wednesday- Weather from Around the Whole World

Thursday- Silly Photo to Fill Space

Friday- Weekend Extra

Saturday- Weekend Extra

http://www.wxdu.org

http://www.bonnieprincebilly.com

http://www.thegrowlers.com

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com

http://www.roanoke.com

Comic Strip Dialogue_ Raking Those Darn Leaves

Today, we continue our series of quoting lines from comic strips with a look at lines from comics in yesterday's Sunday edition of "The Roanoke Times," a daily newspaper in Roanoke, Va.

We noticed that several strips, including "For Better or For Worse," "Zits," "Hi and Lois" and "Blondie" all dealt with fall foliage, which is very apparent in many American states this time of year, including Virginia, West Virginia and Vermont.

Our image of Lee Marvin from "The Dirty Dozen" is what came to mind when we were thinking of an image of Veterans Day, which was celebrated yesterday here in America.

Here are the lines from the funny pages:

1) "Mmm.....Smell that Clean Air! Look at Those Leaves!" (from "For Better or For Worse")

2) "Happy Veterans Day!" (from "Red and Rover")

3) "Notice Anything?" (from "Agnes")

4) "You're Pretty Good at Driving" (from "Mutts)

5) "Well, that's offenisve" (from "Speed Bump")

6) "An emergency came up at the animal hospital" (from "Garfield")

7) "Well, I know for a fact that's not true! Ha Ha!" (from "Get Fuzzy")

8) "Soooooo, what are you getting mom for Christmas?" (from "Sally Forth")

9) "I'd rather talk about the Bengals or the Steelers!" (from "Jump Start")

10) "I'm not raking until the last leaf falls." (from "Hi and Lois")

11) "It's weird how clouds make you hungry" (from "Blondie")

12) "Cantaloupe!" (from "Pearls Before Swine")

13) "It was a lousy program, anyway!" (from "Peanuts," said by Linus)

14) "Excellence is the only market that isn't crowded" (from "Dilbert")

15) "Now Stop Dawdling and get on with it!" (from "Pickles")

16) "Does this write?! Yes, I guess it does. That's good; I guess," (actually a note to myself when seeing if a pen was working or not).

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.muttscomics.com

http://www.roanoke.com

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Trenton Thunder Mascot

We may strongly differ with a reader to "The Roanoke Times" in Roanoke, Va., who said that New Jersey's newly elected Republican Governator (of that's the one in California) Chris Christie is a 'national hero' because he ridded the state 'of socialism' (these Tea Partiers are zanier than H.R. Puf-N-Stuf aren't they?), but we are nevertheless dedciating today's entry to The Trenton Thunder from the state captial of Trenton, NJ.

(Yes, I know that opening sentence was way, way too long!)

The name of the mascot for The Thunder is Boomer (pictured here).

The team lost a home game to The New Hampshire Fisher Cats (yes, that is their real nickname!) on Sunday by a 10-4 margin. Tonight, The Thunder hits the proverbial road to play the Reading Philies in Reading, Pa., at 6:05 p.m.

Upcoming promotions for The Thunder include an All-You-Can-Eat Hot Dogs and Hamburgers Day on Aug. 15 and a Farmer Appreciation Day (they have farmers in New Jersey?!) on Aug. 24.

SIDEBAR: Of course, as a Turkish-American, I have to remind folks that there are many great Turkish restaurants in New Jersey. In Trenton, one can dine at Trenton Kebab House which offers Adana Yogurt Kebab (named for the southern Turkish city of Adana) for $13.95

SIDEBAR TWO: Just down the proverbial road in Philadelphia, one can stop by The Divan Turkish Kitchen, which offers $9.95 lunch specials. They also offer Chicken Adana Kebab for $10.75.

SIDEBAR THREE: Here in the Tarheel State, one can visit Talulla's in Tarheel Town (Chapel Hill, NC) which offers an excellent manti (Turkish yogurt noodles dish) plate. During the weekend of Aug. 20-22, the restaurant on Franklin Street will be one of three Chapel Hill eatieries that will offer live music as part of a downtown music festival.

PSA- Read Your Local Newspaper!

Since I am a former journalist myself, I thought I would dedicate today's PSA to inform folks that many local newspapers around the country have lost readership, and they need your support (although I guess there a handful which don't actually deserve it!).

Even though I worked for their rival newspaper "The Salem Times-Register" in Salem, Va., (from 1997-98) I am going to focus on today's "Roanoke Times," the local daily newspaper which serves Roanoke, Va., and nearby communities like Blacksburg, Boones Mill and Buchanan as well as a good portion of southwest and southside Virginia.

Here are some of today's headlines, the asterisk denotes local stories:

"5 teens arrested in sexting incidents*" (This happened at Franklin County High School in Rocky Mount, Va.)

"Wal-Mart pulls Miley Cyrus jewelry."

"Taliban attacks carry symbolic weight."

"Man sentenced to 9 months in cross burning." (This happened near Bedford, Va."

"Roanoke's lacrosse season ends in overtime"* (This pertains to Roanoke College's loss to Stevenson in Owing Mills, Md., in the NCAA Div. 3 tournament)

There were also some right-wing letters to the editors, which included: "Day of Prayer is not a political endorsement," "The Bible has a clear message" and "America will become the next Greece." But, I do agree with a reader from Christiansburg, Va., who said: "Let's put Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court."

I would write more, but I need to check on my Twitter account.

I AM AS SICK AS A FRENCH POODLE!

Well, if I was ever going to listen to a fringe, far-right AM radio talk show host tonight would be the night as I have been sick since I came down with a sinus infection some time either late Thursday night or early Friday morning. I actually heard one of these Glenn Beck wannabes say that the size of Swedish meatballs in restaurants has shrunk since Obama became president, which is also when these whackos said we became a socialist country. As a friend of mine pointed out though, Sweden is actually a socialist country! And, they have some great hockey players too.


At any rate, there will not be an image with this particular entry as a snafu occured in the hot-linking process. But, we will try to post the picture we were going to use on Tuesday.

I had a strange dream while I was sleeping this morning that the local paper in my hometown of Roanoke, Va., "The Roanoke Times" had added Bill Griffith's cult comic strip "Zippy the Pinhead," which "The Washington Post"- a newspaper with ten times the circulation- recently dropped (much to my disappointment, but they still have a great comics page). I have not checked today's edition of "The Roanoke Times," but I sense that dream is not about to come true anytime soon though they do publish "Hi and Lois."

"The News-Record" in nearby Greensboro, NC, publishes the 'equally hip' comic strip "The Wizard of Id," which was apparently popular in 1972 when I was a two-year-old tyke.

None of this is to say that I don't like some dated comic strips. I find "Marmaduke" to be amusing even though I hate most large dogs.

I would write more but there is some Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup on the stove. Yeah, I don't expect that it will do anything for me either!

See you on Monday..........

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Star Wars

I'm sure my good buddy Chris Knight from Reidsville, NC, who has a blog at: http://www.knightshift.blogspot.com

He loves "Star Wars." I think he's seen "Return of the Jedi" 17 times, which is 16 times more than I've seen it. Though my cousin and Mike sure had a good time when we saw it a now-closed cinema in Rock Hill, SC, back when were kids in 1983 when movies didn't cost $400 million to make (excuse the 'Avatar' joke).


I got this idea when I saw an amazing photograph of a man dressed as a storm trooper walking around a hotel in Roanoke, Va., during a science fiction convention in the Sunday "Roanoke Times." But, that photo is apparently not on the web, so we're using this one instead.

I was also going to link this photo to the Roanoke Police Department, but their web site is not as cool as the Chicago Police Department's web site, so we will mention them instead. According to the Windy City's PD, they recently gave Christmas presents to two youths who were badly injured in a fire back in November.

Of course, we like all police officers irregardless of how hip or unhip their department's web site is. But, if one looks at the Chicago Police Department's web site (chicagopolice.org), you will definitely want to have a hot dog at a Cubs game with one of their officers. 'Course, with my luck, their police chief Jody Weis is probably a White Sox fan!