Democratic Forum Debate Tweets from Winthrop U (1 of 3): Live from Rock Hill, SC, it's Saturday Night Live........

Welcome to those of you in Greece where perhaps tourists heading to Turkey, my late father's country, have decided to stay put following the re-election of ultra right wing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, perhaps they will join Syrian refugees who have decided not to head north to Serbia!

Tonight's Democratic Party Forum at Winthrop U in Rock Hill, SC, is perhaps just over now, but we got some tweets from the debate including one from Bakari Sellers, a former Democratic state legislature from Denmark, SC, who was at the debate himself (he is a contributor to CNN; yet he slams the media in his tweet).

Our images are of Democratic Party front-runner Hillary Clinton (top), a bald eagle (center, since Winthrop's mascot is an eagle), and Dale Earnhardt Jr., since the band Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. (now Jr. Jr.) was playing gig at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, where everyone not watching the debate in the nation's capital were probably gathered.

Here are the tweets:

1) Herald-Journal (Spartanburg, SC, newspaper, earlier in the day): "Rand Paul talks about Keystone XL while stumping in Spartanburg." (the GOP candidate Paul later went to Rock Hill).

2) Overheard in Newsroom (not about the debate, but we thought it was amusing): "Those pesky interns with their creative impulses and their hope."

3) Shane Goldmacher (Politico): "So Marco Rubio is asking for Scott Walker's endorsement."

4) Ken Rudin: "Ben Carson, accused of making things up and not being truly informed, announces he would appoint Judge Reinhold to the Supreme Court." (This is a joke, Judge Reinhold was a teen movie actor in the '80s).

5) Jack Miller (Clinton campaign): "Hillary Clinton supporters loud and proud! Turnout is amazing!"

6) Martin O'Malley: Hillary Clinton wants to go after Jeb Bush for making excuses on guns. But, she did the same thing in 2008."

7) Washington Post: "Amid national coverage about race, Yale acknowledges failing its minorities."

8) Shannon Greene ("Rock Hill Herald" reporter): Meet Hillary "fangirl," Madison Kimrey, the first in line for the debate.

9) Bakari Sellers: Mainstream Media....there is one reason your Bernie is making a comeback like in '08 is really off, Bernie is not Barack Obama. You're welcome.

http://www.930.com

10 for 10 (8th Entry): The First Line of the Novel 'Choke'

Greetings to our blog readers in Macedonia, Belgium, and Jordan.......in order to substantially increase our global audience we will name drop Serbian soccer player Branislav Ivanovic of Chelsea and German striker Mesut Ozil , who is of Turkish heritage, for Arsenal.

Tonight actually marks the 10th anniversary of our first blog entry here on this blog, to our knowledge only four or five people read that one. Hopefully, at least 98 will read this entry (nudge, nudge, wink, wink....)

On a personal note, we want to send our kudos to Chris Hurst, the 11:00 news anchor for WDBJ-7 in Roanoke, Va. If you watched CNN a few weeks ago, you saw him speak with Anderson Cooper, he has been through a lot. Tonight marks his second week of returning to the broadcast booth. Since Roanoke is our hometown, we wish Hurst the best.

We were hoping a joke about Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor who dropped out of the Republican presidential candidate race, but we are running late, and you can see the tweets of his former employee Liz Mair, which are indeed quite amusing.

Tonight, we are going retro with the first line of Chuck Palahniuk's great 2001 cult classic novel "Choke." A few years ago, we had lots of fun with posts about the first lines of novels, such as Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace," which we must profess to have never read!

Here is the first line from "Choke:"

"If you're going to read this, don't bother. After a couple pages, you won't want to be here. So forget it. Go away. Get out while you're still in one piece. Save yourself."

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/

Our 10 Favorite Comic Strips from The Martinsville Bulletin: Witches' Brew

Greetings to our blog readers in Poland, Serbia, and Italy.......

This week, for the very first time we are featuring a survey of comic strips from "The Martinsville Bulletin" in Martinsville, Va; the small city best known for its NASCAR speedway is about half-way between Roanoke, Va., and Greensboro, NC. It is also the city where a small-time over-the-top evangelist the Rev. Johnny Robertson, whom we frequently make of, is head-quartered. We believe he has claimed that only the people who attend his church can go to heaven. Ok........

The winner of the survey is "Rhymes with Orange" which features two witches arguing over how to cook a prince in their witch stew, "Garfield" finishes second with John asking the world's only 37-year-old cat to help him with some needed home improvements, and "Dilbert" comes in third with Dilbert arguing with his boss over work place strategy to resolve problems, which seems to be a recurring theme in the office place set strip.

We also have "Snuffy Smith," now drawn and written by John Rose of Harrisonburg, Va., in which pop culture catches up with the century-old strip as the dialogue is about zombies and "The Walking Dead." And, for the very first time in our history of surveys, "Hagar the Horrible" cracks the top ten with a gag about lottery winnings. Helda, Hagar's wife since the strip was first released in 1971 (we believe) was not in the Sunday strip.

Note: Wendy the Witch, a Harvey Comics character was our first choice of images for a witch, but we had to settle with one from "Bewitched," a popular sitcom in the 1960s.

Here are our top ten strips from the Bulletin:


1) Rhymes with Orange

2) Garfield

3) Dilbert

4) Snuffy Smith

5) Zits

6) The Lockhorns

7) Mutts

8) Hi and Lois

9) Funky Winkerbean

10) Hagar the Horrible

http://www.visitmartinsville.com

http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/

Last Ten CDs We've Listened To: It's All New Wave To Me......

Greetings to our beloved blog readers in Scotland, Mexico and Serbia.......

Welcome to another entry on this blog, which will be 10 years old in September!

Our apologies to our friends in Bodrum, Turkey, a plush beach resort, which we highly recommend. We went with an image of Jaco Beach, Costa Rica (pict. bottom) on a coin toss.

The old AM clock radio is in reference to the last cd we listened to, but it's also a way for us to make fun of Rush Limbaugh, who is probably drinking shots of vodka with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC, as we are typing this (the two are actually close pals).

The middle image is of soccer cleats; our first instinct was to go with Real Madrid striker Gareth Bale, but that proved to be too complicated!

Here is the list....all of these cds are indeed in the New Wave genre:


1) Psychedelic Furs. "Talk. Talk. Talk" 1981

2) INXS. "Kick" 1987.

3) Wang Chung. "Points of the Curve." 1983

4) The Cure. "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me." 1987

5) New Order. "Republic" 1993.

6) Talking Heads. "True Stories" 1986.

7) Gary Numan. "Pleasure Principle." 1979

8) The Clash. Combat Rock. 1982

9) The Fixx. Reach the Beach. 1983.

10) The Police. Synchronicity. 1983.

http://www.bodrum.org/

http://www.visitcostarica.com

http://www.thepsychedelicfurs.com/

http://www.thecure.com/

http://www.neworderonline.com/

Best Comics from Sunday, Jan. 18th from GoComics: Gotta Love F-Minus

Greetings to our blog readers in Bosnia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and........well, we're not sure how popular we are in eastern Europe/the Balkans/the former Yugoslavia anyway!

GoComics is the premiere comics distributor in America with over 200 comic strips, including "Garfield," "Dilbert" and "Get Fuzzy." We couldn't possibly have checked all their strips on Sunday, but from the 40-50 that we did check out, we were able to find ten which really stood out.

The images above are of: 1) Lucy from "Peanuts" actually for "The Argyle Sweater" which made fun of Charlie Brown, who will be the place kicker for the Seattle Seahawks for Super Bowl Sunday (yeah, no one in Macedonia will get that joke); 2) the cactus for "Reality Check" in which Bugs Bunny gets lost in the desert thanks to faulty GPS directions; and 3) a parking spots war photo for "F-Minus," the single-panel strip, which this week had a driver drop someone's hoodie in a parking spot to assure that the right person got it.

Here are the top ten:

*-comics in "The Washington Post" (Sunday edition)

#-comics in "The Roanoke Times" (Sunday edition)

1) The Argyle Sweater *

2) Reality Check

3) F-Minus

4) The Flying McCoys

5) Foxtrot *

6) Speed Bump *#

7) Get Fuzzy #

8) Brewster Rockit: Space Guy*

9) WUMO *

10) Brevity

http://www.gocomics.com/fminus/2015/01/18 (the Sunday F-Minus strip)

http://www.gocomics.com/fminus

http://www.gocomics.com/realitycheck

http://www.gocomics.com/theargylesweater

Washington Post Comics Survey: Brewster Rocket Rules....

Greetings to our beloved blog readers in Panama, Cuba and Serbia.

This week, we look at our ten favorite comic strips from the Sunday, Nov. 30th "Washington Post." For a look at the "Roanoke Times" survey, go to our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

"Brewster Rockit" which poked fun of both Black Friday and Cyber Monday came in first, hence the reason why we have an image of "Aliens" (top image) as the comic strip takes place in outer space; perhaps Brewster and George Jetson run into each other on their work commute.

Second place goes to the Danish import "WUMO" which shows a family dog getting a lot of perhaps slightly unwanted attention as he or she swallowed the remote control (center image). Third place goes to "Pearls Before Swine," which has a brilliant line that makes of Southwest Airlines (bottom image) which most assuredly can't be as awful as American Airlines (we didn't just say that!).....

Here are our top ten strips:

1) Brewster Rockit

2) WUMO

3) Pearls Before Swine

4) Foxtrot

5) Knight Life

6) Lio

7) The Argyle Sweater

8) Reply All

9) Prickly City

10) Big Nate

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.southwest.com

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)

Sports Desk: Soccer Scores from Obscure Countries Around the World

Today, we arbitrarily decided to post soccer scores for four leagues which don't get much mention: Azerbaijan, Serbia, Bulgaria and Saudi Arabia. For results from Bulgaria and Saudi Arabia, go to our sister blog http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

But, for the rest of you, stick here as we give you weekend scores from Azerbaijan and Serbia (assuredly few bloggers outside of Baku and Belgrade are doing this!). The images above are of Will John, who is the first American ever to play in Azerbaijan. He plays for Azal PFC. We were not aware of him when we did our American soccer players abroad entry.

 The bottom image is of Ghana international Obeng Regan who got a red card for his Serbian club Napredak Krussevac.

Here are the results:

Azerbaijan

FK Baku 1 Sungayit FC 0

Khazar Lenkoran 0 Inter Baku 1

AZAL PFC 1 Khazar Lenkoran 3

Gabala 3 Ravan 0 (Gabala is also in first place in the league; Neftci Baku is in third place)

Serbia

Sloboda 2 Radnicki 1

Vojvodina 2 Partizan 1 (in spite of the loss, Partizan is still the Serbian league leader)

Napredak 2 Cukaricki 1

OFK Belgrade 1 Rad Belgrade 0

http://www.azembassy.us/

http://www.azal.az/

http://www.serbia.travel/

Image to Fill Space: The Yugo Car

We learned today that "Time" magazine considers the 1985 model of the Yugo, a car that was made in the former Yugoslavia, to be one of the 50 worst cars of all time. We have no idea when this car was made.

Yugoslavia disbanded after a tumultuous civil war: The modern countries which were a part of the Land of Yugos, include Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro* and Kosovo.

*-This marks the very first time we've mentioned Montenegro on this blog..............

Free Form Blogging: Sportsmen of Yesteryear

Greetings to our blog readers in Brazil, Estonia and South Africa.

Today, we are continuing the free form blogging series. This basically works kind of like "Mad Libs." We take a couple of words or phrases and make a short piece out of it. Tonight, we will try to achieve using the names of sporting men from yesterday (we have the same exercise with female athletes on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire").

We are going with Turkish soccer great Hakan Sukur, who just turned 42 (Conan O'Brien actually wished him a Happy Birthday on Twitter; pictured top), tennis legend Jimmy Connors, who just turned 61, boxer  Leon Spinks (pictured middle), golfer Arnold Palmer, baseball player Reggie Jackson and Serbian basketball star Vlade Divac (pictured below).

All these athletes are retired, which is a good thing perhaps for Palmer, as he is 93.

Let's go:

"The Turkish soccer team Sivasspor in Sivas, Turkey, has contemplated asking Hakan Sukur to come out of retirement and help them sell more tickets (this is a joke). He had a birthday on Sunday, and 24 hours later, Connors had a birthday too. We imagine these guys have probably never met. But, both athletes are better remembered that Leon Spinks, who once beat Muhammad Ali in the ring, in 1978 (we think).  We have to wonder if Arnold Palmer played putt putt in Myrtle Beach, SC, with Reggie Jackson, who'd win. We imagine that mini-golf is a sport that Vlade Divac is not too good at because: Well, it's one of the few sports where being tall is a disadvantage."

Also, kudos to our beloved Durham Bulls. They beat the Indianapolis Indians 2-0 tonight at home in Durham, NC, in the opening playoff game in the International League.

Coming Soon (we hope): Futbol Week

On Friday, we are hoping to launch a seven-day series devoted totally to soccer both here in the United States with weekend MLS games as well as Mexico and Europe.

The top image is of Serbian national Branislav Ivanovic, a star player for London's Chelsea football club. Today, German national Mesut Ozil, who is of Turkish heritage, signed with one of Chelsea's main rivals, Arsenal.

The bottom image is of Drew Moor, an American defender who plays for the Colorado Rapids in the MLS. Alas, our personal favorite MLS team, DC United is having a disastrous year so far!

Last Ten Films We've Seen- Cosmopolis Rules

 

 

 

Well, folks about 113 things went wrong as we were posting this; here are some notes on the images:

 

 

1. The dolphin for "The Day of the Dolphin"

 

2. The lizards from the Belgrade Zoo in Serbia are because Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi who is under house arrest in Iran develops a close relationship with a pet lizard since he can not legally leave is apartment.

 

3. The fringe preachers from Reidsville, NC, who may well be affilated with the radical Rev. Johnny Robertson from Martinsville, Va., which is close to Reidsville, are in refernece to "Elmer Gantry," a film about a revival ministers with a questionable background. This image comes from my friend's Chris Knight's blog (see link below)...

 

Here are the films:

 

1. "Holy Motors" (France. dir-Leos Carax. 2012)

 

2. "Cosmopolis" (Canada. dir-David Cronenberg. 2012)

 

3. "Elmer Gantry" (dir-Richard Brooks. 1960)

 

4. "The Day of the Dolphin" (dir- Mike Nichols. 1973)

 

5.  "This Is Not a Film" (Iran. dir-Jafar Panahi, 2011)

 

6. "Spring Breakers" (dir-Harmony Korine. 2012.)

 

7. "Alfie" (dir-Lewis Gilbert. 1966)

 

8 "The Company You Keep" (dir. Robert Redford, 2012)

 

9. "Wake in Fright" (dir. Ted Kotceff. 1971)

 

10. "The Brass Teapot" (dir. Ramaa Mosley. 2012)

 

http://theknightshift.blogspot.com/

Greetings from Mister Lizard

We conclude Reptile Week with a gecko lizard, and no we are not trying to see you car insurance.

Let's take a moment to wish a pleasant Sunday morning to folks in Athens, Greece, where it is now 8:00 a.m. and to folks in Baku, Azerbaijan, where it is now 10:00 a.m.

According to buzzle.com, the gecko is small lizard that are quite radiant; the reptile usually resides in warm climates and the lizards are diligent when it comes to climbing around. They also like to dine on insects and they are known to make a chirping sound.

SIDEBAR: Or should we say side out, as we discuss tonight's vital women's college volleyball game between the host San Diego University Toreros, ranked #18, and the visiting Brigham Young University Cougars from Provo, Utah, , ranked #13.

The Toreros prevailed in the Big West Conference match 3-2 (25-23, 28-26, 13-25, 25-23, 15-13).

For the Cougars, Jennifer Hamson had 23 kills and 15 digs; for the winning Toreros, Katie Hoekman had 20 kills and 2 digs while her teammate Sandra Lozic, a sophomore from Serbia, had 16 kills and 14 digs.

http://www.lizards.com

http://www.byucougars.com

http://www.usdtoreros.com 

Tweets of the Night_ Politics, Sports and Religion

For those of you who are are yak herders in Mongolia or Buddhist monks in Bhutan, the first image is of Cong. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) who is Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's arch conservative running mate. The other two images are of a college volleyball player (there was lots of college volleyball action tonight) from the University of South Florida and a Serbian priest, who to our knowledge has not endorsed either Romney or President Barack Obama, that is not the case with certain reality tv show 'stars.'

Let's jump in the pool:

1) @uncgsports (UNC-Greensboro Athletics): Women's soccer takes down Davidson on Senior Night 1-0.

2) @GatorZoneVB (University of Florida Gators Women's Volleyball): "No.11 #Gators Earn Ninth Sweep of 2012 with 3-0 Victory over Ole Miss."

3) @uncvolleyball (University of North Carolina Women's Volleyball): "Carolina Holds off Virginia 3-2 as the Tar Heels improve to 14-4, 5-3 (in ACC play) on the season," (the game was played in Charlottesville, Va.)

4) @AlexSemin (Carolina Hurricanes hockey player Alex Semin, a Russian national formerly with the Washington Capitals): "He may only be a teenager, but until Bryce Harper goes to Russia to play hockey for his grandmother, his accomplishments are miniscule." (Semin is referring to one of the star players for the Washington Nationals, a team that lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the playoffs by a 9-7 score tonight).

5) @TerryMoran (Terry Moran of ABC News): "Some idiot fired shots into Obama's field office in Denver.  Let's all try to calm down and respect each other."

6) @LOLGOP (LOL GOP): "If the math behind Mitt Romney's tax plan worked, George W. Bush would have spoken at the Republican Convention."

7) @theOnion ("The Onion," a faux news publication): "Joe Biden: I'm a flawed man, but there's love in my heart."

8) @VT_Volleyball (Virginia Tech Women's Volleyball): "Hokies drop 3-1 decision to NC State: Kathryn Caine knocked down 13 kills."

9) @MLBJesus (Major League Baseball Jesus): "Some of my best friends are Cardinals," this satiric statement made in reference to the St. Louis Cardinals.

10) @SecretCabDriver (Secret Cab Driver): "GOP: Vote for us because we have guns. And, remember we're not afraid to use them." (this tweet was meant to be satiric in nature)

11) @HuffPostPol ("Huffington Post Politics"): "Democratic Brad Sherman regrets grabbing Howard Berman during debate." (This is a tweet regarding the Congressional battle which actually pits two Democratic Congressional reps from the Los Angeles-area against each other; we have a special interest in this because the Armenian-American lobby sponsored one of the debates and Turkey was mentioned throughout the forum. Turkey and Armenia do not have diplomatic relations in spite of being neighboring countries due to a very ugly and controversial historical dispute).

12) @davidfrum (David Frum, a conservative pundit who has been critical of the current state of the Republican Party; he was actually profiled in an excellent article in "The Nation," a liberal magazine): "Message of the debate poll: Twitter loves politics, is bored with government."

Sunday Funnies- Quoting Zippy the Pinhead

Since we 'got in trouble' for hotlinking an image of the Bill Griffith comic strip character Zippy the Pinhead, today we will post an image of the film "Freaks" (1932), which featured a Schlitzie the Pinhead, who inspired Zippy's creation.

Here is a quote from a recent collection of Griffith's comics; this one is from "Zippy the Pinhead:"

"Oh no! Lucy accidentally invaded Serbia! Boy, will Ricky be mad when he gets home!"

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Quote of the Day/Week-Toni Kukoc

Today, we conclude our series of quotes from Olympic athletes who won either gold or silver medals at the Summer Olympics with a quip from Croatian basketball player Toni Kukoc, who was also an instrumental supporting player during the Chicago Bulls championship run of the 1990s.

Kukoc, now 43, won silver with the Yugoslavian national team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, but just four years later, after a bitter civil war erupted which meant that Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia would each would have separate Olympic teams in every sport, Kukoc won silver again only this time it was for Croatia. Ironically, the team that defeated Croatia was the Dream Team of the United States which was captained by Michael Jordan, who would be Kukoc's teammate with the Bulls.

Here is Kukoc's quote:

"If you are physically ready to play, it's a matter of confidence. Your confidence goes down when you lose games, when shots are not going in."

SIDEBAR: Back on Dec. 28, 2010, in what has become one of our most popular entries, I professed to eating an entire anchovy pizza at the Red Rocks pizza joint in Washington, DC. Well last night, I replicated the feat by downing a whole small anchovy pizza at Amante Gourmet Pizza in Carrboro (Chapel Hill), NC. Call me insane, but it was delicious!


http://www.redrocksdc.com

http://www.amantepizza.com

People with Long Names List, Part 2

The last time we featured a People with Long Names List on this blog was April 25 and the names were women's. Today, we go with the men (a women's list is on "The Daily Vampire"). Of course, since my name is (mr) Tilly Gokbudak, I could be on this list as much as these guys.

Here it is, and hopefully everyone's name is spelled correctly!:

1. Novak Djokovic- This 24-year-old Serbian tennis star is the current Wimbledon champion. His countrymen Srdjan Spasojevic, who directed the 2010 shock horror film called "A Serbian Film" (yes, that is the actually name of the film) is longer and harder, but more people are familiar with Novak---yeah, we skipped his last name on purpose!

2. Florian Henckel von Donnersmack- The German director who first gained acclaim with the Oscar-winning film "The Lives of Other" went mainstream last year with the American box office hit "The Tourist" with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. Even PBS talk show host Charlie Rose had trouble pronouncing his arduous last name.

3. Kemal Kilicdaroglu- This Turkish politician who leads the country's center-left People's Republic Party is trying to regain political power from Prime Minister Recep Tayypid Erdogan's conservative AK Party.

4. Nofis Sfakianakis- Of course, whenever you include the name of a Turk, you have to include the name of a Greek, especially if you are a Turk! This pop singer is among the most popular singers ever in Greece.

5. Banjong Pisanthanakun- This horror film director from Thailand has a surname which is quite scary!

6. Gary Shteyngart- The Russian-American author of the great novel "Absurdistan" was going to be on our initial list, but we somehow forgot all about him!

7. Sorunas Marciulionis- A retired Lithunian basketball who was an NBA star must have caused problems for the people putting his name on the jerseys.

8. Alexei Popogrebsky- This Russian filmmaker's 2010 film "How I Ended This Summer" which was acclaimed in art cinema circles is now out on dvd in the United States. (Whoops! We initially spelled his name Poporgrebsky!).

9. Parahamsa Nithyananda- This man is a spiritual guru in India; we initially didn't get his name right either!

10. Alejandro Yemenidjian- This Argentinian-Armenian is the current head of MGM studios. I suppose if he ever goes to a Beverly Hills restaurant with Mark Zuckerberg, he lets the kid pick up the tab!

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Pilates

Today, we continue our summer jobs series with a look at the field of yoga/pilates instructors (well, I suppose one would be quite talented to be able to do both!).

Our feature city is Trenton, NJ, and as it happens the suburb of Medford, NJ, which we hope is a Trenton 'burb, offers both yoga and pilates classes at The Yoga Center of Medford, including a pilates mat class from 8-9:00 a.m. on Saturday.

Those of you residing in that area can call the center at 609-654-9400 for more info than what we can provide here.

But, we can tell you that pilates was developed by Joseph Pilates of Germany around World War I. 11 million Americans practice pilates, which is usually done barefoot or with special pilates shoes (we can not make this stuff up!).

The aim of the exercise is to strengthen and develop torso muscles and breathing techniques. It is said to be a great exercise for pregnant women.

UPDATE: Ay Karumba! We forgot to mention our High School of the Week when we posted this a few hours ago. The school is Belgrade High School in Belgrade, Mont. We choose Belgrade because we chose a Serbian beer (Belgrade is the Serbian capital) for our 50 Beers Around the World entry on Sunday.

Of course, high school students shouldn't drink beer, but they probably couldn't find that brew anywhere in Montana any how!

The nickname for Belgrade High School is the Panthers. It was 74 degrees in Belgrade, Mont., yesterday. We have no idea what the weather is like there today.

We would like to blame the oversight on Joe Murphy, the intern for "Yes Weekly" in Greensboro, NC, but he not only does nothing for us, but he also has no idea who we are!

SIDEBAR: My good friend Jason Garnett is showing several cool movies at The Shadowbox Cinema, his micro-cinema in downtown Roanoke, Va., this month. They include the vintage French New Wave musical "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1966) with a very young and very hot Catherine Denevue. She once said that women who kill have issues with their fathers. Hmmmmm.......?! That screening takes place on Aug. 25, and admission is five dollars.

Additionally, The Shadowbox will screen the 1931 Charlie Chaplin classic "City Light" on Aug. 27. "Caddyshack," a movie celebrating its 30th anniversary, on Aug. 28 and the ever demented Japanese shock horror film "Audition" on Aug. 30. Bring your kimonos!

Prices and showtimes vary. Check the cinema's web site theshadowboxcinema.com for more info.

50 Beers From Around the Globe- Niksicko Brivo (Serbia)

One Serbian poster, who may be as 'objective' as Fox News, proclaimed that his country's most popular beer Niksicko Brivo (we think brivo means beer in Serbo-Croatian) was 'the best beer in the world.'

It is apparently quite hard to find in America but one importer in Chicago seems to carry it.

For those wanting a good brew in my hometown of Roanoke, Va., Corn Beef and Company located downtown at 107 South Jefferson Street is a good bet. The establishment also offers $8 lunch specials.

Our followers in Kentucky (presuming there are some of you out there!) may try to seek out The Phoenix Hill Tavern in Louisville on 644 Baxter Avenue. The bar is hosting the band The Dollyroots on Aug. 28 at 8 p.m. We have no idea if they play Dolly Parton music or not!

Quote of the Day- Film Director Dusan Makavejev

Today, we continue with our plan to quote 32 people from each of the 32 countries in this year's World Cup (are we mad?!). We are dividing the quotes between this blog and our sister blog The Daily Vampire.

Our quote today comes from Yugoslavian.....err we mean Serbian film director Dusan Makavejev (note to self: double-check spelling!) who is considered the greatest living film director to ever come out of Belgrade.

One of my favorite Makavejev films is the English-language Australian film "The Coca-Cola Kid" (1985) with Eric Roberts (Julia Roberts' brother) and the English-Swedish actress Greta Scacchi who I still find very sexy after all these years!

The film was produced without the knowledge or consent of Coca-Cola, but since the product was shown favorably in the movie they decided not to make a big whooppee over it.

Makavejev was at last report teaching film at Harvard.

We were hard-pressed to find any quotes from him until we came across this 2000 interview with him from the Australian cinema connosiuers' web site Sensesofcinema.com, which also features articles from my friend Bilge Ebiri (a film critic in New York).

Though I'm not in the film industry myself, this one makes a lot of sense:

"It's very difficult to say what makes you get involved with movies."