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)

Last Ten Films We've Seen (earlier in June): James Franco Directs

Greetings to our blog readers in Australia, Canada (Happy Canada Day), and Norway......

Today, we look at ten films we've recently watched. Many of them, like "The Lifeguard,""Cold in July" and "Before I Disappear"were independent films shown at the Sundance Film Festival. James Franco did in fact direct "As I Lay Dying," a film based on a William Faulkner novel, and it was almost an artistic success.

Perhaps, the most unique film on the list is "Blume in Love," a Hollywood studio with a highly controversial plot twist that would assure the film would not be made, at least by a studio, today.

The Turkish film "Destiny," which is on this list, was not released in the United State.

We got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine http://www.filmcomment.com

The images above are in reference to 1) "The Lifeguard" (though the film has nothing to do with "Baywatch"), 2) David Copperfield, the magician, is something we thought of for "Before I Disappear," but the film is not about a magician, and 3) perhaps, most confusing, we went with an image of a Maine lobster for "Cold in July" because Maine is one of the few places we can think of where it is actually cold in July (the film takes place in Texas).

Here is the list:

1. Hateship/Loveship. director: Liza Johnson. 2013. w/ Kristen Wiig

2. As I Lay Dying. dir: James Franco. 2013

3. The Lifeguard. Liza W. Garcia. 2013 w/ Kristen Bell

4. HairBrained. Billy Kent. 2013 2/Parker Posey

5. Blume in Love. Paul Mazursky. 1975. w/ George Segal

6. Destiny ("Kader"). Turkey. Zeki Demirkubuz. 2006.

7. Before I Disappear. Shawn Christensen. 2014

8. Cold in July. Jim Mickle. 2014 w/ Michael C. Hall

9. Force Majuere. Sweden. Ruben Ostlund. 2014

10. Sister. Switzerland. Ursula Meier. 2012.

Our Favorite Comics from Sunday, Jan. 18th from Comics Kingdom: Bleeker Rules Again.....

Greetings to our blog readers in Switzerland, Malaysia and Zimbabwe as well as those of you who reside in Cong. David Price's (D-NC) congressional district, which I believe includes Chapel Hill, Durham and Fayetville, so Cong. Price represents Chapel Hill on Capitol Hill (Stephan Pastis might like the pun, well maybe not!)....

"Pearls Before Swine," which is Pastis' comic strip is not actually distributed by Comics Kingdom, but "Hi and Lois" is. Today, we take a slight departure from the norm,  and focus on our favorite comic strips from the distributor rather than a given Sunday newspaper. This gives us a chance to rank "Zippy the Pinhead," one of our favorite comic strips that has a loyal cult following but is not in many newspapers, especially those in small markets, like (presumably) Altoona, Pa, Dayton, Ohio, and Charleston, W.Va.

This week, Bill Griffith, who draws "Zippy" featured an homage to the old "Nancy" comic strip from yesteryear.

Our images for today are from 1) bread bowls, which are featured in the Sunday comic strip for "Six Chix" where a café is literally serving everything imaginable in a bread bowl, 2) "Are You Being Served?," an old English sitcom which our fellow blogger and friend Chris Knight from Reidsville, NC, adores for the comic strip "Retail" and 3) a shark for "Sherman's Lagoon."

Here is our Comics Kingdom top ten:

1) Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog

2) Bizarro

3) Zippy the Pinhead

4) Six Chix

5) Retail

6) Between Friends

7) Sherman's Lagoon

8) The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee

9) Take It from the Tinkersons

10) Piranha Club

http://bleekercomics.com/

http://tinkersons.com/

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

http://www.tnaqua.org/

http://www.ncaquariums.com/

http://scaquarium.org/

Quotes from Famous Writers (5 of 5): Salman Rushdie

Greetings to our blog readers in Scotland, Switzerland and.............Swaziland, perhaps?!

Here is our quote from Salman Rushdie:

"One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, and speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions."

Of course, all of these things might make it challenging for Rushdie to find the love of his life on match.com !!!

http://www.match.com

Our Top Ten Comic Strips from "The Roanoke Times:" Blondie Actually Makes the Top Ten; Speed Bump Wins the Survey

Greetings to our blog readers in Canada, Spain and Switzerland.

And, a shout-out to our celebrity visitors George Lucas, Jane Fonda and Nancy Kerrigan (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Here is our top ten:

1) Speed Bump: In Dave Coverly's one panel strip one of the Easter Island heads acts up, and his mother straightens him out

2) Get Fuzzy: In this strip, the age-old battle of which pet is more popular: the cat or the dog takes center stage.

3) Pearls Before Swine: Stephan Pastis goes autobiographical again, this time asking his own creations, the rat and the goat, how he looks with a beard and a beret. (Hmmm....yeah, I suppose some of you are imagining Che Guevara right now)

4) Doonesbury

5) Dilbert

6) Blondie: Dagwood goes ski jumping?!! This should make the strip more popular in Finland.

7) Funky Winkerbean

8) Zits

9) Mutts

10) Agnes

SIDEBAR: Last night in Boston, Yale actually upset Harvard in men's basketball by a score of 74-67, but perhaps no noticed as everyone in the world is watching Bob Costas and NBC's coverage of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

And, this is our 2,225th blog entry!

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Guest Blogger of the Day: Zappa the Family Cat

Greetings to our blog readers in Switzerland, Russia and New Zealand, today, we feature commentary from our guest blogger Zappa the Family Cat; these comments do contain profanity so we had to delete a few letters. And, yes, Zappa is named for Frank Zappa:

"I want some **d ***n ****ing roast beef, man, what do mean it's too late? You are such a ******d and an ******e, ya now that?"

By the way, the cows pictured are the American state of Kansas, located in the Midwest.

Blogging in 3.5 Minutes or Less: Our Favorite High School Films That are NOT from the John Hughes Era

Since today is Throwback Thursday, and greetings to our blog-readers in Switzerland, Colombia and Nepal, we thought we'd post six of our favorites which were not released in the 1980s.

In 1988, I myself graduated as valedictorian* from Ragsdale High School, in Jamestown, NC,** a suburb of Greensboro, NC.

Here is our list, in order of release year as opposed to preference (James Dean and Natalie Wood are pictured above from the film "Rebel Without a Cause").........ahh, we forgot about the late-70s gems "The Wanderers" and "Over the Edge"......oh well!:

"Rebel Without a Cause" (1955)

"American Graffiti" (1973)

"Cooley High" (1975)

"Carrie" (1977)

"Dazed and Confused" (1993)

"Election" (1999)

*-This is a bold-face lie, I was not valedictorian

**-I did not go to Ragsdale High School, but we hear it's a swell place

http://ragsdalehighband.blogspot.com/

Things We Learned on Bing Today_ Sports Edition

Two Turkish soccer powerhouses GalataSaray and Trabzonspor met in weekend play with GS pulling off a 2-0 victory; a week earlier GS lost to their main Istanbul rival Fenerbahce 2-1, but GS still won the Turkish Premiere League.

And, this leads us to today's Things We Learned on Bing Today entry, all of which deal with the whole wide word of sports:

1) Selcuk Inan, 28, a Turkish national, is the current captain of GalataSaray; he wears #8 and the teams' other star players on the team include Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast) and Burak Yilmaz (Turkey), who scored a goal versus Trabzonspor. Selcuk previously played for Trabzonspor.

2) Tolga Zengin, 29, (pictured) a Turkish national, is the captain of Trabzonspor and the team's goal-tender. The team is based in Trabzon, which is located in Turkey's eastern Black Sea coast.

3) Martin Gerber, 38, a Swiss National, was the goal-tender for the Carolina Hurricanes when the team won its first and only Stanley Cup in the NHL (the world's main hockey league); Gerber now plays pro hockey in Sweden.

4) Bill Russell, 79, is the NBA basketball player who has won the most titles, all 11 came with the Boston Celtics.

5) Leanza Cornett, 41, won the Miss America beauty pageant in 1993, 20 years ago. Cornett represented Florida, but she was born in the smal town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia; in 1994, the pageant actually made news as swimsuit contestants started going barefoot as opposed to wearing cumbersome high heel shoes.


http://www.turkish-football.com

http://www.bing.com

http://www.missamerica.org

The Rabbit Ears Quiz (12 of 12)_ Heidi, Girl of the Alps

Today, we close our series on tv shows which aired from the late '60s to the early '80s, with a segment that is actually dedicated to two Japanese cartoons, which were both based on classic German children's stories (we should point out that Heidi was actually written by Swiss author Johanna Spyris in 1880, but it was first published in German).

We'll start with "Heidi, Girl of the Alps," which was part of the anime "World Masterpiece Theatre" productions, which also included Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. The Heidi cartoon ran for a full year in 1972; I saw in on the TRT (Turkish Radio Television) some five years later.

The legendary film director Hayao Miayazaki, now age 71, who directed the films "Spirited Away" and "Princess Monoke" was responsible for the Heidi cartoon's screen design and layout.

Isao Takahata, now age 76, who directed another acclaimed Japanese animated film "Grave of the Fireflies" (1998) about the horrors of World War 2, directed many episodes of the Heidi cartoon.

Another popular Anime cartoon was "Maya the Bee," which originally ran in Japan from 1975-76. It was based on the German book of the same name, which was written by Waldena Bansels in 1912.

"Maya the Bee" was also very popular in Europe. I saw in on the TRT, circa 1978, when I was eight years old, where it was known as "Ari Maya" (ari is the Turkish word for bee). The cartoon was also trendy in Greece, Israel and Bulgaria, as well as many other countries.

Both "Heidi" and "Maya the Bee" lasted for the exact same number of episodes. Today, we are asking what that number was.

Is the answer?:

A) 36

B) 42

C) 52

D) 60

http://www.animenews.com

http://www.funimation.com

UPDATE (July 5, 2012): The answer is C) 52

From the Album Collection (3 of 8)_ Queen's "The Game"

Today's album feature of the day is Queen's "The Game" (1980), which features two number-one hit singles in "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."

The British band consisted of the late Freddie Mercury (1946-1991; lead vocals and guitar), Brian May (quitar), Roger Taylor (drums) and John Deacon (bass).

Deacon wrote the lyrics for "Another One Bites the Dust," and though Queen is most well-known today for their earlier song "Bohemian Rhapsody," it was actually "Another One Bites the Dust" that became the band's biggest hit as it sold seven million copies.

Christian fundamentalists went on to accuse Queen of having a backwards message on "Another Bites the Dust," in which they allege the band is telling listeners to: 'decide to smoke marijuana.' Interestingly enough, Queen does have a PSA song on "The Game" which is called "Don't Try Suicide" (the song was not relased as a single).

"Crazy Little Thing Called Love," a rockabilly tune which differed Queen's other songs artistically, also became a huge chart-topper and the song was a regular part of the band's lineup up until the last days of the original lineup.

After this record, which also contained "Play the Game" and "Need Your Loving Tonight," Queen went on to record the soundtrack for "Flash Gordon" and the single "Under Pressure" with David Bowie.

Mercury died of complications from AIDS at age 45 in 1991. While researching this piece, we were surprised to find out that there is a statue of Mercury overlooking Lake Geneva in Montreaux, Switzerland.

A recent issue of "Rolling Stone" ranked May, who has a doctorate in astrophysics, as the 26th best guitar player of all time. The magazine cited his work on the single "Keep Yourself Alive" (not on "The Game") as some of his best work.

Casualties of Modern Technology (1 of 12)- Swiss Cuckoo Clocks

Well, the Swiss cuckoo clock may not quite be an endangered species as one can find one on a retail site like e-bay for $200 or in a neighborhood antique store for a slightly higher or lower price.

But, in today's world, even the more modern and conventional wristwatch is becoming obsolete as every personal computer, laptop and cellphone tells each of us what time it is, irregardless if one is in Lagos, Nigeria, or Louisville, Ky.

According to Wikipedia, the cuckoo clock is pendulum-regulated, so that a mechanical cuckoo comes out at the top of each designated hour.

The cuckoo clock was first developed in the Black Forest region of Germany in 1629 by Philipp Hainhofer. The chalet/Swiss-style cuckoo clock emerged in the late 1800s. Cuckoo clocks also figure prominently in pop culture. Two examples in film include the classic thriller "The Third Man" (1949) with Orson Welles and the sci-fi cult classic "Blade Runner" (1982) with Harrison Ford. There is also a Cuckoo Clock Museum in Cheshire, England.

Cuckoo clocks, as well as other antique clocks, such as the grandfather clock, frequently comes up for discussion in the PBS show "Antiques Roadshow," which airs in most markets at 8:00 p.m. on Mondays. The episode for this coming week's show was recorded in Raleigh, NC, which is (almost) here in our backyard.

Quote of the Week- Pablo Picasso

You know an artist is a legend when he or she has two major exhibitions going on in two totally different parts of the globe simultaneously. And, that is the case for the late Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) who was the first artist I had ever heard of as a child (saw his name in a kid's book, textbook or magazine, I think). Currently, one can see his paintings at either the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Switzerland, until Jan. 30 or the Ben Brown Fine Arts Center in Hong Kong (China), until Jan. 28.

Here is the quote which folks at Project Plase, a homeless organization in Baltimore, Md., would definitely disagree with, especially since there could a ton of snow in Maryland starting tomorrow. But, though we disagree with Picasso's sentiment here- unless someone wants to bring their cousin Charles Manson home for Thanksgiving, it is certainly amusing:

"Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?"