Happy Mother's Day from Godzilla

Today, we celebrate Mother's Day, which is reportedly even celebrated in rural Turkmenistan, with a special salute to Godzilla for anyone who might have a domineering mother in their life (eyes rolling).

In January, the Criterion Collection released a duel disc with both the original Ishiro Honda Japanese version of "Godzilla" (1954) and its American alteration, which most of us saw on tv as kids.

There is also the satirical short cartoon "Bambi Meets Godzilla" (1969) and a Godzilla cartoon series which ran from 1978-81 on NBC in the United States.

Lastly, there is the retro web site Barry's Temple of Godzilla, which first 'came out of the water' in 1996. Though Barry ceased adding new entries in 2005, the web site is still up for those who are Godzilla fans:

http://www.godzillatemple.com

Things We Learned on Google Today- Chisinau is the Capital of Moldova

Well, since we couldn't find any good images of Chisinau, the capital of Moldova which has a population of 700,000 people, we thought we'd go with this image of Iana Varnacova, who is 19 or 20 years old. She happens to also be known as Miss Moldova 2008.

This is the eighth entry in our series of looks at countries that were republics in the Soviet Union. Turkmenistan, which is quite far from Moldova, was our last entry.

Moldova is a landlocked country between Romania and Ukraine. Romanian is Moldova's official language, and the main religion is Orthodox Christian. Stuffed cabbage rolls are a popular dish in Moldova.

SIDEBAR ONE: We loved this tweet from comic actor Rainn Wilson of tv's "The Office" yesterday: "Obama single-handedly kills 87 Al Qaida militants with Dragon-style kung fu. GOP questions why he didn't fight Tiger-style." Yeah, I imagine Michele Bachmann would say something like that!

SIDEBAR TWO: While we are profoundly kiskanc (Turkish word for jealousy) of Thomas Mars, lead singer of the French band Phoenix, we wish him and his new wife, filmmaker Sofia Coppola well. They were married yesterday in Italy. We weren't able to find out if Bill Murray, who starred in Sofia's most famous film "Lost in Translation" was among the guests.

Things We Learned on Google Today- President of Turkmenistan Has Very Long Name

We don't have a list of every world leader in front of us, but we firmly believe that Turkmenistani President Gurbanguly Berdimukhammedov has the longest surname of them all! He became president of Turkmenistan in 2007 after replacing 'president for life' Sapurmurat Niyazov who died in December of 2006.

The current president, like the man before him, has been cited for human rights abuses by Amnesty International (amnesty.org), but hey we worry more about Republicans here! And, in all seriousness, while human rights abuses are a serious matter, I want to focus on this very remote country that few Americans have probably been to.

The capital of Turkmenistan is Ashagabat, which sounds like a city in a "Harry Potter" book, which has a population of 695,300.

Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan border this former Soviet Republic.

There is apparently lots of unique cuisine in Turkmenistan, including the national dish plov (pictured here) which consists of mutton, rice and carrots.

Blogger Jon Rosenweig visited Turkmenistan and he discovered some other foods there, including chorek, which sounds similar to the Turkish dish borek, both of which consist of baked bread. There is also kohlbasa, a lunch dish made from fried kielbas with onions and boiled eggs.

Turkmenistan is the seventh former Soviet republic we have profiled in this series; Belarus was the pervious one.

SIDEBAR_ He's back. "Independent Weekly" in Durham, NC, is reporting that fringe Republican candidate Vernon Robinson will challenge Cong. Larry Kissel (D-NC), a moderate in North Carolina's 8th district.

Robinson, who has been nicknamed The Black Jesse Helms, challenged Cong. Brad Miller (D-NC) in 2006, even though he does not reside in Miller's 13th district.

To our knowledge, the only political office that Robinson has ever held was in Winston-Salem where he was a city council member who allegedly missed a lot of meetings.

Robinson also managed to get lots of media attention, even outside of North Carolina, for his racist anti-Hispanic ads back in 2006.

Coming Attractions-Where in the Soviet Union Will We Go Next

Here are some possible or likely features we will have posted hopefully within the next week assuming we don't get a pie-in-the-face (ala the late tv great Soupy Sales).

1) This week, we finally had a chance to watch the relatively new "Conan" show on TBS with Conan O'Brien who got the shaft at NBC. On the episode I watched, Conan's guest was just-retired NBA great Shaquille O'Neal, who revealed that he likes to go go-kart racing?!

2) Though Lithuania has been in the news, as the mayor of Vilnius unceremoniously crushed a lavish car parked in a bike lane with a tank, we are probably going to go with Turkmenistan as our next destination in our "What We Learned from Google Today" series, which is currently focusing on the former republics of the Soviet Union.

3) We will be continuing our quotes from subversive artists next week. John Waters, R.Crumb and Iggy Pop are among our candidates for the quotes.

_ If you want to take your kids to the movies and you live near Lexington, Va., (one hour north of Roanoke, three hours south of Washington, DC) then the Hull's Drive-in has a lineup geared just for the little ones with a double-feature consisting of "Winnie the Pooh" and "Zookeeper." Of course, for those of us with no kids, we can always stay at home and watch the Criterion version of Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" while munching on Milk Duds.

PSA- Save NPR

Since we posted a "Save PBS" entry for our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" just now, we figured that we'd post one here to "Save NPR."

And, to illustrate irony we will devote this entry to one of the VERY few NPR shows I don't listen to very much at all (along with "Prarie Home Companion").

This is not so much because I have anything against the popular NPR show "Car Talk" or the host Tom and Ray Magliozzi, also known as "Click and Clack," (pictured here) but I am really not much of a car person at all---even though I'm a heterosexual male who is 40 years old!

According to the "Car Talk" web site, the show will air a tribute to the late puzzle master Martin Gardner (I have no idea who he was). "Car Talk" first aired on WBUR out of Boston in 1977. It was picked up nationally by NPR in 1987. The show now boasts more than two million listeners and apparently you can even hear it on the radio in some places overseas, but we are not sure if there are any NPR stations in Turkmenistan (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Quote of the Week-Mike Tyson

This is our last quote of the year for 2009.

Of course, if you're like me, you spend the first month of every year rebounding from the insanity and chaos that you suffered through during the Christmas holidays, and consider the possibility of defecting to Turkmenistan (since it's a Muslim country, it's probably a great place to get away from it all in December even if the hotel in Ashgabat* doesn't have a flushing toilet!)

We are quipping Mike Tyson, a controversial figure (to put it mildly) in honor of Boxer's Day. Tyson was actually in two films that made my best films of the year list:
"Tyson" (a doc about him) and "The Hangover." But, this was a tragic year for the former boxer as his young daughter died due to injuries sustained in a fall.
There were actually many Tyson quotes to choose, so we went with the most outlandish (hey we need the ratings!):

"All praise is to Allah_I'll fight any many, any animal, if Jesus we're here I'd fight him too."

There was a second quote from Tyson that we found on shavemagazine.com, but you would have to know that Zoloft is an anti-depressant to get the joke:

"I'm on Zoloft to keep from killing you all."

There is also an engaging piece on Tyson in the 40th anniversary of "Interview" magazine, which was founded by the late artist Andy Warhol. I wonder if those two had met what the conversation would have been like?!

The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pa., is actually open tomorrow but right now I am some seven and a half hours south of there in Roanoke, Va. We have a good relatively new art museum here in town called the Taubman Art Museum, which has an exhibit of Rembrandt sketches, but since this is my hometown and I'm visiting my mom for the holidays, I will probably end up spending the afternoon in a Starbucks or a Target!

*-I did actually have to look the capital of Turkmenistan up, but I do know that the capital of Uzbekistan is Tashkent. Unfortunately, such information does not get one a Starbucks date with the girl you had a crush on in high school (especially, if she's married!)