Sunday Night Tweets: Be on the Look-Out for Runaway Cheetahs

During our last entry, we said that we were going to send Dutch Ambassador Rudolf Bekink (pictured center) a card to congratulate the Netherlands' successful third place  finish at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Alas, a Malaysian Airlines plane carrying 385 passengers, about half of which were Dutch citizens, was shot down by Russian separatist terrorists in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, so the Netherlands has gone from a period of joy to tragedy in a very short time span. The plane was in route from Amsterdam, Holland, to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.

It also been a disastrous week for Palestinian-Israeli relations as Israel has taken defensive measures by bombing Palestinian areas in the West Bank, killing scores of women and children, which also coincides with the Muslim Ramadan holiday.

But, we do have some light-hearted tweets as well; let's take a look:

1) Washington DC News: Pro-Palestinian Groups march to the White House.

2) Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Man arrested after barricading himself, and a 2-year-old in a Mount Washington apartment.

3) Mark Duplass (actor/filmmaker): "The Master" is now streaming on Netflix. Do it. Like now!

4) The Onion: This week, last year FBI offered $1 million for any information on cheetahs (see top image)

5) Netherlands Embassy: The Dutch embassy in DC will open a condolence register for victims of MH17 this Monday and Tuesday from 10 a.m. to noon, and from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.

6) Dallas Morning News: Dallas police handing out Slurpee tickets to kids for being good (Bottom image, actually of a 7-11 in Japan).

7) Jeremiah Owyang: Seriously, the current news cycle is morbid and bleak. Hoping for a better week, planet earth.

Top Ten Things To Do ...........for the rest of the week...........

Even though it is Wednesday, we thought we'd go ahead and share ten things we need to do for the rest of the week. Assuredly, there are other things that will come to mind as we type this list up!

1. Work-out at the gym

2. Take the trash down and recycle

3. Buy groceries (image #1, ironically, we don't have a Trader Joe's here in this zip code)

4. Look into day trip to Winston-Salem, NC

5. Oil change and wash car

6. Get over the summer time blues (image #2, the late John Lee Hooker)

7. Continue writing 750 words a day

8. Send card to Dutch Ambassador Rudolf Bekink for his country's third place finish at the World Cup

9. DVR "Scarface," the 1983 Al Pacino version directed by Brian De Palma (it airs at 2:00 a.m. Thursday night/Sunday morning eastern time on TCM)

10. Go to a minor league baseball game (#image 3, the mascots for the Akron Rubber Ducks, a AA team for the Cleveland Indians in Akron, Ohio, that was previously known as the Akron Aeros)

World Cup Lists: MLS Players

There are a number of futbolers in the World Cup who play in Major League Soccer, a pro soccer league consisting of mostly American teams along with three Canadian squads. Not all of these soccer players are Americans.

Here is the list:

1) Julio Cesar. 34. Brazil. FC Toronto (yes, I guess we all know he had a bad day at the office on Tuesday; pict. top)

2) Tim Cahill. 34. Australia. New York Red Bulls. (pict. center)

3) Kyle Beckerman. 32. USA. Real Salt Lake (pict. bottom)

4) Oswaldo Minda. 30. Ecuador. Chivas USA (Los Angeles)

5) Omar Gonzels. 25. USA. L.A. Galaxy

6) Brad Davis. 32. USA. Houston Dynamo.

7) Steven Beitashour. 27. Iran. Vancouver Whitecaps (The player actually grew up in Calif., he is also an American citizen.)

8) Victor Bernardez. 32. Honduras. San Jose Earthquakes.

9) Waylon Francis. 23. Costa Rica. Columbus Crew.

10) Giancarlo Gonzalez. 26. Costa Rica. Columbus Crew.

11) Matt Besler. 27. USA. Sporting Kansas City.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/

World Cup Lists (2 of 4): Players with Long Last Names

You think you have a tough time getting prescription medications filled at the Rite-Aid on Battleground Avenue in Greesnboro, NC? Well, imagine how you would feel if you the burden of these long and difficult names. Of course, Greece, Iran and Russia provided us with some of the longest names you would find in a Dayton, Ohio, phone book!

NOTE: If we make a mistake spelling anyone's name, it's not like we Jenny Slate on "Saturday Night Live," but even after the f-bomb incident, her career is doing well. Of course, she's no longer with "SNL."


Here we go:

1. Lazaros Christodoulpoulos. 27. Greece. Club team: Bologna (Italy)

2. Dimitris Salpingidis. 32. Greece. PAOK (Greece)

3. Alireza Jahanbakhsh. 20. Iran. NEC Nijmegen (Holland; pict. bottom)

4. Stephan Lichsteiner. 30. Switzerland. Juventus (Italy)

5. Mario Mandzukic. 28. Croatia. Bayern Munich.

6. Vincent Aboubakar. 22. Cameroon. Lorient (France; pict. center)

7. Bastian Schweinsteiger. 29. Germany. Bayern Munich. (pict. top)

8. Aron Johannsson. 23. USA. AZ Alkmaar (Holland)

9. Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu. 23. Ghana. Udinese (Italy)

10. Raul Meireles. 31. Portugal. Fenerbahce (Turkey)

11. Chris Wondolowski. 31. USA. San Jose Earthquakes (USA/MLS)

http://www.mls.com

http://www.worldcup.usatoday.com

World Cup Lists (1 of 4): The Goal-Keepers

Greetings to our readers in Panama, Canada and the Czech Republic, who are among the many countries which alas did not make the World Cup field of 32.

We start our series of World Cup lists with a look at the goal-keepers for teams that have made the knock-out round of 16 in Brazil:

1) Jasper Cillessen. Netherlands. Age 25. Ajax Amsterdam (pictured top)

2) Fernando Muslera. Uruguay. 28. Galatasaray (Turkey; pictured center)

3) Vincent  Enyeama. Nigeria. 31. Lille (France; pictured bottom)

4) Orestis Karnezis. Greece. 28. Granada (Spain)

5) Julio Cesar. Brazil. 34. Toronto FC (Canada/MLS)

6) Tim Howard. USA. 35. Everton (USA)

7) David Ospina. Colombia. 25. Nice (France)

8) Keylor Navas. Costa Rica. 27. Levante (France)

9) Diego Benglio. Switzerland. 30. Wolfsburg (Germany)

10) Sergio Romero. Argentina. 31. Monaco (France)

11)  Thibut Courtois. Belgium. 22. Chelsea (England)

http://www.espn.go.com

The Rat is Back: Pearls Before Swine is Our Favorite Sunday Comic Strip in the Roanoke Times

"Pearls Before Swine" focused on a dinosaur named Moneysaurus which featured a surprising cameo with a character from "Dilbert," we assume Stephan Pastis had Scott Adams' ok. "Speed Bump" featured a visit from the Grim Reaper which, of course, always reminds of us Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" (pictured center). "Doonesbury" featured Garry Trudeau making fun of those who deny global warming which makes us assume that Eric Cantor has not read Al Gore's stirring commentary piece in "Rolling Stone" (current issue) about that very topic. But, then again, Cantor seems to have other worries as does Spanish Ambassador Ramon Gil-Casares, who is probably still stunned by how bad Spain played in the 2014 World Cup.

Here are our top ten favorite comic strips from "The Roanoke Times:"

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. Speed Bump

3. Doonesbury

4. Get Fuzzy

5. Funky Winkerbean

6. Garfield

7. Zits

8. Dilbert

9. Agnes

10. Non-Sequitur

http://www.rollingstone.com

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.doonesbury.com

http://www.gocmics.com/getfuzzy

Comic Strips Grand Slam (4 of 4): We Really, Really Like Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog

Personally, we think two of the best comic strips around are "Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog" by Jonathan Mahood and "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee" by John Hambrook. But, alas promoting these great comic strips with their own image might be grounds for copyright infringement and since we don't make a dime for blogging, we are going to go with images of Cong. Eric Cantor (R-Va), the recipient of last week's Worst Week in Washington in "The Washington Post" (we asked Chris Cillizza, the political reporter who writes the piece to consider the Spanish ambassador this week, but alas, we got no response), Tim Howard, the goal keeper for Team USA who plays professionally for some team in England, and the late, great Jacques Cousteau instead.

We hope Mahood and Hambrook appreciate our efforts to go out of the way to avoid copyright infringement.

These strips are all in the Kings Features' comic wheel, which also includes "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith" from our good friend John Rose, alas his strip did not make our top ten (Note: These are last Sunday's strips, the new batch of brownies is already out of the even_ they won't get that joke in Dubai, will they?):

1)  Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog

2) The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee

3) Retail

4) Arctic Circle

5) Dustin

6) Tina's Groove

7) Sherman's Lagoon

8) Rhymes with Orange

9) Deflocked

10) The Pajama Diaries

http://bleekercomics.com/

http://edisonleecomic.com/

http://retailcomic.com/

http://arcticcirclecartoons.com/