10 for 10: The Nine Countries Outside of America Where This Blog Is Most Popular..........

On Sept. 21st, this blog will be celebrating its tenth anniversary, and while we are not completely sure how to celebrate, we have chosen to start by acknowledging our blog readers around the world. Though this following list consists of large countries, we want to also thank blog readers from smaller nations like Malta, Slovenia, and Jordan, who have the time to check us out.

The images above are in conjunction with three of the countries on this list, the Russian dolls are for (of course) Russia, the Hindu love god Shiva is for India, and the women at the bottom associated with a bossa nova song about a beach we can't spell represent Brazil (yeah, that was a bit awkward).....

Here is the list, that we dedicate to Bill Griffith, the artist who draws up "Zippy the Pinhead,"our folk singer friend Bruce Piephoff from Greensboro, NC, and the late, great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune:

1) Russia 34, 974

2) Germany 11,421

3) United Kingdom 10,612

4) Canada 10, 085

5) France 6,320

6) Ukraine 4,407

7) India 3,256

8) Australia 2,467

9) Brazil 1,971

Our sister blog is The Daily Vampire: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

Top Ten Comic Strips from the Sunday Roanoke Times: Hooray for Agnes

Greetings to our blog readers in Sweden, South Africa, and Cyprus......

It's perhaps fitting that this week's Sunday comic strip "Pearls Before Swine" which features its Goat character in the lime light (well in a dim limelight) is the top finisher in our weekly survey of Sunday comic strips from "The Roanoke Times" as there are some cool pygmy goats from Cameroon at the Mill Mountain Zoo in Roanoke, Va.

For those who have never traveled to Roanoke, it is a city of 100,000 people which is an hour north of Martinsville, Va., home of the Rev. Johnny Robertson who is rumored to have the most over-the-top Southern Baptist church in the world, well at least in Henry County.

Our third-place finisher is "Agnes," which is why we have an image of the late Agnes Moorehead who played the mother in the late 1960s sitcom "Bewitched."

Fifth place goes to Get Fuzzy, which has some knock knock jokes, so we went with an image of Mormons.

Liberal comedian Bill Maher is actually coming to Roanoke on Friday for the first time, we hope he really socks it to Donald Trump, who was brilliantly lampooned in today's (Monday) "Zippy the Pinhead."

Here is the list:

1. Pearls Before Swine

2. Speed Bump

3. Agnes

4. Dilbert

5. Get Fuzzy

6. Doonesbury

7. Funky Winkerbean

8. Garfield

9. Zits

10. Jump Start

http://www.mmzoo.org/

http://www.visitroanokeva.com/things-to-do/

http://www.visitmartinsville.com/

Top Ten Comic Strips from Comics Kingdom: Bleeker Wins the Blue Ribbon

Greetings to those of you visiting our blog tonight regardless if you are from Hagerstown, Maryland (home of the Hagerstown Suns baseball team), or Auckland, New Zealand.......

Comics Kingdom is a comic strip and features (crossword puzzles, Sudoku) distributor which has a blend of traditional comic strips like "Beetle Bailey" and "Blondie" as well as new comic strip aimed at younger demographics, including "Intelligent Life" which is sort of like a comic strip version of "The Big Bang Theory" that revolves around nerd life.

Our favorite Sunday comic strip from Comics Kingdom is "Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog" with a gorgeous illustration of a young boy and his sister going for a tumultuous canoe ride with their pet robots; it reminded us of the New River, which runs through West Virginia and rural southwestern Virginia.

Second place goes to "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee" which depicts what can go awry when a young boy plays with a rocket and a mouse is nearby. Third place went to "Bizarro" which mocked outdoors safety tips pamphlets which illustrated that when one comes across a grizzly bear all bets are off. We also enjoyed Bill Griffith as his cult favorite comic strip "Zippy the Pinhead" made fun of the Tea Party crowd and he did this without mentioning Ben Carson or Donald Trump!

Here is the top ten:

*-Comic strips in the Sunday Washington Post

1. Bleeker

2. Edison Lee

3. Bizarro

4. Zippy the Pinhead

*5. Sherman's Lagoon

*6. Foxtrot

*7. Dustin

*8. Zits

9. Six Chix

10. On the Fasttrack

http://www.bleekercomics.com

http://www.edisonleecomics.com

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

4. Zippy the Pinhead 

Top Ten Comics from Sunday's The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC, July 19th edition): Dustin Gets a Gold Star

We initially believed that we had misplaced the July 19th Sunday comics section of "The Sun News" in Myrtle Beach, SC, when we found it as it was an archeological stone from ancient Egypt!

Our favorite comic from the newspaper is "Dustin," in which a young adult son walks by his whimsical mom with an overloaded laundry basket.

The second-place strip is "Off the Mark" in which a museum patron is listening to head phones with info on the art who stumbles upon a blank wall with a large hang nail which indicates that a painting, perhaps as prestigious as Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (pict. center). Munch's masterpiece was actually stolen from a museum in his native Norway.

Third place goes to "Ziggy," not to be confused with "Zippy the Pinhead" by Bill Griffith, which today made fun of Mike Huckabee (we're still laughing over that one). Ziggy makes fun of a landmark once featured in a Woody Woodpecker cartoon, that is Niagara Falls, which borders both the United States and Canada. In "Ziggy," the title character is talking to his pooch when he realizes that it is time to use the bathroom!

We have decided to arbitrarily put "Hagar the Horrible" in the tenth position as a running gag.

Here is the top ten:

1) Dustin

2) Off the Mark

3) Ziggy

4) Stone Soup

5) Doonesbury

6) Garfield

7) Dilbert

8) Blondie

9) Curtis

10) Hagar the Horrible

http://www.visitmyrtlebeach.com

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com

http://www.thesunnews.com

http://www.comicskingdom.com

http://www.gocomics.com

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/

Best Comic Strips from Jan. 18th That Are Not in Your Sunday Newspaper

Greetings to our blog readers in the Czech Republic, New Zealand and Tunisia.

This week, we take a special look at our favorite newspaper comic strips from today that are not in most local newspapers across the country.

"Reality Check," a single-panel comic strip, had a brilliant entry with Bugs Bunny getting lost in New Mexico due to a faulty GPS; there is a clever cameo from Wile E. Coyote, the nemesis of the Road Runner (but you gotta look for it; Bugs Bunny is our top image).....

"Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog" had a great look at a young lad and his robot dog 'enjoying' a winter storm.......none of you may realize how difficult it was to find an image of a dog in the snow! (center image).

Lastly, one of standard favorites "Zippy the Pinhead" featured the title character having lunch at a diner while envisioning hallucinations of "Nancy," a comic strip character from yesteryear (cheeseburger is bottom image).

Here is our top ten:

*-GoComics strips; #Comics Kingdom strips

1) Reality Check*

2) Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog#

3) Zippy the Pinhead#

4) F-Minus*

5) The Flying McCoys*

6) Six Chix#

7) Brevity*

8) Retail#

9) Overboard*

10) Between Friends#

http://www.gocomics.com/realitycheck

http://www.gocomics.com/fminus

http://www.gocomics.com/theflyingmccoys

http://www.bleekercomics.com

http://www.zippythepinhead.com







5) The Flying McCoys

Off the Beat and Path Quotes (1 of 6): Bill Griffith

Today, we feature a quote from Bill Griffith, the man behind the zany cult comic strip "Zippy the Pinhead," here is his quip:

"The down side of America being obsessed with pop culture is that they kind of like it light."

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

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

Virtual Postcard from Virginia- The Big Pencil

Today, we send you a virtual postcard from my home state of Virginia with this image of The Big Pencil in Wytheville, a southwestern Virginia town that is one hour west of Roanoke. Wytheville is also known as the place where highways I-77 and 1-81 intersect, and the town is reportedly exactly half-way between New York and Miami.

The Big Pencil was once featured in a "Zippy the Pinhead" comic strip, that is the brainchild of Bill Griffith. The town is in the congressional district of Cong. Morgan Griffith (R), a Republican from my hometown of Salem, Va., whom I know personally. But......well, I am not a Republican, but of course one should not say negative things about a friend in spite of political differences. It would be great if I could challenge him to a game of chess, bowling or mini-golf, but we doubt the freshman congressman has time for that. We should also point out that the cartoonist and the congressman are not related.

SIDEBAR: Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you probably can not spell the words Gladiolous and Crustaceaology, those are two words that were once used as Spelling Bee championship words in 1925 and 1955 respectively. Gladiolous, hope we spelled that right, is a type of flower; the other term was once used for the study of all things crustacean.

SIDEBAR: We are 'taking off' until Tuesday....We hope....!

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Road Trip- Paris to Moscow

Today, we are not actually you to guess the distance between Paris, France, and Moscow, Russia, but rather the distance between Paris, Texas, and Moscow, Idaho, neither of which are world capitals.

For our points of destination, we randomly chose two family restaurants in both zip codes from Google; we have no idea if either place has been featured in a "Zippy the Pinhead" comic strip, but perhaps its creator Bill Griffith has stumbled upon our blog?!

We start with the Roadhouse Restaurant in Paris, Texas, a town made famous by the brilliant 1984 art film "Paris Texas," directed by the great German filmmaker Wim Wenders. As it is, the town, like Las Vegas, has a replica Eiffel Tower but this one has a cowboy hat on top of it.

Our other destination is Dad's Diner, which is actually located just outside Moscow, in Potlatch, Idaho; the other Moscow is known as a collegetown and the base of operation for the popular singer Josh Ritter.

So, just how far apart are these two places?

Is the answer:

A) 29 hours even

B) 30 hours even

C) 31 hours even

D) 32 hours even

Happy Trails to you, until we meet again, which reminds me there is a Gene Autry marathon on TCM tonight.

Roanoke vs. Greensboro- Drive-In or Bowling? (Entry 2 of 6)

Today, in our Roanoke vs. Grensboro series, we go a little bit outside both city limits, as look at the Lee-Hi Lanes bowling alley in Salem, Va., and the Eden Drive-In in Eden, NC, which is actually 40 miles north of Greensboro.

Lee-Hi Lanes, which are actually just over the line that divides Roanoke and Salem, was once the Lee-Hi Drive-In, an establishment that was in operation from 1948-1982.
The bowling alley features the Strikers Cafe, 40 lanes with automatic scoring, league bowling and moonlight bowling, which is pretty cool.

A movie theatre, which is now the Salem Valley-8, opened next to the Lee-Hi Drive-in in 1976, and caused problems. I remember seeing a James Bond movie "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974) as a child at the old Lee-Hi. Of course, it would have been even more cool to see "Werewolves on Wheels," a combination biker/horror film, but I was a bit too young for it (I was born in 1970). And, I can not verify that it ever showed at the Lee-Hi Drive-In.

The Eden Drive-In is still operating and apparently doing quite well. This week, the drive-in was showing a double-header with "Cars 2" and "The Green Lantern." The rates for seeing movies at the drive-in are quite inexpensive as adults are five dollars, children between ages six and eleven are two dollars and kids under five get in for free.

Though I am a movie person, my inner Zippy the Pinhead (Bill Griffith's counterculture comic strip character) would have to go for Lee-Hi Lanes. Drive-Ins are great except when it rains, and then both you and your car have to deal with lots and lots of mud. And, the money one saves by seeing movies at the drive-ins will go to a local car wash. I haven't read "Freakanomics," but I would gather this fits in with the 'one thing leads to another' realm of thought.

Incidentally, a poster of Nixon bowling was featured in the legendary Coen Brothers film "The Big Lebowski."

Oscar Predictions Teaser

Tomorrow, we are hoping to post some of our Oscar predictions on this blog as well as our sister blog "The Daily Vampire." This is, of course, on the presumption that the rest of the week will be less whacky that today has been so far. But, hey I did find the car keys so I can't complain!

Today, we are featuring an image of an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt with this entry, assuming that the hot-link works! We had an unusual problem last year when we were trying to put up an image of the Bill Griffith comic book character "Zippy the Pinhead" on one of our blogs, but we still love the strip even though it took quite a while to fix that mess!

I actually watched "Sesame Street" as a kid in the 1970s on Blue Ridge Public TV (WBRA) in Roanoke, Va. Alas, these days arch right-wing Republicans are trying to cut PBS and NPR funding as either a measure to cut federal funding or make Bill O'Reilly happy (political bias: We presume the later).

Tonight, WBRA is showing "The Secrets of the Dead" at 10 p.m., which focuses on a 2004 discovery of headless Roman skeleteons in York, England.

And, we also want to wish a happy birthday to former UCLA gymnast and Canadian Olympian Yvonne Tousek. She was part of a team that included standout Olympic gymnassts like Kate Richardson, Kristen Maloney and Jamie Dantzcher. The Bruins are also the current reigning NCAA champs in women's gymnastics. Last night, junior Taunty Frattone score a 9.95 on vault in a win over North Carolina State.

Quotes of the Week- Tennessee Williams

As of today, we are including quotes from famous people, either alive or dead, who are from one of the 32 countries participating in The World Cup, taking place in South Africa later this week.

Today, representing our country, The United States (or l'etats unis as they say in France) we go with the late, great playwright Tennessee Williams, best known for penning "A Streetcar Named Desire," which was made even more famous when it became a Marlon Brando movie.

Here is the quote from Williams who gave us that inspirational line: "STELLA! STELLLLLLLAAAAAAAA!" :

"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."

For those who are not hip to American theatre history, we can also give you this quip from the alternative comic strip character Zippy the Pinhead who actually has a Twitter account! Though, these lines could very well come from his creator Bill Griffith:

"If I am elected no one will never have to do their laundry again!"

Tweet of the Moment_ For Our Friends in Georgia

This tweet was posted last night by 'Zippy the Pinhead' (or perhaps his creator, cartoonist Bill Griffith):

"I'm gliding over a NUCLEAR WASTEDUMP near Atlanta, Georgia!"

I also saw on Twitter last night that the Denver Food Guy had posted a recipe for Greek octopus dishes, which reminds me that given the current economic crisis this may (or may not) be a good time to go to Samos---that is a Greek island 35 miles off the coast of Kushadasi, Turkey.

And, we saw that some fringe right-wing lunatic in Marshall, Tex., posted a billboard asking if those of us who voted for President Barack Obama were 'embarrased yet?'

I was amused by this for several reasons: 1) Obama is a good president--certainly 10 times better than George W. Bush 2) Sarah Palin has become even more of a diva nightmare since the presidential campaign, and let's face it if John McCain had won the election she would be the one actually running the country?! and 3) Texas was not even a swing state, so essentially any votes cast for Obama in the Lonestar State really didn't matter much.

Interestingly enough, The Republican Party has decided to follow me?! on Twitter.

Everytweet You Wanted to Know About Health Care...

Ironically I am using the images of Cong. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Cong. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) because of these tweets are from progressives and those on the center left politically (such as myself).

But, not all these tweets are in favor of health care reform, and following these tweets, most of which were posted on Saturday and Monday afternoon was at times very confusing. One reason for that is Twitter groups like "NC4HealthReform," based in Winston-Salem, NC, were actually AGAINST Obama's proposals.

There were also some who sent mixed messages, which might well be the most accurate reflection of the American mind-set regarding the Health Care that narrowly passed by a 219-212 margin late in Congress late Sunday night.

These tweets are not neccesarily in chronological order, but they do tell a story with collective voices besides my own. They came from people as far away as North Myrtle Beach, SC, and Scottsdale, Ariz:

OToole Fan: Tea Party is mainly racism cloaked as fiscal concer and selfishness masquerading as patriotism.

Virginia Foxx: Federal govt runs up $1.5 trillion deficit this year- 11 times the 10-yr "savings" Democrats claim are in the Senate bill.

ezraklein ("Washington Post" reporter): Asked WH (White House) for text on Prez's speech. They said it wasn't pre-written. It's like there's a teleprmpter IN HIS BRAIN.

LeftJabs: I am nowhere near a TV but thanks to y'all I feel the moment. I pray tomorrow is a day of celebration.

RollCall (Washington DC political newspaper): Sign up in John Boehner's window: 'Vote No Scrap the Bill.' Protesters gathering outside chanting 'Kill the Bill.'

ezraklein: The task now: convincing six or seven insured, wealthy congressmen to give 32 million uninsured people health-care coverage.

JasonChaffetz: If passed an estimated 16,500-plus IRS agents will need to make sure you have 'acceptable health insurance.'

TomPerriello (D-Va): Read letters of support for bill from Martinsville, Danville and Charlottesville hospitals.

Brad Miller (not the Dem. NC Congressman): I think Health Care reform is needed, but it needs to be done correctly. Pass a good bill, not just one to say you passed reform.

annamariecox: Should turn off Foc @ this point but then I'd miss them saying something like: "The WH took pain to say the president high-fived Emanuel."

Zippythepinhead (alternative comic book character): "I've read seven million books."

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..........