10 for 10 (5th Entry): Love Those Greyhounds

Greetings to our blog readers in Argentina, Israel, and Russia........

The sport of greyhound racing which is popular in many American states including West Virginia is highly controversial, but in recent years, awareness has been made about adopting retired greyhounds, we will provide two links to greyhound rescue organizations in Virginia and North Carolina.

Additionally, we will provide links to animal shelters in Georgia and Florida.....

At this hour, we are delighted to hear writer Steve Almond who has written a critical book on American football on the BBC World Service; we have been a fan of his work since he wrote pieces for "The Oxford American." Almond, a long-time Oakland Raiders fan, also recently wrote an opinion essay on the need for greater civic action to protect football players from concussions.

Here are the dog links:

http://www.virginiagreyhounds.org/

http://www.greyhoundfriends.com/

http://albanyhumanesociety.com/ (animal shelter of Albany, Georgia)

http://www.thehsmc.org/ (animal shelter of Ocala, Florida)

http://againstfootball.org/ (Steve Almond's book)

Top 10 from Sunday Roanoke Times: Speed Bump Wins for a Fourth Week in a Row

Greetings to our blog readers in Austria, Egypt, and South Korea........

Today, we look at yesterday's comic strips in the "Roanoke Times," a daily newspaper serving Roanoke, Va., and the southwest Virginia region. This week, "For Better or For Worse," a strip that rarely cracks our top ten comes in seventh with a strip about dog food. But, "Get Fuzzy" which features a strip about cat food ranks five places higher. However, "Speed Bump" with a great take on a woman blaming her husband for passing gas as his dog is eating all beans and drinking beer.

"Pearls Before Swine" has another Stephan Pastis pun which features Mountain Dew; it does appear to be an overt product endorsement and neither is our use of their logo!

Here is the top 10:

1) Speed Bump

2) Get Fuzzy

3) Pearls Before Swine

4) Zits

5) Doonesbury

6) Jump Start

7) For Better or For Worse

 8) Garfield

9) Dilbert

10) Non Sequitur

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics.com

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

Comic Strips Survey Sunday Roanoke Times (Jan.11th): Stephan Pastis Wins Again

Greetings to our blog readers in Belgium, the great country which has brought us Asterix and Lucky Luke (just kidding, we know those are French comic book characters and that, of course, Belgium is the home of Tintin).......

Today, we once again give you our ten favorite Sunday comic strips, this time from the Sunday "Roanoke Times;" Stephan Pastis once again delivered the goods in "Pearls Before Swine," with a hilarious take on how Zebra, one of the title character, got his dad the epic Ken Burns PBS documentary on the Civil War, and his dad was unable to figure out how to use a dvd player. We are using an image of Stonewall Jackson (on top), a Civil War general for the Confederates, for that strip.

Yeti the Snowman which one might see in Nepal (well, maybe not) is our center image. In Dave Coverly's single panel strip "Speed Bump" a woman is sitting beside Yeti in a doctor's office waiting room; we imagine Yeti was perhaps reading "National Geographic" or "Afar"....well, maybe not!

And, lastly, we go with a Simaese cat in the bottom image for "Get Fuzzy," which once again proves that cats and dogs are basically the ones controlling our lives.

Here is the top ten:

1) Pearls Before Swine #

2) Speed Bump #

3) Get Fuzzy #

4) Garfield #

5) Doonesbury #

6) Agnes #

7) Dilbert #

8) Non Sequitur #

9) Zits *

10) Jump Start #

#-Go Comics strip

*-Comics Kingdom strip

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.comicskingdom.com

 http://www.roanokedoesntsuck.com

http://www.nationageographic.com

Last Ten Films I Saw Before Last Week: Indy Films, Foreign Films and Guilty Pleasures

Greetings to our blog readers in Japan, Slovenia, and Scotland (good luck with your impending divorce, which I am politically opposed to).

The above images of a) Jehovah's Witnesses (for the film "The Visitor," which has nothing to do with them), a Scottish terrier (for "Dog Day Afternoon") and a 1977 caprice (for "Blue Caprice," a disturbing, but solid film about the DC snipers) all relate to a film on the list. "Blue Ruin," which was filmed around Lexington, Va., and "Paradise: Love" were viewed via Netflix streaming. Films from "Boy" (#6) to "Bucket of Blood") were taped off TCM; "The Visitor" aired as part of TCM Underground.

Here is the list:


1. Fill the Void. Israel. 2012. Dir: Roma Burshtein.

2. Bucket of Blood. 1966. Dir: Roger Corman

3. The Visitor. 1979. Dir: Guilio Paradisi. (Released through Alamo Drafthouse Films)

4. La Pointe. Courte. France. 1955. Dir: Agnes Varda

5. Dog Day Afternoon. 1975. Dir: Sidney Lumet w/Al Pacino

6. Boy. 1969. Japan. Dir: Nagisa Oshima

7. Blue Ruin. 2013. Dir: Jeremy Saulnier

8. Blue Caprice. 2013. Dir: Alexandre Moors.

9. Paraside: Love. Austria. 2012. Dir: Ulrich Siedl (part of a triology)

10. Life After Beth. 2014. Dir: Jeff Baena w/Aubrey Plaza

www.tcm.com/underground/

www.netflix.com

http://drafthousefilms.com/

www.ifcfilms.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)

Top 10 Comic Strips NOT in Our Local Newspapers: Love Those Yorkies

Many of the slots in local Sunday comic strips sections, even in large city newspapers, are taken up by legacy strips, such as "Hagar the Horrible" and "Beetle Bailey." But, there are actually many great comic strips out there.

This is a companion piece to our blog entry on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com/2014/01/arctic-cold-comic-strip-spectacular-1.html

The funniest strip of these ten is from "La Cucaracha," a comic we were not familiar with today, which features a Mayan temple made from ice (the top image is of Tikal, a Mayan ruin site in Guatemala). Other highlights were "Pooch Café" (the reason for the Yorkshire terrier in the bottom image) and "Todd the Dinosaur" (the reason why we Barney in the middle_ The Rev. Joseph Chambers in Charlotte, NC, said the purple dinosaur was an example of socialist propaganda?!!!).

Here is a list of ten comic strips that we saw on the web today, none of these strips are in either "The Roanoke Times" or "The Washington Post:"

1. La Cucaracha 8.2

2. Pooch Café 7.8

3. Todd the Dinosaur 7.6

4. Tundra 7.5

5. The Pajama Diaries 7.5

6. Pros and Cons 7.3

7. The Other Coast 7.2

8. Mother Goose and Grimm 7.2

9. Arctic City 7.1

10. Overboard 7.0

http://www.gocomics.com/lacucaracha/#.UsoBCTYo6Uk

http://www.gocomics.com/poochcafe#.UsoBTzYo6Uk

No Blog Entry Today as I am Sick as a Dog

American English idioms may be lost on our blog readers in Uzbekistan, so we will refer to the NPR radio series "Way with Words" http://www.waywithwords.org and the ever-hip Urban Dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com or perhaps even the Scrabble dictionary http://www.scrabble.com

We got this image when we googled in the term: "Dogs in Turkey," but we are not sure if this fella is from Malatya, Erzurum or Kars (forgive the Turkish humor). We imagine dogs in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan look fairly similar to this one?!

We shall try to post a more meaningful blog post when this nasty cold has left the building.....

Image to Fill Space: A Dalmation

Greetings to our blog readers in Senegal, South Africa, Honduras, Jamaica, Chile, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Australia, Japan, France, Iceland, Bulgaria and Slovenia.

Tomorrow, we shall have something more substantive.

PSA_ October is National Adopt a Shelter Dog Month

From the Muslim Eid Mubarak holiday to Halloween, from the presidential elections to Hurricane Sandy, the month of October, which is also National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, is a busy one indeed. The tenth month is also National Adopt a Shelter Dog Month, and it is with this in mind that we are posting an image of Yorkshire Terrier puppy.

Here is a list with links of animal shelters in North Carolina, which is our state of residency; these include shelters from Yanceyville, a rural town near Danville, Va., as well Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte.

http://www.americanhumanesociety.org

http://www.aspcacaswell.org

http://www.spcawake.org

http://www.adoptshelterpets.org

http://www.humanesocietyofcharlotte.org

GOP Pre-Convention Tweets: I Am Not a Republican Because....

Before we run down our tweet log from a busy night on Twitter, in which one trending topic was #IAmNotARepublicanBeacuse, here is a list of the images above:

1) Donny Osmond. The '70s icon from Utah who is a Mormon is a strong supporter of Mitt Romney. To his credit, unlike country singer Hank Williams Jr., Osmond has not made disparaging comments about President Barack Obama or the Islamic faith. We learned than in recent years, he has been a game show host?!

2) A Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleader: We tried to find an image that would not get our blog banned in Qom, Iran, well, it probably is any how.

3) A Chow Chow puppy: Today is/was National Dog Day in America, and this breed is worth $3,000-8,500. Perhaps, with a hefty tax break that Romney would give rich Americans, that demographic will indulge in lots of expensive pets.

The GOP Convention is reportedly delaying its first day due to Tropical Storm Isaac.

Here are tonight's tweets:

1) @amazingatheist (The Amazing Atheist): "#IAmNotARepublicanBecause: "I'm not tricked into focusing on my pseudo-moral indignation over social issues to the detriment of all else."

2) @OlivierPortugal (Benjamin Button): "#IAmNot......I Don't Blame Teachers for a Recession Caused by Bankers."

3) @HuffPostPol (Huff Post Politics): "Seniors, Occupy movements protests GOP convention."

4) @KatrinaNation (Katrina vanden Huevel, she is the managing editor of the liberal journal "The Nation"):
"Will Huckabee Defend Akin in His RNC Speech?"

5) @lobsterpajamas (Michelle Morgan): "IAmNot.....I have a soul. Common sense helps too."

6) @LOLGOP (LOL GOP): "I blame Obama for creating 4 million jobs, getting bin Laden and ending the Iraq War. Things used to be so awesome."

7) @davidfrum (David Frum, the former George W. Bush speech writer has become a leading advocate for moderation in the conservative movement): "I want a modern Republican party precisely because I am a Republican. If I weren't, I wouldn't care."



 http://www.nationaldogday.com

http://www.donny.org

http://www.mormon.org

http://www.visttampabay.com

http://www.gopconvention2012.com

http://www.frumforum.com

http://www.atheists.org

http://www.thenation.com

http://www.islam-guide.com

For a link to our other blog, which features an image of a toy version of Tampa Bay Lightning captain Vincent Lecavalier, go to "The Daily Vampire:"

http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

Quote of the Night- Pearl S. Buck

Today's quote of the day comes from Pearl S. Buck (1862-1973), a novelist and author who was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia; Buck's birthplace is now a historic museum. Her parents were missionaries to China.

Buck wrote her signature novel "The Good Earth" (1931) which earned her a Pulitzer Prize. It was the fist novel in her historic literature trilogy, which also included "Sons" and "A House Divided."

The author is also a noted alumni of Randolph Macon's Women College, which is now Randolph College (a co-ed school) in Lynchburg, Va.

Here is her quote, it's one regarding 'man's best friend:'

"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet remain silent."

http://www.pearlsbuckbirthplace.com

http://www.wvculture.org

http://www.wvtourism.com

http://www.randolphcollege.edu

Image of the Day/Week- Doberman Puppies

Since we featured a Van cat last time (white cats named for the city of Van, Turkey, where the breed originated), we thought we go with an image of a puppy dog this go-around; this is a photo of a very young doberman-pincher.

We aren't sure if one can find this particular breed of puppy at the Animal Rescue Foundation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, but the organization has plenty of dogs and cats up for adoption.

On May 15th, Top That! Pizza (8393 South Memorial location in Tulsa) will help raise funds for the animal shelter.

Anyone living in that part of the Sooner state who wants a new dog or cat can call the shelter at 918-622-5962.

SIDEBAR: Next week or some time within the very near future, we are hoping to post a series about the trip to Washington, DC, that was completed yesterday. The working title for the entries on this blog is "Next to the Burmese Embassy."www.arftulsa.orgtopthatpizza.com

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone. We would say a lot more as like Leo Tolstoy (the author of "War and Peace") we can not proclaim brevity as one of our strengths.

And, to paraphrase The Animals and their 1965 hit song: "We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do."

We were not aware until we 'researched' the song on Wikipedia that 'this place' was referring to Vietnam. Perhaps, there are others who feel this way, but the song seems to play in our minds when we are at chamber of commerce mixers that we simply can't break away from. But, I remember one person was very honest one time at one of these things (this was about 15 years ago). He simply said: "I need to go home to watch Seinfeld."

The above image, oh by the way, is of an Irish terrier.

The Backpackers Are Beside BestBuy- Entry One

I started my odyseey to take photographs of all seven public art displays that are part of the Art in Roanoke campaign rather arbitrarily.

My friend Stevlana (pse) and I were walking around the Grandin Court area near the Grandin Theatre when we stumbled upon "Trojan Dog" (not to be confused with the Trojan Horse in Troy, Turkey; we could not find a suitable image of the piece for this entry). The "Trojan Dog" is the creation of Roanoke's Ann Glover, who reportedly was inspired by Japanes carving pieces. It should be noted that the "Trojan Dog" is a white dog, rather than a dalmation.

On Sunday, the next day, I came back to the No. 7 Fire Station on Memorial Avenue to snap several shots of "The Trojan Dog." I didn't realize very few of the other six art pieces would be that easy to locate.

Much to my shock and horror, the original postcards that I found at a local coffeehouse with the locations of the seven pieces were no longer available. Thus, I would have to find the other six without a map!

The next one I came across was "Connect," (which is pictured) in downtown Roanoke near the offices for "The Roanoke Times." The piece has also been displayed in Lexington, Ken., where the artist Ericka Strecker is from. Strecker says that she likes to look for objects which have a connection to each other.

I snapped several shops of "Connect" as a jogger passed me by, without even sparing a glance to see what I was doing.

'This series continues on our other blog, "Politics Culture and Other Wastes of Time" (see links below). Entry #3 is scheduled to be posted here tomorrow morning."

SIDEBAR: I had the chance to see the band Poverty Level perform at a great coffeehouse near Greensboro, NC, which is sadly no longer around. But, one can see the Patrick County, Virginia, almost literally perform in their own backyard when they play The Front Porch Festival this weekend in Stuart, Va.

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Darth Vader Dogs

We thought we'd post an entry with this vintage photo of a dog dressed like Darth Vader. Some friends and co-workers are urging to keep my promise of dressing up like the Star Wars for Halloween as I jokingly promised a few weeks ago, but costumes are going for (yikes!) $90 online. My friend Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, might be inclined to buy it though since he loves Star Wars, so much so that he once used in a local political campaign when he ran for school board offie in 2006.

The Asheville Humane Society in Asheville, NC, is sponsoring a special event aimed at increasing adoptions over the upcoming Halloween weekend. The event called The Halloween Dog Festival will be held on Sat. from 1-5 p.m., and it will include costume categories for both large and small dogs.

Among the mutts that are up for adoption in Asheville are Cassandara, an 11-month-old spayed retriever lab, Anchoive, a five-year-old terrier/chihuahua and Honeycomb, a nine-month-old female lab beagle.

For more info, one can call 828-761-2001.

Silly Picture to Fill Space- Tired Dog

We are literally dog-tired, hence we are resurrecting Silly Picture to Fill Space with an image of a dog who we believe is from Ecuador- of all places!

But, closer to home, those of you who wish to adopt a dog like Allie, a Brittany Spaniel, from the Caswell County Animal Shelter in Yanceyville, NC, (near Danville, Va., and an hour north of Chapel Hill) can call 336-694-4921.

The shelter is also in need of puppy and kitten food.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life....

I must profess that it is a bit tricky to come up with an appropriate post for September 11th. I wanted to say something serious that wasn't too somber. And, I certainly wanted to avoid anything political (which I must profess is a bit ironic).

So, we chose to go with an image of a very patriotic pooch. If there is one thing that is uniquely American, it is that we may be one of the few countries where some folks actually drape their house pets in fanciful clothing attire.

But, in all seriousness, we do want to take a moment to remember those who needlessly lost their lives on this day nine years ago.

My fellow Turkish-American Gunay Evinch, who is an alumnus of Washington and Lee in Lexington, Va. (a rival school to one of my alma maters!), made the following statement about 9/11 on the web site for ATAA, the leading Turkish-American association in America:

"While we have yet to comprehend such horrific acts and though we can not erase the pain, we should be comforted by reflections on the remarkable acts of heroism the world witnessed that day."

For more info on a proposed Sept. 11th Memorial, one can log on to
national911memorial.org

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Dog Washing

We normally post the Silly Pictures to Fill space pieces on Tuesday, but today we are posting it on Monday to make everyone in Virginia aware that tomorrow is Election Day.

And, I desperately want to see Democratic state senator Creigh Deeds from Hot Springs, Va., beat out his far right opponent.

If you are a Virginia resident and you happen to see this, I will come to your house and wash your dog if Deeds wins tomorrow. I don't care if you live in Roanoke, Charlottesville, Grundy, Arlington, Woodstock, Abingdon, Boones Mill, Hopewell, Danville, Floyd or Newport News. We really, really need this one folks!

I wish I could do more but alas I live just over the border in North Carolina now.

I also want to mention that there is an animal shelter in my hometown of Salem, Va., which desperately needs folks to adopt animals, so this is not a mere political entry, but I do sincerely believe that Deeds' opponent Bob McDonnell will be a nightmare for Virginia in the same way that George W. Bush was for us as Americans.

Silly Photo to Fill Space- More Ghosts

........or dogs dressed up as ghosts. This looks like something my friend Christopher Knight would do