Our Top Ten Comics from Feb. 1st Roanoke Times: Escape from the Snow

Greetings to our blog readers in the Czech Republic, Lithuania and South Africa.........we expect the bottom picture of pigs swimming in The Bahamas may cause us fewer hits today in Iran and Pakistan, but hopefully, those folks will rejoin us tomorrow!

We are using the top image of a snowman in Maryland for "Speed Bump," our weekly winner in which Mrs. Snowman getting mad at her husband for fetching her arm (made of a stick) to Rin Tin Tin (a dog).

Second place goes to "Garfield," the highest ranking for the comic strip in our survey (over a three and a half year period), as Garfield, Odie and John are suffering from 'cabin fever' (middle image, a cabin in Vermont) and the tension causes the family cat to agitate his owner in a profound way.

Lastly, we salute "Jump Start" by Robb Thompson for a fourth place finish, the highest ever for the strip, as Clarence, one of the title characters is enjoying a vacation in a sunny place (yes, this is the reason for the pigs in the Bahamas) while it snowing back home, as it is in cities like Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, within the last few days.

Here is our survey:

1) Speed Bump

2) Garfield

3) Doonesbury

4) Jump Start

5) Get Fuzzy

6) Agnes

7) Zits

8) Pearls Before Swine

9) Dilbert

10) Funky Winkerbean

For this week's survey, go to our sister blog at "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.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

Weather Temps in the Mid-Atlantic

With this image of the Snowshoe Ski Resort in Snowshoe, West Virginia. we look at weather conditions throughout the mid-Atlantic. In some places, such as the Carolina coasts, the weather is actually fairly decent for the winter time, but that it's not case in many areas, including metro areas in Virginia and Maryland.

1) Mount Jackson, Va. 25 Overcast

2) Bowie, Md. 30 Overcast

3) Chapel Hill, NC 33 Overcast

4) North Myrtle Beach, SC 42 Overcast

5) Danville, Va. 33 Overcast

6) Lewisburg, WVa. 27 Overcast

7) Oxford, NC 32 Overcast

8) Colonial Heights, Va. 33 Overcast

9) Roanoke, Va. 30 Light freezing rain

10) Fayetville, NC 37 Overcast

11) Eden, NC 34 Overcast

12) Hopewell, Va. 33 Overcast

http://www.snowshoemtn.com/

http://www.wv.gov/tourism/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/  (Capital Weather Gang)

A Snow Storm in Any Language

Greetings to our blog-readers in Kuwait, Bangladesh and New Zealand. It great to get hits from people quite far away from us.

Today, the mid-Atlantic portion of the United States got hit with either ice, snow or rain. Reportedly, the city of Frederick, Maryland, 45 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., got three inches of snow.
NPR is reporting that there are long delays and flight cancellations at Reagan Airport in the nation's capital.

Our favorite foreign language word for snowstorm is the Danish word 'snestorm,' which we actually googled.

Here is the list:

1) schneesturm (German)

2) tempele de neigert (French)

3) kar firtinasi (Turkish)

4) tormento de nieve (Spanish)

5) sno storm (Norwegian, actually one word)

6) zamiec (Polish)

7) vielista (Bulgarian)

8) snestorm (Danish)

http://www.weather.com

Tweets for a Snowy Night

It's snowing in Maryland, Washington DC, West Virginia, North Carolina and Virginia, here is a look a some tweets for a snowy, snowy night:

1) Gator Gymnastics @GatorZoneGym: Freshman Bridgette Caquatto makes her debut on uneven bars tonight with a 9.8! #GoGators

2) UNC Women's Lacrosse @uncwlax: Enjoying the snow here in Chapel Hill.

3) NC A&T @ncatsaggies: #NCAT will open at 11 a.m. tomorrow.

4) Robin Reed @wxman7: Looking for reports on road conditions mainly residential- in your area- send me a quick tweet or picture! (Reed is a long-time weather reporter for WDBJ Channel 7 in my hometown of Roanoke, Va.)

5) NC State Gymnastics @PackGymnastics: "Diahanna Ham notches the top-score on beam for the Pack with a 9.775"

6) Cornell Daily Sun @CornellSun: W. Hockey. C.U. heads on the Road to Play Ivy Rivals Yale, Brown.

7) Denver Gymnastics @DU_Gymnastics: The traditional 'calling of the hogs; here at Arkansas just took place. Both teams getting set for the first touch warm-up.

Silly Picture to Fill Space- Groundhog Day

Whatever Mr. Groundhog says today, yet another %$#&*@ winter storm is headed for North Carolina and Virginia. This would mark the third time we get slammed. The last storm for those of you living in sunny Fargo, ND, was last weekend.

Although I shouldn't complain because a few years ago, I was offered a job in Rockville, Md., a Washington, DC suburb, but it didn't pay well enough to live in the area. I've always whinned that I would have been happier there (I live in rural NC, and I'm a city boy who likes his Woody Allen movies!), but hey, well they get the same snow we get- in fact, even more of it!

So, for the second weekend in a row, my major plans might be thwarted.

I was hoping to either see the North Carolina State women's gymnastics team, which is off to a good start this season and ranked #22 in the country, host SEC power Florida (ranked #3) in Raleigh, or see the experimental band Toubab Krewe from Asheville, NC, perform at the Cat's Cradled in Carrboro, NC, or go to my alma mater Radford University's homecoming festival in Radford, Va. The school is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and we have a pretty good men's basketball team which is supposed to host High Point University on Saturday.

Instead, I may have to watch talking heads discuss political issues which will resolve themselves when I'm old enough to collect social security on PBS' "Washington Weekin Review" (but, I love host Gwen Ifill!) or the Sunday talk shows (I guess one can always see if George F. Will is wearing a bow-tie or a regular neck tie).

And, of course, there should be an unholy amount of college basketball games to watch on ESPN and the networks. But, by time the Super Bowl comes on, I might have fallen asleep from watching the infommercials between "Meet the Press" and the pre-game show.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...............