Top 10 Olympic Lists (1 of 10): The Flag Bearers; We Spelled the Japanese Curlers Name Right (we hope)

We had planned to post this by Thursday or Friday, but we finally managed to get it up. As it is, several countries, such as Azerbaijan, changed flag bearers at the last minute. Here are ten select flag bearers from the opening ceremonies, for ten more, go to our sister blog: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com


1. USA. Todd Lodwick. Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Nordic-combined. (pictured top)

2. Japan. Ayumi Ogasawara. Women's Curling. (pictured center)

3. Turkey. Alper Ucar. Ice Dancing (pictured bottom: his partner is actually Alisa Agafonova, a Ukrainian who will compete for Turkey)

4. Iceland. Saevar Birgisson. Men's Cross-Country Skiing.

5. Netherlands. Jorien ten Mors. Men's Speed-skating.

6. Russia. Alexandr Zubkov. Men's Bobsledding.

7. Norway. Aksel Lund Svindal. Men's Alpine Skiing. (Yikes...we almost didn't spell his name right!)

8. Poland. Dawid Kupczyk, Men's Bobsledding.

9. Switzerland. Simon Ammann. Men's Ski-jumping.

10. Canada. Hayley Wickenheiser. Women's Ice Hockey.

http://www.teamusa.org

http://usskiteam.com/

http://www.hockeycanada.ca

http://www.olimpiyatkomitesi.org.tr/ (Turkish Olympic Team, in Turkish)

http://www.nbcolympics.com/

http://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-olympics/2014

http://olympics.cbc.ca/

http://www.worldcurling.org/

Our Top Ten Comic Strips from "The Roanoke Times:" Blondie Actually Makes the Top Ten; Speed Bump Wins the Survey

Greetings to our blog readers in Canada, Spain and Switzerland.

And, a shout-out to our celebrity visitors George Lucas, Jane Fonda and Nancy Kerrigan (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Here is our top ten:

1) Speed Bump: In Dave Coverly's one panel strip one of the Easter Island heads acts up, and his mother straightens him out

2) Get Fuzzy: In this strip, the age-old battle of which pet is more popular: the cat or the dog takes center stage.

3) Pearls Before Swine: Stephan Pastis goes autobiographical again, this time asking his own creations, the rat and the goat, how he looks with a beard and a beret. (Hmmm....yeah, I suppose some of you are imagining Che Guevara right now)

4) Doonesbury

5) Dilbert

6) Blondie: Dagwood goes ski jumping?!! This should make the strip more popular in Finland.

7) Funky Winkerbean

8) Zits

9) Mutts

10) Agnes

SIDEBAR: Last night in Boston, Yale actually upset Harvard in men's basketball by a score of 74-67, but perhaps no noticed as everyone in the world is watching Bob Costas and NBC's coverage of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

And, this is our 2,225th blog entry!

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

Little Thinkers Quotes (16 of 16): Davy Crockett

"Let your tongue speak what your heart thinks."

Little Thinkers Quotes (15 of 16): Jane Austen

Greetings to our blog readers in Azerbaijan, The Bahamas and Guatemala.

Today, we quote Jane Austen:

"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."

Little Thinkers Quotes (14 of 16): Eleanor Roosevelt

Greetings to our blog-readers in Turkey*, Indonesia and Peru.

We are making this short and sweet so we can watch the 2014 Winter Olympics live from Sochi, Russia, with Jay Leno.....err, we mean Bob Costas (we know one of them retired!).....(and, it is actually 5:00 a.m. in Sochi).

Here is our quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

*- "Gecmis Olsun/May it pass quickly, to the passengers on the Pegasus Airlines flight where an attempted hijacking occurred. The Ukrainian national responsible for this fallacy wanted to divert the commercial airplane to Sochi, but it landed in Istanbul, the flight's intended destination, instead.

Little Thinkers' Quotes (13 of 16): Charles Dickens

Today's quote is from Charles Dickens, a favorite author of my friend Tom Angleberger, now a well-known children's book writer. Dickens is best-known for penning classics like "A Tale of Two Cities," "Oliver Twist" and "A Christmas Carol."

A new film about Dickens' love interest entitled "The Invisible Woman" stars Felicity Jones. The film is now showing at the Grandin Theatre in my hometown of Roanoke, Va.; and Jones recently made the cover of "Film Comment" in a photo still from the film.

Here is the Dickens quote:

"There is wisdom of the head, and wisdom of the heart."

http://www.filmcomment.com

http://www.grandintheatre.com

Best Comics from the Sunday Washington Post (....and, how you can win a free trip to Amsterdam)

Thanks again for taking a look at this blog as we post our long-overdue entry on he best comic strips from the Sunday Feb.2nd edition of "The Washington Post"...........oh, about that trip to Amsterdam, we sort of used that just to get your attention (there is no free trip to Holland). Our apologies to Rudolf Bekink, the Dutch ambassador to the USA, for that! But, perhaps, you can go there and see an Ajax Amsterdam soccer game on your own dime:)

This Sunday, 1) Lio invited some ghoulish friends to watch the Super Bowl; 2) Hagar the Horrible reused to do the laundry (that strip did not make the top ten); and 3) there was a family feud in "Foxtrot" over whether to watch the Super Bowl or "Dowton Abbey." Of course, since the Seattle Seahawks won the 105-3, this proved to be a mute point in reality.

Here is the top ten:

1) Lio

2) Foxtrot

3) WUMO

4) Sherman's Lagoon

5) Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

6) Pearls Before Swine

7) Reply All

8) The Argyle Sweater

9) Prickly City

10) Dustin

http://www.washingtonpost.com