Quote of the Day/Week-Toni Kukoc

Today, we conclude our series of quotes from Olympic athletes who won either gold or silver medals at the Summer Olympics with a quip from Croatian basketball player Toni Kukoc, who was also an instrumental supporting player during the Chicago Bulls championship run of the 1990s.

Kukoc, now 43, won silver with the Yugoslavian national team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, but just four years later, after a bitter civil war erupted which meant that Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia would each would have separate Olympic teams in every sport, Kukoc won silver again only this time it was for Croatia. Ironically, the team that defeated Croatia was the Dream Team of the United States which was captained by Michael Jordan, who would be Kukoc's teammate with the Bulls.

Here is Kukoc's quote:

"If you are physically ready to play, it's a matter of confidence. Your confidence goes down when you lose games, when shots are not going in."

SIDEBAR: Back on Dec. 28, 2010, in what has become one of our most popular entries, I professed to eating an entire anchovy pizza at the Red Rocks pizza joint in Washington, DC. Well last night, I replicated the feat by downing a whole small anchovy pizza at Amante Gourmet Pizza in Carrboro (Chapel Hill), NC. Call me insane, but it was delicious!


http://www.redrocksdc.com

http://www.amantepizza.com

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

Tweet of the Moment_ Herman Cain

We were checking out Twitter last night which is actually banned here at the Pyongyang Public Library (that is a joke; of course, I'm not in North Korea) where a stereotypical librarian went all shhhhhhhhhhhhhh on a person. It was very amusing.

But, it was this tweet from the liberal blog "The Daily Kos," which we certainly agree with more than "The Drudge Report" (read my mini-bio for more details), that really left an impression on us:

"Herman Cain encourages Al Qaeda to kidnap U.S. troops"

We went to "The Daily Kos" web site and they stated that during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN (from what we gathered) that the former Godfather's Pizza ceo essentially said he would negotiate with the highly infamous terrorist group if that was needed. Hmmm....we can only imagine what would happen if a Democrat suggested this.

To be fair to Cain, I did not see the CNN interview, but he has made many lavish, over-the-top comments in recent weeks. Another tweet from CNN itself said that Cain's 9-9-9 plan would actually raise taxes for 84 percent of all Americans.

We first learned about Cain and his intention to run for president despite having no political experience in an excellent piece by Joshua Green in "The Atlantic."

Godfather's Pizza, based in Omaha, Nebraska, has six locations in North Carolina and five in Virginia. The last one I dined was the one in Mount Jackson, Va., in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

DC Diary- I Ate a Whole Anchovy Pizza

Well, we were going to give our crew a long-needed and well-deserved vacation, but then I listened to a Newt Gingrich speech on C-SPAN and decided "Bah Humbug! These guys need to earn their $3.22 an hour."

We haven't run into the former house speaker here in Washington, DC, today, but there have been plenty of things to write about.

I've decided it's perhaps best to have a day of reflection, so I will focus on yesterday which was our first official day in the nation's capital.

Along with my mom, my sister Eva and her husband Sven from Goteborg, Sweden, we went out to dinner at Red Rocks, a Nepalese pizzaeira in DC, and after looking over the menu items carefully, I decided to make the most radical culinary decision I made since I ate goat kebab in Denizli, Turkey, some 25 years ago.

I decided to order an 11-inch anchovy pizza! My feeling was: "You know, I am on vacation, and this is one of the few times I've been able to get out of Virginia and North Carolina all year (I live between the two states), so why not get an anchovy pizza?"

It was surprisingly delicious. The pizza also had several cheeses and peppers. And, I drank it down with some tangy pineapple juice.

But, anyone who has gobbled up an entire 11-inch pizza, irregardless of topping choices, should know full well that he or she will pay the consequences for it later that night. Sure enough, I was stuffed and I felt like a walking Sumo wrestler as we walked back to our hotel in Bethesda, Md. (forgive the DC humor which may not go over well to our readers in Tajikistan!).

Incidentally, I saw a guidebook for the remote former Soviet Republic of Tajikistan today, but that's enough for tonight's entry.... I need to go watch some "Sanford and Son" reruns on TV Land, a network I don't get at home!