Quote of the Day- Charlton Heston

Today, we quote the late actor Charlton Heston (1923-2008), as we continue quoting actors who played real-life presidents. Heston had the distinction of playing three presidents: One as Andrew Jackson, the seventh American president, in the feature film "The Buccaneer" * (1959, dir: Anthony Quinn) and he played Thomas Jefferson in the tv movie "The Patriots" and later in life he played Abraham Lincoln in the tv mini-series "The Great Battles of the Civil War."

Today, on our other blog, we have a quote from Nick Nolte who played Jefferson in the 1995 film "Jefferson in Paris." 

The following quote is a bit ironic in that Heston was not only one of the few Republicans in Hollywood, he also became a right-wing icon when he headed the controversial, but powerful gun lobbying group The National Rifle Organization (NRA). Here is indeed referring to a president who was a Democrat:

"Jackson was one of my favorite presidents. One mean son of a bitch."

*-Heston actually plays a young Gen. Andrew Jackson in the film

SIDEBAR: In sports, we mentioned the Durham Bulls, a popular minor league baseball team in Durham, NC, a few nights ago. Well, as it turns out, they did finish their series against the Rochester Red Wings in spite of their home game being rained out on Saturday. On Monday night, the Bulls beat the Red Wings 4-0 as shortstop Tim Beckham and outfielder Jose Feliciano hit a pair of doubles in a game which saw a much-heralded Australian prospect Liam Hendricks (7-1) taking the mound for the visitors.

http://www.charltonhestonworld.homestead.com

http://www.twitter.com/durhambulls

Olympics Cities Destination Quiz (4 of 6) Melbourne-Munich

Today, we continue our Olympics Cities Destination quiz series in honor of the 2012 London Olympics, which start on July 29th, with a look at how far Melbourne, Australia, and Munich, Germany, are.

Apologies to our international audience as we are doing this in miles.

Melbourne hosted the 1956 Olympics, which were the first ones held in Australia. They are one of  only two  summer games where athletic events were held outside the host country as equestrian events were held in Stockholm, Sweden; the other games where an event took place away from the home was 1920 Antwerp Olympics in Belgium, in which yachting events were held in neighboring Holland.

Some of the highlights of the Melbourne games were Australian men's swimmer Murray Rose (1939-2012) who died in April winning three gold medals; his teammate Dawn Fraser (pictured above) won two gold medals for the host country.

Munich hosted the 1972 Olympics which were greatly overshadowed by tragedy as Palestinian terrorist took 11 Israeli coaches and athletes hostage and later killed them in what became known as the Munich Massacre.

But, there were also tremendous athletic accomplishments in then-West Germany as American men's swimmer Mark Spitz, now 62, won seven gold medals which was recently surpassed by Michael Phelps.

Similarly, women's Soviet/Belarusian gymnast Olga Korbut, now 57, won three gold medals while also performing a ground-breaking backward somersault on the balance beam.

 Korbut was on a 1996 postage champ issued by the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan; she now lives in Arizona.

Olympic Cities Distance Quiz (2 of 6)_ Mexico City to Rome

Well, we couldn't find a mascot for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, but Pique the chilli pepper was the mascot for the 1986 World Cup held in Mexico 18 years later (Argentina won that cup).

Since 1968 was a year of political turmoil in the United States, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, China, Argentina....ok, you get the idea, there were two major political protests at the Olympics in Mexico City. In America, the most-known protest involved two African-American athletes Tommie Smith, now 68, who won gold in the 200 meter relay, and John Carlos, now 67, who gave the black power salute during the playing of the American national anthem at their medal ceremony. Interestingly enough, the silver medal winner in that race the late Australian runner Peter Norman (1942-2006) politically supported the protests.

The Mexico City Olympics, which featured athletes from 112 countries, also featured a protest from Czechoslavakian gymnast Vera Caslavska (who would now compete for the Czech Republic), now age 70, a winner of four gold medals at the games who bowed her head in protest when the Soviet Union's national anthem was played after the balance beam final.

The 1960 Rome Olympics were also quite eventful as two African-American athletes came home with gold medals including the late Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994) who won three gold medals in track, and Muhammad Ali who won gold in the light heavyweight boxing class.

So how far in Mexico City from Rome?

Is the answer:

A) 6,273 miles

B) 6,373 miles

C) 6,473 miles

D) 6,573 miles

The answer to yesterday's quiz is that "Hogan's Heroes" ran for 166 episodes.

Congratulations to the University of Alabama for Winning Gymnastics Title

Yes, college gymnastics fans will undoubtedly notice that the headline and the photo of Georgia gymnast Kat Ding, a senior from Sparks, Nev., may not seem to go well, but please read the entry first!

And, before we get to that, I forgot to thank blog readers from Belgium, Portugal and Australia on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire,' in addition to them, I want to thank those of you from Bulgaria and Indonesia who have stopped by here in the last 24 hours.

The University of Alabama did indeed win its seventh NCAA championship in women's gymnastics on April 21, and this was the first time that the Crimson Tide had successfully defended its title.

For Tide senior Geralen Stack-Eaton, it must have been a particularly rewarding weekend for she also won an individual title on the balance beam.

Meanwhile, Ding defender her national title on bars with a 9.875 and she had a 9.995 on floor, which gave her a title on that apparatus as well; Ding edged out Stack-Eaton, the defending floor champ, and Ellyse Hopfner-Hobbs of UCLA, who is perhaps the top Canadian gymnast in the world at the moment.

Kyra Hunter of Florida won both the coveted all-around title as well as an apparatus title on vault. The Gators finished a very close second to the Tide in the team competition with the Bruins of UCLA coming in a close third.

Next year, UCLA hosts the NCAA championships in the sport.

Top 10 Countries to Run To If GOP Whacko Becomes Prez

We will probably have better things to do on March 5th, when the remaining Republican candidates have yet another debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif. One of those even better things to do might be to watch a marathon of the British '70s sitcom "Are You Being Served?" (the show airs on PBS stations in North Carolina on Saturday nights at 9:30 p.m.) on dvd.

Here is a list of possible countries to run to if the likes of Rick Santorum (pictured), Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich becomes president:

1. Norway (pictured)

2. Argentina

3. Australia

4. Honduras

5. Chile

6. Greece

7. Denmark (yes, we like the idea of seeking political asylum in a Scandinavian country)

8. Canada (yeah, this is a bit of an easy choice)

9. Croatia

10. Poland

Yeah, we aren't quite zany enough to put North Korea on this list.

Casulaties of Modern Technology_ Board Games

By no means is Monopoly a thing of the past, as one might infer from my heading. However, it is a safe assumption that most children of today prefer to play advanced video games with their friends as opposed to board games. Monopoly board games are still made today as our the likes of Trivial Pursuit and Clue.

According to Wikipedia, Monopoly was first played in 1904, and it was originally called The Landlord's Game. In 1934, Charles Darrow presented his own version of The Landlord's Game to various executives, and by the Christmas of 1935, Monopoly games were being sold throughout the United States.

Monopoly consists of three Chance spaces, four railroads, including the Reading Railroad, and a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card.

Traditional American versions of Monopoly are based on streets in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Since the '30s, the names of several streets have changed including Illinois Avenue which became Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the 1980s.

There are also popular college versions of Monopoly, including ones for the University of Alabama (pictured), Virginia Tech and the University of North Carolina.

In addition, there are international versions in many countries including South Korea, Japan and Russia. In the Australian version of Monopoly, a koala bear is one of the silver pieces.

There is also a periodic World Championship of Monopoly, which was last played in Las Vegas in 2009. The tournament was won by Bjorn Halvard Knappska from Norway.

Many parodies, including some that are unauthorized by Hasboro, the company which now makes Monopoly games, have surfaced over the years. Of these, the most recognized and infamous is perhaps Ghettopoly, which was released in 2003.

In Ghettopoly, railroads are replaced by liquor stores and a handgun is among the silver pieces. Hasbro successfully sued to prevent the game from being sold on the open market on the grounds of copyright infringement. The NAACP also found the game to be highly offensive.

As a result, the limited editions of Ghettopoly fetch between $120-300 on the Internet.

SIDEBAR: One of my favorite sports, women's college gymnastics, will be starting again soon. The University of Alabama, which was mentioned earlier in this piece, has the reigning NCAA title-winning team this year. They open their 2012 season at home on January 13th against their arch rivals from the University of Georgia at 7:30 p.m local time (8:30 p.m., eastern time).

The University of Georgia's team, which are also known as the Gym Dawgs (Georgia's athletic teams are officially called Bulldogs), has also won numerous NCAA titles in women's gymnastics, and the meets between the two schools frequently sell out.

Among the standout gymnasts for the Alabama Crimson Tide are junior Marissa Guiterrez and senior Geralen Stack-Eaton, who were key components of the team's national championship effort. For the Gym Dawgs, top gymnasts include senior standouts Kat Ding and Gina Nuccio.

The preseason national rankings have Alabama ranked second behind UCLA; Georgia is ranked ninth. The other SEC team in the top ten is the University of Florida; the Gators are ranked third.

The Top Ten Countries Where We Are Most Popular

We used to jokingly brag that we were the most popular American blog in Bergen, Norway, and Samarkand, Uzbekistan, but it appears that our blog hits are not coming from those countries. However, they are thankfully coming from lots of other places.

For this entry, we chose to go with an image of Syd, Ollie and Millie, the mascots of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where one of my all-time favorite collegiate gymnasts Yvonne Tousek of UCLA competed for Canada; the reason for this is that Australia is in our top ten for this blog as well as 'the other blog,' which is "The Daily Vampire."

Here is the list of the countries that really, really like us:

1. USA 66,460

2. Canada 6,543

3. UK 5,222

4. Germany 4,918

5. India 1,774

6. Brazil 1,567

7. France 1,313

8. Australia 1,269

9. Netherlands 1,040

10. Indonesia 613

SIDEBAR: Our friends at Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC, are set to open a new play in their UpStage Cabaret space when "The Mystery of Irma Vep" debuts on Sept. 29. The stage production will run through Oct. 15. If you are reading this at a cofffehouse in Hamburg, Germany, you should go ahead and take the 12-hour flight to North Carolina just to see this play!

Australia Adds Gender 'X' on Passports

Jaunted: "X" marks the spot...for a new gender choice on Australian passport applications. The change was recently made "under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender and intersex people," according to MSNBC and the Aussie government.

Think you'll be funny and choose "X" for yourself? Not so fast; this is serious stuff. Intersex people—those biologically not completely either sex—can choose the new option. But if you're just transgender, then be prepared to show a doctor's note to back up your identifying as such. And it'd also be wise to prepare yourself to explain the "X" under "gender" on your Aussie passport when you pass through immigration at certain countries.

That said, a move like this just inches the world ever closer to equality, kinda like when the US altered the old "mother" and "father" fields to just "parent 1" and "parent 2."

Ten Years Later- The Australian Tourist (Part 2 of 2)

"In the shadows of the Twin Towers, she just got swallowed up," was what Amanda Rigg's sister Jodie told "The Sydney Morning Herald."

Amanda Rigg was killed on Sept.10, 2001, by a suicide bomber in Istanbul, Turkey, named Uugur Bumbul who was with a radical left-wing militant, very much similar to Dev Sol, a '70s Turkish terrorist organization, which is amazingly still in existence today.

I was on the same street that Rigg , who was 22, was some 15-20 minutes prior to the attack that also killed two Istanbul police officers.

When I heard about how all air travel in the United States had bee grounded because of the stikes on the Twin Towers and The Pentagon, I realized if I had been hurt by the blast, my mother would have been unable to visit me in the hospital. Many people were also injured by the blast, which was seemingly meant to kill significantly more than it did. When I heard the noise from the blast, I noticed that the windows in my aunt's aprtment were actully vibrating.

The "SMH" story published on Aug. 4, 2007, also revealed some unsetlling information, which I had never known.

The "SMH" story said that the Australian government gave financial support to its citizens who were victimes of the bombings in Bali and London, but Rigg's family received no such funds. The explanation given by the Australian government, according to the "SMH," was that Rigg had not died in 'a mass casualty incident.'
The total cost of bringing her body back to Australia was $16,000.

In all four corners of the globe, even in Turkey, the incident was dwarfed by
9-11. Much of the TRT (Turkish Radio and Television) coverage focused on the Turkish citizens who had lost their lives on 9-11, including Zuhtu Ibis, a 25-year-old man who working on the 103rd floor on the World Trade Center.

I was walking the streets of Buyukada, an island off the coast of Turkey, on September 11th, and I was trying to read the article in the Turkish newspaper "Hurriyet" about the blast. I was completely oblivious to what had just happened back home in America.

There were still some uncertainities about what had happened in Istanbul in the media that next day. It had also been a very busy day for us, as we waited patiently for hours trying to resolve family business that was blocked by bureaucracy. By the time everything was resolved, it was around 4:00 p.m. in Turkey, which is typically seven hours ahead of America.

I was hoping as I walked up the hill to the house in Buyukada where I was staying that I would finally find piece of mind. It had only been three days since we had arived in Turkey. I was hearing televisions from the open windows in the old houses that grace the streets of Buyukada.

Something terrible was happening somewhere. Ordinarily, I would have perhaps poked my head in one of those windows and asked what was happening. Such behavior might seem rude in many places, but not on the friendly island, where many residents from Istanbul come to get away the hustle and bustle of one of the world's largest cities.
In fact, when a major soccer game is going on, those who walk the street- even at night, will ask people watching the game in their homes what the score is.

At the time, I could not have imagined that wthe sounds I was hearing were from those traumatic events of 9-11. It would take three hours to call my mom because of the phone line blockage in America, and inform her of the fact that we missed a serious blast in Istanbul as he was watching CNN, and trying to figure out 9-11 as the whole world was. And, it would be a long time before I found that piece of mind, yet alone fully understood the impact of those very long 48 hours.

PERSONAL NOTE: The first part of this series is on my sister blog "The Daily Vampire" (www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com); it is also where the second part of my series on the victims of September 11th will be.

Status Update- I Have Not Been Kidnapped by Aliens

Many people have been wondering if I was kidnapped or if I had flown to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to get away from it all as it has been eight days since our last blog entry here.

But, I am alive and well.....hmm, well for the most part. (We try to avoid personal details here though I did almost start a blog about my bout with prostatitis in
2008; it is a prostate problem involving frequent urination).

There is apparently an Australian play called "Tom Stoppard is Dead." It is refering to the famous playwright Tom Stoppard, who is originally from what is now the Czech Republic but he resides in England. Stoppard, who was also born in 1937, is in fact alive, but the play is a take on his famous early 1967 play "Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead." Nevertheless, one has to wonder what Stoppard made of the title.

Another person who is alive and well is the actor George Segal who I recently saw in the 1965 film "Ship of Fools," which is sort of like a serious version of "The Love Boat" and featured a lot of famous actors, including the late Lee Marvin, who is one of my favorite screen stars. Segal turned 76 in February.

Segal, like Steve Martin, is also an accomplished banjo player. And, we learned that he was the actor who was originally in mind to play Dudley Moore's character in the movie "10," which made Bo Derek famous (it should not be confused with the acclaimed Iranian film of the same name for well obvious reasons!). Alas, Dudley Moore is no longer with us.

Another actor who is alive who was seemingly disappeared is Emilio Estevez. While his brother Charlie Sheen has made a public ass of himself, Estevez has been living a quiet life. In 2010, he starred and directed in the low budget film "The Way" which also featured his dad Martin Sheen. Estevez, who is perhaps best known for his role in "The Breakfast Club" is now almost 50 years old! (He was born in 1961).

What We Are Working On.....

Since a lot has happened in the world since I last blogged on Thursday and I am now done looking at emails from L.L. Bean (apologies to the Maine-based company, but nice white shorts are not my priority right now!), I will give you the reader a glance of what to expect on this blog this week.

1. Since May 1st is a day associated with radical socialists, we will start quoting famous people from the far-left starting on Tuesdays this month. Though I'm not one myself, I love agitating Republicans, well except my good friends attorney Johann Hallbjorn in Bethesda, Maryland (the Icelandic name is a fake name, and Johann doesn't live in the DC Metro area), and journalist Aarne Eerikainen in Knoxville, Tenn.,(the Finnish name is also a fake name as well and Aarne doesn't have anything to do with the Volunteer State---that we are aware of).

2. On Wednesday, we will have a quote from a famous novelist. Perhaps, you've already read his book on Kindle?! Other quips from other authors will follow on Wednesdays in May.

3. On Thursday, we are planning to actually write a serious entry (?!) on how I came close to being at the scene of a terrorist bombing, not involving the now deceased eshol eshek (Turkish word for son of a donkey; it is a high insult there) Osama bin Laden, on strangely enough Sept. 10, 2001, in Istanbul, Turkey. The blast, which was a suicide bombing, killed two Istanbul police officers whom I had physically seen some 20 minutes prior to their untimely deaths. The bombing also killed an Australian tourist named Amanda Rigg, who was only 22.

Rigg's story was the feature of a 2007 "Sydney Morning Herald" I found on the web. Her death unfortunately became a bureaucratic nightmare for her family in Australia as the government would not let them recieve monetary compensation for her death as they had with terrorism victims in more universally recognized incidents, such as the bombing at a resort on the island of Bali in Indonesia. My interest in writing about my own experience again is due to the death of bin Laden, and the impact that terrorism leaves on all of us, irregardless of how large or small such incidents are in scale.

4) On a lighter note, this Friday, we hope to officially start a new series called "Things We Learned on Google Today." It will begin with a look at a country that was a republic in the former Soviet Union. We may not start with Kyrgystan since it was the only country from the old USSR that I could not name on a mentalfloss.com quiz! I did manage to get the other 12 right though.

Incidentally, we've included The Smurfs and their villain Gargamel here because they have been invading my dreams lately. We learned about them in research for this entry, but alas due to time constraints, we will share those unique little things some other time!

Crocodile Dunking in Australia's Cage of Death

Daily Mail: I’d usually be excited about meeting a film star, even a washed-up has-been like 80-year-old Burt, but I breathed a sigh of relief when he showed no interest in me as I passed him napping by his pool.

Burt was the saltwater crocodile in the classic Eighties film Crocodile Dundee and salties, as the abbreviation-loving Aussies call them, are the largest and most dangerous reptiles in the world. At 16ft long this celebrity was not my first choice of swimming buddy at Crocosaurus Cove in Darwin - capital of Australia’s wild Northern Territory.

Tipping the scales at 110 stone (1,540 lbs), Burt also had something of a weight advantage over me and my heart thumped in my ears as I descended into an octagonal acrylic box that only put one-and-a-half inches between us as it hung precariously above his pool.The cheerily-named Cage of Death, which lowers tourists into the water to swim alongside crocodiles, is meant to be the highlight of a visit to the cove.

The bite-marked cage is dangled from a monorail. After my encounter with Burt I was hoisted up and along to the next pool and, swinging like a chicken nugget in the wind, was lowered in to meet Houdini.

Named for his ability to break out of enclosures, I eyed the box’s metal roof nervously as I was lowered into the cold water of the pool. His dinky wife Bess came over for a look so I dived down to the bottom of the cage to say g’day, but 15ft-long Houdini stayed basking in the sun, his eyes closed and his front legs tensed ready to pounce.

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Sunday Sports Desk

All the talk in this part of the country, well between Maryland and South Carolina, has been on the Duke-UNC game in Chapel Hill last night in which the UNC Tarheels defeated the Duke Bluedevils 81-67.

But, we wanted to congratulate the UNC-Asheville Bulldogs for winning the Big South championship over Coastal Carolina University by a 60-47 score in Conway, SC (Myrtle Beach) yesterday.

My alma mater Radford University and my mom's alma mater Winthrop University are also Big South teams, so I always hope they do well in the NCAA tourney, as Winthrop did a few years back. Of course, it would be nice if Radford could win the tourney every year!

We also like to keep tabs on Turkish soccer (my late father was from Turkey) even though I haven't watched a game in two years. This weekend, the scores were as follows: Manisa 2 Kayseri 1; Ankaragucu 2 Konya 0; Gaziantep 3 Sivas 1; Eskisehir 1 Bucaspor 0; Bursaspor 1 Istanbul BB 1 (tie); GalataSaray (Istanbul) 0 KDCK 0 (tie); Trabzonspor 2 Besiktash (Istanbul) 1.

For more info, on the games, you can check out Ahmet Bob Turgut's Twitter feed at (twitter.com/turkish soccer).

Lastly, our very favorite sport is women's collegiate gymnastics and there were many meets of interest this weekend.

Due to space and time constraints, we will focus on just two of them.

For starters, Florida (#1) edged Utah (#5) in Salt Lake City thanks to stand-out performances from Gator gymnasts Alaina Johnson, Marissa King and Mackenzie Caquatta.

But, for the home team Utes, Fumina Kobayashi and Cortni Beers finished in a three-way tie for first place on the balance beam with Ashanne Dickerson of Florida, who also scored a 9.9 on vault.


And, our home state North Carolina State Wolfpack gymnastics team won a key road meet over Pittsburgh today thanks to a stand-out performance from Jess Panza, who scored a 9.925 on the balance beam. Panza's score was the highest single event score for a Wolfpack gymnast this season.

The image above, by the way, is of the late, great Howard Cosell (1918-1995) who would have perhaps been horrified to find out that in 2011, due to modern technology, there are many more things to do on a Monday night than watch NFL football on tv. In fact, if one desires, they can play World of the Witchcraft with their 'friends' in Australia for 48 hours in a row.

Yeah, I think that's a bad idea too, but those guys (well, I suppose women can get addicted to WOTWC too) do make us bloggers appear to be people who have real lives.

Special Quote of the Week- Venus Williams

We are continuing our series of quotes from famous African-American athletes, past and present, with a quip from tennis superstar Venus Williams. As everyone outside Tashkent, Uzbekistan, probably knows (and perhaps they do too), her sister Serena Williams, who is a year younger (Venus is 30; Serena is 29), has also established an exempliary career on the court.

Here is our quote from Venus, who has assuredly won virtually every tennis tournament from New York to Dubai* to Sydney, at least once (we need to verify this, but we don't have that kind of time!):

"If you're not a competitor, you've just got to go home."

*- NPR reported last month that there is a North Korean restaurant in Dubai (?!). Yes, we said North Korean. There are also some pretty good South Korean restaurants in Istanbul, Turkey, which seemed surprsing enough to us at the time.

Quotes from The Composers- Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Today, as promised, we are featuring quotes from legendary Russian composers and today we quip Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) who the Romanitc era composer who composed symphonies, operas and chamber music. But, he is arguably best known for his ballets, which include "The Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake."

Since "The Black Swan" is in cinemas now, and we FINALLY saw it last week (I was actually going to post an entry called The Curse of the Black Swan because every time I wanted to see the film something went wrong; it is definitely one of the best films from 2010), the image of an actual black swan seemed nifty. At least, it did to Javier the intern*. The image (according to Javier) is from Perth, Australia.

Natalie Portman also won a Golden Globe Award for her cinematic performance as a ballet dancer in "Black Swan." But, since we were not able to watch the broadcast (though I saw on Twitter that foul-mouthed comedian Sarah Silverman did!), we could not see if Portman was wearing her trademark vegan sandals.

But, getting back to Tchaikovsky, here is today's quote from the Russian master:

"Truly there would be more reason to go mad were it not for music."

SIDEBAR: As we have mentioned before, there is a sequel to the hit book "Stuff White People Like" based on the ever-popular blog of the same name (they get thousands more hits than we do even though there are only periodic entries?!). The new book by Christian Lander is called "Whiter Shades of Pale." He will be promoting it at Book Cellar in Chicago on Thursday.

According to the blog's last entry from December, these days white people seem to enjoy Christopher Guest films on dvd (like "Waiting for Guffman"), cd compilations of Bolivian music (he has me there!) and single-malt scotch.

*-Javier is a fictional person!