College Schools Nicknames- More Angry Birds

On our other blog, in honor of March Madness (for those of you in Latvia and Peru this is the time of year when American college basketball teams try to win both their conference and national tournament), we are dedicating an entry to teams with fowl nicknames since we are more or less addicted to the video game/computer app Angry Birds. as are 2.4 billion people around the world.

Not all of these teams are going to the NCAA tournament, which will have pairings announced on Sunday, but both the Kansas Jayhawks and the Temple Owls (pictured here) are going to be in the tournament. In fact, Kansas may get a number one seed.

The other school pictured here is the Southern Utah Thunderbirds which have a fairly competitive women's gymnastics program.

Here are the teams; there are three schools from Ohio on the list:

1. Elon Phoenix, Big South, Elon, NC.

2. Hartford Hawks, American East, Hartford, Conn.

3. Jacksonville State Gamecocks, Ohio Valley, Jacksonville, Ala.

4. Kansas Jayhwaks. Big 12. Lawrence, Kan.

5. Kent State Golden Flashes, Mid-America Conference, Kent, Ohio.

6. Loyola (Ca.) Lions. West Coast Conference. Los Angeles, Calif.

7. Miami (Ohio) Redhawks. Mid-America Conference. Oxford, Ohio.

8. Oral Roberts Golden Eagles. Summit League. Tulsa, Okl.

9. Southern Utah Thunderbirds. Summit League. Cedar City, Utah.

10. Temple Owls. Atlantic-10. Philadelphia, Pa.

11. Winthrop Eagles. Big South. Rock Hill, SC.

12. Youngstown State Penguins, Horizon, Youngstown, Ohio.

Things We Learned on Google Today- Latvia's Second Largest City is the Same Size as Roanoke, Va.

On Google today, we learned that the former Soviet republic of Latvia's second largest city, after the capital Riga, is Daugavplis. With a population of between 102,000-111,000, it indeed has the same population as my hometown of Roanoke, Va.

Daugavplis, Lativa, is located on the Daugav River, which is where the city got its name. The city is also surrounded by lakes and nature parks, according to Wikipedia (I have never been to Latvia myself).

As for the country of Latvia, they are known for beer and folk dancing as well as bob sledding, including Mihalis Arhipovs, 26, who competed at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

It should be pointed out that we had problems getting an image of Latvian bobsledders, so we settled for an image of the Jamaican bobsledding team instead!

This is the tenth entry in our series of former Soviet republics which are now independent countries; the last one we profiled was Tajikistan, which is, assuredly, a long way from Latvia.

Beers Around the World (#48)- Saku Beer (Estonia)

We are on the verge of closing out our Beers Around the World series, and today we choose one of the smallest and newest members of the European Union, the former Soviet Republic of Estonia, which is one of the three Baltic Sea nations, including Latvia and Lithunia.

Estonia has a population of 1.34 million, and the capital city there is Tallinn. But, Saku Beer is brewed in the city of Saku, Estonia.

The Saku Brewery is as old as Estonia itself (politically speaking) as it formed in 1991 when the old USSR fell apart. Saku Beer is now listed on the Tallinn Stock Exchange, and it has 40 percent of the domestic market.

Saku Beer is also the sponsor of Tartu Ulikol, a pro basketball team in Estonia.

As for the country, Andrus Ansip is the current prime minister. And, Estonia is the wealthiest of the former Soviet republics. It was also a place where the new Jim Carrey film "I Love You, Phillip Morris" which only opened in a small number of cinemas here is America was a big hit for reasons that no one is quite sure of.