Virtual Postcard from Virginia- The Big Pencil

Today, we send you a virtual postcard from my home state of Virginia with this image of The Big Pencil in Wytheville, a southwestern Virginia town that is one hour west of Roanoke. Wytheville is also known as the place where highways I-77 and 1-81 intersect, and the town is reportedly exactly half-way between New York and Miami.

The Big Pencil was once featured in a "Zippy the Pinhead" comic strip, that is the brainchild of Bill Griffith. The town is in the congressional district of Cong. Morgan Griffith (R), a Republican from my hometown of Salem, Va., whom I know personally. But......well, I am not a Republican, but of course one should not say negative things about a friend in spite of political differences. It would be great if I could challenge him to a game of chess, bowling or mini-golf, but we doubt the freshman congressman has time for that. We should also point out that the cartoonist and the congressman are not related.

SIDEBAR: Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you probably can not spell the words Gladiolous and Crustaceaology, those are two words that were once used as Spelling Bee championship words in 1925 and 1955 respectively. Gladiolous, hope we spelled that right, is a type of flower; the other term was once used for the study of all things crustacean.

SIDEBAR: We are 'taking off' until Tuesday....We hope....!

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Sports Desk- Vikings and Spartans Victorious in Virginia

Yes, a Spartan mask from a museum was not our initial choice for an image for this blog, but all the marching band photos were either too big or unavailable for legal reasons.

As it is, my alma mater Glenvar High School from Salem, Va., was not in action, but 'the big school' Salem High School was. And, the Salem Spartans defeated the William Byrd Terriers 27-13 in a home game.

Up the road, the visiting Northside Vikings beat the Hidden Valley Titans 21-17. Hidden Valley High School is one of two Roanoke-area high schools, including Eastern Montgomery High School, which did not exist in the 1980s, when I was a star quarterback for the Glenvar Highlanders (that is a joke, our real quarterback was a guy named Barry).

Here is a rundown of other high school scores from the Roanoke/Lynchburg/Blacksburg region:

Cave Spring 34 Lord Botetourt 18
Christiansburg 47 Bassett 0
Galax 43 Radford 0
Magna Vista 28 Franklin County 26
E.C. Glass 21 William Fleming 20
Martinsville 44 Liberty 34
George Wythe 31 Floyd County 19

SIDEBAR: We learned recently that an alum of Glenvar High School named Liz Trinchere plays volleyball for Virginia Tech. The Hokies were victorious over their arch rivals the University of Virginia Cavaliers by a 3 sets to 1 score in Blacksburg. Cara Baarendsey, a junior from Mason, Ohio, scored 13 kills and 16 digs for the Hokies in the home victory.

It was a mixed bag for the UNC Tarheels in women's volleyball this weekend. The team hosted the Tarheels Classic, and they scored wins over St. Louis and Miami (Ohio), but the 'Heels feel to Tulsa 3-1. Kaylie Gibson of Apex, NC, and Aleksandra Georgieva of Bulgaria combined for 13 kills despite the loss.

Conversely, my alma mater Radford University fell in a road game to UNC-Greensboro in the Spartan Spiketacular in straight sets on Saturday in front of 311 spectators. Radford Highlanders senior Carly Fleming of Manassas, Va., did become the school's all-time solo blocks leader (50) in spite of the defeat.

Karrian Chambers, from College Station, Tex., helped guide the Spartans to their victory and she recieved all-conference honors as well.

Whoops, We Forgot Belgium

Well, we are posting this simply to balance this blog with our other blog "The Daily Vampire," where we made an error sending an entry meant for this blog on that one.

But, we were thinking about taking a day off from blogging tomorrow to go wash dogs at an animal shelter in Lynchburg, Va. (that is a joke, but we understand there is a great animal shelter in that city).

Alas, an image we hoped to post of Borat at the rodeo in Salem, Va., which is my hometown, as featured in the film "Borat" fell through in our Kazakhstan entry due to technical problems or perhaps a block from that particular site. (By the way, the answer is B for the question in that entry).

And, earlier today, I was able to name 24 of the 25 cities that have hosted or will host the summer Olympics in mentalfloss.com quiz. We forgot about the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. I have even been to Antwerp, Belgium, (back in 1993) but I completely forgot that the city was an Olympic host. Our apologies to Tintin, and everyone else in Belgium.

Yvonne Tousek, a former Olympic gymnast and UCLA stand-out competed for Canada, who I get to chat with every now and then, competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. She is curently performing with Cirque du Soleil.

I would say that I competed for Turkey (my late father's homeland) in greco-roman wrestling at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when I would have been 22 years old, but I imagine the actual members of that team would not care for the joke.

Things We Learned on Wikipedia This Week- Capital of Kazakhstan

We are continuing our look at former republis of the Soviet Union today with Kazakhstan. The second largest former Soviet republic behind Russia was made famous/infamous by the film "Borat" (2006) starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the fake television reporter from Kazakhstan.

The film, which was in my top five list for the best films of 2006, will always be a special to me because the rodeo scene where Borat/Cohen tricked rodeo-goers into singing a butchered verison of "The Star Spangled Banner" was filmed at a rodeo in my hometown of Salem, Va. And, just today, I saw that the Internet Movie Database indicated one of the film's factual goofs is that it shows Salem, which neighbors the larger city of Roanoke, as being in the eastern part of Virginia as opposed to southwest Virginia.

Many of the Kazkakhstan village scenes for the movie were actually filmed in Romania. In one of the scenes, the audience is introduced to Borat's neighbor Nursultan Tuyakbey, who is a cross between the names of the current Kazak president/dictator Nursultan Nazabayev and his political opponent in the mid-2000s Zharmakan Tuyakbey.

In April, Nazabayev ran virtually unopposed and got close to 100 percent of 'the vote.'

Today's question is what is the capital of Kazakhstan? Is the answer:

A) Alma Ata

B) Astana

C) Chimkent

D) Pavlador

This is the fifth of 17 entries in this series, and the first one presented in trivia question form. The other four Soviet republics in this series were Uzbekistan, Russia, Kyrgzstan* and (the) Ukraine.

*-This has to be one of the hardest countries in the world to spell!

SIDEBAR: My friend Bruce Piephoff, a folk singer in Greensboro, NC, may not be heading out to Kazakhstan for a concert anytime soon, but he will be performing a live set for WXDU (88.7-FM, Durham), the student-run radio station of Duke University at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. My personal favorite song of his might very well be "I Remember Asheville," even though I've only been Asheville, NC, one time!

Roanoke vs. Greensboro- Drive-In or Bowling? (Entry 2 of 6)

Today, in our Roanoke vs. Grensboro series, we go a little bit outside both city limits, as look at the Lee-Hi Lanes bowling alley in Salem, Va., and the Eden Drive-In in Eden, NC, which is actually 40 miles north of Greensboro.

Lee-Hi Lanes, which are actually just over the line that divides Roanoke and Salem, was once the Lee-Hi Drive-In, an establishment that was in operation from 1948-1982.
The bowling alley features the Strikers Cafe, 40 lanes with automatic scoring, league bowling and moonlight bowling, which is pretty cool.

A movie theatre, which is now the Salem Valley-8, opened next to the Lee-Hi Drive-in in 1976, and caused problems. I remember seeing a James Bond movie "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974) as a child at the old Lee-Hi. Of course, it would have been even more cool to see "Werewolves on Wheels," a combination biker/horror film, but I was a bit too young for it (I was born in 1970). And, I can not verify that it ever showed at the Lee-Hi Drive-In.

The Eden Drive-In is still operating and apparently doing quite well. This week, the drive-in was showing a double-header with "Cars 2" and "The Green Lantern." The rates for seeing movies at the drive-in are quite inexpensive as adults are five dollars, children between ages six and eleven are two dollars and kids under five get in for free.

Though I am a movie person, my inner Zippy the Pinhead (Bill Griffith's counterculture comic strip character) would have to go for Lee-Hi Lanes. Drive-Ins are great except when it rains, and then both you and your car have to deal with lots and lots of mud. And, the money one saves by seeing movies at the drive-ins will go to a local car wash. I haven't read "Freakanomics," but I would gather this fits in with the 'one thing leads to another' realm of thought.

Incidentally, a poster of Nixon bowling was featured in the legendary Coen Brothers film "The Big Lebowski."

Announcing a Very Big Sale

My mom is having a HUGE moving sale at her former residence, located at 456 Ingal Blvd., Salem, Va. 24153 (we are using the zip code in case you want to Mapquest it; I think Bethesda, Maryland, is about five hours away as is Fayetville, NC---we really want people to come out in droves for this thing, seriously!).

Among the low-end items for sale are a pennant with King Kong hovering over the World Trade Center, a Captain Tennile vinyl record with their hit song "Love Will Keep Us Together" (it didn't belong to me) and a children's wind-up toy of a monkey playing a drum that might actually be older than I am.

The high-end items include an exotic Indonesian puppet, several antique lamps (we think), depression glass (hmmm....I should have asked mom to confirm all this), a nice couch and a huge big-screen tv.

There will also be lots of tools, but I'm not sure if those should be classified as high-end or low-end items. And, there is a cute, antique "Pinocchio" children's book as well as some novels which I actually found time to read, like "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis.

Should you reside in Provo, Utah, which is 30 hours and 21 minutes from Salem, Va. (we did confirm this!), you can always fly. I think Delta Airlines would have the best route.

But, we know you will probably settle for watching "Antiques Roadshow." The episode which is reportedly airing in most markets tonight was taped in Billings, Montana. Assuredly, that town is even farther away from Salem than the folks in 84601 (zip code for Provo, Utah).

For more information, you can go rickandvick.com which will hopefully have an update on the Big Sale during the week.

My mom also sells antiques and collectibles at Duke's Antiques Mall in historic Lexington, Va.

I guess now mom will have to take me out to eat at Applebee's for doing all this!


PS: We forgot to mention that the times for the Big Huge Sale are Friday from 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday.

Status Update_ Someone from E-Harmony Must Read Our Blog

Status Update for 1/26: "Wow! Someone from E-Harmony might actually be reading our blog because I was matched with an Asian girl today!"

Amazingly enough, after saying that I would like to see E-Harmony match me with an Asian girl, and a few hours later, that's exactly what happened.

Since local newspapers appear to be waging an uphill battle against new media, we thought we'd mention a couple of good small town newspapers.

For starters, there is "The Carrboro Citizen" in Carrboro, NC, which adjoins Chapel Hill at the Flying Pig at the Crook's Corner restaurant (if you've been to Chapel Hill, you'll get the joke).

Their headline story this week is that Benjamin Charis told a gathering at the First Baptist Church in Chapel Hill to be renew efforts to remember Martin Luther King, Jr., and his legacy. Personally, I consider "The Carrboro Citizen" to be the best community newspaper in the Tarheel State.

As for my alma mater "The Salem Times-Register" in Salem, Va. (I worked there as a reporter from 1996-97), one of the stories on their web sites is that Cynthia Munley (who happens to be a personal friend) got her husband Frank Munley, a professor at Roanoke College, a portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr., marching from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., as done by artist Adam Reinhard.

In international news, we learned (from the radio actually) that a 32-year-old woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina, attempted suicide by jumping from the 23rd floor of her hotel only to collide with an incoming taxi which broke her fall and ironically saved her life. Of course, she is now 'in hospital' (as the Brits say) recovering from her injuries.