Olympic Cities Distance Quiz (3 of 6)- Barcelona to Beijing

Today, we head from Barcelona, Spain, where they are likely still in jubilation after defeating Italy 4-0 in the Euro 2012 Soccer Cup, to Beijing, China, where James Fallows of "The Atlantic" seems to spend a lot of time (forgive the frequent magazine reader humor).

The 1992 Barcelona Olympics were the ones which featured the Dream Team which represented the United States. The team which featured Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan beat the African nation of Angola 116-48 in one preliminary game, but hopefully the Angolans got some autographs afterwards.

In women's gymnastics in Barcelona, Tatiana Gutsu of Romania edged American gymnast Shannon Miller for all-around individual gold; Russian swimmers Alexander Popov (pictured) and Yevgeny Sadovyi won five gold medals between them.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, American gymnast Nastia Liukin (pictured here) edged out teammate Shawn Johnson for all-around individual gold; American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals?!


So, today we ask how far a part are these cities; is the answer?:

A) 5,180 miles

B) 5,480 miles

C) 5,680 miles

D) 5,980 miles

UPDATE: The answer is B

Quote of the Day/Week_ Pablo Picasso

Today's quote of the day comes from the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) who would be celebrating the fact that his country will play against Italy in the Euro Cup 2012 Championships, but if he were alive today, Picasso would be 110 years old (he was born in October, yeah, we double-checked on Google).

We are quoting Picasso because he is one of the subjects of the Unemployed Philosophers Guild plush toy doll series; these items usually retail for circa $17.95.

Since we spent way too much time quoting Andy Warhol on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire," which gets more traffic than this blog, except in Slovenia and Ukraine, we will go ahead and just quote Picasso here:

"Every positive value has its price in negative terms....the genius of Einstein lead to Hiroshima."

SIDEBAR ONE: We learned today from the Urban Dictionary that one of the new words of the moment is 'dorkus malorkus,' which is Latin for dork. The term originated in an episode of "The Simpsons," where Bart, who would now be 31 if he aged in real time, uses this term to express disdain towards his sister.

SIDEBAR TWO: Among the topics trending on Twitter as of 8:00 p.m., Belfast, Maine*, time, are: Obamacare, John Roberts, a trio of NBA draft basketball players: Andre Drummond, Austin Rivers and Harrison Barnes as well as Bill Bell, the mayor of Durham, NC, where "The Herald-Sun" is the local newspaper. Ok, the last one is a joke, Mayor Bell, who is a real person with his own Wikipedia page, is not trending on Twitter, but his hometown minor league baseball team the Durham Bulls host the Norfolk Tides for the Fourth of July. The city is also home to Duke University where Austin Rivers played college basketball.

*- We are not actually in Belfast, Maine, as of this posting, but it is a lovely town, and we see that the Colonial Theatre (a historic cinema there) is screening "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."


http://www.colonialtheatre.com

http://www.cinematreasures.org

http://www.pablopicasso.org

http://www.philosophersguild.com

http://www.durhamnc.gov

http://www.heraldsun.com

Quote of the Day_ Sigmund Freud

We sense that we will not be getting blog hits from Spain or Portugal today, as those two countries are playing each other in the Euro Cup 2012 semi-finals in Ukraine. And, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), whom we will be quoting today, is not likely to be trending. In fact, according to Bing today, the following topics are trending: Syrian TV raid, Rainbow Oreos, Waldo Canyon fire (near Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Science girl ad.

But, we are quoting Freud because he is one of the figures who has a plush toy doll made in his honor from the American novelty company The Unemployed Philosophers Guild. We also saw a promotion for Freudian Slippers in a "Mental Floss" magazine catalog. We contemplated getting them for my sister Aysegul Denizli (that is not her real name, and our apologies to at least one person with that name in Turkey) in Salt Lake City, Utah (not where my sister lives), but we don't always have the same sense of humor. Although we both love Wes Anderson movies, alas his latest film "Moonrise Kingdom" has yet to open in my market as of today.

Here is Freud's quote:

"A certain amount of neurosis is of inestimable values as a drive, especially to a psychologist."

http://www.mentalfloss.com

http://www.philosophersguild.com

http://www.freudfile.org

UPDATE: The answer to our Olympic Cities Distance Quiz from a few days back is B.

Quote of the Day/Week- James Joyce

Although Ireland has had what can be objectively qualified as a dismal Euro 2012 Cup with big losses to Croatia (3-1) and Spain (4-0), they are still among the 16 countries in the tournament so hence we are quoting a famous Irishman.

That person is the legendary novelist and poet James Joyce (1882-1941) whose novel "Ulysses" has been considered to be among the best ever written in the English novel.

There is also a statue of Joyce in Dublin.

Here is his quote:

"Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part that schools cannot recognize."

http://visitireland.com

www.jamesjoyce.ie

Quote of the Day/Week- Salvador Dali

Since he is as quotable as the Irish playwright/novelist Oscar Wilde, we are once again quipping the great Spanish surreal master Salvador Dali (1904-1989) who is considered, along with Pablo Picasso, to be Spain's most popular artist.

His famous works include "The Persistence of Memory" (1934) also known as 'The clock painting,' you have probably seen it merchandized in some form or another. There is a Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Dali was also portrayed by Adrien Brody in Woody Allen's latest film "Midnight in Paris."

Here is the quote, which one could certainly share with guys who might seem like 'real-life Charlie Browns:'

"Have no fear of perfection_ you'll never reach it."

UEFA Madness- Our 2,000th Entry

Perhaps, of all the millions of blog entries posted from Denver to Diyarbakir to Dubai to Pyonyang, this is the very first one to feature both Ciao, the mascot of the 1990 World Cup in Italy and Nasreddin Hoca, the famed Turkish folk figure, who is known for riding a donkey backwards.

We are using Ciao because yesterday proved to be a very good one for the Italian soccer team Napoli (more on that later), and we are utilizing the Hoca because this is our 2,000th entry. We were trying to think of a person who could represent longevity and it came down to the Hoca and Noah, of Noah's Ark fame. Ironically, Noah's Ark landed on Mount Ararat which is in modern Turkey.

Getting back to futbol, Napoli beat the Spanish team Villareal 2-0 yesterday with goals from Gokhan Inler (65th min.) a Swiss national of Turkish heritage, and Marek Hamsik, the Slovakian superstar, who is co-captain of Napoli and captain of the Slovakian national team (we almost mistook him for a Czech!).

With the victory, Napoli was able to advance to the round of 16 along with Bayern Munich who won Group A in spite of losing to Manchester City 2-0.

But, the strangest game of the day occured in Zagreb, Croatia, where the home team Dinamo Zagreb shockingly got savagely beaten by a Hungry Lyon as the French poured it on in a 7-1 victory. Though Lyon was expected to win, only the most partisan Lyon fans could have expected such an outcome. The game was a particularly glorious one for Bafetimbi Gomis, as the French player of Senegalese heritage scored an amazing four goals (45th min; 48th min; 52nd min; and 70th min.). With the lopsided win, Lyon was thus able to pass Ajax Amsterdam and get the second slot in Group D behind Real Madrid.

Despite resting many superstar starters, Real Madrid went to the Netherlands and came out with a 3-0 win over Ajax Amsterdam. The star of the day for Real Madrid, a team that won its league with a perfect 18 points (each team gets three points for a win, and one point for a tie), was the Spanish player Jose Callejon, who scored in the 14th minute and in the 92nd minute (extra time) of play.

Jose Callejon's twin brother plays for Hercules, another Spanish League team. His club teammate Hamid Altintop, a German-born Turkish national, also has a twin brother Halil Altintop, who plays soccer. Alas, for Halil Altintop, Wednesday was not much of a celebratory day as his team Trabzonspor (Turkey) tied Lille (France) by a score of 0-0 in Group B, which knocked both teams out.

Here is a complete list of scores from Wednesday's UEFA action; the other games not mentioned in this entry are covered in our sister blog "The Daily Vampire:"

*-Denotes team which advanced

y- Denotes team that won its group

z-Denotes that winner won an upset

Group A

*Napoli 2 Villareal 0

Manchester City 2 *y Bayern Munich 0

Group B

*z CSKA Moscow 2 *y Inter Milan 1

Trabzonspor 0 Lille 0, tie

Group C

*y Benefica (Portugal) 1 Otelul Galati (Romania) 0

*z FC Basel (Swit.) 2 Manchester United 1

Group D

*y Real Madrid 3 Ajax Amsterdam 0

* Lyon 7 Dinamo Zagreb 1

Quote of the Week- Francesco Totti

Since 2011 is the 150th year of Italy as a republic, we thought we'd quote famous Italians this month. After ice cream and pizza, the country is arguably best known for soccer and opera. Hence, the reason why we are quoting Francesco Totti (b.1976) here and the late opera megastar Luciano Pavorotti (1935-2007) on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire."

Totti is the captain of the Italian Serie A team Roma, and he has scored more goals than any in the league with 207 career goals.

But, he was only six years old when Paolo Rossi scored the game-winning goal against Germany to the 1982 World Cup in Spain. I watched that game as a 12-year-kid in the resort of Fethiye, Turkey, where many German fans were drinking beer and looking, well, pretty disgusted really.

Here is the quote from Totti:

"We will work as a group, we need to be a real team, that is the only way to go far."

Hmmmm....yeah, athletes, aside from Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson, aren't as good quote source materials as well people like opera singers!

Weekend Road Trip (7 of 20)_ Lynchburg, Va. to Wilmington, Del.

Well, since our entry on our other blog "The Daily Vampire" took as long to do as writing a term paper on "War and Peace" or a Wikipedia entry on the life of its author Leo Tolstoy, we are going to try to streamline the designated time for this entry.

Today, we are looking at the distance between Wilmington, Del., and Lynchburg, Va. The two cities have teams in the Carolina League, which is a single-A minor league baseball division. They happen to play each other in Lynchburg on Monday night at 6:05 p.m.

The Lynchburg Hillcats won a double-header over the Frederick Keys in Maryland today by a 3-2 and 2-1 count. Down in North Carolina, the Wilmington Blue Rocks split their own double-header with the Winston-Salem Dash. The visitors won the first game 10-2, but fell 3-2 in the night-cap.

For this entry, we are going to examine the distance between Macado's, a Roanoke, Va-based regional restaurant chain, which has a location on Candlers Mountain Road in Lynchburg, and the Deep Blue Bar and Grill in Wilmington, Del.

Since Lynchburg is mostly known for being the home to Liberty University and the Mall of America-sized mega church that is Thomas Road Baptist Church where the late Rev. Jerry Falwell preached, we thought we would go against the city's stereotype as a beacon of fundamentalism and arch right-wing politics by featuring an image from the 1970's tv-show "The Waltons." *(Hmmm....maybe, since it is now officially Easter Sunday, we should refrain from making fun of fervent fundamentalists....nah!).

Of course, Delaware is known for being the home state of Vice President Joe Biden, who surreally looks like Rev. Falwell here!

We must profess that Mapquest's suggested time of travel for this trip is probably only doable at 4:00 a.m., which is almost what time it is now!, because the route would go through both Washington, DC, and Baltimore, but we are going with what they say here!

So, is the answer:

A) Five Hours

B) Five Hours, 30 minutes

C) Six Hours, 30 minutes

D) Seven Hours

The answer to last week's road trip quiz is C) as it takes about 12 hours and ten minutes to get from Hagerstown, Md., to Chatanooga, Tenn.

Also, we heard an interesting segment on the BBC World Service about why it might be unwise to give out to much info about yourself on the Internet as many employers around the world google applicants' names to see if there is a Youtube video of the applicant dancing with a lamp shade over his or her head while intoxicated.

Since I now have over 2,000 blog entries with my name, Dennis Alexander**, attached to it perhaps I am into deep. But, I've never danced with a lamp shade on my head. And, apparently, the government in Spain is trying to get Google to prevent such potentially embarrassing info from infringing upon the rights of its citizens. Hmmm....I wonder how Clarence Thomas would feel about this one!

*- "The Waltons" took place on Afton Mountain near Charlottesville, Va. It is about one hour, 15 minutes north of Lynchburg

**-Dennis Alexander is a pseudonymn and an in-joke. If Donald Trump is visiting our blog, we want him to know that Mr. Alexander did vote for John McCain (it was in the 2000 Republican primary in Virginia to make sure George W. Bush wouldn't become prez. Oh well!).

Quote of the Week- Pablo Picasso

You know an artist is a legend when he or she has two major exhibitions going on in two totally different parts of the globe simultaneously. And, that is the case for the late Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) who was the first artist I had ever heard of as a child (saw his name in a kid's book, textbook or magazine, I think). Currently, one can see his paintings at either the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Switzerland, until Jan. 30 or the Ben Brown Fine Arts Center in Hong Kong (China), until Jan. 28.

Here is the quote which folks at Project Plase, a homeless organization in Baltimore, Md., would definitely disagree with, especially since there could a ton of snow in Maryland starting tomorrow. But, though we disagree with Picasso's sentiment here- unless someone wants to bring their cousin Charles Manson home for Thanksgiving, it is certainly amusing:

"Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?"

Quote of the Week- Salvador Dali

This quote of the week seems appropriate given that NPR did a story on narcissicism (ie. Me Syndrome) today in which apparently scientists and psychologists (or the other way around) or trying to determine if it is a psychological disorder of some sort. Wow, this tie is really awesome. Too bad you can't see it!

Our quip is from the iconic Spanish artist Salvador Dali:

"Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme joy---that of being Salvador Dali."

Dali was apparently a major influence on artist Jeff Koons, who some see as a Warholian genius and some see as a kitschy rip-off artists.

Of course, since this is not an art blog per se, and we don't judge people by their art but only their politics (insert Glenn Beck put down here), we will refrain from our views on Koons's works.

But, we can say that after wiki'ing him, we saw that one of his works, "Puppy," a 43-foot topiary sculpture in Bilboa, Spain, is quite towering.

Koons is also known for balloon animals, such as ones involving inflatable flowers. And, one of his pieces apparently sold at auction for over $5 million, which means that the artist is now presumably rich enough to buy his own work!