"Frosted Monkey Testicles!"

The above photo of monkeys swimming in a hot spring in the otherwise frozen Himalayas is a good reminder to me that even when the surroundings appear bleak, there's always something good within it.

Take the Sunday Funnies for instance. When I was a kid growing up in the late 1950's and early 60's, we'd get a Sunday newspaper and the comic pages were just crammed full of great strips. I'd devour those eight pages from start to finish (okay; maybe I did only glance at "Apt. 3-G" and "Mary Worth", but otherwise...). And then in the afternoon after we came home from church (yes. I actually attended on a regular basis back then), we'd go over to my Great Aunt & Uncle's house and they got a different Sunday newspaper with a different set of Funnies; one that contained such classics as Hal Foster's "Prince Valiant", and "Flash Gordon" by Mc ("Capt. Marvel, JR") Raboy, and other strips like "Popeye" and "Maggie & Jiggs" (aka: "Bringing Up Father"), and I'd just eat dem up as well!

But currently, the Sunday Funnies we get around here aren't much to look at. They've been reduced over the years from a full eight pages with NO advertisements, to 4 pages, some of which do indeed contain ads. The only one I get is the paper out of Bowling Green, KY. called Daily News. I used to buy this paper just off-and-on, but one day I discovered that Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz were taking over "Prince Valiant", and being a fan of these creators I started buying it every Sunday, and haven't stopped yet. They've breathed new life into a strip that I felt had died with its original creator. This team has been on the strip since March of last year and have created a new saga of Valiant and his son going off again to seek adventure, and I'll have to admit, the story's got me hooked!


Otherwise I sorta skim the rest of the comics, looking at "Peanuts" or maybe "Beetle Bailey" and ignoring the rest. But, at least in the disaster that the Sunday Funnies have become, there IS something good within them.


Also today, I want to present a link to the Birthday Calculator which I found pretty interesting. It tells you all about what was going on when you were born, how long you've lived in years, months, minutes...even seconds! Plus it has some other neat links I think you'll enjoy.