outskirts: life and times in charlottesville

Seems as if a UVA first year student decided to do a little ‘old school protesting’ and got taken down by a crowd as he asked George Allen why he spit in the face of his first wife. When the Senator didn’t respond the student decided to become “aggressive.” I wonder why the student didn’t just stand on a railing and start screaming macaca over and over again. Macaca…macaca…macaca…And then the bananas would start flying.

This story even made it on to Drudge earlier today (when C-Ville makes it to drudge you know the town will be stoked the next day). If only I had been there to get a picture or two of the take down. I wonder if they roughed him up? Will he now get sent to Guantanamo? Never mess with Allen…he’ll shoot you, chop your head off, and stick it in a mailbox (if you are a minority). He is one tough ass dude.

WCAV story
Daily Progress story
NBC29 story
And of course The Hook

Smoothy or smoothie? Green or not? Can you get one in Vegas?

After a week in Vegas I am not feeling particularly healthy, so I have decided to try to eat more veggies. I’m going to try to create my own green smoothie by blending spinach, romaine lettuce, some other green thing I forgot the name of, carrots, apples, bananas, oatmeal, yogurt, OJ, and cranberry juice. One of those green monsters will be one meal/day.

If I survive the first one I’ll let you know. To make the green smoothy I unpacked my Cuisinart for the first time in many years (I hope it still works). It was wrapped with chunks of the NYTimes from July 23, 1998. I’m sure it was heading in to a storage facility at the time. It hasn’t seen the light of day since then. It was a bit of a time capsule. The paper discussed DeBartalo’s leaving of the 49er’s, a Chinese gymnast that fell and would probably never walk again, the explosion of “ancient drugs” (such as ginseng) on the health/supplement market, and Alan Greenspan telling us to be cautious about the market. There weren’t articles about 9/11, Iraq, North Korea, global warming, terror alert levels, or political corruption. Oh wait…that last one was in there. Oh well.

I’ve done no exercise at all (other than walking a million miles) in the past week. Today was the typical sunny and 74 degrees so I went out for a run. It was close to pitch black when I got back at six. Ugh. I didn’t feel very good. Tomorrow a light workout. There is a 5k this Saturday morning. Should be around 40 degrees at that time.

And if interested (and you have read this far)…a few shots from Vegas.

For yet another weekend the ABC station associated with the capital of Virginia (the most important city or town of a country or region) has no HD broadcast. My guess is the execs of the station are out smoking some cigs while discussing the fact that the south shall rise again (they love them ol’ days o’ slavery). I’m sure the tech employees are doing everything they can with the bones the management throw to them.

Adelphia cable continues to string cables here in C-Ville (they worked all weekend). Does this mean the bankrupt cable company that is five years behind the world in technology may be gearing up for some HD cable this decade? Probably not. I just know I won’t live through another new TV season without technology that has been around for many years. Living in this primitive state is killing me. I wonder what the suicide rate is here in VA. Anyone know? Be sure to exclude NOVA…since they DO have HD there…and technology…among other civilized things.

Update: After 59 minutes out of 60 DH flipped to HD on WRIC. Did an exec stumble to the outskirts? How can VA stations improve this? I’ll let you know next week after I gamble a bit.

Shows have been coming and going (some things sure get cancelled quickly!), but the season has mostly settled in for the fall. For what it is worth, here are the shows I consider worth watching (Sunday through Friday..since Saturday is usually a movie or sports or…). The + indicates shows I really don’t want to miss.

Sunday
8 PM Simpsons (+)
8 PM The Amazing Race (+)
9 PM Desperate Housewives (+)
9:30 PM The War At Home

Monday
8 PM How I Met Your Mother
8 PM Prison Break (+)
9 PM Heroes
10 PM Studio 60 (+)

Tuesday
8 PM Friday Night Lights
9 PM House
10 PM Boston Legal (+)

Wednesday
8 PM 30 Rock
8 PM Jericho
8 PM Bones
9 PM Lost (+)

Thursday
8 PM Survivor (+)
8:30 PM The Office (+)
9 PM Grey’s Anatomy
10 PM Shark

Friday
10 PM Numbers

A few new shows have trickled in this year. Shark, Heroes (gotta love all the Star Trek references), Studio 60, Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock, and Jericho. The lattermost show is definitely the closest to making it off my list. 30 Rock is still rather new and has some potential as a sitcom, but I’m not yet sold on it. Friday Night Lights is a quality production but the time slot isn’t great for it. Heroes is just plain bizarre sometimes to the point where I’m not sure if I follow it all. Some episodes have bored me until the final five minutes…but it keeps me hanging on. Shark is a brutally formulaic lawyer dramedy (so far every script has been identical), but James Woods makes it amusing. Studio 60 is definitely my favorite, but it has been sinking in the ratings. I hope they give it a full season to develop…or at least film a full season and get it out on DVD.

There were (and some are still on) some shows that were rather high quality in nature, but the scripts just couldn’t keep me interested (Six Degrees and The Nine both come to mind). Others such as Kidnapped and Captured (or some such name) were all cloned from some early version of 24. One episode = 1 hour of real time = 1 day of plot line…with someone getting kidnapped. Ugh. Some of the new sitcoms were destined for cancellation from the day the were put on, and one that I found rather funny (but predicted early death) was canned after one episode aired (4pm…martini hour). And of course there were new game shows. How many buffoons will watch one buffoon try to beat the minds of a 100 while looking at 50 mostly naked women standing in front of a briefcase? I’m so boggled that people continue to watch these. Luckily they are getting ready to start Name That Tune next year with Donny Osmond as the host. Hey Donny, I can name that tune in three notes. Twang, twing, tweet. Is it “I Leashed My Nig Bitchin Ho’s” by Master DD? Yes! You win $5 after taxes. Yippee. [Story of interest]

If you want to know why I do/don’t watch something, just leave a comment and I’ll probably drop a reply.

There are still a few shows that haven’t even made it out yet, so stay tuned…

The Fins are truly the worst team in the NFL. If they played the Raiders the Fins would find some way to lose the game. If the Fins win one more game this year it would be a miracle along the lines of Jesus walking on water or a virgin giving birth.

The Fins have entirely wasted this season and make errors at every key juncture in the game. As usual, the game reflects my life. Critical errors. Wasted decade.

It is time to head off to Vegas and lay it all on the line. $50k on red 35?

Click image to visit Flickr and read more about this shot

Yet another reason to truly despise this place….on Saturday the vast majority of the nation will get to see a top ranked team play another top ranked team. Here in the hills we get to see two rinky-dink ACC teams battle it out.

Why are we subjected to this hell? Because the local ABC station that is over the Virginny mountain wouldn’t give me permission to get the national ABC feed from my satellite provider. They think I like ANYTHING related to this local hell. I know I don’t like the plethora of smokers that dominate the scenery around here.

In the Cavalier Daily there was an article about life around here. “Free burritos, a shutout win; a good day to live in C’ville. It was a monumental day yesterday in Charlottesville. Virginia’s football team beat North Carolina and it was free burrito day at the new Chipotle on Barracks Road…” Was this a sarcastic statement? Perhaps having the local team beat a truly miserable team and getting a free burrito is the highlight of existence here in this cyst.

In any event, having a llama running around in a village this size is bound to be a big headline new story. Right? Of course. Read all about the llama on the loose. I hope it doesn’t meet up with the rabid bobcat. At least it won’t have to meet up with the Daler. He caused a big slow down of the rush hour traffic (oh the horror). Eventually he was shot in a massive manhunt. Oh the excitement. Will it ever end?

Have you seen this man?

For those of you that forgot…last week he tried to ‘Dale’ his girlfriend right on Court Square with a gun. It seems he has been hanging out in the local Holiday Inn for the past few days and made a call to a local elementary school. For the second time in a week the school was locked down.

While researching this story (to find the link about the bus crash last year…to refute the ’sending kids home safely on the bus’ statement) I stumbled upon our local RIDS (Rescue Incident Delivery System). It has been updated three times while I’ve been typing this.

PS…I also found the bus crash report while digging: November 18, 2005 - Route 29 - At 1612 hours, Rescue 1 was dispatched for the report of a MVA involving two school busses. Crews arrived on scene to find two loaded school busses carrying a total of 57 students were involved in a rear-end collision. In total, 39 students were uninjured, 8 were treated at the scene and released to their parents, and 10 were transported to UVA Medical Center by ambulance for treatment.

A typical day on the historic (i.e. older than 1990) downtown mall. I don’t see many pedestrians. I do see a road and a truck. The road is being repaired. You know how it goes when all those cars and trucks zoom along the pedestrian mall. I guess we’ll be getting some good potholes this winter (assuming we have a winter). I hope pedestrians don’t get hit by cars sliding along the icy road.

When will the village elders rename this chuck of road the historic strip mall? One of the new tenants (a cheesy sort of place that takes reservations) of the strip mall was pretty upset with the lack of parking for customers. Maybe the customers just don’t like paying $8 for a 1.5 hour dining experience in this friendly little village. Or maybe they just don’t want to park next to the Friendly Court…or even Court Square where a guy with a nascar jacket tried to shoot his girlfriend. She was almost Daled.

The Fins have lost yet another game to a very poor team. With all the other winless teams winning today the Fins are now the 2nd worst team in the league. If the Raiders win tonight Miami will be the worst team in the league.

As a team they have truly forgotten how to play the game of football. I’ve now been in this miserable backwoods state for 2608 days, and during every single one of them the Fins have gotten worse. Is there a correlation?

It is sad to be a fan of one of the two worst teams in the NFL. I imagine this is how it feels to be a fan of UVA football.

Since I live here in Virginia maybe I should go play with the typical good luck charm of those here in the state…a raccoon bone…more on this story at some point when I get over the depression of being a fan of the worst team in the NFL.