outskirts: life and times in charlottesville

The Fins losing rolled along against the Bills last Sunday. I hadn’t had the energy to mention it here for the past week. Losing has been a 100% sure thing every single week for the past year. Although they lost, they did make the news this week. A new quarterback will finally start. An old running back is coming back after 18 months of “vacation.”

It is so exciting to be starting the Beck dynasty. It will be fun to see if Ricky can still run (can’t play until the Pittsburgh prime time game).

It is almost dawn. Will the sun come up?

OK..Fins are now 0-8. Half way to the first 16 game winless season in history. Ugh. At least Ginn caught his first touchdown in England (first regular season NFL game outside the US).

Just before the 2nd half kickoff an event of interest occurred that they wouldn’t show. They just focussed the cameras on fans up in the stands and said, “We won’t show you what is happening, but I thought this went out of style in the states a few years ago.”

Someone had a camera Definitely the highlight of the game.

Yet another loss for the Fins. 0-6. If they didn’t play the Jets later this year I’d be willing to be my life savings that they won’t win this season. Every week there are glimpses of potential, but it is equivalent to finding a diamond in a coal mine.

The day I moved to this village is the day the Fins started becoming a bad team. They have continued to get worse and worse as I have lived here. If they lose next week (against the best team in the NFL) they will establish a new record for the club by starting out 0-7. The worst start in the 50 year history of the team. Truly sad. Watching the Fins in the past three years makes me feel as happy as these locals. At least guns are easy to buy in this state. Waiting time….0 days. What you can do with the gun…priceless.

Next up…unbeaten New England. Prediction for game: NE 73, Miami 17. Of course, the last time the Fins won was against NE in December 2006 (that’s right…the Fins haven’t won in ten months). Is that a 400 carat diamond over there in my garbage can?

Of all the games that the Fins play this season, this was the one that they had a chance to win (the mediocre team from Houston). Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The players tried. But if you don’t have it, you can’t do it (no matter what Nike says). Trent Green had his head almost knocked off and will never play again in the NFL, so the Fins will get to see younger and younger players getting chances on the field for the rest of the season.

It is now eight straight losses for the Fins. When will the embarrassment end?

At least the team seemed to really try today. The coach made some questionable decisions.

I continue to be amazed that I remain a fan of the Dolphins. They are without a doubt one of the bottom few teams in the NFL. No one has ever gone 0-16, but when looking at the schedule you can easily see it happening. On the positive side, they managed to get more than 50 yards from the running game and have scored more in each game of the season thus far (13, 20, and 28). On the negative side, the D can’t stop anyone on third down. It really doesn’t matter if it is 3rd and 1 or 3rd and 42. The opposition will always be successful (or at least 80% of the time). There is no way to win if you do that.

Next week they play the Raiders. Slim chance of a win…but no matter what I keep picking them in my pool. I pick them every single week. It is almost like I give everyone else in the pool a 16 game lead. Oh well.

I had a lot of time to think about the Fins on Saturday morning when I started the day out by running a 5k race at a relatively slow pace, and then continued on for another 15 miles. 18 miles in one morning. Definitely my longest run so far. It was hot and humid. The south continues to broil. Sunday is almost over. Another week is about to begin. The village will continue in its state of stagnation.

So while Al Groh was off in the NFL did he learn how to do illicit taping activities? Seems he took a bit of a flip the bird page approach when questioned about a few suspicious statement related to the 2 point victory over the football powerhouse of North Carolina. The article started out, “The challenged field goal seen ’round the ACC still has legs.” Did anyone actually see this event? Oh well…this week UVA plays Georgia Tech, and I don’t think 3 points will make much of a difference.

I personally think the only cheating going on is the fact that as the football coach he makes $1.7mill/yr (plus all sorts of bonuses) and grad students make less than $20k/yr. UVA cares about education…sports education

The Fins are continuing the same trend as the past seven years. They always seem to have just a bit of hope during the game, but they ALWAYS manage to lose. A critical error here, a critical error there. Critical errors everywhere.

Being a fan of the Fins is just like living in Charlottesville. You always think there might be a bright side, but when you get to the heart of the matter, the whole thing is just a pile of shit sitting inside a burning bag. And like a ludicrously stupid local I just keep stomping on the bag.

It is somewhat comical that the day I moved here is the day the Fins became the least feared team in the NFL.

In a battle of two miserable teams from last year, the Fins managed to lose to the Skins. It was rather ugly on both sides of the ball, but Miami won in terms of dropped passes on third down, and exhausted D in the latter portions of the game.

The offensive line woes of the Fins are still glaring. The current group just can’t run block. Pass blocking is a bit better…but not by much.

At least there is hope for the future. This year will be a struggle, but a few key players and they could actually make a run for the playoffs next year. I still have my insane view that they will make it to the Super Bowl this year (they haven’t been eliminated from the playoffs yet), but in reality I hope they can get eight wins. It won’t be easy..especially since I was hoping the Skins would be one.

The Fins have lots of new faces from the coach to the punt returner…and everything in between. They can’t get any worse than right now…winless. Fifteen games to go. Maybe fifteen wins.

PS. On a side note, I think the locals are all happy in hoo-ville, since UVA managed to beat the football powerhouse of Duke…the team that hasn’t won a game in three years. Of course it was a nail biter in the 4th quarter…

Football season has arrived. The NFL preseason has ended and I’m sure Dolphins will go to the Super Bowl The U of Virginny is taking on that powerhouse Wyoming today. If they don’t win by 35 it will be indicative of yet another mediocre team, although I have a feeling with their very weak schedule they will easily make it to a bowl game and get then get crushed.

Michigan scored a TD in no time at all on their first drive, but then let a really fast little guy catch a pass and sprint away from the entire D. Will Appalachian State score again and make it a fun game? Or will it end up as a blowout. I’m going to go with the latter.

My marathon training rolls along. I rolled over the 100 mile mark on my iPod this week (I may make it over 16k on my 2001 car later this month!). My long run of the week last weekend was 13 miles. I’m heading up to 14 tomorrow at a very slow pace. 26 still sounds intimidating.

Update: Wow. The Appalachian’s pulled out one of the biggest upsets in the history of college sports. What a game. A pity the U of M season has ended already.

As the unbearably hot summer rolled on, the number of my posts dwindled down to nothing. How can anyone survive in the south? Summer is brutal. It is hot. It sucks all creativity out of humans. Our drought has been going on so long that we can no longer use water. No car washing. No water at restaurants (unless you beg). No watering dying plants in your yard. No fountains. No swimming pools. I really wonder why nothing has been done since our last drought four? years ago. The locals say plans are being made for a decade from now. Is that helpful? What about the next five years? One can only hope a hurricane drifts up here…of course if the wind blows the power goes.

Fall has trickled in. Over the weekend we had our first day under 90 in many moons. The other exciting thing is that the UVA students have returned. Many parents were with their kids this morning at the local malls buying them a wealth of “necessary” things. What mom and dad didn’t know is that their kids were out partying last night. Parties were going on all over town. Pills were flying. Alcohol was pouring. Things were getting torched. In Belmont there was a rather large party. Eventually four police cars appeared. Thirty minutes later things had quieted down and local residents got to sleep before 3am.

I feel sorry for the local police at this time of the year. UVA consists of about 18,000 students and 19,000 employees. During the summer that number is miniscule. In one day a wealth of criminalistic behavior appears. Due to lack of funding there is absolutely no way they can deal with it all. Since C-Ville consists of about 22,000 people (the city loves to include students in the population totals so they can get additional funds) the influx is crushing. All I know is I want some sleep tonite. I hope the parties have ended. Either C-Ville should give up and just tell UVA to provide all security, or UVA should realize that C-Ville is just the outlying dorm, and send some security out here. As for cameras to prevent crime in the historic downtown area…the tribal elders have decided to “think about it” for awhile before anything happens. Perhaps they will just live off interest on the 2.3 million sitting around to improve the mall rather than actually trying to improve it. What about updating the sign that says Subway? How much would that cost?

I signed up for the Richmond Marathon which is in November. The DC marathon sold out before I could enter. Will I get to run by some “The South Will Rise Again” statues while running the marathon there? I’m still wondering if I can survive a full marathon. Not hopeful at this point.

Before my b-day this year I bought an iPod nano with the Nike+Sensor (but not Nike shoes, just a little holder to put it on my New Balance). This toy is so much fun. I love being able to track the distance/time of every run I do. I’m using the online Nike site so I can see every run, weekly totals, monthly totals, etc. I also took a peek at the XML files that get stored on my iPod. Far more info available in those files, but haven’t really had the energy to look any closer. I did 11 miles this weekend. Next weekend I’m going for a 12.5 mile run. Slowly building up my distance.

Preseason football has cranked up. The Fins are 2-0 and both games had a duplicate finish. The Fins future QB drove for the winning touchdown at the end and was successful on a two point conversion to give them a one point victory. As always…I’m a bit delusional and think the Fins can make it to the Super Bowl.

I have a feeling the UVA fans are also delusional and think they will have a good team. They aren’t in the top 25, but did get a few votes (how many were by people named Groh?). I have a feeling Groh is enjoying his $1mil/year more than coaching at this point of his career. The best thing UVA has going for them is that their schedule is trivial. If they can’t win seven games AND a bowl game…

Blogging is rolling along again. It may take me awhile to get going once again…but I’m still around. I put up a new poll…asking about your favorite local news source (online of course…is there another way?). I know what my answer is already. Should anything else be included? Let me know and I’ll put it up there as a choice.

Everyone has to keep eating…even when blogging…right? So I have at least one restaurant rumor. Who goes to Kiki’s? I heard through the grapevine that they might be getting just a bit short on the cash side of things.

I still haven’t gotten around to digging through my Aritni 2007 photos. The worst part about this village is that if you don’t work seven days a week, fourteen hours a day you can’t afford to eat…so free time is severely limited. One of these days. Perhaps I should listen to more music…very relaxing….right? At least for these unlucky seven.