Break Time

I'm going to set precedent here and take the weekend off from posting. If I have anything compelling to add over the next two days, I'll pile on. Otherwise, I'll keep the entries in here to Monday - Friday affairs. I doubt anyone will complain.

And if you do...well, that's just sad. See you Monday.

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

As reported on cvillenews.com Thursday night, Wal-Mart is ready to build one of its megastores in the middle of downtown Louisa, located about 45 minutes east of Charlottesville off I-64.

I'm not going to wade into the Walmart-Evil-Walmart-Good sort of nuclear argument, mostly because by this point in history, virtually everything original that can be said about the subject has been. But I will say this: Mayor Jim Artz is either the most brazen or the most incompetent politician on the planet. Or both.

Here's his direct, unedited quote, courtesy of WCAV-TV (otherwise known as "The Other CBS Station on Cable. You Know, The One You Don't Watch"):

“If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

This after he directly compares Wal-Mart to Santa Claus (what's next? Is Target the Easter Bunny? Or maybe K-Mart is the Tooth Fairy...). This guy has about as much tact as Terrell Owens on MDMA.

Look, rightly or wrongly, Wal-Mart has incredible economic power, the kind that will crush anything in its way out of existence. This is what a capitalist, free-market economy allows, and even encourages. We know this. But Good God, do you really have to encourage these people? As Mayor, don't you have a responsibility to at least have some moderating influence over the situation? Don't you realize that the people you're telling to take a hike are part of the local business community that you're supposed to work for? Instead of trying to ease Wal-Mart into the community and make everybody happy, Mayor McCheese over here comes in with guns a-blazin' and napalm flying.

Why not say what you really mean, Jim? "Yeah, uh, we don't actually give a crap about having a real downtown or businesses or nothin'. Really, all we care about is getting a great deal on a 12-pack of Ivory soap for $3.99. Unless the name of your business starts with CVS, Food Lion or McDonald's, you might as well close up shop now. And if you don't like it, you can BITE ME. Hahahaha!"

On the bright side, my girlfriend (a resident of Louisa) reports that there is a lot more people upset by this Wal-Mart thing than the story on Channel 19 lets on. And for good reason. Sure, you'll get cheap products (I enjoy Wal-Mart, as mentioned in a previous post, for this very reason), but it'll wipe out the rest of your commercial goods stores in town. For a town that already has two half-empty shopping centers begging for tenants, this doesn't bode well.

Throw in a Wal-Mart, and one of the two dollar stores goes kaput (probably Dollar General), CVS is on the ropes, the discount food place across the way from CVS is probably DOA, Louisa Hardware goes up in flames, and a dozen mom-and-pops along Main Street evaporate overnight. If that's the kind of town you want, great - and the people of Louisa certainly have the right to choose that - but at least be honest with people about what's going to happen as a result. And don't be so smugly arrogant about it.

Though I don't know why Wal-Mart is even bothering with the town, given that their distro. center is in Zion Crossroads. Given how close ZC is to 64 and 15, and the fact that a whole lot of development will be going on there, and the fact that it's closer to the general Charlottesville area/further away from Richmond, you'd think that Wal-Mart would set its horizons there. Strange.

Coming Home

Tomorrow is Homecoming at UVA, and I'll be at Scott Stadium for the game. I'm not really sure what to expect, being that I haven't been to a Homecoming game (or any other game, for that matter, save for last weekend's default win over Wyoming) since I was in my last year at UVA a half-decade ago.

Back when I was in Cowtown, the games seemed to be pretty much conference affairs against weak teams like Duke, Wake Forest and NC State. (There was one year we played San Jose State, killing them by like 50 points). So there was almost always some reason to get excited over the game, no matter how minor it was. But since we've started to play non-conference games for Homecoming (Akron last year, Western Michigan this year), I don't really know how much excitement there is over the game.

There seemed to be a lot of juice in the house last weekend, though, so maybe having the alumni back will really get the place rocking. Scott Stadium can definitely be an intimidating place if the crowd gets on its feet, as Florida State found out in 2005.

Regardless of the University crowd, I think this weekend is probably the best chance Townies will have for the rest of the year to see UVA football. Being that it's Western Michigan, tickets will probably be available, as opposed to the rest of the year, where you've got Maryland, UNC, Miami and NC State. (In Cowtown, it's all ACC from here on out, baby!) Plus, kids get in for half-price tomorrow ($15 each), and it's a pretty good way to spend the afternoon. Weather should be nice, too - the Weather Channel is calling for partly cloudy skies and a balmy 75 degree high.

If you don't have plans for tomorrow, I'd say you should make 'em for Scott Stadium at 3:30. Park over at Fontaine Research Park (which is free, a price I can deal with) and walk over through the forest and past Hereford College. It should be a lot of fun.

Go Hoos!

12:53am Update - Damn. Looks like I was wrong...game's sold out. Sorry, everyone. That'll teach me not to assUme.

I'd Give Him A Dollar

Brian's Driving Adventures #2: The DC 500

What's Playing in my Head: "I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman", by The White Stripes

Quote of the Day: "[T]he secret of a successful relationship is to become irretrievably embroiled in a bitter struggle to the death." - Mil Millington

Continuing on a theme, driving in the DC area is a daily exercise in keeping your sanity. Which in turn can be an exercise in impossibility when people stoop to douchebag moves on the road. Take this one particular scenario, which has happened to no one in specific:

Two cars are driving down the road. The first car (the blue one) we'll call Brian's Car. Because it is. The second one (the red car) we'll call Jackass Lexus SUV Driver From Hell #453. Here is a sample of what happens to Brian's Car on a daily basis:









Which makes the occupant of Brian's Car look like this:


Only he looks far more handsome.

The only place I have ever seen people use an exit lane as a passing lane and think it's totally okay and legal is right here in the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area & Insane Asylum. People with common sense and a moderate ability to handle a vehicle larger than a Huffy bike do not think this is acceptable. This is the rest of the country. People who have fuck-you cars like Lexuses, Infinitis and Accuras, no common sense and affordable car insurance rates, however, do. These are the people we need to get rid of. Now.

I used to think my life would be so much better if only I had a high-intensity laser beam mounted on my hood to cut down jerknut Washington drivers for being stupid. Only, I now know that wouldn't work, because it would only wind up slicing them in half, leading them to breed like amoeba. Which, in turn, would only lead Washington highways and streets to be clogged with even more assholes who think they're the owners of the road. This would not work.

Here's my idea: We need to have an impromptu road race, in the style of the classic Grand Prix. But don't close down the roads. Only the worthy would be told to stay off the streets - like the driver of Brian's Car, for example. Then, all the drivers left on the road in the DC area could be funnelled onto the Beltway with all the off-ramps closed, and we could simply let natural selection take its course. Give it a few hours, and BAM! Problem solved.

I should go into politics.

Crap. Total Crap.

Just saw the trailer for Casino Royale, the new James Bond movie premiering in November. Words cannot describe how awful this movie looks. Since the first trailer was put online, and Daniel Craig was made the "new Bond" (aka the "new George Lazenby"), I have been calling this movie as being so awful, it'll be good. Like a train wreck of colossal proportions.

Take a look:



Don't get me wrong, I think Daniel Craig is a generally good actor. I loved Layer Cake, it was a great film with a lot of style, and he was good in it. But he's not James Bond. Good God, he's not James Bond. Someone stop the insanity.

See You At The Palace

In response to my post mentioning the new JPJ Arena at UVA, Mediocre Fred suggested that the new arena be called the Cow Palace. So it shall be. From here on out on these pages, UVA basketball will play at the Cow Palace. I think it's more than a fitting name.

On a related subject, it occurred to me on the way home from work tonight that Charlottesville suffers from a total embarrassment of riches when it comes to solid entertainment hotspots. Really, when you think about it, there's more in Cowtown than anywhere else in the state - especially when you break it down in terms of population. Here's some facts on who's got what across the Commonwealth:

Charlottesville
- Scott Stadium (football) - Capacity: 61,000
- Cow Palace (men's/women's basketball) - Capacity: 15,000
- Pavillion (concerts) - Capacity: 3,500
- Paramount Theatre (concerts/arts) - Capacity: 1,300

Richmond
- University of Richmond Stadium (football/soccer) - Capacity: 22,000
- Richmond Coliseum (basketball/hockey/football) - Capacity: 13,500
- The Diamond (baseball) - Capacity: 12,134
- Robins Center (basketball) - Capacity: 9,071
- Alltel Pavilion (basketball) - Capacity: 7,500

Northern Virginia
- Nissan Pavilion (concerts) - Capacity: 25,000
- Patriot Center (basketball/concerts/circus) - Capacity: 10,000

Tidewater/Norfolk
- Hampton Coliseum (concerts) - Capacity: 13,800
- Norfolk Scope (concerts/circus) - Capacity: 12,600
- Harbor Park (baseball) - Capacity: 12,067
- Chrysler Hall (arts) - Capacity: 2,500
- Harrison Opera House (arts) - Capacity: 1,632

Blacksburg
- Lane Stadium (football) - Capacity: 66,233
- Cassell Coliseum (basketball) - 10,052

There are more, but those are all the major ones I can remember. And no, I don't count racetracks. NASCAR isn't entertainment.

Point is, Cowtown ranks right up there with Richmond and Norfolk, two far bigger and better-known cities. For a town of less than 150,000, that's frigging incredible. Especially when you consider that the stadiums in those two cities are basically old and decaying hunks of depressing concrete, while the digs in C'ville are shiny-new and classy joints that people really like.

All of a sudden, I'm really proud of my new home. Nice.

Brian's Driving Adventures #1 - Deer God.

What's Playing in my Head: "Dangerous", by Roxette

Quote of the Day: "I feel like George Bush can bring about the Biblical Apocalype. I don't mean the 'Road Warrior, there's no gas apocalype,' or the 'Jerry Bruckheimer, the weather's going crazy apocalypse.' I mean the 'Revelation of St. John, demons coming out of the ocean, seven headed beast, all that stuff.' Because, here's the thing, I don't think Bush wants to be President, I think he wants to be The Last President!" - Patton Oswalt

Driving in Northern Virginia is an adventure, in the same sense that swallowing shards of broken glass can be considered adventurous, or maybe walking around Anacostia at midnight with white skin on. Fun! Wacky!

I discovered this once again, of course, last week when I almost got hit four - count 'em - FOUR times in a single day. The first two times, I'm sitting there on my way to get my car serviced at 9 in the morning, and I get cut off. Twice in a row. On the same road. Then, just as I get my car out of the service station, I pull out and blam, this car rockets through the stop sign and right past me.

The fourth time was the absolute worst, and you knew it had to be. So I'm driving down this windy road near my old elementary school, going downhill between two small ridges on either side of the road. When what appears but a flash before my eyes, coming from two o'clock high and five feet up on the right, darting across the road and narrowly missing a explosive and bloody collision. Anyone who has lived in the Northern Virginia region for longer than five minutes knows what it was. Say it with me...

Fucking goddamned deer.

That's right. Thank you.

I've been lucky enough over the years to have avoided plowing into one of these furbags on the way home at night. Which is quite remarkable, given that I currently live in the middle of deer alley (where all the deer of Washington hang out, drink bourbon and listen to deer jazz, ostensibly) and spend a lot of time driving on back roads in Central Virginia.

My parents, on the other hand, have both had run-ins with deer over the years - three, in fact - causing a bunch of damage to their cars. My mom even has had to jam on the brakes and come to a complete stop while a dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks buck stood motionless on the yellow line. Even nudging the thing with her bumper didn't help move it, or so the story goes.

Now deer in the Cowtown region are plentiful, as they are in NoVA. I do not contest this fact in the least. Hell, there are even bears that occasionally decide to take afternoon strolls through downtown CT. But you do not have the type of psychotic, lunatic deer that we do up here. Simply no way possible.

Deer in Central Virginia are like characters from out of Bambi, frolicking in meadows, gently chewing on grass in your backyard, occasionally finding themselves on the wrong end of a semi headed to Waynesboro. "Aww, look at the cute little deer family...So precious..." Aww.

Deer in Northern Virginia are like the squirrels from that GEICO commercial where they jump into the road, make the car swerve and crash, and then do the jive hand-slapping thing in celebration of another sweet, sadistic victory. They are dumb as rocks, but what makes them even worse is the fact that in the dark recesses of their pea-sized brains, NoVA deer are fully aware that they are out to get you. They will hang out by the sides of roads in the dead of night, inches away from getting crushed. They will dart in front of cars heading 60 miles an hour just for the sheer thrill of playing in traffic. They will ensure that every leaf of your $500 gardening project is turned into fine, fine deer chow. Guaranteed.

Whistles do not faze these creatures of evil. Nor do deer scents, bars of soap, honking horns, or just screaming at them. They're like Dracula with a stopped-up nose and sunscreen: they're invincible.

If there's one thing that gives me comfort, it's Ron White's approach to deer. Which can be quoted thusly:

--

My cousin Ray on the other hand thinks that killin' a deer with a deer rifle is like magic in the forest. And now, I would like to do for you now my impression of my cousin Ray after the big kill.

CR: "Hell, it was four in the mornin', 22 degrees outside. 'Course, you weren't there. Pussy. I'm in a camouflaged deer blind. I've got grease paint on my face and deer urine on my boots. I'm not sure why." - I made that part up - "I've got a 30-06 with a laser scope. This baby will fire a bullet 2200 feet per second. When that deer looked up to lick the salt sucker I hunged from the danged ol' tree...caught him right above the eye."

RW: "Yeah, well, I hit one with a van goin' fifty-five miles an hour with the headlights on and the horn a-blowin'!"

--

There have been controversies in the DC area (mostly Montgomery County) over the years about allowing bow hunting to thin the psychotic, demon deer population in the region, which is getting just about as bad as it can without every house in suburbia turning to venison for breakfast. Me, I think they should just make it easy on us all and give us all Hummer H2s.

One Hummer per house, one weekend a year. The thought of whipping around Breakneck Mill Road in Reston at 2 am popping deer left and right with the titanium grill of my sweet H2 is enough to bring a small tear to my eye. It'd just be me doing my part to control the wild animal population, the only responsible thing to do, really.

Really.

Wake Up, Maggie Moo...

I like to think that I support the little guy, although I haven't really done that much until just recently. I shop at Wal-Mart and Target, eat at Chili's and get my hair clipped at SuperCuts. And I'll probably keep doing it until I'm six feet in the ground.

But there are a couple of little places I like, which brings me to Maggie Moo's in Charlottesville, up at Hollymead Town Center up on 29 North.

I know, it's a chain. It's not a mom-and-pop store, exactly. But it sort of is. There's this older guy and a couple of teens that I see in there all the time running the place, and I gather that it's a family-owned sort of franchise thing. Which is cool, I support the little guy (see paragraph #1).

The shakes are really good there, especially because you can get them with one of about 50 dozen flavors of ice cream and a dozen mix-ins. My personal favorite is one with cake batter-flavored ice cream and whipped cream on top. (I had one last when I was celebrating a kick-ass interview I did down in Cowtown a couple of weeks ago) They even ask if you want it mixed thin like a milkshake or thick like a malt - I had mine thick, naturally. How else?

Though, honestly, I don't get the deal with the mix-ins and shakes. When they put the stuff in (whatever - Oreos, nuts, M&Ms, etc.), it gets chopped up but not enough so that you can fit it all easily through a straw. Especially if you like your shakes thick like me. So you wind up having to eat it like it's some kind of soup or medieval ice sludge.

First time I went there, I got this tropical pina colada smoothie thing - so you figure, okay, it'll have pineapple juice, some sort of ice cream thing, and coconut milk . (I'll leave out the banana 'cause I hate them) Hold the phone. Instead of coconut milk, they threw in actual shaved coconut, which I guess is their regular mix-in stuff. Which is fine if you want to top off a sundae, but when you want a shake that you can suck on in the car, it makes the thing more like drinking a coconut custard pie. Chew, chew, chew.

But overall, I really like the place, and I'll be going back there again soon. If you're in the area, you should go by too.

Be like me, support the little guy. Moo.

Just Noticed...

Got some free pub from my friend Mediocre Fred yesterday. Thanks, man. But now I may actually have people reading this thing, so I have to actually write something worthwhile in it.

Shit.

Wired For Sound...and Video...and Chat...and...

What's Playing in my Head: "The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living", by The Streets

Quote of the Day: If I could offer one piece of advice to the planet, it would be this: Don't marry for looks alone, and I'll tell you why. In a few years, when Barbara's boobs start sagging, she can get plastic surgery...If her belly gets too big, she can get a tummy tuck and have a belly like a cheerleader... But let me tell you something, folks: You can't fix stupid. There's not a pill you can take; there's not a class you can go to. Stupid is forever." - Ron White

Bonus Quote of the Day: "The safest way to double your money is to fold it in your pocket." - Mike Skinner, The Streets

One of the greatest things about the technofuturistic age we live in these days is, without a doubt, wireless networking. My girlfriend and I are a pretty computer geeky couple, with our two laptops, three desktops and assorted spare parts computers hanging around our two (soon to become one) dwellings. But I hadn't lived until I got a Linksys card for my laptop.

We're not talking about sitting around playing Everquest in your dad's basement, folks. This is a fundamental change in living patterns, an incontrovertible improvement in my daily life. Instead of sitting holed up in a computer room with a black-and-white TV with no antenna, I'm in my living room watching Boston Legal in blaring technicolor with my bare feet on the couch and a soda in one hand. If I want, I can be reading about the history of feudal Japan while I'm cooking stir fry in the kitchen, or watching my friend Dave verbally bitch-slapping some obstinate dude on one of my favorite message boards while I'm sitting out on the deck.

In short, the world is my oyster, and I've got the pearl.

Actually, my actual daily experience is a lot less interesting than all that. Usually, I'm sitting at the breakfast counter with my g/f, eating some cream of wheat thing, while poking over my e-mail or the Nationals box score from the night before. But it does come in handy, though - especially when we're cooking and need to pull down a recipe from the Food Network site, or looking at house listings over dinner.

My girlfriend often kids me about my computer being my newest appendage. Which is, of course, entirely true. I've carried it to bed, on car trips, in the sewing room, out on the deck...pretty much every place a 3-pound piece of plastic and circuits can go. Instead of falling asleep reading a good book, I fall asleep with a glowing screen on the bedcovers. (American society has just officially, completely jumped the shark)

My techie obsession doesn't even stop at the property line of my house. In the car, I've got XM satellite radio, which is the next-greatest invention in the world. (Is it a bad sign when you talk about your satellite radio receiver in the same way you talk about an actual human being? "I love you, XM...") Followed closely by my newest boy toy, the iAudio X5 - aka MP3 Player On Steriods.

This thing rips the iPod in half and takes a whiz over its smoldering, electrical-arcing corpse. Right now, I've got about 300 songs on it, plus about 15 videos, and it still isn't vaguely close to running out of storage space. There's nothing like rolling down the road at night listening to some great stand-up I downloaded, or sitting like a moron in some typical BS DC traffic jam, listening to the audio from an episode of Family Guy or South Park I haven't seen yet. It makes life a breeze.

Someday, I think we'll all have cyber-contact lenses that let us look at any blank wall and get a life-size browser window that can get TV, radio, Internet, and pretty much everything else you want. Sort of like having Google Toolbar sitting on your eyeball. This will be phenomenally cool, which goes without saying.

For now, though, I'm good with being a cyber-putz as-is.

Incidentally...

If you're wondering why the actual Charlottesville content here is rather low so far, it's because I haven't actually landed on the ground there yet. I was in town for the UVA-Wyoming game on Saturday, but after a quick overnight trip to my soon-to-be-home, it was right back up to DC courtesy of another red-eye drive up 29. I'm going to be going down for the next UVA game on Saturday, and moving some stuff down, then down for good at the end of the month. So the actual Charlottesville stuff will be starting up soon, or at least as much of it as I care to mention.

Just to get it out of the way right now, "Cowtown" is my shorthand for Charlottesville. It actually comes from my friend, Mediocre Fred, who went to UVA with me lo those five years ago. Back when we started at UVA, Charlottesville was a pretty sleepy, country town, and you'd routinely see cows grazing on the way down 29 going through Culpeper, Madison and Greene Counties. Now, not so much. But the relative lack of anything to do down there other than stuff on Grounds and going to a movie at one of the shoehorn theaters up on 29 North seemed to make Cowtown a pretty appropriate nickname. He called it that, and it stuck in my mind.

Today, Charlottesville is a little better about having stuff going on. Better theaters, more (and bigger) stores, more concerts and stuff. The new JPJ Arena will add a lot more entertainment variety to the town, and the Pavillion downtown had some good acts this summer. Plus, the recently-reopened Paramount has got a pretty good slate of concerts and comedy acts through the winter and spring. So that's cool.

But to me, it'll always be...well, you know.

"There's Something In My Eye...Please Excuse Me While I Get It Out..."

I love this guy.

His name's Dave Coyne, although he goes by the nick "DCLugi" on Youtube. The videos he does are mostly comedy, like the "Snakes On A Plane" one above; he got some minor fame online for his U2 parody video featuring an ode to Samuel Jackson (which was a very-cool shot-by-shot recreation of the one for the quite-awful U2 song "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"). He's from the DC area, too, which is cool.

A lot of his videos use green-screen techniques and tight editing, and his production values are surprisingly high - especially since he freely admits to being a one-man show who (mostly) doesn't get paid for what he does. He's an actor and a voice-over artist, though, and there's obviously a good reason for that. His Christopher Walken, Jack Nicholson and Joe Pesci impressions are dynamite, but his original characters are hilarious too. Someone's got to sign this guy. Now.

My personal favorite DCLugi vids are the two below, "Help Wanted" and "My Uncle Lives On A Funny Farm". If you watch the last one - just track with it until the very end, don't drop out halfway through. You'll be rewarded for your patience, I promise.





The first one of his I ever saw, "Classic TV", is pretty funny too (though the ending is a little weird):



Check this guy's videos out. He's hilarious.

The Wonders of Youtube

What's Playing in my Head: "Juicy", by Better Than Ezra
Quote of the Day: "Should I, you know, go into normal photosynthetic activity or a life of crime?" - Dave Coyne

Youtube is officially the coolest site in the universe.

It's like a drunk college slacker's paradise, with all the different videos on there. You can be watching some dude's treatise on life, then click over to a Gummi Bears episode from 1985. I've searched for stuff on there that I'd never thought I'd see again, and I've hit on some great videos I probably would have never seen otherwise. Sort of live having tivo for the internet.

Of course, you do have the contingent of high school douchebags who think their shitty videos of their friend lighting their farts on fire are the latest revolution in comedy. Or the video bloggers (God, the video bloggers...) who thought, "Dammit, polluting the internet with reams of my meaningless, inconsequential drivel isn't enough. People must see my face while I do it!" Or the dorfs with zero talent who see the place as a high-tech audition for Hollywood stardom and fortune. No, Tyrell, you are not the next B.I.G. No, Austin McSqueaky, you are not going to be in Queens of the Stone Age. Let it go.

My latest Youtube obsession is watching video highlights from NPB, which is the Japanese baseball league. This dude terioh posts these clips packages from Japanese TV showing the previous night's games and scores. It's like watching Asian ESPN, in a totally unintelligible language (the fact that I took Japanese in college is of absolutely no help whatsoever). And yet, it's somehow more pleasing than watching real ESPN. (Maybe it's the fact that, unlike real ESPN, this one shows teams that don't end in "ees" or "Sox". Just a thought)

I'm sure that, just like everything else, I'm going to get sick of Youtube after awhile and move on to my next fixation. For now, though, I'm going to stick to stuff like NPB highlights, Chad Vader-Day Shift Manager and the Skeletor Show. Or...

I Love This Video

Football On. Me Watch Now.

Watching Monday Night Football for the first time in like a year. The Skins were playing pretty competently until they got into the Red Zone and promptly sucked wind, as usual. 13-9 Redskins at the half.

I've never liked Monday Night Football. It just seems wrong, having a game on a weeknight. Football is for Sundays and Thanksgiving. Fall afternoons, after you've gotten done raking leaves, or winter afternoons after you've gotten done shoveling snow. Not for late nights after work trying to stay awake long enough to get through halftime.

The 7 pm start is a little better now, but unless it's the Redskins playing, I could give a flying fuck about staying up to watch football on a work night.

Not that they listen to me.

Why I Love Gas Wars

What's Playing in my Head: "Velvet Elvis", by Weird Al Yankovic

Quote of the Day: "My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, I said "No, but I want a regular banana later, so yeah." - Mitch Hedberg

I do a lot of driving these days, which means that I am gouged hard and often at the pump, just like every other sucker that needs to get someplace. So on the rare occasion when two gas companies start beating each other's brains in with an orgy of - gasp - competition, it brings a tear to me eye. Honest.

Case in point. On the way to Central Virginia (CenVA? CeeVee? Centia?), I pass through the sleepy burg of Gainesville. I use the term "sleepy burg" here, of course, in the sense of "sprawling, uncoordinated hell clusterfucked around a completely useless road system."

Along 29, headed back toward DC, there are two gas stations - Exxon and Wawa. Wawa just opened and has - gasp, again - a traffic light. Exxon is, well, Exxon. But being just down the street from each other, both places have developed this sort of gas station my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours syndrome.

The normal price for gas out that way (relatively low anyway) is something like $2.40/$2.50. Wawa's price? $2.19. Exxon's price? $2.17.

Holee shit.

On top of which, Exxon had a customer appreciation thing going on, with a typical DJ-on-Ex blasting hip hop and a Nascar...car...parked in the corner. And guess what? On the way back, Wawa's price was down to $2.17 as well.

It's fundamental insanity with cheap gas. $ign me up.

Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That...Ends

Hi. My name's Brian. You may know me, or someone vaguely like me. But that's okay, nobody really looks like themselves anymore.

So, let me introduce myself. I'm a twentysomething Northern Virginian who's had enough of the nightmarish traffic jams and the whiny, self-entitled, overly wealthy douchebags in the DC area. I also happen to be in the process of moving lock stock and barrel to the Charlottesville area.

Somehow, I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to jump in and start a blog. Which is, of course, a recipe for big honking failure just like every other blog out there. A very good friend of mine, who goes by the name Mediocre Fred on this here internet, used to write a highly entertaining and funny daily blog for a few years, but eventually wound up hanging it up. And he's a fucking writer. (He occasionally contributes to another blog these days, The Frinklin and Fred Show, which is cool)

So here's how this thing is going to go down. I'm going to start writing this thing, basically whenever I feel like it. Then I'll get either: a) busy with work, b) mixed up in real-life crap, c) bored with the damn thing, or d) all of the above, and e) drop this thing like a flaming bag of shit . (But hey, at least I admit it.)

So be forewarned. This is a two- or three-week project, at most. But I'll try to have fun with it, in a stream-of-consciousness, Mitch Hedberg sort of way. If you're still tracking with me, thanks.

Everyone ready? Good. Here we go.