Category: Virginia

I need to visit the Slowpoke Blog more often. My college friend Jen Sorensen will be part of a traveling political comix revue called Laugh While You Can, together with Tim Kreider and Tom Hart, that will be in Cambridge next month (at the Million Year Picnic). Should be cool.

One of these days I need to see if Jen still has the art to that Dec illustration…

In the meantime, here’s another memory from those days… “Brit Hit,” a one-page article from a Dec parody issue, with yours truly as Nigel Ashecroft-Worcestershire. No, I didn’t write it (but I know someone who might remember). Yes, the goatee was real. Yes, I was probably ulcerated even then. No, I never owned a real black turtleneck; only the mock one (Shame!). Yes, the glasses really were that thick; no, I usually wore contacts. No, I had no idea what they were taking my picture for at the time, but I was soon to find out—as soon as it made it into print, anyway.

Boston.com: Va. bill sets fine for low-riding pants. Excellent. Glad to see that my home legislature is still taking care of the really important issues, like a citizen’s “intentionally wear[ing] and display[ing] his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person’s intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner.’”

This, of course, begs the question: what is the case law history that determines “lewd or indecent manner“ for underpants display in the Commonwealth? And how does one expose one’s below-waist undergarments in a non-lewd or indecent manner? Enquiring minds, etc.

Craig Pfeifer: Poe gets a Visitor. As a member of the Raven Society, I should write something insightful about the recurring annual visits (56 so far) of a mysterious man who leaves three roses and a bottle of cognac in the locked cemetery where rest the mortal remains of Edgar Allan Poe, great American author and poor UVA student.

But I’m more drawn to the poor behavior of the spectators, who this year apparently wanted to solve the puzzle at the expense of the mystery: “Some [spectators] entered the locked cemetery; others confronted Mr. Jerome [the curator of the Poe House and Museum] after the stranger left and demanded that he reveal his identity.“

What did they expect would happen? Why would someone want to pee in that pool? There’s something profound about a commitment that long to anything, even (if as apparently in this case) if it spans more than one generation. I don’t think that anonymity is too much of a thing to respect in the face of such devotion.

Washington Post: Singles’ Sex No Longer a Va. Crime. What a tangled web we weave, when jurisprudence we upheave. Or something. The upshot is that, now that normal sexual relations conducted in private between consenting adults have been decriminalized, the way is clear for an examination of other Virginia laws pertaining to sexual acts. Such as sodomy, for instance.

Maybe my home state isn’t quite so red, after all.

Just got word via email that a friend from University of Virginia, John “JP” Park, is now a published author: Understanding Maya was just released and represents a collection of the same training in the 3D animation application that JP has done at Sony (during Spider-Man II, the Polar Express, and the last two Matrix films, among others). You can get the book from Amazon.

It’s always good to see an old friend do well. Congrats, JP!

In other Virginia Football related news, I just realized (thanks to the College of Arts and Sciences alumni newsletter) that I am, as they say, one degree removed from the oracles who decide the Bowl Championship Series rankings. Wes Colley, UVA Physics 1993, runs the Colley Matrix, a simple iterative calculation that starts with a team’s win-loss record and then factors in the win-loss records of its opponents, and on and on until the records converge.

Interestingly, Wes’s story is also the story of how college football, in the form of the BCS, doesn’t understand blogging. He formerly kept a journal of games he attended on his site, but was asked to remove it by the BCS, who feared that the journal would lend the appearance of bias toward east coast teams. Never mind that the math is entirely objective and thoroughly documented…

My one degree of removal is due to my taking a statistical physics course (with John Ruvalds) in which Wes was also enrolled; I remember him being much better with the math than I was. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should also mention we were classmates in a grad level math course until I dropped it, crushed by the weight of my perplexity and overly heavy course load. I fortunately was able to come back two semesters later and complete the course, but I still think about certain Fourier transforms with a shudder.)

Oddly, I’m also one (or two) degrees removed from the concept of “one degree removed”; the Oracle of Bacon is a project at UVA.

Looks like the Fresno Bee’s reporting wasn’t quite on the money. The Cavaliers will not be returning to the Independence Bowl; instead, Virginia accepted an invitation to the MPC Computers Bowl against a yet-to-be-named opponent.

As Regret the Error would say, “we crunked.”

…but fellow Hooblogger Jeff Hawkins does it better for me:

First, ABC broadcasts Virginia-Virginia Tech nationwide, and we repay the favor by having a score of 0-0 at half. Switch to the second half where we take a nice lead and the refs see their way to switching momentum with the worst called non-interference play I’ve ever seen televised. Now, sure, perhaps that’s some bitter hyperbole, but nonetheless, a god awful call. My mom, who knows nothing about football was on the phone at the time and asked why they threw the flag.

Then we rejected the Tangerine Bowl (now the Champs Sports Bowl) because of exams. So it’s either Boise or Shreeveport [sic]. Yeah, I’m sure fans will want to spend their hard earned money travelling to the wondrous splendors of Boise. Shreeveport I went to in 1994. I think the President declared it a disaster area before any hurricanes.

P.S. the new marching cheesed*ck band looks like clowns. Nothing like wool in a rainstorm. I’m still miffed that the Pep Band is disbanned. I fully blame our 3 blowout losses to a marching band versus a scramble band

(I’m reminded of all the games George Welsh blamed on the Pep Band for firing up the opposition’s fans)

So after a really promising season it’s back to the Independence Bowl. I’m amused to see that the school turned down the former Tangerine Bowl (now Champs Sports Bowl) because it was on the last day of exams. Go go student athletes!

Update: Prompted by a reader’s mail, I should note that I don’t share Jeff’s acerbic views about Shreveport or Boise, having never been either place myself. I think we should all give Jeff a little comic license on that paragraph…

Grr! I was all set to waste an afternoon watching the Virginia–Virginia Tech game, which the VirginiaSports site assured me was televised on ABC, until I checked our local listings. There was a college football game on ABC at 1, all right… but it was Syracuse vs. Boston College.

And none of our 400-something channels are showing the game, either.

Ah well. There’s always the GameTracker. (Weeps.)

Well, here are some game links anyway:

• Senator Useless—I mean, George Allen, who was a Virginia quarterback before becoming governor of the state and tackling the University’s funding to the ground in the mid-1990s, weighs in on the matchup: “I’m for Virginia Tech in every game that they play except one.”
• Virginia has its pride to worry about, with an 8–2 record going into the series, but Tech has, at least according to these articles, a title on the line.
• The Washington Post profiles little-known Virginia linebacker Dennis Haley, who has come back from an academic ineligibility in 2002 to graduate with an anthropology degree and take graduate education courses.
• The ball will already have traveled 157 miles by the time it gets to Lane Stadium for kickoff, courtesy of a Charlottesville to Blacksburg charity run by the Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) chapters from both schools.

I feel bad about not posting anything after Virginia’s loss last week to Miami—after all, it was one of the few games all season that I watched from beginning to end. But this week’s win over Georgia Tech, which carries the Hoos into a three-way tie for ACC conference champion, lifted my spirits considerably. Makes me actually want to watch the Virginia Tech game, where we’ll be a five-place underdog (we’re at #16 according to USA Today and the AP).

With Saturday’s 16–0 win over the hapless Terps (4–5), Virginia regained some of its footing after the loss to Florida State, and moved up in the polls (up 2 to 11 in USA Today/ESPN, up 2 to 10 in the AP poll). It’s anyone’s guess what that will look like after next weekend’s game versus Miami, who have beaten Florida State but lost to UNC and Clemson (???).

No. 14 Virginia 37, Duke 16. Yeah, OK, but how the hell could Duke score 16 points from us? Well, nine penalties for 85 yards is probably a start.

No, not the trip: our wommitin’ dog didn’t up any chuck on the way back home. I’m talking about sports.

First I should mention that we were in Hazleton, PA, up in the coal mountains, until about 7:30 and were on more or less rural parts of I-80 until about 8:30, so I wasn’t able to check the score of the Virginia–Florida State game until about 5 minutes from the end of the first half. At which point, ESPN’s mobile channel informed me on my phone, the score was 19 to 0. I refreshed the game page until my battery ran out on my phone (I hadn’t charged the phone the previous night), so I saw Marques Hagans’ last minute goal-line stand turn into a field goal when he couldn’t complete a pass from the five-yard line. That field goal would be the Cavaliers’ only score of the game. 36–3 smarts. But at least we weren’t the only top-10 ranked college football team to get pantsed this weekend.

And the Yankees vs. the Sox? Less said about Saturday the better. We caught the game on the radio in the bottom of the second, a few minutes before the Sox got on the scoreboard to tie it up with a homer and go into the lead with another run. Another hour later and at the bottom of the fourth the Yanks had retaken the lead, 11–6, after some of the worst pitching I’ve ever had the privilege to hear. As the one announcer put it, “Okay, folks, bottom of the fourth, we’re entering the third hour of play, and there’s no end to this inning in sight. Like the Snickers folks say, ‘when you know you’re not going anywhere for a long time’…” At least we’re still in contention, by our fingernails, after last night’s win.

I held off on posting a pointer to this week’s polls because they make me uncomfortable. As Craig, who not coincidentally is an alum from #5-ranked Perdue, points out, the Hoos have had what might charitably be called a light schedule this year. Even Clemson, who in years past have been formidable enough to cast cold shadows of fear into the hearts of many a Hoo, is not exactly the strongest of teams this year.

That’s about to change, though, because Florida State is coming. And even though they’re 4 and 1 and ranked behind us, it’s hard to say who’s the underdog in this match-up. Should be a hell of a ball game.

Related: The Washington Post ombudsman hems and haws and finally admits, yes, the Cavaliers probably deserve more coverage than they’re getting from the sports section; MSN, or Fox, or Sporting News, or someone, weighs in on the Cav’s chances and points out the depth of the bench; and the Post writes about the game in such a way as to practically guarantee a jinx, while actually getting a meaningful quote from senior UVA tailback Alvin Pearman: “In the past they were more athletic. They were deeper. Now we can trade punch for punch with them across the board.“

After last night’s 30-10 steamroller over Clemson, a few of the voices in my head that have questioned the reality of the Cavaliers’ strong season so far have been quieted. But only a few. After all, it’s early in the season—plenty of time for a late-schedule swoon like those that have plagued the Hoos for years. But maybe Groh has taken care of that little problem, along with making unwelcome cultural changes (orange T-shirts rather than semiformal dress, marching band rather than Pep Band).

The likelihood is that the Hoos will move up in the rankings again, getting into territory that they haven’t seen since George Welsh coached.