WRAL Now Twittering Traffic Info
You can now get local traffic updates via Twitter. Simply follow Brian Shrader’s handle, wraltraffic , and you’ll get text data (that is infinitely more accessible than the iPhone’s worthless Google Maps GPS functionality)
Costner and Ferguson Will Graduate
N.C. State has officially announced that Brandon Costner and Trevor Ferguson will forgo their final year of eligibility and will not be members of next year’s team. Neither player was honored before the final home game.
Tonic Playing Downtown Live
On August 8,
Tonic
will be playing
Downtown Live
in Raleigh’s Moore Square. This is a heavily sponsored concert and is therefore, free.
Wendy Liebman Coming to Goodnights
From Thursday, April 16 thu Sunday, April 19,
Wendy Liebman
will be coming to Charlie Goodnight’s comedy club. (My favorite line of hers: I just got divorced (awww). Yeah it’s really sad….. There was a child involved….him.)
Noir Bar & Lounge Coming to Glenwood
The little building to the left of the Armadillo Grill parking lot will be transformed to Noir Bar & Lounge.
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy To Headline Artsplosure
The band on hand to celebrate the opening of the RBC Center 10 years ago will be back to headline this year’s
Artsplosure festival
.
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
will play on the main stage late Sunday afternoon of the May 16 and 17 festival.
Like previous years, this 30th edition of Artsplosure will include the art market, two music stages, Kidsplosure, large-scale art installations, and more. The weekend-long event is free to the public. The Art Market showcases the talent of more than 170 juried visual artists and crafters from across the country. Artwork by fine artists and crafters exhibiting in 11 different categories will be available for purchase, including painting, photography, pottery, jewelry and more.
The Main Stage and North Carolina Stage will be located in Moore Square. In addition to Big Bad VooDoo Daddy, the event will feature musical performances by Kellylee Evans, Buckwheat Zydeco , The Soul of John Black, Trombone Shorty, Tropic Orchestra, Jonathan Scales, and others to be announced at a later date. New this year, performances will run until 10:00PM on Saturday.
Kidsplosure provides activities and entertainment for children. In addition to the many arts and crafts available, the Kidsplosure Stage will provide live family-friendly entertainment.
Each year, the Spring Arts Festival attracts up to 80,000 people over the course of the weekend. The event is presented by Artsplosure, a nonprofit corporation that also produces First Night Raleigh.
Foodie Tours Now Underway
This month Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours introduced another the Triangle’s first foodie-focused tour company, with tours now underway. Business partners Joe Philipose, a corporate lawyer, and Lesley Stracks-Mullem, an MBA graduate from UNC, have long been passionate about the vibrant food scene in NC’s Triangle region and believe it rivals the best in the nation. After shopping area farmers markets and dining around at both cheap eats and five-star restaurants, Philipose and Stracks-Mullem fell in love with the area’s food culture and became determined to share it with residents and visitors. “What better way to get to know a place and its people than to eat its food,” explained Philipose. “Our tours will be as compelling for residents as for visitors; they’ll give locals a unique opportunity to be face-to-face with the chefs and artisans they’ve only read about.”
Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours takes participants behind-the-scenes while introducing them to the food community’s best – from legendary restaurants, farms, farmers markets, bakeries and specialty stores, to the chefs, artisans and farmers themselves. Tour guides will give an historical, architectural, and culinary account of the area with an emphasis on its food history and renaissance. Those attending will feast on local flavors; tastes will be offered at almost every stop on the tour. Partner Stracks-Mullem, who admits to minoring in barbecue while attending UNC’s MBA program, will guide many tours herself, “I’ve always been on a mission to find the best off-the-beaten path restaurants, ingredients, and even deals that make a food scene so special. Now, through Taste Carolina, I’ll be able to share my favorites, from the young chefs at Piedmont and their house-made charcuterie to Locopops and their internationally-inspired popsicles.”
Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours will begin offering three walking tours beginning this month. On Saturday afternoons there will be a downtown Durham tour, and on Saturday mornings and Friday afternoons, a Chapel Hill/Carrboro tour (listed below). Soon, Taste Carolina will add a walking tour of downtown Raleigh’s food scene, as well as Barbecue Bus Tours and customized ‘farm-to-table’ and other uniquely-themed tours for individuals and corporate groups. Ultimately, the possibilities are endless; in fact, Philipose and Stracks-Mullem are already becoming acquainted with downtown Charlotte and plan to extend Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours to other foodie-obsessed markets in North Carolina, and beyond.
Current Weekly Tours
Reservations may be made by contacting 919-237-2254 or info@tastecarolina.net or through the web site www.tastecarolina.net
Saturdays: Durham : American Tobacco to Downtown to Brightleaf ; 2:00-5:00; $37 per person
This town is about Duke University, Tobacco Warehouses and the Durham Bulls; it’s also about cutting edge culture—the Durham Performing Arts Center, American Dance Festival, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival—and an incredible food scene. Whether you’re a visitor or a local resident, you’ll enjoy this vibrant city in the midst of its revitalization and the restaurants, shops and people that are making Durham one of the nation’s cultural and dining hotspots. From crostini topped with local ingredients and house-smoked meats to gourmet popsicles to renowned pimento cheese to organic wine and local beer, you will discover all of Durham’s flavors.
Fridays: Franklin to Weaver ; 2:00-5:00; $37 per person
Saturdays:
Culinary Carrboro
,
10:00-1:00
Whether you’re a local resident or visitor, you’ll enjoy going behind the scenes of Chapel Hill and Carrboro restaurants where traditional and modern ‘farm-to-table’ cuisine comes to life. This tour is an exploration of flavors, from innovative and upscale southern dishes to house-made chocolates to real New York pastrami to organic wine and local beer. Known for being at the forefront of the Slow Food movement and for eclectic and nationally renowned restaurants that have redefined Southern cooking, Chapel Hill/ Carrboro is one of the best places in the country to live and eat.
Jackson, Chesney, Flatts, 311 All Billing TWC
Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion has lined up some solid acts for the upcoming summer. Some news shows have been recently added:
- 311 w/ Ziggy Marley – Sunday, July 5
- Rascal Flatts – Sunday, August 2
- Alan Jackson – Saturday, August 22
- Kenny Chesney w/ Lady Antebellum and Miranda Lambert – Sunday August 30
Big Ideas To Be Reviewed
The Discussion Group gathering on “Big Ideas for Raleigh and the Triangle” is set for this Wednesday evening, March 18, at Tookie’s Grill (Seaboard Station, Raleigh) and will provide an up-to-date look at Raleigh’s planned development, Triangle transportation initiatives and a sneak peek at the October elections in Raleigh, Wake County and elsewhere in the Triangle.
- Date : Wednesday, March 18
- Time : 6:45-8:30pm
- Location : Tookie’s Grill at Seaboard Station , just off of Peace Street beside 18 Seaboard Restaurant and Peace College. (Great parking. Reasonably priced. Variety of food, drink.)
Agenda & Speakers :
- 6:45-7:40pm: Dan Douglas of the Raleigh Urban Design Center will provide an update on ideas shared in the City’s “Big Ideas” visionary brainstorming exercise last year and an update on planned development for Raleigh. Dan’s presentation will touch on Raleigh’s transportation plans, transit-oriented development and regional cooperation.
- 7:40-8pm: NC Representative Deborah Ross will then discuss bipartisan (Ross/Stevens) legislation in the NC General Assembly to allow local governments to levy an additional sales tax to fund regional transit.
- 8-8:15pm: Perry Woods , campaign consultant and manager of recent winning Raleigh mayoral races (among other races), will close out the evening by providing a very brief sneak peek at municipal and school board elections being held in the Triangle later this year.
- 8:15-8:30pm: Final Comments, Announcements.
As always, the discussion is open to all and varying viewpoints. No membership or fee required.
A Closer Look At ACC Play
As Part II of today’s essay on ACC stats, I want to do an overview of several team stats from the ACC season. In the first part a ratio was introduced to standardize the frequency by which a few teams get trips to the Free Throw line. If we invert the ratio, we get possessions per free throw attempt. A team that gets to the line frequently will have a low number, while a team that is a stranger to the line will have a high number of possessions per free throw.
Poss/FTA | |
Wake Forest | 3.364 |
Duke | 3.429 |
VT | 3.533 |
UNC | 3.592 |
Miami | 3.633 |
FSU | 3.736 |
BC | 3.796 |
NCSU | 3.827 |
GT | 4.069 |
Virginia | 4.341 |
Clemson | 4.349 |
Maryland | 4.754 |
Next, let’s look at where teams shot the ball.
UNC Gets All The Calls?
I commonly hear opponents and their fans lamenting the fact that opponents of UNC are far more likely to get fouls called on them. If this were the case, UNC should have a significantly higher FTA/Possession ratio.
UNC has always been an inside-first kind of offensive team. Given that players are more likely to be fouled when shooting in traffic, it would seem that UNC’s style of play is enough to get them to the free throw line more frequently than opponents. The best way to evaluate a team’s predilection for shooting inside vs. outside is to look at the percentage of shots taken that are behind the arc. Here are a few stats showing percentage of shots taken from “3” all season: UNC 27.7%, NCSU 33.1%, VT 31.6%. So, UNC is clearly getting the ball inside more than this pair of opponents.
Looking at raw free throw attempt stats is intensely misleading. That stat doesn’t account for the number of games played, the speed of the games played, and several other factors. If a team that plays a fast pace attempts 20 shots in a game while a very slow-paced team got 20 free throws in a game, the slow paced team visited the line much more frequently given their fewer possessions. Consider these stats:
UNC got the ball 2,808 times and attempted 792 free throws. Their ratio is 0.282 . N.C. State got the ball 2,354 times this season and attempted 615 free throws, for a ratio of 0.261 . Virginia Tech got the ball 2586 times this season, and attempted 732 free throws. Their ratio is 0.283 .
So yes, UNC attempted free throws more frequently than N.C. State did, but they only got there 8% more frequently (1-282/261). Given that NCSU took almost a third of their shots from “3” this season, a significantly higher proportion than UNC, it is surprising that there is only an 8% difference.
Virginia Tech’s coach Seth Greenberg believes that there is a different standard of officiating for UNC than for the rest of the league. His team got the ball 2,586 times this season and attempted 732 free throws. That’s a ratio of 0.283, which is 0.3% more frequent than UNC’s rate of trips to the line. Given that Virginia Tech jacked 3’s on 31.6% of their possessions while UNC only did so on 27.7%, it appears that Virginia Tech is more likely to be granted a free throw trip when they get the ball inside than Carolina is.
Fans and coaches get understandably emotional. Unfortunately their hearts are overriding their brains.
Loggins & Messina Coming to DPAC
On Thursday, September 24
Loggins & Messina
will be in Durhams.
Tickets are $37, $47, and $62
. The general public tickets go on sale today at 10am thru Ticketmaster.
License Plates Returning to Blue
WRAL has a story about the NCDOT’s Tuesday announcement that the state will return to using blue letters on its license plates. The state dropped the original blue-letter design in favor of red lettering two years ago to assist in identifying older plates. However, the red-letter tags were not nearly as legible as their blue predecessors. In February the state announced that it will discontinue its production of flat tags as well, returning to the embossed plates. Legibility problems and their close resemblance to unofficial novelty plates plagued the flat plates.
It is great that the state claims that they are making legibility a priority. It is important, especially in the case of a hit-and-run, to quickly identify a car’s license tag. However if this is truly a priority, shouldn’t they also ban license plate frames that obscure the state name, too?
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