Adam Richman , the host of the Travel Channel’s " Man vs. Food ", will be coming to Raleigh next week. On Tuesday the 27th (6pm-9pm) Ed will be at The Pit learning all he can about barbeque from pitmaster Ed Mitchell . The show will also stop by The Roast Grill for another segment of the program.

WRAL FM has found the replacement for the recently departed Sherri Logan on the morning drive-time show. Beginning Monday former morning TV news host Lynda Loveland will join Bill Jordan and the gang on the radio side. Loveland is an extremely nice person with a funny bone, however this move may be a waste of her rare on-camera talents.

News reporter Kelcey Carlson will take Loveland’s seat on the WRAL TV morning news. Valonda Calloway will join Bill Leslie at noon.

The new N.C. State commercial shown during halftime of basketball games features the (previously seen ) Dennis Miller look-alike touting the university’s attributes. Specifically, he talks about ideas moving toward patents. One problem: he says,"so get your cerebellum in gear…".

The cerebellum is the region of the brain which deals with voluntary motor control and coordination. Ooops! I don’t think that’s what he meant.

Hockey fans are sure to enjoy a recent episode of Fox Sports South’s "In My Own Words". The episode features a candid interview with Hurricane Captain Rod Brind’Amour. In the interview some of Rod’s true personality comes out as he discusses his stormy relationship early on with former coach Peter Laviolette, his family, and the grandeur of winning the Stanley Cup.

The episode airs on Fox Sports South (TWC channel 50) January 28 and 29 at 1:30am, and on January 31 at 7:30pm.

After a long weekend of basketball submersion, get out of the house! On Monday, March 23, Butch Walker will be coming to the Lincoln Theatre.

On Saturday, February 7, David Grisman and John Sebastian will be playing Meymandi Hall as part of the PineCone traditional music series. From the press release:

This performance is part of a limited tour around their latest live-in-the-studio album, Satisfied (Acoustic Disc, 2007), a stunning collection of acoustic duets featuring traditional folk tunes, blues, classy instrumentals and originals by these two legendary masters.

These musicians first met in 1963 as 18-year-old freshmen at New York University when the Greenwich Village folk revival was in its heyday. They made their first recording together as members of the Even Dozen Jug Band with future luminaries Maria Muldaur, Stefan Grossman and others. The rest, of course, is musical history. Sebastian became lead singer and songwriter of The Lovin’ Spoonful, which played a major role in the rock revolution of the mid-1960s; last year he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. A virtuoso mandolinist, Grisman spearheaded an acoustic music revolution with his genre-defying "Dawg" music, which blends swing, bluegrass, Latin and other influences.

More than 40 years later, Sebastian and Grisman crossed paths again at a benefit concert in Mill Valley, California. After this mutually enjoyable evening of spontaneous music, they continued to collaborate, producing Satisfied.

PineCone presents this show as part of its Down Home Series at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts. The show starts at 8 p.m. Call PineCone’s box office at 919-664-8302 for tickets, or visit www.ticketmaster.com.

On Sunday, February 22 Greg Humphreys will be playing at downtown Raleigh’s Pour House. He will be accompanied by Gibb Droll, and is supporting his latest CD, Trunk Songs .

Unless there is a meltdown, the ACC teams that will make the tourney this year are: WFU, Duke, UNC, Clemson, and Miami. That is 42% of the conference. Anyone remember when it was a regularity to have 44% of the conference in the Sweet 16 (much less getting invites)??

The reason only 5 will make it is that there are only 96 wins to be had in ACC conference play. If the top three teams beat everyone else, then there are (16+14+12) about 42 wins taken by the top 3 teams. The fourth place team is bound to win at least 8 games, so that takes us to 50 wins to split among the other 8 teams. If the fifth place team (Miami) wins 8 games, then we only have 38 wins to split among 7 teams. In that situation it is extremely unlikely for any of the remaining teams to get even 7 wins, much less the 8 normally required by the NCAA selection committee. If Miami or Clemson somehow fall apart and only get 6 or 7 wins, then we are likely to have a cluster of teams in the 6-7 win range, assuming that NCSU and Georgia Tech win around 5 league games combined. In that situation the league will once again only get four invitations (33% of the league, an all-time low).

The bottom line is that when a few teams at the top win most of their games or the bottom of the league wins a handful of games, the middle of the league suffers. Whether or not that makes for a strong league is not the really point. It is incumbent for this small portion of the league to do well in the big dance (that means you Clemson, Duke, and Wake Forest, the teams that have recently no-showed in the tournament).

Kenny Chesney will return to Walnut Creek for another sure sell-out show on August 30. Lady Antebellum and Miranda Lambert will open.

Those who watched American Idol on Wednesday night got to see the show’s introduction of Anoop Desai. The masters student in Folklore at UNC wowed the judges with his soulful rendition of " Thank You " by Boyz II Men. Look for Desai, an East Chapel Hill High graduate and Haywood Hinkle Scholar at UNC, in the second round in a couple of weeks.

On Wednesday, February 18, Sun Volt will be coming to the Lincoln Theatre. They will be playing old faves along with tracks from their upcoming CD to be released in May.

Time Warner Cable recently announced that they would be adding a few more channels. Beginning Friday, horror and suspense channel Chiller (SD) will appear on channel 127.

On February 13, these HD channels will be added

• USA HD - Channel 258
• Bravo HD - Channel 259
• CNBC HD - Channel 266
• Sci-Fi HD - Channel 267
• Telemundo - Channel 379 (Digital extension of Basic Cable)

Most likely these channels will be delivered via SDV. In that case Time Warner hardware is required to view the additional channels. They would not be seen on CableCard devices such as Tivo Series 3, Windows Media Center, etc.