Masters of Death and Destruction Playing Hopscotch
This year’s upcoming bill for the Hopscotch Festival is filling out nicely. The newest addition to the lineup is
The Masters of Death and Destruction
, who will be playing City Plaza on Friday night of the Hopscotch weekend. The band, best know for their 43 minute hit single “Raaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh” will bring something downtown Raleigh hasn’t seen in 20 years, darkness.
As part of the show, Progress Energy has agree to shut down the power grid for the entire downtown area. “We want to bring the pureness of dark to our show,” said Evan Rohn, guitarest. The band’s set is reported to last 5 hours and feature all of the band’s 8 songs.
“We are aware that some customers may be inconvenienced by the outage, however we feel the importance of the Masters of Death and Destruction playing Hopscotch is well worth the costs”, Progress’ Mike Bernard said.
Laurel Hills Little League Debuting on ESPNtyke
In February ESPN launched ESPNtyke, a channel dedicated to basketball recruiting. The station features not only high school basketball, but also junior high and little league games of the game’s future stars. On May 6 at 9am Raleigh makes its debut with a game from the Laurel Hills Community Center.
The teams featured in the internationally-televised game will be the Rebels vs. the Coyotes. The Rebels features 5’11 standout Marcus Young, a Raleigh 5th grader who has narrowed his choices to Georgetown, Memphis, and Kentucky.
They will face stiff competition from The Coyotes, however, which features Jeff Koonce and Harmon Boatwright. Koonce, a 6th grader is a 3-point specialist who has narrowed his choices to UNC, Connecticut, and Kentucky, while Boatwright, a 5th grader who has already mastered rebounding is down to UCLA, N.C. State, and, of course, Kentucky.
The Coyotes will, however, be without their point guard, Jacob Miller whose prior commitments (a select soccer game, an AAU basketball game, and try-outs for a select baseball team) will make him unable to attend.
ACC Football Changing its Name
Today the ACC offices in Greensboro released a statement informing schools and the public that the Atlantic Coast Conference will change the name of its football program to “Others Receiving Votes”.
Apple Releases New iTunes with New Name
Today Apple released a major update to its iTunes software. While the new version is said to be three times larger and five times slower than previous editions and still doesn’t feature the “open platform” FaceTime, iTunes now features no connectivity to the App Store.
An Apple spokesperson said,”We we troubled that people couldn’t predict the experience they would have with our App Store. Sometimes one could connect, other times they couldn’t. This version makes huge strides toward be reliably unable to connect to the App Store.” The new version is such an advance that Apple as a new name for the feature: “Unable to Connect to App Store”.
Ravenscroft vs. Montrose on ESPNU Today
The ESPN High School Invitation kicks off with a full slate of games today. ( bracket , PDF) The 4pm game features Raleigh’s Ravenscroft (31-3) facing Montrose Christian (Md.) (20-2). The game will appear on ESPNU.
Get Ready for 10-Digit Dialing
On Saturday the Triangle becomes the next region of the country to implement mandatory 10-digit dialing. The numbers from the 919 area code are exhausted, and instead of breaking part of that geographical region off into a new zip code (as was done in the past) the area will become home to two area codes, known as an “overlay”. New numbers will have a 984 area code instead of 919, and because the codes coexist in the same area, all callers will have to dial the area code when calling any number beginning Friday.
I received a text message notice about the upcoming change about a month ago from my carrier, Verizon. However my land line service is thru Vonage, and they have sent absolutely no notice of the upcoming change. Have you gotten notice from your landline carrier yet?
The change resurrects many old questions, though. If we have to dial 10 digits to call next door, then why do we have to use the “1+” prefix to dial numbers “outside of our area code”? The duality that exists between national calling on landlines that require the prefix and cellular services which have never used the prefix is baffling, for sure.
Even more interesting, though, is the question raised by Nilay Patel, a writer at the Verge: Why do we even have phone numbers? Phone numbers tied to a location and the technologies that have emerged in the last 15 years don’t seem to be compatible concepts. With Microsoft, Google, and Apple trying to unseat the two big telephony technologies, it’s likely that in 15 more years the model will have changed so much, that there could be plenty of available phone numbers in the 919 area code.
NCMNS Nature Research Center Gala, Grand Opening Set
The expansion of the the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is almost open! On April 20 and 21 the museum will host
Our Universe is Expanding
, a 24-hour celebration. The facility will house four research laboratories used by scientific staff from the Nature Research Center (NRC), the museum, UNC System, and visiting scientists. Visitors can observe these spaces as well as participate in interactive and multimedia exhibits. There is a slate of events scheduled for the opening, and all events are free to the public.
Grand Opening:
Gala
The weekend before the grand opening, however, is the Grand Opening Gala . The event, which takes place on the evening of Friday, April 13, will feature performances from the TFC Band, Mark Wells QUartet, The Magic of African Rhythm, Mickey Mills Steel Drum Band, and Infinity Circus. There will be food and an open bar at this black tie optional event. Tickets are $200 each and include the After Party events.
The Gala After Party begins at 10pm and includes a late night menu, test tube shooters, an open bar and dancing to
The Crooked Smile Trio
,
TFC Band
, and
Al Ski-Love
(a video DJ) in the three-story surround screen “Daily Planet Disco”. Tickets for this event are $75.
Gala:
The NRC will be an excellent addition to downtown Raleigh this year, and its stellar grand opening isn’t to be missed!
Sunday GameSheet Ready for Download
NCAA Tournament rolls on! On Sunday all three remaining ACC teams will play. There will be eight overall games, and you can keep it all straight with the gogoraleigh GameSheet. The sheet contains the latest lines, over/unders, network coverage, site, and tip times for every game.
The sheet is a .pdf, and has been optimized for black and white printing.
Sunday NCAA GameSheet (.pdf)
Saturday GameSheet Ready for Download
Friday was an historic day for the NCAA Tournament. Only four times before has a 15-seeded team defeated a 2-seed. On Friday, it happened twice, truncating Duke’s season.
Saturday and Sunday bring us eight games each day, and you can keep it all straight with the gogoraleigh GameSheet. The sheet contains the latest lines, over/unders, network coverage, site, and tip times for every game.
The sheet is a .pdf, and has been optimized for black and white printing.
Saturday NCAA GameSheet (.pdf)
Colon Terrell Sweeps Through Raleigh This Morning
Today heart attack survivor Colon Terrell will continue his 3000-mile nationwide walk in Raleigh. The walk intends to raise awareness of heart disease, America’s #1 killer. Here is more about his plans for today:
Plans call for us to start on the south side of the Capitol Building at 11:00AM. We can all make the heart sign with our hands (see photo of two of our granddaughters, Ashley and Olivia) to kick-off our walk. Here’s the planned path for the day:
- From the Capitol, south down Fayetteville Street.
- Right on Lenoir Street for one block.
- Right again (north) on Salisbury Street where we’ll stop briefly at the Convention Center and statue of Sir Walter Raleigh.
- Continue north on Salisbury Street to Hillsborough Street.
- Left on Hillsborough Street for as long as you want to walk with me.
More about this ambitious plan is at the terrellwalk website.
NCAA Tournament Calendar Tools Ready for Download
The 2012 NCAA Basketball Tournament is upon us, and all three Triangle teams are in the field. The games begin tomorrow night, however all of the ACC teams in the field play on Friday at these times:
- 12:40 – NCSU/San Diego St. (TruTV)
- 2:10 – UVA/FLA (TNT)
- 2:45 – FSU/St. Bonaventure (CBS)
- 4:10 – UNC/(Lamar/Vermont) (TBS)
- 7:15 – Duke/Lehigh (CBS)
Time Warner Cable in Raleigh carries these networks on the following channels:
- CBS (1105, 3, 105)
- TBS (1302, 34, 302)
- TNT (1301, 26, 301)
- TruTV (1313, 44, 313)
As usual, gogoraleigh has all of the materials you need for catching the action.
- Printable Brackets (pdf, via ESPN)
- Printable Schedule (Thursday)
- Printable Schedule (Friday)
The printable schedules are inverted for optimal black & white printing. They are an outstanding layout of game times. Read left-to-right, the games are in chronological order. Read top-to-bottom, most columns are venue-consistent. Television network assignments are also shown.
Finally, all of the games can be easily added to your Android phone, iPhone, Outlook, Google Calendars and more! Simply visit gogoraleigh’s Calendars tab , and use the links provided in the “2012 NCAA Tourament” line.
Swofford Murdering the ACC Tournament
John Swofford, the UNC football letterman, entered as the ACC Commissioner with a grand plan for ACC football that began with an enormous expansion of the ACC’s population. The process has completely destroyed the ACC Tournament. This tournament USED to be a hot ticket, even in Atlanta and Landover, however now it is a joke of an event played in front of scores of empty seats.
Expansion cut each school’s ticket allotment by 1/3, so that people from Boston, Miami, and Blacksburg, VA can take the rights to our seats, not show up, and sell tickets on eBay.
The 8 teams, 2/3 of the league, that play today, have NO CHANCE of winning the tournament. Their fans realize it, and they don’t bother to come. With 1/3 of the league eliminated before the first Friday game begins, it’s no wonder that the arena will be full of empty seats on Friday, too. It never USED to be like that. For those of you who say that the increase of NCAA tournament berths has had a greater effect, keep in mind that ALL of the bubble teams, the ones that need this tournament the most, play today, but where are their fans?
The elimination of the double-round robin in the regular season has not only destroyed rivalries, it has made an understanding of all of the players in this event far more difficult. We not longer have two shots at every team where we get to know the Sharone Wrights, Ricky Stokes, Kenny Andersons, and Herman Veals of the world. Of the league’s Top 15 players, three are on the UNC team, and we only played the league’s #4, #6, #8, #11, and #13 players ONCE this season. That’s almost HALF of the remainder of top tier of players! How are we supposed to build value in the product if we never get exposed to it?
It is time for John Swofford’s reign of terror on ACC Basketball to END!
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