Thanksgiving in the ville

Didn't get a chance to blog during the Thanksgiving holiday in Fayetteville due to the lack of wi-fi at my folks' house (disappointing legions of fans).  


However, there are some good wi-fi places in the 'ville, namely the 'Coffee Scene' near my parents house across from the Westwood shopping center.  Not coincidentally, it's Greek-owned by one of my first baby sitters, Kiki (Parrous)  Manis.  It's a funky, family-owned joint with good coffee.  It's so funky and cool and urbane that you would forget you were in Fayetteville (if not for the Roses and Food Lion across the street in the downscale Westwood Shopping Center).


Another place is 'Rude Awakening' coffee shop on one of the rehabilitated blocks on Hay Street downtown. We went downtown on Friday night for the annual Dickens Christmas celebration. There is the some there there as Fayetteville has worked hard to made downtown a destination. For 30 years of downtown was full of notorious strip clubs and seedy bars and Hay Street was synonymous - all over North Carolina - with prostitution and drugs.  


But give Fayetteville credit - they wiped out the seedy blocks, and there are a number of local businesses now on Hay Street: Rude Awakening, an art-house theater that packed in audiences to watch Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 911', and a half-dozen restaurants ranging from a brew pub to a diner to a couple new American cuisine places.  


So if you ever visit Fayetteville hit the Coffee Scene and downtown and help Fayetteville make a comeback.


Evan would move to Fayetteville tomorrow if he could.  He loves North Carolina almost as much as I do, and would like nothing more than to move anywhere close to my parents or his cousins Paul and Alex.


A Few Random Notes

• Of course, if we visit God's Country we have to visit the Southern Part of Heaven.  On Friday we met Johnny and his family at Time Out for lunch (so Ariadne and Alison could enjoy a chicken and cheddar biscuit; with our homecoming visit Evan's eaten 3 of those in the last month).  
• The boys then headed to Fetzer Field to watch the most dominant dynasty in the history of sports, the Carolina women's soccer team.  The Heels jumped out to an early 3-0 lead on their way to a 5-2 win over Wake Forest in a NCAA regional final.  The win means the Heels qualified for their 25th final four (out of 28 years of NCAA women's soccer tournaments) and will shoot for their 21st - 21st! - national championship next weekend.
• It's obviously a skilled and talented team but I was most impressed by Carolina's first goal.  Jessica McDonald ran down a pass and reached it just before it went out of bounds in the corner.  Barely slowing down McDonald nailed a perfect cross - on the run -  into the box where Carolina's All-Everything Casey Nogueira (a North Carolina native, BTW) headed it in for a 1-0 lead. 
• On a down note, the Carolina football team saw their 4-game winning streak snapped at rival NC State on Saturday afternoon, 27-28.  The Heels played well, especially in the first half.  But mistakes cost them, especially a key fumble at the goal line in the first quarter, some terrible penalties on State's first drive of the second half, and a blocked field goal was too much for the football Heels to overcome.  State's offense was also able to move the ball against Carolina's impressive defense, something ranked teams like Miami and Virginia Tech were not able to do.  The loss will likely keep the Heels out of the Chic-fil-a Bowl on New Year's Eve in Atlanta, and the Heels will probably end up in Charlotte's Meineke Car Care Bowl (a terrible name, not nearly as romantic as the original Continental Tires Bowl) in late December.
• That said, this was a pretty good year for the Heels and Butch Davis.  Most of the defense will return, and the young offensive line has really improved down the stretch so this team could be scary-good next year.

Finally, a few caustic notes

• Regardless of the details, Tiger Woods lost whatever manhood he had over the weekend. Anyone who totals his car running into a FIRE HYDRANT and has to have his wife rescue him by smashing his windshield with a gold club has NO manhood left. 
• For the latest example of how disgusting capitalism is, check out the front page of today's SundayStyles section of The New York Times. Above the fold is a series of photos of a 10-year old girl being surprised in school by her father as he returns from Iraq. At the bottom of the page is an ad for Gucci complete with pouty/bored/wealthy/stupid looking models.  We value one thing, the market another.

Crying Wolf

Every week, it's the same blog.

But usually, the topic is politics or how great Roy is or how bad the Nats are or a arcane posting on Greek sports. Today, it's yet another big game for the football Heels as they travel to Atlanta to take on a ranked ACC foe in Georgia Tech.

Last year the Heels surprised the Jackets, 28-7, in a win that launched a successful 8-5 campaign. Today's game is more important as a win against Tech could lead to an ACC championship, at least a chance to play for the championship.

The Heels played a good second half last week to pull away from a good-but-not-that-good East Carolina team. The real good news from that game was the play of the offensive line. T. J. Yates had a great game against the Pirates, thanks in large part to the protection he received; unlike against UConn the Heels did not allow a sack.

It will take that kind of line play to ensure a win in Atlanta. Tech's pass defense appears to be weak, so pass protection and the play of Yates and his young receivers will be the key to this game.

Finally, the Heels will have to control Georgia Tech's wishbone-oriented running game. The good news is their leading rusher, Dwyer, has been slowed by injuries this week.

Go HEELS!

A FEW RANDOM NOTES

• Good news and bad news concerning Carolina soccer. The women defeated Duke last night thanks to a dramatic late goal. The men lost a road game to defending national champs Maryland, 0-1, in much the same way losing on a header with 3 minutes left, on a ball Carolina failed to clear.
• Greece won the bronze medal at the European Championships last week. Spain dominated the final four to win their second European championship in the last three competitions. Ellas did well to medal, and played with a relatively new squad. One tantalizing player was the Utah Jazz' Kosta Koufos, who did not play much last week due to the flu. His improvement could make Greece a tough out at next year's World Basketball Championship.
• I caught 'Gouge Away,' a British documentary on the Pixies the other night, via the Documentary Channel, and have been listening to 'Surfer Rosa' over and over ever since.

Wrap Up

HELLENIC FOOTBALL

I'll lead with Greece's big loss to Switzerland yesterday in wrapping up a big football Saturday.

As most folks know, Greeks are never at fault. If we mess up - and we've messed up a lot, from the splintering of Alexander the Great's empire to the loss of Constantinople to the great Asia Minor catastrophe of the 1920s to the Civil War and the junta of the colonels - it's NEVER our fault. Instead Greeks blame the Turks, the west, the British or the Americans (only one time was is not our fault; the 1204 attack on The City by the fourth Crusade).

And as much as I want to stay away from the blame game, it's hard not to blame the referee in yesterday's 0-2 loss in Switzerland. Greece played the entire second half down a man after a very dubious red card against Louis Ventra near the end of the first 45 minutes.

Despite being a man down, it looked like Greece was going to survive with a scoreless tie and gain an all-important point in their quest to qualify for the 2010 World Cup. Ellas missed a great chance to take the lead and control of the game with 20 minutes left when Ioannis Amanatidis, who was by far the most active player for the motherland, failed to to score when his shot just grazed the cross bar. Ten minutes and one justified-penalty-against-Ellas later, the Swiss scored off a penalty kick to take a 1-0 lead.

Of course, the Swiss player who took the penalty kick, a pass that resulted in a header for the goal, was Turkish born Hakan Yakin. So it IS the Turks' fault!

WORLD CUP UPDATE

The U.S. looked shaky, particularly on defense, but still defeated El Salvador 2-1 yesterday to practically clinch a spot in the World Cup. Team USA was baled out by Landon Donovan, who's two passes off set pieces resulted in goals from Clint Dempsey and Jozy Altadore.

As wobbly as the team looked It's a good-to-great sign for the U.S. that the three players - Donovan, Dempsey, and Altadore - who excelled at the Confederation Cup in June, when the Americans upset Spain on their way to the final where they eventually lost to Brazil, continued their good play yesterday against Our Savior.

In fairness to the U.S. squad the score should have been 3-1. The Honduran referee called back a beautiful counter attack goal from Altadore dramatically set up by passes from - who else - Donovan and Dempsey.

[My too-much-time-on-his-hands analysis of Greece's chance to recover from their loss and STILL make the World Cup is here.]

CAROLINA FOOTBALL ROLES

The Carolina football Heels met expectations in handily defeating The Citadel yesterday, 40-6. The Heels' defense held the Bulldogs to less than 200 yards for the game, the offense did not turn the ball over, and the running game dominated play and provided plenty of space for the passing game to grow.

In general, a perfect start for a team with high expectations for the season and a tough game next week in East Hartford against Ed Mierzwinski's UConn Huskies.

DITTO FOR THE CAROLINA WOMEN

It was a pretty big Carolina sports weekend. In addition to the football team's rout, the number one Carolina women demolished number two Notre Dame 6-0 in South Bend on Saturday, a week after defeating number 3 UCLA 7-2. Let's hope the Carolina women's team, the defending national champs and arguably THE most DOMINANT sports dynasty of all time, hasn't peaked too soon.

BAD START FOR THE ACC

Carolina took care of business in defeating Division 1-AA The Citadel, but two other ACC teams lost to foes from that division. Duke lost to defending 1-AA national champs Richmond, obviously a quality team but to lose at home is bad.

More shocking was Virginia's home loss to in-state 1-AA 'rival' William and Mary. That one is a truly embarrassing loss.

Playing against better competition the rest of the ACC did not fair that much better. Wake Forest lost to Baylor, and Virginia Tech was over matched by Alabama last night. A conference with a lackluster football reputation heading into the season did nothing to change those perceptions yesterday.

FINAL CAROLINA NOTE

As part of the school's celebration of 100 years of basketball, Carolina held a star-studded all-star game Friday night at the Dean Dome. Roy Williams, Larry Brown, George Karl, Michael Jordan and Dean Smith and a who's who of active hoopsters were on hand. You can check out the highlight video at http://090409_unc_m-baskbl_AlumniGameHighlights.asx. If that link doesn't work you can go to Tarheelblue.com.

More Carolina Sports

Big soccer weekend for the Heels.

The women advanced to Sunday's championship game after defeating fellow number one seed UCLA on Friday 1-0. Carolina scored on senior midfielder Yael Averbuch's first half penalty kick and held on for the win. Averbuch is Carolina's all time leading scorer, quite a feat when you consider the who's who of women's soccer who have played in Chapel Hill.

Carolina plays Notre Dame for the second time this season in soccer and the fourth time this fall (men's hoops, and football). Notre Dame is undefeated and untied this season, and is the only team to defeat Carolina so it should be a great game. The Fighting Irish will be favored, but the Heels will be playing in Cary in front of a sell-out crowd of 8,000 mostly Heels fans.

The men play today - in Chapel Hill against Northwestern - for a chance to go to the final four next weekend in Texas. The Heels limped into the NCAA tournament but have gotten hot at the right time.

Go Heels!

Two random notes

• We TiVO the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and were catching up on some old shows including one that featured 'LA punk legends' X. It was the original line up, with John Doe - best rock and roll voice of ALL TIME - Exene Cervenka, D.J. Bonebreak, and my man Bill Zoom on guitars. They were promoting their new greatest hits record, and played "New World." The lyrics, which were written for Ronald Reagan, still resonate 20 years later. They still tour quite a bit - I've seen them at the old and new 9:30 Club - but it was great to see them on TV.
• One last pop culture note: I've gotten way into 30 Rock lately, having watched the first season on DVD and catching other episodes on-line or via TiVO. Star and fellow Greek-American Tina Fey is on the cover of Vanity Fair, and in the interview mentions one of the traits she picked up raised as a 'Greek girl' is a predilection for cheetah prints.