Charlottesville Craziness

By: Andy Gripshover

Greetings once again, it's me, Andy, coming to you LIVE from the Hilton Garden Inn here in Hooville. We've been here two nights and we'll be here two more in all likelyhood but here's what we've been through so far:

-Bus ride down was uneventful. Oh yeah, except for the part where we had one of the greatest dinners in the history of humankind. We stopped at a place called Cracker Barrel, a half-gift shop, half-restaurant conglomeration. In the restaurant part, BK had roast beef, green beans, carrots, and corn. I had chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple sauce and tore through it like McNabb picking apart the Dallas secondary this Sunday night (for you, BK :D) Holy crap the South knows how to do food.

We ate with Coach Meharg but were unable to get super secret game plans out of her for the weekend's games. Instead she regaled us with tales of being a coach on campus at Maryland during the aftermath of the Len Bias tragedy (the topic came up as we discussed "Without Bias", the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary which I shamefully haven't seen yet), which was very cool.

-Watched some baseball last night. Some New York team won some championship. I'd tell you more but there hasn't been too much coverage of it today.

We wanted to watch a rerun of "Without Bias" afterward but (in all seriousness now) ESPN2 stopped showing it to show YankeeCenter since the basketball game on ESPN ran long. Whatever. I fell asleep.

-Switched rooms because our original room only had one king size bed. As BK went downstairs though, he was apparently on an elevator with like half the Boston College field hockey team (who's also staying here...at least they were until they lost today) while wearing his Maryland sweatshirt. Apparently he got some dirty looks which: I'm not glad I wasn't there for that. Awkkkkkkkkward!!!

-In the trip's biggest upset, we were entertained by "Freaky Friday." Not a bad movie; very fun and not a bad life lesson at the end of it all. And it was back before Lindsay Lohan was ruined. Unfortunately, after it was over, we couldn't watch Wake/BC on ACC Select and we no longer had the beautiful lake view that the odd numbered rooms got to admire (we switched from 217 to 420) so we decided to...

-...go to Giant! I got five, yes FIVE Stouffer's frozen dinners for $10 ($2 a meal? Yes please!), a couple bags of pretzels (Utz vs. Snyder's? We'll find out the superior brand soon enough), some Christmas Oreos (red frosting, they're solid), and Dr Pepper (a.k.a. the best soda ever.) Then we went to Blockbuster, one of the three across the country that aren't closing, and bought cheap DVD's. Brian got four romantic comedies (no comment) and I got "Alpha Dog" (wanted to see it for a while, heard good things, lots of hot ladies, JT's the man, etc.) and "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People" (hey, I have a Megan Fox thing; plus the title's great.) I still haven't watched "Cry_Wolf" from the previous trip thanks to being uber busy. I'll get to it...

-Brian's lunch today was "Sticks", which he described as "Chipotle for Indian people." Needless to say, he enjoyed it. I got a roast beef sandwich from Blimpie, which reminded me of Wawa and made me miss it. God, why did you only let Wawa in to my life for the first month of my freshman year?

-Dinner was at the Topeka Steakhouse and Saloon which might not have topped the previous night's dinner but boy did it make a bid. Props to Heather, our waitress, who was very nice and quite attractive as well with a fantastic smile. God, I love the South. I got a New York Strip, baked potato, and applesauce. BK got a Prime Rib and the largest sweet potato in the history of the Milky Way. That's not even hyperbole, this thing was GIGANTIC. He really should've taken a picture of it but we're not forward-thinking like that, unfortunately. Pricing was very fair as well; we only dropped about $25 each which: considering the amount of food we had was a bargain.

Well that's it for me. I'm about to pass out as it's 12:20, it's been a long day, and I consumed an unhealthy amount of food tonight. Wake tomorrow at 4. BK will be back with a wrapup after it's all done, win or lose. Should be good times. Until then, take care everyone.