For better or worse, this is no longer the case.  West Virginia remained in the Big East and there are no planned inter-conference games between West Virginia and VT for the foreseeable future.  I think most VT fans will miss the rivalry in principle but not West Virginia in particular; Besides, you could argue we now have Maryland, the ACCs interpretation of West Virginia.

On the other hand, the UVA rivalry should have been even bigger with them competing in the same conference but instead, UVA has trailed off to become one of the worst football teams in Div I-A.  While rivalries are by their very nature competitive, the UVA rivalry has become too lopsided in recent years in favor of VT for it to register much interest.

VT doesn’t have to be too concerned with losing those rivalries as two new rivalries are starting to evolve from a surprising pair of teams: Fellow Big East -> ACC expansion teams Boston College and Miami.  Boston College has remained a solid, not great, program for many years now, and more noticeably, has been the pest that manages to knock off VT at most inopportune times.   The NFL Atlanta Falcons used to hold a warm place in many Hokie fans hearts with all the VT alumni that play(-ed) there but I wonder how many remain so now that evil wunderkind Matt Ryan of BC and VT-heartbreaking fame is running the show down there.

Possibly a bit more related to national relevance is the Miami/VT rivalry.  Going into the game last week, the VT/Miami was as even as possible: 9-9 wins, with the 18 games also matched at 391-391 points scored… that’s just crazy.  It’s impossible to be even more evenly matched.  In addition, VT & Miami have essentially run over the conferences they’ve been a part of since their Big East days.  Since 1994, VT has won 6 conference champions and Miami has won 5.  As you might expect, this dominance has usually lead to the Miami vs VT games being one of the more important games of the season.

Miami has traditionally been one of those schools you love to hate.  I don’t know any other schools that take pride in being arrogant but somehow Miami fans and athletes did.  For as long as I can remember, Miami has seemed to revel in trying to rub people the wrong way.  With questionable academic standards and over-priced tuition designed to provide a safe haven for undeserving trust fund kids, the whole idea that Miami is the “U” and somehow better than anyone, much less everyone, is preposterous.  Yet, somehow that’s exactly how Miami rolls.

That arrogance made the beautiful 31-7 beatdown VT graciously handed Miami this past weekend all that much sweeter so I won’t complain too much.

All of that said, a new wrinkle has been added to the mix.  I must give props to what appears to be a changing culture at Miami, on the football team at least.  I really like what I hear about Randy Shannon.  He sounds like a class guy that I would be happy to have coaching my own football team.  But I still want to beat his team every year.  That’s what rivalries are all about.

We stayed in the Isla Verde area of San Juan, an area known for its excellent beaches, and they didn’t disappoint.  Not surprisingly, it is also home to many of the resorts in San Juan and we slummed it in one of the cheaper rooms of one of the nicest hotels, the El San Juan.  Situated on prime beach real-estate, the views in and around the hotel were beautiful.

After flying in, we quickly made our way to the hotel and found it very similar to the Casino-Hotels in Las Vegas.  Regretfully, that included a lack of affordable dining.  Each meal we consumed in the hotel cost between $40-100 — ouch!  The Palms steakhouse, La Piccola Fontana, and even the so-called casual dining Galleria Pizza & Trattoria were all bank-busters.  Other than the cost, the biggest challenge we had was finding decent, at least somewhat authentic, Puerto-Rican food.  Christina tried several dishes but almost all were a huge disappointment.  Luckily, on our trip to Old San Juan, we found the El Patio de Sam which exceeded her expectations.

Though my life doesn’t revolve around my next meal as it does my somehow-ridiculously-petite wife, Old San Juan was also one of my favorite parts of the trip.  We visited there on our first full day by taking a $0.75 bus which also let us see much of downtown San Juan.  Afterwards, we wandered the streets of Old San Juan, walked along the beachfront walls, and visited El Morro, each of which were great and worth a visit by themselves.  The views from the fort of El Morro were even more stunning than the views from the hotel.

The rest of the vacation, we simply lounged around our hotel, relaxed on the beach, hung out around the awesome pools at the hotel and pretty much had an awesome time.  The people of Puerto Rico must be trying to challenge Bhutan for happiest place on earth as the people there were universally, without exception, some of the nicest people Christina or I had ever come across.

No trip could be without a few mishaps and this was no exception.  Almost immediately upon arrival, I received numerous emails & texts notifying me that “hey, one of those things we rushed out the door before I left didn’t quite deploy correctly” — nothing like tech support to kick off a vacation!  At least I found out quickly if my cell got service there.   Also, we had booked this flight on US Airways just like our previous flight to St Louis.  If we hadn’t booked it earlier, we would definitely have chosen a different airline — it wasn’t quite as bad as our previous trip but it certainly wasn’t good either.  I almost feel sorry for the people who work for US Airways.  Lastly, though the hotel impressed in most ways, the room decor was a bit disappointing.  The photos of the rooms on the website were certainly taken from the updated rooms… and ours wasn’t one of them.  This was more of an issue for Christina but it would have been nice to have a modern look & feel instead of the out-of-place furniture we had in our room.

All in all, Puerto Rico was awesome.  We barely scratched the surface of San Juan, much less the rest of the island.  e.g. Who knew there was a rainforest in Puerto Rico?  That’s one of the places we have planned for our next visit…  which can’t come soon enough.

All of the photos of our trip can be found here.

Few creatures of the night have captured our imagination like vampires…
What explains our enduring fascination with vampires?
What is it about the vampire myth that explains our interest?
Is it the overtones of sexual lust, power, control…
Or is it a fascination with the immortality of the undead?
And what dark and hidden parts of our psyche are aroused and captivated
By the legends of the undead

– Vampires, Godsmack

I remember when vampires were awesome.  Whether it’s a book by Anne Rice, the Lost Boys, pretty much any RPG, or Dracula himself — Vampires are to be feared.  As suggested, vampires have always had a “sexiness” to them but first and foremost, they were creatures to be feared.

No more.

I suppose it started with Blade making vampires “cool”.  Then Kate Beckinsale made them ridiculously hot.  Finally, Stephenie Meyer emasculated them.  The so-called “next J.K. Rowling” has turned vampires as ordinary teenagers experiencing overly dramatic romanticism.  Now vampires are cropping up everywhere but almost universally as a love interest as opposed to, you know, a terrifying force of evil.

Thankfully, a fellow supernatural undead, the zombie, is also riding a huge upswell up popularity.  When it comes to the undead, zombies have always been perceived as the plebs to the vampires patricians.  Unlike vampires however, zombies haven’t had to resort to teen angst for their popularity.  Left 4 Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Plants vs Zombies, 28 Days Later, Resident Evil 5, and the upcoming ZombieLand… zombies are riding high.

The mysteries of the undead will continue to fascinate the living.

– Vampires, Godsmack

Who am I to fight all of these reasons?  Uncharted, Fat Princess, Resistance, Little Big Planet, I await thee.

Surprisingly, they mostly succeeded.  It is generally quite funny and for those without a sense of humor, the bits of music & dance will entertain.  Christina is particularly enamored with the show and I have put it into the TiVo Season Pass rotation.

If you missed it, you can watch it on Hulu.

When I finally moved out of Richmond, I was a bit taken back at the poor quality of grocery stores elsewhere.  Some were ok, the Harris Teeters of the world, while others were almost universally terrible, such as Giant.  Apparently, there used to be Giants in Richmond before I was born but like Safeway, Hannaford, and FarmFresh, it was run out of town by the success of Ukrops.

Times have changed.  It seems most of the other chains have either adapted and improved.  Giant, the poster-child for all the things other grocery store chains did poorly, has the best self-checkout system of the grocery stores around us.  The store has been modernized, cleaned up, and no longer looks like a sad derelict left over from the post-WWII building boom.

Last night, Giant took it up a notch with handheld scanners.

The beauty of this little guy is that I can scan my groceries as I shop, see my total bill at any time, and when I’m ready to check out, I simply zap a little card at the register, pay, and I’m ready to leave.  No lengthy checkout necessary.  For someone who doesn’t particularly care to spend any additional time in a grocery store than necessary, this thing rocks.  For someone who loves tech gadgets as I do, this thing really rocks.

The evolution of grocery stores is much appreciated, especially as the wunderkind struggles.  Now if we can only get payment by cell phone and RFID checkout going, I might actually enjoy going to the grocery store.   Even if it’s only to play with the gadgets.

As Christina described it, it was a cross between adults, kids, foreigners, and crazies and it was all awesome.  The stuff they can do with Legos these days is simply amazing.  In addition, the Lego Mindstorms programmable robotics takes it up another notch.  From your basic space, pirate, Harry Potter, alien, and police Legos taken to a massive scale, working Lego factories made of Legos, recreated historic monuments, running trains, and perpetual motion machines, the BrickFair impressed. Not a bad way to spend an hour or two on a Saturday afternoon.

I posted some pictures in my BrickFair 2009 gallery.

District 9 was the more interesting of the two — drawing an obvious but not overbearing correlation to apartheid and with more than a few curious plot inconsistencies, it still managed to come across as a great action & special effects movie with a smart backstory.  It’s told in a newsroom/documentary-style that I thought worked pretty well even if the shaky-cam was probably a bit overdone.  It also wasn’t trying to tell the “whole” story and that explains some (but not all) of the aforementioned plot-holes.  That said, if you are looking for a movie that tells the whole story from start to finish, you are not going to appreciate the “incompleteness” of District 9.

Inglourious Basterds has Tarantino at his best… and his worst.  If you appreciate Buschemi ranting about tipping or Jackson preaching, you should definitely see Inglourious Basterds.  The dairy farmhouse and tavern basement scenes are worth the price of admission — some of the most entertaining scenes I’ve ever seen.  The rest of the movie is quite good as well though Tarantino doesn’t know how to pull on the brakes for some of the more sadistic violence scenes.  There are 2 or 3 parts in the movie that are essentially completely unnecessary and break the audience out of the movie’s spell as they look away in disgust.  A better filmmaker would probably have left un-shown the violence and just left it to the audiences imagination.  The last scene in particular could have been one of the greatest final scenes ever but instead, most people walked out of the theater disgusted.  A few minutes later, everyone will recall how good the movie was but why he took that approach, I don’t know.  Lastly, if Christopher Waltz doesn’t get a nomination for his role in the movie, it’s a travesty — his character is the one you want to hate the most but will be talking about long after the movie ends.

If I could only see one of the two movies, it would be District 9.  Basterds was, at its core, just another WW2 movie (granted one with extreme historic license) while District 9 actually broke fairly unknown ground with its story.  That said, I would highly recommend them both.