If you did some research you would find the number of people watching OTA has remained constant (or gone up slightly) over the past five years.

Give me numbers. While I’ve provided data showing an enormous increase in people subscribing to satellite TV, you’ve shown…nothing. You’ve simply made a blind assertion.

Funny thing. Last week was the least-viewed week in the history of broadcast television. Note that is precisely the opposite of your assertion.

Six people? Six?

It’s a lot like like when you ask “does anyone live here during these 6 months of living hell/heat/humidity?” You’ve looked out your window. You know people live here. I could accuse you of being too ignorant to realize that, but that would be foolish of me — you and I both know that you’re exaggerating the numbers of dramatic, comic effect. Precisely the same as I did. But you know that.

Good luck with that e-mail.

I can only assume that you’re talking about The Hook’s article. You seem to forget that you’re one of approximately six people in the nation that actually own an HDTV. Asserting that people are switching from broadcast to satellite is sort of like asserting that internet usage is increasing; it’s a big duh. Look no further than Wikipedia, the DirecTV and Dish Network pages. The industry is exploding for areas (like Central Virginia outside of Charlottesville) where very few broadcast channels are available and cable’s not an option.

If you did some research you would find the number of people watching OTA has remained constant (or gone up slightly) over the past five years. Perhaps that is due to the increasing poverty rate in places like C-Ville. Duh. I’m so dumb I can’t even use them thar’n computer to looky up dat stuff.

Six people? Six? It seems as if you have never looked at any data related to television. Perhaps no data related to anything at all. Apparently you are living in the 1980’s and have no connection to the world outside of your farm. Or..you are a born politician of the finest kind…the ones that know nothing about anything, but will take kickbacks without even thinking twice.

I’m sorry that your e-mail at work isn’t functioning, and you have to ask such questions in unrelated blog discussions. I hope that gets fixed.

Email not working? Did I say that? As for unrelated topics, I assume that since your posting referred to towns sucking, people couldn’t bring up reasons why C-Ville sucks? Such as no HDTV and the fact that locals don’t even know what it is.

Keep enjoying your little fantasyland Michael (I hope you can figure out that reference). Now, back to reading about another big shopping complex that will get built next to 64 with big national chains so that I don’t have to go “hang out” with uncle billy to get a single 2×4. Perhaps you will design the new mall since you are an expert in that field.

C-Ville is So Very VirginiaTM. I guess I will stop thinking once again and go back to being a good C-Ville clone.

Those five things you listed clearly show that a town with those five things sucks. Using a .22 on bodies is a good thing. I feel so smart now. I’ll remember that forever.

Take Lima, Peru, for example. Compared to it, daily life in any American burb must seem like heaven on earth (and I really don’t like big US cities, with several exceptions)

Lima has
14 million residents, but services only for 7 million.
7 million residents living in illegal hillside shantytowns
Truly chaotic traffic – I invite you to try an entrance ramp to the Pan American highway, which was our local freeway “equivalent.” No-one will let you in, and the string of traffic seems continuous much of the day.
Hordes of beggars and homeless street urchins grabbing you asking for money, or blocking your progress at many intersections.
A mangle of chaotic, unsafe jitney systems rather than any overarching mass transit system, a system on which riders are regularly killed.
No Fuddruckers (yet, but give it time), but lots of other US chains for the well-to-do, and of course, plenty of dumpsters (you get the hint, here).
Bottled water for the well-to-do, but unsafe tap water for those who can get access to the city water supply.
The Rimac river. I wonder what would happen if I threw a match in? (only slightly kidding)

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Peru, and would go back in a hearbeat, and I really do appreciate the whole burbs/automobile culture here, but I wanted to add a little 3rd World perspective to the burbs argument.

Well, it’s boiling hot here in Germany tonight and there’s one thing I believe for sure. I believe I’ll go have a beer.

Y’all have a good one,

–Jim

I spent a year there one day.”

November 27, 2004? Yeah, you and 30,000 other fans.

35,000 a day is about as much as what Route 1 gets up here (which tells you how much of a mess Route 1 is). That’s half the traffic some areas of Route 7 get. Those are arterial roadways that, while dangerous to attempt to cross unless you want to become pedestrian goo, are not highways.

I-95 in the Mixing Bowl carries 117,000 on the northbound side alone. Add in the southbound side and HOV lanes and the total comes out to 280,000, which is larger than the entire population of Chesterfield County.

280,000 = 35,000 X 8. Say what you want, 288 is “largely empty” in my book. I call horsepuckey.

http://www.virginiadot.org/comtravel/ct-TrafficCounts-Juris2005.asp

On Sundays it’s rather light, that much is true.

We do elect such leaders. At least, recently. We can’t get the funding, though. We’ve had the expansion of I-66 out to Haymarket pushed back and nonfunded several times because we just can’t get the votes from the rest of the state to fund it. We had to half-ass fund it on the third or fourth try to just get construction started to Exit 44, which doesn’t even get traffic to the Gainesville/Warrenton/Culpeper exit which is where all the people are going. With I-66 at four lanes to Haymarket, many of those delays on I-66 that Waldo lamented earlier lessen considerably. There are other examples all over the place, like the expansion of the VRE to Haymarket by way of Sudley and Gainesville that we still haven’t funded but badly need. My abominable Delegate notwithstanding, it’s not like we haven’t tried to get funding for these projects.

And with my parents, sister and brother-in-law all living in Chesterfield Co and me using 288 reasonably frequently, I call horsepuckey. That highway is empty.

BP

Neither of these are “largely empty.” Route 288 is a particularly good example of what happens when local and state leaders meet a need before it’s LONG overdue. 288 is quite busy, and very well-traveled, and has been since the moment it opened a couple years ago. It alleviates traffic on Routes 6, 250, 64, 60, 360, 95, 295, and many other area roads. (And just because it isn’t congested 24/7 like many highways in NoVa doesn’t mean it’s empty. It does its job of moving large amounts of traffic from one place to another quickly.)

If NoVa residents are upset about it, they should elect leaders who will similarly plan wisely and with an eye toward the future.

It was fun trying to explain to my Honduran-American next-door neighbor in highly broken English how to get one’s drivers license transferred from North Carolina to VA, and how to get to the DMV. Again, I doubt I would have that conversation in Palmyra. :)

Palmyra? I couldn’t pull that off in English.

Harry, I’m all for sharing. But there’s nothing that burns a NoVA resident’s bottom quicker than seeing largely empty, wide roadways on Route 288 and the Powhite Parkway in Richmond that could have been spent so much more effectively northward. I don’t have the numbers handy, but the last time I took a look something like 79% of the tax revenues generated in whatever definition of “Northern Virginia”* was being used was being funnelled to activities elsewhere in the state. That’s not terribly fair, and it’s not terribly wise, seeing as we’re going to be expected to continue generating lots of revenue for the state down the road.

Second, it’s entirely reasonable to know your neighbors in Northern Virginia. I do. It was fun trying to explain to my Honduran-American next-door neighbor in highly broken English how to get one’s drivers license transferred from North Carolina to VA, and how to get to the DMV. Again, I doubt I would have that conversation in Palmyra. :)

Brian

* Is Fauquier County mentioned? Stafford? Spotsylvania? Clarke? Frederick? Warren? Page? Culpeper? Various methods have included all of the above or none of the above in the economic definition of Northern Virginia. Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve seen *Shenandoah County* listed as being part of Northern Virginia before. mmhmm.