The Carolina Hurricanes visit the Washington Capitals in one of the most important games this season. With a win in regulation, the Canes can clinch the Southeast Division and a 3rd seed in the playoffs. The Canes, with the 8th most points in the Eastern Conference, currently have a 2-point lead over the Caps with just 3 games remaining in the regular season. Williams and Whitney are listed as "probable".

The puck drops at 7pm on FSN (TWC channel 50).

On July 23 the Unity Tour comes to Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek. Headlining the tour is 311, with Snoop Dogg and Fiction Plane opening.

On Saturday night the North Carolina Tar Heels beat the Louisville Cardinals to earn a place in college basketball’s vaunted Final Four. It is both the school’s 17th trip and another chapter in the Triangle’s storied history in one of sports’ largest events.

In the "Modern Era", the Triangle has had a team in 20 of the last 28 Final Fours. Going back further, the Triangle has placed a team in 30 of the last 45 Final Fours, cementing the national event as an important part of our local culture.

The Triangle area is not short on national championships, either. In the last 26 years, 7 have come from the Triangle. Remarkable runs have occurred during that time, too. From 1986 to 1992, Duke only missed the Final Four 1 time (including 5 straight appearances). UNC went 6 times in a 10 year period from 1991 to 2000.

With Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski still bringing in outstanding recruiting classes, this part of our culture isn’t likely to fade soon.

Bold indicates National Champion

The Bravery will be playing a free concert in Greensboro tonight. The 6pm show was originally scheduled to be outside, but has been moved to the Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center.

Their most recent CD, The Sun and Moon, ranks as my personal favorite CD of 2007. If you can’t make the road trip, catch their appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien on Wednesday night. They will be performing "Believe", the latest single from The Sun and Moon.

Rampant foreclosures are sinking markets like Las Vegas and Tampa, but stable markets do exist out here. Raleigh was named #2 by Forbes in their list of Best Places to Buy Foreclosed Homes. The 100 largest American cities were ranked based on foreclosure rates from RealtyTrac.

Local kitchen and bathroom upfit specialists Kitchen & Bath Galleries will soon open a showroom in The Lassiter at North Hills, across from Tyler House.

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Get ready for a big night at the Lincoln! On May 10 Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band will play with George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic. Clinton, a Kannapolis native, is a funk legend who has gotten scores of presidential write-in votes through the years. He just may get mine in this upcoming election.

3/27/08 Update: Hobex is also playing. This concert is by Band Together and will benefit SAFEchild, a local non-profit child abuse prevention agency. This will be an outdoor show held on a blocked-off Cabarrus Street, which is in downtown Raleigh right in front of the Lincoln Theater. Get your tickets here! and will benefit

Forbes Magazine has named Raleigh in its latest list of best places to "live and launch". Cities were ranked on a mix if items including business conditions, lifestyle options, tax rates, startup activity, housing affordability, and cultural activities. Raleigh came in #20. The pros? A thriving tech industry, and proximity to major research and business centers. The con? Inability to keep up with growing infrastructure needs.

Other cities in the region mentioned are Charlottesville, VA at #18, Virginia Beach #14, Durham #12, and Charlotte at #8.

Back in the days when 100.7 was a 50’s and 60’s oldies station, they ran a promo package by a guy named Chuck Matthews. Chuck does voiceovers all over the country, and has posted some of his WTRG work at his site. Enjoy!

The fifth annual Raleigh Spy Conference began tonight with a seminar by Brian Kelley, former counterintelligence officer for the CIA. His topic: some of the U.S.’ most famous traitors.

The three-day event resumes tomorrow with these presentations:

• The Real James Angleton and the Wilderness of Mirrors - David Robarge
• Double Agents, Deception Programs and the Nosenko Case - Pete Bagley
• Cold War Beat: My Life Covering Spies and Double Agents - Jerry Schecter

Friday’s events include:

• Panel Discussion with speakers
• Keynote Address - David Ignatius

The event is taking place at the North Carolina Museum of History. Admission for the conference is $250 per person. For more information, visit the conference’s website.

On August 10, the 80’s will invade Walnut Creek. Journey, with Heart and Cheap Trick are all coming together on their 41-city tour. Philippine-born Armel Pineda is Journey’s current singer. In the meantime, check out this funny shot-for-shot tribute to the "Separate Ways" video.

The Town of Cary held an information session on a proposed major road project. The town wants a new underpass that would allow traffic to bypass train delays (that can last up to 25 minutes) in downtown Cary. The $15 million project includes extending Walker Street 1,200 feet from its current end at Cedar Street northwards to Chapel Hill Road, installation of a grade-separated railroad crossing, and realignment of cross streets. The project is expected to be complete in early 2011.

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The second round of the city’s public planning workshops on the Comprehensive Plan will begin on Tuesday. At these meetings citizens will be able to hear an overview of the revised draft, participate in small group discussions, and consider new options for addressing Raleigh’s growth and development challenges and opportunities.

The workshops last form 6:30 to 9:00 and will be held:

• Tuesday, March 25 - Southeast Raleigh High School - 2600 Rock Quarry Road (map it)
• Wednesday, March 26 - Moore Square Museum Middle School - 301 S. Person St. (map it)
• Thursday, March 27 - Tabernacle Baptist Church - 8304 Leesville Road (map it)

David Brenner is coming to Charlie Goodnights March 28-30. He made his national television debut on the The Tonight Show, and has since become the most frequent guest on the show, with over 150 appearances. He has also appeared on Hollywood Squares, the movie the Aristocrats, Saturday Night Live, his own HBO specials, and many other places. Brenner also ranked #53 on Comedy Central’s "100 Greatest Stand-Ups Of All Time."

With less than six comedy club appearances this year, don’t miss this rare opportunity to see this comedy legend.  

The N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and the State Capitol grounds will host a celebration for Planet Earth on Saturday, April 19, a few days before the actual Earth Day. The festival goes from 11am to 7pm and includes:

• Lots of local businesses & non profits whose good works support sustainable living
• Eco-smart shopping from rain barrels to organic wearables
• Live music with the Rosebuds, Kickin’ Grass, Mommie and more
• Earth-friendly fun for kids from The Scrap Exchange and Marbles Kids Museum
• The hip sounds of The Junkman and his totally recycled trash band
• Presentations from Al Gore’s Climate Registry
• ‘State of the Drought” presentation by Grady McCallie
• Last Child in the Woods book signing by author, Richard Louv
• The 8th Annual Sustainable Design Competition
• Tree planting lessons and free saplings

and, making a debut appearance in Raleigh….meet Burt at the Burt’s Bees ‘Bee-utify Your World’ mobile tour which showcases the benefits of natural personal care – you’ll also receive a free gift.

As a follow up to Sue Stock’s column on Saturday, it seems that Kemp’s Seafood house really is renovating, but will they reopen as "Kemp’s"? Their website consists of a simple placeholder page indicating a new menu is coming soon. According to a post in the triangle.dining newsgroup, people were in the parking lot on Saturday painting table bases.

Kemp’s has been a very popular location for fried seafood in Raleigh for several years now. Business always seemed strong, though it did for the vastly superior Cock of the Walk, too, and we see that they didn’t make it in that location.

On July 29 Time Warner Cable Pavilion will host The Counting Crows, Maroon 5, and Sara Bareilles.

You can now download NCAA tournament third round matchups and tip-off times in .CSV format. This way you’ll be able to follow when games are played as the day rolls on.

Outlook/Palm Users:

• Create a new folder in your in Outlook calendar (Madness08, for example). Use the File | Import and Export… to import from “another program or file”, then “Comma Separated File (Windows)”. This will set up the schedule in your new sub-calendar where you can make whatever changes you want.
• When you are happy with the way the subcalendar looks, change the calendar view to “Events” (instead of 7-day or 31-Day or whatever view you’re using). “Select All” from the list, and drag them over to your main “Calendar” (The Treo and other Palm Handhelds only sync to the main calendar - time for Palm to get with the program on that one!). If you want to keep your sub calendar intact, use Ctrl-drag instead of plain drag. That will create a copy of each event to the main Calendar and keep the Madness08 calendar in place. Sync your handheld to copy the events to the handheld.

iCal Users:

• Use iCalTextImport to import the .CSV version of the schedule.

Download ncaatourney_08.csv

(right click on the link above and “Save As…”)

Notes:

• All times are EDT.
• A printable bracket with local game times can be found here.
• Use at your own risk. I do not accept responsibility for any consequences resulting from errors in the schedule.

The RBC Center played host to Round One and Round Two action of the NCAA tournament this past weekend. Little did fans know the historic personal and team performances that were in store.

The #1 North Carolina Tar Heels exploded with the 3rd most prolific offensive 2-game performance in NCAA tournament history. On Sunday their offense was so efficient, they set a new high for points-per-possession in the 13 years I’ve tracked this statistic. The Heels move on to the Sweet 16 in Charlotte where they’ll face Washington State on Thursday night.

What could overshadow the dominant Heels? Stephen Curry and the Davidson Wildcats can! On Friday America’s darlings of this year’s tournament dispatched of yesteryear’s darlings, Gonzaga, behind an incredible 40-point showing by Curry. It was the first NCAA win for the Wildcats since 1969, and they looked totally satisfied with just that one win.

And then there was Sunday…. Davidson faced the 2-seed Georgetown Hoyas, one of basketball’s most storied programs. Curry was clearly off in the first half as he carried 2 points and two fouls nearly to halftime. With 0:48 remaining in the half, Curry drilled a "3" leaving fans wondering if he had sparked a wildfire. Little did we know the second half would become one of the great moments in the building’s quickly growing lore.

Against the nation’s top defensive team, Curry came alive. He hit guarded threes, moved fluidly without the ball, made great entry passes, and drilled free throws as Davidson ousted the mighty Hoyas, and moved on to the Sweet 16. Curry scored 25 in the second half, and finished the weekend with a 70-point, 2-game performance. Stephen Curry joins Glen Robinson, Jerry Chambers, Clyde Lovellette, Oscar Robertson, and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to score 30 or more points in their first three NCAA games.

With nearly every Carolina fan in the building pulling for Davidson, the Wildcats enjoyed their largest ever home crowd advantage. When Curry moved over a pick, split defenders, and finished with a swooping layup, the crowd erupted to perhaps the building’s loudest-ever basketball volume.

Enough cannot be said about the Davidson team and the coaching of Bob McKillop. The team ran their offense to perfection and kept their chins up when facing a second-half 17-point deficit. There was no way that the bigger Hoyas were going to get into Davidson’s heads, and that’s the mark of a great coach. In fact, Davidson was able to overcome Georgetown’s 63% shooting day. It’s the second-highest percentage by a losing team in NCAA history.

Davidson moves on to Detroit to play a very winnable game against Wisconsin on Friday. Who knows what will happen there? One thing is for sure. Raleigh basketball fans, Davidson fans, and the Curry family will forever remember some special moments in Raleigh.