Minus The Bear & Circa Survive Coming to Lincoln Theatre
On Saturday, March 23 Circa Survive and Minus The Bear will play at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh. Tickets are $23.50 in advance, and go on sale Friday (1/18).
Download the Updated Hurricanes 2013 Calendar
Hockey is BACK, and with it, a new schedule which gogoraleigh has for you. The 2012-2013 Carolina Hurricanes schedule in .CSV, .ICS, and Google Calendar formats is ready to easily port over to your Android phone, iPhone, Blackberry, Google Calendar, Outlook, and more!
Without a doubt, the gogoraleigh Hurricanes Calendar is the best on the web. Not only is the complete calendar available, but also a home-only version is available. For each event, the teams playing in the event are listed in 3-digit codes, so the entire event is easy to see on devices that can’t display wide paragraphs. Additionally, the game locations are listed, so on excellent phones one can tap the location field and see a map to the arena. This is perfect if you are going to the game in an away city!
Finally, with the synced versions of the calendar, game time changes and television information are automatically updated as the information becomes available.
Android/Google Calendar Users
If you already subscribe to last year’s Carolina Hurricanes schedule feeds, you don’t need to make any changes. The new events now automatically appear in the feed. For those just getting started with this highly efficient method of scheduling, consult the calendars at the gogoraleigh Calendars’ page:
iPhone/Blackberry/Outlook/Palm Users
- Create a new folder in your in Outlook calendar (Canes13, 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.
- iPhone Users – You are done. Now you can view the Canes’ schedule as its own sub-calender or as a part of all calendars.
- 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 Canes13 calendar in place. Sync your handheld to copy the events to the handheld.
-
CSV Files.
(right click on the link and “Save As…”)
- Hurricanes Schedule (Complete) – Download canes_13.csv (version: 1/13/13)
- Hurricanes Home-only Schedule – Download canes_13_home.csv (version: 1/13/13)
Note: these photos are not from the current active schedule
iCal Users
There are two options:
- Use iCalTextImport to import the .CSV version (linked above) of the schedule.
-
Download the .ics files and import them into iCal.
- Hurricanes Schedule (Complete) – .ics file (version: 6/22/12)
Notes
Calendars are apt to change, so check back occasionally for updates. To determine the version of your schedule, open the note associated with any event, and look for the version number. If your calendar is older than those listed above, simply delete the events in Outlook in your old one and import the events of the newer file. Google Calendar is dynamically up-to-date. Use at your own risk. I do not accept responsibility for any consequences resulting from errors in the schedule.
Railhawks Release 2013 Schedule
On Thursday the Carolina Railhawks announced their upcoming schedule. In grand Gogo fashion, I’ve posted their schedule in many different formats for easy downloading to iPhones, Android Phones, Outlook, Google Calendar, and many, many more! The calendars are available in the “
Calendars
” tab found at the top of Gogoraleigh. Scroll down to “Carolina Railhawks Soccer 2013” and select your desired format.
Tenacious D Coming to The Ritz
Prepare to have your miiiind blloowwwwn. On Friday, March 8,
Tenacious D
(Jack Black and Kyle Gass) will rock The Ritz in Raleigh. Tickets are $52 and are
available thru Ticketmaster
.
Blue Angels Returning to Goldsboro
On the weekend of May 18, the Blue Angels return to the fantastic
Wings Over Wayne Airshow
. The two-day event will feature performances also by the U.S. Army Golden Knights, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Rob Holland, ACC Heritage P-51/A-10/F-4/F-15E, A-10 Demonstration Team, Stallion 51, F-4 Phantom Demonstration Team, KC-135 Stratotanker, and the Combined Arms Demo F-15E/F-16/AT-38/KC-135.
The Blue Angels will perform at 2pm on Saturday, however, and gates open for the viewing area at 8am. If you have never seen this group, they are flat-out awesome (and I rarely use that word). As someone who was named after an Air Force pilot who went down in training, the power and danger of these maneuvers hits home, however I can honestly say that watching the Blue Angels from the Wilber’s parking lot a few years ago is one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed.
30 Predictions for 2013
Happy New Year, everyone! 2012 was an fascinating year, with the Olympics, the Election, and a little bit of economic traction, the year turned out to be more interesting than expected. With the close of the year, it’s time to pull out the old crystal acorn and make a few quick predictions (30 to be exact) for the upcoming year. (Don’t take these to the bank, though! If this thing were any good, I’d be in Vegas with it.)
- Publix will begin construction on their first Triangle store…in Cary in the Davis/54 area.
- Publix will pick Creedmoor/Millbrook for their first Raleigh store location. The new owners of Falls Village will make a strong play for Publix, offering to raze half of their center to accommodate a large grocery store.
-
- Raleigh will begin discussions to tear down Memorial Auditorium – with the dominant bookings of the DPAC, Raleigh people are increasingly irked by having to go to Durham for so many good events. Leaders in Raleigh will talk about removing the center section of the performing arts complex and replacing it with a stacked, 3-tier facility to compete with the DPAC.
- Violence will be an increasing problem in Glenwood South, and patrons will start seeking another focus for nightlife, most likely in…the Hillsborough Street area, which will be the next wave of downtown revitalization.
- Orvis will close in Triangle Town Center and seek space in a part of the Triangle where their patrons actually live. Perhaps Kidd’s Hill behind Crabtree?
- Development of both Kidd’s Kill properties will finally begin, but the Soleil Center/Westin land will remain an empty lot.
- A new mall will be announced for the I-40/42/70/540 area between Clayton and Fuquay. It will focus on serving the Johnston County market.
- Best Buy will close at least one Triangle location. My bet is the newest store, Brier Creek.
- Between Liles, The Varsity, and Nowells, Raleigh will only support two, and one will close.
-
- As brick & mortar retail continues to struggle, Crabtree will add another restaurant in its mall proper
- While Washington policy will grow much more liberal than we’ve seen in the previous 4 years (increasingly hostile fiscal policies toward the wealthy, increased spending on social programs, and a stark increase in liberal social policies and transit expenditures), North Carolina policy will become more conservative, but not by much. In the next four years issues like Gay Marriage, Legalization of Pot, and Gun Control will stay put in this state, unless there is federal mandate…
- …The Supreme Court will rule that Gay Marriage must be recognized by all states, and Federal Legislation implementing more stringent gun control will override North Carolina’s stance.
- North Carolina will get an increased amount of funding for transit (regional “high” speed and local light rail), but the State of North Carolina will decrease expenditures in these areas, and no real progress will occur in the next four years, especially with light rail.
- Raleigh will continue its oppressive assault on drivers in neighborhoods by reducing the speed limit on Glen Eden to 25 mph. They will also erect more of those contrived islands meant to annoy and slow drivers.
- UNC and NCSU will field bubble teams in football, once again, that will get absolutely no national attention.
-
- If the NHL season is cancelled, Backyard Bistro will close.
- T-Mobile will be bought by one of the other carriers, most likely AT&T, reducing the number of carrier networks to three in the Triangle.
- Free Wifi will be everywhere by the end of the year. In the malls, the restaurants, and in grocery stores. Most importantly, I predict that free wifi for every fan in the building will be implemented in the PNC Arena. (yay!)
- The number of restaurants with tablet menus will grow quickly. In fact, only cheap or snobby restaurants will be without a tablet presence by the end of 2013.
- Buca di Beppo will announce their first Raleigh/Cary location
- PDQ will announce two more locations. One in the Southpoint area and one in Cary.
-
- One of downtown Raleigh’s Indian restaurants will close. Will it be Blue Mango or Mantra that survives?
-
- BJ’s Brewhouse will announce their first North Carolina locations – on in Charlotte, one in Cary.
- The next big culinary ethnicity, after Mexican starts to fade, will be South American. Restaurants like Machupicchu and Guasaca will have excellent years, but will see more competition, too, especially in the casual dining space.
- Guacamole variations will be the next trend within the Mexican food space
- The IHOP on Hillsborough Street will close, but will be replaced in 2014 by a mixed use apartment building that will have street level retail, including a new IHOP. (This is a planned project. The prediction is that execution will begin this year)
- The Triangle will be selected as the site for filming a nationally prominent movie.
- No significant changes to Raleigh’s skyline will be introduced in 2013.
- A MakerBot-like 3D printing business will open in Raleigh, allowing people to create functional and artistic plastic items just-in-time.
- Here’s the big one: 2013 will be the Year of Durham, and the crowning moment will be an announcement by Google that their second Google Fiber city will be…Durham.
Taylor Swift Coming to PNC Arena
On Friday, September 13, PNC Arena will be host to thousands of screaming future Junior Leaguers, as
Taylor Swift
returns. Swift’s RED tour kicks off in March, and concludes two dates after the Raleigh show. If September 13 doesn’t work for you, the tour hits Charlotte on March 22 and Greensboro on September 12.
General Public tickets go on sale next Friday (12/14) thru Ticketmaster. This concert will sell out in minutes, so my advice is to make provisions for fan club advance sale tickets.
95X Hits Triangle Airwaves
For over 25 years now “Alternative Rock” and “Triangle Radio” have been like oil and water. While smaller cities (like Norfolk and Wilmington) around the country have enjoyed commercial alternative stations, Raleigh has been stuck with the same repetitious offering of country/classic rock/dance/adult contemporary…until now. 95.3,
billed as “95X”
debuted Friday and finally brings the Triangle up to date with other markets where “Mumford & Sons”, “The Temper Trap”, and “The Killers” aren’t met with strange looks.
The station is actually a Clear Channel offering of WDCG-HD2, broadcasted on a weak signal out of Apex. Chris Edge left KGSR in Austin to come run the station, and the plan is to get a second frequency in the western half of the Triangle.
For faithful readers of Pitchfork, or even avid fans of MTV’s 120 Minutes, the playlist will not be terribly interesting. Commercial radio stations will have their “play the hits” and saturation advertising weaknesses (“Hennnnnnrick…”), after all, however the playlist reads more like “new rock”, or essentially what 106 and QDR were doing at the moment when they coexisted, which is much needed. Before Friday, the newest real rock band played on commercial stations was the Foo Fighters, a band that has been around for 17 years. Welcome to the Triangle, 95X!
Eric Clapton/Wallflowers Coming to PNC Arena
In 1990
Eric Clapton
said that his favorite guitar player of all-time is Buddy Guy. Well…speaking of Buddy Guy and the greatest guitar players of all-time…Eric Clapton will play Raleigh’s PNC Arena on Wednesday, April 3. The tour includes an impressive, to say the least, band that Clapton has assembled: Doyle Bramhall II (guitar), Steve Jordan (drums), Chris Stainton (piano and keyboards), and Willie Weeks (bass), along with newcomers Paul Carrack (organ and keyboards) and Greg Leisz (pedal steel guitar).
The Wallflowers will open.
Buddy Guy Coming to Raleigh
Blues legend and guitar wizard
Buddy Guy
will return to the Triangle this winter! This time around he’ll come to the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium on February 20. Jonny Lang opens. Tickets are on sale now.
Jim Gaffigan Coming to Memorial Auditorium
A month ago we were the first to report that comedian
Jim Gaffigan
is finally bringing his White Bread Tour to the Triangle. However the venue has changed. The March 16 show will now be at Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium.
Tickets go on sale tomorrow
(Friday, 11/17).
2013 ACC Basketball Calendars Ready for Download
Local basketball fans with iPhones, Android Phones, Blackberrys, Outlook, Palm devices, and more are in luck!
Gogoraleigh’s Calendars Tab
is your home for free 2012-2013 ACC basketball schedules for the entire ACC in .CSV, .ICS, and Google Calendar formats.
gogo has gone all out again, offering schedules for each individual ACC team , as well as one giant calendar which includes all 279 games. Events on the calendars include not only the game time, but also links to ESPN’s team pages and the name of the venue where the game is being played. On some devices, like Android phones, the location becomes a link to Google Maps showing the venue’s location.
For those already subscribed to the Google Calendar version of the ACC Complete calendar or any of the other supporting Google Calendars from gogoraleigh, you don’t have to do anything. All 279 events have been added automatically. As event details change, you’ll see automatic changes in your calendar.
And wait….there’s more! Gogoraleigh decided that these 13 calendars aren’t enough, and added home-only calendars for UNC and N.C. State. All for the low low price of ZERO !
Outlook-Based Blackberry/iPhone/Palm Users
-
After downloading the appropriate CSV file (see below), create a new folder in your in Outlook calendar (Bball13, for example). Use the File | Import and Export… to import from “another program or file”, then “Comma Separated File (Windows)”. Be sure to pick your new calendar folder as the target. This will set up the schedule in your new sub-calendar where you can make whatever changes you want.
- iPhone Users – Open iTunes with the iPhone connected and sync (you may have to specify your newly added calendar in the “Info” tab’s Calendars section.) Now you can view the basketball schedules as their own sub-calendar or as a part of all calendars.
-
If you have a device which doesn’t support subcalendars (like Treos and older Palm devices), you’ll need to copy the imported basketball events into your main calendar. 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 Bball08 calendar in place. Sync your handheld to copy the events to the handheld.
Google Calendar/Android Users
My favorite way to follow the ACC’s basketball calendar is to add it to my
Google Calendar
set. The Google Calendar is a dynamic, subscribable calendar that offers much flexibility. For instance, several game times have not been announced. As soon as they are set, actual game times will magically appear in your calendar. Also, Google Calendar offers a map link for quick viewing of the game’s venue location.
Additionally, Google has created a simple interface through mobile phone browsers. It allows one to view and implement ACC Calendar events. It also recognizes hyperlinks in the event’s description, so easy access to the team files is achievable by using the online Google Calendar app. To view these add the calendar using the link below, then visit http://calendar.google.com from within Safari on the iPhone or your Android browser.
(Note: Gogoraleigh will also carry the home-only calendars as an integrated feature of its normal Gogoraleigh Do-It Calendar ).
To view a Google Calendar, go to the gogoraleigh Calendars page and click on the appropriate calendar link. Once the calendar is displayed, you can add it your set of Google Calendars by clicking on the “+Subscribe” bottom on the bottom right.
iCal Users
There are two options:
- Use iCalTextImport to import the .CSV version (linked above) of the schedule.
- Download the .ics file from the Calendars page and import it into iCal.
Palm Desktop and Yahoo! Calendar Users
My brother-in-law taught me a neat trick. In order to get a CSV calendar into Palm Desktop, one can use
Yahoo! Calendar
as an intermediary. After downloading the .CSV file from gogoraleigh, open Yahoo! Calendar and click “Options” in the upper right. Then select “Import/Export”. Go to “Import From Outlook”, selected the filename, and click “Import”. Yahoo! Calendar users are done at this point. Palm Desktop users need to verify the import, then return to the “Export to Palm Desktop” section. Pick your target and hit “Export”. The resulting .DBA file should then be ready to import into Palm Desktop.
Beware! It appears easy to lump Yahoo! Calendar events that are unrelated into one calendar. If you are simply using Yahoo! Calendar as a conduit to Palm Desktop, verify that your calendar is clean before originally importing the .CSV file, otherwise unrelated events will get lumped with basketball dates in your resulting .DBA file.
RSS
Each of the Google Calendars carries an RSS feed. This might be an interesting addition to your RSS Feed collection because each calendar change will appear in the feed. This is most useful as an alert to a game time changes in the schedule. The RSS Feed for each calendar can be found when viewing each individual Google Calendar.
Notes
Calendars are apt to change, so check back occasionally for updates. To determine the version of your schedule, open the note associated with any event, and look for the version number. If your calendar is older than those listed above, simply delete the events in Outlook in your old one and import the events of the newer file. Google Calendar is dynamically updated on the back end, so you always know you are up to date when using Google Calendar.
Use at your own risk. I do not accept responsibility for any consequences resulting from errors in the schedule.
N.C. State Fair Brings Familiar Fun
Today at 3pm the doors opened for the N.C. State Fair’s preday. Known for the rides, food, and livestock, the fair also features
nightly concerts
which require a modestly priced special ticket to get in. (Scotty McCreery’s shows Monday and Tuesday are sold out, but tickets are still available for Jake Owen, Matthew West, Hot Chelle Rae, Jason Michael Carroll, Brian McNight, Michael W. Smith, Billy Currington, and Corey Smith.
Food
While the State Fair is not my favorite food event of the year, there are several items to which I am look forward, including Cary Methodist Church brunswick stew and ham biscuits, Al’s French Fries, and N.C. State ice cream. A
complete list of new foods
is available, including deep-fried Girl Scout cookies. These freak-show foods aren’t what really excite me, though. I’d rather find some neat marinated meats cooked in a pit or over coals. I’ve always wanted to run either a kebab truck, a pizza in a cup truck, or a soup truck, (but it will never happen). Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the Cajun Grill (to the right of the Grandstand entrance) featuring some absolutely delicious seasoned fries and Crawfish Etoufee. In your search for food, the new
Food Finder
at the State Fair’s website looks like a good resource.
Navigation
I’ll likely be heading out there on Monday, sending Twitter updates as I go, using the hashtag #ncstatefair. Feel free to comment on your great finds here, and be as specific as you can about the location.
Wayfinding at the State Fair is extremely poor, and the fair is unfortunately ignoring this growing problem. For too many years people have said that some neat attraction was “near a sign that says pizza” or “near Dorton Arena”. Because these vague directions only leave me frustrated, I wrote the fair a couple of years ago asking for a signage system. To me the easiest solution would be to name the four or five zones of the fairgrounds and assign them colors. Take a look at these three maps:
- http://www.ncstatefair.org/2012/General/2012-Map.pdf
- http://www.kingsdominion.com/images/uploads/file/12kd_parkmap.pdf
- http://www.moviedisney.com/images/maps/mk-map.jpg
Notice how the theme parks have assigned names and colors to their regions. The fairgrounds definitely has at least five regions:
- the old midway, expo building, Graham building
- the kiddieland midway and old expo buildings
- the area next to the Scott Building extending back to the pig raceway
- the new midway
- The Village of Yesteryear, the flower show, lake, grist mill, etc.
Each of these areas could be named after a part of the state or a piece of our history. Zone names could be something like: Piedmont, Appalachian, Coastal, Banks, Croatan, Dare, etc. Then do what Disney did:
a
s
s
i
g
n
c
o
l
o
r
s
to those zones on the maps, and put up signs at the entrance/exits of these zones. Now, to keenly address the original problem:
put up signs
on the existing light poles with numbers, perhaps, so that people can say "The best corn dog at the fair is BETWEEN lightpoles 12 and 7, in the Piedmont area", or "between lightpole 9 and Gate 6 in the Mountain area". That way people have pinpoint markers to plot where they are. Meet me at lightpole #12 at 3pm…. Of course, the numbers should be mounted high enough to be seen for a couple of Fair blocks and should match the color of that zone on the map. Eventually formal gateways could be added to signify the entrances to certain zones, but for now,
colors on the lightpoles would suffice
. Poles with numbers could also be mounted on the corners of some buildings, like Restaurant Row, for added distinction.
Rides
The new big rides
Powers Great American Midways
is bringing to the fair are The Rockstar and the Genesis. Both are “choir slingers”. I fail to see how the Rockstar is any different than The Rainbow. The Genesis looks like a side-facing DaVinci’s Cradle. The good news is the Skydiver makes its return to its place on the Old Midway. However there are three pitiful Ferris wheels. It’s a head-scratcher that in 1985 we had the Skywheel (double Ferris wheel), the Giant Wheel, and the front-facing Ferris wheel, yet in 2012 we have only three tiny bucket wheels.
A full, but tentative, list of rides is posted at the State Fair’s website. The list includes the number of tickets needed and the ride’s general location, too.
Transportation
The best times to go to the fair are Monday and Tuesday, and it isn’t even close. The crowds are very manageable, parking is better, and the ride times are decidedly longer. As far as parking goes, We have found success parking in the weekday afternoons on Beryl Road (access from the Waffle House on Hillsborough St.), but the Carter-Finley lot is a sure bet and has a dramatic entrance. In order to get by with the least amount of walking, however,
ride the CAT bus
. Routes run from downtown, Cary and the old Westinghouse site on Capital Blvd. Fare is $4 round trip, and the bus stop at the fairgrounds is at Gate #1 (at the edge of the Education Building).
Maps
Several maps exist of the fairgrounds:
- Fair Website (Google)
Schedule
The Fair has printed an excellent booklet with the schedule included, and they are available at all of the entrances to the fairgrounds. That same schedule, however, is available online in
html format,
PDF format
, and via the mobile platform apps.
Apps
While the NC State Fair has done a wonderful job with their website, they have also attempted to reach out to new platforms with mobile apps which include event schedules, maps, news, and more. The apps could use a lot of work, but they can still be helpful:
- iOS – The app for iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad is available thru iTunes. It only requires iOS3.0 and up.
- Android – Available in the Google Play Store .
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