Taco Truck 4 Sale
If you loved the Taco Truck, then you may be sad that the owners of Michoacana have decided to sell it.
Picking Your Battles: Goodbye cVillain
Hello Everyone,
I’m writing you on behalf of everyone at Spicy Bear. We’ve had a lot of fun over the last two years or so. Things were fun and innocent for a long time. cVillain grew from a handful of readers to a web audience that rivals anything else in town. We’ve had too much fun drinking, raising thousands of dollars for charity and bantering all day long about everything from politics to local restaurants. We always wanted the site to bring honesty to Charlottesville. It’s been a great party, but now we need to remove ourselves from cVillain because it turned into a stressful endeavor which exposes us to unneeded issues. The small things have gotten overly burdensome in recent months and life is more important.
I do care a whole lot about cVillian; it’s not about the money. It’s about a peace of mind and picking your battles. I feel like every time we have to stand up for cVillain, it’s standing up for the entire community in one way or another. You have all been incredibly supportive whether it’s offering to pay for lawsuit threats, writing articles, buying advertising on our site, or just continuing to read our site. I feel though we’ve taken cVillain as far as awe can and now it’s time to focus on other things that reward us mentally.
Honestly, I’m tired of the issues and we want to give cVillain back to the community, but we don’t want to manage it. If someone wants to step up email me at kyle@spicybear.com . If we can’t find someone, then we will turn it off completely.
The issue really is about priority of time. It’s a good thing to have an addiction to certain things, but not when those things aren’t exciting anymore.
Several specific events lead me to remove ourselves from the website:
C-VILLE Weekly and the cover story, Is This the New Face of Evil?
When Cathy Harding and Scott Weaver approached me to do a cover article, I was excited about the exposure it would generate for cVillain. Having not dealt with local media, I naively agreed to it. As it turned out, C-VILLE turned the article into a clever hatchet job. The article cleverly mixed together insults and untruths about my profession and created the appearance of some nonsensical fight between Kate and myself. C-VILLE had me pose for that picture explaining that they intended to use the headline “King of Local Media” or something along those lines. The “New Face of Evil” was embarrassing and an unethical choice on their behalf. In addition to this I’ve had many non-public issues which don’t need to be shared, because I’m not going to stoop to that level.
Rosenberg Lawsuit
When people can take advantage of a legal system for frivolous means, you know there is a whole lot more coming. It’s not worth fighting these people for a website that doesn’t have the financial means to defend itself. I discovered being a public figure of a popular local website must expose you to a lot of this riff-raf. Secondly, the failure of these types of people to see the service and benefit provided to the community confuses me. I think with anything new and undefined, you face people who are resistant to change and don’t attempt to understand things. Restaurants, for the most part, have a really hard time taking criticism. But guess what? Having conversations with people, a la cVillain or any other public forum, is how you resolve things.
Dealing with Negative Perpetuated Rumors
When one of our advertisers told us that the word was going around that we “lied and cheated” our advertisers, I couldn’t believe it. Dealing with negative image about your character, wherever it came from, is not fun and not something I want to manage.
Starting CrossFit Charlottesville & Managing my Consulting Business
I’m about to start a new hobby, a gym we’re launching called “CrossFit Charlottesville (website up soon).” You’ve probably heard some rumors about that, but I want to be able to devote 100% of my free time to it. I also make a living consulting and doing M&A work for companies. That’s about to get a whole lot busier as the economy turns around and, quite frankly, I’d rather do that than deal with a website that causes more problems and takes more time and money than anyone would be happy about.
I guess that’s all. I’m sure some will celebrate and others will be sad. For those who wanted this day to come, just remember, it’s about choosing your battles and I don’t care to fight the little things any more. For those who are sad, don’t worry. I’ll still be out and about, running a gym and generally being a Charlottesville citizen.
Our final day will be July 30th, 2009 and we thank all of you for being such a wonderful community.
Vita Nova Pizza Review
A lot of you clamored about Vita Nova having some of the best pizza in Charlottesville when I brought up the question about who has the best pizza in town. Your praise did not fall on deaf ears. I had lunch at Vita Nova pizza yesterday. How shall I sum up my experience? It was basically this:
Christian’s + better
Steal the Water! Rain Barrel Rebates!
From Blue Ridge Eco Shop…
The City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County both now have a $30 Rebate on New Rain Barrels! If you’ve been considering buying a rain barrel, now is the time. Both rebates are grant based, meaning there is only a limited amount of money for the residents. Once the funds are gone, they’re gone. Stop into the Blue Ridge Eco Shop to pick up your rain barrel today! We have rebate forms to give you so it really is that easy! Want to learn more? Read Here.
Free Upcoming Events @ the Eco Shop:
Saturday, July 18th: Free Composting Class at the Blue Ridge Eco Shop @ 11 a.m.
Back by demand, we will be holding a FREE composting class. Come ask all your composting questions and pick up a composter if you don’t already have one.
Saturday, July 25th: Rain Water Harvesting @ The Habitat Store 8:30-10 a.m.
Part or our Women With Nails learning series, Come learn about Rain Water Harvesting taught by Paige Mattson at the Blue Ridge Eco Shop. Also learn how to fix your leaky faucets. Free and open to the public.
CBS Report on cVillain
[via CBS]
Christian Bike Riders (maybe)
Newsplex.com reported on Christian bike riders stopping by Charlottesville on Monday. From Newsplex.com:
“75 riders, ages 13 to 24, are biking over the Appalachian Mountains. Their journey will take them 1,600 miles and last about three weeks.”
We took these pictures yesterday, so we aren’t sure if this is the same or a different biking group. They were right outside of Spicy Bear HQ. What is interesting is that they were riding in the wrong direction on South Street. We have all laughed and then cried out in fear when we see people doing this in one car….how about 100 bikers? Is faith the new airbag? This was definitely the most blatant one-way street mistake we have seen on South Street in well, forever. They also had support vans following them.
I wish all the riders luck on their journey!
[pic from spicy bear on flickr]
Restaurant Health Inspections… Oh My
And back to our regularly scheduled programming, we’ve discovered a little website called the Thomas Jefferson Health Food district that documents all the health inspections for Charlottesville area restaurants. It brings up a lot of violations from our favorite food places. Most of these violations are silly things like the lack of signs. But, here are some of our favorites/most scary (some seem overly picky, no?):
Critical Repeat A review of the menu with the foodservice operator indicates that there is no consumer advisory for the steak tar tar and the duck that may be served raw and/or undercooked
To our suprise, White Spot doesn’t have ANY critical violations.
Repeat Honey stored on the floor or food stored less than 6″ above the floor.
Employee (Female staffer had bang dangling out of bun) observed working in the food service area without proper hair restraints.
Critical Repeat The following equipment food-contact surfaces were observed soiled to sight and touch: Meat slicer. Owner stated that this was for personal use, but needs to be labeled as such and not be out in regular prep area.
Corrected During Inspection Critical Using chlorine at a concentration exceeding 200ppm for soaking whole tomatoes.
Little Johns…hehehehehe that’s why you don’t eat here sober
Critical Cooked barbeque chicken and sliced turkey noted not being adequately cooled to prevent the growth of harmful bacteria.
Repeat Cleaning is being done during periods in which food is exposed to contamination. Spray cleaning floor in rear while cooling cooked chicken.
Repeat Food stored in a location where it is subject to splash, dust or other contamination–adjacent to handsink at service area.
There are a lot more if you want to look through them.
[pic from cupcakes2/flickr]
We Settled the Rosenberg Lawsuit for $750
If you’ve been following our website, you probably know about the threats and lawsuit from Charlottesville photographer Matt Rosenberg. I’m happy to announce that we’ve settled and the lawsuit will be withdrawn for $750.
As part of our settlement agreement, we must make the following statement:
The parties have resolved the issue and regret the misunderstanding that this issue has caused.
In the future, email us if you have any problems. We’re happy this is over.
So How Was Artini?
Not enough glam?
Help Us Make a T-Shirt Slogan
As you know we’re opening a gym pretty soon called “CrossFit Charlottesville.” I won’t tell you too much about it just yet other than it’s going to be awesome. We’re struggling with a t-shirt slogan and wanted your input. CrossFit works better than any other fitness program because we do functional movements, constantly vary our movements and do them at high intensity (more on all this later).
As for the slogan, we just want it to be funny and doesn’t have to be specific to CrossFit.
Here’s what we like so far:
- Specialization is for single-celled organisms.
- Not just for ninjas.
- Where dudes love to clean and chicks love the snatch. These are olympic lifts.
- “I’m not a ***** anymore”
- The only thing that makes Chuck Norris cry.
- The only thing better than cold beer.
- Cure for the Common Workout.
If we pick your slogan, you get a free t-shirt.
Artini Ticket Giveaway: Win Two Artini Tickets!
If you want to win tickets to Artini, we’ve got you covered.
We have two $50 tickets which we will give away to one lucky commenter.
Please leave a comment on this post with your real email address to be entered to win. We will select the winner at 5PM and email them their ticket information. Only one entry per person. Thanks!
Update: Winner has been notified. We’re waiting for confirmation…
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