Hello everyone. We were thinking over in the Spicy Bear offices that things were getting pretty exciting. Between the launch of cvilleStyle, a lot growth over at cvilleMUSE, and of course cVillain’s notorious presence, we wanted to thank everyone for reading. We hope that our little idea can grow into something much more exciting and interesting.

As always, you steer this ship as much as anyone else, so feel free to criticize, tell us what we can do better and just yell at us if you want. As a thank you for everything, we are going to be taking a bunch of pictures of Charlottesville in the future. Our idea is to capture as much stuff as we can and then tag, geo-tag and describe it for you to enjoy and use. We want to have pictures of every restaurant, shop and venue in this town and let you use them how you see fit. If you want us to come by your place, drop us a line.

Unlike the vast majority (~95%) of pictures of Charlottesville , you can use the Spicy Bear pictures for commercial use with the Creative Commons 2.0 license. That means you can make money off them, sell them, use them in your artwork, and pretty much do whatever you want with them. We aren’t the greatest photographers, but we wanted to share our stuff with you. We only ask that you mention where you found the original artwork.

To access our pictures, go to our Flickr page. Here is a slideshow preview in case you wanted to see some of the stuff we’ve done already.

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Popularity: 35% [?]

I saw something that really ticked me off this afternoon on the mall. Father and daughter were walking their two labs, black and chocolate, on the mall. The black lab is 10 months old (puppy or no?), and while they are walking in the middle of the mall the black lab just starts peeing as he/she walks, the owner (father) looks back and just keeps walking with the dog. Curb your effing DOG!

This is the culprit:

That larger than life sign clearly says clean up after your dog, you jerk. That puppy put like half a gallon of pee in the middle of the downtown mall. How effing rude! If you see the owner, yell at him. I am tired of dog owners that have no control of their pets. Maybe Scowly will pee on you next time.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Like, OMG, it’s so important that a restaurant bans smoking that it makes it on TV. That’s pretty cool.

The banning will happen on June 1st, according to the McGrady’s website.

I love the patio and the uber-cheap drink specials, but …can we get a ban on the bad food, too?

In case anyone was wondering, happy hour specials after the break…

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Popularity: 44% [?]

We are all up in arms about gas prices and no one has mentioned rising food prices in cville…lunch for 2 at a fast food place like Sticks was $20!? Wow! But, it was a great, filling lunch.

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Popularity: 39% [?]

The weather is getting warmer, and this weekend is hotter. This should keep you busy this weekend:

• Fridays After Five: The Charlottesville Funk All Stars open for the Lee Boys performance at 5:30PM . From their website “The Lee Boys are one of America’s finest African-American sacred steel ensembles. This family group consists of three brothers, Alvin Lee (guitar), Derrick Lee and Keith Lee (vocals) along with their three nephews, Roosevelt Collier (pedal steel guitar), Alvin Cordy Jr. (7-string bass) and Earl Walker (drums). Each member began making music at the ages of 7 and 8 in the House of God church they attended in Perrine, FL. Here they underwent a rigorous course of training in a variety of musical instruments, including lap and pedal steel guitars. Born and raised in Miami, each of The Lee Boys grew up in the church where their father and grandfather, Rev. Robert E. Lee, was the pastor and a steel player himself.” They are also playing at the Outback Lodge at 10PM for $10.
• Sex And The City Party: For all of you wannabe New-yorkers still living in cville, you can almost live vicariously through the show’s best music at 216 on Friday night.
• Sex And The City Movie Premiere: This movie is only playing in one theater in all of Cville, Carmike 6 on Garden Blvd. You can watch this all weekend at 1:00, 1:30, 4:00, 7:00, 7:30, 10:00, 10:30. The Girl’s Night Out is organizing a move night for all you women out there.
• Bent Theatre Comedy Group: Performing in Lovingston, VA, at Rapunzel’s Coffee and Books from 8pm-10pm on Friday night.
• String of Pearls: Live Art’s new performance opens tonight at 8PM. Buy tickets here for $12 -$14. Catch the next show on Saturday night at 8PM as well
• Farmer’s Market: Saturday from 7AM-12PM you can catch the freshest produce, meat and poultry this side of the Mason Dixon.
• Crabtree Falls Hike: a moderate hike with 7 people attending so far
• Handgun Shooting: Saturday 2PM at Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club. This will come in handy when you run for President and claim that you were born with an NRA license in your mouth.

What other happenings are going on this weekend?

Popularity: 30% [?]

LOOK’s like we have a new villain in our midst:

Sent in via the miracle that is an iPhone from another villain.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Someone at the Space party referred to Cvillain as a really organized, really fun community bulletin board. To add to that warm fuzzy feeling:

Charlottesville Women’s Theatre is having auditions for their next production on Monday, June 2, 2008 from 7 to 10 p.m. at Bridge PAI in Belmont (www.thebridgepai.com). Check it out. It sounds like they would like everyone and anyone to audition (we are working on getting parlie to audition in a dress-they would have a GREAT turnout).

Charlottesville Women’s Theatre Project is holding auditions for it’s next production on Monday June 2nd from 7-10 at The Bridge PAI in Belmont www.thebridgepai.com. We will be doing a staged reading of “Bras and Beaters” - a play by a local woman playwright. We need women AND men for this project! Performances mid to late July. No preparation needed! Questions contact 434-984-2684 or cvillewomenstheatreproject@gmail.com

If any of you check this out let us know how it goes. And please, please, please let us know if any of you end up in it. We would love to come cheer you on (selfish note: it would give me something to do on Friday night).

Popularity: 29% [?]

NBC29 brought up an interesting fear about vacancies on the downtown mall.  Taking the recent Order from Horder closing into consideration, the reporters discovered the fear of shop owners and tourists.  I.e…

“When you’re not used to seeing them, the public comes down and says ‘oh my gosh, look at the empty storefronts.’ So it’s like a shock,” said Morgan Perkins owner of the Art Gallery.

Maybe this is a shock, I don’t know.  Off the top of my head, I can think of the following vacancies:

• A&N (near Ventana)
• that Real Estate Office
• Order from Horder
• That block of buildings next to Wachovia
• Hardware Store (is it completely leased?)
• Merrill Lynch Building (near the transit center)
• Landmark Hotel/Boxerjam (soon to be not vacant)

I am not sure that a fear strikes all of you when you look at stores, but there do seem to be a lot of vacancies.  Did I miss any? Is it just not a great time for the economy?  Where are all the national chains?!  Where’s the Apple Store?

[via NBC 29]

Popularity: 27% [?]

Thanks to Odie, we found out that The Rock is now single.  Since he is living in Charlottesville, we figured one of you would (at least) try to hook up with him.  Let us know if you succeed!

[via TMZ]

Popularity: 27% [?]

Amidst all the fancy and wannabe on the edge restaurants in cville, there is one place that wants to take you back to a simpler time when all you wanted at an Italian restaurant was spaghetti and meatballs, or chicken parmigiana. Vivace in Ivy fits the bill and then some.

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Popularity: 36% [?]