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The US women’s eight won a gold medal, the first time since 1984!  Lindsay Shoop, who was on the winning team, grew up in Charlottesville and attended UVa. Respect!

[via US Rowing] [video of the win]

For Best Local Blog!  

Thanks for everyone who voted for us and special thanks for all our readers and especially everyone who writes, comments  and lurks.  We love you all!  We can’t do this without you!

[link here]

Well, if you didn’t think we were green, you have been living under a hole.  Charlottesville recently got two awards that solidify our kingship of the best places to live.  Even if Forbes thinks we aren’t as cool as midwestern cities, we still have them beat in a few places:

Outside Names Charlottesville Top 20 Best Towns in America…AGAIN!

According to Outside Magazine, Charlottesville was among the 20 best cities in the Country to locate and enjoy outdoor living. Charlottesville was the only city in Virginia to make the list. In addition to Charlottesville, the list includes: Washington, D.C., Chattanooga, Tenn., Ogden, Utah, Portsmouth, N.H., Tacoma, WA, Ithaca, N.Y., Louisville, Ky., Eureka, Calif., Crested Butte, Colo., Columbia, Mo., Oxford, Miss.; New Orleans; Oakland; Sacramento; Levittown, N.Y.; Wilmington, N.C.; Corvallis, Ore.; Seattle; Brattleboro, Vt.

and..

Charlottesville is one of the top 10 MSA’s for Owners of Hybirds [from Buy Hybrid Car]

The list (# of Hybrids per 1,000): »Read More

Anoop Eats a Chocolate Covered Key Lime Pie Ice Cream Bar

Apple recently selected Anoop Ranganath’s Graffitio service as one of 500 applications to be included in the launch of the iTunes application store for the iPhone.  Over 4,000 pre-screened developers had the opportunity to get their applications in the store.  They choose Anoop as one of the 500 elite; Anoop is also a cVillain and a big foodie.  You may have visited his not-so-recently updated blog, “Stay in the Shallow End.”

On Thursday, Anoop let me play with Graffitio before you could download it officially (you can now download the free application if you have an iPhone).  It’s pretty neat because you can easily have a conversation about any nearby place without all the annoying registration requirements.  Importantly, you can’t talk about a place unless you are physically in that location.

Anoop and I had a tough time brainstorming how to describe Graffitio.  We ended up thinking that “Around Places” was a good catch phrase.  Is it? 

Social networks typically use people as the focus of a conversation, but Graffitio centers around unique places and events, created by you based on the location data on the iPhone. Instead of registering for a profile, just simply be in the right place and the relevant places automatically appear on the Graffitio walls. When you write on the wall, the app records your thoughts and adds it to that specific converstaion stream.  Graffitio intelligently organizes locations based on number of items and by dynamically evaluating the number of walls, so you always see the right number of relevant things.

Here is a screen shot of the application:

Anoop told me there have been over 1,000 3,000 walls created in less than 24 hours and that he expects that number to grow quickly.  If you have any suggestions for the application or get a chance to play with it, let Anoop know! He’ll be watching!

P.S. if you comment on the Spicy Bear HQ wall, I’ll give you brownie points.