WHTJ Charlottesville PBS recently won two 2008 Telly Awards for its locally-produced show, “Charlottesville Inside-Out” in the categories of “Talk Show” and “Cultural Video.”

The Telly Award is an award designed to honor outstanding local and regional television commercials and productions, and non-broadcast video productions.

Guests featured on the award-winning first season of “Charlottesville Inside-Out” included many local artists, activists, and non-profit organization leaders such as: African drummer Darrell Rose; Innisfree Executive Director Carolyn Ohle; Monticello’s executive director Dan Jordan; world-champion juggler Mark Nizer; Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins, Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Wagner, and many others.

Watch some episodes with this link!

I am not making this up.

The Virginia Lottery introduced a new game called “Fast Play Super 7’s” which is some sort of ticket game where you add up numbers on a grid. The more sevens you have, the closer you are to winning the jackpot.  Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, after the Virginia Lottery realized that 600 or so of the 2,300 hundred tickets sold were winners, it freaked out and decided to shut down the game:

The Virginia Lottery sincerely apologizes for the error with its new game Fast Play Super 7’s.

Unfortunately, there was a technical problem when the software was loaded on the computer gaming system. The problem caused misprinted tickets. Thanks to the Lottery’s retail partners, the error was caught by 9:00 a.m. Sunday, October 19 and the Lottery stopped selling the game immediately. The Lottery sold 2,336 tickets before sales were suspended. Of those, 609 printed incorrectly. The misprinted tickets may lead players to believe they have won a bigger prize than they actually won.

The Lottery continues to gather all of the facts surrounding this situation, and we ask that all players be patient. Players should keep their tickets or fill out a claim form at a Lottery office. We are in contact with our gaming partner, GTECH, who made the error. The Lottery is also speaking with the Attorney General’s office to determine if it is appropriate to pay the expected prizes, even though every ticket specifically states “Tickets are void if…. misprinted… or do not meet the state Lottery validation tests.”

The Lottery is extremely disappointed about this error and is working diligently to determine the proper solution for our loyal players and retailers.

Oh shit,  so, you sell tickets which are an error because 25% of the buyers were winners?  If they void the tickets, are they going to have to pay for pain and suffering of those who thought they were winners?  Bad move, lottery. Suck it up and pay the winners!  Next time, make sure you actually make it impossible to win.

(original logo here if you want to make your own tag line)

Don’t we have enough awards already?  I guess not.. other cities are suckers!

This time Black Enterprise magazine named Charlottesville, VA second best in their “20 Best Places to Retire” list in the October edition.  The publication ranked cities on quality of life, health care, taxes and leisure, arts and culture and climate.  Go Charlottesville!

List is after the break:

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Tomorrow C-VILLE will publish its 2008 Best Of Awards for Charlottesville, so I’ve decided to publish our food winners list as well as analyze some of the winners from Daily Progress’s Reader’s Choice (which was published about 3 weeks ago) in one fell swoop.  Last year we did our own superlatives which we think are much more accurate (although biased and not democratically chosen).  As seems to be the case with any reader driven contest, the larger the place, the larger the voting power of their customer base/employees. Oh well.. that’s why you have snarkers like us.  Feel free to critique!

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After a very (seriously) hidden ranking system, it appears that Albemarle County only made it to 13 out of the Top 20 places to live in the USA. The simple truth is that Albemarle County and Charlottesville should always be in the Top 5 places to live, no matter the type of list [insert funny list joke here].

Forbes used a bunch of variables to get to this list, including, but not limited to SAT scores, cost of living, graduation rate, standardized scores, home prices, property tax rate as a percentage of median home price, percentage of homes occupied by owner, per-capita income, crime rate and commute time. We didn’t come out on top and I’m pissed.

Here is my Top 5 List for the reasons Forbes pulled this list out of their arse (translation I am a poor sport when Charlottesville doesn’t win).

1. The ranking system is completely secret.

2. Midwestern places hold the top 5 rankings. What? Who likes corn and meth heads, anyway?

3. The ranking system has very little to do with real life family environments.

4. New Jersey made the list.

5. You can’t pronounce half the winners on the list…Ozaukee, Geauga, Waukesha…? Somebody shoot me.

The full list of Forbes’ Top 20 Best Places to Raise a Family is after the jump…

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Here are the photos of our wildly successful space party. Final tallies are still being made, but we raised over $1,000.00 for Computers 4 Kids!

We all had a blast and hope you guys did too! Here are some photos — to help remind you just how much fun you really had. Please send us your photos and we will post them as well.

Thanks for making the night such a hit!

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Oy Wins the Random Drawing.  Your information has been sent to Shen!

I am afraid to tell you Charlottesville’s best kept secret. I have known about this place for well over two years (before I even moved here). I apologize for my selfish secret, but once you try it you’ll see the need for my secrecy. Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie in North Garden is good enough to bring even the toughest pizza critic down. Their pizza rivals any pizza not just in Charlottesville, but anywhere.

If I know nothing about food, I know that hippies make some damn good pizza. I am from the other side of the country and have never failed to be amazed at the pizza you can get over there. However, every good pizza place has had the “greenest” of employees. I never thought I would be able to find that over here. »Read More

Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me introduce you to the mystery of the red panties. Red panties began on this site as a mention in our New Year’s Post by one of our own, Lu Sid. Well, the legacy continued and there have been several other mentions over the last few months.

Most notably we had some very brave (and beautiful) ladies at the Crush Party sporting Red Panties. Picture evidence below:

Now, it’s your turn.

Crush has sponsored the competition. The winner will get a $25 dollar bottle of wine for free from Gregg @ Crush. Stop by and thank him for sponsoring. Yipee!!!

The rules are: there are no rules.

You must submit a picture to GOSSIP@CVILLAIN.COM (max three pictures per person) of red panties in and around Charlottesville. Picture should be no larger than 500px wide and 500px long.

The picture can be photoshopped, people wearing red panties in real life, guys with red panties on their heads. paintings of red panties, red panties placed in funny locations around town, graffiti red pants, etc.

Use your imagination and try to make things relevant to Charlottesville. No nudity!

We will stick entries into one big thread and let the readers vote on the coolest use of red panties in Charlottesville. Winner gets the wine.

All entries must be submitted no later than March 24th at Midnight! Have fun!

WINGNUT!

Congratulations! Email gossip@cvillain.com for your free tickets!

Thanks! Now, everyone else, please go buy tickets (even if you aren’t going) the money goes to charity!