Now it’s the playoffs, and for the first time ever, Alexander will get a little taste of the postseason. The Spartans earned the eight-seed in Division IV Region 15, and will play top-seeded Amanda-Clearcreek.

The Spartans could not have received a tougher first-round opponent. Amanda-Clearcreek defines of dominance, as the Aces have won two state championships under longtime head coach Ron Hinton. Amanda-Clearcreek is undefeated and has a legitimate chance to get back to state title, which it won in 1999 and 2000.

And now, for your consideration… This Is My Suitcase

Listen to this album. Buy this album. And spread the word.

I feel as though my eardrums have just been ravaged by a sweet and sultry phonic PleasureMaster 3000.

That was my first reaction to hearing the new album from This Is My Suitcase, “The Keys to Cat Heaven,” (Paper + Plastick, 2009). In January, Columbus Alive listed Suitcase as one of the top bands to watch in 2009. They were right. And Suitcase delivered.

If in the next few months, the National Rifle Association trots out a survey purporting to show that a vast majority of Americans opposes a U.N. plan to force the United States to ban guns, I’m afraid I’ll be among those who answered in the negative.

About an hour ago, I got a call from a number in Manassas, Va., that was marked “NRA” on our caller ID. My suspicions that this was a surveyor were quickly confirmed when a breathless woman declared, “I have a one-question opinion poll to ask you. It’s about the U.N.’s outrageous plan to ban guns in America.”

Well, I’m quite a liar, aren’t I? I said I would write more often and I didn’t. I said I would be there and I wasn’t. I said I would call and I never did. But I refuse to let this relationship fall by the wayside. You see… I have an idea.

Originally, I was going to write these long-winded, self-indulgent columns delineating the troubles of our American culture. But I now realize, in this format, I have no need to be so garrulous. It’s the age of Al Gore’s Internet! I can write short-winded, self-indulgent blurbs delineating the troubles of our American culture, complete with hyperlinks and embedded video to provide the steamy details.

It wasn't the high heels, the makeup or the Strawberry Shortcake costume that made Saturday night memorable - it was the lines, the waiting, and seeing everybody drunk and in costumes while doing it.

The peaceful Halloween in Athens was marked by the crowds, as usual, that filled Court Street. The mass swarms of college students and their friends packed every bar and late-night restaurant in the city. Students that had been partying throughout the day spent the night on the bricks enjoying the sights and sounds of Halloween in Athens.

With the final week of the regular season approaching, I figured it would make sense to sort out the playoff picture. Two TVC-Ohio teams are in the midst of an exciting postseason race, and their chances of making a Week 11 appearance all depend on tomorrow night.

Nelsonville-York and Alexander are right on the edge of making the playoffs, and both teams need a little help if they want to see the postseason.

The ninth week of the high school football season did not give us many surprises. All the teams won that were expected to win, and of course, the rain made for another wet and muddy Friday night.

Without question, the story of the week—maybe even the year—came from Ironton, where head coach Bob Lutz became the winningest coach in Ohio high school history after his Fighting Tigers took down Nelsonville-York 32-12.

Throughout this season Nelsonville-York has gone into its games as the team without the intriguing storyline. The attitude seemed like, “who cares if the Buckeyes have a good shot at winning another league title and going back to the playoffs?”

Everybody has seen that already.

Against Alexander and Athens, the excitement centered on the newfound success of those two programs. In many ways, the Buckeyes dominance went overlooked.

Well, the theme continues this week as Nelsonville-York travels to Ironton to face the Fighting Tigers who have the chance to make their head coach Bob Lutz the winningest coach in Ohio high school history.

A story in the Columbus Dispatch Wednesday really riled me up. As if I have to go hunting for things to drive my blood pressure into outer space.

Anyway, the headline read “Slow Pace of Tuition Hikes Helps Ohio: Prices Make State More Competitive, Report Indicates.”

What good news!

No team wants to be the one gives up a record, and no team wants to be the one that allows history to be made against them.

But the Nelsonville-York Buckeyes find themselves in a tough spot this week as they have to go to Ironton and play a Fighting Tigers team that has the chance to give head coach Bob Lutz the record for most wins (361) in the history of Ohio high school football.

Talk about everyone rooting against you.

Be afraid. Be very afraid (especially when the cliches come this quickly). The 2010 visitation of the feared and despised Asian ladybeetle has officially begun. The first one of the fall is right now crawling on my Court Street-facing office window, which, yes, faces the west. He just smiled at me. And check, it's a sunny, breezy late-October day, which is always the setting for the annual return of the ALB. It's hard to tell this early whether this will be a banner year for Asian ladybeetles, or whether it will be another year where their numbers are down. I'm hoping for the latter, since the prospect of killing ladybugs all winter  iis something I dread.

I found this video online of a cabin in Iowa swarming with the nasty little beasts.

The magical run for the Athens High School football team came to an end Friday night at Rutter Field. After dominating victories in the first seven weeks of the season, the Bulldogs met their match against a more gritty, and experienced Nelsonville-York team.

In one of the most anticipated games in the history of Athens football, the contest lived up the excitement as the Buckeyes scored the winning touchdown with less than a minute remaining. The final touchdown and extra point gave Nelsonville-York a 14-13 victory, and left Athens with an all-too familiar feeling.

Ohio University's Homecoming drew in crowds of alumni who filled Court Street all weekend long. The Homecoming Parade cheered on the Bobcat football team, who went on to beat Miami University of Ohio for the fourth consecutive year. Bars opened early Saturday, some at 7 a.m., for the festivities. Alumni came back because "Athens is the happiest place on Earth," and to enjoy the same fun they had as students at OU. The nightlife in Athens was set to the tune of African drums and a piano man, as the musicians played all night long for partiers.

Every week the games seem to get a little bigger, and tonight’s game between Athens and Nelsonville-York is another marquee contest in the TVC-Ohio. The Bulldogs have a chance to stay undefeated, and clear a path to bring home a league title.

For the Buckeyes, tonight’s game is an opportunity to shake up the league standings and stay on track for the playoffs.

With a league title, playoff spot and the Doc Kroner Trophy all on the line, the matchup has all the ingredients of a game for the ages.

CLASSICAL SHMASSICAL

In recent issues of The Athens NEWS, two successive writers have sent letters to the editor bemoaning the absence of “classical” music on Ohio University’s WOUB-FM radio.

I don’t want to jump into some brawl about the programming on WOUB (for one thing, I’m biased, being a volunteer jock on the AM side). But it has always seemed odd to me, this treatment of a thing called “classical” music as a particular, and especially high-toned, genre. It seems to miss the whole point of the concept of “culture,” which would seem to be, most of all, about discrimination.

In terms of the mechanics of music, I’m pretty much an illiterate. I could probably spot by ear a relative minor, or a dominant seventh, but if you start to talk about voice leading or parallel fourths, I’ll have to lie down with a cooling cloth on my head. So to be honest, I would have to say that I don’t really know the first thing about “classical music.”