It’s been a couple of weeks since the high school football season has ended, and we still have a little bit of time before the start of high school hoops, so I figured this would be the perfect time to reflect on the 2009 season.

This was one of the most entertaining, competitive and difficult-to-predict seasons for Athens County football in recent memory. The level of local competition took a significant step up this year, and that made for some entertaining Friday nights.

To break down the season, I pulled out 10 points that stuck out to me from this season.

On Friday, Dave Hendricks, managing editor of the Post at Ohio University, criticized one of our campus reporters in his “Managing Editor’s Note.” While he charged that our reporter, Chelsea Toy, had been unfair in an article published Thursday, I don’t think she was, and actually think Hendricks was unfair in calling her out and apparently in failing to digest Chelsea’s whole story.

Our story, “Money Transfer to Athletics Stirs Debate,” briefly mentioned a Post story last Monday that detailed how the McDavis administration shifted student general fee money it said wasn’t needed by Student Affairs (specifically money raised by Student Health Services/Hudson Health Center) into Intercollegiate Athletics (ICA).

If you don't want to give up on the high school football season yet, then head to Nelsonville-York or Lancaster High School tonight. Both of those schools are hosting Division V, Region 19 playoff games and they will showcase some of the top talent in the state.

Nelsonville-York didn’t make the playoffs this year, but I’m sure plenty of Buckeyes fans will head up to Boston Field too see top seed Fredericktown (11-0) take on Wheelersburg (9-2). Fredericktown has its sites set on at least getting to the regional finals, and then making a run in the state.

I watched the news today, oh boy…

In 1985, Neil Postman wrote a book called, “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” In it he distinguishes a world of Orwellian totalitarianism in which Big Brother outright seizes the rights of the citizenry, from that of Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World,” where these rights and freedoms are volunteered as the population self-medicates with a drug called “soma.”

Postman proposes that, in modern times, television entertainment is the “soma” that the population uses to self-medicate into bliss and distraction.

“Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression,” Postman wrote in the book’s forward. “But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think… What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

After the kegs-and-eggs of Homecoming, the mom-and-dad bar hopping of Parents Weekend and the sheer madness of Halloween in Athens, all that's left to do for this mundane weekend of fall quarter is sleep.

The nightlife in Athens, while always a good time no matter what, comes in waves. The first two weekends of the quarter, underclassmen are breaking in their new fake IDs and tasting O'Betty's, Goodfellas and Big Mamma's Burritos for the first time while the over-21 crowd is reuniting with one another over drink specials uptown. While the weather's warm, the house parties and keggers line Mill Street, and the new residents find out what it’s like to clean up after hundreds of drunken students spill Natty all over their linoleum.

The high school football state playoffs got underway this weekend and Alexander was the only team from Athens County to make the postseason. The Spartans will travel up to Amanda-Clearcreek to face the perennial powerhouse.

The game will certainly carry plenty of emotion for Alexander because it is the team’s first playoff game in school history. In recent years, the dominant fall sport at Alexander was girl’s volleyball, but now the football team is starting to give the girls a little competition.

On Tuesday, Christine Fahl won election to Athens City Council’s Fourth Ward seat, defeating Randy Morris. In an unofficial vote tally, Fahl beat Morris by 30 votes, in a race in which 722 votes were cast, and 39 provisional ballots remain to be counted.

On Wednesday, the Athens Messenger’s story on the outcome was headlined, “Looks like Fahl, but too close to call.”

Now, I don’t want to beat up on the Messenger in particular here; it may be that somebody over there just liked the almost-rhyme of “Fahl” and “call.” But my first thought on reading it was that if more reporters mastered the basics of mathematical literacy, we would see fewer headlines like this one.

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.