Straight Outta Compton [with video]

cd In 1988, N.W.A. changed the course of popular music with their debut album, Straight Outta Compton. It wasn’t the first or the best "gangsta rap" album, but Straight Outta Compton sold two million copies, proving that white American teenagers hungered for profanity-laden, hardcore rap music. This month, Priority Records is celebrating their lucrative discovery […]

Super Mario Galaxy

videogame Mario’s excellent space adventure isn’t just the Wii’s first absolutely must-have game—it’s also the equivalent of an interactive Disney movie, with rainbow-star bits plummeting from the sky and bursting from patches of grass and pummeled enemies. Manipulating an on-screen cursor with the Wiimote to collect and use the star bits to unlock new colorful […]

City looks to shirk density costs

"The city wants density, but we want you developers to pay for it." That is the essence of a proposed change cooked up by city staff and presented to the Planning Commission December 11, a last minute addition to a rezoning package that has been in discussion for almost a year. The changes were originally […]

County spurns Spurzem

Just because you work out a 264-acre rezoning for 900-plus homes and 500,000 square-feet of commercial space by a narrow vote of 4-2 doesn’t put you in the clear. Richard Spurzem, the first developer to bring forward site plans as part of the North Pointe mega-development, had his plans for 188 residential units on 40 […]

Historic district approved

More than 83,000 acres in southern Albemarle County are now officially on the National Register of Historic Places. The Southern Albemarle Rural Historic District is the largest such area east of the Mississippi River. Unlike most designations, which are usually requested and funded by local government, this was entirely resident driven­—they even paid for the […]