up the villa. and out.

A few things:

In the two days that have passed since Cleveland Browns owner bought Premiership football team Aston Villa, Uncle Crappy has discovered a whole new set of friends in England. It was a remarkable thing, actually — as soon as the sale was announced, the Villans started talking up the Browns on a fan site I found, and it didn’t take long for Browns fans to find the Villans. The give and take has been very cool — jersey exchanges; info, advice and history about each team flying back and forth. We’ve also discovered a huge number of similarities between the teams, their towns and their fans: very proud traditions, blue-collar supporters and cities, piss-poor former owners and ungodly streaks of bad luck. Villa opens the season on Saturday against Arsenal, a game we — WE — should probably lose, especially since its the first in Arsenal’s new ground (that’s English football speak). Fred should be happy about that, the wanker. Regardless of what happens Saturday, I’m just happy to have a new team to obess over.

While Villa’s first game is underway, The Wife and I will be in the hills outside Albany, N.Y., at the Gathering of the Vibes. Four days of camping. Three days of music. Three cases of beer. It’s going to be awesome. If I have any kind of cell reception, I may send a couple of brief posts while we’re there. Full details to follow.

See ya’ll next week.