Well there is no denying it, UVA has had a great season. They are sitting as a ranked team (#25 in one of the polls), they have ads in the school newspaper informing students how to reserve ACC Championship tickets, and they have a chance to conquer their most bitter rival after seven straight years of defeat and in the process take down a BCS top 5 team and earn a trip to the ACC Championship game. Cute. Very cute, assholes.

Before we go and get all all Hokie-sweaty over this game lets remember that its a game that Tech can and should win.  Granted UVA’s run defense is decent but they can’t say they have seen a talent like David Wilson yet this season, and with a 50th ranked pass defense there will hopefully be plenty of diversity with Logan’s approach and (lord please) with our play-calling to fool the Hoo defense and allow a big play. Speaking of big plays UVA has allowed ‘em as of late… 68 yards, 64 yards, 58 yards, 51 yards… in the air or on the ground the Hokies need to have some against the Hoos to lock up a victory.

But why come to this blog to hear about the X’s and O’s?? - lets focus on the things that really DON’T matter, because that’s what we find important here at Dic Tailgate:

First off, how can UVA even pretend to have a fierce football crowd when their stadium is essentially a glorified Gymboree store. I shit you not, I see more little kids on TV when they broadcast UVA games then I do players on the field. Apparently UVA football games are the IN place to take the entire South Riding family for a nice Saturday. There is nothing intimidating about a group of fans wearing ties as their kids eat lucky charms out of a zip lock bag on 3rd downs… unless off course the lucky charms are shards of broken glass and the parents are throwing bleeding baby carcases on the field - that would be fucking terrifying. I didn’t even circle all the kids in the above picture either, I grew tired of it and figured you got the point.

These mascots are just plain AWFUL. I mean, you have a few options to make fun of here. First you you have a live action “Cavalier?” … a grown man who rides a real live trample-your-ass horse around the field. Next you have some weird boxing/mowhawked My Little Pony thing.  And last but not least you have the crazy-as-all-batshit mascot version of the live-action Cavalier, known only as Cav-Man. Now then, over at UVA they clearly have no control over their animals… you see, the horse which the “real” Cavalier rode in on during the William and Mary game literally bucked him off the saddle on live television (while at Tech we have our horses under serious domination and control) so all his dignity has been lost for all time - he might as well have projectile shat himself while ringing the masturbation bell during a Thursday Night Broadcast, we will never forget. As for mascot number two, the pedophile horse, that thing needs no real analysis as it is clearly one of the most pathetic marketing attempts that has ever graced a football field. Perhaps they thought they could control a Snuggie with orange oven mitts a little bit better than the live stallion after the real thing went all “The Ring” on the field in front of the national broadcast cameras. As for Cav-Man…

LOOK AT THIS THING. Its even dumber than then Demon Deacon - how such a bad mascot was made is possible is beyond comprehension. Perhaps it would take that friend of yours who went to UVA undergrad and brags about their vastly superior education to explain it to us (what was it you studied again? Oh “English”? Great - glad we have that technology covered). This Cav-Man thing is likely is the flasher that has been sexually assaulting men all over Charlottesville in recent weeks… I don’t think we even need to explore who would win in a fight between Cav Man and the Hokie Bird.

WHAT ARE THESE PRICES?! I mean sure I get it, its a big game, but there was no problem landing face value tickets a few years back when UVA was ranked #16 and VT was #8. There wasn’t this kind of hysteria. When UVA has had chances to prevent VT’s trip to the ACC Championship there was hardly a murmur of interest from the UVA faithful or a blip on the Stubhub radar.  But now - apparently ONLY NOW - after the Commonwealth Cup has been in Blacksburg for 2,512 days and counting (meaning that UVA’s 2012’s recruiting class was in 4th grade the last time UVA beat Tech) - is the time that the tides change and all the old shitbag Wahoos want to come out and should racial slurs and complain about the Democrats in a large crowded environment. And apparently all the Wahoos are so certain that it will be a win and want so badly to bring their 3 year-olds to see the teletubbie horse and rapist cavalier man run around the field that they will spend upwards of 300 dollars per seat. Recall back earlier in the season you could get the whole “Hoo Gang” of soon-to-be little douches in the stadium for 72 bucks and it included food too. This inflation is plain stupid.

So yes, in summary, don’t be fooled by UVA. They are excited to be where they are and they have a decent club - yippie, but the Hokies are a better team and will win the game down in Charlottesville this weekend. Sorry little ones, Daddy will lie to you many more times in your life and you aren’t going to get in to either school you see playing on Saturday, better brush up that AP Spanish for a chance to get a ticket to Christopher Newport.

The seasonal Turkey options are back at Wawa and they are still the best thing one can buy with a touchscreen.

Wawa (as evidenced by the official Sheetz Versus Wawa Competition) as a whole doesn’t top the mighty Sheetz overall - but this one dish: the Wawa Gobbler Turkey Sandwich complete with stuffing, gravy and cranberry spread (now available on a wheat roll) - is unstoppable. Welcome back my friend.

You know, a week ago I was writing about FSU in the preseason poll at number 5 and I then began reminiscing about their scum-bucket-never-attended-FSU-self-proclaimed-”wild-redneck”-wearing-a-golf-shirt-douchbagy fans when it occurred to me: I really don’t know what a TRUE Florida State fan is.

Its kind of like Miami fans… I can’t imagine the “true Miami fan” is that airbrushed-RIP-t-shirt-wearing thug that never left Detroit with a big white silhouette of a “U” on his back of his glitter green dented 1995 Lexus SC300… I mean, what the Hell are you? Certainly not a true fan.

I figured I would turn to where everyone turns in a situation like this: Google. Bouncing over to the Google Image Search I typed in “FSU Fan” and got the following result (… and mind you I have not doctored these results and I recommend you click the image in this post to truly spectacle at the results I got.)

“FSU Fan”

Reaction: Right off the bat the Google search engine is curious did you mean “jenn sterger”? That slut? My god she hasn’t been at that school since 1993 - come to think of it, was she ever AT that school or did her tits just get invited to games by filthy rich alumni who are still reaping in on their great-slave-owning-grandfather’s orange futures?

If you look at the pictures almost ALL of them of are of Sterger! I mean, is that really the thing FSU is associated with? 10 years after the fact, a stripper turned sideline reporter whose most famous contribution to society was RECEIVING a picture of Brett Favre’s flaccid cock is the quinesential ”FSU fan.” 

And shit, there are like 20 different pics of her from all kinds of angles (none of which could give a goddamn about the game going on behind her). Other than Sterger you have a couple of glittered up retards, then some more Sterger softcore, and then WOMEN KISSING?! Wait, what? I mean I am all for your school having bragging rights to hot women but unless I missed something I’m pretty sure the female fans at FSU don’t go throat deep in celebration during games. Lastly there is the obligatory highly-photoshopped middle finger baby. So, in essence what we have learned is that FSU fans = Jenn Sterger’s fake tits + 3 gay men with paint on their bodies + Cinemax + a baby. Great, that really cleared it up.

Maybe to be fair I’ll just try Googling “FSU” by itself…

“FSU”

Reaction: Holllllly fuck its her all over again? Jesus people don’t you have any other humans associated with your school? Maybe an astronaut, an actor, a fucking local weatherman?!? And perhaps I missed something in my 17+ years searching for porn on the Internet (or Gopher as it was back in 1992) is “FSU” is some kind of universal search term for titties, Sterger’s titties to be exact? I mean you can just Google her name by itself and practically get the same results! This is honestly pathetic and to the several hundred true FSU fans I feel a bit sorry for you.

So I guess my conclusion is that this pretty much represents FSU fans… well, no, that’s not fair, I guess THIS represents FSU… Hmmm well I guess its all better than the truth, people.

EDIT: Apologies for the run on adjectives - I italicized them for more frustrated reading.

So after several years we have revisited the Dic Tailgate Fantasy Death Pool despite a DNR order.

As for how we will wrap this up, we have decided to declare interim winners but more importantly we will use the ranking of prior winners to declare the draft order for the next Death Pool.

1st place with 16 points: Jenness
2nd place (tie) with 13 points: Swain and Butt
3rd place with 11 points: JP

The rules are a bit different for this pool in that no duplicate selections, once one person drafts a potential death that selection is off the board for others to select. There is also a slight tweaking of the scoring system and the highest ranking team (Jenness > Swain > Butt > Phillips) from the first pool will get first draft picks. Details to come soon but the next round is open to new contestants who want to partake, draft is likely to be conducted via email.

The Final Tally

Before we come to the moment of truth lets also see a summary of the previous rounds that lead us to this point:

Round 1: The point at which the two locations diverge. A tie is the only result when you compare similarities. 

Round 2: Take your flavor of shit - you’ll see an even share of scum and oddities when you make a trip to a remote Sheetz or Wawa. They tie in round two.

Round 3: Touch screens separate all need to interact with store employee, which means you won’t get judged at 2am when you order 4 feet of subs. Wawa is the winner of the food round.

Round 4: Do you have twenty bucks and no will to live? Then fill up a bag full of carnival food and caffeine. Sheetz will take you further.

Round 5: Sheetz has just too much convenience and tops Wawa in the mixed-bag fifth round.

Comments were also considered in addition to the five rounds. Some of the comments were made here on the site, some on facebook, others were shared over drinks. The general effect was a boost in Wawa’s street credibility and fan support.

Using all of this information it came time to analyze all of the data and put a team of Dic Tailgate experts to the task of deciding a winner.

“Look where this shit is going” (stock photo from Dic Tailgate HQ)

With similar revenues (about sales 4.5 billion each), comparable business models, and overlapping operating territories most times you could interchange the names  Sheetz or Wawa in whatever you were saying and it would still make perfect sense. But we came here to declare a winner.

With all the votes in, the scorecards tallied, and the extra bacon for 40 cents more the winner is…

When its all said and done Sheetz just knows its game too well. It may not be the cultural hub of Wawa and the prepared foods are a step below Wawa - but Sheetz rises to the top when you factor in cost, convenience, and overall effectiveness as a stop-and-go gas and convenience store.

Wawa creates superfans from their ability to attach themselves to neighborhoods and the personalities that patronize the store whereas Sheetz simply gets dropped in like a SimCity gift (”cheers”) to just about any location with great success. The passion for Wawa is great, greater than Sheetz in fact (and for good reason) but love it or hate it you Wawa fanboys Sheetz is the king of town. You have your winner, now go get a side of Fryz.

ROUND 5: Everything else.

Sheetz is morally more corrupt than Wawa. Sheetz sells porno, lottery tickets, even beer pong game kits. Sheetz features beer caves and questionable trucker gambling machines that I don’t think are legal even in Nevada. They have a very wide range of hardware items and automotive care products.

Also, almost all Sheetz locations sell gas (cheap shitty gas but it will still make your car go) whereas a good number of Wawa locations do not sell any gas at all - there aren’t even any air pumps.

From personal experience I also know that Wawa sells very few automotive products. I once ran out of gas outside of Baltimore and walked nearly 2 miles to Wawa (I was trying to get there in the first place). I asked if they had a loaner gas can and they said “no, because its a liability”- okay fine - so I asked to buy one. They had only one, and that one was a 10 gallon jug that couldn’t even fit in my trunk. I drove back to the Wawa after pouring in a gallon. Having no need for the gas container I offered to donate it to the store for any future patrons who may be in my position but they just said “we’ll just throw it away and put in an order for a new one to replenish the stock.” I guess they needed to make room for their hard boiled egg party platters and “How I Met Your Mother” t-shirts.

Sheetz is now starting to put touch screen MTO ordering systems out by the pump. Though there have been a number of technical problems with the systems due to their exposure to elements, when they are working its great to get all your beep beep boops done before your gas is even done pumping.

For a while neither location welcomed patrons to stay around and loiter. Neither had any kind of eating area or seating. There has been a slight change in the tides with the newer Sheetz locations however. Metal tables and chairs adorned with bright green metal umbrellas have appeared outside of some storefronts and others have a cafe area where patrons can sip their coffee in a Starbucks like atmosphere. The first company to offer free Wifi might just be decalared a defacto winner of this round but as of yet, you still need to drive across the street to the Microtel and steal theirs.

ADVANTAGE: Sheetz is the winner here, there is just too much convenience at Sheetz when you compare to Wawa - and that’s important as afterall they are both convenience stores.

Click to Get To The Final Round: The Final Tally

ROUND 4: The $20 Test.

It was a favorite game played between me and my roommates at Penn State and the rules were simple and singular: determine who could accumulate the most Sheetz MTO or Wawa ToGo per visit based on weight with the winner being the owner of the order that tipped the scale the most (the winner had to eat the contents of their bag to actually achieve victory).

However, that game may not be the best metric when trying compare between the Pennsylvania born Sheetz with the New Jersey native Pennsylvania farm-founded Wawa EDIT THANKS TO BETH: “From Wikipedia: In the early 19th century Richard D. Wood ran a store in Greenwich, New Jersey selling items from his farming. It was 1803 when David Wood became a part owner of a furnace that sold stove plates through the firm of Smith and Wood. About a century later George Wood moved to Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It is here that he started to operate the Wawa Dairy Farm…” Instead we will see what around $20 bucks can get you at each location:

Wawa takes a leave from this battle earlier on. Though gas prices are generally the same at each establishment, and costs for regular retail merchandise and brand-name foods are pretty similiar, the prepared foods and self-serve drink prices are much better at Sheetz. Perhaps you are paying for higher quality at Wawa and so you’d expect to pay a bit more, but you can bet that your 20 bucks will get you a much heavier bag at Sheetz.

Sheetz is the king of sub 2-dollar menu items (and equally low-priced cigarettes). They feature 4 dollar footlong subs and dirt cheap loaded hot dogs. Drink promotions allow you to get ANY size coffee or softdrink at a single price point, usually around a dollar.

Wawa long held claim to “NO FEES” ATM machines. It was an unheard of practice when I first saw it (especially compared to $7.50 fees you see on Bourbon Street) but Sheetz has followed suit and now offers the same fee-free ATM machines at their locations.

When you are a Wawa location, you can charge a bit more since you are offering mini-veggie trays and hummus cups. But careful of that impulse filled soft-pretzel buy you might make while checking out, it could set you back another three bucks. Sheetz won’t charge you that - but that’s because they have nothing as remotely appetizing in the check out line. For this round its the mighty dollar and what you can get for it that carries the day and who can say no to a two dollar Meatball Sub with parmesan cheese, pickles, cooked onions and peppers, olives, and some BBQ sauce?

RESULT: Sheetz is the heavier hitter and gives you more bang for your buck – it’s a the clear winner of this round.

Click to Continue to Tomorrow’s Round: Everything else (not just on the shelves)

ROUND 3: The Touch-Screen of Wonderment

Sheetz has this cute little way of adding “Sh” to the front of their Made-To-Order foods, and if that doesn’t make phonetic sense then they will throw a “Z” on the end of the item. Bagels become Shmaglez, Quesadillas are Queszadillaz, and even Garlic French Fries become Fryz. The menu is wide-ranging but not very adventurous. You’ll find typical fare such as hamburgers, hot dogs, hot and cold subs, even salads and some sides.

Breakfast is perhaps the MTO’s strongest move in this round. A wide range of breakfast items interchange breakfast meats, cheeses, egg, and a variety of toppings ranging from tabasco to pesto sauce and sandwich options such as English muffins and pretzel rolls. At the top of the MTO breakfast mountain is the Shmonster - a glorious two egg, double meat, double cheese heart stopper that can’t be topped or easily digested.

A fan favorite for many is the Mac-and-Cheese offerings and Sheetz also offers via the touch screen a premium coffee and latte menu branded under “Sheetz Bros.” at most locations. Limited time promotions come and go and feature such favorites as pulled pork sandwiches, pizza, and panini-style Ruben sandwiches though every now and then Sheetz wanders in to bad culinary territory (spicy burritos, blts, and fried chicken) causing you to experience overpriced flavor abortionz.

Wawa really knows how to make touch screen ordering as stress-free as possible. Not only does Wawa feature a spread of food options, they allow orders to be placed with customizable specifics such as “just a lil’ bit of mayo”, or on the side, and there is even a button to call out a special request if the pages and pages of buttons don’t give you what you want.

Wawa’s Hoagies surpass the quality of subs offered at Sheetz. Hoagie selections include diced chicken breast and bacon carbonara and the bread is always soft and warm. If you order your sandwich with a lot of goodies on top Wawa goes the extra step of putting a layer of plastic over the sandwich so it doesn’t leak out and seep through the paper wrapping around the hoagie.

Wawa’s variety is quite good also. Wawa avoids the temptation to offer crappy burgers and hot dogs and instead provides soups, chicken strips, rice bowls, and wraps. More significantly Wawa offers healthier options such as sliced apples, flatbread low-carb sandwiches, and for the real asshole patron there is even hummus.

Although Wawa doesn’t have a breakfast behemoth to pit against the mighty Schmonster (EDIT: There is a breakfast hoagie that may just be a contender), Wawa does have the greatest seasonal item of all the land - the Gobbler. The Gobbler combines all of the greatest toppings from your Thanksgiving meal (turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce) and puts it all on a warm roll for you to inhale as its gooey amazingness spills out of all crevices.

ADVANTAGE: Leaving price aside, Wawa squeaks by on their consistent great taste, wide variety and special limited time offerings.

Click Here to Continue to Tomorrow’s Round: The $20 Test

Now let’s see how Sheetz and Wawa diverge. We explore in this round the “culture” and feeling of each establishment in Round 2:

Sheetz has been called the convenience store that gives you that crack-of-dawn feeling when you’re on your way somewhere far away and its your first reward for waking up early. You even tell your stomach “get on the road by 7 AM and I’ll treat you to a Breakfast Shmuffin.” Sheetz is the kind of place where you park your truck and don’t even get gas.

Wawa on the other that last stop before you leave the beach. You have sand on your toes, bikini-strap sunburns and dry hair. Its the last taste of freedom you have as the sunset melts away in the final moments before twilight just before you return back to a boring workweek on Monday. The warm glow of the convenience store almost tells you that the sun will never set on the weekend. You get gas at Wawa - a full tank, and take extra time wandering the store as to prolong the inevitable drive home.

The feeling inside the stores is somewhat similar. Staff at both businesses are usually very nice, the touch-screen machines make fun and quirky noises, everything is well lit, shiny and clean. Bright colors overload your mind as you walk around the store (especially when you have just woken up or are wasted) and the aisles are shallow and wide with plenty of room to get around and see the things you have no need for.

However, Sheetz clientele is likely to be much more redneck than Wawa’s usual crowd. In a Sheetz you’ll often find avid hunters in full camouflage refilling their 120 ounce coffee before returning to their diesel fed raised axel pick-up truck with chrome balls hanging from the tow hitch. Wawa doesn’t do much better by attracting complete Jersey scum to their stores. I’m not talking about the funny and lovable Jersey Shore guidos either, but rather the glue-sniffing baby-dropping homemade-tattoo douche fags Jersey retards with butterfly knives on the outside of their pant-shorts escorting bleached blonds with cinderblocked faces and bone skinny arms.

ADVANTAGE: Consider it the ying and yang, the dawn and dusk, the Adam and Andy LaRoche, you get the idea. Its a TIE here too.

Click Here to Continue to Tomorrow’s Round: MTO vs. Touch and Go!

It may seem like a silly debate to some, it may be the most serious affiliation a person can declare to others, and to a casual observer there may be no distinguishable difference between either of them at all…

It is a battle over which East Coast mega convenience store is best: Sheetz or Wawa? (Don’t even bother mentioning Royal Farms or Rutter’s in this argument, they are the Canada of the G7 in this debate)

Most Wawa people wouldn’t turn their back on Sheetz if all that was available at the exit was infact only a Sheetz, a Blimpie/Exxon, and an outdated Texaco. Likewise Sheetz fans would happily break mold and jump in to a Wawa for a coffee and pack of smokes if its a closer walk to their beach rental.

The question is which one do you pick when both are side by side on a green “facilities” highway sign? Do you drive a few extra exits on an empty tank - passing two Sheetz locations - to get to the Wawa? Do you have all of the Sheetz exits memorized on Route 81? Or do you (know the difference enough to) go to the “good Wawa” when there are two in one town on your way to go skiing in West Virginia? If that’s how seriously you take your Sheetz-obsession or Wawa-devotion. then this debate is for you.

Over this next week I will examine these two gas-convenience behemoths in an effort to finally determine who is the number one king of the 99 cent coffee and loaded hot dog mountain. Each morning this week I will post a new round in the battle leading up to a final conclusion and announcement of the winner at the end of the week.

Feel free to contribute your thoughts in the comments section - I haven’t written the final post to determine the winner and I can say that its basically a dead heat at this point so make your voice heard. Now let’s get ready to rumble - the bout begins now…

ROUND 1: Let us consider first how Sheetz and Wawa are similar:

• Both feature large, well-lit 24-hour retail space
• Each offers a wide variety of prepared to order foods purchased via a touch screen interface at reasonable prices
• Most (see future rounds) offer gasoline at or around the cheapest prices in town
• Each carries countless brands of soft drinks, bottled beverages, candies, chips, jerkies, and otherwise general convenience store crap
• Each has around a dozen flavors of coffee and specialty lattes available
• Sheetz and Wawa are constantly reinventing themselves and you can see new “versions” of their stores every few years, making you proclaim that THIS is now the “money Sheetz” or the “nice Wawa“
• Both are found in abundance along major highways in the north east and can also be found randomly in small towns
• Both have bathrooms that don’t require keys, are generally clean, and have multiple stalls

ADVANTAGE: Well these are the ways the two are similar so of course round one is a TIE

Click here to continue to Tomorrow’s Round: “The Feel”