CAAST Out The Demons

In a new blog CAAST which stands for "Citizens Against Antiquated, Stupid Thinking," we get a little dose of sense to counter the reactionary Neo-Feudalism being preached by the COASTers.

Hofbrauhaus Happy Hour

Many thanks to Liz and the gang at Cincinnati Imports for putting together another great event. Last night featured a gathering at Hofbrauhaus over in Newport.

The paparazzi were present, so you can see who was there. (See pictures 14 and 19 for shots of the two dorkiest drunkest studliest bloggers in attendance.)

Eating Heart-Healthy in Porkopolis?!?

Is it even possible? I guess I'm going to find out.

For the first time in my life, I had my cholesterol level checked. According to the test, it's entirely plausible that there are bacon bits flowing through my veins and arteries.

Those of you who have met me are thinking, "Duh! Has the guy looked in a mirror in the past decade? What did he think his cholesterol number would be?" You're right, of course. But for a while, I've been operating in a world in which I didn't know with certainty that my cholesterol was high. And in that world, if I didn't know there was a problem, there really wasn't a problem.

Luckily, my doctor is a pretty restrained guy. Rather than whip out a prescription pad, he told me I was to start a "heart-healthy diet" and come back in four months for another blood test. And if the cholerestol level isn't better, he's probably going to follow me around, sprinkling ground Lipitor over all of my meals.

So now that I know, I have to face reality. And that means that my first trip to Five Guys (really more of a pilgrimage, made earlier today) will be my last. And my future gastric adventures involve lots of boiled chicken and salad. I'm trying to figure out if there's anything I can eat at this weekend's Panegyri Festival.

At least my blood pressure is OK. Somebody pass the salt.

Powderfinger

Look out, Mama, there's a white boat comin' up the river
With a big red beacon, and a flag, and a man on the rail
I think you'd better call John,
'Cause it don't look like they're here to deliver the mail
And it's less than a mile away
I hope they didn't come to stay
It's got numbers on the side and a gun
And it's makin' big waves.

The Hamilton County Sheriff got his boat for keeping Cincinnati's riverfront safe from international fiends where ever they lurk.

ONLY 18 Picks From CityBeat

There is just nothing to do today. I may just have to stay home. I mean, why can't the Buffalo Killers be playing at Northside Tavern? Cool bands like that aren't from here, they only live in places like Chicago where there is no crime or hate or conservatives. Chicago where everyone is the same, just like me! Chicago, the Suburbs for Hipsters!

Ok, that's enough ragging on the hipsters for now. It appears my post from yesterday got under one self labeled Northside Hipster. I just suppose that particular person doesn't get out much and I was surprised he actually didn't really understand how much he exemplified the type of person I was criticizing.

Also for the record, I really like Northside. I think at least one commenter didn't score well on reading comprehension. That, or he just decided to make stuff up. I am going check off both columns on this one. Also, Average Joe, if you really live in OTR, I expect to see you at Second Sunday on Main tomorrow.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Frog

No, it's not Wonderdog, it's Shadow Hare!

Why can't I stop thinking of "The Tick!"

Spoon!

Free Legal Advice: A Corollary

A little over a year ago, I offered the readers of this blog some free legal advice:

Don't steal from the blind guy visually-impaired gentleman who runs the deli at the courthouse!

It seems that an addendum is in order. Here it is:

Don't steal the Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney's lunch!

OK....so it apparently wasn't his lunch, but instead belonged to an investigator in the office. But it allegedly happened three times. Getting the munchies once is understandable, but three times? You're not working in a normal office, you're working for prosecutors. Did you think they wouldn't, after their food disappeared a second time, use their investigative skills to see why their pizza stash was dissipating overnight?

And you're right: at any other job, you'd be admonished. Maybe you'd even be fired. (This isn't exactly an employees' job market, if you haven't noticed.) But take a prosecutor's lunch, and you're going to jail.

On the flip side, it'd be fun to defend this case to a jury with exactly that thought: Ladies and gentleman of the jury: remember the last time someone took your apple or Coke from the office refrigerator? What do you think would've happened if you'd called the police and tried to press charges? We all know that when you stash your food in a communal refrigerator, you assume the risk that your food will be consumed by a greedy office-mate.

But come on, folks: is a frozen, microwavable pizza really worth the risk of prosecution? There are judges just a few floors up: wasn't there better food in one of their break rooms? And better yet, couldn't you just wait until the end of your shift to eat?

I hope this has been helpful in resolving any questions you might have about the legality and wisdom of committing theft offenses in the Office of the Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney.

April Fool's Day Is Not The 2nd

Someone needs to tell the Dean that his Joke was a day late. Yeah, if it is not a joke, than it is just sad and a mockery of our political system.

UPDATE: It appears the Enquirer''s political blog is slow on the take and doesn't read the date on blog posts.

Are You Happy?

Here's an open thread for anyone who wants to tell me how much fun the Cincinnati Imports Happy Hour was tonight.

Because it's 9:00 and I'm still at the freakin' office.

Fool's Day Parade Starts At 11 AM

Be sure to make it Downtown today for the Annual Fool's Day Parade. Floats, bands, and dancing girls! The fun starts at 11 AM. This year Cher is the grand marshal.

Find your place along the route early, space will fill up fast. The Cost is free, but if you want to participate in the parade you can just add your float to the end.

Hope to see everyone there!




(I also hope people can take a joke)

NFL Rules Changes Announced

According to this story at ESPN.com, the NFL owners have decided that tackling is too likely to cause injury to their highly paid athetes. Beginning in the 2009 season, a player will be considered "down" when a member of the opposing team touches him with two hands between the knees and shoulders. Knocking a player to the ground will result in a fifteen-yard penalty and an ejection.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, when asked about the wisdom of the rules change, responded, "By the middle of the second quarter, most of our fans are too intoxicated to know what's happening on the field of play." He continued, "Fans only care that their favorite player is in the game, not what that player is doing."

We Scooped the Enquirer!!!

Carl Weiser confirmed yesterday what we blogged over a week ago: Lemarque Ward is running for City Council. And all I had to do to get the story was show up to a parade....

Cincinnati Tea Party Harkens Back To Eighteenth Century

In 1773, American colonists led by Samuel Adams gathered at Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act, a law passed by the British Parliament.  The parliament had exempted Britain's East India Company from duties on teas that colonial merchants were required to pay.  The Act was particularly galling in that the Americans were not represented in Parliament.  Disguised as Native Americans, they rushed aboard ships laden with the tea and dumped the tea into the harbor.

Earlier today, scores of Cincinnatians gathered at Fountain Square for a protest in the best tradition of the Boston Tea Party.  The parallels between today and 1773 are striking.

After all, who would not be incensed by the massive taxes just imposed by our Congress?

Oh--what?  Congress didn't raise taxes, but instead lowered them?  That's all right.  The laws passed passed by our government are still onerous.  Just as in 1773, the citizens of this continent are subject to laws passed by a legislature in which they have no elected representatives and by a king whose power to rule is derived from God, rather than the people.

Oh, dear.  You say that's not right either?  We just elected the entire House of Representatives?  And the two senators that represent each state are directly elected by the people of that state every six years?  Wow....not even the Framers believed in direct election of the members of the Senate; that required the 17th Amendment.  And...we have no king?  Just a president who was elected by a majority of voters just four months ago?  Geesh.

Well...the parallels are still obvious.  After all, the Cincinnati Tea Party was near water.  And the people there want to sell tea at lower prices.  I think.

OK.  Maybe there are no parallels between the tea parties across the country and the Boston Tea Party.  Maybe calling the gatherings "tea parties" is really just a clever marketing gimmick thought up by those who are disappointed that their candidates lost in November.

I suspect the mood of the Cincinnati Tea Party crowd is accurately captured in this Enquirer picture.  Note the clever sign near the front of the crowd reading "Nobama's Bin Lyin'."  Now there's some intelligent public discourse for you.  

Thanks to DF--you know who you are--for inspiring this post.

Best Advice Column Ever

Except for the fact that I was in Cincinnati while I was reading this, there's no discernible Cincinnati connection here. I just had to share this.

A woman sends a letter to an advice columnist with the following question:

How do I tell my fiance that I want to adopt children, because he's so ugly I don't want to bear children that might end up looking like him?

Have a great weekend!

Prescience

As I was looking for an old blog post that I wanted to link to, I came across several older posts with predictions and realized how smart I really am. (Heh heh.)

I predicted the Bengals would finish 6-10 (they were 4-11-1--not too far off).

I predicted Driehaus's victory.

I wished (but didn't predict) that Greg Harris could be on Council instead of John Cranley. (An aside here: I'm glad that Harris is now on Council, but am presently a bit disappointed with him. Nearly a week ago, I emailed him regarding a matter that seems to be important to him, and haven't gotten a response--not even a "sorry, it's really busy, hope to answer you soon." I know it's got to be tough getting use to the faster-than-you'd-think pace of the life of a Councilmember, and I'm just a dumb blogger. But I am voting in November.)

Of course, I also predicted that Martha Good would win, that the Portune-Rothenberg race would be close, that Groppe would retain her office, and that Obama would win far fewer states than he actually did.

So I got the easy stuff right, and missed wildly on the tougher questions. Maybe I'm not so smart after all. Just lucky. What's that expression about the sun shining on a lame dog's ass.....?

UPDATE (2/16/2009): I just received an email from Greg Harris indicating he didn't receive the email I sent. So I'm resending my email, and my prior "disappointment" has now been vanquished.

It Snowed, Again!

As someone who grew up an hour South of Buffalo, NY, I have always been amused by the way snow is viewed in the Cincinnati. I get that people are just not used to driving in it. I would think that since we just had two days of driving last week that I would say were must more hazardous, a certain percentage of people might have learned something. My experience last does not indicate many people learned much.

I must point out one big point to people who are driving on the interstate at 20 mph with no one in front of you for miles and with the road actually cleared of a large amount of the snow that has fallen: it can't be safer under the circumstances, so you can go at least 40 mph!!!!

On my 2 hour 45 minute drive home from Mason last night, I was passing people, left and right on I-71 once I got South of the Norwood Lateral. There would be clumps of cars going 20 or 25 and I would pass them by at 40 mph like they were standing still. The people who were going 30 mph in the left lane to pass the person going 20 in the center lane, who was trying to pass the person going 10 in the right lane just don't see how they block traffic because they don't pass with effective level of speed to keep everyone moving along.

I am more and more understand why it is better for many people to just not drive when it snows. When I say it snows, I mean it snows more than 1 inch. I think Chirs Smitherman, COAST, and the Green Party of One might want to get a petition drive going to make that part of the City Charter. If they are going to be extreme, why not be extreme with something that might actual make life easier for everyone!

Broomball Has a New Meaning

I know politicians can hit below the belt on occasion, but I didn't figure they would do it literally. If there are rules men have when playing sports, not hitting another man in the balls with a stick is clearly one of them. I think that is a rule we all can live by, conservatives and liberals alike.

NOTE: He was wearing a cup at the time, so no balls were damaged beyond repair.

Meteorological Pontification

Based on my analysis of the breathlessness of our local weatherpeople; the number of tickers, crawls, and weather bugs superimposed on my television screen; and the font size of online Enquirer headlines, I am prepared to make a prediction regarding the alleged coming snowfall.

By tomorrow morning at 7:00, we'll have received about three-quarters of an inch of snow. Sometime tomorrow, we'll receive some freezing rain just in time for rush hour. Two trucks will have problems going up the "Cut in the Hill," forcing the immediate closure of all interstate highways in a 150-mile radius.

Disclaimer: The Cincinnati Blog makes no warranties about the accuracy of its prediction. Readers are not encouraged to rely on this post. We have no access to information that is even marginally useful in predicting the weather. But we're not sure we're any less qualified than the combined efforts of Derek Beasley, Steve Raleigh, and Tim Hendrick to really screw up your day tomorrow. (Randi Rico was intentionally left off this list. Don't mess with Randi. I'm thinking of starting a fan club for her on Facebook.)

UPDATE (1/27/09 at 7:30 am): Oops.

Numbers Problem

Rick Warren is being criticized in some circles for his overtly Christian invocation. I'm more concerned with his mathematical deficiencies.

At some point during his prayer, he references "America's peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time." (Leave aside for a moment the awkwardness of this phrase.)

While President Obama is indeed the 44th person to be inaugurated, there have been just 43 peaceful transfers of power: I'm sure neither the British nor our own Continental Army would have described the first transfer of power, culminating in George Washington's inauguration, as "peaceful."

Clever Mischief Closes Mason Schools

The Enquirer reports that Mason schools were forced to close today because last night, someone snuck into the bus garage and unplugged the school buses. The diesel-fueled engines use engine block heaters overnight to keep the engines warm enough to start in the morning.

When the culprits are caught, there's no doubt we'll be treated to a chorus of hand-wringing by school officials (and, perhaps, the Warren County Prosecutor) over what a terrible offense was committed. I can't help thinking, though, about how clever it is.

The Enquirer refers to the act as one of "vandalism." While that may be true in a colloquial sense, I'm not sure that what happened could be prosecuted as vandalism. That crime requires a showing of physical harm to property. Assuming the engines weren't damaged (and I think they weren't--they should be fine once they warm up again), there's no physical harm.

Of course, the miscreants committed a trespass (a fourth degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to thirty days in jail). Perhaps unauthorized use of property (also a fourth degree misdemeanor) or criminal mischief (a third degree misdemeanor, which carries up to sixty days) would fit the circumstances. But there don't seem to be any other, more serious charges available.

When I heard what happened, I immediately thought of the scene in Bull Durham when Kevin Costner's character turns on the sprinklers at a ballpark overnight to force a rainout. While we can't condone the conduct of the kids that pulled the plugs, we can admire their ingenuity.

UPDATE: The Enquirer now reports "Mason school officials here [sic] say they suspect students were behind" the unplugging of the engine block heaters. My response: Wow....that's a stunningly brilliant piece of detective work. Kids: Lawyer up, quick!!!