Thursday, January 30, 2014

Branding Gone Wild

OK, so, when Madeira public schools started up girl's sports the jock boys teased the jock girls by calling them Amazons. The girls in turn claimed the name & since 1970, the girls have been the Amazons & the boys have been The Mustangs.
NOW they are talking about their branding & are talking about tossing out 44 years of tradition in an attempt to solidify their branding under one name.
kinda late for that one fellas….
Some people want to keep things consistent. Some people find the name offensive. To the former, changing something after 44 years is not consistent. To the latter, did you ever watch Xena? seriously…
My advice to the Madeira PS is, "Oh, come away from it, Fritz, leave it alone!".

Fishwarp story with goofy opinion meter thingamabob here

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Fascism in Cincinnati

It's frustrating in Cincinnati, well, ok, everywhere how people use terms like conservative, liberal, progressive, etc & conflate Republican with conservative Democrat with liberal.
I remember reading the Fishwarp over at Marge & Les' house in sylvan Mt Auburn about 30 years ago - a noob to the Queen City. I read a story of moralist douche bags forcing their agenda down everybody's throats in some unholy marriage of business & government. I expressed my disappointment and Marge told me, "Yes, Quimbob, Cincinnati is a very conservative town."
"NO!", I retorted, "This isn't conservative. This is fascist!"
Marge chuckled an my naivete.
Dumb ol' broad - still, my introduction to Porktown politics
Anyway, the Cincinnati streetcar turned into a political issue lining up the Republicans & conservatives against the liberals, progressives & divided the Democrats. Why? good question.
In an article over at The American Conservative they bring up:
Trying to divine the reasons why the new mayor so abhorred the streetcar might be a fool’s errand.
Streetcars can and do foster and bind cohesive neighborhoods in ways that buses simply cannot. We conservatives look kindly on streetcars for these very reasons.
The fact is that the local political parties are more like self enriching gangs than representative organizations trying to better the community. To a great extent they actually feed off of one another like a pair of Yin Yahg parasites. Add in self serving entities like CO   , the NA CP, the TEA Baggers with their chest beating & fear mongering and you have a potent stew when it comes to things like the Cincinnati streetcar.
But it's got nothing to do with conservative or liberal.
Is it conservative? Sure it helps build community. Is it socialist? Sure it's a public enterprise. Is it liberal? Sure, users will have to be somewhat accepting of their neighbors. Is it progressive? Sorta. I guess. Elitist? huh?
The American Conservative is Pat Buchanan's baby and has replaced Bill Buckley's National Review as the publication of the traditional conservative American as Bill Kristol has handed over the National Review to the radical neocons, teabaggers & Birchers. In the event of a zombie apocalypse, I imagine Buckley is going to make a beeline to Kristol's place.
I'm guessing most of the people claiming to be conservative in Cincinnati today are really more along the lines of George Wallace Democrats than anything else. A lot of the 'progressive' streetcar supporters I have seen are probably more along the lines of Nixon & Eisenhower Republicans & some of 'em are hardcore capitalists.
The streetcar was never a political issue & the only reason it became one was because self serving groups who saw it's intention as a threat to their own self interests knew they could game the political process to their advantage.
Whatever, maybe they can keep the streetcar running on time.

Hawkgirl

Long before Victoria's Secret started putting wings on anemic super models, alien crime fighter, Shayera Hol from Thanagar, donned wings & fought crime on earth with her old man, Carter.
I always liked Hawkgirl. Besides her loose fitting tank top, I think part of it was that she was married and thus, not always hopelessly pining over some goofball. Apparently, she made great sandwiches, too.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Hamilton County GOP Power Grabs


Let's face it, the Hamilton County GOP doesn't give a rat's ass about the county & it's residents. Everything is about Republican dominion & their old boy's network (including spouses, & cousins).
In a recent Newsmakers episode coroner, Dr Sammarco outlined a whole host of county agencies that could share the Mercy Hospital site in Mt Airy with the crime lab. Her suggestions were primarily law enforcement which fits in with the crime lab's purpose. The GOP's last minute bid to move the Board of Elections to the facility is wrong headed and not even a good fit as the crime lab requires a bit of security & the BOE is by it's nature a public office with people coming & going all day long.
HamCo GOP Chairman Al Triantafilou waged a dirty campaign against Sammarco in an effort to get his boy into the office based on a campaign of "everything's just fine at the crime lab". This is his move to screw the crime lab that he characterizes in a bit of Wally Butterworth channeling as a "failed Democrat experiment".
There's no point trying to work with the GOP on this - they are dealing in bad faith - but crazy begets crazy, so John Cranley has offered space for the BOE downtown. A roughly $700k/yr gift to county taxpayers from Cincinnati. Obviously not what the GOP chairman wants as he tries to drive a wedge between city & county. Cranley also asked GOP BOE member Chip Gerhardt to recuse himself from voting on the issue as he is a city employee. Gerhardt promptly resigned due to his fealty to the GOP death cult.
The HamCo GOP is so hellbent on rigging elections & attaining power, they will sabotage public safety without a second thought. They are behaving more like suicide assassins than the statesmen they purport to be.
The citizens of Hamilton County need an Atticus Finch.

HERE is the direct link to the Newsmakers interview.

As the Crime Lab turns here, here and here

Saturday, January 25, 2014

In Defense of S.H.I.E.L.D.


Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wishing they had had a V8
A lot of people are ragging on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as an abysmal failure. While I don't think it's fantastic I do like it. Folks want it to be in the middle of the Marvel Universe, but
S.H.I.E.L.D. was always a huge global intelligence agency with many facets. Originally the comic book only focussed on the top dogs, kinda like Star Trek TOS. The enemies were usually cold war types like The Yellow Claw who could work today very nicely. This series focusses on a particular group within the organisation.
People dissatisfied with the series seem to want everything NOW. Go watch a Resident Evil movie for that. For a long running series to make it, it has to pace itself. Dark Angel was a good example of pacing going too fast (as well as boxing in the plot). OTOH, Firefly was a good example of the public's (and the bean counters) microscopic attention spans.
The thing is there's a lot to explore in the Marvel / S.H.I.E.L.D. universe.
Marvel will likely use this vehicle to promote their movies & other products in the future. Recent plots have referenced Asgard in conjunction with the recent release of the latest Thor movie. Fair Sif is slated for an appearance soon.
With new Avengers, X-Men, Spiderman, Ant Man, Captain America, and maybe a Doctor Strange with Johnny Depp heading for the big screen, there's lots of opportunity for the show to have crossovers. There's also a Daredevil series for TV in the works.
Daredevil will probably suck, however having MaTT Murdock provide counsel for or to sue the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. could be fun.
FWIW, the series was only slated for half a season but the network has picked up the second half.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Are Your Departed Loved Ones Necro Slaves ?


I do not endorse this company, but they are spot on about the current online memorial services.
I paraphrase
Dad worked hard all his life and now that he's passed, he's still working - selling online advertising.
FWIW, your family can probably get it's own website with message boards, videos, databases & such for around a hundred bucks a year, so 5 zeds or more & you can probably beat the big guys' price of $20/yr apiece & you can set it up anyway you want and no advertising.
Well, if you want to run ads for cousin Otis' bait & ammo shop - go for it.

Minor Swing

1/23/2014 would be Django Reinhardt's 104th birthday.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Streetcar Fares

In a Transportation committee meeting 1/22/14 where committee chair Amy Murray inexplicably expressed surprise at hearing the terms 1A, 1B, and 2 regarding streetcar phases, Metro operations folk announced a fare schedule of $1.75 for 2 hours & $3.50 for 24 hours. Longer term passes were up in the air due to tech advances & incorporating with the bus system possibilities.

Self Interest & Free Stuff

The Hamilton County GOP wants to move the Board of Elections out to the old Mercy Hospital in Mt Airy. That's where you go for early voting. Currently only the 17, 19 & 38x go out that way, the 38x being a limited service route & the 17 just being one of four 17s, who at best, only run about once an hour. The trip by bus would be much longer for most folks as opposed to the trips to the current location at the hub of transit activity in the region.
The local Dem head yammers on about black people & the GOP yammers on about free parking. Yeah, Republicans and their "free stuff" again.

Current travel times look like this
1 hr - Mt Washington
.25 - .5 hr Clifton
.5 - 1 hr - Oakley
.5 - 1 hr - Westwood
.75 hr - Madisonville
.75 - 1 hr - Sayler Park
1.25 hr Harrison
1 - 1.25 hr - Forest Park
.75 hr - Terrace Park
1.5 hr - Green Township

To get to the Mt Airy facility, times look like this
1.5 - 2 hr - Mt Washington
.75 hr - Clifton
1 - 1.75 hr - Oakley
.5 - 1 hr min - Westwood
1.5 - 1.75 hr - Madisonville
1.75 - 2 hr - Sayler Park
2 - 2.75 hr - Harrison
1 hr - Forest Park
1.25 - 2 hr - Terrace Park
1 - 1.25 hr - Green Township

Triatafilou's cronies in Green Township would get a bit shorter ride. All the locations he cites involve some walking, of course.

More at The Warp

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Child of God

One of the things that really struck me about this book was Cormac McCarthy's description of sound. As people routinely butcher McCarthy's books in movies, I've learned not to expect much.
In the opening scene in the book, the protagonist walks up to a group of people in n open field at a farm auction & protests their being there as he squats in an old shack on the property. A guy walks up & clobbers him in the back of the head with a shovel. The scene was very airy & the sound of the shovel against the head was described in great detail. In the brief clip of the scene in this trailer it seems very claustrophobic & there's virtually no sound of the impact.
He seems a little 'under dressed' in the scene where he's shooting at the farmer in the field, too.
So far, it doesn't look good. The protagonist doesn't look anything like what I saw reading the book. He seemed more like a mish mash of Ernest T Bass & Charles Manson.
oh well...

Horror Sells

ok, not exactly horror, but, seriously, if the drug store had people trying out condoms all over the place?
yeah, now we're talking horror...

New Media Voice in Town

While WC3PO doesn't seem committed to delivering discussion of local issues on TV, they are putting Kevin Osborne on the browser screen on Mondays. The first episode is in a bar with John Cranley (fitting) where Osborne throws a few softball questions at the mayor while dorky jazz music plays in the background for 7 minutes.
It's not going to usurp Dan Hurley's Newsmakers. Hurley's civic & historical knowledge make him a tough act to follow. I think it was WC3PO that had a panel discussion at about 4AM on Sunday mornings that featured area journalists like Peter Bronson. Funny how serious news doesn't work as well on Sundays at 4AM as bawdy humor, horror movies & deranged preachers do.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Filthy Lucre

It appears the obviously Ayn Rand inspired Building Cincinnati is going to a pay site. They will charge $8/mo and are currently looking for crowdfunding.
Building Cincinnati covers business development in the Cincinnati region. They dont' cover shootings, car wrecks, vice arrests, scandals & gas station robberies. There's no messy Mallotgates & no biased scattershot Fishwarp style reporting - just in depth analysis with facts straight from the horses mouth.
Fortunately, Blogging isn't Cool can continue to provide hard hitting content (see below) at no cost (financial) to the reader since our costs are pretty much covered the old way - betting on cribbage games at Bohemian Grove.

Wrecking Ball

I don't know if Ron Jeremy's cover of wrecking ball constitutes horror any more than Miley Cyrus' ever present tongue, but...
wahtever

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Beer & Politics

A big government, tax & spend Democrat, Rep. Dan Ramos, of Lorain has proposed House Bill 391 that reduces business regulations by increasing the maximum percentage of alcohol allowed in beer sold or produced in the state from 12 to 21 percent. This would bring it line with alcoholic beverages like wine that are already sold in stores.
Meanwhile, small government, business friendly Republican AG Mike Dewine is generally opposed & wants to maintain the nanny state double standard system already in place.
Pretty typical for Ohio….

Read more at the Cowtown Dispatched

Hamilton County Juvenile Court Scared Straight Program

Saturday, January 18, 2014

The Most Influential Hamburger

I'm not exactly sure what that even means, but Time has listed the 17 Most Influential Hamburgers with the White Castle slider at #1.
ok, but The Big Boy doesn't even make the list?
wackos…

Friday, January 17, 2014

Time to Move

Is it time for the Freestore to move?
Their mad desire to have acres of parking coupled with growing non metro poverty and the city of Cincinnati trying to increase it's tax base to help pay for welfare, it would seem so. Their strategy of buying nearby buildings, letting them go to hell & then demolishing them for surface parking for their auto owning poverty stricken clientele seems irrational and not in lune with the best interests of the city.
Their latest target is 1606 & 1608 Walnut, purchased 7 years go & left to decay.
The Freestore has applied for a Certificate of Appropriateness to demolish these structures for a surface parking lot. The properties are located within the Over-the-Rhine Historic District.
A pre-hearing conference has been set for 1/21/14 at 9:30 A.M. in Suite 720, Centennial Plaza Two, 805 Central Avenue to provide interested parties with an opportunity to review the project and to ask questions prior to the hearing on 1/27/14.
Maybe it's time to move to a location more befitting their enterprise. Cincinnati Mall?

Watching

While there might be some value in public executions & torture, it's not likely going to happen anytime soon. At least not while we have Democrats in office.
But would you want to watch a family member be executed?
In a recent execution, using an untried chemical cocktail, the children of the executed watched as their father died over a short period of time, 15 - 25 minutes. Shootings & beheadings take less time. Crucifixions take considerably longer. Regardless, even if your dad brutally raped & murdered young pregnant woman, watching him die is going to be painful. So why watch?
I've done one natural death watch. It's no fun but you don't want to leave the dying alone. But that's not an execution.
I don't get it, I think I would tell my kids to stay away. There's no reason to have that burned into your memory.

Fishwarp aarticle with an amusing misspelling here

Thursday, January 16, 2014

MM

Slummin' through the sketchbook, I found this scribble. While it seems like something an insomniac might scrawl out, it actually came to me in a dream. I made some cursory attempts at animating it but - mesh problems….
Anyway, this marks the 2,000th post here at Blogging Isn't Cool. woohoo!

Who's the Dead Chick ?

While not exactly horror, the women's blog at The Guardian has brought up the use of the corpse in advertising.
Miley Cyrus on a beach with a corpse is a lot less offensive than swinging around naked on a wrecking ball with her tongue hanging out of her head, but no less weird.
Apparently, it's mainly a fashion thing & I am completely ignorant of that world.
Dunno if this is a trend that will move to automobiles, candy bars, etc.
Maybe I will have to get a subscription to Vogue…..

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The End of Apple

An overly dramatic ad for ~ a gizmo
yay
Sure, you can spot the Ohio State Marching Band in there if you don't blink, but, without horror, who the hell is going to buy it? If Apple cannot embrace horror in their marketing strategy there can be no chance for their success in the future. Maybe, as sales drop off, they will see the pale green light flickering in the darkness and take it as a torch into the wild & wooly chaos of the marketplace apocalypse.

Monday, January 13, 2014

SMOKIN' !

If you were wondering how hot 1956 was - wonder no more.

Jim's

Any Bob City native over 40 should remember Jim's. Located near the Regent Theater on Limestone in hygienic Springfield, Ohio, Jim's serrved sodas & sandwiches to Ftogtowners for decades.
It's interesting to me to see how people's tastes have changed over the years. no more egg phosphates, egg malted milks, Green Rivers, and no more chopped olive sandwiches. I gotta say, it all looks pretty good to me. Especially the prices.
Jim ran the shop with his wife or sister. We never really figured it out. They would yell orders, etc. across the dining room and would frequently bicker.
My parents would dump me off at my grandmother's apartment on weekends and we would walk up to town, past the train station, to Jim's, the Regent & Woolworth's on Saturdays after sitting up watching old horror movies on Friday night - Chiller Theater.
oh well...

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Cello Madness

Cello Madness @ the Northside Tavern tonite featuring the chick in the above video.
More info here.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Cosmos

Castle Csjethe to be Restored

ÄŒachtice or Csjethe castle was built between 1263 & 1276. It was later the home of Hungarian Countess Erzsebet Bathory til her death in 1614. She was imprisoned in a few rooms there in 1610.
The castle was burned in 1708 and the ruins are currently located in Slovakia although it has been in other countries over the centuries. Obviously Slovakia is looking at raking in tourist €s & is restoring other castles as well.

More here.

Headache cam view of the ruins

Friday, January 10, 2014

Motivaations

One has to wonder why some people are so concerned with building a new bridge over the Ohio River to help facilitate Interstates 71, 74 & 75.
A new report indicates that human trafficking tends to follow the interstates & cites a concentration along I-75.
The hottest areas for the sex trade are listed in Northern Kentucky where folks are most adamant about a free ride and in Sharonville, OH, home of the CCV.
hm

Read more at the 'Warp.

Railroads Half Off

Charlie Winburn deserves a place in the Hamilton County government. In the footsteps of such luminaries as Chris Monzel and Phil Heimlich, he is spearheading the proposition of selling off assets to pay off short term debts. But like his visionary predecessors, he wants to sell at fire sale prices. Now, bear in mind he was steadfastly against leasing parking assets, but….
Which way is the wind blowing today?

Fishwarp story here

Thursday, January 09, 2014

The Blind Rage of the Tyrant

While Cincinnati city hall hemorrhages talented staff due to Cranley's maniacal hamfisted antics, he is threatening to 'clean house' at SORTA, too. Seems he's pissed about their offer to handle the streetcar operating costs.
Absolutely we’re going to expect changes on that board
The fact is they were willing to cannibalize bus service …
Of course they weren't going to cannibalize bus service - that's just more of Cranley's paranoid fantasy world. But what the Business Courier dug up was interesting - that the majority of the appointees voting for supporting streetcar operations were chosen by Hamilton County commissioners.
Cranley can only exact his revenge on a minority of his SORTA enemies.
sigh
Can we expect a return of Tom 'We don't have signs' Luken to the SORTA board as Cranley desperately tries to turn back time?

Slummin' in the Sketchbook

This will probably be the scene at the Moerlein Lager Haus tonight with the UrbanExchange thing going on. Buncha young hotheads stoked on booze. oh yay….
Dunno if that Simes character shows up on a Skype monitor or not.

Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Smitherman - Round Up The Usual Suspects

Christopher Smitherman wants more cops on the streets of Cincinnati and stricter enforcement of the law. While a major number of people arrested in Cincinnati are black and many people wail about the disproportionate number of blacks incarcerated, Smitherman pays this no mind.
We’ll deal with a little blowback from people in the community who have a little more liberal perspective, this committee supports you, chief. I want your officers to know this committee supports you.
Of course it might just be Smitherman kissing some union butt, who knows?
Smitherman's term as president of the Cincinnati NAACP hasn't seen a great drop in black criminal activity or black victimization. Between his 'advancement' agenda & fellow councilman Winburn's jobs, jobs jobs agenda, black poverty in Cincinnati has only worsened.
The chief of police, Jeffery Blackwell, wants to replace officers lost to attrition over the last few years which would put Cincinnati back to having a lot of police per citizen. More than some comparable cities. He also wants to utilize technology better.
We are desperately short of officers. Additionally, we need to improve our technology platform.
Unfortunately, Smitherman spearheaded a campaign to outlaw technology that could free up highly skilled officers from fairly mundane tasks. He cited the racist deployment of monitoring devices as a reason. Deployment would have been handled by the police, of course, so does Smitherman support the police or believe they are racist? Who does Smitherman think his stepped up police efforts are going to snare?

More at the Fishwarp.

Themes Gone Wild

Since the experience is more important than the food and since, as we all know, Horror Sells, I'm thinking about a resaurant with a host dressed like Dracula, waitresses dressed like Dracula's brides, bussers dressed as zombies, bartenders dressed like mad scientists and a kitchen staff dressed in Texas Chainsaw Massacre gear. Probably do up the bar & kitchen equipment in weird retro spaceship robot crap and if anybody has a birthday, you could send somebody out running through the dining room with a leatherface mask & running chainsaw.
Maybe get H.R. Geiger to design the tables & chairs, some animatronic steampunk band for music…..
Insurance might be an issue but, so what? It would be a guaranteed success!
Menu? Who cares?

Tuesday, January 07, 2014

Subconcious Password


by Chris Landreth
I posted another one of this guy's animations awhile ago, Bingo the Clowno. I guess it's fitting I can't find it…

Monday, January 06, 2014

Finding that silver lining

With a pre-dawn high of 5, it's pretty damn cold. And icy…
But on the bright side, the nosferatu won't be digging themselves out of the ground anytime soon.

Sunday, January 05, 2014

Trash Talking

While not a Sittenfeld fan, this beats the hell out of Cranley's rambling, curmudgeonly mess of a press conference the other day.
Note to PG - next time, turn the camera 90°, &^#@it!

PS - Good luck with the hair Ben Gals!

Saturday, January 04, 2014

Horror Sells Industrial Lighting

Larson electronics is marketing it's 10 Must-Have lighting Products for the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse.
This is assuming, of course, that the lights, especially moving lights, don't attract the brain eating monsters...

Friday, January 03, 2014

Stolen Musical Instruments

The following instruments were stolen form Justin Todhunter’s Westwood home. He plays with Jake Speed & the Freddies and the Rattlesnakin’ Daddies.
  • 2000 blue Fender Stratocaster
  • Eastman mandolin with red finish
  • 1949 National 1088 Triplex Lap steel guitar
  • 1985 Kentucky KM-1000 mandolin
  • 2005 Martin OOO-M acoustic guitar
  • 2009 Douglas bass guitar

Weird Fishwarp article here

Thursday, January 02, 2014

Frisch's Jumps the Shark

In a recent interview with WKRC…
Representative for Frisch's, Karen Maier, said, "It does not taste the same but it is still good. It is flavored Pepsi or it is flavored Coke and they don't taste the same but they are both good products."
So, consider, if you will, an Italian restaurant swapping out Chianti for Liebfraumilch. "It does not taste the same but it is still good. It is fermented grape juice and they don't taste the same but they are both good products."
For that matter, everything on the Frisch's menu is about equal quality, so why bother with menus? Just tell the waitress what you want to spend and get whatever. It does not taste the same but it is still good.

For folks wanting to turn this fiasco around or just vent your outrage, there's a FB page, Bring Coke Back
and there's a petition drive
Change.org

WKRP article here

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Progress? What Progress?

Bad to Bizarre
When John Cranley promotes the progress of Cincinnati but places a wager using a bunch of old shit…
In placing a bet on a football game with the San Diego mayor, they San Diego mayor offered 'craft beers' from his city. Cranley offered Gold Star Chili, Montgomery Inn Ribs & Graeter's Ice Cream. At his own personal expense.
If you are going to tout the city's progress & the other guy is wagering beer, why not…
  • Triple Digit Brewing
  • MadTree Brewing
  • Rock Bottom Restaurant Brewery
  • Mt. Carmel Brewing
  • Rhinegeist Brewery
  • Christian Moerlein
  • Rivertown Brewing
  • Blank Slate Brewing
Does this man have any idea what's going on in this town or is he locked in the 70s?
His amateurish, (not very) cheery Cheneyesque press conference was somewhere between creepy & sad.
Man, I miss Mark Mallory already...

1969 OK

yeah, ok, technowise maybe, but the existence of the dependent housewife 45 years out kinda didn't work so well.

2014

ok, so I'm bringing in the new year with a 40+ yr old song celebrating youth & condemning the old regime - it's just cycles, dammit.
Some of those pictures in he vid ain't exactly right...