Fuck It

Pillich

Who Needs Red Bike ?

Cincinnati's bike share program has always seemed odd to me. Who makes it downtown and, smacketoblowety, needs a bike to go somewhere else downtown?
In a Fishwrap article, a downtown worker states:

"I never bike to work. Ever. But I bike at work, from meeting to meeting several times a week. That’s not captured in the census data," McVay said. Her office in City Hall always has a bike around for that very purpose.

So, like I have mentioned before, just buy a cheap bike for your short trips around downtown…
But then this letter writer pointed out:

While it is an honorable endeavor to attempt to increase bike usage in Downtown Cincinnati through the new Red Bike bike-sharing program, it has one screaming problem: The system is incredibly economically exclusive . Requiring the use of a credit or debit card to use the bikes leaves out a portion of the city who may, ironically enough, have more use for increased city accessibility options.

This actually makes some sense.
This UrbanCincy article describes the extremely rare instances where the program makes sense and has a map of real and proposed stations. None of the stations are located by the homeless shelters, City Link, nor the new women's center on Reading Road. It might be hard for an individual to obtain an annual Red Bike membership on a monthly welfare check but it seems like the social agencies could find a way to pay the $80 lump payments while the poor people could make installments to pay the agencies back.
Did the bike share people even consider this element of the population?

#1

My dear reader is looking at this thinking, "great, Quimbob, an old fucking Taco Hell. The 19¢ tacos are vaguely sentimental, but, so what?"
But this is not any Taco bell, dear friend, this is not only the first Taco Bell in Springfield, Ohio, it was the first Taco Bell east of the Mississippi!
Opened around 68-69 the place was constantly packed as people scarfed down the rare & exotic fare like the Bell Beefer or whatever the thing was that put taco ingredients on a bun.
The Lopez family quick;y expanded the tiny building & established more stores around town.
Open late, it was a great place to go after closing down the bars and a great place to watch high school kids fight in the parking lot after ball games. Burritos, beer & teenage fisticuffs - oboy...

Drive Thru Visitations

When I first heard about the Paradise Funeral Home's drive through visitation system on NPR, I thought, great, more lazy, asocial, car addicts…
This article at WLWT, gets into it a little more & points out the service is additional & geared towards people who can't make the regular services.
Seems like there could be some odd scheduling problems if it caught on. Maybe they would need some sort of turntable if there were multiple stiffs to display. Unhappy relatives could vandalize the equipment. Neighbors might will complain about the music.
It seems ok in the light the director puts it in, but will it be abused by the lazy, asocial, car addicts, eating take out while paying last respects to uncle Joe?

UPDATE: Connecting Directors article cites problems with vandalism at other drive thru funeral homes.

Mitch, Mitch, Mitch...

Mike DeWine

Strategies

Republicans tend to campaign around buzzwords & associating opposition candidates with a few politicians that they pillory - Obama, pelosi, Reid…
I don't see this being done by the Democrats so much. They never turned the word 'conservative' into a curse word the way Republicans, Like Reagan did.
It surprisses me the Dems kept Pelosi & Reid in their positions of leadership after the last elections because they wer such damaged goods.
Anyway, McConnell, like Chabot & so many other Republicans, has done this with his Senate opposition, Alison Lundgren-Grimes, who, in turn, has gone all Sarah Palin on the boy.
Now, there's an obvious GOP response to this that the SWGOP would get right away, but poor old Mitch didn't seem to get it. oh well...

Ohio Republicans Go All Ostrich

Not only have the incumbent Republicans, DeWine, Husted and Mandel refused to face their challengers, now Governor Kasich has refused to debate Democratic challenger, Ed Fitzgerald. This will be the first time in 30 years an Ohio governor's race has had no open debate.
Why are these Republicans afraid to face their opponents? What does this say about their embrace of transparency? Mandel's and DeWine's offices are racked in scandal. Kasich's record is seriously skewed & shrouded in mystery.
If these guys won't pull their heads out of the sand and show their faces - they don't deserve our vote.

Ohio's Getting the Shaft

Vote Ed Fitzgerald

Dan the Man

Last Sunday, 9/7, Dan Hurley seriously shined the light on political disaster, Chris Monzel.
See the video here
Vote Tarbell this November.

This is not a campaign

But maybe a a potluck at Memorial Hall Sep 23 might fit the bill.
what the hell...

Will Supermodels Be The Weapon To Thwart The Rise Of The Machines ?

One of the most insidious ways the robots will use to infiltrate & defeat us will be to act as benign domestic servants. They will enter our homes acting obediently as they iron our socks and make us meals that make us very sleepy afterwards.
With any luck we can replace the robodomestics with supermodels and we can use the heads of our would be oppressors as simple fashion accessories.

cemeteries in the future

A recent article in The Atlantic asked what's in store for the future urban cemetery.
One of the biggies involves media & display tech.
When I was a kid, I envisioned a granite juke box. But back then the electronics were bulky & fragile and would not long survive the elements of the midwest. A lot of those issues have been eliminated lately. 2 media things that would be kinda cool, would be LED screens playing an ever evolving fractal animation. I think this could be applied to music as well.
One of the things in the article is holograms of the deceased. Couple this with the AI tech some weirdohs are developing so you can talk with your virtual dead loved one. add in the evolving fractal component and you can converse with your dearly departed as their conversation becomes some oddly recognizable Jabberwocky.
If you think cemeteries are creepy now - the future looks dark.

Let's Roll

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I Stand With Kroger

Open Season on the Funeral Industry

Not content with crashing into hearses and terrorizing funeral processions, motorists are taking their genocidal hysteria up a notch by slamming their vehicles directly into the funeral homes in Middletown.
The mad blood lust of the homicidal auto-cyborg has acquired a taste for formaldehyde, too.

Rewarding Failure

Ohio Governor John Kasich campaigned on a platform of putting Ohio back to work. Ohio like the rest of the world was in economic freefall due to crappy banking practices. Since then, the economy is stuttering back and, as Kasich blamed the failure on his Democratic opponent, he is claiming the improving world economy is his doing.
Unfotunately, a recent report indicates Ohio, in particular, is doing very poorly in that comeback.
Screwing teachers, firefighters, police, transit, the poor & middle classes in general, Kasich has been an incredibly bad governor for Ohio. His penchant for secrecy has probably hidden more douchebaggery that won't b uncovered till he's out of office. Re-electing Kasich would be rewarding (and continuing) failure.
I don't know if Ed Fitzgerald's policies will make Ohio an economic powerhouse but he probably is the guy to untangle Kasich's web.

The Bag (factory) Lady

Actual Google Street View imageA chick works at the bag factory down the street from me. For years, every morning, I would walk up the street to the bus stop and pass her as she was walking from the bus stop. She would frequently cross the street to avoid me but, probably because she was only half awake, she did not. I would say "hi", "good morning" or something and she would just walk past in silence.
In the afternoons, when she was more alert, she would always cross the street to avoid me as we passed on our reverse routes.
One day, there was some street closure and our mutual bus stop was cut off and the bus was detoured about 3 blocks from the south & 2 blocks from the north. As the bag lady and I approached I crossed the street to tell her that she would have to change her plans. She looked at me in a subdued panic & after I explained the situation to her, she mumbled an "oh, thanks" turned her head down & walked on. In probably 10 years that was the only time I ever heard her voice.
Anyway, now she is blurrily immortalized temporarily in Google Street View at the bus stop.

Why I will not be going to Oktoberfest

they didn't pick me to lead the chicken dance
dang nazis...