Hiatus coming

I'm gonna take the month of January off from the blog.

I'll be back in February...probably.

 
Image source - Ravi M Vasavan

Lonnieburger Baskets: City View Tavern

Let's close out the year with a tasty burger review.

Or at least a review of a tasty burger...

From City View Tavern's previously mentioned awful website

Here's what Cincinnati Magazine had to say about City View Tavern's Big Ted Deluxe burger

• #2 - City View Tavern
  $6.75
  The Big Ted Deluxe takes about 20 minutes from flattop to table, so just kick back and wait. We promise it's worth it. Because inside that plastic basket, next to a bag of chips (Grippo's BBQ, please), sits a most worthy treat: a hand-formed six-ounce patty, direct from Ebert's Meat Market, so pleasantly seasoned that a peppery sensation lingers on your tongue. Paired with spicy brown mustard, mayo, ketchup, American cheese, onion, chopped iceberg, and tart pickles, it's a drippy, smooth, tangy, savory masterpiece served on a light and fluffy Giminetti bun.

For now, I'll forgo an exploration of the horrible punctuation of the Cincy Mag writer and look at the veracity of the burger claims.

Burger

• Man, they're right about the peppery taste to the burger. This is one of the rare, great patties that isn't just high quality beef with a little salt and pepper. This is a creation with Worcestershire, pepper, garlic, and a whole lot more - probably celery salt, onion powder, maybe a little cayenne - in the patty. The beef itself is tasty and nicely moist, but the flavoring mixture makes for a pretty spectacular burger patty, full of flavor and with a great, strong presence. My burger was cooked to medium and was right about on track there with a little pink in the center (sorry, no picture of that - once I started in, I wasn't stopping this time). The burger didn't have any crisp edges which - along with the correctly described 20-minute cooking time - made me wonder if it wasn't cooked at a lower heat than most burgers are. It was done but just not crispy at all. Burger - 9 

Toppings

• They weren't joking about the chopped iceberg lettuce. That always annoys me because it makes me think they order their lettuce in a bag. Then again, the kitchen in the City View Tavern is tiny, probably twelve by twelve total, so if they need to order their lettuce, I'll give them a little leeway.
  
  But I digress...The burger was topped with nicely melted cheese; American is the only option, however. No bacon is offered or orderable, and the toppings are presented as is on the Big Ted Deluxe. There is also a Teddy Burger offered which deletes a number of the toppings, but this isn't gourmet heaven where there are a half dozen sauces and a wide variety of cheeses. This is a burger presented as such.
  
  The toppings are good, and the spicy mustard really has a nice kick. The toppings are, however, applied a little heavily for my tastes. They make for a good combination sauce, but they almost overshadow the tasty burger itself. Toppings - 7 

Fries

• They don't offer fries.
  
  I know it's mostly a bar that happens to serve food (a very limited menu of food), but how do you serve burgers without fries?
  
  Instead, you get the option of plain Husman chips or BBQ Grippo's. The Girl went with plain. Her mother and I both chose BBQ.

Ambiance

• And there's the City View of the Tavern. That's The Girl's mother, my mother-in-law in the above picture. The view is pretty impressive, probably more so here in the winter (on Christmas Eve afternoon, no less) with the trees denuded of their leaves. The deck holds up to twenty-eight people, and the bent railing suggests that sometimes those twenty-eight get a little rowdy. This is a bar first and foremost. The inside is old school wood panelled with Cincinnati-themed, framed artwork above the rail. While we were there, the railing was festooned with greenery and Christmas lights which was a nice touch but might've made resting your drink there a little tough. I dig the place. It feels real (whatever the heck that means) and comforting. Beers come in pint glasses but cokes come in red Solo cups (and do get free refills).
  
  The City View Tavern is tiny with a front room just big enough for a pool table and a bar area with a half dozen tables. I'd happily come back for the feel of the place.
  
  I don't know how I'd feel about being in the bar when it's packed with Mt Adams bar hoppers on a Friday night, but the location - kind of below but still in Mt Adams - might help decreased that issue a little bit. Ambiance - 10

Cost

• The burger (with chips) was $6.75, and the Diet Coke was $1.50. Tax is included in that, and because there's no table service (you order at the bar and pickup there, too), that means there's not much tipping to be done. With those two cheapeners, I'll call it a wash on the lack of fries for the cost. Cost - 7 

Other Stuff

• Their website is horrible. Seriously. I don't know that it impacts this rating, but it certainly makes finding any information about the place a whole lot tougher.
• The view is pretty spectacular, and it looks like they grill out on the deck in good weather. +1 
• The bun was righteous - nice, fluffy, fresh, not doughy. Quality stuff +1 
• It's durn near impossible to find the place unless you know right where you're headed. I tried parking in Mt Adams proper and walking around to find it, but that didn't work. You can't really walk there from the main part of Mt Adams. If it helps any, the place is below the Rookwood and the Celestial. The directions on their website are useless as they get you to Mt Adams but not to the City View Tavern. It's like they don't want people to get to their bar.
• No bacon available. For me, that's a ding. -1
• No fries either. I still don't know exactly how to handle that. -2
• The burger took a legitimate twenty minutes even though there were only six people in the whole bar - including us. I can't imagine you'd ever get a burger if the place was packed. -1
• Six ounces is a reasonable size for a burger. If I'm going to take away points when the burgers are ridiculously oversized, I should probably reward folks for making their burgers right sized. +1

Let's see where the numbers get us...-2 -1 +1 -1 +1 +1 +7 +10 +7 + 9 = 32 points (out of 40 in this case). That scales up to 40 out of 50. City View Tavern - 40 (scaled from 32/40)

• Terry's Turf Club - 45
• Cafe de Wheels - 44
• Senate - 43 
• City View Tavern - 40 (scaled from 32/40)
• Stuffed on Vine - 38
• Five Guys Burgers and Fries - 36 
• Roxy's - 36
• VanZandt - 34
• Gabby's - 34 
• Oakley Pub & Grill - 34 
• Quatman's - 32 / 34.5
• Troy's - 32 
• By Golly's - 32
• Wildflower Cafe - 31.25 (scaled from 26/40) 
• Virgil's Cafe - 28
• The Pub at Rookwood Mews - 28
• Smashburger - 28
• Habits Cafe - 28
• Graffiti Burger - 27
• Arthur's - 26
• Sammy's - 25 
• Gordo's - 20 

I would agree with that ranking. The closest burger to this is Cafe de Wheels, and they offer fries. They're also a lot more convenient to get to even if they're not open as long. City View Tavern offers a hell of a burger at a great price. Plus it's a reasonable size - 6 ounces. It's a place to go back to...no doubt.

Really...last links of the year

Seriously, I'm done with 2011...

• Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City - And I thought NYC was rough...
• Archaia's  Dark Crystal: Creation Myths is a proper prequel on an epic scale - been a while since I've seen Dark Crystal...
• Physics of Grass, Clay, and Cement - Science and tennis...I just Googsed...
• Touchdown of the century - If you haven't seen the touchdown from last week's Bengals game, check it out. It's impressive.
• So this happened of the day - My two favorite bears, back together again

• Rainbow toy car installation made from 2500 cars - A wonderful rainbow...would've maybe preferred the -bow to the chosen circle, but that's a minor quibble. 
• How I Take Photos for the Minifig Gallery - Nice, simple tutorial on how to take good photos of small objects. Think I need to talk to my student aides about this. 
• SNL's Hip Hop Kids - Because it's funny...

• Bet you didn't even notice ceiling cat - No, I didn't.
• Time's 37 best-ever science photos - wow...especially #37
• Five visualizations to grasp the scale of the universe - I'll never fully grasp how tiny we are, but these things help.
• Raspberri Cupcakes - another blog of gorgeous desserts that make me drool

New Music for the New Year

The final 8tracks playlist of the year is songs that are about new things - New Horizons, New Dresses, New Sensations, and more.

The best of the year

Collected lists of the best whatevers of the year...

• Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks of 2011
• 2011's Top Stories in Lego
• Politico's Top 10 Political Blunders of 2011 (yay SB5)
• IGN's Best of 2011 Comics
• West Chester's Top 11 Stories of the Year
• AllMusic's 2011 in Review  
• Top 15 Movie Posters of 2011
• Roger Ebert's Top 20 films of 2011
• 2011 Buh-bye from JibJab

• ESPN's 11 Most Memorable (Women's) Stories of 2011
• ESPN's Absolute Worst of (Tennis in) 2011
• The Best and Worst of Everything in 2011
• Comics101's Best of 2011 
• IGN's Best of DC Comics in 2011
• Reuter's Best Photos of the Year 2011

• 100 Top Baby Names of 2011
• Buzzfeed's 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011
• Discover's Top 16 Pictures from Space
• The Atlantic's Year in Photos (part 1 - others are linked from the story)
• Time's Top 10 of Everything of 2011
• Top 10 Tech Trends of 2012 (?)
• 10 Best TV Commercials of 2011
• NPR's Top 50 Albums of 2011 (and more NPR lists, too)
• Stephen King's Top 20 of 2011
• The Best Street Art of 2011

• AFI's Top 10 Films of 2011
• Top 100 Moments in Tennis 2011
• 10 Freakiest Commercials of 2011
• 2011 The Year Beyond Words
• AV Club's Best of 2011
• The Big Picture's Year in Pictures part 1

• The Internet's 10 Best Ron Swanson Tributes of 2011 
• Denver Post's Best Photos of the Year
• 30 Freakiest Ads of 2011
• Google Zeitgeist of 2011  
• 25 Best Movie Posters of 2011 (and worst)
• ComicsAlliance's Best Comics of 2011
• Best Table Tennis Shots of 2011

Lithium Oxygen Nitrogen Nickel Electron

How cool is this?

You can get your name spelled out in periodic table images on a big, long banner.

I want this for my classroom.

Actually, I don't know which one I want most...probably the bottom (most-expensive) one, of course.

It's a hard knock life...

There're a few things here that make this recent Let's Be Friends Again comic a little esoteric.

• The character is Mister Miracle, an escape artist who likes to challenge himself.
• Mister Miracle is from New Genesis/Apocalypse, a DC comic creation from Jack Kirby. Together, he referred to his Apocalypse/New Genesis saga of stories as the Fourth World.
• There's a tumblr called First World Problems which highlights the tough life of somewhat (or very) affluent white people in America. Examples are...
• I wasn't served Indian food on my flight to India.
• I can’t decide if the X-Men works better as a metaphor for anti-Semitism or a metaphor for homophobia. 
• The fudge stripe pattern inside my son’s Jamocha shake cup today was really messy looking, so I had to throw it away and demand another one. 

I wasn't aware of the First World Problems blog until I scrolled down into the comic's comments.

It's not a far piece, however, from White Whine which posts whiny Facebook updates along the same lines as First World Problems.

Stuff White People Like, on the other hand, is totally different.

Last links of the year

What do you mean there's another Saturday this year?

No, the calendar I have clearly says...crap.

• The Dark Knight Rises trailer - Justin Case + Empire's 17-slide trailer breakdown
• Couple takes advantage of UPS laziness, steals over 100 packages from doorsteps - Brilliant...illegal but brilliant
• Presented Without Comment of the Day - Could be considered 
• Do the Grandpa Shuffle of the Day - The remix works

• X-Men With Googly Eyes Remixes Classic Covers with New Expressions - Outstandingly simple...brilliant
• Get a cold beer with your Crave Case at Indiana White Castle - I'm not entirely shocked that Lafayette is where they're trying this out.
• Park Board: Rule allows picnics, sunbathing  - This is what happens when you write a general rule to address a specific issue.
• Too Late, Nolan: First 'Batman Voice vs Bane Voice' parody video emerges -  Chucklesome...

 

• Ben and Jerry's Movie Flavors 2011 - Parody, of course
• Wondermark 776 - Dang right

•  World box - 1/6 Lakor Baby - Terrifyingly well dressed up kid

Enough Christmas music to choke a reindeer

Kick back and enjoy the holiday weekend, folks, with a little Christmas music.



There's also my Christmas playlist from a couple of years back.

And great stuff like this from Chris Sims...



There's even the entire Holiday Undercover series (including the first year) from the AV Club including gems like...





AOL is streaming Christmas songs on ten stations all the time or AccuRadio that has forty stations.

My eyes! The reviews do nothing

Powers Definitive collection vol 3 & 4 by Brian Michael Bendis - Holy crap it got better.

The first couple of volumes of the definitive collection laid things out well, dropping us into a world of hard boiled detectives taking on homicide cases involving super heroes. In spite of the cartoonish art style, the main characters in particular were among the more three-dimensional, well-rounded people in comics. Pilgrim, the female newbie of the pair, has pretty much no background but a whole lot of anger. Walker, on the other hand, has a hellacious back story complete with mysteriously lost powers and connections with nearly every super hero in the world.

And then it all comes together in the Forever storyline from volume 3.

Oh...my...lord...

Bendis killed this storyline, absolutely killed it in one of the best story arcs that I've seen, tying together the entire history of our species back to monkeys around a watering hole and linking back to an interview from the first issue of this series. When Bendis brings back the same exact page, presenting it without any changes whatsoever, the entire page reads radically differently in the new light. Bendis takes the identity of our main character and rewrites it in a masterstroke.

And then Bendis starts telling even better stories from there.

This isn't where you should come into the series. This isn't a friendly jumping on point. This one needs background and context - and I'm guessing it would have been infuriating to read a month at a time - but it's an killer...all killer no filler what so ever.

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Fables by Bill Willingham - I'm working my way back through the Fables series because it's Christmas Holiday Winter Break. There are three problems with this...

• A few volumes have gone missing from the library catalog. Volumes 6 and 9, specifically, are gone. So I probably won't be re-reading those. Lane and Middletown don't have those, either...because they suck.
• Some other jerks apparently are also reading the volumes, so I can't get all of the that I want at the instant I want them.
• The library doesn't seem to understand my project, so they're letting other people check out the books before I do. AKA The library is staffed by jerks.

I've spoken before that Fables is a hell of a series, and I stand by my comments, but let's see how things hold up on another read.

• Vol 1 - Fables in Exile - It's a whole lot of character introduction and paints Red and Jack as a lot less interesting than they would eventually become. I do like the initial strains of relationship between Bigby and Snow. This one's worth reading but mostly just as table setter.
• Vol 2 - Animal Farm - A lot like the first volume in that it's mostly table setting. Red does step up and take leadership, but we barely get into the real story of the series - taking back the Homelands.
• Vol 3 - Storybook Love - Here we start to get closer to the story. Bluebeard gets his comeuppance and the more violent tone of the series begins to reveal itself. There's also a great backup story of the Barylcorn Brides, one of the first stand alone issues that stand up to the high quality of those that will come later in the story. As we learn much later, however, this standalone issue comes back to importance when Baba Yaga needs to be taken care of finally.
• Vol 4 - March of the Wooden Soldiers - Here comes the plot. The Adversary sends his wooden soldiers to take down Fabletown and take Pinocchio back to the Homelands, and Fabletown steps up the game to defend itself. War is afoot, and the main plotline that will dominate the series for the next eight or so volumes is coming alive. 
• Vol 5 - The Mean Seasons - Snow's given birth to her seven children and has left Fabletown for the farm where Bigby can't go. We get to see Cinderella's true nature (which comes into important play later in the series), and we see what Bigby and capable of. Rose continues to grow as a character, and everything is taking a little break before full on war preparations take place.
• Vol 7 - Arabian Nights (and Days) - Brilliant work bringing the Arabian fables into the fold and giving King Cole something to do since he lost his office. The two issue "Ballad of Rodney and June" is striking and emotional (and again comes back to mean so much more than we could ever imagine from the two issues here.) "Rodney and June" is a real knockout. It's brilliant and touching and emotional and perfect, especially because I know where they come back to the story in a few volumes.
• Vol 8 - Wolves - It's time for Bigby to come back into the fold and to attack the Adversary on his own turf. We get the first open mention of Isreal, a nation whose existence have been paralleled through the Fables storyline and that I'm impressed Willingham has the chutzpah to openly explain. And again Cinderella comes back - this time as a somewhat less happy diplomatic mission. And Bigby and Snow get married. The marriage is surprisingly touching for a couple of figures that we've been following for forty or so issues.The war is on at this point, and tension is building. Good stuff...
• Vol 11 - War and Pieces - The invasion is on. After two volumes of planning (one of which the library doesn't have any more and the other which is checked out), the battle is on, and the Fables are taking the battle to the Homelands. In original reading this would have taken nearly half a year and been painfully slow. Here, however, the war seems too brief, with a campaign taken only to take out the Adversary, himself, with little aim for taking out his entire army spread across the entirety of the Homelands. The plan is excellently well thought out and marvelously well achieved, but after seeing the build up to the war take nearly ten volumes, I wanted more war than we got.
• Vol 14 - Witches - Vol 12 is the Fables dealing with trying to win the peace after they've won the war. Vol 13 is the worst collection yet as Fables crosses-over with what was an initially interesting and later horrible Jack of Hearts spin-off. Vol 14, however, returns to the hardness of the Fables struggling both internally - as Ozma openly challenges Totenkinder for leadership of the 13th floor - and externally - as the Dark Man has taken down the entirety of Fabletown, forcing the Fables out to the Farm. I wondered whether the post-wartime drama would be lost from the series, but the Dark Man seems a reasonable stand-in. We get a brilliant background story from the Dark Man that ties, as all of the stand-alone stories seem to, into the coming battle. Great return to form for the series. And the tale of Bufkin taking Baba Yaga out of the pictures - seemingly for good - is a marvelous highlight for what had been a very minor character. All great stuff here.
• Vol 15 - Rose Red - Finally Rose gets her head out of her backside and returns to Farm leadership, Totenkinder takes on the Dark Man, and we get a chance to see Rose and Snow as sisters - all the messiness that entails. Another great read, especially Totenkinder's preparations and eventual battle with the Dark Man. We're back in the high life again, folks. 

I'm looking forward to Vol 16 again - something I wondered after vol 13 (a horrible mess).

---

Willow - This is a stupid movie. Seriously, why do I remember it fondly?

---

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour by Asteroids Galaxy Tour - It's fun stuff. Give it a listen.

Chicken dinner...

Look who's got a $25 Busken's gift certificate (and apparently a $25 Graeter's gift certificate, too) coming to him.

Thank you, WineMeDineMe!

I've said it before (before I was a winner), and I'll say it again - anybody in Cincy should be checking Julie's blog.

Please Chammer, don't churt 'em

Happy Chanukah to any of you out there who started their celebration last night. If you get a chance, check out my favorite Hanukkah movie of all time, The Hebrew Hammer.

It's on Netflix if you've got such a service. 

(Or the entire flick just might be on YouTube in thirteen minute segments...I'm not saying...I'm just saying...)

Being social

So, I'm the PHS webmaster this year. It's my first year back on the job after a hiatus of a year and a half. It's also the first year that PCSD has been without a public relations (PR) director in my eleven years in the district. Perhaps as a result of that latter happening, I've been finding myself more and more interested - and sometimes frustrated in Princeton's various online personas.

Today I'm going to run through the various online presences that exist in and around Princeton City schools. This will be an incomplete list because I'm pretty sure there are other presences out there that I don't know. I'll come back early next week with my thoughts, beliefs, and understandings about our online brand.

There's the district website, redesigned almost two years ago now and managed through SchoolWorld, a website/company that managed school websites around the country. The district website is being managed by our technology director and the secretary of the former PR director. Each of the school websites - all a part of and largely indistinguishable from the district site - is managed by somebody in the building.I'm the high school webmaster, but some of the elementary schools are being managed by the building's principal.

There's the high school's Twitter feed, managed by our principal, occasionally by some of his student interns, and - I think - by our athletic director/principal/fotball coach. The feed is branded as being our principal's, self-described as 'leader; innovator; visionary; change agent." In a weird way this seems to make it less official for me because if the principal leaves, I assume that Twitter feed would leave as well. Two examples of that exact problem is here @PCMSViking where the former principal left the building for our central office or @PrincetonSchool, the Twitter feed of our former PR director. When that happened the Twitter feed died, leaving anyone who relied on it as communication to be lost. Makes me wonder what will happen to Dale Even (@EvendaleLilVike) when their principal leaves or @ImproveSchools when Tim Dugan retires...again.

For a while our principal also had his personal YouTube channel that he was using as the high school's channel, uploading videos and linking them to the official website and Facebook page (that's coming in a paragraph or two). At some point, however, that stopped, and the PrincetonVikings channel - which was created a year and a half ago to post a valedictory speech video. I'm not sure how many people upload videos there, but I know of at least a half dozen high school employees who have the password.

The most viewed Princeton online presence might be the high school's Facebook page. There are six administrators there - a music teacher, me, two principals, our librarian, and our technology director. We have 5217 likes there, and this is the place with the most frequent updates from PHS - especially since almost every Tweet gets reposted here. Somewhere along the way, the choice was made that only official posts show up when people land here. There's also the Princeton Vikings 'person' which simply refers visitors to the main high school Facebook page.

A while back - two years, three years maybe - I created the PHS Vikings PicasaWeb account. For $5 a year, we get 20GB (for now, the amount of space for that price will likely go up) to post photos. There's only one person who has the login info for that account, and that's intentional.

The final online official PHS presence (that I know of, anyway) is a Wordpress blog called Leadership 24/7. There our administrative team and invited teachers post entries about, well, leadership. The blog saw six posts in August; none in September or October; then four more posts in the ten days after I asked our principal if I could go ahead and remove the link to the blog because of inactivity. That was in late November and the first week of December.

Now we get to the less official presences of Princeton on the web, the sites that aren't being run by Princeton employees or at least aren't purporting to represent Princeton in any official capacity.

• Shades of Grey - This used to be an annually-published literary 'journal' but has turned into a tumblr and YouTube account posting student-read and, I assume, written poetry, prose, photography, and singing. This one is run by a PHS teacher and PHS students but does break the district policy against posting student first and last names with images unless prior, written permission fro a parent is obtained.
• Princeton Vikings - This Facebook 'person' says it's PrincetonHighSchool, but it's not run by any Princeton employee that I know of. Instead, it's largely a front for a person/business that sells DVD transfers of Princeton football games from the glory year 80's and early 90's. I have registered a number of Facebook complaints against them as not being any official Princeton capacity. 
• Princeton BoysBasketball (Boosters) - This Facebook 'person' seems to be run by our basketball boosters, which would mean that it's quasi-official since the boosters is an quasi-official Princeton group. It's probably a Princeton parent or two - maybe with the endorsement of our two basketball head coaches, but it's interesting to wonder how the management of the page passes from year to year.
• PHS Pasta for Pennies - This one's mine - with Calen, anyway - and was created as a non-profit entity for our annual campaign for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (speaking of which, it's not too early to sign up for the March 5K.) Princeton certainly didn't authorize the creation of this page in any way. We just made it and have largely shifted forward to our Facebook group instead for most communication.
• Princeton Viking Orchestra - This one is also a Facebook 'person' and seems to be run by a Princeton employee, a music teacher or two. I don't know how many of the music teachers have control of this, but I'm guessing it's not Bob Monroe, the person officially in charge of the district music program at this point but whose name doesn't appear once on the district's website.
• New Princeton Vikings Middle School and High School - This one is weird to me in that it's not run by anyone at Princeton but is tacitly endorsed by the Princeton administration. It's run by Cole + Russell Architecture. They post occasional renderings and photos of the architects in meetings.
• Princeton Vikings  - This is another 'person' page that isn't Princeton in any official capacity. It appears to be somehow football-related just based on the content that I can see, but it doesn't appear to be run by the football coach/athletic director/principal himself. There hasn't been any content change here since July.
• Princeton Vikes - Another 'person' that is neither a person nor Princeton. 
• Princeton Vikings - This group has one post and very few images.It's fully public, so I know that's all there is there.
• @VikesFootball - This one doesn't appear to be run by the football program. I say this mostly because it isn't the kind of quick updates that a coach would be offering to his parents and players. It's more rah-rah, bragging stuff.
• There are also countless YouTube, Picasa, Facebook, Twitter, and other accounts that include Princeton content but don't title themselves in any way that suggests that they are a Princeton organization or person.

Friendly little Legos

I heard a story this past week on NPR about a new Lego line- in addition to the addition of the licensed Lego Lord of the Rings line that was just announced. Looks like Lego is trying again to court the little girl market, this time with Friends.

In the past Lego has tried for the same demographic with Belville, Scala, and Paradisa, none of which lasted more than a year. This time the Friends sets don't look drastically different from standard Lego sets - all still made from fairly typical Lego blocks, but the Friends minifigs are radically redesigned while still holding to roughly the same scale. The Friends figures are slimmer and slightly taller, looking almost like Polly Pockets or short Playmobil firgures. (I wonder if Playmobil sells well to girls.)

The Friends line is built around five main characters - each of whom has a profession leading to more role playing, something the NPR story mentioned as being a need to sell well to girls. There's the animal lover, the smart girl, the singer, the beautician, and the social girl. It's interesting to see the sets play to the stereotypes for girls - something I'm guessing Lego may get some grief for.

I'll admit to being a little more excited about some of the other licenses.

The Dark Knight Rises trailer

Check out thoughts from Andy Khouri at ComicsAlliance here.

It's a long time 'til next summer...

Long Tall Texan

I searched back through and didn't see a YouTube cache from Lyle Lovett, so I'm putting one together.

I hope you find something to enjoy on this lovely no-school morning.

For two of you...

I have these two works friends who seem to have some sort of affection for Nutella. I thought I'd share this Christmas idea with them in case they happen to wander through these parts.

School's Out for ever! School's been closed for the holidays!

• Yodeling cat - I know it's a Wal-Mart commercial, but it's friggin' creepy.
• Muppet Hats of the Day - so cute
• Frog Juice - exactly what it sounds like...
• Kids these days - Yeah, it's cute and hilarious, but who the heck films their kids frequently enough to get this kind of stuff...and is this an example of healthy parenting?

• Science Getaways - A week at a ranch with biologists, botanists, astronomers there to teach you about the world. Sounds kinda cool...and expensive.
• Wisc-Whitewater 13-MtUnion 10 - The tie is broken...for now, anyway.
• Fight Club soap - It's available for realzies now.
• The disadvantages of summer babies - Thanks to Lakes for the link.

• "Jump in the Line" - because it's fun
• GI Joe: Retaliation trailer - Stupidly entertaining and tempting
• 2011 sets records for wet/dry extremes in US - Cincinnati gets a mention and goes at least 5" above the old record. Cheviot is wettest in Ohio history.

• Stop motion short of the day - Great visuals...no storyline...can I get a storyline?
• 50 Best Players not in the Hall of Fame - #5 is a crime.
• It's a good life - another occasional webcomic to check out, especially if you understand both sides of this one. (reference if you need it)

• Very important interview of the day - An interview with Marcel the Shell with Shoes On that' marvelously well done
• The 20 Unhappiest People You Meet in the Comments Section - Thanks to Calen for this one. Why is the topic called Dogs with Wigs?
• "House of the Rising Sun" computer remix - Outstanding...

• Early bird special - SNL writers reenact Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" video...and I had no idea that Sarah Schneider was writing for SNL now.
• "Bright Lights" by Gary Clark Jr - Thanks, again to Lakes for the great tune.

The last 80's playlist for a while

And this clears out the 80s backlog...with the last alphabetically of Lonnie's 80's playlists: Women.

Happy birthday, old fella

Tim Conway turns 78 today. Tale a minute to point and laugh, would ya?

Things I've learned

I put this to writing a week or so ago, and it sums up a lot of what I know about the world:

Rules can be bent if you want to bend them.

If you don’t want to bend them, it’s nice to have rules to fall back on.

We all take advantage of and get screwed by that.

It's far from a chipper thought and all, but it's something that I've seen happen over and over again. Teachers and administrators give students second and third chances, but if they don't want to give those second and third chances - because the student's a jerk, because the teacher's in a bad mood, because the student didn't ask the right way - then it's awfully easy to just point at a the rules and say 'tough luck, kid.'

It doesn't matter whether you're a teacher, a student, a building administrator, a politician, a father, a mother, a police officer, a boss, or an underling. There are times when the rules work for you - because you understand the rules better or because you're in a position to make the rules - and there will surely be a time when you'll come out wishing the rules weren't there.

People are doing the best job they can.

There are a hundred reasons why they might be doing a crappy job, but they're doing the best that they can. They might be dumb. They might be ignorant of how to do a better job. They might have things going on at home or with their mistress. They might have your wishes running about fourteenth on their list of priorities, but they're doing the best they can within those limits.

Don't complain that they're lazy. Don't complain that they're stupid. Don't tell them to just work harder. At best you'll get a momentary improvement but rarely anything valuable in the long term.

You get more bees with honey than with vinegar.

There are hundreds of reasons why we could go through the golden rule in any one of its variations, but I find much of the important things about behavior boil down to this - be nice to people. It's not always easy to do. It's not always something that sees quick results. But it's the better path if you can manage to take it.

Fried Cereal!

Clearly, this need to be made.

I'm totally making this over the break.



Thank you, Charles Phoenix.

Einstein on the Beach

I'm a fan of Philip Glass.

The Girl is not. She, in fact, hates his compositions. They drive her nuts.

This means that getting her to road trip to Ann Arbor in late January to see Einstein on the Beach as hosted by the University of Michigan. They're apparently getting three preview performances before the production heads to Montpelier, France for it's new premier.

Update: The Girl agreed to go. Tickets have been purchased. A hotel room has been reserved. Holy crap, I'm gonna see Einstein on the Beach in person. How frickin' cool is that?

Check out some old footage of and about the opera...

Hail to the cream and crimson

Great story about Indiana's victory over UK over at ESPN.

Congrats to the Hoosiers for an awesome victory and what is hopefully a first reappearance on the national stage.

from Chicago Tribune

from Indy Star

from ESPN

both from Vigilant Sports

Today's sports bits

Indiana 73-72 over the #1 ranked Kentucky Wildcats! Much happiness...

Kansas 78-67 over the #2 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes! Not much either way...

Wyoming 3 22-11 over the Sharonville Eagles! Minor sadness but lots of room for improvement, at least. We've clearly only got up to go from here.

The Bearcats and Muskies did what they could to get just about their whole teams suspended.

Mt Union 28-21 over Wesley, UW Whitewater 20-0 over St Thomas to get the same two teams to the Stagg Bowl (DIII championship game) for the seventh straight year. Three wins each so far.

Ryan Bruan, current National League MVP tests positive for performance enhancing drugs.

And Robert Griffin III rightfully wins the Heisman tonight.

Let's go Eagles!

That would be the Sharonville Eagles, the rec bball team whose first game is this afternoon at 1. Wish 'em luck, folks.

• Another Oops?: Rick Perry Misstates Number of Supreme Court Judges - Really? Really?!?!
• Rick Perry's Unpopular Opinions - some funny, some not so
• Animated Short of the Day - Hot dog vs ho dog vendor...who ya got?

• Infographic of the Day - Top ten cereals based on %sugar by mass...holy crap...I would like to see some citation or data, however.
• Guns N' Roses - Hall of Famers? One great album...one good album...one okay album...two crap sandwich albums...really? Next up, the Fugees?
• Everyone Has a Present for Batman in his Holiday Batcave - What, no Black Mercy?
• Worst AIDS Joke Ever of the Day - Warning: Needless slow-cap replay after the joke

• Online High School Attracting Elite Names - Stanford High School? Intriguing
• Ewan McGregor & Eva Green get naked for the end of the world - Looks like an interesting trailer
• Mythbusters cannon ball accident caused by 'unforseen bounce' - It's kinda impressive that they haven't had an accident like this until now.
• The Most Hated Buzzword - 1,6,9,12(!),17,19 - Yup, that's where I work.
• By My Desk - Cheryl Adams, here I come
• PSA of the Day - I could get on this campaign. Community's holiday episode is outstanding.

• Awesome Geeky Cooking Hacks -I like the N2(l) ice cream in particular.
• Click to donate to Toys for Tots - and win fabulous prizes - Send a bunch of holiday greetings, folks...do a little good.
• SMBC - This week things got a little serious. (click for the large version...it's well worth it...outstanding...seriously...)

Bill Dee Williams endorses...

The most soulful 80s...

"The Chemist to His Love"

I love thee, Mary, and thou lovest me–
Our mutual flame is like th’ affinity
That doth exist between two simple bodies:
I am Potassium to thine Oxygen.
‘Tis little that the holy marriage vow
Shall shortly make us one. That unity
Is, after all, but metaphysical.
Oh, would that I, my Mary, were an acid,
A living acid; thou an alkali
Endow’d with human sense, that, brought together,
We both might coalesce into one salt,
One homogeneous crystal. Oh, that thou
Wert Carbon, and myself were Hydrogen;
We would unite to form olefiant gas,
Or common coal, or naphtha–would to heaven
That I were Phosphorus, and thou wert Lime!
And we of Lime composed a Phosphuret.
I’d be content to be Sulphuric Acid,
So that thou might be Soda. In that case
We should be Glauber’s Salt. Wert thou Magnesia
Instead we’d form the salt that’s named from Epsom.
Couldst thou Potassa be, I Aqua-fortis,
Our happy union should that compound form,
Nitrate of Potash–otherwise Saltpetre.
And thus our several natures sweetly blent,
We’d live and love together, until death
Should decompose the fleshly tertium quid,
Leaving our souls to all eternity
Amalgamated. Sweet, thy name is Briggs
And mine is Johnson. Wherefore should not we
Agree to form a Johnsonate of Briggs?
– “A Rochester druggist,” quoted in The Medical Age, Oct. 11, 1886

Source - Futility Closet

2 H2O2 (aq) --> 2 H2O (l) + O2 (g) + energy

That's all it is...



(skip to7:10 for the decomposition, though the rest is fun, too)...

Another thing I need

So, I this, a year in which I've been required to take on an extra class and all my classes are a little larger due to budget cuts, a year in which I've taken back the PHS website, I've taken on another thing. I'm the coach of the Sharonville Rec Center Girls High School basketball team.

See, three of the team members are I my tenth bell class and asked me if I would be interested in coaching them. I'm always on the look out for ways I can make some sort of connection with my students outside of the classroom - going to holiday concerts, cheering at sports events, whatever. And they said it would only be an hour of time a week.

Hah...

We're four days out from the first game, and the team is ready.

What they're ready for, I'm not sure just yet, but they're ready for something.

Sharonville Rec BBall Schedule - winter 11/12

You know, in case you wanted to come out and support the team...or scout some of the talent for a division II university to make sure the outstanding rec league players don't slip through your fingers and get recruited by some other division II university.

Where have I seen this before?

I love TinEye.

It's a reverse image look-up, such a simple thing, but one that I'm thinking can be exceptionally useful.


Upload your image or enter a web link, and TinEye searches the web to find where else that image is used.

Nothing fancy...nothing drastic...nothing phenomenal...just basically awesome.

The Black Keys

New album - El Camino - out this Tuesday...check one of the new songs here...

It feels like Thanksgiving around here...

• Very Mary Kate has returned. Celebrate as appropriate.
• Percentage Points - I feel like this a whole lot.
• Deleted scenes hall of fame - Grantland's staff's choices are pretty choice
• Community gets anime - It'll be sad if/when this show gets cancelled. Ready for your schpanken?
• A Bridge, a Speedboat, and a Frisbee - Can we just stop this stupid trick shot crap now, please? Please?

• Shopping Prank - I appreciate that they kept this clean.
• A Frosty Reception for Coco-Cola's White Christmas Cans - People are apparently dumb.
• Drive in cartoon form - A minute to tell Drive.
• 'Mitt vs Mitt': Democrats target Romney in new attack ad - Does make ya wonder,doesn't it?

• "Is it too late for shopping?" - It just might be, yeah.
• The Geography of Stuck - go Ohio!
• Animated comic covers - Iron Man creeps me out.
• Oscar predictions - I've seen almost none of these movies. Sad year, eh?

• New York dodges a potential storm surge mega-disaster - Wunderblog continues to do marvelous weather coverage. Check also The City That Plans to be Flooded.
• OOTS Family Car Sticker - I'm kinda tempted.
• Occasional Comics - He just might be overreacting.
• Ten skits that prove The Muppet Show was for adults more than kids - It was an outstandng show...outstanding.
• 
  

The sappy 80's

You could make some excellent maple syrup from this week's collection of sappy songs from the 80s.

Try not to cry too much...

Update: Twin Creek Preserve

Turns out that the newest park in Sharonville isn't much to look at just yet. I mentioned the ribbon cutting of Twin Creek Preserve last week, but when Calen and I wandered to said Twin Creek Preserve on Thanksgiving Wednesday, we didn't find much to explore.

At this point Twin Creek Preserve is pretty much a muddy field of sticks.


That's I-275 in the background. The foreground green is the corner of one of the two youth soccer fields that are largely finished.

Spread between the soccer fields are a trio of plastic coyotes (with 'real' fur tails) designed to keep, I'm assuming, geese off of the fields.

If you want to check out some more, I've taken the liberty of copying the photo albums from the Mill Creek Watershed's photo page on the Preserve.

Aerial Photos of Twin Creek Preserve

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Volunteer Plantings at Twin Creek Preserve

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

You can also check out some pre-construction images...

Pre-Construction of Twin Creek Preserve streams

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

And here are the directions in case you want to check the place out yourself.

There's been some more media coverage of the Preserve, as well...

• Mill Creek dump now a park
• Dirt flies as Mill Creek project gets flowing
• Park project to restore Mill Creek route (video)

Here's the full plan for the eventual Preserve...

I'm really looking forward to seeing (and maybe canoeing) the place when spring rolls around and once the plantings start to mature.