The Hegemo's Creative Class Warfare
2.11.2007
6.21.2006
I'm ba-a-a-ck!
For the moment, at least.Just posting to say that if you didn't watch The Dark Side last night on Frontline, you really should watch it on-line when it goes up tomorrow.
Can't say my absence of the past four months has been due to any huge excitement or life changes. Been busy at work. Watching the NHL playoffs and now the World Cup. Went to Las Vegas for work and St. Louis for vacation. Cats are fine. Been to several book sales. In other words, it's much as it was when I last posted.
In other news, I have a ticket to tonight's Crew game, but kind of wish I didn't. I don't feel well, and in addition, it rained all day, so the Crew Stadium Super Deluxe Dirt Parking Lot is going to be a giant mud pit.
2.11.2006
Hockey Marathon!
Pretty much OD'ed on televised hockey today: Got up at eight and caught the end of the Germany-Finland women's game from the Olympics, then three more Olympic women's games after that: Sweden-Russia, USA-Switzerland, and as much as I could stomach of Canada-Italy. I'm a little concerned about how many shots the US team put wide or high or off the post. They totally dominated the Swiss, but the score stayed 1-0 for way too long. Much of that was down to a great performance by the Swiss goalie, but a lot was the aforementioned wasted chances. They can't afford to not convert their chances into shots on goal once they're playing the Canadians (who wound up beating Italy 16-0 or something ridiculous...I turned it off at 9-0 because I couldn't take any more).After that, it was time for OSU-Wisconsin, playing outside at Lambeau Field. I've blogged here before that I'm not a fan of the outdoor games in football stadia, but it's not like the Bucks are on TV all that often, so I'll take it. Sadly, they lost.
Then there was a little break, and now the CBJ are playing their last game before the NHL breaks for the Olympics. Losing to Nashville at the moment.
I could probably go on after the CBJ game with a west coast game on Center Ice, but even I do have my limits. And anyway, I'm going to be watching lots of Olympic hockey in the next couple of weeks -- NBC is showing every single game, men's and women's. And Time-Warner is coming with my DVR on Wednesday. Woot!
In related Olympic hockey news, I discovered the Lyndsay Wall and Kim Insalaco blog from the NBC station in Rochester. Which is cool, because Kim Insalaco is my favorite player on the U.S. women's team. Because her mom gave me a free ticket to the U.S.-Canada exhibition game at Nationwide in November. And anyone who gives me a free hockey ticket is way up there on the top of my list (the good list, not the other one)!
2.03.2006
Support your local bookstore!
I was going to get lunch in YouEh the other day and noticed that Liberty Books and News is now open at the Shops on Lane Avenue by the Rusty Bucket. I read about it in the Dispatch a few months ago, but for some reason thought it was going to be at the mall on Tremont, so I hadn't been looking for it on Lane.I found time to stop by tonight after work, and wow! It's got by far the best magazine selection I've seen in Columbus, and probably the best this side of Fountain News and/or Shake It Records in Cincy. Best of all, they carry When Saturday Comes, which I could previously find only at Barnes & Noble at Easton. Excellent book selection, too.
The family that runs it was apparently involved in Little Professor back in the day. I don't know if they had anything to do with the Little Professors in Cincinnati, but those are some bookstores I miss. I have many fine memories of browsing the store at Hyde Park Plaza (and, um, being kicked out with a couple of friends for looking at Playgirl when we were about 12). The big store out at Forest Fair Mall was always pretty good too.
In any event, I'm very pleased to see them open now and plan to make many trips back. (That sound you hear is my checking account crying out in pain...)
1.28.2006
It was 20 years ago today
I was reminded by a trivia question on the JumboTron at the Jackets game (CBJ 4, Preds 3!): the Challenger explosion happened twenty years ago. Which makes me feel really freaking old, for one thing.When this first happened, it was supposed to be my generation's "Where-Were-You-When?" Kennedy-assassination-esque moment. Of course, 24 hour cable news was just in its infancy then, and in the years since, stories from the epoch-making to the completely trivial have gotten the full-on BREAKING NEWS wall-to-wall day-that-shall-live-in-infamy treatment to the point that I can now tell you where I was when I first heard about: 9/11, Wayne Gretzky being traded to LA, Princess Di's car crash, Columbine, Oklahoma City, Lucien Bouchard losing his leg to the flesh eating disease, JFK Jr's death, the OJ white Bronco chase, Saku Koivu having cancer, the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion, Kurt Cobain's suicide, the 55 WKRC helicopter crashing, Marge Schott dying, the Berlin Wall falling, We didn't start the fire...it was always burning since the world's been turning...
But anyway, just for the sake of posterity, I was in the lunchroom at Walnut Hills. I was in seventh grade. They came over the PA with the news, but it was so noisy in there that no one actually heard what was going on. After I finished eating, I went up to my locker with a couple friends, and once we got up in the main hall, we could hear what was on the PA. They were just broadcasting a radio newscast about the Space Shuttle over it.
What I remember most about the rest of that day was in my last period Ohio Studies class, the kid I sat next to had always had a big hate-on for Christa McAuliffe for reasons I never quite understood. We had to bring in current events newspapers articles in that class, and I remember before the Challenger he brought in an article about her and had poked out the eyes of the picture. He was beside himself with glee that afternoon, and by the next day was telling Challenger jokes to the rest of the class. That kid later transferred to another school and I didn't hear of him until years later when he found a dead body in the woods and it was in the newspaper.
And that's my Challenger story...
(And yes, I do remember some of the jokes, but I do try to maintain some small sense of decorum around here...)
What Was the Matter With Ohio?
Article about politics, religion, and labor in Ohio. It's an interesting read, written by a guy who used to work with me.Discovery of the week
If you want bad food for a cheap price, with a really spectacular view, not to mention having to go through a metal detector to get there, the cafeteria on the 16th floor of the Downtown: Franklin County Courthouse is for you!Seriously, the view is very spectacular.
1.26.2006
Radio Weirdness
I had to go down to the courthouse today to do some work, and I parked in the City Center garage, as I am wont to do when I have business downtown. As I was parking the car, I bumped the power cable for my satellite radio and knocked it out, switching the XM radio off.Since I don't have a cassette deck in my car, I use the FM transmitter in my XM Radio. I have it set on 88.3, since there's no station on that frequency in Columbus, just a real faint signal of some religious station out in the nether reaches of central Ohio.
Which is why it was so strange that when I accidentally shut off my satellite radio, what suddenly came on was, crystal-clear, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" by Wilco. I'd been listening to the Latin Jazz station on XM, so it was a shock. It played for maybe 5-10 seconds, then I just got the usual static on 88.3 again.
Wonder where it was coming from? Is there a pirate station in Columbus I wasn't aware of? A phantom signal from far away that somehow bounced its way to Columbus? The only two local stations I can think of that would be likely to be playing that song are WCBE or CD-101. And it was just about 9 AM on the dot, so 'CBE would have been doing news.
Or maybe it was just all in my head...at least, it is now. I've had that song stuck in my head all day now.
1.23.2006
The Fritsche brothers and their hygiene habits
Break from the election hoopla for some hockey: This is a nice article about the CBJ's Dan and Ohio State's Tom Fritsche. Always nice to see more Ohio boys making it in hockey -- too bad the CBJ weren't well-positioned to draft Tom too. We'll be seeing him in an Avs uniform some day (boo!)The stuff about using paper towels as toilet paper is just nasty, though. Don't they know that makes the toilet back up?!
CBC makes their call
Conservative Minority Government (link goes to the CBC main page; Mansbridge just announced it on TV)Election results in Canada
No luck yet in getting around the ban on releasing results...well, Radio Canada International was briefly streaming results from Newfoundland, but that got cut off. So I have to wait 'til 9:30 when C-SPAN goes live with CBC's broadcast.In preparation for the election results, though, I finally popped the cork on the Rodrigues Blueberry Wine from Newfoundland I've had kicking around here since 2003. No implied political message in the fact that's it's "Blue" wine...blue for Conservative victory or feeling blue because of Conservative victory. Either way it's blue.
Oh well, back to the Sens-Leafs game on Center Ice (at least the censors can't take THAT away from me!) and waiting 'til 9:30.
Google and Privacy
Via Covington, good piece on search engines and privacy. Hey, I don't want the government knowing I was searching for "Al Gore" + "Joe Lieberman" + "slash" (it really exists, or it did, but exhaustive research now sitting in a database somewhere suggests it's been removed from the internets)1.10.2006
Vanity Plates
(No, this is not a ranting about Priuses with self-righteous vanity plates post)A few years back, when I was living in Canada, there was a minor kerfuffle that made the papers about a guy who wanted to get a vanity plate that said "TAXCUT" and was rejected, because the Ministry of Transportation didn't allow politically-oriented vanity plates. He was angry because apparently the finance minister at the time had a vanity plate that said "TXCUTR" [tax-cutter] and he thought if that was allowed his should be etc etc etc. I don't know how the case came out, and I don't particularly care, except that I kind of assumed afterwards that most jurisdictions wouldn't allow political vanity plates. It kind of seems like common sense (no pun intended), what with the road rage and so on.
Yet that's obviously not the case in Ohio, because I have seen, driving in and around Columbus:
VOTEGOP (almost ran over me while I was getting out of the car to go to Planet Smoothie on High Street)
DEMCRAT (yes, it was on a Prius)
4MRYRS
and most recently,
IMPCH W
Honestly, I wouldn't want any of those plates, because I like to keep my car un-keyed, and I do occasionally travel to Canada and tend to want to return home afterwards -- wouldn't it be a hoot to go through U.S. Customs with your "IMPCH W" vanity plate? "Ah yes, I'd best be wearin' my clean underwear for the body cavity search today!"
But seriously, has Ohio always allowed these sorts of vanity plates? Guess Mr. TAXCUT needs to emigrate...
1.08.2006
Wealthy School Apologizes For Insulting Chants
The Middleton High School fans chanted "food stamps, food stamps" and "Os-car May-er" during a game against Madison East on Dec. 20.
Is this the opposite version of the way we used to chant "Im-port! Im-port!" at black players on suburban teams at Walnut Hills basketball games?
Then there were those other famous Walnut Hills cheers that were rolled out when we were losing, which in football at least was pretty much every game: "That's all right, that's okay, you're gonna work for us some day!" and "Get on your feet! Get on your knees! We've got higher SATs!" (As Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up)
Of course, I got my own back when I was at St. Lawrence and Cornell would bring their band to the hockey games. They would chant "Safety School! Safety School!" all game. And really, what could we say? Because it was true.
Almost forgot...
The Bexley Public Library is having their annual book sale this weekend. Today being Sunday it's free day -- whatever is still left can be hauled away for nothing. I went yesterday and picked up a nice little stack of books for the night table for $6.GBV blog
Here's something cool for your reading pleasure: a new blog which seeks to review every Guided by Voices, Robert Pollard, and other related release. That should keep them busy for a good long while! I've got about a third of one of the shelves on my 500-disc CD rack taken up by GBV. And that's not counting the solo Pollard, the side projects, the Toby Sprout projects, not to mention the huge stack of vinyl!Also on the music tip, while busy not blogging of late, I've been enjoying my new XM Radio a lot. After going to Pittsburgh in November and spending most of the time there just scanning through the FM stations for something decent to listen to, I decided I couldn't hold off much longer. I'm definitely liking it so far, although I've noticed a little more repetition in the playlists of some of the stations than it seems like they ought to have. Also, I drove out to Granville yesterday to give it a proper road test, and pretty much as soon as I crossed into Licking County, the reception just got awful. And the promos on the "Fred" channel that I listen to a lot (it's retro alternative stuff -- like WOXY Vintage, but way less cool) make it clear that the station is intended for self-satisfied yuppies. And that hurts. But it's a small price to pay for never again having to listen to Columbus morning radio on my way to work.
12.31.2005
Happy early New Year
Yeah, I know I haven't been posting here much the last few months. Just kind of lost interest for the time being. I've thought of just closing up shop, but figure I'll keep the site up for posterity's sake and just in case I get inspired to start blogging again in the new year.Hope it's a good one for everyone!
12.11.2005
Meh, it's nothing compared to Angela Pace flipping the bird...
Traffic problems on the west side of Indianapolis...11.29.2005
Coleman quitting
Coleman quitting race for governor
By Joe Hallett
The Columbus Dispatch
November 29, 2005 10:11 AM
Mayor Michael B. Coleman today will quit the race for governor after his miscue-plagued campaign failed to get traction.
Greg Haas, Coleman's campaign manager, said that Coleman has scheduled a news conference for 3 p.m. in the mayor's office to announce his withdrawal.
"This was not a matter of electability," Haas said. "Frankly, it was a matter of personal priorites of his family and his being mayor . . . He just decided he wasn't going to pull away from his family and from his responsibilities of being mayor."
Coleman's exit leaves U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland of Lisbon as the only major announced candidate for governor, although state Sen. Eric Fingerhut of Cleveland has indicated he might enter the race soon.
11.21.2005
Pittsburgh Photoblog
Downtown Pittsburgh appears in the distance from McKee's Rocks
Waiting to get into The Igloo
Pre-game Warmup
Game action
Old bridge between Weirton and Steubenville
11.17.2005
Hockey filled week
Three games this week, which is a lot for me of late. Tuesday, went and saw OSU play for the first time this season (they won) then yesterday decided I had to be there for Sergei Fedorov's debut as a Blue Jacket (they lost). Tomorrow I'm off to Pennsylvania to see The Next One for myself -- Flyers @ Pens on Saturday (and of course I'm combining it with an Ikea run)Planning to hit two games next week -- Avs @ CBJ on Friday and then USA vs Canada women at Nationwide on Sunday.
None of which is especially exciting or interesting for anyone else to hear about; I just haven't posted much in ages, and that makes my parents (and possibly my legions of fans around the world) worry.
11.02.2005
Jacques Demers is illiterate
This is just really surprising. I could see someone playing pro sports successfully without being able to read, but it seems like it would be next to impossible for a coach.10.30.2005
The Best Thing That's Ever Happened to Columbus
I realized the other day that I will shortly be voting for Columbus City Council and I know next to nothing about it. I know the names of a few councilmembers (Kevin Boyce, Mary Jo Hudson, Matt Habash, Charleta Tavares...er, that's it). I know they're all Democrats, since Jennette Bradley was the last Republican on Council. I can't say I know much about what Council has done since I moved here -- I believe the smoking ban originated with Council? I don't even know for sure how many people I get to vote for. And if I hadn't asked a friend, I wouldn't have known we have an at-large Council like Cincinnati and not districts -- with all the Hudson signs in my neighborhood, I probably would have just assumed we're in her district.I realize part of this is my fault; I could have put more of an effort into figuring out the political landscape of the city. At the same time, though, it does bring up a big difference I've noticed between Cincinnati and Columbus. City politics hardly seems to be discussed at all here.
I subscribe to the Dispatch seven days a week, pick up The Other Paper and Alive regularly, and The Free Press when I can find it. I listen to the local news on WCBE each morning and usually watch the ten or eleven o'clock local news. I also peruse some Columbus blogs. Between all those sources, I just don't get the same sense of lots of coverage and discussion of Council specifically, and local politics more broadly, that I do in Cincinnati.
Just look at the number of blogs from across the spectrum discussing the mayoral race in Cincinnati -- check the Cincinnati blog aggregator for a taste. Columbus doesn't seem to have a network like that. People Have the Power and Michael Meckler talk about local politics sometimes, but both seem to be more focused on state issues.
What explains this difference? I don't know, but I have a few theories:
As the state capital, Columbus is more focused on state politics. There's certainly far more media coverage of the Statehouse here than ever in Cincinnati.
City Council just isn't that relevant here because there's a strong mayor. Once Cincinnati goes longer with the strong mayor system, Council will fade in importance. (I don't actually know the breakdown of mayoral vs council powers in C-Bus, but it does seem like Coleman is far more in the forefront than Luken et al have been -- of course, he is running for governor)
Columbus has a more transient population. Most people weren't born here and aren't necessarily planning to stick around forever, so they're not particularly invested in local politics. Cincinnati has a very high percentage of natives who stay in the city, so they feel a stronger attachment to the city and local issues.
Columbus is working better right now. I think no matter where you are on the political spectrum, you have to admit that the past few years have been bad ones for Cincinnati, and there's a strong sense that the city may well be teetering on the edge of a precipice. Columbus is certainly not without its social and economic problems, but they're not at crisis point like Cincinnati's, so maybe people feel like they can afford not to care so much.
Of course, then, I keep coming back to what a friend of mine who also grew up in Cincinnati and now lives in Columbus says about the cities -- that Cincinnati has lots of people who care passionately about political issues. For the most part, they're issues that people on our side of the political spectrum disagree with them on, but at least they care. Columbus, on the other hand, is more concerned about making money, and as long as the tills are filling up at Easton, Nationwide's selling lots of insurance, and the Buckeyes are winning, there's no need to get caught up in politics. The longer I live here, the more I come to agree with her.
Another friend of mine who grew up in Cincinnati and now makes her home in Chicago was in Columbus recently visiting her parents and was shopping at the new Whole Foods in Dublin. A woman pulled her aside in an aisle and exclaimed "Isn't this just the best thing that's ever happened to Columbus?" Although at a very caricatured level, that somehow sums up the Columbus mindset scarily well. (And everybody knows, the "best thing that ever happened to Columbus" was getting the Blue Jackets -- at least up until we finally get that long-rumored Ikea)
Good news, everybody!
Batavia, Ohio's single greatest contribution to world culture, WOBO, now has on-line streaming!10.29.2005
I Heart All of Dayton's Most Strip-Malled Suburbs
I was looking for something else on the web tonight and found this, one of the notorious misspelled sister city signs in Waterloo, Ontario (well, they were notorious to me) where they went ahead and Brit-icized Centerville's name. These used to irk me greatly when I lived in K-W (Downtown Kitchener, rep-ra-zent). I thought they'd all been fixed in the past decade, but this picture looks to have Waterloo's current population on it. Odd, because I was just in Waterloo last week, and I'm positive the sign on Weber St. had Centerville spelled the correct, God-fearin' Amurr'can way. I wonder where this rogue sign could be located?The other funny thing about the Waterloo-Centerville sistering is that I occasionally used to see cars driving around K-W with bumperstickers that said "I (HEART) CENTERVILLE, OHIO." As probably one of the few people in K-W who'd actually been in Centerville, Ohio, I had to question whether the stickers were meant ironically.
In other ironic/inappropriate Canadian iconography news, when I was in Kingston a couple weeks ago, I noted the presence of Ghetto Tees, which, um, ironically celebrate the Queen's Student Ghetto. Context is everything, though. I don't think I'd want to be walking down the street in Linden wearing one shirt in particular. For that matter, I probably wouldn't want to be walking down the street in North Kingston wearing it either. Actually, I can't really think of any time or place I'd want to be wearing it, except maybe during my next interrogation at the Prescott border crossing.
They have one for every occasion...
One of the things I've taken it upon my myself to learn more about of late is wine (which could explain in part why I've been blogging so infrequently). I've learned that the shape of the glass is very important in properly tasting different varietals.But I was still a little amazed this afternoon at Pimp My Kroger's in Grandview when I noticed some stemware for sale. The shelf tag identified them as "SHITE WINE GLASSES"
Wow, so there's even a special type of glass for when you invite your Scottish friends over to drink MD 20/20!
10.23.2005
Post-vacation cat blog
Wow, I go out of town for a week and come home to this sort of bizarre behavior:
10.08.2005
Terry Frei gets it right again
On the NHL's puke-tacular new marketing campaign.CBJ home opener last night. Great to see hockey in Nationwide again. The hockey we saw, not so great.
Now the Jackets have shipped Geoff Sanderson and Tim Jackman to Phoenix for Cale Hulse, Jason Chimera, and Mike Rupp. Not sure what to make of that deal.
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About Me
- Name: hegemo
- Location: Columbus, Ohio, United States
Hockey. Library Book Sales. Pictures of my cats.
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