Predatory Lending Makes Me Angry: TitleMax

Title Max got your real money...



(I'll never get Adsense to work with rants like this.)

Fuck these guys. Fuck them. Predatory lending is a disease of monsters preying on the weak and poor and ignorant. There are genuine reasons someone might need this type of service in an emergency, but this commercial is nothing more than glamorizing pawning the title of your vehicle with the beauty of money money money and mo money. I'm a pretty brilliant person and even I don't know exactly what that would entail, but smart enough to know that this is a dangerous trap.

So, fuck Title Max. Spread the word.

Cincinnati's Brian Thomas: Head-Exploding Ignorance

Our local AM morning talk show (before you get to Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity and Levin) here in Cincinnati is hosted by Brian Thomas on WKRC 550. Now, Brian is the sort of person you'd expect on a station like this: fiercely conservative spin-master of talking points of both sides while conveying an "aw, shucks" everyman reasonability.

However, this morning Brian went so far off the rails that I need to relay this tale. He had a caller this morning who didn't say much more than "Keep pointing out the socialism in the State of the Union" because she even has Christian friends who didn't think there was anything wrong with it and there are too many "stupid people."

And at this point, Brian went off on a self-described "tear." He said that Obama shouldn't be offering to help the needy or teach poor kids to read because that "is a theocracy" and by usurping good deeds, Obama - in his theocracy - is robbing Christians of the benefit they get from doing those good deeds, robbing them of the "feel good" aspect of helping others.

WTF?

Somehow Brian has missed some very basic ideas here:

• Christianity is not about fretting over your reward. If you're doing that, you're doing it wrong.
• Christianity is not about fretting over how many "feel good"s you get today. If it is, you're doing it wrong.
• Helping others in need is a good thing in any context; Christians don't own that.
• Helping others in need at a governmental level is NOT a theocracy.
• I can't buy wine on Sunday at my local UDF? That's theocratic.
• Legislating the "sanctity" of marriage? That's theocratic.
• Legislating creationism into the science classroom? That's theocratic.
• Legislating reproductive rights based not on science but a blurb in a 2000 year old book? That's theocratic.

I understand Brian is doing his best to tow the party line and turn anything Obama says - even if it were to be wonderful or beautiful or in lock-step with the Republican party - into dogmatic feces, but this morning's theocratic socialistic mind vomit was beyond the pale.

Brian: I know that 90% of listeners this morning sat back and just accepted that brief bit of babble into their subconscious mind, but if you don't mind the gibberish, you're stirring up a heaping helping of simmering mind melt out in your audience.

Cincinnati Casino Collapse, Bus Driver Got a Job to Do

There was a collapse at the new Cincinnati Horseshoe Casino during construction. Unfortunately, the press conference got in the way of one bus driver who hit a news van on live television. Awesome. Way to Go go Ohio!

Dear Ohio: WTF?

The Republicans blamed 400,000 lost jobs on every incumbent Democrat in office - and won most places because of it. For governor? 2 years out of Bushrape of the economy (where Ohio was beaten like a red-headed stepchild), we knocked out Strickland for Kaisch, a Wall Street tool who bankrupted seniors through Lehman Bros. and helped push jobs out of the state and country. Nice, Ohio. For Senate, you gave pretty-boy Portman Voinovich's seat, which wasn't a total surprise. But could someone tell me how Jean Schmidt keeps her damn job? At least they kept Kucinich up in Cleveland. But...Ohio's Tan Man Fake-Cry Boner will probably be taking the Speaker role. Good times.

So as we went, much of the country went (Ah, but so good to see Crazypants Angle and Batshit O'Donnell lose races). Right Wing Talk Radio sounds like 3-hour blocks of the Happy Ending portion of their weekly massage.

But not to worry. They will soon fall apart. You've got McConnell focusing on nothing but ousting Obama in 2 years, a handful of Tea Party folks and some extreme Republicans looking at everything from a full repeal of health care to privatizing Social Security to dismantling the Department of Education. Some say "meet in the middle" while others say "We'll shut down the government!" They control the House but not the Senate. They are schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder wrapped into one.

So, in other words, somehow even less will happen than it does now and in 2 years the Republicans will be taken to task for not just failing to get America back on track, but making it worse than it is now. Because the only thing they have the ability to do is make rich people richer, disenfranchise voters, and send jobs overseas.

Tea Party Eats July 4th in Cincinnati

Here's the link.

Near where I live in Cincinnati, Hyde Park has a problem on the 4th of July: no one wants to subsidize the fireworks and parade venture. Who's going to save the day? Who's going to save America from potentially-unpatriotic non-shenanigans? The Tea Party!

They claim that there will be no proselytizing during the event, but [insert 5000 links here] documents how stupid and offensive they can be.

Oddly enough, Hyde Park is a younger, hipper, more liberal section of a city that is - for the most part - relatively conservative. Infiltration. And a great marketing move for a party associated with racists and gun-toting morons.

What's next?

I leave you with awesome:



Feel free to steal it :)

Drunk Lady + Dogs + Parrots = Ohio

I'd say "Only in Cincinnati" but I think you can probably find such absurdity Ohio-wide.

From cincinnati.com:

MIDDLETOWN - Over the incessant barking of half a dozen small dogs, Sgt. Steve Ream couldn't believe what he saw inside a Beech Street house.


On a bed with the dogs was a woman, with "one large white parrot... standing on her forehead, biting her in the face. There was another smaller bird on her chest."

This was in addition to as many as 10 cages with other birds, all of them squawking and causing the dogs to bark. The woman appeared to be so intoxicated, Ream said, "that she could not remove the bird off her face."

The Friday night run started as a domestic disturbance, a man and a wife who had been drinking and arguing so loudly that neighbors had gotten involved.

Ream then took Janice McCoy-Nuttle, 49, to the front porch, because "I couldn't understand what she was trying to say due to the dogs barking and other noise."

She denied that her husband, Kevin Nuttle, who was outside the house with a bleeding ear, had been assaulted.

It would have ended there, Ream wrote in his report, but McCoy-Nuttle got angry at her husband, swore at him and threw an inhaler at him, nearly striking the officer.

Ream then put her in the back of his cruiser, and wrote that she kicked at the windows and banged her head on the bars. At the police station, where she had to be restrained, she was charged with disorderly conduct with intoxication.

The couple had been celebrating Nuttle's return after four months on the road as a truck driver.

McCoy-Nuttle was later found guilty in Middletown Municipal Court and fined $240.

Ohio, Cincinnati Politics - Recap

Yesterday was that time of the year again: Me drinking wine out of a box until 1am! It was also election day!

Couple notes on the presentation, then to the issues and how they fared.

• WLWT - What was up with the giant "2" in 2009? You're channel 5. WTF?
• WKRC (channel 12) - not everyone has a 52" 1080p television. I've got a reasonably large tube TV and could not make out the results on the bottom of the screen.
• WCPO (channel 9) - Unrelated to elections, but "A travel trend with all the benefits?" Who's writing your naughty copy?

And on to the issues:

Ohio Issue 1 was funding for veteran care. No-brainer. Passed like nuts.

Ohio Issue 2 was to allow the state to outline guidelines for animal care. Well, you may say, that sounds cheery! Of course Yes! And that's why it was worded the way it was. The Humane Society was hard against it because it basically allowed the state to bow to dirty, mass meat producers and draw up guidelines that favor those mass producers so animals can be kept in tiny little cages, etc. The NO lobby was out to lunch on education, so it passed easily. Sad day for independent farmers in Ohio.

Ohio Issue 3 was ...Casinos! They've got 'em in Indiana, West Virginia, Michigan, but not here. The bill called for four casinos to be built: Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Aside from the churchy folks, it was pretty easily passed and means a great deal of income and jobs for our state. Oh, and gambling and maybe some hookers. So yay!

Hamilton Co. 4 was for family medical care, 5 for MR/DD, both passed.

Hamilton Co. 6 was a levy to support the Museum Center and 7 was to support the libraries as Ohio found it necessary to cut the state budget for libraries - one of our best resources - by over 25%. Until today, county has never had a hand in funding. Both passed!

Hamilton Co. 8 was to keep the Water Works a public utility (passed), and 9 was: a Yes vote meant you wanted anything having to do with streetcar planning to be put on a ballot for general vote. It went down, meaning the city can spend that money without voter approval when the time comes, after talking about it for a decade, that they might invest in a rail system.


Really, I thought this post would be a little more interesting. Sorry about that. But yay casinos!

Animation and Gaming Convention Ohio

The *ahem* Triforce

Animation & Gaming in Ohio. In Cincinnati! And after you read this description, you will not wonder why I read this and immediately "Holy shit! I must attend for the spectacle!"

• Cosplay Musical (Theme of Resident Evil)


• Wrestling Hoboken (Watch a full on show by the talented guys from Mad Pro Wrestling, followed by matches from you favorite games, cartoons and anime characters as they square off in the wrestling ring)


• Battle of the Rock Bands (Think you have what it takes to go into a Rock Band Tourney and come out victorious on the A&G Main Event Stage in front of a crowd of your peers? Then Bring it on.. it's time to rock!)

New Signature Events to this years line up will include:


• Zombie Apocolypse (it's a game, it's a LARP, it's live action, and it's lazer tag. All rolled up into one)


• Zelda live-action adventure (based off the hit game from Nintendo- Zelda)

Cincinnati. March 12-14, 2010. Weekend badge is $20 until Jan. 1. Be there.

The Ladies Love Obama

Some folks are seriously dedicated to President Obama. In fact, here are two from Cincinnati:



These two are so dedicated that one of them ran into someone's house to steal a picture of him. So dedicated that the getaway driver would bring her 3-year-old son on the burglary trip with them. So dedicated that they are now in jail.

The weirdest thing is that they sought to abscond with a picture. This isn't a rare 19th century Daguerreotype. It's a picture that, if digital or scanned, could be recreated for less than $1. Images in our society are ubiquitous.

Ah, but that's Cincinnati for you. :(

Cragslist and the Mysterious Hunger

I've been pulling some extra stress this holiday season with the job situation, both with me and the Missus (doesn't that suck - Merry Christmas!), so it was good to find something to cheer me up for the day. Trolling for misery has that effect.

Under Missed Connections:

Golden Corral around 5-6PM - w4m

did anyone see the guy with the red sweater and tight jeans?

Golden Corral, lovingly referred to as The Hog Trough, was apparently the scene of an oogling. This is wrong on so many levels, but let's hit the logic end:

At one of the 8 Golden Corrals in the Greater Cincinnati area, on some day around 5-6PM, a magnificent butter troll, while pausing for a rhythmic gasp from her feed bag, eyed a man, clad in tight blue jeans and a stunning red sweater. She felt a deeper, different hunger that drove her, at some later date, to make a vague plea to the internets to reveal the identity of the dashing stranger by the mashed potatoes.

Was it you?

I Am Not Dead - Just Took a Geek Vacation

I'm sorry - I disappeared for a while.

Last week was a kind of hell I have not yet known and I let the blogging slack.

You see: I'm a member of Mensa (I know, I know). We had a regional gathering this past weekend. I was on the board. I was speaking about the internets.

The lead-up was devilish and punishing, the work was ever-present, but damn I had a good time while I was there.

Sorry. Won't slack like that again.

Cincinnati: Zoo + Creationism = Angry

We've got a pretty good Zoo facility here in Cincinnati. Unfortunately, they recently made a relatively horrible PR decision in attempting to hook up with the Creation Museum across the river. Fortunately, the locals here handed out an earful.

The Cincinnati Zoo and the Creation Museum launched a joint promotional deal last week to draw attention to their holiday attractions.
Advertisement

It worked, but not the way zoo and museum officials had hoped.

The zoo pulled out of the deal Monday after receiving dozens of angry calls and e-mails about the partnership, which offered reduced prices to anyone who bought tickets to the zoo’s Festival of Lights and the museum’s Christmas celebration, Bethlehem’s Blessing.

Most of the protests echoed the same theme: the Creation Museum promotes a religious point of view that conflicts with the zoo’s scientific mission.

Some complained that the zoo, which receives public support through a tax levy, should not become involved with a private museum dedicated to the teachings of the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Others said a scientific institution shouldn’t link itself to a place that argues man once lived side by side with dinosaurs.

“They seem like diametrically opposed institutions,” said Dr. James Leach, a Cincinnati radiologist who e-mailed zoo officials about his concerns. “The Cincinnati Zoo is one of this city’s treasures. The Creation Museum is an international laughingstock.”

The Creation Museum is still on my list of places I must visit and blog about.

Funny-Sad in Cincinnati

From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Homearama seeks less-pricey site

The Greater Cincinnati Home Builders Association has called off plans to hold its 2009 Homearama home show in the upscale neighborhood of Long Cove in Deerfield Township.
...
Hendricks said the lingering credit crunch and sluggish economy made it difficult for some builders and would-be home buyers to get financing at higher prices.

I would also guess that looking at very large, absurdly expensive homes in this economy might prove depressing:

"Hey, honey, let's go look at these homes we can't afford."

"We can't afford our home."

"Oooohhhhhhgh."

Electric Slide - Cincinnati Style - YAY!

Well, it's been done: our little part of Cincinnati got back on the juice and not only that, but Time Warner wasn't a total wanker, and I'm writing this to you on my computer! On the internets! Yay!



I, of course, mean that apprehensively. Yay means over 200 emails to slush through, an angry company out-of-state that doesn't have understanding or empathy outside a 20 mile radius, and lots of catch-up.

It also means that I have and others do not: still, hundreds of thousands are without power, and trying to find lunch - let alone a place that takes a credit card machine - can take you ten miles out during a gas shortage in the area.

Pictures tomorrow. Must reconnect.

Everyone's Going Totally Apeshit Over Ike! Yowza!

Looks like Ike's going to bring it to Galveston and Houston like he did to Tina, were he in a trajectory of a parallel universe where he could smack one Tina, then the other. Or something. It's going to happen in about 12 hours and it will not be pretty. And I have nothing to say about the "We jus goan hunker down" idiots.

A woman I work with in North Carolina said everyone's going apeshit: gas is up over a dollar a gallon from yesterday, gas lines at every station for blocks, backing up traffic, gas rage, everyone's angry, cats and dogs living together...mass hysteria!

Across the river from Cinci here, Kentucky's governor is evidently seeing a problem, because he's declared a state of emergency, invoking KY's anti-jelly - I mean anti-gouging law.

And I just ran up to the gas station hearing all this (not to feed the madness, only in case we have to make a quick funeral run to Cleveland this weekend), and I topped off at the UDF. There are 4 pumps and there were only 3 cars. No waiting. And gas? At an only moderately unreasonable price of $3.67.

So I ask you: where's my chaos? Where's my drama? Since when was Cincinnati reasonable?

Bugger!

Who's Got Giant Wasps?

I've got giant wasps!

Just when I thought all the summer excitement of the cicadas of Cincinnati was completely gone (except for the occasional husk), there is more fun!

Yesterday, I was outside and, like any good homeowner, weed-whacking, when I looked down to see a large mound of obviously-dug-out dirt. Next to another one. There were almost a dozen, actually, anywhere from four to nine inches in width.

What the hell? Moles again? Some kind of crazy ants?

So I did what every reasonable male without supervision would do: I poked one of them with a stick. And I poked again. And from a certain angle, I could see the entrance hole in one of these buggers. and it was about as thick as my pinky finger.

That's no ant.

Figuring that it was innocuous, I stood back up, picked up the weed-whacker, and just before I pulled the trigger - a deep, resounding "Bzzz-bzz-bbzzzzz" and I turned quickly to catch a quick shift of movement to match the noise and ...this:


Not My Picture

That image is about right: hovering from the dirt nest like an Apache Chopper, and slowly moving in my direction, was a wasp larger than I'd ever seen. There was black and there was yellow, but my senses were first overwhelmed by the tremendous noise it made and then by the fact that it was almost two inches long and as thick around as my pinky finger.

So I did what every reasonable male without supervision would do: I dropped the weed whacker, screamed like a schoolgirl, and retreated twenty feet, doing a twitchy, shivering dance of sorts. After calming down and seeing several of these behemoths come and go, I slowly reeled the weed-whacker in by the power cord and retreated to the internets to find out about this monstrosity.

The Cicada Killer (Sphecius speciosus)

The boring part of the story is that these guys are called Cicada Killers. Regionally, they have adapted to their habitat and emerge only after the cicadas - surprise! They tunnel into the dirt, one female per mound, and bind up their eggs with cicadas so their babies can feed...when the cicadas wake up.

The males, most often seen, cannot actually sting. And the females, who can, will only do so if stepped on barefoot or grabbed.

Aren't you lucky! This means at least one more post. I've got some pictures of the mounds, but by the time I got my blood pressure down and opened a beer, it was nearing dusk, and I couldn't catch any pics of the wasps. Better luck tomorrow.

Burger King Employee Bathing - At BK

And then this happened...about an hour away from my house. No more stops in Xenia on the way to Cleveland.




UPDATE: News Video was freezing, so I replaced with YouTube, even though they blurred out the face.

Putz's Creamy Whip

Would you eat Putz's Creamy Whip?



I would. Actually, I will. I ran across this photo serendipitously, almost laughed beer out my nose, and then did it again when I found Putz's lives 20 minutes from my house! (map - to Put'z, not my house, silly). They're on the web, and are so popular locally that the street they're on was renamed Putz Place.

How did this gem escape me? Nevermind. Thank you internets.

I will report back. You know, just like when I eventually go to the Creation Museum, also 20 minutes from my house.

UPDATE:

Conversation with a friend of mine, the day after the post:

RICKY: So how do I get to your house again?
FRIEND: I'll give you the address, just Google it.
RICKY: (Googling) Oh, okay, yeah -
FRIEND: It's just -
RICKY: Shit. West Fork. Holy crap. Have you ever been to Putz's?
FRIEND: Yeah, used to babysit for their kids.
RICKY: [brain pops]

WTF, dude?

Cincinnati Cicadas - The Noise

No pics, as promised, although they're moving a lot between trees and bushes right now. No swarming yet.

But the noise is something I didn't expect. In "Independence Day," there's that one scene where the President gets overwhelmed with psychic noise of an insect nature. It's like that, but constant. And oscillating.

Right now, when it's at its peak, you can't hear people right next to you speak. And it rings in your ears. It's got an oscillating wave of about 5.5 seconds between peaks and at the peak it's enough to drive you crazy if you're not ready to just experience it and feel in awe of it. Much like the theory of taking acid: if you're not ready for anything, stay inside.

Unfortunately, I have no recording equipment to bring the pain to you. Or acid. Actually, that's probably fortunate on both counts.

Cincinnati Cicadas in Notation Only

It appears that they taste like cold asparagus, but only if they're eaten when in the Albino stage.

My dog, Gracie, ate 20 of them on her last bathroom outing.

I don't know if they'll make your pee smell like asparagus.

I may just have an answer tomorrow.