PREPARE TO WANT TO GET READY TO DIE, or, Stupidest. Pants. EVAR.

I have no words for this.  Enjoy.

Seriously, We Need a Tournament: New Biggest Asshole in Cincinnati

There are only so many words for this: Francis M. Fille might just be the biggest asshole in Cincinnati.

He’s been charged with stealing a truckload of paver stones from a Matt Maupin memorial.

So, we’ve got baby punchers, people who point guns at children, chicks who scam special needs folks, and this guy who stole stuff from a memorial for one of the few Cincinnati stories that truly gripped the entire area.  Granted, he’s an idiot (how did he not know he was gonna get caught, I’ll never know), but man, what a huge asshole.

Plus, his name’s Francis.

Hey, Fraaaaaaaaaaaaaaancis!  Guess what?  You’re a dick.

The Cincinnati Man Meetup #1: Thursday, August 27

You’re hearing it here first: The Cincinnati Man is going to be hosting its first meetup at Mainstrasse Village Pub at 6 p.m. next Thursday.  That’s August 27 for the calendar hounds out there.

We’ll be honoring their recent win in our “Best Bar in Cincinnati” tournament (yes, I’m aware they’re over the river.  Yawn.), playing lots of free pool, and drinking plenty of the 180 or so bottled beers that they offer.  Really, it’s an excuse to get out of the damn house and see people.  People with beards and hats who are happy.  Not seeing how this doesn’t sound appealing.

See you there–6 p.m. next Thursday, champs.

[mappress]

Things That Are Manly: Explosions

It’s not necessarily groundbreaking to say it, but explosions are manly.  Really, how could they not be?  All that energy packed in to one specific moment in time, packed into one specific spot at that time?  I’m assuming that you’re all picking up on the metaphor here.

Silly metaphors aside, getting things to explode has been a crowning achievement of manhood for quite some time. Gunpowder was first created as part of Chinese alchemy research concerning the secrets of eternal life. Needless to say, it was all downhill uphill from there.  Centuries later, we saw the dawn of gunpowder being used as a weapon in guns, and eventually cannons.  Gunpowder was the preeminent explosive for another few centuries or so until the mid-1800′s, when the world saw the development of nitroglycerine, TNT, and dynamite.

It’s not just the fact that man has developed shit that blows up that’s amazing–it’s that we’ve done constructive (heh) things with the lot of it.  Mining’s pretty much the best example of the good to come from explosives–that ring you bought for your wife wouldn’t have been a possibility were it not for this guy blowing the fuck out of the side of a hill.

That said, mining doesn’t even come close to the fun kind of explosion, the sort that wasn’t mean’t to provide access, or even the kind that wipes out a reasonably sized Japanese city.  The manliest kind of explosion is the kind that’s created recreationally, for its own sake.  It’s these explosions that we remember best with appreciation and happiness, even if they are at times at the expense of others (and what explosion isn’t at the expense of others in some way or another?).

There doesn’t seem to be any kind of documented history of this “fun” kind of explosion, other than the vast library existent at Youtube and other video sites all over the damn place.  Not that this matters–having a history of explosions and their agents isn’t even close to the important thing when it comes to manliness.  It’s watching them, or even being responsible for them, and knowing that you’ve got that rich, millenium-and-a-half history quite literally in your DNA.

_____________________

front pg thumb:http://www.flickr.com/photos/giginger/ / CC BY 2.0

Cincinnati Enquirer Is Going to Roll Out a Self-Service Obit Software Late September; What Does This Mean for Staff?

Gannettoid.com is reporting that The Cincinnati Enquirer will be automating its obituary service with a new software next month.  According to the story, the Indianapolis Star will be the first to use the service beginning the week of 9/7, and the Enquirer will be transitioning two weeks later along with a few other papers.

For all practical purposes, this will likely make it easier for us (and by “us,” I mostly mean “funeral directors”) to place an obit, but the article indicates that it could have an affect on staff, though the article notes that this information is not currently known.  It looks like this is just another way that Gannett is streamlining their operations across the board and creating labor “efficiencies” wherever they can.  While it’s sure to affect their bottom line, which is of course their central concern, you just know that Gannett employees everywhere have been wearing job hardhats for a long time now, and that’s a shame to see.

How will this move affect the end product?  Do these efficiencies improve or detract from the quality of the news that we’re getting?  We already know that The Enquirer (among many, many other papers nationwide) have been hemorrhaging great investigative journalists, staff writers, and copy editors for the last year or so, and that’s certainly gone well.  How will potentially losing some ad staff change things?  My guess is that we (i.e., readers) probably won’t notice, and that most folks probably won’t even think about it.  Which is a shame.

Cincinnati’s REAL Ronnie Dobbs

A while back, we posted about a dude who’d been arrested 102 times named Timothy Akers and posited the notion that he wasn’t unlike your favorite fake Cops star and mine, Ronnie Dobbs.

Whelp, we were totally effing wrong about Timothy Akers.  He doesn’t even come close to Bennie Crabtree, who’s been arrested 146 times since 1998.

That’s where the funny stops.  He’s homeless, and reportedly has some mental problems.  Many of his arrests have been for stealing food.  Crabtree is a dangerous fella, but not the kind of dangerous that requires lifetime lockdown.  It’s kind of a bummer.

But you’ve probably already read the story.  Here’s my question, and I don’t know that it’s one easily answered.  Clearly folks with mental illness are more likely to get into trouble when they’re essentially alone, are homeless, and don’t get the treatment they need.  It’s the fact that these illnesses, in general, take one-to-one attention in a world that isn’t prepared, financially or temporally, to give that sort of attention.  There are only so many resources–what’s the fix here?  And why does it take a news story for us to even begin to think about it?