Apologies for the scarcity of posts lately, the long holiday weekend combined with a recent move and new puppy have been occupying a lot of time.
Anywho, things haven’t been going exactly well in Cincinnati since I moved here over a year ago.
The city, which has been in a freefall since the 2001 riots, is barely hanging on by a pinky and there remains little incentive for anyone to come downtown after work. National chain restaurants are moving out and aren’t being replaced (downtown doesn’t even have a McDonald’s for crying out loud). The Main Street entertainment district continues to empty as bars either shut down for good or head for greener pastures across the river (or, in the case of Alchemize, to Northside). The Reds, up until recently, were in a pennant race yet had to offer half-price tickets and $1 hot dogs to get anybody to come to the game. Meanwhile suburbs like Mason and Westchester are growing like gangbusters. Some locals blame the construction on Fountain Square, but let’s be honest, is lowering a fountain to street level any kind of reason to come downtown?
You may have noticed from our sidebar to the right that today, April 20, 2006, is National High Five Day. Created by Conor Lastowka over at San Diego Serenade with his friends Sam Miotke and Wynn Walent, NH5 Day doesn’t have any subversive meaning other than spreading the joy of the high five. And maybe to recognize the inventor of the high five, former Murray State basketball star, Mont Sleets.
The founders put out a call for high-five-themed original music a few months back and have the tracks posted on their site. There’s also a Rhapsody playlist with some more familiar tunes.
Elbow is going to be on KCRW’s Morning Become Eclectic this morning at about 11:15 PDT. You can listen to it on the web by clicking here and choosing your player preference, you could watch the video here, or I’ma try to record some of it and post it up here later tonight, once I’ve gotten home, and you can listen to it then.
I am a big fan of the original British series The Office with Ricky Gervais and I was more than a bit skeptical when I heard an American version was planned. The first few episodes of NBC’s The Office, starring Stephen Carell, were almost word-for-word recastings, so I didn’t hold out much hope. But this season has been a pleasant surprise; the writing has been excellent (The Injury was a classic) and the show is really starting to hit its stride – as evidenced by the “April Fool’s” The More You Know PSAs that ran during the commercial breaks of this past Thursday’s episode.
Here’s “Thumb” featuring Dwight Shrute (Rainn Wilson).
You can watch more PSAs on the video section of NBC’s The Office website.
This may seem like a shameful plug for Web.com, but it’s actually a shameless plug for my sista-in-law who stars in their new commercial. Yay, Krista! You’re crazy!