Ram23

Yesterday I saw on a KFC sign that they now have Nashville Hot Chicken - that has be the quickest I've seen a regional dish be invented and become available nationally. Accordingly, when I saw the sign I was actually on my way to the West Side for my biannual trip to Wild Mike's to get some wings. I think I had been subconsciously thinking about them since making that post last month.

^ Part of the problem when comparing population densities is where borders are drawn. That's really the only reason Hong Kong places low on the list while suburbs of Paris place high. In my experience, Asian cities are much more dense in the areas people actually live, while they may have a lot more public space, unusable hilly or swampy land, and land devoted to industry. They tend to have much smaller apartments and larger household sizes than any place I've visited in the US. San Francisco may get close because of the unique housing situation they have gotten themselves into. I think there's a huge cultural difference concerning personal space between Asian and most Western countries, the US and Canada in particular. Whenever towers like those pictured above exist in the US, they tend to be home to mostly empty nesters or young individuals/couples, whereas the same size unit in an Asian country might house a family of 6 - multi generational families are likely a big contributing factor.

I believe those are the photos of Michael Wolf.

^ The last few accidents that have caused fatalities and closed the bridge have occurred outside of rush hour. "Rush Hour" is also a bit of a misnomer here - I look out my office window directly at the bridge every day and there's typically only a 10-15 minute period of actual congestion on the bridge, right after 5:00 PM. Mornings typically ave little to no congestion on the bridge itself, just the northbound approach. Other than during that 15 minute period, traffic is moving at at least the speed limit. There are probably more crashes during those 15 minutes than any other given 15 minutes, but I have less concern about them because they are rarely fatal or even the cause of serious injury. Reducing the speed limit at all times would make merging safer and reduce fatal crashes.

Setting the speed limit to 45MPH and indicating it as such with large flashing lights (and possibly speed cameras to really drive the point home) on the approaches on either side would probably eliminate most of the accidents. It wouldn't add much to travel times as it's such a short section of interstate. Eliminating the southbound exit to 5th Street, and the 4th Street onramp to northbound 71/75 would also improve safety dramatically as it would eliminate the need for drastic lane shifts, though that depends upon the possibility that the Covington Fast Food Lobby could ever be overcome.

Yeah, the main goal should be shrinking the width of the road and creating additional land for development. How the lanes are configured for parking, bike lanes, etc. is far less important in my opinion (though I always lean toward maintaining as much street parking as possible as it greatly improves pedestrian comfort compared to fast moving traffic immediately adjacent a sidewalk).

To get back on topic - cats can really only cause major damage to furniture, and minor damage to carpet, so I've never understood why apartments that don't have any carpet, like most modern ones, don't allow cats. A bad dog, on the other hand, can wreak havoc upon anything and everything, so I understand the logic behind not allowing them in rentals. There's also the barking issue, which can be much more disruptive than even the whiniest cat.

The auditor's website doesn't show a property transfer. The most up-to-date property records I can find on their website are about a week old (the "Current Month Sales" are dated thru 2/22, when viewed today 3/1). If they bought it today, or even last week, it wouldn't be showing up there yet - or do you know of a better way to check?

This is obviously not official but the seeding predictions could create an interesting first two rounds for local teams: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology The prediction is Xavier as a #2 seed facing UAB, and should they win they'd face the winner of a game between 7 seed Dayton and 10 seed Cincinnati.

Without any renderings, my guess is that they infill everything with a glass curtain wall, so you'll have a central historic tower surrounded by a glass box. It's not the end of the world - the building was an old department store, which are notoriously difficult to renovate because of the window configuration (or complete lack thereof, like we see at Terrace Plaza).

I bet there was a whiteboard with varies categories written on it, one of them being "playing card themes," under which words like "Queen" and "Spades"were written and hastily crossed out, until someone just settled on "Jack." They probably thought about going with Diamond's until someone Googled it and found out that name is already taken here in Cincy.

^ I drive or bike that stretch of Central Parkway every single weekday, morning and evening at rush hour, from downtown to Ravine or up through Findlay if I'm on my bike (I can manage to slowly get myself up West Clifton, but don't even want to think about biking up Ravine). I've never once had any problems with it, either in my car or on my bike. I can't even think of what Smitherman's problem with it might be, but removing the bike lane for that stretch would create an incredible dangerous situation for everyone involved, and I'd probably just take another route rather than deal with it.

From the County Auditor: 2003: 1993:

In the case of the Monteith/Linwood bumpout, they moved the sidewalk and the new extra space is on the "house side" of the sidewalk. So, if the City ever wanted to revert it back to the old configuration, they'd have to move the sidewalk again. The property lines haven't changed, so the public right of way remains unchanged. I wonder who mows that grass.

I think I traced back the rumor of 3CDC to a Facebook post, in which some lady said she asked a construction worker what they were doing, and the worker said something about offices for 3CDC. My guess would be that they are converting the top floor to leasable office space, and that 3CDC is just the developer - so they are working on offices, and it's for 3CDC, but they won't be 3CDC's offices. It doesn't seem like a big enough space for them, but it makes sense to make the second floor office space, if the goal for the first floor is a beer hall or restaurant. No one would want a condo above that.

The city seems to be afraid to narrow rights of way and give property to adjacent property owners. It makes it difficult to ever "undo" a change that might not pan out, but it would be a simple, maintenance free way of elimination some of the more overbuilt roads in the city.

Yeah I have been surprised about this, too. With as mild of a winter as we've had they could have had foundations in by now. There must be something holding up construction. The closure was supposed to be 12-14 months, and started September 12, 2015. I seriously doubt they'll be able to be open by November 12 unless they start soon and have already bid out long lead items like structural steel.

My qualification for a "real" neighborhood bar is one where every third beer is on the house. I don't know if any place in Cincinnati still has this practice for their regulars. The last time I had this arrangement was when I lived in Woodside Queens. I don’t think that area is anywhere close to being on the gentrification radar so the bar probably still do this.

The Post-Modern Prometheus is the Frankenstein episode TBideon is talking about, it's one of my favorites. I think the other episode he's talking about is Small Potatoes from Season 4. I got done rewatching every episode just a few days before Season 10 came out (I had to binge 8 and 9 over a few days after having done 1-7 slowly over a few months). The transgender jokes in the recent one were relevant IMO because of the way they fit into the story of the Were-Monster.

^ I went to a Hookah joint in the East Village probably 6 or 7 years ago. I seem to remember tea being involved, but no food.

^ None of that math seems to add up - notably that the guy earns $90,000 a year and can only manage to pay $575 a month toward student loans. He's spending a lot of money every month on something. I doubt the $575 is truly the most he can afford, I think he's intentionally looking to pay as little as possible and remain optimistic that he can weasel out of the tax bill after 25 years. If the threat of IRS taxation wasn't there, waiting out the 25 years on minimum payments might very well be the wisest financial decision for people with as much debt as this guy.

^ Have you tried Blue Jay? That has always been my go to greasy diner breakfast spot. Yeah, but then you're supporting Steelers fans. I'm only a casual Bengals fan but I wouldn't be able to bring myself to step foot inside that place.

If the Bengals left and PBS were torn down, the county would potentially be in a situation where they were still paying off a building after it had been demolished. I think the debt service would dwarf whatever maintenance costs would be for a stadium that would be essentially mothballed except for ~20 concerts or events a year. As for Nippert, If UC got invited into the Big 12, I would support another expansion, but only after a few years of increased revenues and consistent sellouts. Under no circumstances should UC ever play league games at Paul Brown Stadium. Texas and Oklahoma should have to play UC at Nippert like everyone else. They already play Baylor and TCU at stadiums that seat just 45,000 – only 5,000 more seats than Nippert. There’s also a much higher potential for UT and OU fans to go to those stadiums as the fan base overlaps in those locations – there aren’t a whole lot of UT and OU fans in Cincinnati. I don’t think the capacity is as big a problem as many make it out to be, and now that Nippert has modern amenities and a modern press box, capacity is the only benefit PBS has over it.

^ That Kenwood Road truss arm is massive, and likely very expensive. I can't even imagine what the moment is on that thing, or how deep that foundation pier must be. I was recently in Taiwan and was impressed by their complete lack of signaling. Some intersections don't even have signage at all. People just drive up to them and slowly drive through them, and somehow everything works out. People are much more careful when there's nothing to provide a sense of security. https://goo.gl/maps/4dgJdQRLRVn

Chicken wing prices have increased dramatically over the past decade. I looked into this phenomenon once and found out that chickens are being bred much larger now than just 10 years ago. So there's an increasing supply of chicken by total weight, but the larger chickens still only have two wings. So what happens to the chicken price on the commodities market does not necessarily correspond to the price of chicken wings. Fewer, larger chickens result in a steady price, but fewer wings result in soaring prices. I love wings, but make sure to only eat them when there are price "specials." Wild Mike's has a 60 cent wing night, and their wings are large enough to justify the cost (and the trek all the way out to Delhi). Quan Hapa has half priced wing night, which makes their wings about 50 cents a piece if I remember correctly. One of my other solutions to the problem is to just get wings in the hottest available flavors, that way I can only eat about 6 before I feel an ulcer starting to form in my esophagus.