The Cincinnati Enquirer’s John Kiesewetter - who happens to have one of the most interesting blogs in Cincinnati for TV/radio and local TV/radio history junkies - has a nice post about what WXIX-TV (FOX19) is doing this month as it celebrates its 40th anniversary.

Ch 19 folks are planning a terrific 40th birthday celebration in August with overnight repeats of their best stuff — 1980s “Video Projects” based on WEBN-FMs “Album Projects,” Hattie the Witch and Larry Smith puppets, Michael Flannery’s “Club Nineteen,” the Cool Ghoul, the 1984-86 Hudy Gold/WEBN fireworks, and premieres for the 10 p.m., morning and midnight news.

Even “Bus Full of Nuns,” the 1984 music video with Al Schottelkotte from “Album Project Three.”

I already missed week one of this, which is a bummer. Hoping WXIX puts the videos online somewhere (easy, like YouTube) so I can watch them at my leisure. I just programmed recording on my Tivo through their nifty Web site (another reason I just loves me some Tivo).

Kiesewetter also makes a good point about bad TV practices at WLWT-TV, Ch. 5 regarding their recent 60th anniversary:

This should be great fun. Isnt it nice when a TV station gets it — in contrast to Ch 5, which refused to replay anything from its great wealth of local programming for its 60th anniversary earlier this year? Ch 19 is setting the bar high for Ch 12 and Ch 9, which celebrate their 60th next year.

Cincinnati Enquirer | Cincinnati PluckPersona | Cincinnati.Com.

As the first station in town - with an amazing history - the management there has an alarmingly detached view of what viewers might want to see of back then. I think they missed a great opportunity. If places like Ch. 5 don’t want to air old shows/footage, they ought to donate at least a copy to a public library so the public can see it.

Taking the bus

Originally uploaded by hjoew

On my way to the Driehaus headquarters. I love the “negative” commute. Nearly my own private bus. And it is quick!
Sent from my BlackBerry.

Discrimination against single people, originally uploaded by hjoew.

This sign - seen at the Anderson Days festival last weekend - shows just how far they go out in that Cincinnati suburb to push their family values.
Sent from my BlackBerry.

Second Sunday On Main, originally uploaded by hjoew.

During July’s Second Sunday On Main, I stopped into the soon-to-open Iris Book Cafe on Main Street. I was very excited about the space. It’s really nice! I can’t wait to spend hours there - especially in their beautiful courtyard.

I was super happy that I was able to make it down to the Cincinnati Blogger Convention last week at one of my favorite places in all of Cincinnati, the Mercantile Library. Chris Messick - who has to be the world’s least grumpy librarian (he’s actually cheerful and friendly) - helped orchestrate the whole thing, which, I have to say, seems to have been a rousing success.

Though I was only there for about an hour and fifteen, I really liked the experience. I have found out recently that I rather enjoy geeking out with the geeks.

And today, Mr. Messick so politely sent us a list of all conventioneers replete with links to their respective blogs. So, here I post.

5CHW4R7Z (http://www.5chw4r7z.blogspot.com/)

Bad Pitch Blog (http://badpitch.blogspot.com/)

Building Cincinnati (http://www.building-cincinnati.com/)

Buy Cincy (http://buycincy.com/)

CETconnect (http://cetconnect.blogspot.com/)

Cincinnati Area Commercial Real Estate Trends (http://cincicommercialrealestate.blogspot.com/)

Cincinnati Blog (http://www.cincinnati.blogspot.com/)

Cincinnati Dealer (http://www.cincinnatidealer.com/)

Cincinnati Locavore (http://cincinnatilocavore.blogspot.com/)

Clark Street Blog (http://clarkstreetblog.blogspot.com/)

Die Fladermaus (http://mattvant.blogspot.com/)

ENCORE (http://encorecincinnati.wordpress.com/)

Girlfriendology (http://girlfriendology.com/)

Gonz O’Lager (http://gonzolager.blogspot.com/)

Hello, Gerard (http://hellogerard.blogspot.com/)

Joe Wessels (http://joewessels.net/)

Juliet & Juliette (http://julietandjulietteblog.com/)

Kate’s Random Musings (http://www.katesrandommusings.com/)

Keeping it REAL Estate (http://livingcincinnati.com/)

Kelly the the Max! (http://kellyhudson.blogspot.com/)

Live Green Cincinnati (http://www.livegreencincinnati.com/)

Liz Wu Music (http://www.cincychic.com/component/option,com_mamblog/task,show/action,user/id,808)

Make Cincinnati Weird (http://www.makecincinnatiweird.com/)

Mommy Bits (http://www.MommyBits.blogspot.com)

Cincinnati Women Bloggers (http://www.CincinnatiWomenBloggers.blogspot.com)

My Wine Education (http://www.wine-girl.net/)

Not Really a Book Blog Blog (http://nrabb2.blogspot.com/)

Permasmirk (http://permasmirk.com/)

Prospective (http://prosepective.blogspot.com/)

Queen City Survey (http://queencitysurvey.blogspot.com/)

Queer Cincinnati (http://cincywestsidequeer.blogspot.com/)

Soapbox (http://www.soapboxmedia.com/)

Strategic Public Relations (http://prblog.typepad.com/strategic_public_relation/)

The Journey is the Reward (http://blog.morristsai.com/)

Turning the Page (http://www2.cincinnatilibrary.org/blog/)

Urbanophile (http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/)

Wine Me Dine Me (in Cincinnati) (http://winemedinemecinci.blogspot.com/)

With my attendance at the aforementioned convention and the frequent comment I heard being, “You need to post more often,” I have decided that I will. Now, I’ve decided this before, so we’ll see how it goes. But I have now reasons (more than just the nice requests for more Joe-tent) to do the bloggy thing. I will expound later on. Meantime, enjoy some of these wonderful Cincinnati blogs!

In this week’s CityBeat column, I break news about Over-the-Rhine’s Kaldi’s Coffeehouse being asked to vacate the premises for six weeks so an elevator can be installed through their kitchen.

When finished, it would make preparing food in the tiny kitchen a real challenge, but a nice addition for delivering large quanities of food quickly and efficiently to the building’s upper floors. Some chefs dream of a dumbwaiter like this, I’m told. They just want it when and where they want it, if you catch my drift. In the meantime, owner Jeremy Thompson wants to know where all the groovies are going to get their drink on.

Read it about it here.

(Photo from October 6, 2007, Feeding Washington Park)

God bless them. Really. They mean well, but after this blog post and my first column in CityBeat, I still believe we are not seeing eye-to-eye on the cause and effect of giving away food in Over-the-Rhine’s Washington Park (and I would add to that: having a “church” service with loudspeakers so loud that windows shake in the building I live in across from the park). So, the good folks at Vineyard Community Church in Springdale (who give away food on Saturday mornings, provide some clothing and other assistance, plus send a van to pick up folks in OTR to attend Saturday evening church services) invited me to come along on a Saturday morning food run and witness first-hand (in this case, across the street from my house where I had been watching them before) the good they were doing. They believed I really didn’t understand. And they were wrong.

This week’s CityBeat column, this blog post, the past writings put me in the awkward position of being at odds with people who are truly, not only trying to do something good, on many levels they are. So, the question then becomes is just “doing good” enough? Or does the good you’re are aiming for actually have to have positive long-term consequences for those you are helping? And does the residual and indirect effects of your well-intentioned actions matter?

I’d say yes, but I think my pleas for understanding may be directed at minds that have already been made up or refuse to hear what I - and others - are saying.

This week’s CityBeat column is about Bill Brown’s Surveillance Camera Tour he gave Sunday to a mixed-age, mixed-race group of 18 people. I was told about the tour by a neighbor who found it on Brown’s Web page by accident, she said. It seemed interesting - and it was.

My neighbor also wrote a blog entry about the tour, of which Brown apparently took some no offense, having written is own summary of the tour.

Note: I do not “dawn” a coat and tie; I “don” it. Ooops.

Back in January, my girlfriend and I were the victims of an attempted robbery in Over-the-Rhine near my home. I wrote about it in my weekly CityBeat column.

It was a horribly devastating thing to have happen to us. We’re both very supportive of downtown and Over-the-Rhine and want nothing more than for those neighborhoods (and the entire city) to flourish. I’ve been living in OTR for nearly four years; for five she’s been a paramedic working downtown and in OTR caring for the sick and injured.

Needless to say, the gun and the kid who held it - who first just approached the car and asked us for the time - shook us both to the core. It breaks my heart how one incident can rattle the easiness I’ve felt down here since shortly after I moved from Oakley in 2004. It’s made me question things I don’t want to question. And as much as I hoped the feelings would subside, they have only slightly.

After the incident I did what a reporter does: I requested the dispatch communications, 911 tapes, dispatch and police reports.

Listening to them gives me chills. Around the corner from where the incident happened there were two fire units wrapping up a call. We drove to them and turns out she knows them (and I had met a few of them before, too). One of them put a call out on the radio that a firefighter had a gun pulled on them. Of course she was off-duty and I was with her, but those words broadcast over the radio sent , it seems, every police and fire unit in the city to us.

Seeing police car after fire truck and after bike cop after firefighter after police officer come to our aid was an amazing feeling. And despite their efforts, the asshole who ruined a, perhaps, ungrounded feeling of relative safety I had in my neighborhood, was never caught.

You can listen to the radio dispatch tape below. The 911 call, frankly, was too embarrassing to post and had little information on it. That’s because we gave most of the details about what happened to the officers who responded to the scene and didn’t end up telling the 911 operator. The call  recording basically is she and I not really listening to the dispatcher ask questions about what happened (we were distracted), while I string a number of curse words together to describe the feelings I had about just having a gun pulled on me. In other words, not much to hear.

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(I have edited the tape down to about six minutes from about 18 minutes. I basically deleted dead air time to make the tape shorter.)