If the taxpayers are funding NFL stadia; then team's should open up their books to the public. I am skeptical of taxpayers getting a ROI for these monuments to greed. Just subsidizing billionaire owners and multimillionaire players. The NFL is a Sham, but I remain a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.
Never knew you met "The Great One" in person. And at the penultimate season at Forbes Field. The closest I ever got was at a funeral of my mother's friend when I was about 5 or 6. Roberto wasn't there but he had sent a big flower display.
I just read that the Titans and nfl are covering 40% of cost of new stadium. No way mike brown will pay anywhere near that. Brown family contributed 6% of cost to build PBS. Hopefully nfl will help defray some costs for us.
I cant speak for all Ham county reaidents, but what really bothered me when they built PBS is how little the Brown family paid. The Titans are making a substantial investment of 840 mill. With the stumblebum Ham county commissioners negotiating, i am quite sure us taxpayers will get screwed again. I suspect they will jack up our prop taxes again as our exhorbitant sales tax is already almost maxed out and has not produced what they thought it would. They have got to find more creative ways of financing these needed improvements. And your right, it will end costing a lot more than the estimated 500 mill. I do not think mike brown will demamd a new stadium.
Time to think about going electric PD. I did nearly 3.5 years ago and would never want to go back. I charge in my garage on a 240v outlet I had installed for $200. I save nearly $100 in gas each month and have no maintenance except for wiper blades and tires. Plus, electric cars drive differently. Much more enjoyable. And I've owned plenty of nice cars. Go try driving one.
Well, i was "today years old" when I found out people stick magnets on their oil filters. Seems a bit silly to me...a good oil filter is going to trap any notable debris by itself. And there really shouldn't be any metal particles in your oil.
Back when I was still in the car repair business i know the fluid pans for automatic transmissions had little magnets in the base of them. Those did actually accumulate fine metal particles, but the inner workings of an automatic transmission are different than the insides of a typical 4 stroke engine.
I think regularly scheduled oil changes and using decent oil filters should be adequate. I still do mine at 5000 miles because part of me worries that manufacturers increased the interval just to keep maintenance costs in a certain (low) range. I don't know that oil technology has changed drastically enough to start going 8K-10K between changes (which is what I think my car would ultimately "suggest" on it's own).
I didn't sweat the stadium drama last time around and I won't let it bother me this time either!
I stay away from the quick-change places because I know what kind of training they get. Sales training. I have my regular mechanic do it when the weather is too nasty for driveway work. Costs a little more, but I know he isn't going to mess anything up. I balance that with my savings from doing it myself sometimes.
My junior-high-dance memory sounds more like a Three Dog Night song, maybe "Easy to be Hard" or "Celebrate". And the Driving Around (the thing we did a LOT, often including "cruising Frisch's") memory reel has "Horse With No Name" and "One Toke Over the Line" in the soundtrack.
As I read today's TML, I came to the sad conclusion that it would not matter a whit if the Bengals moved out of town. I have loved them from the first snap, and I love them still. I voted in favor of the levee for building the stadium. I have been, in the past, a season ticket holder. But I realized I can love them just as much from afar. I am so very tired of being held hostage by the Brown family, and I know that Cincinnati will be just as great a city without them as it was with them. Yes, I will miss them, and I will be really peeved that this is happening in the Joe B era, but I will get over it. And that kinda makes me sad.
I'm pretty sure the Brown family might move Heaven and Earth to maintain and preserve this legacy of what will still ever be known as namesake PBS on the Riverfront. People used to think it was cool them honoring the Old Man and not just shamelessly selling out for the cashola
It gets tougher and tougher to proudly wave the flag. Our system has been captured to exclusively serve the interests of the Mike Browns of America. Or, we can soften that reality by calling it 'leverage'. Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, comfort the comfortable, afflict the afflicted.
The Brown family is a wholly unique separate category from any of these other T Rex oligarchs owning and operating one of the 32 exclusive billion $$$ Battlestar gamepieces of the NFL. PB and MFB may not have had even one original million 1967 dollars staking the original 1o% claim and Mikey (think Robert Duvall in The Godfather' ?) ramrodded his desperate and visionary plan and PB's cachet as wronged NFL HOF icon into 97% control for current Capt Katie (with Admiral Mikey in the Cheshire cat bird's seat grinning over her shoulder) to play
Once upon a time, during an '80s-era Oak Hills-Elder basketball game at the Pit (don't ask what my east-side self was doing there)... Earlier in the week, Oak Hills floated the idea of putting a levy on the ballot. Right about the time the Highlanders took the lead, the Panther student section erupted in a chant of "Vote no (clap-clap)! Vote no (clap-clap)!" It was alternately appalling and hilarious.
I was a staunch supporter of the stadium tax in 1996. No more.
The 20-year sales-tax hike is still on the books.
The property tax rollbacks, didn't. At least not to the level we were promised.
County services shrink while stadium expenses grow exponentially, chomping through the budget like ravenous wolves.
No more. If that means the Bengals go away? Peace out. The Reds? That would hurt a bit, but I can survive without them. (I managed in 1995, when I went on strike to show baseball who was boss after taking away the '94 home run chase and postseason. Clearly an effective protest.) I'll gladly vote yes to help out with the infrastructure around a new stadium - improved roads, sidewalks, effective public transportation benefit everyone - but Mikey Boy and Uncle Bob can get in their own wallets to build new buildings. They're into my pocket more than enough for tickets, parking, concessions and merch. This Johnny Thinwallet will find Tim Mara (lookhimup) and lead the Vote No! chants by his side.
Your version of Cincinnati sounds really fun. I can hardly wait to see what happens to the empty stadia on the riverfront in 2 decades! I'm sure they'll just evaporate or something and not cost taxpayers any money to get rid of.
Nah, you don't want to go back to changing your own oil. Here's some advice from an ex tech: Don't go to quick lube places...for anything. I go to the dealer for my maintenance. I've found that for maintenance they're priced comparably to most other places but the quality is far superior. For the labor AND the parts. Low cost aftermarket oil filters are junk, too. Your car deserves better.
Personally, I go with an oil change and tire rotation every 5000 miles. Costs me around $60-$70 at the dealer. My 5000 mile interval is sooner than my car's on board system tells me I need an oil change, but I'm ok with that. Plus I don't want to neglect the tires. Tires are VERY expensive, so I absolutely get them rotated every 5000 miles without exception. They'll wear more evenly and last longer that way.
Battery, air filter, wipers, turn signals, etc you can easily handle yourself. I'm ok performing repairs like those but you won't find me under a car again any time soon. I'll gladly pay the $60-$70 to have it done in an hour or so and not have to get dirty, dispose of oil, etc.
Fifteen-year-old me and the gang bussed downtown from the burbs early one summer day to take in BP at Riverfront. Once they started rolling the cages away, as the players milled around the dugout area, we skittered over to beg for autographs with the other goobers Wasn’t my thing, but I decided to join in and ask someone to get Johnny Bench to sign the one bit of paper I had on me, which carried a crisp impression of Alexander Hamilton. This act of brazen foolishness succeeded in getting me the attention I in no way sought from professional sports guys who apparently had no shortage of ways to spend a tenner from heaven, and the bill disappeared from view for a good long time. The error of my ways was just settling over me when some long since forgotten big leaguer popped his head up, asked who did this thing I was regretting, and handed back the heirloom signed by HOF JB and a couple others.
Later that night, I recounted my hero’s journey to my father, who was ensconced at a bar with his fellow dwellers. He held the treasure up, and asked the bar owner, “What do you think a $10 bill with Bench’s autograph on it is worth?”
The reply came without missing a beat: “About eight bucks.”
Last, best offer from the wizened citizens of Hamilton County, OH: We’ll pay for the gas for the moving vans, and here’s a pineapple for your new home. See ya!
Regarding the future stadium dilemma, I have two thoughts that I always come back to when I hear such discussions:
• I am not a Queen City resident so I won’t be on the financial hook but if I was, I would vote to support a renovation/rebuild because I do believe in the chamber of commerce argument that it supports other business and generates enough taxes to make it worthwhile. Having said that, if other taxpayers said NFW, I would cool with that, too.
• Public debt at all levels in the United States is a looming concern that will have a day of reckoning sooner or later. I may not live to see it but all of us, IMO, need to pay more attention to what is happening in our name regarding money and banking and the entitlements built into our laws. I pray I am wrong, but my experience and training suggest otherwise.
Always felt that PBS/Paycor was rather skeletal with plenty of room for improvement. As much as we whine about it-it is one of the cooler looking NFL venues and has become a fixture on the riverfront. I really hope that they can upgrade it to current standards while maintaining the location. I feel that psychologically that would sit better with the public-regardless of the eventual price tag. As far as the Titans go-their new 'palace' looks like a cross between a convention center and an outlet mall. Hard pass. Stadiums should have a monolithic presence-not fit in generically to their surroundings.
As far as the actual money goes-just put it on my tab. I already pay for plenty of things I don't use or care about. The Bengals are the opposite for me. When studying public admin, my wife dug into the original stadium deal and the idea of valuating sports teams. Final takeaway: Their economic impact is minimal and their true value to the community is real and impossible to quantify. There's no dollar amount you can put on neighborhood gatherings Sunday afternoons watching the games in Delhi garages. You can't tax the significance of Who Dey out of uniform Friday for Catholic school kids. Of course, the value varies from person to person, but I doubt if I'm the only one who feels this way.
Acquaintance beats an autograph any day. My brief brushes with fame are etched into my memory. I don't need a scribble on a piece of paper to remind me.
Subsidizing billionaires and millionaires is now the American way sadly. That conversation is better than any autograph. I still do all of my own car maintenance. It feels good to do it and is a lot cheaper.
The conversation and hand shake & grip is a much better personal, (physical, viral and audio no less) memory and one that is etched into your brain...whereever it is...forever.
Autographs are ok, conversations much better. I got to meet Thomas Howard (BSU all-American and member of Your 1994-95 Cincinnati Reds) at his alma mater’s baseball camp while he counseled us on hitting in the cage. After he reached the majors (well, San Diego) a couple years later, I got to catch up with him at a local card shop and did get his ‘rookie’ card signed that day. Also met Ken Griffey Sr. and Doug Bair separately in college. They were guests of the WC coaching staff and a friend was showing them around. No autographs that day, but Bair was wearing his Tigers’ WS ring. Griffey, interestingly, was not.
That's a great Clemente story. I don't know if you read David Maraniss's biography of him or not. But there's a story about a girl in Philly who had a similar experience with him. Rather than saying "Thank you" after he'd given her an autograph, she said, "Gracias". He was so taken by this that he ultimately developed what would be a lifetime friendship with her.
In any case, I totally agree about baseball cards. I had a shoebox full of them in grade school. I might separate out the Pete Roses, etc... But mostly I added to the collection by flipping them at school. Do any other OGs recall games like "Closies", Farthies, Knockdowns and Standups? We'd flip those things constantly in the schoolyard. And if I do say so, I was something of a hustler :)
My 2 brothers and I slept on opposite ends of an upstairs bedroom with only the light from moon and stars faintly illuminating pitch blackness. We'd tie together these huge rubber bands we had and form bed length slingshots affixed to the bedposts and fire multiply folded into small booklike winged projectiles our baseball cards in service of the never ending quest of mutually putting our eyes out ... which we somehow never did, thank goodness. But they sure did hurt if such a blind, hard missile ever stung a soft, fleshy target ... and the grunt or whimper after the thwack when you managed such a hit in the dark was the payoff
If the taxpayers are funding NFL stadia; then team's should open up their books to the public. I am skeptical of taxpayers getting a ROI for these monuments to greed. Just subsidizing billionaire owners and multimillionaire players. The NFL is a Sham, but I remain a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.
Never knew you met "The Great One" in person. And at the penultimate season at Forbes Field. The closest I ever got was at a funeral of my mother's friend when I was about 5 or 6. Roberto wasn't there but he had sent a big flower display.
I just read that the Titans and nfl are covering 40% of cost of new stadium. No way mike brown will pay anywhere near that. Brown family contributed 6% of cost to build PBS. Hopefully nfl will help defray some costs for us.
I cant speak for all Ham county reaidents, but what really bothered me when they built PBS is how little the Brown family paid. The Titans are making a substantial investment of 840 mill. With the stumblebum Ham county commissioners negotiating, i am quite sure us taxpayers will get screwed again. I suspect they will jack up our prop taxes again as our exhorbitant sales tax is already almost maxed out and has not produced what they thought it would. They have got to find more creative ways of financing these needed improvements. And your right, it will end costing a lot more than the estimated 500 mill. I do not think mike brown will demamd a new stadium.
Time to think about going electric PD. I did nearly 3.5 years ago and would never want to go back. I charge in my garage on a 240v outlet I had installed for $200. I save nearly $100 in gas each month and have no maintenance except for wiper blades and tires. Plus, electric cars drive differently. Much more enjoyable. And I've owned plenty of nice cars. Go try driving one.
The tire rotation/oil change paradigm is totally worth it (I was owner/operator taxi). How do you feel about oil filter magnets?
Well, i was "today years old" when I found out people stick magnets on their oil filters. Seems a bit silly to me...a good oil filter is going to trap any notable debris by itself. And there really shouldn't be any metal particles in your oil.
Back when I was still in the car repair business i know the fluid pans for automatic transmissions had little magnets in the base of them. Those did actually accumulate fine metal particles, but the inner workings of an automatic transmission are different than the insides of a typical 4 stroke engine.
I think regularly scheduled oil changes and using decent oil filters should be adequate. I still do mine at 5000 miles because part of me worries that manufacturers increased the interval just to keep maintenance costs in a certain (low) range. I don't know that oil technology has changed drastically enough to start going 8K-10K between changes (which is what I think my car would ultimately "suggest" on it's own).
This is a reply to Brian Terry ... not sure how I glitched up and landed it here?
I didn't sweat the stadium drama last time around and I won't let it bother me this time either!
I stay away from the quick-change places because I know what kind of training they get. Sales training. I have my regular mechanic do it when the weather is too nasty for driveway work. Costs a little more, but I know he isn't going to mess anything up. I balance that with my savings from doing it myself sometimes.
My junior-high-dance memory sounds more like a Three Dog Night song, maybe "Easy to be Hard" or "Celebrate". And the Driving Around (the thing we did a LOT, often including "cruising Frisch's") memory reel has "Horse With No Name" and "One Toke Over the Line" in the soundtrack.
Intro: Sweet Jane Lou Reed and Suffragette City, David Bowie, Santana 1 and Back Door Slam
https://youtu.be/9KiqbUm6gRQ
As I read today's TML, I came to the sad conclusion that it would not matter a whit if the Bengals moved out of town. I have loved them from the first snap, and I love them still. I voted in favor of the levee for building the stadium. I have been, in the past, a season ticket holder. But I realized I can love them just as much from afar. I am so very tired of being held hostage by the Brown family, and I know that Cincinnati will be just as great a city without them as it was with them. Yes, I will miss them, and I will be really peeved that this is happening in the Joe B era, but I will get over it. And that kinda makes me sad.
I'm pretty sure the Brown family might move Heaven and Earth to maintain and preserve this legacy of what will still ever be known as namesake PBS on the Riverfront. People used to think it was cool them honoring the Old Man and not just shamelessly selling out for the cashola
It gets tougher and tougher to proudly wave the flag. Our system has been captured to exclusively serve the interests of the Mike Browns of America. Or, we can soften that reality by calling it 'leverage'. Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, comfort the comfortable, afflict the afflicted.
The Brown family is a wholly unique separate category from any of these other T Rex oligarchs owning and operating one of the 32 exclusive billion $$$ Battlestar gamepieces of the NFL. PB and MFB may not have had even one original million 1967 dollars staking the original 1o% claim and Mikey (think Robert Duvall in The Godfather' ?) ramrodded his desperate and visionary plan and PB's cachet as wronged NFL HOF icon into 97% control for current Capt Katie (with Admiral Mikey in the Cheshire cat bird's seat grinning over her shoulder) to play
https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2022/02/12/meet-the-billionaire-family-behind-the-cincinnati-bengals-the-nfls-second-least-valuable-team/
Once upon a time, during an '80s-era Oak Hills-Elder basketball game at the Pit (don't ask what my east-side self was doing there)... Earlier in the week, Oak Hills floated the idea of putting a levy on the ballot. Right about the time the Highlanders took the lead, the Panther student section erupted in a chant of "Vote no (clap-clap)! Vote no (clap-clap)!" It was alternately appalling and hilarious.
I was a staunch supporter of the stadium tax in 1996. No more.
The 20-year sales-tax hike is still on the books.
The property tax rollbacks, didn't. At least not to the level we were promised.
County services shrink while stadium expenses grow exponentially, chomping through the budget like ravenous wolves.
No more. If that means the Bengals go away? Peace out. The Reds? That would hurt a bit, but I can survive without them. (I managed in 1995, when I went on strike to show baseball who was boss after taking away the '94 home run chase and postseason. Clearly an effective protest.) I'll gladly vote yes to help out with the infrastructure around a new stadium - improved roads, sidewalks, effective public transportation benefit everyone - but Mikey Boy and Uncle Bob can get in their own wallets to build new buildings. They're into my pocket more than enough for tickets, parking, concessions and merch. This Johnny Thinwallet will find Tim Mara (lookhimup) and lead the Vote No! chants by his side.
Your version of Cincinnati sounds really fun. I can hardly wait to see what happens to the empty stadia on the riverfront in 2 decades! I'm sure they'll just evaporate or something and not cost taxpayers any money to get rid of.
Nah, you don't want to go back to changing your own oil. Here's some advice from an ex tech: Don't go to quick lube places...for anything. I go to the dealer for my maintenance. I've found that for maintenance they're priced comparably to most other places but the quality is far superior. For the labor AND the parts. Low cost aftermarket oil filters are junk, too. Your car deserves better.
Personally, I go with an oil change and tire rotation every 5000 miles. Costs me around $60-$70 at the dealer. My 5000 mile interval is sooner than my car's on board system tells me I need an oil change, but I'm ok with that. Plus I don't want to neglect the tires. Tires are VERY expensive, so I absolutely get them rotated every 5000 miles without exception. They'll wear more evenly and last longer that way.
Battery, air filter, wipers, turn signals, etc you can easily handle yourself. I'm ok performing repairs like those but you won't find me under a car again any time soon. I'll gladly pay the $60-$70 to have it done in an hour or so and not have to get dirty, dispose of oil, etc.
Fifteen-year-old me and the gang bussed downtown from the burbs early one summer day to take in BP at Riverfront. Once they started rolling the cages away, as the players milled around the dugout area, we skittered over to beg for autographs with the other goobers Wasn’t my thing, but I decided to join in and ask someone to get Johnny Bench to sign the one bit of paper I had on me, which carried a crisp impression of Alexander Hamilton. This act of brazen foolishness succeeded in getting me the attention I in no way sought from professional sports guys who apparently had no shortage of ways to spend a tenner from heaven, and the bill disappeared from view for a good long time. The error of my ways was just settling over me when some long since forgotten big leaguer popped his head up, asked who did this thing I was regretting, and handed back the heirloom signed by HOF JB and a couple others.
Later that night, I recounted my hero’s journey to my father, who was ensconced at a bar with his fellow dwellers. He held the treasure up, and asked the bar owner, “What do you think a $10 bill with Bench’s autograph on it is worth?”
The reply came without missing a beat: “About eight bucks.”
Last, best offer from the wizened citizens of Hamilton County, OH: We’ll pay for the gas for the moving vans, and here’s a pineapple for your new home. See ya!
Regarding the future stadium dilemma, I have two thoughts that I always come back to when I hear such discussions:
• I am not a Queen City resident so I won’t be on the financial hook but if I was, I would vote to support a renovation/rebuild because I do believe in the chamber of commerce argument that it supports other business and generates enough taxes to make it worthwhile. Having said that, if other taxpayers said NFW, I would cool with that, too.
• Public debt at all levels in the United States is a looming concern that will have a day of reckoning sooner or later. I may not live to see it but all of us, IMO, need to pay more attention to what is happening in our name regarding money and banking and the entitlements built into our laws. I pray I am wrong, but my experience and training suggest otherwise.
Just my two cents…
Always felt that PBS/Paycor was rather skeletal with plenty of room for improvement. As much as we whine about it-it is one of the cooler looking NFL venues and has become a fixture on the riverfront. I really hope that they can upgrade it to current standards while maintaining the location. I feel that psychologically that would sit better with the public-regardless of the eventual price tag. As far as the Titans go-their new 'palace' looks like a cross between a convention center and an outlet mall. Hard pass. Stadiums should have a monolithic presence-not fit in generically to their surroundings.
As far as the actual money goes-just put it on my tab. I already pay for plenty of things I don't use or care about. The Bengals are the opposite for me. When studying public admin, my wife dug into the original stadium deal and the idea of valuating sports teams. Final takeaway: Their economic impact is minimal and their true value to the community is real and impossible to quantify. There's no dollar amount you can put on neighborhood gatherings Sunday afternoons watching the games in Delhi garages. You can't tax the significance of Who Dey out of uniform Friday for Catholic school kids. Of course, the value varies from person to person, but I doubt if I'm the only one who feels this way.
Acquaintance beats an autograph any day. My brief brushes with fame are etched into my memory. I don't need a scribble on a piece of paper to remind me.
The Rich Get Richer and the Rich Get Richer...and The Rich Get Richer!...And the Divisions get Deeper...no thanks to Politics.
Subsidizing billionaires and millionaires is now the American way sadly. That conversation is better than any autograph. I still do all of my own car maintenance. It feels good to do it and is a lot cheaper.
FEED YOUR LAWN! FEED IT!
Well this is the first time for me that I’ve seen your name/handle and I must say....well done sir 😂
😁thank you
The conversation and hand shake & grip is a much better personal, (physical, viral and audio no less) memory and one that is etched into your brain...whereever it is...forever.
Autographs are ok, conversations much better. I got to meet Thomas Howard (BSU all-American and member of Your 1994-95 Cincinnati Reds) at his alma mater’s baseball camp while he counseled us on hitting in the cage. After he reached the majors (well, San Diego) a couple years later, I got to catch up with him at a local card shop and did get his ‘rookie’ card signed that day. Also met Ken Griffey Sr. and Doug Bair separately in college. They were guests of the WC coaching staff and a friend was showing them around. No autographs that day, but Bair was wearing his Tigers’ WS ring. Griffey, interestingly, was not.
That's a great Clemente story. I don't know if you read David Maraniss's biography of him or not. But there's a story about a girl in Philly who had a similar experience with him. Rather than saying "Thank you" after he'd given her an autograph, she said, "Gracias". He was so taken by this that he ultimately developed what would be a lifetime friendship with her.
In any case, I totally agree about baseball cards. I had a shoebox full of them in grade school. I might separate out the Pete Roses, etc... But mostly I added to the collection by flipping them at school. Do any other OGs recall games like "Closies", Farthies, Knockdowns and Standups? We'd flip those things constantly in the schoolyard. And if I do say so, I was something of a hustler :)
My 2 brothers and I slept on opposite ends of an upstairs bedroom with only the light from moon and stars faintly illuminating pitch blackness. We'd tie together these huge rubber bands we had and form bed length slingshots affixed to the bedposts and fire multiply folded into small booklike winged projectiles our baseball cards in service of the never ending quest of mutually putting our eyes out ... which we somehow never did, thank goodness. But they sure did hurt if such a blind, hard missile ever stung a soft, fleshy target ... and the grunt or whimper after the thwack when you managed such a hit in the dark was the payoff
Boys shouldn't be left alone - ever! :)