http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/ en-us 2009-11-15T11:10:24-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/034202.html Dispatch, 12/01/99: There are only a few instances in my lifetime where a discovery has been of such great importance that it has virtually changed our understanding of history. I have a feeling I have just made such a discovery. The cave's diminutive tunnel system has opened up into a large anteroom. The place is caked in fine layers of earth. Some work will be required to learn the true contents of this room. I would like to report that I'm up to the challenge. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-11-15T11:10:24-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/033970.html The very purpose of this blog series was to chronicle my exploration and growth as a home-kitchen barista. I must, however, take this time to discuss coffee in the workplace--specifically my workplace. I don't work in one of those big, cold offices filled with cubicles and ID badges. My company doesn't have a big kitchen with a Superior or Bunn coffee monster that brews two pots at once and has an internal water system. We have a small drip coffee maker used almost exclusively by two employees (myself and another). So our needs were relatively simple when we went shopping for a coffee maker two years ago. We needed a machine that would be able to brew 12 cups and keep them warm, in case we had clients in for a meeting. We also needed to buy a machine that had an attractive carafe, again for those client meetings. After doing some browsing on Amazon, the two of us chose a Cuisinart 12-cup thermal, programmable coffee maker. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-11-04T15:24:16-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/033907.html The city of Columbus, Ohio, is an oasis in a sea of wheat. I find the state of Ohio to be painfully flat and dull, dotted with famous cities that all happen to start with the letter C. Columbus just may be the nicest of those cities--although to be fair, I haven't been to Cincinnati, mainly because it's so difficult to spell. My family went to Columbus, along with ten thousand or so other hockey fans, to see the Pittsburgh Penguins play the Blue Jackets. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-11-03T08:09:25-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/033816.html Today marks the end of GeoCities, that bastion of mid-90s web publishing. The service laid the groundwork for blogs, allowed people to develop web coding skills, and gave kids an outlet to dump their crap onto the web long before places like MySpace and LiveJournal came around. Sure you had to put up with a long, convoluted URL, but everyone was used to that sort of thing back then. This was a simpler internet time, a time before Google and Flash gunked up everything. Pure HTML. Bizarre GIF animation. Guest books. I never moved to GeoCity. I never set up residence in one of its strange neighborhoods filled with tiled backgrounds so ugly they make MySpace look like the Louvre. No, I was a citizen of that burgh down the road: Angelfire. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-10-27T19:08:38-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/033372.html Me and zombies go way back. They're all the rage now, of course, spawning enough videogames and films to be a healthy sub genre in horror. A more recent development, at least on a mass market scale, is zombie literature. Zombie books have been around for quite some time, but novels like World War Z added a dose of bile into the main stream. I loved that book. So naturally, just hearing the title Pride and Prejudice and Zombies brought unbridled undead glee to my heart and put a drag in my step. The premise was simple, yet brilliant: add zombies to the classic Jane Austen novel. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-10-06T20:36:07-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/033305.html So Starbucks unveiled their new instant coffee today called Via. The world didn't end, the Seattle Space Needle didn't launch into the atmosphere, and Crystal Pepsi didn't suddenly return to store shelves. When I was in Starbucks this morning, ordering a red eye, I couldn't help but notice the small boxes of little packets flanking me on all sides. Standing in the corner of the store was a barista with a diminutive table and tiny cups. Man, everything felt so small in there... except for my red eye, which was a large. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-10-02T10:46:12-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/033251.html It's been a while since I've prattled on about Dodge Intrepid and the Pages of Time, the radio show that I co-write and perform. This is mainly due to the fact that the last show we did was in May. It's been a long summer, and James and I took our time writing this next installment. The great news is that it's finally finished, and just about ready to be performed. The Riot Act, as this set of episodes is titled, is all about anarchy, chaos, and confusion. Oddly enough, the idea came about well before any talk of the whiny protesters ascending on the city of Pittsburgh for the G20. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-09-30T07:59:11-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/033124.html I always have these lofty dreams each time I decide to go yard sailing, as if I'm going to find that rare gem amidst a sea of thick 1980s finance books, crooked picture frames, and kinda-used-for-a-week exercise equipment. Like so many other dreams that fill my head, this idea is quickly squashed by musty reality and little, neon pink price tags. I never find anything really good at a yard sale. Except this past weekend. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-09-26T09:40:48-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/032554.html only news station made for high schoolers! Like, we're here with some pretty sweet reaction and commentary from our Channel One News panel on the speech our president, Barack Obama, just gave to students across the country! First, let's introduce the panel! ]]> non_academic MikeRubino 2009-09-08T14:54:25-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/032461.html 1. Don't touch my stuff. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-09-05T09:18:40-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/032135.html If anything, the $5 Bin was a wonderful social experiment. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-08-27T20:34:49-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/032110.html This past weekend was the last time Kennywood's classic ride, The Turnpike, would be in operation. If you've ever been to Kennywood, you'll recall it's that noisy track filled with jalopies right when you emerge from the tunnel into the park. The ride will be replaced with some newfangled roller coaster. Thankfully, the Turnpike will be reconstructed elsewhere within the park by 2010. This will give Kennywood, with the help of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, plenty of time to bring the ride up to the current trends of highway travel. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-08-17T09:35:38-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/032099.html This blog series was created in the summer of 2008, after my brother gave me a steam-powered home espresso machine, the DeLonghi Caffe Parma BAR6, for my birthday. Since that time, my experiments with the espresso maker have been sporadic and with varying degrees of success. This blog series chronicles my experiments, failures, and successes as a home-kitchen-barista... It's been almost a year since my last installment in the Mean Bean series non_academic MikeRubino 2009-08-10T16:41:14-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/032098.html I don't toot my horn much--at least, while driving. You know, unless someone is about to hit me or something. Or occasionally if the guy in front of me is texting when the light turns from red to green. That's about as far as I go. I don't really beep at people I know, and I'd just as soon call on my phone instead of honking when I'm picking up a friend. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-08-08T09:43:30-05:00 http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/032074.html I fear it's possible that my generation, and those of generations younger than mine, will find the need for communities and neighborhoods secondary thanks to the ever shrinking world. With the Internet, social networks, cell phones, and online games, I sometimes wonder if we're all drawing away from each other. Are we refusing to put down roots and invest in any sort of community in favor of the cold connections that photo tagging and commenting provide? Are we using Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to fool ourselves into thinking we're more connected to our friends than we really are? I don't think these questions are too unbelievable or extreme. Hopefully future generations will turn back and realize how important neighborhoods, communities, and personal connections are to this country. Strong communities build trust, promote safety, and spur good business practices. And while this is certainly an issue that requires much more elaboration and discussion, I must digress to perhaps one of the better side effects of rooting oneself in a community: The Usual. non_academic MikeRubino 2009-07-29T07:51:47-05:00