A twist of fate landed Hideki Harada behind the sushi table when he applied for a part-time job at a Japanese restaurant while in school at Ohio State University.
  

Eventually outgrowing his home-based business, Snell launched We Have Become Vikings, an OTR-based creative agency that does everything from motion graphics and illustration to branding, with one of his best buds, Mike Gibboney.
  

 Libby Hunter was used to seeing interactions between different social, economic and age groups. But after witnessing a particularly upsetting altercation where local youths began throwing rocks at a disabled client who was moving into a renovated property, Hunter took action and flipped the script.    

 As Rivertown Brewing Company CEO and brewmaster, Jason Roeper spends most of his time on the road in the company’s four main sales territories, but home is where his heart is.
  

 Currently in rehearsal for Romeo & Juliet, which opens on Valentine’s Day, Cincinnati Ballet Company corps member Sirui Liu spends most of her days — from about 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. — dancing.
  

Chris Sutton, owner and creative director of Noble Denim, didn’t go to school for fashion or business. In fact, he studied theology. But he always liked clothes and always liked working with his hands.  

Black gunmetal strikes coarse against the skin. With its stout and angular design, the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle hangs light in the hands. Shadows catch along the sharp edges of the gun's frame.   

Facing new delays and political controversy, the streetcar is once again in the news — and, for better or worse, this year’s mayoral campaign will keep it there for much of the coming year.    

A music scene is only as good as its new artists. This Friday at Bogart’s in Corryville, the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards’ first New Music Showcase takes place, featuring CEA nominees Heavy Hinges, Public, The Natives, Ohio Knife, DAAP Girls and Jeremy Pinnell and the 55s.
  

Most Cincinnatians have only known two sheriffs during their lifetime, and for a majority — almost 30 years — that sheriff was Simon Leis. Leis retired as Hamilton County’s top cop in 2012 after 25 years. He’ll be succeeded by Democrat Jim Neil on Jan. 4 — the first time in more than 36 years that a Democrat has held the office.   

With the multitude of wild and wacky end of the world parties that took place not so long ago around these parts, we at CityBeat had to search high and low for cool happenings that one-up any kind of lame, primal goat-sacrifice the Mayans would’ve held in honor of the arrival of the New Year.
  

We at CityBeat have come to terms with the fact that expectations of just about any kind usually end up blighted. In honor of arming you for a story that, in all likelihood, won’t be nearly as glitzy as you may envision, we’ve gathered anecdotes from CityBeat staffers that make for a collection of nontraditional holiday testimonials that are sometimes lame, sometimes nerdy and, in general, pretty anticlimactic.   

As it became obvious to everyone else that Abernathy was going to score, the ESPN play-by-play announcer excitedly spit out every single word of his name: “Ralph... David... Abernathy... the... fourth...”  

 For as long as humans have walked the Earth, they’ve been trying to figure out how we got here and predict how it will all end.  

 America is the type of place where people don’t read. It’s also where few people question the logic behind heeding the stone-calendar-based prophetic warnings of an ancient people whose neighbors thought the Spanish invaders on horseback were gods and not human beings.