Don’t call it a restaurant. Cincinnati riverfront’s new Moerlein Lager House is not just a restaurant — this becomes brazenly clear as soon as you step into the 15,000-square-foot (without even including the underground service level) beer mecca.  

Fascinating, diverse, progressive — those are just a handful of words that are being used to describe the new 31st Ohio House District. Consisting of Amberley Village, Clifton, Clifton Heights, Evanston, Madisonville, Hyde Park, Northside, Oakley, Silverton, St. Bernard and Walnut Hills, the district contains many walks of life, including a healthy liberal population.   

This weekend, the owners of several historic homes in the area are flinging their doors open to visitors. Cincinnati Preservation Association (CPA) and Clifton Town Meeting are offering rare opportunities to see the interiors of some of Cincinnati’s most regal homes in two of the area’s grandest neighborhoods. On Saturday, the Cincinnati Preservation Association will hold a tour of East Walnut Hills homes, and Sunday is the Clifton House Tour.  

Oklahoma has become the next state to name an official Rock song — hallucinogenic art rockers The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?” (also, coincidentally, the official song of Mitsubishi). It was officially bestowed that honor earlier in the week.  

More than 4,200 “Change Is Coming” parties were held Dec. 13 and 14 across the United States, including Guam and Puerto Rico. They included about 10 held in Cincinnati neighborhoods.  

I'm the kind of person who wants to know everything about everything. It's difficult for me to admit privately, much less publicly, when I can't get my arms around an important topic. But the current financial crisis is kicking my ass.  

Nobody has ever accused Anna Faris of being the "hot chick" onscreen, but that's been her own choice. While Faris' spacey roles -- from her career-making turn as Cindy Campbell in the Scar  

Film is the toughest of all art forms. The amount of money and people necessary to create a feature-length movie inevitably leads to compromise, often at the expense of a filmmaker's original vision.  

Though he became famous as host of BET’s Comic View, Hamilton native Gary Owen didn’t have what one could call an urban upbringing. “We lived in a little trailer park on Highway 27 called Island Lake Mobile Community,” he says. Shortly after graduating from high school, a friend rousted him out of bed and took him down to the naval recruitment office.   

Julie Carpenter is still young, but she thinks old is cool. A good thing, too, as her job makes her the public’s interface with the oldest brick house in Ohio, the Betts House Research Center at 416 Clark St., two blocks west of Music Hall.