Lime Ribbon Launch Party

The Great Lakes Geek was on hand at the LimeRibbon.Com launch at the Cool Cleveland party at Crop Bistro.

LimeRibbon.Com is the result of a group of local entrepreneurs who challenged themselves to exploit the growth of social media by tying it to a shopping platform.

Details and photos from the LimeRibbon Launch


Tech Czar Michael DeAloia and Franchise King Joel Libava

Newspaper wars - Cleveland Press vs Plain Dealer

If you are too young to remember June 17, 1982 then you probably won't understand what all the fuss is about.

Likewise if you grew up getting your news from the Internet or Cable TV or even the Daily Show on Comedy Central, you can never fully understand what the golden era of newspapers was like.

In the 50's through 70's (the time frame of Gimme Rewrite, Sweetheart: Tales from the Last Glory Days of Cleveland Newspapers Told by the Men and Women Who Reported the News ) there was real competition between the morning Plain Dealer and the afternoon Cleveland Press.

And believe it or not, Cleveland was big enough for 2 daily newspapers.

This book is a collection of stories from 54 Cleveland reporters, editors and photographers that John Tidyman interviewed.



You will recognize a lot of the names and the stories will bring you back to a time that seems ancient (manual typewriters, smoky newsrooms, boozing reporters, etc) but is really not that far off.

Read my review of Gimme Rewrite, Sweetheart

Steal this Book!

According to the New York Times, this is the most shoplifted book in the modern era:

The Virgin Suicides: A Novel




Lots of teens sure get into death and goth and the macabre. Cheer up! Wait till you become an adult. Then you can complain (grin)

Here's a blurb from Publishers Weekly

Eugenides's tantalizing, macabre first novel begins with a suicide, the first of the five bizarre deaths of the teenage daughters in the Lisbon family; the rest of the work, set in the author's native Michigan in the early 1970s, is a backward-looking quest as the male narrator and his nosy, horny pals describe how they strove to understand the odd clan of this first chapter, which appeared in the Paris Review , where it won the 1991 Aga Khan Prize for fiction.

Santa has a big night coming up

Shhhh!

Let them sleep. Santa has a busy night coming up

More Christmas pictures

Cavs Dance Team, Tsingtao Dancers and beer!

Sometimes I love my job.

Last Monday I got to witness history as Tsingtao Brewery Co. signed a multi-year agreement with the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers to become the exclusive Chinese beer of Quicken Loans Arena.

The partnership is the first between Tsingtao (pronounced CHING dow), China’s most popular beer company, and an NBA team and arena in the United States.

Of course, as I explain in my postings at greatlakesgeek.com this is much more than a contract to sell beer. It opens Cleveland up to China and China up to NE Ohio.

There are a lot of photos and videos, including Cavs players and the Cavs Dance team and award-winning Tsingtao Dancers so be sure and check it out.

To top it off, free Tsingtao beer was available to everyone!

Cleveland Cavaliers Christmas

Sometimes you are lucky and sometimes not so much.

I was frustrated last year when I had an equipment failure during my interview with former HP CEO Carly Fiorina. Of all times for a breakdown!

But I got lucky with a photo of Cleveland Cavs center Anderson Varejao. I was at the Cavs and Monsters Christmas event at the Q last Monday.

I shot a lot of pics and video and posted the best on ClevelandWomen.Com.

Andy Varejao was a popular player to pose with so I shot a lot of pics of him with kids. This one picture of him with a tiny baby is a classic IMHO.

Classic Christmas Song

To me, the classic Christmas song is Silent Night. Sure, I love Run Run Rudolph by Chuck Berry (and the Keith Richards version) but Silent Night is the best.

It was great to hear the song sung, in German, at a party held by the German American Business Association on Monday.

In German, Silent Night is Stille Nacht.

Check out the short video and photos/videos of other German Christmas traditions such as cutting the stollen with a sword at ClevelandPeople.Com

Win Jim Brickman CDs

Jim Brickman was born in Cleveland and began playing piano at the age of five. He lived here until he was 28 and he says "he loved it."

He attended Shaker Heights High School after which he simultaneously took music classes at Cleveland Institute of Music and business classes at Case Western Reserve.

ClevelandWomen.Com has a contest for free Jim Brickman CDs including and autographed copy of Beautiful World.

Enter to win Jim Brickman CDs

Santa must be Polish

A classic Bobby Vinton song for the holidays

Listen here

Get invited to the Party

What began as the secret Tin Fu group has evolved into an annual lunch event hosted by the Great Lakes Geek. It's strict invite only and an eclectic group of business people, techies, sports figures, media types and others make up the annual mix.

If you want to be invited, we are raffling off 2 invitations to people who purchase the Cleveland Cooks cookbook at the special $10 holiday price (normally $15).

Proceeds from the cookbook go to Computers Assisting People (CAP).

Check out and order the cookbook in the next few days for a chance to be invited to next Thursday's bash.