Things have been slow around these parts over the past several weeks, mostly due to my heavy courseload for spring term. To further complicate matters, Blogger is doing away with FTP publishing, which will prevent future posts from getting published on Another Portland Blog unless I radically modify things. Dealing with this dillema or a transition to Wordpress is a project that's bound to be rife with headaches and require hours of heartache and hassles.

So I've decided to put the blog on hold until after finals in June when I'll have time to whip everything around here back into shape. Until then, there's always Another Portland Blog's Twitter feed if you're interested in hearing about exciting daily activities like eavesdropping on people in Stumptown and/or photos of any funny bumperstickers I come across.

Until then, take care AND STAY OUT OF MY RUM!

Labels: tech support

It could be argued that this another "inevitability" that comes with residing in Portland. If you live in this city long enough, you're bound to allow pub quizzes, coffeeshop loitering and kickball into your life, at some point. At least I've held off on adopting a pug.

Joining a kickball team is a lot like joining a fraternity. A co-ed fraternity where everyone is between the ages of 21 and 50 and gathers together on Sundays to drink cheap beer, cover themselves in mud, chase around rubber balls and gossip about one another. There's more personal drama wafting around my league than 40 years worth of Days of Our Lives episodes. At times I feel like I need a flow chart to keep up with the rivalries and track of who's sleeping with who and why one Girl X refuses to talk to Guy Y. Like a frat house, there's feuds, legends surrounding longtime members and enough inappropriate nicknames to keep former members of the Bush cabinet giggling well into Obama's second term.

Take, for example, one charismatic team captain who uses the league as his own personal "lady buffet" and finds himself continually struggling to keep his various lovers from engaging in fist fights in the middle of games. I could bring up some further anecdotes but there's always the chance that a teammate will come across this blog post. If that happened, I'd get cut from the team, or worse yet, spend the rest of the season with the nickname "That Asshole Blogger." Regardless, I'm sure that by mid-season someone who has been missing for the last five seasons will mysteriously return one afternoon to retake his position as an outfielder, proving wrong the assumption that he died in a tragic taxi bike accident in the Pearl District.

And I guess there's also the camaraderie, the friendly competition and the occasional complimentary polish dog. All in all, this old Onion article does sum up all the whole phenomenom of hipster sports leagues pretty well.

Labels: sports

School is back in session, which means most of my time lately has been devoted to reading case law and trying to figure out why a certain professor didn't order enough books for a class on political theory.

But I did see Quasi and Explode into Colors back on March 27th at the Doug Fir Lounge. Quasi was having what could be simply described as a "shit night." Lead singer and guitarist Sam Coomes couldn't get his guitar to stay in tune causing drummer Janet Weiss to snap at him a few times. All in all, they were acting like miffed ex-lovers....oh, right, they used to be married to one another.

At one point, Coomes became so frustrated that he threw his guitar at the wall and opted to play a few piano songs instead. Janet's snippy response: "well, I guess we're going to have to pay someone to tune your guitar for you on this tour!" They got through the rest of the set and someone backstage gave him another guitar to use. They closed with "It's Raining," one of my personal favorites, and a ho-hum cover of "I Can See for Miles."

The opening act, local band Explode Into Colors, was a total surprise and played a great, short set. With two percussionists and a female lead singer, they sounded sort of like a tribal Yeah Yeah Yeahs with some old black magic from the Doors sprinkled on top. Definitely a band to keep an eye on.

Labels: music