These past few days have been strangely disconcerting for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. It's not just the weather but that's definitely played a factor. Consider the evidence:
From what I can tell, a million Sho Dozono and Sam Adams signs mysteriously popped up on just about every lawn in the city over the weekend. One yard I spotted even had two signs sitting side-by-side, one for each of the mayoral candidates.
A 30-minute hailstorm slammed my neighborhood late yesterday afternoon, botching an ill-conceived family jaunt to Tad's Chicken and Dumplings. When the car slid sideways while going up a hill we retreated back to O'Connors in Multnomah Village. Their sausage and chicken gumbo is pretty tasty.
While driving home tonight I encountered a gigantic Spirit Mountain Casino billboard advertising upcoming shows for Dana Carvey and Blues Traveler. While the glory days of both acts may be long gone, aren't all involved too young to go on the casino circuit? I thought you had to be over 60 to play a gig in a place like that. Blues Traveler may even have a few members of its original lineup still playing in the band. Smash Mouth is coming in April? OK, I guess the rules regarding these things have changed.
Or maybe my uneasy feelings all have to do with the fact that I saw one of this guy's ads on TV last night:
Vern Fonk, the Seattle-based insurance agent, now has a location in Portland. Oh well, his ads (only click on that link if you're willing to lose 10 - 20 minutes of your valuable time) are a lot easier to take than those old short-term loan commercials with the dancing giraffe.
On second thought, I'd go so far to say the one linked above has set the bar for all future locally-based advertising. Doc hitting Marty with the Delorian, that's downright inspired. Even Mr. Appliance never thought of that.
Bleah. Another sunny Friday on the heels of a week of miserable weather and I'm stuck in a cubicle instead of running around outdoors. To those of you celebrating or fortunate to be outside right now, have yourself a merry little holiday centered around heavy marijuana consumption.
Last Tuesday, Phil Stanford wrote a column about Portland's ongoing gallery of pricey, misguided civic improvements. The comments section accompanying the post quickly turned into a "heated discussion" and/or a "good ol' internet pissing match." Yeah, I was kinda, sorta one of the participants. His latest column in today's Portland Tribune calls out one of us for ruffling his feathers.
A huge problem facing Portland's dining establishments: "grupsters," yuppies and their reluctance to control their annoying offspring. On a recent sunny day, I was sitting out on the porch at the Goose Hollow when a group of four super-hip parents, all in their mid-30s, showed up dressed like they just stepped out of an ad for Threadless. With kids in tow, they launched a full-scale invasion of the porch, talking loudly about how the place was "owned by former mayor Vera Katz" (wrong!) while their moppets ran around screaming. Kai over at Metroblogging Portland has more on the phenomenon. If you head over there, be sure to check out the reader responses.
Thanks, Cho Seung-Hui. Not only did you kill dozens of people and traumatize untold amounts of others, the rest of us are going to have to listen to months of pundits, parents, officials and other reactionaries complain about and freak out over violent movies, video games and Hot Topic accessories. Why can't deranged mass-murderers ever obsess over, say, Failure to Launch instead of something like Oldboy? Just once I'd like to see a talking head point fingers at Sara Jessica Parker and/or Matthew McConaughey.
I guess it's only a matter of time until these restaurants start showing up here in the US. I wonder if they'll go over though. I don't know about you but I don't consider more than 10 minutes on the toilet to be an experience worth paying for.
And so ends another sub-mediocre Blazers season filled with drama and run-ins with the police but nary a playoff game. The future? It's either bright or dark, depending on who you ask.
Click here for a list of 60 things worth shortening your life for. How many of them have I done? I'd love to tell you but my mother knows about this blog. Hi, Mom!
Here's a blog devoted to restaurant logos of animals hurting themselves to put meat on customer's plates. I think the Blogosphere has finally run out of stuff to talk about. Alas, poor Clucky, we hardly knew ye...
Why the superstitions surrounding Fridays that fall on the 13th? As Garfield the cat once pointed out, Monday the 13th seems much more worthy of fear and disdain. Wikipeida, always the go-to for this sort of thing, offers a few theories.
With that out of the way, here's another round of random links:
Now that bad, ol' Don Imus has been put out to pasture, will everyone start lambasting rappers and the Bush administration for worse faux pas? Possibly, maybe, but probably not. In related news, this couch's radio days are so over.
I wonder if local business owners would be more or less upset if the recent rise in graffiti looked more like the stuff in Amsterdam. Link via Numine.
So the Beastie Boys did perform at Wieden+Kennedy's 25th anniversary shindig last week. Click here for pics.
I drive a Camry. I can see myself doing the same thing someday.
An official song for Portland? Since Jack White and Loretta Lynn's "Portland, Oregon" won't make the cut, do we hafta'?
"Wanted: A Future Without Worry." Me too, Tyler, me too. A piece of advice: if you don't have any serious job prospects, avoid adulthood as long as you can. Stay in college forever!
Another slice of Portland that makes this city so unique and/or "weird," is destined to bite the dust sooner than later. Lousy, PGE Park management. You should be encouraging fans to come down there, not discouraging. In the words of the Timbers army, "fuck you, asshole[s]!"
Good vs. Evil foosball tables? Yes, I'll take one. Oh, wait, no place to put it. Nevermind.
Finally, the following has traveled all over the internet today and who am I to decline the opportunity to further perpetuate low-budget depictions of death and mayhem? Please, enjoy.
Random Links: More Chocolate Bunnies, Please Edition
It's Good Friday and Easter is but two days away. That means it's time to celebrate the resurrection of (some people's) Lord and Savior with colored eggs and chocolate shaped like shiny, happy, anthropomorphic rabbits. Why? Well, didn't you catch this week's episode of South Park? It explains it all for you.
Anyway, since it's Friday, here's another round of random links:
The Beasite Boys may or may not be performing at a private Wieden+Kennedy function tonight over on N. Mississippi. If 50 Cent really played a gig at a Bat Mitzvah in 2005, I can believe it.
Is "My Sweet Lord" really that much more offensive than the chocolate crosses you can find for sale in every, single grocery store in this country right now for $2? Nope. At least no one was planning on eating that anatomically-correct choco-Jesus in NYC. Plus, aren't Christian into that whole "eating the body of Christ" thing? One believer's piece of stale bread is another's candy messiah.
Would I visit a 7-11 temporarily converted into a Kwik-E-Mart that sells products featured on The Simpsons? For the opportunity to double-fist a Squishee and a can of Duff Beer? You bet I would! If Oregon doesn't land the movie premiere, the least Fox and 7-11 can do is toss us a Kwik-E-Mart or two.
Click here for anti-hipster graffiti spotted over in NW.
Sorry, Mr. Orwell. At least the powers-that-be put it all off off for a few decades.
Even if Keith Richards didn't snort his father's ashes, we're going to be hearing about it for years. Does this top the Led Zeppelin/Seattle/mud shark incident? Eh....ummmm....hmmmm....no? Regardless, I think this is the last urban legend we're going to get out of the giants of '70s rock. Thanks, Keith!
$3.00 or more for a gallon of gas? Again? Didn't we drop billions in Irag so we could avoid this sort of thing? Booooo!
Five years ago, Damon Stoudamire and Rasheed Wallace recorded a "Rip City Rhapsody"-esque track back when the Blazers still had a shot at making the playoffs. I did not know that. Click here to listen.
Oregon has an official state Easter Egg and it's on display at the White House? I didn't know that either.
The War on Easter ended sometime last year. Or at least its blog hasn't been updated since then. Whew. On the other hand, the fliers could still be circulating...
