Last Thursday photos
Went to Last Thursday last night with Alan and some friends. Took some pictures. Last Thursday is a revelrous jaunt through Portland's Alberta Arts district, far removed from its swank cousin, First Thursday. For those of you adept at analogies, here's a concise summary of the atmosphere:Last Thursday : First Thursday :: Voodoo Donut : Wildwood Restaurant
Speaking of running for president
The protagonist of the book I'm reading has strong feelings about running for president. Though he's Harvard-educated, a war hero, and charming, he has fundamental issues with the job requirements:Deep in my heart I really did not want to be president of the United States. If you pay a certain amount that varies according to his political fortunes, you get to stand next to the president and have your picture taken, and he has to smile. The only other being that I have known who is paid to stand next to you as your picture is taken was a chimpanzee on the Boardwalk at Coney Island. His name was Tony, and he smiled only if he liked you.
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"I'm still a Baptist, but I'm no longer a Republican"
This week's New Yorker has a great article about Errol Morris's upcoming "Switch" tv ads. Remember the spots last year with PC users talking about their conversions to Macs? Oh, the joys of effortless connectivity! No more blue screen of death! Morris directed the ads and now has a new batch: Republicans who voted for Bush in 2000 and will now vote for Kerry. With a specialized "interrotron" camera that superimposes the interviewer's face on the lens so that the interviewee looks directly at the viewer, the commercials have a low-budget, homey feel. MoveOn.org (one'a them pesky 527s) had its visitors vote on their favorite, and the first ones will be appearing soon. View them all online.Aimee Mann loves Portland
And we reciprocate. Last night, the Aladdin was full of love for the indie songstress. Twenty- to forty-somethings swayed in their seats, enraptured by her lithe but surprisingly powerful presence. Clad in a magenta jacket and pink tie, she alternated between guitars, bass, and piano, playing songs from all of her solo albums. I even expected a cheeky Voices Carry, but those MTV days are long behind her. While she didn't play my two favorites, Momentum and Frankenstein, her chorus of Stupid Thing was frustratingly relevant to me right now. And of course there was the requisite intelligent between-song banter. She commented on Tom Cruise's probable misunderstanding of the phrase "bring it," and she segued with a stilted "irregardless," bringing a chuckle from "the three people in the audience who still read." Catering to her band's penchant for cheesy seventies party songs ("those that balance the line between sucking and greatness"), she closed with an enthusiastic Taking Care of Business. Openers Honeydogs played catchy, Costello rock with deadpan narrative interludes. Yet again, the Aladdin confirms its place as the best music venue in the city.International cat agility tournament
According to Willamette Week, all the cool kids will be a the International Cat Agility Tournament this Saturday. The pictures from past competitions are full of death-defying stunts like walking up ramps, jumping through hoops, and napping. Somehow, I can't muster any enthusiasm unless those cats are swinging around uneven bars like adolescent Romanians with scrunchies and glitter makeup.sword.setType(vorpal)
Turdhead (which, in my opinion wins the award for best site name, as long as it's not moderated by eighteen-year-old boys) has ported Jabberwocky to ActionScript. My favorite chunks:son.beware(jabberwock);
son.beware(bird.jubjub);
son.shun(bandersnatch['frumious']);
[1,2,1,2].concat(['through'],['through']);Of course, the code has spurred inevitable comments from purists, including one who points out that the vorpal blade needs to be aliased to the vorpal sword. From Boing Boing.
son.blade.snicker_snack();
jabberwock.isDead = true;
son.attachMovie(jabberwock.head, 'hisHead', 1);
delete jabberwock.head;
F apostrophe
My friend Mel visited this weekend and introduced me to an avenue of vocabulary I've clearly been lacking: abbreviated expletive superlatives. For example, my friends' band doesn't just rock, and to say it "fucking rocks" would be tedious. Instead, their band f'rocks. (Pronounced "fuh-rocks.") And grandma, your lemonade is f'awesome ("fossom"). Mel insists that punctuation matters (understandably, since I'm always f'right, not a fright). Apparently the rule requires hyphens for combinations leading to unpronounceable consonant collisions: f-nasty and f-sucks. Use this new power sparingly. You wouldn't want to come across as f-stupid.Six degrees of Rod Steiger
Review of The Tipping Point over in reading, too.Punctuation nerds, unite!
Review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves over in reading.Bridge Pedal photos
I had a great time meandering the various bridges and one-way streets of Portland with 15,000 other bicyclists yesterday. Took a few photos. Apparently Bridge Pedal is the third largest ride in the world, surpassed only by Montreal and New York. It's probably also the third-largest horde of Luna bars and bananas, as well.
Poor website design for a design conference
The NW Design Collaborative is holding a festival for Portland design (print, industrial, digital) in October. Their website, while pretty, shows an appalling lack of design. The graphics are gorgeous, but what's with the itty graphical text at the bottom? Repurposed print flyer? To find out anything about the conference, you have to open Flash in a separate window and sit through a 12-second intro (with no skip button). The navigation consists of cryptic terms: worth, quality, use, merit, and credit, which have nothing to do with the content you see when you click on them. The cursor over the scrollbar changes to a hand as if the scrollbar were a link. Oh, and my main goal was to find out the time and location of the conference. I couldn't find them. Sorry for the Monday morning tirade; bad design makes me cranky.Bloggers at the "very nice democratic convention"
From this week's This Modern World cartoon: "Bloggers are a big story this year -- possibly because there is no other news."Clearly a sign I should attend the conference this year
Got another brochure today for Nielsen Norman Group's User Experience conference. And, guess who appears mere inches from the publicity shot of Jakob Nielsen?
The back of my head has never been so near celebrity.
Indie mag face-off
This Saturday, ReadyMade and The Believer will prove which is the superior San Francisco indie magazine through a true test of journalistic mettle: a ping pong game. Plus, there will be readings and music and lots of people with black nerd-frame glasses (oh, those are so 2001, you say).Come as you are
Someone new just moved into the apartment beneath me. The music coming through the floorboards today has included A Prairie Home Companion and Nirvana's Nevermind album. This might be a neighbor to meet.Verb of the day was "plummet"
Flügtog filled Waterfront Park to capacity, so we watched the festivities from the Hawthorne Bridge. We eventually got in and had a great view of the A-Team van plunge into the river (228K movie). Some other photos:
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