This is Portland, we do what we like. This is Portland, we do what we like.

Get here by mid-march and you can come watch the last ep of BSG with us at the bagdad.

Anybody up for wandering down to Pioneer Square to laugh at the Teabaggers today? Apparently they're going to be there at 6pm on...

well that was depressing. I need a drink now.

haha

anything noteworthy?

1000 different versions of 'FUCK YOU / GOT MINE' on placards, held up by suburbanites, chanting either USA or 'Our Voice will be heard,' b/c holding your demo in a city that voting overwhelming for the democrats in power and turned out for Obama to the tune of 75K in May makes obvious sense.

KPAM was there to provide rightwing vitriol and a PA.

Handful of counter-protestors, but the whole vibe was horrible so I had to relocate to the Low Brow for booze and to play with the new wireless toy here.

Photos to come. These people are pathetic & infantile.

I will probably be at the trail blazers rally at the same location tomorrow afternoon. It promises to be a little bit more fun than today's shenanigans.

Okay, several beers at the Low Brow and now home and I'm doing better now.

Still need two housemates, so, like, if y'all know anybody, gimme a holler.

Anybody going to the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend? I'll be there helping out.

Might be doing if i get back into town on time

Warm day finally. Taking a break from Stumptown for nap run. Place is filled with people, and the Wondermark guys are here.

I'm in LA for the weekend. Sounds like I didn't miss much. If I was in town, I'd go see Spinal Tap acoustic at the Keller tomorrow.

Jesus Christ. We finally have warm days here and what happens? Some lady goes shopping at Bridgeport Village and leaves her pug in her SUV. Oh, but she leaves the window cracked a few inches!

The results were predictable, and here's the kicker:

She then covered the dog with a carpet and went back to the store.

Well, 39th Avenue is now officially Cesar Chavez Blvd!

Glad to see we have our priorities straight. Unemployment is at 12.4, second in the nation. And we have the added perk of having the 25th worse traffic in the United States.

Thanks Portland!

I wish they wouldn't have named it that; 'Cesar Chavez Avenue' has a much better flow to it.

God this really happened? I'm so glad I live on Mt Tabor.... hope it erupts soon and lays waste to you all!

Trek in the Park starts today at 5pm! Woodlawn Park in Northeast, where they're doing a live production of "Amok Time"

Also, today is the Mississippi Street Fair, and it'll probably thunderstorm! hooray!

Move to Portland? Maybe? Good idea or no?

Yeah dude. Portland is great. I've lived here most of my life and have a hot and cold relationship with the town, but today I officiated an old friend's wedding, dj'd the reception, drank rad beer at the afterparty, then came home and walked to this amazing Korean taco truck in my neighborhood ($2 bulgogi tacos!) and am now drinking more awesome beer in my favorite bar. Good day that couldn't happen for me anywhere else.

I guess that's less to do with pdx and more me bein' like hell yeah life occassionally surprises you by being fuckin awesome but it's as good an argument as I can muster: sure, come to Portland because I had a great day.

rev, NO!!!

Portland is awesome, just go ahead and move here, you'll love it. But get a job lined up first. The market's a nightmare atm.

Also Clay I think my roommate was at that wedding.

Korean taco truck

heresy!

I was planning on getting a job lined up before leaving. Thinking I want to get some interviews lined up for next week. That would be a good time to go down there.

So where do I want to live? Where do I not want to live? How's the weather compare to Seattle?

(don't you worry tza, I'll only be a few hours away)

portland is dope imo

Rev - definitely get a job lined up first. If you have one, it's the best city you could hope to live in.

Are you in Seattle now? What neighborhood? Do you like it? That will help me recommend where you want to live here.

Blindly, I'll suggest SE (west of 39th and north of Powell) or North Portland in the Mississippi area. Fuck living on the west side.

I live in lolEverett, 25 miles north of Seattle. I do not like it.

So basically, meth-infested, working class suburbs are out.

that came out kind of bad

Nick, if so plz apologize to your roommate for how nervous I was. Hadn't had a hundred strangers staring at me in awhile.

Rev -- what kind of work are you looking for? Portland's a real you gotta know people to get a job sorta place and I'm sure we'd all ne happy to put feelers our for you in whatever line your in.

I'm lol drunk excuse me.

Move to Portland?

On the plus side:

It is a real city and it is a mostly very pleasant place. This is not a combination you find very often. The climate is moderate, never too cold and only rarely hot. You can drive to Mt Hood, the Columbia River gorge, or numerous ocean beaches, spend the day there, and drive home to sleep in your own bed that same night. Good restaurants. Powell's City of Books. Active local music scene. Trees everywhere.

On the minus side:

Unemployment is just a bit behind Detroit and ahead of almost anywhere else you can name. You rarely see the sun from November to April. Second rate museums, library and other high-culture amenities. Enough like a small town that you can't avoid meeting the same people wherever you go - even people you loathe. Go back and read the first "minus" again; let it sink in.

Aimless speaks the truth. Our museum is second rate at best. But we do have OMSI!

I love it here, just wish I could find a job.

fwiw, I have a rather specialized skill set (tap dance instruction) that a few ppl in the PDX area seem to be looking for (in contrast to Seattle) at the moment. That's what drew my attention in the first place. Most of the stuff Aimless describes is either a non-factor (lol when does my uncultured ass ever go to a museum? does anyone in the active Portland music scene make music I'd be interested in? I have my doubts) or pretty much the same as Seattle so

More than likely there are people around here who make tunes you'd dig.

So my brother-in-law called my wife tonight with a crazy story. He was walking home through downtown and ran into a guy who said he was from Burkina Faso, and was in Portland to settle an insurance claim for his brother who died in a plane crash (which my b-i-l had heard about). Guy was allegedly on his way out of the country, couldn't bring the money, and was waiting for an airport limo that was about to pick him up. He wanted to give him $30,000 to give to a homeless shelter and keep $2k for himself. They were sitting a coffeeshop somewhere, the guy showed him a huge stack of money, and refused to take a business card or any personal info - he just wanted the money donated in his name. Wrapped the money up, said some incantation, gave a name and address in Burkina Faso, and asked him not to open it for 8 hours before getting into a limo and driving away.

Brother-in-law gets back to his apartment, super suspicious, starts wigging out, and IMs my wife, we're trying to figure out what was going on, debating if he should talk to a lawyer, the cops, or just stress that some random gangsters bust into his place at 4am looking for their money. He goes out for a smoke, can't take it anymore, opens the bag...and finds a big stack of newspaper. Checks his shit, isn't missing wallet, phone, laptop, anything at all.

Anybody heard of anything like this before? A test run for some sort of scam, I presume, like a real-life 409 scam? Did my brother in law give off some clue that he wasn't going to actually get scammed out of money and the guy cut it short? Dudes's pretty savvy, has traveled quite a bit, is really smart, and isn't the type of guy to fall for anything obviously flakey so we're all wondering, what was the point?

woah.

i don't even know what to do with this.
it's like the nigerian money guy but irl and what????

....that's an odd story.

yurrr

Yeah the whole thing is very odd, and nobody can figure out the point. Best guess is that there's a step missing where the guy gets you to wire money to him or hit the ATM or otherwise gets money from someone, which for whatever reason he didn't pull on my brother-in-law because he didn't seem like he'd have money or wasn't gullible enough. I was just curious if real life Nigerian money scams are the new thing in Portland.

Oh yeah, kids are always pulling irl Nigerian scams on their fuckin' fixies around here. No brakes, of course. Dicks.

the internets be whylin out irl

This happened to my sister about 20 years ago, except the woman with the stack of money claimed to not trust banks (they were thieves, in her country) and had my (incredibly naive) sister show her that she could take out as much $$ from her account as she wanted. After my sister withdrew a significant sum from her bank account, the woman wanted to wrap it up with her own money in a special cloth, cast a spell over it, and then gave the package back to my sister for safe-keeping until the next day. (IIRC, some guy claiming to be the woman's relative showed up at this point with some sort of family emergency claim.) Of course when my sister finally unwrapped the package it was nothing but newspaper. So it's a scam that's been around a long time, but maybe the guy your BIL ran into forgot the part about the matching funds.

on the bright side, now your b-i-l has a bunch of free newspaper

So maybe I biked away from Pioneer Square too early tonight....

http://siliconflorist.com/2009/07/15/dave-chappelle-portland-twitter-rumor-hoax/

I just moved out here from Tampa about 8 months ago. I can't believe I haven't gone out to see some live music yet; that was one of the main draws to get me out here in the first place (that and getting a job). I only know one other person out here, but he's not really into music.

Not sure if it was a typical winter here in PDX (everyone says it wasn't), but I think I'll be moving back to Tampa again soon, lol.

bye