Category: General

I carpool with Tracy and her mom every day, and our morning route goes down SW Naito Parkway.

Friday morning I saw a little diner under the Broadway Bridge. It looked old, like it had been there for years, and yet I didn’t remember seeing it before. I don’t want to bust out my “native Portlander” stories, but believe me, I’ve got native cred like you wouldn’t believe, and for all the times I’ve been around that end of the Broadway, I didn’t remember seeing that diner, called, apparently, “Bridge Diner”.

Tracy and her mom were talking when we drove past, and I’m pretty much non-talk-y in the morning, so I didn’t say anything at the time, which means I have no witnesses to verify that I noticed anything unusual Friday morning. And it promptly fell out of my head as the day went on, so I didn’t google it or anything.

Until this morning, when I checked in on the Portland Mercury blog and saw a post about a movie that’s being filmed in Portland, starring Sly Stallone and Diane Lane… and the fake diner they built under the Broadway Bridge for a set, and how it’s all weathered and Portland-ized and how Diane Lane was in “Judge Dredd”, which I clearly don’t remember at all because that movie sucked.

Not that this will convince anyone, but I’m just happy I’m not crazy in that way – the way of “not remembering diners that have been there for years” way. Yay, me!

I was born ready… to watch this trailer. It makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNZ6-p-Laa8]

Al Freakin’ Pacino?

…but, I’m sorry, Ellen Barkin is not an adequate substitute for Julia Roberts.

Although Julia probably wouldn’t have been able to top the whole meta “Julia playing Tess playing Julia” thing from “Ocean’s 12”.

My favorite line from “The Office” last night (from memory):

Ryan: It wasn’t personal…

Michael: Of course it was personal. It was business – that’s the most personal thing there is.

I actually told someone yesterday that I don’t celebrate St. Valentine’s Day because “it’s a religious holiday.” I was only partly serious – Valentinus was just a name in a list compiled in the early years of church history, and the traditions that we associate with the holiday today may have been invented out of whole cloth by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th Century. So in addition to being a tribute to romantic love, it may also be traditional to tell lies today.

At least that’s how I see it. Your views may differ.

Tracy says she used my joke about the Single Person’s Bermuda Triangle of holidays: Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Valentine’s Day. I can’t take complete credit for that joke but I don’t remember where I heard it first. For me, New Year’s Eve has always seemed more “romantic” than Valentine’s Day. Romantic movies almost never have their climax set on a day in February, but how often do the romantic leads finally get together on New Year’s Eve? Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal did. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks did. Apparently both Nora Ephron and myself see things the same way.

Nora, if you’re not doing anything tonight, contact me.

In any case, I prefer non-traditional celebrations, so even though my family knows I love them, and even though my female friends all know I love them, this one is goin’ out to my guy friends.

In a manly way.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF6rSGfUdyg]

Me: I’ve noticed that I’m getting more of these kinds of trouble tickets. It seems to indicate a pattern.

Management: That customer is probably having a problem with X. Contact that customer and have him/her do Y.

Me: …I’ve already talked to that customer. I was trying to bring your attention to the overall pattern.

Management: I am already aware of the pattern and have been working on it for some time.

Me: …so why is the pattern still occurring?

Management: …crickets chirping…

530 Christian congregations held services this past weekend, celebrating Charles Darwin’s 198th birthday and the theory of evolution.

That number is up 13% from last year, apparently.

The link above doesn’t give the entire article – one has to be a subscriber to New Scientist magazine to read the whole thing. But in the part I can read, I like this quote:

“For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science,” says Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Sunday and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis.

What? Christians are standing up to the voices of the radical right-wing Christianists who have been mixing politics and religion?

That’s awesome. The standing-up part, not the mixing-politics-and-religion part (which leads to fascism, actually).

So, happy birthday Charles Darwin, and more power to Michael Zimmerman and Evolution Sunday!

The Anna Nicole Smith story is a sad one. However, it’s really a personal one for the family and friends involved, and doesn’t have any implications for national or local public policy. It’s not really appropriate for national news shows.

Is it?

It’s such a ritual, preparing a cup of coffee. Leaving room for cream, adding just the right amount of sugar, testing it for the proper temperature, all these things must be done before it reaches the sweet spot, the brief moment in time when all the combinations of coffee-bitterness, milky-sugary-sweetness, and perfect warminosity reach their optimum apogee.

Once it’s there, it’s almost impossible for me to stop drinking it, and before I know it, the cup is empty. Not a cup half-full or half-empty, but filled with nothing but air and not precious life-giving beverage.

Today might be the 10th business day after my state tax return was accepted.

Or it might be the 9th. Depends on if you count the day it got accepted as Day 0, or Day 1.

Either way – fuckers have ANOTHER loophole. They say that you can expect your refund 7 to 10 business days after they’ve begun processing returns. And who the hell knows when that will begin? It’s not like they post that on their website.

C’mon! I’ve already received my Federal refund! Just give it up, Oregon!

Sunday morning I was walking back from the grocery store, carrying three bags of stuff to eat for the week. I saw that Old Barfy was sitting outside in front of Peggy’s apartment, next door to mine. He shouted out, “How’s ol’ Brian doin’ today?”

I nodded a hello and kept my head down as though deep in thought.

Suddenly Peggy burst out of her apartment, the screen door banging against its stop. She was wearing a faded bathrobe and was adjusting her glasses as if she’d just put them on. “Brian? Where’s your cat?” she shouted significantly.

Peggy’s normally nice to me, but because I was still in anti-social mood I wasn’t reading her correctly. Was she mad at me? Did Smacky do something bad? Or was she worried? I stopped on the sidewalk, weighted down by the bags I carried, facing her. “I think he’s in the house,” and I moved my right arm slightly towards my front door. “Why?”

She paused a minute. “Do you go up to the store?”

I was still not getting her. I gave her the confused look.

“Foster’s Market, she’s talking about,” Old Barfy offerred from his seat.

“There’s a sign up there,” she said, “about somebody pouring… something on the cats in the neighborhood.”

“It… burns ’em, or somethin’,” O.B. said.

“Like… acid?” I asked.

O.B. nodded, and Peggy continued, “Anyway, I just wanted you to know, and to keep an eye on your cat.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he was in my apartment when I left. I hadn’t noticed anything on him…” my voice trailed off.

“OK, I just wanted you to know. There’s some real weirdos out there.”

I nodded again, and then finished walking up to my front door. As I put the bags on the ground to dig out my key, Smacky came bursting out of the bushes and made a black furry streak for the front step. “Shit! There you are! I thought you were inside.”

Smacky just flopped over on his side, meowing at me, and rubbing his head on my shoe. He didn’t have anything on him that I could see.

I kept him inside the rest of the day, in spite of the weather, until he scratched me a couple of times. That’s when I threw him out briefly while I watched a movie.