There are a lot of litmus tests for sports fans. There's your Superfan who can tell what years that Sandy Koufax won the Cy Young and what his ERA was in each of those seasons. There's The Schwab - ESPN's in house statistician turned game show/freak show on Stump the Schwab - who can tell you well, everything. Then there's your average fan who can tell you, given some time, who won last year's NFC title game, ALCS Championship and BCS Series.
An easier way to differentiate between guys who know about sports and guys who know of sports is to make a reference to Erin Andrews.
Eric Flowers
Going with the Flow
Spring time is the right timeAh, March. The sweet smell of spring is in the air. Flowers are soon to bloom, songbirds are starting to sing, and migratory species - including violet green swallows – are soon to return. And the skies are beginning to clear. The mountains stand tall and proud, displaying their wintry carpets. Sunrises and sunsets are unparalleled. Flaming mosaics paint the morning and evening skies, lighting up the forested foothills and Cascades. This is the perfect time and place for outdoor recreating. Climbing, hiking, mountain biking, running, alpine skiing, road biking, paragliding, skateboarding, snowboarding, kayaking, bouldering, Nordic skiing and many more self-propelled outdoor sports are prime during Central Oregon's springtime.
The Joke is on Us
Rumors have been swirling that the closure of Jokers Bar and Grill (the downtown nightclub/disaster in the former Elks building on Greenwood) is imminent. No surprise after owner Todd Sampson and his wife we’re recently charged with writing tens of thousands of dollars in bad checks in an apparent attempt to keep the bar afloat.
Pre-Historically Crappy
Where is siegfried when you need him. From the director responsible for Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow comes a movie without "day" in the title.
I didn't care for Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow is one of the worst movies ever made. As if that's not enough, Emmerich's list of credits also includes Stargate - the first movie I ever walked out of. Perhaps not surprisingly, 10,000 BC is a worthy successor to all those half-efforts.
I'm no historian, but I'm pretty sure that tribal cave-like men hunting mastodons didn't co-mingle with the Egyptians building the pyramids, as this movie wants us to believe.
They speak in English, but their phony "accents" are anywhere from Bulgarian to German to British to Pathetic. Unbelievably, it's narrated by Omar Sharif, who I thought might have even been faking an accent.
High-Level Hanky Panky: The heist film gets even grittier
No Life Til Leather The title of the new heist thriller, The Bank Job, doesn't begin to describe the twists and turns this film takes, as it delves into 1970s British society. What initially appears to be another buddy-burglary story, much like the Ocean franchise, Snatch, or The Italian Job, instead unravels into a Serpico-style exposé. Only because we know from the outset that the film is based on true events is the audience able to believe an otherwise nearly implausible story.
The 1971 Baker Street bank robbery was under a government gag order for 30 years; no arrests were made, nor was any money ever recovered. After thieves tunneled into a bank vault in London's Baker Street, they looted safe deposit boxes of cash, jewelry, and incriminating evidence. Though the robbery made headlines, the story disappeared almost immediately, because of a "D" notice, which gagged the press.
Dinner Club Rules!
As of late, Bend is becoming known as a food destination. It wasn’t always that way.
When I first moved here in 1996, eating out was a rare event. I was working for peanuts, just like everyone else I knew. And there were only a few good places to go. Deschutes Brewery and Bend Brewing Company were always a good bet, and my husband liked Dude’s Night at McKenzie’s, where he could grab a cheap burger and beers with the guys, or indulge in Bend’s only salad bar. Ethnic food was even more challenging. We could get decent Thai at Toomie’s, or basic Italian at Giuseppe’s. But even good Mexican food was hard to come by in those days – never mind Indian, Spanish or Ethiopian.
So potluck dinner parties became the default dining option among our 20-something crowd. Nary a week went by that we didn’t bring “something to grill and something to share” to one friend or another’s Westside hovel.
Dinner Club Rules!
As of late, Bend is becoming known as a food destination. It wasn't always that way.
When I first moved here in 1996, eating out was a rare event. I was working for peanuts, just like everyone else I knew. And there were only a few good places to go. Deschutes Brewery and Bend Brewing Company were always a good bet, and my husband liked Dude's Night at McKenzie's, where he could grab a cheap burger and beers with the guys, or indulge in Bend's only salad bar. Ethnic food was even more challenging. We could get decent Thai at Toomie's, or basic Italian at Giuseppe's. But even good Mexican food was hard to come by in those days - never mind Indian, Spanish or Ethiopian.
So potluck dinner parties became the default dining option among our 20-something crowd. Nary a week went by that we didn't bring "something to grill and something to share" to one friend or another's Westside hovel.
Mo’ Bo, Mo’ Betta: The Typhoon! family expands up
Typhoon! with a twist at RestobarBo and Steven Kline continue to expand their Asian restaurant empire throughout the Northwest with the opening of Bo Restobar in downtown Bend. The restaurant/bar is located just a few paces from their other new restaurant, Thypoon!, in the Franklin Crossing building.
While Typhoon! has a vast menu of traditional – and not so traditional – Thai dishes, Chef Kline bills Bo Restobar, as more of an “artisitc approach” to Asian foods, blending Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese dishes, and tossing in some choice Thai recipes for good measure.
Keeping with the Klines’ honed sense of interior space and clean, atmospheric décor, Bo Restobar greets diners with lots of glass, a sleek bar and a wall-sized fountain. Tropical floating flowers adorn the tables and stylized portraits of Chef Kline grace the walls.
Mo’ Bo, Mo’ Betta: The Typhoon! family expands up
Typhoon! with a twist at RestobarBo and Steven Kline continue to expand their Asian restaurant empire throughout the Northwest with the opening of Bo Restobar in downtown Bend. The restaurant/bar is located just a few paces from their other new restaurant, Thypoon!, in the Franklin Crossing building.
While Typhoon! has a vast menu of traditional - and not so traditional - Thai dishes, Chef Kline bills Bo Restobar, as more of an "artisitc approach" to Asian foods, blending Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese dishes, and tossing in some choice Thai recipes for good measure.
Keeping with the Klines' honed sense of interior space and clean, atmospheric décor, Bo Restobar greets diners with lots of glass, a sleek bar and a wall-sized fountain. Tropical floating flowers adorn the tables and stylized portraits of Chef Kline grace the walls.
WHY WE PROTEST
This week's letter of the week goes to Phillip Randall. Thanks for the hyperbole-free letter, Phil. You can pick up your $25 gift certificate to Dinner's Ready this week at our offices, 704 NW Georgia. For all the rest of you, the woodshed if officially open for business.
After all the polarizing letters about the ongoing wars and recruiting it is nice to see a letter like Stephanie Bearse's (letters 2-27). Since she seems to be listening, I'm replying in the same spirit of reconciliation.
We in the peace movement have spent the last five years protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and though there has been a dramatic shift in popular opinion against the wars this work has been at times dangerous and frustrating.
I would like to address her point about talking to our representatives. And I'm going to give Rep. Greg Walden, Sen. Gordon Smith and Sen. Ron Wyden grades based on their listening skill. We have really tried to lobby our three representatives, and to be perfectly honest I'm disappointed by their responses.

