After close to 40 years of participating in, writing about and photographing individual self-propelled sports, I recently developed a passion for a team sport. Not any team sport.
Teamwork: On Becoming a Pilot Butte Greenwave Hoops Fan
Posted inCulture
Playing God: Latest God of War serves up the gore gleefully
It's almost impossible for any God of War-type game to distinguish itself – even God of War III. The first game's formula, featuring hordes of enemies and weapons swinging in all directions, has been copied so much (and sometimes so well) that it has pushed the designers of God of War III to try a change of scale rather than style. Now, Kratos – the angry mortal hero on a mission to destroy the gods – is lost in ever-larger environments, to the point that he often becomes a dot in the landscape.
In the background, the peaks of Mount Olympus and the cliffs of the Underworld glow like dioramas lit with colored Christmas lights. In these settings, Kratos resembles a plastic figurine, clinging to walls like he had been glued on and sometimes even hovering slightly above the ground as though he were being held by an invisible hand.
Posted inNews
Win Tickets to the Portland Indie Invasion with The Dimes, Norman and Tortune
In a move to bring more indie rock to town, The Source and Lay it Out Events have put together the Portland Indie Invasion at the Old Stone Church, a show on Saturday night featuring three quality acts from PDX, including The Dimes, Norman and Tortune. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s our feature on The Dimes from this week’s issue.
Posted inOpinion
Toto Needs A Place, Too
The Old Mill Dog Park is a great addition to the city of Bend. However, it has a design flaw. Since there is no dedicated small dog play area, large and small dogs are forced to share the space, and often, their play is dangerously rough. The park is large enough to partition a safe, small dogs (30 lbs. and under) only area.
As the owner of a friendly and well-behaved retired racing greyhound, I've spent upwards of an hour waiting for small dogs to clear out of the park so my dog can go in without causing alarm to small dog owners. I wait because, although my dog is not aggressive, her breed is trained to chase and hunt small prey, and I won't take the chance of her grabbing a small dog, even at play.
Posted inNews
Bragging Rights: Thirty years of bracketology
It started just over three decades ago when a friend and fellow sports nut asked me who I thought would win the NCAA basketball tournament. I told him.
Posted inNews
Over the Top and Off the Deep End at The Bulletin
The first thing I turn to after I bring in my copy of The Bulletin every morning is the editorial page. I never know what kind of inspired idiocy I’ll get to read as I eat my Cheerios.
Posted inNews
Strings Abound: The Portland Cello Project plays tonight for free
Forget everything you know about cellos. Did you do that yet? Even Yo-Yo Ma? How about your time in the elementary school orchestra? Memory wiped clean? Good, because you need to realize that a group out of Portland has decided to make the cello — actually a whole s-load of cellos — cool.
Posted inOutside
Signs of Spring: Daffodils, white legs and PPP entry forms mark the season
This weekend came in like a lamb and went out like a lion, fitting for the first weekend of spring in Central Oregon.
After a gray El Nino winter, I think everyone in Bend went bonkers on Saturday when it was sunny and 71 degrees. It was hard to choose what to do that day, so most of us just tried to cram in as many outdoor activities as possible. I got in a road ride up to Wanoga without my neoprene booties and a run in shorts (exposing my winter-white legs) along the river trail. Bikers, runners and paddlers were scattered all over the place.
By Sunday, a front came through, bringing fresh snow to the mountain and blowing all my over-optimistically unveiled adirondack chairs off the deck. Oh well, that's how it goes, but the signs of spring are unequivocal – the daffodils are blooming and the PPP entry forms are out.
Posted inCulture
Repossess This! Harvesting organs reduces Repo Men to the sum of its bloody parts
Sharing nothing in common with Alex Cox's 1984 punk-rock-crazy Repo Man yet more aligned with Darren Lynn Bousman's 2008 film Repo!: The Genetic Opera, this Repo Men has some wit, violence and gore, but also some problems. Like Saw VI, this film provides commentary (albeit only at surface level) on the current health care debate.
Repo Men introduces us to the future with a news voiceover montage of how things came to be: global recession, fifth stage of war in Nigeria, technological breakthroughs. A corporation called The Union manufactures technologically sophisticated artificial organs, or “artiforgs” marketed and sold to gullible customers at exorbitant prices. The downside lies in the fine print that tells patients that if payments aren't made, hotshot repo men are sent to cut them open and yank out the bionic organ. Then, of course, you die.
Posted inCulture
Dead People's Court
Guys, I should TOTALLY be a judge on one of those daytime courtroom shows! You know, like Judge Judy, or Judge Joe Brown, or Judge Judgey McJudgerson? I'd be all sassy (and possibly black) and smackin' down the witnesses with snappy quips such as, “Hey! Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining pee!” Or “Don't slice off my head with an ax and tell me it's a pencil sharpener!” Or “Shut your G-D baloney-hole or I'll kick the tongue out of your yap.” (Okay… that one needs work.)
But instead of settling arguments in the old-timey, boring, legal way, my courtroom would have a super-cool twist – such as Judge Wm.™ Steven Humphrey's Kangaroo Court! Basically it would be like other courtroom shows, except at the end, the loser would be kicked in the face by a kangaroo. Another amazingly awesome idea would be Judge Wm.™ Steven Humphrey's Famous Court Cases Reenacted by Chimps. Is that title too vague? Basically I reenact famous court cases – with chimps. Like the Scopes Monkey Trial? Admit it… I'M BRILLIANT.