Destination resorts - love 'em or hate 'em? You'll be able to have your say next Wednesday.
Destination Resorts: Take Your Best Shot
Posted inCulture
Get Your Eyeballs Ready for BendFilm
Big Names at BendFilm
There are several facets of a film festival,
but in one respect, the festival can be split into two areas: there's
the excitement of film buffs taking in day after day of independent
cinema and then there's the filmmakers who show up in town to well,
watch other people watch their films. Oh, and those filmmakers are
hoping that the big names also in attendance take notice of their work.
This
year's BendFilm features the most significant gathering of industry
powerhouses in the festival’s existence. The most notable name
appearing is Tony Safford, head of Acquisitions Worldwide for Twentieth
Century Fox, which means he's been behind films like Little Miss
Sunshine and Thank You For Smoking. Before getting into the world of
acquisitions, Safford was the program director at the Sundance Film
Festival. So yeah, this guy knows how the festival world works - and
filmmakers are certainly hoping Safford takes a look at their flicks.
Posted inOutside
Farewell, Kimbo
There's plenty to catch up on in the sports world.
Baseball playoffs are in full swing (no pun intended) with Boston
securing the final spot in the championship series on Monday night with
an extra innings win over Anaheim, most NFL teams are nearly a third of
a way through the season, the NHL officially starts domestic play on
Thursday night and the NBA preseason is just getting underway. But
that's not what Left Field is tuned into this week. No our attention
was fixed on the world of mixed martial arts (i.e. ultimate, i.e. cage)
fighting where former street fighter, porn industry body guard and
Internet sensation Kimbo Slice was cut down just 14 seconds into a
match with a stand-in fighter on network television.
Posted inOutside
Rats, Fleas and History: And why the plague is a total bummer
Golden mantle ground squirrel mooching at Crater Lake.A little while back, I went to the defense of our much-maligned
rodent-eating reptilian friend, the Western Rattlesnake. In that piece,
I asked people to be considerate of where they go and how they act
while in rattlesnake country. The same holds true when among rodents.
No
one in their right mind would invite a rattlesnake into their lap to
munch on a rodent, the same holds true for our friendly – sometimes way
too friendly – peanut-eating, Golden Mantle Ground Squirrel,
Spermophilius lateralis.
Rattlesnakes injure and kill people by
biting and injecting venom; ground squirrels kill people by sharing
their fleas that in turn bite people and inject one of the deadliest
diseases to infect humanity: the Black Death. And, so you get the
point, the fleas that carry the disease can be found on several species
of rodents living throughout Central Oregon.
Posted inOutside
FAT City: Fat Tires and the Skinny on Body Fat
Fat fun on the Metolius Windigo.The organizers of Bend's Big Fat Tour (BBFT) called me up recently to
invite me to ride in their 14th annual mountain biking event October
17-19th. Unfortunately, I had to take a rain check, but I'll be there
next year for sure simply because founder Paul Thomasberg waxes so
poetic about it:
Posted inCulture
A Base on Balls: Mario Super Slugger is a decent addition, but no home run
Over the years there have been many Mario games that feature Mario in
different sports, including Mario Super Baseball, which was released on
the Nintendo GameCube in 2005. Like many other Mario sports games it
had a fun arcade feel, great graphics, comic voices, special super
moves and lots of fun stuff to do. Now the Wii gets its own turn with
Mario Super Slugger, a game that has its share of fun for the baseball
and Mario lover
Publisher Namco has done a great service by making
this game feel like a first-party Nintendo game by using all the great
Mario characters with a nice polish. Following in the footsteps of
Mario Superstar Baseball, Mario Super Sluggers takes the best part of
its predecessor and molds them to the Wii's controller. You can play
exhibition games on Princess Peach's new baseball island resort, or in
a RPG-type challenge mode where that rascal Bowser Jr. causes players
mayhem. There is also a collection of mini games that hone your basic
baseball skills and a welcome return of Toy Field, which adds a dash of
darts to the pitch-and-hit experience.
Posted inMusic
Big Sounds in Small Rooms and Rain in the Outback
Silver Moon in a Can?
Hey there Jake Bellows, You wanna Miller Lite?When Jake Bellows, the front man for increasingly buzzed about band Neva Dinova (see last week's issue for a full feature on the Omaha band), pulled a can of Miller Lite from behind his amp on the Silver Moon Brewing Co. stage and took a long pull, the crowd (Sound Check included) that had just had its attention super-glued to the triple guitar attack of the band cringed politely.
Posted inMusic
Have a Pint with Gaelic Storm: World music chart-topper pays first-ever visit to Bend
Wait, are you calling the fashion police on yourself?Ever have one of those nights where the house band in some Irish pub is
so much fun to sing along with and dance to that the night could
stretch into sunrise and not only would it be all right, the idea
actually makes sense because several pitchers of beer and that one
group of friends - you know the one - told you it would be OK?
Gaelic
Storm is that band. They're infectious. They're the definition of fun.
They're meant to be seen rather than heard. They have the ability to
make a show played at a venue the size of Bend's Tower Theatre, where
they'll perform Monday, feel like it's actually taking place inside
some hole-in-the-wall bar where the only drink choices are Guinness,
Harp and Irish whiskey. They're a sing-along, dance 'till you drop,
make-it-up-as-they-go, Celtic band whose music sticks in your head for
days after hearing it.
Posted inMusic
Seated, But Not Sitting Out: The subdudes go low key and lowercase
The subdudes dress for the occasion.According to the subdudes guitarist and lead vocalist Tommy Malone, the
band has decided to take a seat for a while. And he means that
literally. Just like their intentional lower-casing of their band's
name, the five-piece roots rock band with plenty of soul is stepping
back from their electric instruments to sit down in a quieter, softer
stage approach.
"We're liking this configuration so much that we're
thinking of making it a permanent thing," Malone says of the band's
seated and acoustic take on their current tour, which can be seen on
its new concert DVD to be released just three days after the subdudes’
Sunday night appearance at the Riverhouse Convention Center as part of
local radio personality Elise Michael's birthday party.
Posted inCulture
Our Picks for the week of 10/8/08
BendFilm Festival
thursday-sunday 9-12
Movies, movies, movies. Documentary movies, feature-length movies, short movies, tall movies, round movies, square movies.