Is Bend, Oregon on its way to becoming known as the national capital of weirdness?
Things Are Stranger Here?
Posted inNews
Wrong Address, But Right Neighborhood
Blogger Jeff Mapes at The Oregonian discloses that the Jeff Merkley campaign made a boo-boo in its latest attack video against Gordon Smith: The posh home on Country Club Drive in Bethesda, MD that the video identifies as Smith's actually isn't.
Posted inNews
Battered Bend Builders Beg Bend for a Band-Aid
Builders in Bend want the city to kick-start their stalled industry by giving them a break on Systems Development Charges.
Posted inOpinion
Don’t Rock the Mountain
Lettter of the Week
This week’s feature letter comes from Evelyn Dong who presents us with a contrasting viewpoint on the Tumalo Backcountry proposal — from a skier’s perspective. Thanks for the letter Evelyn.
Posted inMusic
Whiskey, Wednesday and Alice Cooper
Guest Artist Jack Daniels not Pictured.Whiskey was the drink of choice last Wednesday at the Midtown
Ballroom. Yes, this is still very much a beer town, but the harder
stuff came out to greet a pair of Southern-flavored acts in Drive-By
Truckers and openers Dead Confederate. The brown stuff made an
appearance on stage as well, but we'll get to that in a moment.
Sound
Check wasn't quite sure what to expect from the Midtown on this warm
Wednesday night - mid-week shows are tough to gauge. It can either be a
total sell-out or a night of chirping crickets, we can never quite
figure it out. But a respectable crowd of seemingly die-hard Truckers
fans filled up about half of the Midtown's concrete floor, creating
what we'll call a "mid-sized" crowd.
Athens Georgia's Dead
Confederate opened the show with a slightly psychedelic,
reverb-intensive set that included a good chunk of the band's
increasingly popular EP as well as some lengthy yet soaring
improvisations.
Posted inCulture
Cascades Theatrical Co. and the Tower Theatre Ponder: Ya wanna put on another show?
Dee Torrey: Man on a mission.Executives at the Cascades Theatrical Co. (CTC) and the Tower Theater
are contemplating future big-budget musical productions in the wake of
the "success" of their first collaboration, Urinetown: The Musical
(UTM). UTM completed its two-weekend run May 11.
Rickey Minder, who played UTM's Little Sally, said she appreciated the opportunity for growth that production provided.
Her
response is noteworthy, and not because it's unexpected of an aspiring
actress who was previously cast in a non-speaking role in CTC’s recent
production of The Fantasticks, which ran on its NW Greenwood stage last
February. Rather, the response of this 21-year-old Idaho native and
competitive hip-hop dancer illustrates the sort that Torrey works to
foster in his "troupers." The CTC exists to accomplish three major
purposes, Torrey explained in another interview: "We want to do good
theater, and [that means some] heavy drama. We want to educate the
public, and give our actors a chance to grow."
Posted inOutside
Pigeons vs. Soccer
HEY, IT COULD HAVE BEEN
BUD COLLINS…
Apparently the only thing dropping from Wimbledon faster than Americans and top-seeds are the pigeons.
Championship
officials last week hired an assassin to take out pigeons who weren't
scared of by the two hawks originally hired to rid the area of flying
rats. The dive-bombing birds were a nuisance to players for sure, but
they were also creating a health hazard in one of the restaurant areas
of the All England Club, officials said, when they began defecating on
patron tables. Sort of puts the yuck factor in the traditional
Wimbledon indulgence: strawberries and cream.
People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals, of course, wound themselves up in a tizzy
admonishing championship officials, saying the marksmen were used as a
"first, rather than last resort" according to ESPN.com.
But the
whole thing got me thinking about where marksmen might be appropriate
in the American sporting arena - and where PETA has no jurisdiction.
Posted inOutside
Snakeflies in the Grass: Why you shouldn’t exterminate your friendly flies
Pretty, ain’t she?If the photo above gives you the shudders – and unfortunately, many
people have that innate fear of "bugs" – relax. I met that harmless,
adult female snakefly last week in the Sisters Library after it was
energetically swiped off the back of 10-year old Tanner Head's neck.
When he got over what he thought was a sneak attack, he looked at it
and thought it to be, in his vernacular, "way cool."
Snakeflies may
look formidable, especially that tiny female with her "stinger" which
is only an egg-laying device; in reality they are "way cool" insects
harmless to humans. For aphids and other small plant-sucking insects,
however, it's another matter.
Adult snakeflies eat only dead
insects, the larvae are like wolves; they gobble up anything they can
catch. For anyone who has a flower or vegetable garden, snakefly larva
are friends of the family.
Posted inOutside
Surf Is Where You Find It: Estrogen, waves, triathlons and more
A WOMAN'S TOUCH
Paul Van Camp awaiting a wave with Haystack Rock in the background.On Thursday mornings, for years if not decades, I've
grabbed a Source and flipped immediately to this page to catch Bob
Woodward's commentary, usually enriched by a story connecting past and
present and occasionally spiked with an edgy throwdown. More recently,
I've enjoyed Kevin Grove's tales of mountaineering adventures and
appreciation for our natural environment. Well, Woody's written enough
articles to fill a library and Kev's roaming the country skiing Hood,
Ranier and other mountains. At a time in our country when the glass
ceiling is being broken, it seems appropriate for the Source to bring a
woman's touch to the Outside column.
On that note, kudos to
Pine Mountain Sports and Trek for the women's bike demos and ladies
night earlier this month. I happened to be out at Phil's Trail during
the demo and it seemed like a huge success. Riding there another day, I
pulled aside for a young woman riding uphill. She had a big grin on her
face as she followed her friend and huffed, "This is my first mountain
bike ride!" You go, girl.
Posted inCulture
Guitar Hero to Go!
With a popular franchise like Guitar Hero it was only a matter of time
before game makers took a stab at crossing over to another platform.
Well, game developer Vicarious Visions has answered the call with a
guitar-like attachment for the Nintendo DS that allows obsessive guitar
heroes to play the game (Guitar Hero: On Tour) on the go.
This took
some creative engineering, but they were able to create an attachment
that resembles the games' original "guitar" neck, which plugs into the
Game Boy Advance slot on the Nintendo DS Lite and Original DS systems.
You use the stylus screen to strum with a guitar pick-like stylus. This
can be frustrating, but shouldn't keep you from getting the hang of the
game.