Posted inOutside

Why is it so blasted cold this spring? Volcanoes could be behind this endless winter

A major weather modifier, erupting volcanoes. I've lived here for over 50 years and can't remember a spring as cold as this one, and like me, you have probably been asking, "why?" If "global warming" is to be believed – which seems irrefutable – why isn't this phenomenon warming up Central Oregon? The reason may be what is happening in other places, such as erupting volcanoes.

In the not too distance past, exploding volcanoes had considerable impact on what happens to the weather throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
Take the year 1816 for example. In New England, it was known as "The Year There Was No Summer," the "Poverty Year" and "Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death." Moreover, it wasn't just New England, the entire Northern Hemisphere suffered. In Ireland people starved to death because potato crops failed, while the resulting famine caused cholera to spread across northern Europe bringing widespread death and horror.

Posted inOutside

Pole Pedal Party: Gearing up for the annual spring celebration and Smith Rock routes

PPP
Katy Van Dis Riding the LightningIt is about time to start (if you haven't already) thinking about, talking about, and gearing up for the Pole Pedal Paddle, Bend's famous multi-sport race. The first time I came to Bend in 1998 was to compete in the PPP. With the exception of the run, most of the events were new to me. I was just learning how to skate ski, had ridden a road bike just a handful of times, and had never been in a kayak. I spent the week before the race rounding up gear from my wife Molly's garage. I was able to get her family's 1967 Peugot road bike to fit my lanky frame and spent a couple days before the race attempting to learn how to paddle a white water kayak. I will never forget the excitement of that first race when the gun fired and I raced up the hill to click into some borrowed alpine skis.

Posted inCulture

Tee It High Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds

crush or be crushed. As a kid I remember my grandfather spending all day playing golf. I never understood why anybody would want to hit a little ball from hole to hole. But when the original PlayStation released Hot Shots Golf about 10 years ago, I gave it a swing, and it turned out to be great fun.
 
Hot Shots Golf is back in the console realm once again with Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds. With revamped single player content and improved online play, Out of Bounds brings the series' signature style to the PlayStation 3 quite well.

Posted inCulture

Did You Say Placenta or Polenta?: And other questions for your Baby Mama

Careful, they will suck your eyes out.Baby Mama is like a mini "Saturday Night Live" reunion, including a droll turn by Steve Martin at his best. The comedic lineup also stars former SNL head writer, turned mega star Tina Fey and current cast member Amy Poehler, playing off one another here as a 37-year-old wannabe mom and her foil, the trashy surrogate mother. The stand-in motherhood topic is always a hot one, as evidenced by its recent place on the cover of Newsweek magazine.
 
In the movie, Fey plays Kate, a single, successful businesswoman experiencing a sudden storm of maternal instincts. Since she is unable to conceive naturally, she resorts to using an agency for finding a surrogate mother to have her baby. As a well-meaning, type-A personality, she obsesses about everything to do with motherhood/babyhood, causing her to install over-the-top safety measures and devices in her home, while imposing strict dietary rules, creating some amusing consequences. Poehler plays the karaoke-crooning surrogate mother, Angie, who wolfs down Twinkies while constantly feuding with her dirtball boyfriend, Carl (excellently rendered by Dax Shepard). And although Angie takes a while to crank up the humor, by the time she arrives at the hospital, even her attendees can't keep straight faces.

Posted inCulture

Rolling out the Clichés: Deception isn’t all that deceiving

it’s not you wolverine, it’s me. The most deceptive thing about this cliché-ridden film is the fact that it's masquerading as a legit thriller, with the filmmakers expecting us to fall for even the most played-out film conventions. Deception? How about tricking people into paying to watch this bomb…that's deception.
 
From the get-go Wyatt (Hugh Jackman) and Jonathan (Ewan McGregor) relationship feels staged. The "chance" late-night get-to-know-you antics and smoking pot are laced with excessive laughter and scream "phony." People don’t laugh that much with people they have just met, even if they're smoking killer weed. It's just not in our DNA, sorry.

Posted inFood & Drink

Spring Cleaning: April industry roundup

patio time at the new Super b.Spring has sprung in the food and restaurant industry, even though our schizo Central Oregon weather is hardly cooperating. 12 O’clock Tart (www.12oclocktart.com) has started their Bend lunchtime delivery service featuring fresh, seasonally changing items. No prepackaged soggy sandwiches here. Choose from Peppered Crusted Pork Loin, Spiced Sockeye Salmon, French Nicoise Salad or homemade desserts.

Posted inFood & Drink

Spring Cleaning: April industry roundup

patio time at the new Super b.Spring has sprung in the food and restaurant industry, even though our schizo Central Oregon weather is hardly cooperating. 12 O'clock Tart (www.12oclocktart.com) has started their Bend lunchtime delivery service featuring fresh, seasonally changing items. No prepackaged soggy sandwiches here. Choose from Peppered Crusted Pork Loin, Spiced Sockeye Salmon, French Nicoise Salad or homemade desserts.

Posted inFood & Drink

Sum It Up: Dipping into the Dim Sum at Double Happiness

Eat a peach. When I was in college in Berkeley, I would emerge from the Ashby Street BART station and head directly for the baau stand. A minuscule woman would open the doors on her little wooden trailer and produce three to five types of baaus – warm, doughy and bursting with flavor. Although this was not my first encounter with dim sum, the experience sealed the deal. Since then, I’ve loved the Chinese breakfast food.
There are a few places in Bend that offer some dim sum items, but Double Happiness is the only place that does it as it is done in urban Chinatowns and the greater Canton Regions of China. Settled into their new Eastside location for over a year now, DH still offers the best dim sum this side of the Cascades.
It all happens on Sundays starting at noon. Diners receive two menus – the usual book form with all the combos and Americanized dishes, as well as a laminated photo of nine dishes denoted with the letters A-I.

Posted inFood & Drink

Sum It Up: Dipping into the Dim Sum at Double Happiness

Eat a peach. When I was in college in Berkeley, I would emerge from the Ashby Street BART station and head directly for the baau stand. A minuscule woman would open the doors on her little wooden trailer and produce three to five types of baaus – warm, doughy and bursting with flavor. Although this was not my first encounter with dim sum, the experience sealed the deal. Since then, I've loved the Chinese breakfast food.
There are a few places in Bend that offer some dim sum items, but Double Happiness is the only place that does it as it is done in urban Chinatowns and the greater Canton Regions of China. Settled into their new Eastside location for over a year now, DH still offers the best dim sum this side of the Cascades.
It all happens on Sundays starting at noon. Diners receive two menus - the usual book form with all the combos and Americanized dishes, as well as a laminated photo of nine dishes denoted with the letters A-I.

Posted inMusic

Back With the Seeds

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Dig Lazarus Dig!!!
Mute Records
If I'm stumbling out of 7B (a quintessential drinking hole) and making my way down Avenue B, it's a record like Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! that flows through my head. The latest from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds seems to bring me to that place - New York City. It opens with a drunken melody reminiscent of David Johansen circa 1973, closes with the Lou Reed inspired "More News From Nowhere," and in between travels across several sounds that are so Manhattan you can almost smell the street.

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