Upfront

Goodbye Goomba's, Hello Bond Street Bar and Grill
The restaurant casualties continue in downtown when longtime operator Peggy Falcaro announced on Monday that she has sold Giuseppe's after a 20-plus-year run on Bond Street.
Longtime locals remember Giuseppe's as one of the places to enjoy a good meal and a glass of wine before the boom. However, like many downtown establishments Giuseppe's struggled to find its niche in the new downtown scene where customers have rewarded novelty, innovation, and, well, newness – none of which Giuseppe had in any great quantity. With this week's closure, Giuseppe's joins, Ernesto's and Bella Cucina on the list of locally owned Italian eateries that haven't survived the recession shake-out. Meantime, chains and franchises like Portland's Pastini Pastaria, Carino's and Olive Garden have moved in, creating additional competition.

It's been a busy week over at Bank of the Cascades, which raised a much needed $177 million in private capital to keep the bank afloat in the face of regulatory sanctions. The injection headed off months of speculation that federal officials would move to shutter the once high-flying local institution that hemorrhaged hundreds of millions of dollars during the real estate bust. Over the past two years, BOTC has reported more than $200 million in losses as it continued to write down its portfolio, albeit more slowly over the past few months as the economy has begun to stabilize and the Bend real estate market slows its free fall.

Dirty Dancing Too Much For Portland Teachers
Students were getting a little too close for comfort at a Portland High School, causing teachers to cancel the school's winter formal. Cleveland High School in Southeast Portland has cancelled the dance due to the new style of dance known as “grinding.” Obviously a little movie from 1987 known as Dirty Dancing hasn't been in the TBS heavy rotation lately.

100 Years in Space?
NASA might have some job openings in about 100 years and the perks look pretty cool. You get to travel millions of miles into space and land on another planet – probably Mars – where you'll help colonize a new planet in the name of human beings. Oh, but there's a drawback. You never get to come back. And if you conceive a child while en route or perhaps living on the Red Planet, that kid probably won't set foot on Earth either.

Apple ReInvents The World
If you listened closely last Wednesday, it was possible to hear the simultaneous blowing of minds of the entire city of Cupertino, Calif., when Steve Jobs gave his keynote address to introduce the latest humanity- changing updates to Apple products. As Jobs' speech was streamed worldwide to MacBooks, iPads, iPods and iPhones, you could also hear teenagers in basements everywhere halting their Social Network – inspired hacking attempts because Jobs announced that the new MacBook Air has two USB ports.

Bend Goes Crazy
Was there a full moon we missed, or did someone slip some crazy pills into the water supply? Because for some reason, a bunch of people went nuts last weekend. First off, a pretty epic bar brawl took place when two women got in a fight at Boondocks Bar and Grill. KTVZ reports that Joanna Alicia Rivera-Ramirez struck Casey Adelle Strait in the head with a bottle. To avenge his girlfriend's injury, Strait's boyfriend hit another dude in the face with a glass. Then he punched a different woman in the face. After this, fights broke out inside and outside the bar and an unrelated person, Christopher Dubois, decided, for some reason, to jump into the driver's seat of an OSP patrol car. He was taken to jail, where he delivered one of the funniest mug shots we've seen in a while.

Wolves and The Wild, Wild East
Well it was only a matter of time. Like a right-wing nut job who actually believes all vitriol that is dished up on a.m. radio and decides to do something about it with a gun in hand or a bomb in the trunk, some coward slunk into the woods of Eastern Oregon, put a rifle to his shoulder and illegally shot a gray wolf, one of the less than 20 that have been documented in the state of Oregon since the federal wolf recovery plan was launched two decades ago. Federal wildlife agents reportedly found the slain wolf, a young male member of the Wenaha pack that had only recently been fitted with a radio collar, on Sept. 30 in a remote area of the Umatilla National Forest. News of the find leaked out late last week when federal wildlife officials confirmed the find to the Associated Press. Conservation Organizations were quick to condemn the shooting, which comes on the heels of a contentious summer for wolf politics in Oregon where several livestock killings prompted state officials to issue kill permits for a pair of wolves believed responsible.

Jeez, Sorry for Partying
If you're in a college fraternity, there are a few activities in which you will almost certainly find yourself involved. You will consume beer by placing the keg tap directly in your mouth as your “bros” hold your feet up in the air. You will clothe yourself exclusively in T-shirts celebrating parties you and your “bros” have previously facilitated. And, if you're really, really lucky, you and/or your “bros” will douse a couch in lighter fluid and light it aflame as you stand awestruck in its glow with a smile on your face and a Busch Light in your hand.

The Heat of Autumn
It's officially fall, as of last week. It's the time of year when the leaves change color, the days get cooler and football dominates most casual conversation. Well, except for this year, that is. Well, people are still talking about football, but the weather on the West Coast has been anything like fall like. Temperatures have been weirdly warm here in Central Oregon, staying in the low 80s all week, but down in Los Angeles it got straight up scary hot… as in the hottest day ever.

Thirty Full Minutes
Six months after pairing down its staff and trimming nightly newscasts from a full half- hour down to less than 10 minutes, KOHD has brought back its full weekday newscasts at both 6pm and 11pm. Previously, the newscast was a fast-paced data distribution of local news stories and weather, but we can now expect the newscast – which hit the air in 2007 – to return to something more similar to their original format.