Yesterday I had a fantastic dining experience at the recently opened Mississippi Station. They had Great food, great service, cool drinks, a nice little backyard deck with outside seating and my new favorite IPA, Terminal Gravity. If you’re looking for a place to eat on Mississippi Ave. you should check it out. Mississippi Station is located at 3934 N. Mississippi Avenue, which just happens to be right next to Mississippi Studios. Mississippi Studios is a great place to see your favorite musicians in wonderfully intimate setting.

I swear this isn’t a commercial. I just had a really nice time.

Yeah Mississippi Avenue!

I keep saying I’m done with the draft-time blogging. I’ve got a lawn to mow, a kid to pick up from day care, and a camping trip to pack for.

But I’ve been listening to “Doom & Gloom Radio” (aka Primetime on 1080 The Fan) and lamenting the continued whimpering at the Blazers’ decision to pass on Adam Morrison.

There’s some interesting talk going on there, though, about where we go next.

The main gist of their conversation is that it’s time for Portland to stop selling its fans on potential and development and time to start pushing a team that can actually play. This, surrounding talk of the choice to draft a not-quite-ready LaMarcus Aldridge onto a team with plenty of other PF options (like Zach, Raef, and Brian Skinner).

It got me thinking: What will the Blazers do next?
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The state of Oregon has finally come up with a quick and easy way for you to find out if there are any sex offenders living near you. Today they announced a new website that allows you to search your neighborhood for registered offenders. In addition you can search for a name, age or description to find out who is registered. I checked out the website and found it really simple to use. The information came back quickly and there are a lot of different ways to search for it. I know it’s not the most fun way to spend your day on the internet but I think it’s great that they have finally made this site. People need to know what is going on in their hoods!

KGW has a story about it here.

I thought it would be interesting to get some really unofficial demographics about the Portland metblog readers… so tell us where do you call home? Please vote in the poll… I’ve included a bunch of areas, but if you really don’t fit into any of the locations listed please leave a comment and tell me what a horrible person I am for leaving out your ‘hood.

I got email this morning from my friend Nancy – the ‘chief cook and bottlewasher’ at Ristretto Roasters (also known as food interviewer extraordinaire over at Portland Food and Drink). She tells me that Ristretto will be open for Last Thursday, starting tonight with a show by photographer Liz Haley.

They’ll have coffee and sweet baked goods on hand – and I heard a wild rumor that there might be free cold beverages (PB’cough’R'cough’) involved if you show up quickly enough.

Where’s Ristretto, anyway? 3520 NE 42nd (at Fremont), in the same building housing Pizzicato.

This is what you want to hear from Blazers players (courtesy of The Trib’s Kerry Eggers)…

From LaMarcus Aldridge: “Portland is a great spot for me to go to. They’re in the rebuilding process, and I’m looking forward to being a part of that.” … “I told my agent (Arn Tellem), ‘I love this place. This is it,’ ” … “I like the coach (Nate McMillan), and being around Portland, I just loved it. I told him my agent, ‘This is the place where I want to be.” … “I was real happy with everything that happened with Portland. We’re real cool.”

From Brandon Roy: “Once Minnesota called my name, I was sure there would be a trade. . . But when it didn’t happen for a while, I was thinking, ‘Maybe I’m going to Minnesota.’ In the middle of an interview, I was told I was going to be a Trail Blazer, I’m like, ‘OK, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.’” … “I’m extremely excited to be a part of this organization. It’s a great team, a great group of young guys. I’m anxious to get going.”

Contrast that to Darius Miles, who curses out coaches and walks off the floor…

Hey, Portland, want to see a free movie? How about a movie that was a hit at Sundance and has a trailer that looks pretty funny/quirky? Anybody a fan of Steve Carell?

Then go here and put in Portland on the pulldown menu and pick a date (there are three) to see the flick before its general release. Since we’re all going to do this, it’ll be a good idea to get there super-early on your screening date, as it’s first-come, first-serve with these sorts of things.

I already got my confirmation e-mail, hope to see you there. thanks to cinematical for the tip.

Yay! And the prayers of the people have been answered. Found in an AP article about the breakup:

According to a spokesperson from the band’s label, Sub Pop, Sleater-Kinney will also play a farewell show some time in Portland soon.

though this is not on Sub Pop’s site in their statement about the band, it damn well better be true.
11:45 update from the band’s official site:

I’ll be keeping my eye on this to see when a date for the show is announced.

3:00p.m. update: again according to the official site, the final final show here in Portland is now scheduled for August 11 at the Crystal Ballroom, tix to go on sale soon.

Whew. Finally, the dust is settling and we can get a read on what the Blazers were able to do yesterday. A couple of thoughts…

1) The Blazers absolutely ROCKED the NBA Draft. I’m not quite sure why everything shook out the way it did (like trading up to 2 to get LaMarcus Aldridge, even though he was likely still going to be available at 4), but the Blazers drafted the most NBA-ready player in the draft (Roy), a player some people considered the top long-term talent in the draft (Aldridge), and two Euros who will be solid adds down the road, once they’ve gained some more experience in the European leagues and once we have some roster/cap room for them (or, their rights will make good trade-bait in the future). If I were grading them on sheer talent acquisition from just the picks, I’d give them an A. Considering the picks they had going in to yesterday (4, 30, and 31) they did an exceptional job.

2) The Blazers also made some good trades. Despite what some might say, I think Raef LeFrentz is an improvement over Theo Ratliffe, if not sheerly due to durability, then also because he’s a substantial upgrade to a team that had an anemic offense last year. More scoring, more assists, and a capable shot-blocker to boot. Besides, looking at how aggressive the team was in this draft in terms of throwing money around to get trades, you’ve gotta believe the team is going to put the full-court press on Joel Przybilla to re-up him as our starting center, which makes Raef a quality reserve while we develop Aldridge. And trading away Sebastian Telfair was a good move. He has streaks of impressive play, but if you compare the trio of Jack, Blake, and Roy to Jack, Blake, and Telfair, the upgrade in size and defense alone makes this worthwhile, not to mention Roy’s a better shooter. And, finally, though Victor Khryapa was a tough, likeable guy, the team has a glut at small forward (Miles, Webster, Outlaw) and he was expendable.

3) Does anyone else think that Paul Allen’s aggressive wheeling-and-dealing may indicate a renewed interest in the franchise? As Oregonian reporter Mike Tokito noted in the Blazers Behind the Beat blog,

If anything was going to change Paul Allen’s mind about selling the team, Wednesday’s draft-day action would be it. McMillan and Patterson both said Allen was totally into the wheeling and dealing, and the owner did everything he could to make sure the team got what it wanted. “It was an amazing thing to be in the room with a man who has the passion and commitment that he has, not only financially, but emotionally,” Patterson said.

Say what you will about Allen (I have said quite a bit), but if he’s willing to let his management group be this aggressive, and he’s willing to throw some of his money at some problems (like he did to get Roy from Minnesota and Sergio Rodriguez from Phoenix), I’m willing to give him another shot. He needs to push the Vulcans out of the operation and assert his own authority over the team again, but if he does he’ll be welcome back in my book.

4) John Nash was a good, stand-up guy. But do you think it’s a coincidence that his departure and all this roster movement coincide? Now, I think a bit of it has to do with the fact that it appears Paul Allen is finally ready to start spending some money on the on-the-floor product, even if it means hitting luxury tax land again. But I think we’re also seeing a display of the confidence the team has in Kevin Pritchard, as opposed to the confidence they showed with Nash.

5) There’s one trade left to make: Darius Miles. I thought for sure the team would move him in the wind-up to the draft, but I (like so many people) was wrong. Which is fine. Darius is, relative to his paycheck, worthless, and Blazer fans aren’t the only people who know that. Trying to push Darius with a high draft pick would’ve worked, but using the pick to work on our core of talent is probably better in the long run. So, with Nash gone and no more “we won’t trade our problems (with Darius, personality) for another team’s (for them, a bad contract)” mantra being spoken, I expect Darius to be moved for a bad contract on a bad player that expires in the next season or two. I’m looking for a character guy who can be a decent reserve center/forward, who won’t mind sitting on the reserve list and cashing his paychecks, and who the team can trust to not get a DUII/DV arrest/Gun charge/Strip-club fight while here. Make no mistakes about it — Darius is gone. I think we’re finally going to accept, however, that we can’t get any real value out of him, except the value inherent in losing him. A true case of addition by subtraction.

So, what do you all think of yesterday’s events?

PS: A couple of good links at ESPN to get you in the mood…

I listened to two women get into a yelling match on the #8 bus heading downtown two mornings ago (yep, when it was still blazingly hot outside.) It started when one of the women left her seat in the back corner of the bus – and left her newspapers behind.

I typically do the same thing myself, figuring that someone else might like it when I’m done. I leave it in a nice stack. Don’t leave behind the glossy circulars. And more often than not, someone else has already started in on it by the time I’m leaving the bus.

But the woman left sitting next to the pile of abandoned papers doesn’t approve of this practice. She started mumbling and grumbling in a very loud voice about “leaving messes behind for other people to pick up”, tossing in that “she does this EVERY MORNING.”

Newspaper Woman stops right in front of the back exit door. Spins around. Glares at Complaining Woman. “Do you have a PROBLEM back there?” CW starts in with her litany, in an even louder voice (by this time, the entire back of the bus is captivated – either that or they’re drooling in anticipation of watching fur fly.)

“I thought someone else might like to READ IT,” NW replies. “Is that OKAY with you?”

They both retreat to their corners, mumbling under their respective breaths. But as the bus slows to a stop and NW prepares to depart, the couple sitting behind me get the last word in. One swivels back to CW – “hey, can you pass me that newspaper, please?”

Game, set and match to Newspaper Woman.