A friend of mine works this guy. Please email/spread this throughout the NW.

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Originally uploaded by dieselboi.

I’m sending out a big THANK YOU to everyone who joined us on Wednesday evening for our February meetup. Wow, what a great group. I think we had around 20 readers and authors show up. Plenty of beer was consumed and the fries were off the hook. Seriously, I think we had 10 orders of those tasty bites. It was good to meet some of those who comment and have been with us for awhile. One highlight of the evening was we played tetris with the tables as more and more people showed up. The second funny was when all the bartenders and staff walked out to watch the moon eclipse. Too bad we couldn’t take our beers out there.

Once again, a great night. Thanks everyone. Next meetup is March 19. We’ll put up a note in a couple of weeks with more details.

02 12 2008

Originally uploaded by dieselboi.

Now that the weather is nice, I don’t find it difficult to find a place to each the lunch I either brought or bought from one of the many amazing carts downtown. I rarely go to a true restaurant where one can sit down for an hour and enjoy lunch. I’m usually out walking and grabbing a taco or soup from a cart. Inevitably, I need a place to sit down and enjoy it. When it is raining or just wet, the park benches around town just don’t cut it. The solution? The US Bank Tower’s mezzanine level.

I was over reading on Portland Food Carts about different locations one can sit inside and enjoy their own lunch without being disturbed. One of those locales is the mezzanine level of the US Bank Town (Big Pink.) I walked over there one day with my Vietnamese sub and discovered about 30 big and small round tables, huge windows and very few people. It was the best place to sit, read, eat and not be wet. They also have more comfortable chairs around for those of you who need a mid day nap.

Check it out next time you have a bag lunch or cart food and you don’t want to return to your desk. Are there other places like this I should know about?

With the Screen Actors Guild Writers Guild of America strike over just in time to furiously start writing for Hollywood’s biggest night, the 80th Annual Academy Awards ceremony being held this Sunday should be interesting to watch.

Perhaps you want to leave your house to watch the awards with others and snark on the clothing choices of the A- through Z-listers attending. If so, you’re in luck because you have some options for where to watch Sunday’s festivities.

The Hollywood Theatre is hosting Oregon’s only “Oscar Night® America event, officially sanctioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.” Tickets are $75 as the event is also a fundraiser for Film Action Oregon. Mayoral candidate Commissioner Sam Adams is serving as the night’s honorary chair.

McMenamins’ Mission Theater will also show the ceremony on their big screen. It’s free and if you get there a bit early, you can catch the overrated “Casablanca” for free as well.

Here’s another reason to paint your walls white, tear your phone wires out, cover your windows in hefty bags and just sit there rocking quietly and mumbling to yourself: the Nigerian Email Scam has gone retro and now they’re hitting up our snail mailboxes. Will those crafty Nigerians stop at nothing to trick people into sending them thousands of dollars under the guise of returning the money plus 1000% interest because their uncle is a deposed third-world dictator and if only we could hand over our credit card info, he’d be out and creating world peace and sending us all pure gold Priuses and Lear jets lined with baby elephant hide?

KATU.com has the story about a Portland woman who got a box full of $500 travelers cheques (yes KATU is using the European spelling). Turns out the cheques were forgeries! I know, right? The woman didn’t cash them.

Moral of the story: From now on, always check the boxes of $500 cheques that come in the mail. No more of this lackadaisical cheque cashing for Portland.

Between this and heightened airport security, I’m never going to get anything done.

My favourite line from the storey: “‘Money doesn’t fall out of the sky, or come by DHS, UPS or by mail,’ a police investigator told KATU.”

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it growing on trees, though. Send me ten bucks and I’ll tell you where.

The Oregonian reports that Steven Stein of Vancouver drove his car into the Goose Hollow Max tunnel at 4:30am. He told police that he was “on his way home”. Nice one, drunky – everyone knows that driving your car into the Max tunnel takes you to Narnia, not the ‘Couv. Check it out:

During my trip to New York City last weekend, I visited Seagull Salon, one of the first unisex salons in the country, to get a haircut. Johanna Fateman, one-third of Le Tigre, is one of the current co-owners.

While she isn’t cutting any hair Thursday night at Holocene, I think it will be a stylish happening as she joins JD Samson, also from Le Tigre, as the group MEN for a DJ set. Also on the bill are San Francisco’s Hey Willpower, who will perform live, and Portland’s own Gaycation DJs. The cover is $10.

I saw this banner ad on LivePDX this morning and clicked through to the Oregon National Guard website. Not being a NASCAR fan, I didn’t realize that Dale Earnhart Jr’s car was co-sponsored by Mountain Dew and the National Guard. Go figure.

I’m not sure if this is typical for NASCAR or more along the line of Elvis’s car being sent on tour after his death. Since Earnhardt is alive and well, I’m guessing the former. In any case, you can see the car at Wentworth Chevy on Grand & Burnside right across from downtown. Tomorrow it moves on to Mt. Hood Community College and then to Hooters. Hmmm, Hooters, National Guard, NASCAR – don’t tell the New York Times and the rest of the media, but I think this proves we’re really rednecks….

A gang of us ventured over to Joe’s Cellar for our regular Tuesday happy hour yesterday and found a nice little surprise. I’d driven past it many times on my way to the NW Lucky Lab but hadn’t ever gone in. It’s a huge building with 3 or 4 pool tables, a decent jukebox (although I think it ate some of our money), a strange little stage big enough for one person (maybe it used to have a pole on it?), standard bar food and free popcorn, a super friendly staff and nice stiff drinks.

The crowd seemed to be mostly older regulars but there wasn’t any negativity towards ‘others’ hanging out like you get at some places with a large regulars contingent. Although we went for happy hour, we didn’t really get one because theirs is actually in the morning, a throwback to the 3rd shift workers that probably were it’s bread and butter when the NW was much more industrial than it is now.

Someone had heard that Joe’s was Matt Groenig’s inspiration for Moe’s – and I could kinda see that. It’s nice to find a gem like that tucked away behind the facade of the Pearl.

Joe’s Cellar
1332 NW 21st
Portland, OR 97209

Talk about poor urban planning. We were driving on St. Helens on the way from St. John’s to Trader Joe’s (I know, I screwed the pooch, I got a little turned around, ‘kay?) and I saw this business and its signage. Let me say I was disheartened, nay, shocked at the change.

You see, this fine establishment used to be a vegan pirate restaurant. To my mind, a vegan pirate restaurant in the middle of the industrial area, to which you’d have to drive a car, and have to be vegan and love all things pirate to want to frequent is a no-brainer. To think that something like this went out of business made me bang my head against the dashboard in anguish and frustration. I can’t believe I live in such a cruel, complicated and ultimately mysterious world.

And that it was replaced by strippers? Strippers! In Portland!

Well, good luck to you Casa Diablo. I won’t hold my breath, however. If a vegan pirate restaurant can’t stand the heat, well then I guess this fire is too hot, even for you Diablo.

By the way, here’s the Casa Diablo myspace page. I love how all the friends look like strippers, except one woman holding her toddler. Not saying women with toddlers can’t work an anti-gravity pole with the best of them — you should totally see me in a pair of Lucite pumps with Warrant’s “She’s My Cherry Pie” on the stereo. I also love that the strippers are asking for hours in the comments section.

If you go to Casa Diablo, don’t forget to bring cash! The sign says so.