I’ve been following the weekly rounds of layer tennis, put on by Coudal Partners, for a while now. Two designers swap a file back and forth in real-time, while a writer provides a healthy dose of commentary on each volley. Tension builds, smack is layed down, and in the end the viewers choose a winner.

This week, the action hits close to home with two Portland designers stepping onto the court. Aaron Draplin of Draplin Design Co. faces David Nakamoto of Multifresh with commentary by Steven Heller (!!). The match goes down tomorrow (that’s Friday) at high noon (Portland time). Tune in then, or check it out early for Heller’s match preview.

Fear not, dear citizen, for the internet is here to help. The Multnomah County Library System now accepts online payments for fines and charges on your account. Even if you’re not living in fear of embarrassment, this system is also great news for those of us with busy schedules, people who like to sit down and pay all of their bills at once, and anyone who still gets a kick out of being able to perform financial transactions in their underwear.

It’s got pretty decent coverage on both sides of the river and little personal comments about most places. I have a feeling this will come in very useful the next time I’m searching for morningfood. (In fact, it might even be useful enough for me to forgive the use of Comic Sans)

That’s the general gist of the ominously named National Planning Scenario 11 and it’s set to go down on October 15. But come next week, there won’t really be any deadly explosions rattling downtown because it’s all part of the largest anti-terror simulation in history TOPOFF 4. The simulation will involve more than 50 local, state and federal agencies, and five counties. More information about it can be found via the O and the state.

One interesting thing about this whole simulation is that they’re looking for around 2000 volunteers. With all of their careful training, there are still roles that just can’t be played by the men and women of law enforcement: victims and “concerned citizens”. So, if you’ve got the 16th or 17th free and want to see the inside of an ambulance or pester cops about the fates of your fictional loved ones, head on over to the volunteer site and fork over your info for background checkin’.

And, as deiselboi commented on the photo “is this just another way to keep the smokers away?”

Less is more. Simple is simply wonderful. Terse, actionable information.

This is the driving philosophy behind pdxstump, a Portland-centric search and information site.

I just came across it and I’m still getting lost in the details. In a world of broad search tools, pdxstump uses a tagged directory to find (and map!) locally relevant information.

There’s also a quick, but informative weather overview (try moving your mouse over some numbers) and a very thorough news aggregator.

Quoth the Potter: “I’m going to keep it for a little while.”

I was just downtown and it looks like they’re gearing up for a concert in Pioneer Square tonight. Seems that it’s the release event for KINK Live Ten, a CD to benefit SMART. The concert starts tonight at 6:30 and features performances by Suzanne Vega, deSoL and Matt Nathanson. To be honest I haven’t heard much by any of them, but hey, free concert.

For the truly hardcore lovers of public transportation *cough-transitnerds-cough*, there’s a bit of a party for the new extension at the Lowell and Bond stop with refreshments and entertainment kicking off at 11am today.

It’s also available with some commentary from the filmmaker over here from the folks at the portland that was.

Read on for some other highlights of my video-searching frenzy including more Tim Smith, newsreels and Evel Knievel.

• Salmon St. Saga (1970) - Another from Tim Smith, it’s about high school greasers and car geeks (and Matt Groening appears in the last act with a knife).
• The Case of the Kitchen Killer (1972): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 - Yet one more Tim Smith film, a comedic murder mystery shot in PDX about a man who enters a public restroom only to be confronted by a stranger brandishing a pair of kitchen tongs.
• The Videos of The Portland that Was from last year’s TBA festival intermingle old footage of portland with interviews. Quality stuff, these.
• Evel Knieval, Portland Coliseum 1973 - Motorcycle jumping over 17 vans and trucks, we should be proud.
• This one’s odd. It’s a trippy, improvy thing from 1973. There’s nudity. You’ve been warned.
• For the concert junkies, there’s The Bags and the Dead Kennedys in ‘79.
• This isn’t really old, but it was shot with a camera from 1946 and looks the part. Last year’s Reed college Ren Fayre in 45 Seconds.
• It Can Be Done - A promotional piece from PGE in 1937 pushing for rural electrification.
• This Universal Newsreel from 1952 shows footage of the 44th annual Rose Parade while this one features footage of the Portland premiere of Canyon Passage.
• Elvis comes to town, 1957 ‘Nuff said.
• CBS breaks the news of D.B. Cooper.
• The Mighty Columbia River - A coronet educational film about our mighty river (and the dams that are on it). We really only get a couple of brief mentions, but we do get to be referred to as “The Great River Seaport of the West Coast”.
• The Far Western States - 1955. Okay, so this doesn’t actually show us anything in Portland, but it includes the line “the life of the lumberjack attracts hardy men; men who are not afraid of work”. and a list of the kinds of people you can find in the far west. It seems to be trying to edumacate little east-coasters about the “far west” and its exports.
• And, of course, no list like this would be complete without a mention of A Day Called X, the 1957 civic defense masterpiece, which we’ve mentioned before.