jbrown

You may have heard that we’re moving next month. WEEE!

I have a thought and I wanted to see what everyone else thought/willingness to participate.

I was reading an article about a nationwide event, Dining Out for Life. On April 29, 2010, if you dine at a participating restaurant, they will donate a percentage of the proceeds to the Dining Out for Life.

Dinging Out for Life supports different charities in different cities that provide support services to those with HIV/AIDS. Check out the website diningoutforlife.com if your interested in participating.

My idea – after we get settled in the new place, hold a dinner party and have everyone in attendance make a donation at the party. Don’t worry, no minimum will be required. If you cannot make a donation, your attendance is still welcome because at least you’ll be supporting the cause. 100% of the “pot” of donations will then be given to a charity (to be determined). I will, and most likely Aaron, cook the full course meal from scratch (he doesn’t know it yet, he will learn of the plot once he reads this post). It will be an evening of fun-ness and generosity.

Thoughts? Who’d be interested in attending and supporting a cause, to be decided J

If the consensus is in agreement with the idea, I’d love to hear ideas for worthwhile charities in the area!

jbrown

It’s been a while since the last post, I know. What kind of blogger am I? *Heavy SIGH* I’m sorry…

I haven’t had many rants worth authoring an entire post about, nor have I had the time to report any stories that may be of interest to you…. But, here’s one!

Have you got your fill of fiber lately? NO! It isn’t possible! How could you have possibly received ANY fiber without a fiber-to-home network in Portland! YUP this post is about Google.

If you haven’t heard, Google is going to bring a fiber-to-home network to a lucky test city. What does this mean for you? Fast internet! Faster than Comcast, Qwest or Verizon can give you…Anywhere. Google is promising speeds at least 1 gigabit per second. How fast is that? Roughly 100 times faster than the internet you likely have from any of the afore mentioned service provider.

The problem? Only one city will get it. Possibly hundreds of cities are trying to convince Google they are the best pick. Yesterday Portland City Council voted unanimously to join the competition!

Why Portland? Portland has been on board for a fiber network for several years now. The project was scrapped because the city could not find a partner to help front the cost of the project. That puts Portland ahead of the crowd because we already have an idea of what needs to be done to deploy this awesome new infrastructure.

This opportunity will put Portland ahead of the curve! Not only will you have super fast internet at home, it’s likely this new bandwidth will attract new businesses to the city. With the increased bandwidth, OHSU can do more research; real time video conferencing will be more reliable, allowing multi-national corporations to communicate more easily with each other; the list really is endless. We’re going to need this infrastructure eventually due to the increasing demands on bandwidth (usage) and what better way to get it than to have Google front at least part of the price tag?

To throw in your two cents, visit Google’s fiber site and click nominate your city and fill in the info. The more people we get on board the better changes we’ll have convincing Portland is the best choice. Also, join the Facebook page for Portland fiber.

Thanks for Reading!

Jered

jbrown

My apologies to to my faithful invisible followers (I know who you are) for my scarcity lately in my posts. This past month has been hectic with Christmas and New Years. You’ll all be happy to know, I’ve survived to see 2010. Let me clear something up right now, up front, we’ll be referring to 2010 as twenty-ten. Please disseminate this information amongst yourselves.

You may be confused about the title of this post “From Russia With Love”. No I have not been in Russia visiting our Siberian friends. This post qualifies for a rant/humorous story.

Today, one of our ex clients, I’ll call her Miss X, called completely irate. The reason you might ask? That’s really not important, the important part for you to know was just that it was just ridiculous. A few minutes later Miss X came storming into our office screaming like a banshee! Oh boy, I thought this was going to be a replay of a couple years ago when Jim had to “help” a client out of our office.

I was in my office, trying not to laugh hysterically as she screams “Your office smells like piss! It smells like someone peed on the carpet!” Seriously, are you that immature that you just have to make random things up? Then she yelled that we were being sooooo rude to her because she’s Russian! Madame, I’m sorry but my problem with you isn’t because of your Siberian descent, but because of the fact that your a blatant liar! But for the record, we were not nor have we ever been rude to you or mistreated you.

So Miss X, please accept my love, from Russia and get the hell out G’Day!

Ohh yes and while we’re talking about humorous things, I saw a woman fly over the handle bars of her bicycle the other day while I was waiting at a light on my way home

jbrown

A recent new study by the University of Utah only states the obvious: Texting While Driving Still Isn’t Safe. I know what you’re thinking; you’re shocked, just as I was! I can’t imagine why taking your eyes off the road to compose a text message hasn’t suddenly become safe! Why did UoU decide it was necessary to conduct a study on this subject matter? I didn’t have to spend thousands, possibly tens of thousands to tell you that texting while driving is unsafe, it’s just common sense.

I would have liked to be present during that brain storming session. I can only imagine the discussion. “What should we conduct a study on? Cancer cures? No, that’s so cliché! AIDS cures? No, that’s so 1990’s. Texting! Yeah that’s it, texting! Texting is so in demand now, everyone will love the study!” I just fail to see the importance of yet another study on this subject matter when there are so many other worthwhile causes that need attention.

If you’re at all interested, here’s the news link: Texting, You’ll DIE!

That’s my mini rant for the day

Cheers,

-Jered
Portland’s Underground Inkslinger
Conducting One Useless Study at a Time

jbrown

Yes, I know, I know my faithful readers (even though you never leave comments) it has been a while since the last post. No need to be alarmed! A new blog post is in the works even though my servers reliability lately has been shoddy at best due to upgrades(AHEM) *GLARES AT I.T.* My co-accomplice and I are working our “Best Portland Cocktail Locations” post. As you can imagine, this requires extensive research and consumption of volumes of liquors of varying varieties.

You may ask, why so much research? Well, I would never want to lead my readers astray. I want you to be informed! (I’m concerned like that)

Anyway, down to the point. Have any ideas for best Portland cocktail spots? I want to hear about them, so lay them on me!

Blogging again soon,
-Jered
Portland’s Underground Inkslinger

jbrown

There’s a great movie rental place in Portland, Movie Madness. It seems every Portlander knows about them. They’ve got more movies than any Blockbuster/Hollywood you’ll ever find. They’ve got every type of movie from Action – Zombie and everything in-between.

I recently saw a movie that I’m claiming as my new Holiday Favorite, Make the Yuletide Gay.  It seems that all of the holiday movies generally have the same story line. Make the Yuletide Gay certainly does not fit the typical. A brief overview (I’ll be vague as to not spoil anything), Gunn (the main character) comes home from college for the holidays. Gunn is out and proud in college and his parents have no idea that he’s Gay. To his surprise his boyfriend shows up on his parent’s door step the day after Gunn returns home. The movie does have those cheesy cliché romantic and awkward gay moments that we all know (provided you’ve seen any GLBT movies). Gunn’s mom is hysterical, you’ve got to love those Midwesterners don’t ‘cha know! It was nice to see a coming out story that wasn’t tragic like so many of the movies out there. Despite the cliché’s it’s generally a great movie with quite the funny ending!

So if you’re in the mood for a holiday movie and don’t want to see the typical holiday business, visit Movie Madness and rent Make the Yuletide Gay!

BTW – I streamed mine online from Netflix on my PS3 but I confirmed that Movie Madness carries the movie. It should be in the new release section in the front of the store.

Remember to Make the Yuletide Gay!

-Jered

jbrown

Here we go; more controversy. What is it over this time? The loo, of course.

There’s a cool little park in the Pearl District called Jamison Square. In the summer it is filled with kids playing in the water and just having fun. Problem? Where do they go to the bathroom? That’s right, they probably pee in water. The obvious solution would be to install a public restroom. Simple, right? No, says dwellers of the Pearl.

I understand all of the usual concerns. What if an attacker is hiding in the can at night when I’m walking home? It will smell like public toilet in my neighborhood, I pay good money to live here and not smell toilet!

I laughed at some of the other complaints of the high-rise dwellers. Jane What’s Her Face doesn’t want to see someone relieving themselves from her fourth story window. I’m sure there are numerous similar complaints from many residents who live above the potty level. I’m surprised that someone would design a restroom with a see-through ceiling.  It will also create a blind spot for drivers and they may not see the children happily skipping into the street.

These complaints seem legitimate. I don’t understand the controversy, they are simple enough to address!

Jered’s 4 easy ways to fix the controversial loo:

1. Put a regular roof on the loo – Peepers, foiled

2. Have the door automatically lock at dusk – Would be bathroom attackers, foiled

3. Change the location – Motorists now a have a clear view of the playground. Curbside potty, moved.

4. Smell, well I guess you’ll just have to hold your breath when you walk by. (Not every neighborhood can be perfect)

Problem Solved!

If you’d like to read the full controversial story, check out KGW.com.

‘Till the next bathroom controversy,

Jered
-Portland’s Underground Inkslinger
Solving One Bathroom Emergency After Another!

jbrown

After you’ve gorged yourself on Thanksgiving Day fare, why not visit the 25th Annual Holiday Tree Lighting Downtown?

On November 27, 2009, Portland will light their annual holiday tree in Portland’s Living Room. I’ll be there for the first time ever. If you haven’t been, come out and join us! The event is planned for 5:30p, I’ll be there significantly early, especially with the 25k expected people in attendance.

Let’s grab some coffee or coco, huddle togehter in the cold and HAVE FUN!

Hope to see you there!

-Jered
Portland’s Underground Inkslinger

Jbrown

What is it with Portland’s city leaders? Honestly, why do they think it’s necessary to frivolously spend all of our money?

So now they want to MOVE the streetcar that they pushed for so hard. Well the new Oregon Sustainability Center, a $100m, 13 floor project just wouldn’t be complete without a street car. OF COURSE! Why didn’t I think of that?

May I draw your minds to the OHSU aerial tram that was ridiculously over budget? I think we can safely assume that the $4m estimate to move the tracks of the street car will seem like bargain discount price once they’ve had their way of completing the completely unneeded project.

10 ways the city can put $4m to better use:

Contribute $4m to the broke Portland Public School District
Pave some of the UNPAVED streets in SE Portland
Stir up some jobs for the homeless people on W Burnside
Feed the homeless people on W Burnside
House the homeless families of Portland
Feed the NOT homeless, unemployed families of Portland
Help families survive the winter by offsetting their energy costs so they don’t freeze to death
Fix the Sellwood Bridge that is getting ready to fall into the Willamette
Clean-up the Willamette
Repave streets that ACTUALLY need it

If you haven’t noticed, this really pissed me off. Why must we employed people drag ourselves to work EVERY day so that our leaders can piss away our tax money?

If this pisses you off too, send Commissioner Dan Saltzman an email. I sent mine from portlandonline.com. I received an auto reply from dan@ci.portland.or.us, feel free to try that one, in fact, try both.

The only way this kind of frivolous spending will change, is if we stand-up to be heard. So with that regard, PISS AND MOAN away! (my favorite pastime).

Read the whole story at KGW.com.

Hello anxious readers!

I know some of you are anxious to read some content. I promise, its coming soon!

I’ve been brainstorming some ideas and have one I’m working on. That brings up the point, if you have suggestions for recipes, restaurants or anything that you’d like me to review, let me know. I welcome the suggestions and co-accomplices

Blogging again soon,

Jered