July 2006

07.31.2006 Comment...
The Beer That Made Portland Famous
This weekend I went to the Oregon Craft Beer Festival in downtown Portland, the largest event of its type in the country. The festival was estimated to have drawn some 55,000 people on Saturday and Sunday. In fact, Portland is the home of three dozen different microbreweries itself, more than any other metro area in the world. Oregonians love their craft beer!

So, why then, if craft beer is such a big deal here, are Portlanders crazy about Pabst Blue Ribbon? PBR is the swill of choice in the local bars, and is far more popular than Budweiser, Miller, or Coors. In Arizona, people would drink Pabst for ironically hip or thrifty reasons. But here, in the ironic hipster capital of the world, Pabst is chugged with sincerity and affection! I decided to do a little research.

The original brewery that would one day be called Pabst was founded in Milwaukee in 1844. Frederick Pabst bought it and changed its name in 1888. In 1935, Pabst became the first major brewery to distribute beer in cans, and by 1977 was selling 18 million barrels a year, rivaling Budweiser. However, the coming years were marked by mismanagement and decline, and by 2001, sales of PBR had fallen drastically.

However, at the same time, Pabst executives began noticing that sales in Portland were growing, without any marketing or explanation. A local bar had recently begun selling Pabst after its preferred local beer went off the market. Soon, other bars in the area started to offer Pabst as their less expensive alternative to Portland's famous microbrews. The local community, made up of a large counterculture along with working class people, had adopted Pabst as their inexpensive, off-beat beer. From Portland, PBR grew in popularity in San Francisco, Seattle, and other cities with consumers who are anti-marketing. Today, Portland is PBR's largest importer city.

It's like wearing Timberlands in Brooklyn. Pabst just sort of caught on here, ironically because it was such a miserable, failing company - no real advertising ability and no good reputation. Perfect for the left coast!

07.29.2006 Comment...
Big Brother
From Slashdot:

"This weekend my mother bought a grille lighter, something like this butane lighter. The self-scanner at Kroger's locked itself up and paged a clerk, who had to enter our drivers license numbers into her kiosk before we could continue. My video games spy on me, reporting the applications I run, the websites I visit, the accounts of the people I IM. My ISP is being strong-armed into a two-year archive of each action I take online under the guise of catching pedophiles, the companies I trust to free information are my enemies, the people looking out for me are being watched. As if that weren't enough, my own computer spies on me daily, my bank has been compromised, my phone is tapped--has been for years--and my phone company is A-OK with it. What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs? The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier."

07.28.2006 Comment...
Before and After
XIAN, China (Reuters) - A combination photograph shows a man before and after his operation when he received a face transplant, in Xian, Shaanzi province. The man, surnamed Li, suffered severe injuries from a bear attack in 2004. Li underwent the operation at a Xian hospital with help from a voluntary organization.

The operation, which was "successful," started on April 13 and lasted 13 hours, the hospital said. Li will continue his restoration operation after returning from home. It is the first successful face transplant operation in China, China Daily reported. The picture on the left is taken on April 13, 2006 and the picture on the right is taken on July 28, 2006.

Yeah, that's much better.

07.19.2006 Comment...
The Columbia River Is Gorges!
I went to the Columbia River Gorge this weekend with philosopher king / good guy Andy Beck, who was visiting from San Diego. From Portland, we drove east on the Interstate 84 toward the Eagle Creek wilderness area and did some hiking. I will be posting a bunch of Pacific Northwest photos in a little bit, but in the meantime, here are a couple of pictures that I took during our exploits:


This is me outside the historic Vista House, on a cliff above the gorge. The cliff is accessed via an exit off the Interstate 84 marked "Scenic View," about 20 minutes from Portland. Anyone who has ever pulled over for the Bloody Basin while driving to Flagstaff can see that Oregon is better than Arizona at marking "scenic views" on their interstates.


Multnomah Falls, about 30 minutes east of Portland, is the second-tallest year-round waterfall in the country. This is more or less the bottom third of the 620 foot falls. The footbridge was built in 1914 and stands more than a hundred feet above the lower cascade.


From a trailhead off the Interstate 84, Andy and I hiked about 2.5 miles up Eagle Creek to get to Punch Bowl Falls, and had to swim the last 100 yards to get to the actual "punch bowl." The falls were deceptively tall and the glacial creek was deceptively cold, about 40 feet and 50 degrees, respectively.

07.14.2006 Comment...
American Supremacy
I have always been a big fan of advertisements for "cash advance" companies. I was watching TV the other night and saw a commercial that began like this: "Hi, my name is Earvin Johnson. Usually when I meet people, they say 'Hey Magic, you got game?' I say no, but when I need to get in the game I go to Cash & Go!"

Twenty seconds later, a new commercial began, like this: "Every day is a battle with your feet. And now they're revolting!" During this voice-over, I saw some people limping about, and then a woman massaging her foot. The narration continues: "Gold Bond - Victory over defeat!" And as soon as I hear this, these words appear, written across the bottom of the screen: "Gold Bond - Victory over de feet!" As such, I am rendered senseless for ten minutes and completely miss the end of Friends. Noooooo!! What happens?? Does Rachel forgive Ross for making a list of her "cons??" Won't their love ever be consummated??

Here's a picture that consummates my love affair with America. This is the definition of victory over defeat, by any measure or spelling:

07.10.2006 Comment...
A Few Thoughts
There is a state law in Oregon requiring all gas stations to be full service. By "law" and "requiring" I mean you actually don't have a choice; a high school dropout is going to pump your gas if you don't drive across the river to Vancouver, WA (see below) to fill up. Let me briefly outline the pros and cons of this progressive law.

Pros... First, it creates menial jobs for thousands of people who would otherwise be jobless bums, a demographic that is well represented in Portland. Second, it allows me to just sit around for an extra ten minutes each week. This relaxation time had previously been chewed up by the inconvenience of having to get out of the car and pump my own gas. Finally, rather than requiring both full and self service pumps at all gas stations, this law takes things into its own hands and eliminates consumer choice, which is always good policy in a free economy. After all, freedom of choice is what you got; freedom from choice is what you want.

Cons... The cost of paying someone to pump my gas is tacked onto the price per gallon, raising it to levels that I have only seen previously in the Greater Los Angeles Area. The Chevron by my apartment is charging a delicious $3.37 a gallon (which may actually be a "pro" because people won't be able to afford gas, there will be fewer cars on the road, Al Gore's predictions won't come to pass, and the Earth won't explode in the next twenty years). However, most pertinently, Portland's gas station attendants are absolutely incompetent. Not in the sense that they couldn't find a better job at Nike or Powell's or McDonald's; rather, they just suck at being gas station attendants.

For the second time in three weeks, he who pumps the gas has failed to correctly tighten the gas cap on my car's tank, resulting in vacuum seal failures, check engine lights, and trips to the BMW service center. Unfortunately, state law prohibits me from tightening the gas cap myself until I have left the filling station. Sing it, Devo.

So, driving to Washington maybe isn't such a bad idea after all. However, the Portland suburb of Vancouver, WA may no longer be known just as the metro area's home of self service gas stations. In fact, the city known as the other Vancouver in the other Washington is poised to become the state's second most populous city, passing both Spokane and Tacoma (currently in a dead heat at 198,700 and 198,100 people, respectively). Interestingly, Vancouver plans to accomplish this by annexing over 65,000 nearby county residents instead of growing organically like its competitors. Maybe Oregonians will stop calling it "Vantucky." Maybe Washingtonians will stop calling it "Vancouver B, because the one in Canada is Vancouver, eh?"