December 2008

The Archives

• Portland

  Drive Dead Slow

  12.22.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  I thought this was more snow than I’d seen in my 20+ years in Stumptown.  Nice to know it’s not observational bias.  Nicer would be if we could get a newspaper delivered.  And here I amagain at work, despite the fact that the company is closed.  At least I didn’t get yelled at by a cop […]

• Portland

  White Sky

  12.18.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  Portland continues its inability to properly cope with snow.  I’ve read that some schools will be closed all week, thus giving the kids an extra week of Christmas vacation.  Fools in 4-wheel drive vehicles think they don’t need to change their driving habits for the snow.  I have yet to remove the chains from the […]

• Finance

  Skeletons of Society

  12.17.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  What I like about the recent $50 billion Ponzi scheme, other than the opportunity to make puns, is what it reveals about the due diligence of the rich and stupid.  From a Wall Street Journal article: Membership rosters at a number of Florida country clubs could be particularly hard hit by Mr. Madoff’s alleged scheme, including Boca Rio Golf […]

• Portland, Technology

  Quality Control

  12.16.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  Today as I got off the bus, I noticed that the time & temperature sign of the KeyBank branch was claiming it to be 40 degrees.  Maybe in Cleveland, but not here. As I walked along the frigid streets, I said to myself I very much doubted that sign.  The temperature sign on the building […]

• Work

  The Roads Must Roll

  12.15.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  So I get into work and only then do I find out that yesterday’s snowfall has indeed blown the city’s gasket and the company I work for has closed for the day, along with apparently most of the rest of downtown businesses, given how deserted it was when I got off the bus. That actually […]

• Technology

  I Get My Thang in Action

  12.14.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  Earlier this evening I was shoveling snow off the sidewalk, when I heard something I thought at first was a car’s open-door alarm.  I wondered who would be sitting in their car with the door open in this weather, when I realized the sound as that of an old-fashioned telephone.  Who would have their window […]

• Walks with the dogs

  What Up Gangsta

  12.13.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  Dog crap and dead leaves bear one important similarity: their color.  From which follows: legal jeopardy.  To whit: when my dog craps in the piles of leaves you leave on the sidewalk, it makes it difficult to fulfil my obligation to society.  Also: it is dark early these days and my cell phone doesn’t help […]

• Portland

  The Ballad of Hollis Brown

  12.12.08 | Permalink | 1 Comment

  The weather forecast claims it is going to get as cold as 13 degrees Monday night. Do numbers get that low? Last time I was exposed to such frigid temperatures was a visit to New Jersey a couple of years ago. But then the East Coast has that Olde Worlde weather of famine and Retreat […]

• Watches

  This Time the Dream’s on Me

  12.11.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  Today I am wearing my Timex watch. I could take a picture, upload it to my computer and post it here, but why bother when one can nab a pic from the inters that somewhat approximates what it is I wish you to see? So viddy this: Mine doesn’t have the luminescent hands or the […]

• Books

  Words from the Exit Wound

  12.10.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  Serpent’s Reach, C.J. Cherryh Shooting at Midnight, Greg Rucka The Great Outdoor Fight, Chris Onstad Voyage in the Dark, Jean Rhys Quartet, Jean Rhys Waiter Rant, Steve Dublanica(*) Last Evenings on Earth, Roberto Bolaño The Algebraist, Iain M. Banks   (*)Heartily recommended for fellow veterans of the restaurant business.  I recognized a lot of the […]

G.E. Dempsey