My Quiet Life

Since I have a lot more local people reading my blog these days, and reviews seem to be all the rage, here a few whirlwind reviews:

• First, just a recommendation to get some of the Tanzanian Peaberry at Portland Brew. They were out last time I was there, but get some if you can. It's good.
• We ate at La Luna on Friday night. I thought it was really good, although I think I liked it more than Amanda. The atmosphere is cozy, and the food was all very fresh and well-spiced (a lot of times you go to a place that serves kebabs and they forget that it's not just meat on a stick). It was also oddly abandoned for a beautiful Friday night. It's BYOB, evidently with a $5 corking fee.
• I will admit that I slammed on Cafe O2 pretty hard when it first opened (It is directly under our old office). Mostly because I thought it would immediately go out of business. But it hasn't, and I admit the place is growing on me a bit. If for nothing else, we are starting to like it just because it's a place downtown that isn't a pulsating danceclub with the menace of getting dry-humped or shot. I haven't tried the actual O2 yet, but last night we just stopped in, I had a beer, Amanda bought some earrings, and I sat on a comfortable couch and perused Frida Kahlo's diary. It was nice. I don't know that it can last, though -- particularly because what I like about it would probably disappear in a linear correlation with its popularity. But, who knows? Rumor has it she might open a pub down there, but I'll believe it when I see it.
• On a whim, we stopped in to some "lounge", downstairs below BB King's. We were just wandering by, and I asked what it was. He said "sortof a martini lounge". It was basically a dance club that happened to have very large couches. The music was so loud there was no talking to be done, so we finished our drinks and skedaddled (to Cafe O2, which was why it was so welcome by comparison). As we were leaving, the bartender told me apologetically that if we came back later there might be more people there, as if that was why we were leaving. It didn't seem like much of a lounge -- Amanda speculated that he probably told obvious yuppie-fuck couples like us that it's a "martini lounge" and then groups of single guys that it's a dance club, etc., just to get them in the door. Anyways, that sucked.
• CentreSource relocated its office to Foster Ave, and there's some barbecue place right down the street. I can't remember the name, so I'll have to find that later. But, it was terrible. It was expensive, as far as barbecue joints go. You basically grab a tray and make a pass through a cafeteria-style thing, and the guy dishes you your choice of 3 meats. The meats they had were: a big slab of very dry beef of some sort, some sort of kielbasa-like sausage, and .. no joke .. barbecued bologna. Bologna? I paid $8 for bologna ?! Where's the pulled pork? The portions of the very mediocre meat you get were very small, and the sides were not good enough to make up the difference. I am depressed, because having a good barbecue place within walking distance of our office would have kicked ass, but alas, I won't be going back.

Well, we finally moved here to Market Street Apartments. Well, mostly. We actually still have a few vanloads left. As far as I can tell, it never ends. Anyways, we then spent 2 weeks without phone or internet thanks to Bellsouth (there will probably be a long-ish rant about this coming here or on the CentreBlog.) I hadn't really intended on dropping off the face of the internet for 2 weeks, but such is life. Sometimes I wish there was a way to get on the Internet that didn't involve bending over and taking it up the ass from a giant monopoly. Bellsouth or Comcast, take your pick. You can run, but you can't hide.

Things I've learned during this experience:

• When you run your own nameserver and host it in your house, uh.. make sure your secondary is actually working before you yank the cord.
• Never move. If you must move, never do it in July. Particularly during the hottest week of the summer.
• Never move your apartment and your office in the same week. Ever.
• Seriously, never move. Buy a house, fill it with your crap, and never move.

Power is going off at the old apartment tomorrow, which means quietlife.net drops off the net riiiiight ... now.

A good article on Costco.

Moving sucks. Although there's really no relationship to my situation and The Jerk's, I nonetheless feel a bit like this at the moment:

I found this image on Steve's Web Page O'Fun!!!!!!!, which I think might just be the greatest webpage on the entire Internet.

There's an interesting conversation in the comments over at the Scene's blog about soda, sugar, child obesity and parenting and that sort of thing. Parke over at the US Food Policy blog chimes in on the issue:

I enjoyed reading the actual text of the Center for Science in the Public Interest's recently proposed labels:

* The U.S. Government recommends that you drink less (non-diet) soda to help prevent weight gain, tooth decay, and other health problems.
* To help protect your waistline and your teeth, consider drinking diet sodas or water.
* Drinking soft drinks instead of milk or calcium-fortified beverages may increase your risk of brittle bones (osteoporosis).
* CSPI also said that caffeinated drinks should bear a notice that reads "This drink contains x grams of caffeine, which is a mildly addictive stimulant drug. Not appropriate for children."

Incidently, the ubiquitous industry response line in the Reuters coverage argues that individuals, not the government, should be allowed to make decisions about food and beverage consumption. Nice slight of hand, eh? The proposal was for truthful warning labels, not food police.

Check it out, Kevin finished the Dr. Who scarf.

Hall and Oates have a blog.

Duran Duran is playing tonight. Why didn't anyone tell me? Besides Amanda who probably told me at least 4 times.

I almost wish I had gone, if it weren't at Starwood. What's amazing to me is that Duran Duran is still able to play at such a big venue. Kudos to them.

At NiT, Brittney links to a few discussions about the trend in using the term "homicide bomber" in place of "suicide bomber". In short, I think it's stupid, but I think there's an even more depressing undercurrent to all this.

Often times in the media and in public discourse in general, a certain word or phrase will get bandied about so often that it loses all impact on the public -- it's just something you see in the headlines enough that it's really no longer news. I think the word "deficits" and their associated economic ills are a good example. Despite being a rather ominous thing, the actual word doesn't have any impact on the average person anymore. I have talked about this before.

So I find myself wondering if this attempt at vocabulary revisionism isn't an attempt to underscore the horror and brutality of these attacks -- are they happening so frequently that the term "suicide bomber" is just another phrase to skim over in the daily news with a yawn? These are sad times.