Month: March 2010

Bend Blogs is Now On Facebook

So I’ve gone through the effort of creating a quick and dirty Bend Blogs fan page. My goal is to have it pulling the content from Bend Blogs, posting it into the wall of the Fan page, and potentially bring more traffic to the folks who list themselves on Bend Blogs. It’s very much in its infant stages, but if you’re wanting to become a fan, feel free (primarily so I can get enough fans to get a username).

Any suggestions on how to fully utilize the page are welcome. Really, the Bend Blogs site needs a redesign to take better advantage of the various social networking opportunities I’m working on setting up. @bendblogs will be coming soon, @utterlyboring is already here, @jakeortman will never happen. I’ve come to realize that fewer and fewer folks are reading RSS feeds anymore, getting their content via Facebook and Twitter. Thankfully, there are many apps and services out there to automatically dump RSS feeds to both of these services, so while my original feelings about twitter haven’t changed much, I obviously need to let people know when new content has been written to keep some sort of ad revenue coming in so I can pay for my server fees.

If you run a Web site, and want Bend Blogs content on your own site, I do have banners and widgets for that, and remember there is a mobile version as well.

If you’re wondering why I suddenly am getting into this more, it’s because I’m working on setting up and customizing Discover Sunriver’s Facebook and Twitter profiles and pages, so I’m also using my various experiments to figure out how to do things properly before I implement them on the Discover Sunriver pages.

Update an Hour Later: Woohoo! We have the required 25 fans for a username! You can now find Bend Blogs on Facebook at facebook.com/bendblogs

March 30, 2010

Time Killers For The Evening

  • Colliderix is a fun physic game where you just have to math up the colors — but it gets tricky as you get going.
  • Make your dolphin do all sort of flips and tricks and score a bunch of points in Dolphin Olympics 2.

March 29, 2010

Reading Material

March 29, 2010

The Final Four Is Set

But the pick ’em is far from over.

I think.

Really, since I can’t get the frickin’ scenario generator on Yahoo!’s site to actually load, I have no idea how (if at all) next week’s games will affect the scoring. Just a quick glance through some of the brackets shows that it could shake up the top spots a bit, but as of right now (end of round 4), “Oregon but not forgotten” has the lead by a single point over two other folks, and other folks out of the top three could still move up to prize-winner territory. The updated spreadsheet has been posted.

Thanks again to some of our the prize providers (some of our prizes were provided by me or by folks who didn’t want credit):

Baker City Vacation Rentals

Paizano’s Pizza

SUPERAntiSpyware

Mug Revolution

Jake’s Diner

Dave Woodland at Signet Mortgage

Bend Oregon Restaurants blog

March 28, 2010

Sunriver Would Like To Be A Google Fiber Town

Last month, Google announced plans to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. While the official list of cities and communities that applied hasn’t been released yet, looking at the map on Google’s site, there were obviously several communities in Oregon that applied or sent in a response. Sunriver was one of them.

The Sunriver Owner’s Association sent a release about why they’re doing it, created a site to keep the community updated, and created a video for their RFI response. They’ve also setup a twitter presence, for those of you who are into that sort of them (I’m not).

Many of their points make good sense, but considering the sheer number of folks who have applied (more than 1,100 communities responded, according to Google), and all the crazy tactics — one mayor promises a tattoo and other cities will rename themselves — it’s going to be a tough pitch. But considering the flat-out lack of really decent, reliable, high speed internet access out here (while I like the Cable company’s service and the people there, 100% reliable it is not), it might put them up the list over places that already have good service and a large quantity of fiber already underground.

March 28, 2010

The Sweet Sixteen Is Over

Round Three of the 2010 pick ’em is over, with “Club ED” and “winner winner chicken dinner” tied for the lead, with “Capitan Jack & his Torchwood” just a couple points behind. The games during the Elite Eight (the next two days) are worth five points each, so it’s still anybody’s game (except mine — there’s no chance there).

The various upsets during the tournament has made the spreadsheet very interesting.

Scores for the next two days will be combined and posted on Sunday, when the Final Four has been set.

The SOBA Noodle punch card, provided by BOR, will be going to the “haven’t a clue” bracket. The two last place people aren’t even remotely local — one out of the country and one out of the state — and after talking to them, they said to pass it on to the next worse person. I know that person is local, so I’ll be sending them the card later this week.

March 26, 2010

Scoring Will Be Posted Tomorrow Morning

The late game of the pick ’em is running late. As I type this, Xavier and Kansas State are in the second overtime, very well could go to a third. I’m, unfortunately, on the road and have limited internet access, so I’ll post the scores and update the spreadsheet in the morning when the scoring for the day is finalized.

Update in the morning: First off, the Internet access at the Shilo Inn in Beaverton is worthless. Either that, or they’re throttling connections to the entire google.com family of products, as everything from Google maps, search, docs, etc… is slower than snot. Since I can’t get in to the spreadsheet to change the scores on the spreadsheet (will try again later), I’ll just post the top 5 (for now) here:

winner winner chicken dinner: 55

Capitan Jack & his Torchwood: 53

Canadian Invaders: 53

Phuxphace: 52

Club ED: 52

Update later in the morning: Finally got on Google docs, and the spreadsheet has been updated.

March 25, 2010

Spoiled Cows

Apparently cows in Russia that watch TV (and not just any TV, but really frickin’ nice LED-backlit big-boy HDTV) might be more productive in milk production — at least that’s one farmer’s theory that he’s testing.

If you speak Russian, there’s a video here and a much more detailed write-up here.

March 25, 2010

Best Unsubscribe Page Ever

Poor, poor Derrick.

March 23, 2010

What Web Site Do You Wish Existed?

This is why I love reddit: wish it, and they will come.

March 22, 2010