I guess everything can be made “extreme” if you try hard enough:
More Time Killers
Prepare to lose your evening playing Fantastic Contraption.
Thanks, Ruben!
Let The County Know You Oppose The Room Tax Increase
I rarely (if at all) get into politics on this blog, as politics and the politicians are just a silly waste of time. That being said, this is something that affects quite a bit of Central Oregon, and really needs to be said.
There is talk of putting a measure on the November ballot to raise the transient room tax in Deschutes County by two percent. Needless to say, lodging industry folks are worried and the Bulletin doesn’t even like the idea (you may need to be a subscriber to get access to those articles).
As many of you know, I do geek and marketing work for a couple vacation rental companies in Sunriver, and obviously anything that potentially is going to turn away tourists directly affects me (even though I’ve been pretty vocal of my loathing of some of our visitors, they do pay my paycheck). But what people around here don’t realize is how much of this area is directly or indirectly affected by tourism dollars coming into this area. Like it or not, we really don’t have another major industry here — tourism is it. So anything that’s going to turn away the tourists affects more than the folks who directly cater to those visitors.
Not only that, but it annoys me that the County has decided to pin their inability to manage their funds onto folks who are visiting the area (who down the road could potentially fall in love with the area, buy a home, and put more money in the County coffers) instead of just fixing the problem.
My boss here — who has been in this industry locally for over 20 years — has written a letter to his homeowners that I’ve edited and he has given me permission to post here. I agree with it 100%. Not because he signs my paycheck, I actually do agree with this. And you really should let your County commissioners and administrators ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]) know that you do, too. Read on for the full letter…
Welcome Bulletin Readers
If you’re here because of a quick quote of mine in a story today in today’s Bulletin (must be a subscriber to see the story online), welcome. The blog post mentioned in the article is here, along with a workaround for folks wanting to see more video online.
The Most Useful Coverage Of The Olympic Games
Slate has a great bunch of articles covering the Olympic Games, but probably the most useful of them all is the Sap-O-Meter.
I had mentioned before how I could use a little less drama in these Olympics and quite a bit more sports on TV (there is already enough drama in a competition like this — do we need more?). That’s why I got a hearty laugh when Lori shared the Sap-o-Meter, and Slate has made a nice little widget where you can keep tabs on the latest Sap:
Time Killer For The Day
Can you guess the 100 most common words in the English language in five minutes? Neither could I. How’d you do?
What If Penthouse Forum Ran Corrections?
They’d probably read something like this (NSFW text):
In the letter “Three-Way Freeway,” it was implied that “Diana” begged for the opportunity to participate in sexual relations with her roommate and her roommate’s boyfriend after accidentally walking in on their “sweaty, all-night lovemaking session.” In actual fact, “Diana” was not aware of her participation in the “love sandwich” until she regained consciousness later that evening.
You know, I like watching gymnastics…
…but am I the only one that has a hard time listening to Bart Conner doing the commentary? I find myself muting it whenever he’s on. It’s kind of like Scott Hamilton during the Winter Olympics — I’m sure they’re both really nice people, but something about them bugs the heck out of me.
What’s everybody thought of the coverage so far? I could use a few less Bob Costas moments, but the online coverage has been good.
Free Games If You Have a nVidia or ATI Video Card
I’m not much of a gamer, but I can never turn down freebies:
Through an exclusive deal with Nvidia, Valve is offering Portal: First Slice (demo) along with Half Life 2: Death Match, Lost Coast and Peggle Extreme. All you’ve got to do is install Steam on your system.
ATI also has a similar deal, but the nVidia deal comes with more games.
If you don’t know what kind of video card you have, there’s a really good chance it has a chipset from either ATI or nVidia if it’s an add-in card (meaning it’s not built into the motherboard). If you don’t know still, click here to install Steam, and then click on the nVidia link or the ATI link and see which one will let you install. If neither of them work, then go ahead and uninstall Steam if you don’t want it.
Working Around NBCOlympics.com’s Stupid Restrictions
I’ve always loved the Olympics, but have hated NBC’s coverage. This year, they promise to have more coverage, including a ton of online coverage. I’d prefer to watch the BBC’s coverage, as I’ve always have heard it’s better, but NBC’s exclusive rights to American broadcasts forces the other providers to lock us out.
Wired Wiki has a great bit on how to watch the Olympics online. One thing I’ve found out about NBCs online video system is that access to some videos (encore and live videos, for example) is restricted if your cable provider doesn’t participate. According to the NBC site, BendBroadband doesn’t participate, as I was trying to watch an encore video of the Prefontaine Classic and couldn’t.
The workaround I found? Select another zip code and known big-name provider for that are. I personally selected 97403 (a Eugene zip code) and Comcast and was able to get in fine. So just get a zip code for one of Comcast’s markets and use it, since Comcast appears to be participating
(Or maybe it’s a local NBC-affiliate issue, I have no idea, but the local KTVZ Olympics page itself seems to work fine.)
I tried selecting DirecTV and 97701 (a Bend zip code) and the site told me that DirecTV doesn’t serve this area (which it actually does), so I envision a bunch of people getting angry at the NBC site when Olympic coverage starts in earnest tomorrow.
Update on 8/14/08: First off, welcome Bulletin readers. If you’re trying to get good high quality clips online, Waxy has a great write-up on Pirating The Olympics