Funniest Local Blog Since Snarky

I have no idea who this woman is or if this blog is totally fake, but it sure it funny. Some quotes:

From here:

There are also stories about poor people, homeless people, etc. No one wants to read that. And please, there are no poor people in Bend! We keep our poor people in Redmond and LaPine. They have their own poor-people communities there and I’m sure they’re very happy. It’s a marvelous system we have in Central Oregon.

And from here:

Recently, Bend (indeed, my little Awbrey Butte neighborhood) made it onto the cover of the Wall Street Journal. It was very exciting. My neighbor Joan Grundeman was even quoted in it. She’s a wonderful woman with an impeccable house. Some part-time nurse had strung up clotheslines to dry her sheets. Can you imagine? Clotheslines on Awbrey Butte? That’s quite below us. We can all afford driers (and believe me–the best driers) on Awbrey Butte.

The blog’s only been up a few days, and I have no idea who Sally Heatherton is (she only appears on google from some local blogs, including my own as she posted a comment here), Can’t find anything on Google, about her and her real estate business, nor is there anything on the Dex white pages nor are there local property records with that last name (that could be her maiden name, however). She’s also not listed with the State as a real estate agent.

Whoever’s writing the blog is hilarious. It’s amazing how silly/stupid/satirical it reads. But it made me laugh. Any theories?

Update: One thing I forgot to check. She posted a comment here on the above clothesline article and she also e-mailed me to add her to bendblogs.com using the submission form on that site. Both submissions were filtered through an anonymous proxy. Well played, “Sally.”

September 25, 2007

Moron For The Day

So a crook steals a guy’s Mac laptop. The original owner of the laptop had it setup to upload pictures out of Photobooth onto his account on Flickr, so two good high res photos of the crook (or the laptop’s new owner) were uploaded onto Flickr here and here. The Something Awful folks are trying to track the guy down using the images there along with the video from the security cam (still images here).

I can’t wait to see how this turns out and if anybody has a SA forums user name and can see how they’re doing, let me know — if anybody can track that guy down, the SA forum community can. Link via BB.

Update on 9/27: The guy turned himself in.

September 24, 2007

Another Video Dump

Just cleaning out the inbox of my collected videos for the last week or two.

(more…)

September 23, 2007

Bend Woman Makes WSJ Front Page Trying To Dry Her Clothes

Susan Taylor lives on Awbrey Butte here in Bend, and was trying to do something nice for the environment by drying clothes on a clothesline. The problem is, she lives in a sub-division where her elitist neighbors are worried about their property values dropping because of said clothesline. It’s to the point now where Brooks Resources, one of the nations largest private landholders and the folks who manage the homeowners group up there, is threatening legal action against her.

The full, entertaining story, with reactions from neighbors (who are probably from out of town originally) and Brooks Resources management (who I have very little respect for for a variety of reasons unrelated to this story), on the Wall Street Journal is available here.

Full disclosure: I know Ms. Taylor, have known her for many, many years (since I was a kid as she works with my mom), and built a computer for her a couple years ago. She just contacted me to ask for help sorting through all the email and crap she’s getting because of this story (apparently the BBC has contacted her). Just the same, she lived up in that area of Awbrey Butte LONG before many people did. Her and her husband built their house up there, and they had no neighbors at all for years, and when she called me this morning, I literally laughed out loud. I think this whole thing is hilarious and just epitomizes the kind of craphole Bend is slowly turning into.

Amazingly, I’m sure there are other developments in Bend that have similar rules, and sadly, Sunriver has even worse stupid rules.

Update: Jon has a great idea for a headline if this makes the newspaper: “Brooks Resources hates the environment.” Good call, Jon.

Update on 9/22: Ms. Taylor has a new e-mail address just for this purpose if people want to email her about this, and she said I could post it here: hangingoutinbend {at} gmail {dot} com. She said that she thanks everybody who has supported her, and is glad to have mine (and other blogger’s) support.

Update on 9/23: Just got an update from Ms. Taylor:

This whole thing is beyond me. I cannot believe all the support. Check out the Oregonian tomorrow, The Bulletin this week, ABC news local filmed me, a German TV station next month…wow. I have so much more hope, I had hit the wall prior to the Wall Street Journal covering this. The BBC did a live interview Sept. 18 and NPR aired Thurs.on Here and Now with Robin. Unreal.

We’ll just have to see now if Brooks Resources caves (doubtful).

Update on 9/23 @ 4:10PM: According to The Source, Ms. Taylor took down her line. Haven’t confirmed with her yet.

Update on 9/25: KTVZ has a story.

Update on 9/26: The Source gave Brooks Resources the boot.

Update on 9/29: Bulletin’s story.

September 20, 2007

Playing To The Suckers Out There

I went to my local computer parts warehouse to pick up a small little switch. I usually buy the little five-port Netgear switches (as they’re bulletproof), but they didn’t have any, so I bought a cheap Zonet five port switch. I didn’t notice until I got the thing to the office, but it has an odd bit of promotional text on it in a bright green circle on the box: “Windows Vista Compatible.”

Last I checked, network switches aren’t operating-system dependant. The software to manage them sometimes is, but the hardware isn’t. So why didn’t they just put “Linux, MacOS, BeOS, Unix, Windows, FreeBSD and DOS Compatible” or something just to cover all bases? They obviously put this on there to play to the folks who don’t know that and think that they need a “Vista Compatible” network switch.

September 20, 2007

Need AA Batteries?

Go buy one of those 6 Volt lantern batteries for $5, and you’ll net yourself 32 AAs:

I have two of these batteries in my workbench (the flashlight that I used them with is hosed) and I’ll be tearing them open tomorrow (as we always need AAs around here).s

Link via Lifehacker.

Update on 10/16: It was a hoax.

September 19, 2007

Want Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate For Less Than $60?

Befriend a college student, who can buy it for $59.95.

Anybody want to buy me a copy? I’m still enrolled in college classes, but not on a full time basis, so I’m not eligible.

September 19, 2007

Some People Are Way To Into This Stupid Pirate Day

I had a power supply literally blow a gasket (actually, a capacitor) here at the office because the fan died in it. Since I’m in Sunriver, I had to drive to Bend to get a replacement, so I called my wife to see if she wanted to have lunch while I was in town. We went down to Pilot Butte Drive-In (where I don’t go much any more since they close so damn early) for a burger, and as we were sitting there, this family of four walked in, dressed as pirates. The mom, the dad, and their two little boys (probably six and eight years old or so). They were even talking like pirates. I wonder why the kids weren’t in school (assuming they aren’t homeschooled), but I digress…

It wasn’t until I was leaving that I realized today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Flickr is awash with pirates (including some booty), and the whole Web is enjoying this “holiday” that Dave Barry helped popularize.

But am I the only one that thinks the whole thing is just stupid and sees this as yet another excuse for people to do stupid and silly things (like St. Patty’s day)? When I told folks at the office here what today was, they were basically saying the same thing: Does anybody really give a rip?

September 19, 2007

The New York Times Comes To Their Senses

They’ve decided to shut down the paywall they had on many of the articles on their Web site. Why? They’re starting to realize that they could be making more money with advertising dollars then they are with subscribers. To quote an email that was forwarded my direction by Barney: “People will pay for what they want. But it’s looking more and more like advertisers will pay more to reach the right audience than the audience will pay to reach the right information.” Indeed.

Now if some folks up on Chandler Drive could realize the revenue that could be made (and the goodwill and good karma points they’d get) if they opened up their paywall, then we could start link to some of their stories now and again. While I love KTVZ and The Source and their stories, The Bulletin has a much larger staff and sometimes can cover stories that the others folks can’t do. The revenue that can be generated by having your stories indexed well in Google, Yahoo, etc… can be quite large, if you have a good ad sales team or Google Adsense-type ads placed right.

More comments at Boing Boing.

September 18, 2007

Another Addicting Game

Another little puzzle game that’ll kill off your day. Thanks to Dave for killing off my evening. He says he’s made it to level 30, so ask him if you’re stuck, as I’m only up to 11 (I’ve only been playing for a bit, having had time killed with today’s other game).

September 18, 2007