…and while the end of the world didn’t occur today (the day’s not over yet, I guess), it didn’t stop people from betting on it. Thanks Barn for the link.
My question is if you do bet correctly, are you going to be able to collect?
More Northwest Blogs
The Inland Northwest Blogger’s Association is a group of bloggers from the lesser-talked-about parts of the Northwestern United States: Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, or Northwest Wyoming. According to the site’s webmaster and group’s founder, it’s basically a network of bloggers helping bloggers. They have no dues, or membership fees, and are really just a loose knit group of bloggers who help each other promote their blogs and the image of blogging. Be sure to check it out.
Cascade Winds in Concert at the Tower Theatre
Yes, it’s that time of the year again. Coming next Monday, June 12, at 7:30PM, live in concert at the Tower Theatre is the Cascade Winds Symphonic Band. Yes, we’re moving up in the world and we’re playing at the Tower (to quote Snarky, we’re big tits now!), and we’re expecting a (hopefully) packed house so we can do two concerts next time around.
Among the pieces we’re playing:
Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin
Procession of the Nobles by Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakov
Poeme Montagnard by Jan Van der Roost
In The Winter of 1730 by James Swearingen
Americans We by Henry Fillmore
Tuba Tiger Rag by Harry DeCosta
And let me tell ya — that Poeme Montagnard piece is one of the most wonderfully intense, entertaining and challenging pieces the band has played, and I really think the concert’s worth coming to just for that reason (we’ve been working our rear-ends off on it). Heck, any piece has to be good when it’s stocked with a crapload of percussion, a harp, piano, celeste, and a bunch of recorders (yes, those things we all played in the third grade, just much higher quality and much better sounding).
Tickets are free and are available at the Tower Theatre (they’re in short supply) and they’ll be letting folks in at the door after all the folks with tickets have been let in first. More information is available at the Cascade Winds concert page. That page says that you can get them from band members, but I know I don’t have any extras (and if I manage to get ahold of some, I’ll be giving them to the Tower).
And I know a couple of local bloggers live a few blocks from there, so I expect to see you there </guilt trip>
Some Critter Messed Up My Car After Crapping In It
You ever have one of those days where it starts off so weird that you know it’s going to be an odd day? This is going to be one of those days …
So I got into my car this morning to begin my commute out to Sunriver, and my car’s running really bad, like a spark plug/cable was shot and it wasn’t firing on all cylinders. So I pop the hood, and notice several things a bit odd (though the spark plug wires appeared to be plugged in OK). One, the insulation covering the underside of my hood has a big chunk (1 foot by 2 foot) taken out of it, and there are pieces of the stuff all over my engine and under my car. Two, there’s a little wire loom where several of the wires are now exposed where they weren’t before. And three, there is some sort of critter feces sitting atop the wheel well.
I couldn’t identify the excrement (it sort of looked like cat, but “Feces Indentifier” is not something you will find on my resume). I didn’t have a lot of time to look at it as I just needed to take my wife’s car and get to work. But it appears some little critter somehow got up underneath my car, up into the engine cavity, and did some damage. My guess is that whatever got in there got scared to death that it couldn’t easily get out (I have a compact old Subaru), started freaking out, pooped, cut up some stuff, and then finally wiggled out (there was more droppings under the car). More than likely, my spark plug wires are probably sliced up a bit, but I didn’t have time to look at them this morning.
Makes me wish I had that ultra high-end surveillance system in place (if the crook is reading this, there still isn’t anything worth taking out of those cars).
We’ll just have to see how the rest of the day goes. On the bright side, my wife has the nicer car, and it’s far more comfortable to drive.
Update at 10:03: Had a closer look under my hood. I’m no car whiz, but my guess is you shouldn’t discover more poop when looking under there (it was there before, I just didn’t see it). I tried pulling the spark plug wires, and broke them getting them out (the conducters came out of the things). Obviously, nobody’s open right now so I can buy wires, so I’ll have to go tomorrow and get some replacements, along with new plugs, and then try to fix the wiring that the critter slashed up (a wiring loom was on the ground under the car, and the wires are pretty hosed so it’ll probably have to be professionally repaired). So we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ll be bumming a ride off my dad this week.
I Say We Roll Kegs Of Microbrew Down Pilot Butte
Similar to that annual cheese-rolling competition in England (where 25 people got hurt this year), I say we get some kegs from the various local micro–breweries, roll them down Pilot Butte, and let some lunatics chase after them. Anybody want to organize it?
Thanks Cheryl for the cheese link.
Do You Think We Were Born Yesterday?
As many of you know, I work for a couple of vacation rental companies out here in Sunriver. I’ve mentioned several times in the past about all the damage from parties and other weirdness from guests. The biggest problems have been from college students renting our houses for huge parties, and then when we inspect for damage, they deny anything ever happened and that we’re not doing our job, that we’re picking on them, etc… .
Generally, we don’t even rent to folks who sound too young, or have an obvious university address and we have a good feeling they’re going to trash the place. But occasionally a new reservationist will let it slide or won’t be paying attention, and the homes get booked. Then, after they depart, we inspect the home, and find it totally damaged and trashed, they deny it ever happened, we’re picking on them, and that it was like that when they got there, but generally their actions speak for themselves.
This last weekend (the three-day Memorial Day weekend), it happened again. Since I don’t work front desk hardly at all any more like I used to, I didn’t catch the booking. But anybody who knows Eugene knows that if the address is within two blocks of Campus (address slightly changed to just some random house number, but that’s the same general location), then it’s probably a college student, and if they’re renting more than one house, there’s going to be a party. There was a party indeed, and based on the fact that there were kegs, beer cans, wine stains in the carpet, puke next to the now green-watered hot tub, excrement, and each of the houses had about 25 bags of garbage, they were obviously big parties.
So the front desk manager has to make the calls, telling the woman who booked the property, who signed the paperwork saying they’d pay for damages, that there was serious damage to the house, her reply was basically “Well how was I supposed to keep track of everybody?” And she’s balking at payment.
I don’t have a problem with parties, but I do have a problem with people who don’t own up to what they did wrong. Everybody’s done something crazy in college, but I have NO respect whatsoever for people who don’t own up to it. If they would just admit their wrongdoing and pay up, they’d probably be welcomed back next time (when they’ve graduated, of course).
What gets me, too, is the people acted like it was totally out of their control. But as an alumni of the University of Oregon, I can get into Facebook, and looking through there, this was obviously pre-planned (you need a Facebook login to check this out).
As it stands right now, according to our front desk, there is about $1000 worth of time, labor, and repairs between the three houses they rented, and we haven’t gotten the bills back from the carpet cleaner yet. They had to be fully deep cleaned, all the carpets totally professionally cleaned, and many little repairs had to be done to each house.
It just bugs the living crap out of me when people totally trash a rental home like this. I know it happens all over the place, and certainly isn’t a Sunriver-exclusive thing, but what this people don’t seem to realize is that they’re trashing somebody’s home. How would they like it if we came to their house, trashed it, threw garbage all over, and then puked, peed, and crapped all over their floors after we spilled our booze? Yeah, that’s what I thought…
Am I the only person who went to college and didn’t get himself drunk and stupid?
</rant>
Nothing Says “I Love You” Like Slicing Off Your Johnson
I don’t even want to know what possessed this moron who, in an attempt to prove he was faithful to his wife, sliced off his manhood.
Associated Press Violates The First Rule of Fight Club
Because we all know that you do not talk about Fight Club, even if this is different because it involves geeks in the beat downs. Thanks Dave for the link.
If You’re Going To Misrepresent A Laptop On eBay…
…don’t forget to erase the hard drive of the one you do send. The seller had a serious foot/leg fetish and the buyer decided to make a make-shift blog based on what he found on the hard drive. Hilarious!
Want To Lose Your Lunch?
Then be sure to check out this picture gallery for a colon cleansing product. Yes, the photo gallery is photos of exactly what you’re thinking of — stuff that has been cleansed out of a colon (and it’s some scary stuff). Blame b3ta for that.
On a related poop note, it still amazes me that this really old entry about why you might end up with green stool is one of my most-commented-on entries. The fact that I’m in the top several sites for this search might have something to do with it.