Thoughts & Deeds

The launch of Google Maps’ “Bike There” feature has been a pretty big deal in Portland. After poking around on it a bit, Joseph Rose from the Oregonian asked his Twitter followers if it seemed a little “beta” to them. I replied that it was “very beta” and was even published, though my follow-up tweet wasn’t published and my real point was lost. It wasn’t until I was on a long ride over the weekend that I realized exactly why the Bike There feature felt beta to me. … more

We had an interesting experience in Portland this past weekend when our typically pristine water supply was tainted by e. coli, affecting west-side residents and businesses. That meant that anyone served by the tainted reservoir had to boil their water before using it — which is no big deal for people who are used to camping — and the city government had to get the word out about the contamination. Now that is a pretty big deal. … more

Last Friday I had the excellent opportunity to talk to interactive industry colleagues about something near and dear to my liver heart – homebrewing. I served five kinds of homebrew to warm up the crowd, then dropped an amazing 17 minutes of blabbing about beer on their unwitting ears. People were kind enough to laugh at my dorky jokes, too! What nice folks we have in Portland. … more

Now that Ashton Kutcher has challenged CNN to see who could reach 1 million followers first and won, people are wondering all about Twitter. CNN’s Quick Poll today shows that only 6% of people are using Twitter (as of April 17), which begs the question “Who cares?” So Kutcher got a million followers, so he’ll donate 10,000 mosquito bed nets to World Malaria Day, why does anyone want so many followers? … more

Sure, it’s supposed to be sunny and 80 in Portland on Monday, but today it’s a grey, wet April day. To keep things green and growing, I’ve lined up some of my favorite songs about rain to encourage the rain to stick around this month. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sun, but April was made for rain. … more

When Muxtape died at the heavy hands of the RIAA it was a sad day for those of us who enjoyed sharing and discovering new music via old skool mix tapes. Thankfully, OpenTape brings the music back to the masses! I’m relaunching my monthly mixes and hope you’ll share your mixes if you have them. … more

One of the things I appreciate about Sam Adams, the mayor of Portland, is that he’s tech-savvy. Like President Obama, he’s hip to the tools the internet has to offer. He has a Twitter account, a nice little mayoral website, and ran a good election campaign. His use of technology makes him feel accessible, and that’s important to me. … more

Between Muxtape, Twitter, and KEXP I’ve discovered a lot of new-to-me music in the last few months. Normally, I’d share my latest favorites through my monthly Muxtape, but now that the RIAA has shut that down I’ll have to settle for an iMix of my favorite songs from each album. … more

When was the last time you said that to someone? Remember making mix tapes in high school, maybe even in college? Break up tapes, I have a crush on you tapes, a tape of Alphaville’s “Forever Young” repeated over and over… Then you used the photocopier to make fancy covers for you tapes, gave them to friends, maybe had a mix tape trading club (we had the Myxx Tayp Kollektiv). And where are your old tapes now? Do you even have a cassette player? … more

I don’t watch very much TV. I just forget to do it, even if there’s a show I know I might like. Now, don’t think I’m some self-righteous anti-TV do-gooder, because I’m not. I love me some TV! Give me my stories! Make me laugh! Show me a gross autopsy! I want my Cylons! … more