It’s not as fun as the classic, but it’s still pretty entertaining.
From CNN iReport:
December 15, 2008, South Waterfront neighborhood, Portland, Oregon. Looking from our condo we can see cars attempting, and most failing, to climb up a hill to get out of the neighborhood. I decided to put together a montage of sliding cars. Portland had a recent snowfall and we are expecting more tomorrow.
Update: The Hard Drive blog talks to Southwest Waterfront resident Bob Cronk; the creator of the video.
In the late 90s my brother Steve and I played in a local pinball league. I was never better than above average, but my little brother was good. Good enough to win the league and tournaments repeatedly. We were always on the lookout for new machines to test our skills on, and in 2001, Steve created PortlandPinball.com as a forum for local pinheads to discuss, amongst other things, locations of particular machines. Sadly the site is now moribund (though the Locations thread still has some life in it).
The recently launched Portland Pinball Map, created by SSW and CFF–ROM, fills the gap impressively.
The site enables users to:
- Check your favorite locations for their latest line-up
- Search for machines throughout town
- Browse the machines in your region
- Search for locations with four or more machines
- Comment on a machine’s condition
I don’t play pinball (or hang out in bars or drink as much Pabst) as much as I used to, but now I know where I can go to find Rollergames when I get the itch . . . What!?! According to the map, no Rollergames in all of Portland?! Sigh.
I walk down pinball memory lane after the jump . . .
[Read more…]
My friend Brent is an engineer for BNSF Railway, so he’s no stranger to locomotives. But even he was impressed by the 17 foot tall, 5000 horse power, steam belching SP&S 700 Saturday in Vancouver.
The Novel that Predicted Portland
That’s the headline of an article in the New York Times today that equates modern day Portland with the utopian locale in the 70s era environmentalist-Utopian novel Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach.
The novel, now being rediscovered, speaks to our ecological present: in the flush of a financial crisis, the Pacific Northwest secedes from the United States, and its citizens establish a sustainable economy, a cross between Scandinavian socialism and Northern California back-to-the-landism, with the custom — years before the environmental writer Michael Pollan began his campaign — to eat local.
Other than the headline the only actual reference to Portland comes as part of the answer to the question “So what has “Ecotopia” given us?”
A great deal, thinks Professor Slovic of the University of Nevada, including the bioregionalism movement, which considers each part of the country as having a distinct ecological character to be cultivated. The green movement’s focus on local foods and products, and its emphasis on energy reduction also have roots in “Ecotopia,” he said. In fact, much of Portland, Ore., with its public transport, slow-growth planning and eat-local restaurants, can seem like Ecotopia made reality.
Read the whole article for a well measured analysis of the impact, and steadily growing popularity, of this rather obscure, originally self-published novel.
Update 12/15/2008: Based on some of the comments this post has received I think some people do not understand that the suggestion that Les Schwab somehow influences the local news media to hype winter storms (like they need any help) is a *joke*.
I heard an interesting theory the other day that Les Schwab conspires with the local news media to hype immanent snow storms (that seldom actually materialize) so they can sell more snow tires.