Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Author: Jon

  • 3 newish Bend restaurants

    Two weekends ago, the in-laws were in town from Chicago, and as always happens, we went out to dinner (and lunch) every day they were here. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be much to write about, but while they were here ate out at three of the newer restaurants here in Bend: Zydeco, Mercury Diner and Anthony’s HomePort. I thought I’d post a mini-review of each.

    Zydeco

    I’ve only eaten here twice, my wife a handful of times, and already we agree it’s one of the best places to eat in Bend. (If not the best.) Everyone I’ve spoken to who has eaten there agrees. Great food, great service, great ambience. Surprisingly, they even turned out to be kid-friendly (our three and five year olds didn’t complain), even though you wouldn’t necessarily know it.

    The two times I’ve been there, I had fish. The steelhead was great, the redfish was excellent. Everything on the menu looks good! Full range of cocktails, too; their signature drink is a blueberry martini. I had that the first time, it was good and a little different; they make their own blueberry syrup mix and after it sets for a few minutes it tends to settle to the bottle of the glass, so you need to stir it up. Fortunately that doesn’t really interfere with the enjoyment.

    And dessert! The only one we’ve had their is the almond wet cake, probably the best (and most unique) dessert in Bend. It’s hard to describe; it’s like a pound cake that has been soaked in something like four different kinds of milk (they told us something similar to this the first time we had it), so it literally is wet. Yet fantastic. Try it.

    The only drawback I could find for Zydeco is their location: they’re in the south part of Bend, on Third Street in the old Skippers building between Carrera Motors and Burger King. If you know that area of town (and that location specifically), you know that it’s not real convenient to get to and is not the place you’d expect for an upscale restaurant to be. Their traffic seems to be doing well so far, but if anything’s going to work against them I’d say it’s the location.

    Mercury Diner

    Speaking of unexpected locations, you’ll find the Mercury Diner in one at the intersection of College Way and Newport Avenue, nearly sharing a lot with a gas station. I like Mercury Diner quite a bit; my wife does not. It’s upscale dining in an almost ’50s diner atmosphere—much of the seating is in fact booths and for larger parties (six or more) they drag tables together to make room.

    Still, they have good food (I haven’t had a bad meal there yet) and reasonable service. A good beer selection, too (I haven’t run into many places around here that have Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap). Much of the fare is southern in origin; the owners are originally from Texas, so you’ll tend to find spicier food and big portions.

    I like the atmosphere, but it’s not really for big parties. We’ve always been there with six or more, and it gets crowded really quick like that. Even so, it’s worth it.

    Just be sure to ask how spicy a dish is before you order it.

    Anthony’s HomePort

    Literally brand new and located in the Old Mill District, this is probably one of the flashiest restaurants around (if the TVs above the urinals in the men’s room—among other things—are any indication). They are in a great location, on the river with great westerly views of the mountains (or they would have been great views, if it wasn’t winter and overcast), and the decor is extremely fancy. We had dinner upstairs, but a word of warning: it was very drafty. The entire area is open (it’s kind of like a loft), and the table we were at was directly in the airflow of the vents. I suspect sitting upstairs during the summer would be more enjoyable.

    The food was very good, though. I had halibut with a sour cream sauce of some kind baked on top of it, very different and tasty. Everyone else’s meals looked good too. And, the menu is nearly entirely seafood, with only three or four steak dishes (rumor has it that there was a chicken special once), so if you don’t eat seafood (like my wife), you may want to avoid it.

    Our waitress was a little daffy, I don’t know if she was having a rough night or we were just too big a group (eight of us) with some unusual food requests, or if it was just her. Maybe she was a little overwhelmed? Whatever, we’ve definitely had better service at other places, but it wasn’t bad enough to be a dealbreaker for me. Of course, I’m more tolerant than most people with restaurant service…

    As I said, the decor is amazing and flashy. I found myself pausing on the stairs on my way to and from the restroom just to look around, particularly at the entirely open kitchen. I think this will definitely be a popular place because of this, their prime location in the Old Mill District and the views they’ll boast. On the other hand, being in the Old Mill means there’s extremely limited parking; be prepared to walk a few blocks to get there.

    Overall, I’d try it again when the weather is nicer.

  • Now under a Creative Commons License

    As promised, I’ve changed this site’s copyright to a Creative Commons license; specifically, an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license. What this means is, anyone is free to make derivative works of my stuff, or to copy, distribute, display, and perform it, so long as they give me credit, distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one (if they alter, transform, or build upon this stuff), and not use the work for commercial purposes.

    Basically, in English, this clears up any copyright legal issues that might arise with things like aggregators or the Google Toolbar that reuses/remixes my content. I may try out different CC licenses from time to time, but for the most part I think it’s covered.

  • Sklar on Google Toolbar

    David Sklar, a PHP programmer/author I respect, has a post on his blog on the Google Toolbar controversy. Sklar joins the voices of reason on this, few and far between though we may be. It’s a good post, worth the read, but I think his opening and closing sentences are the kickers:

    Why do folks who want the freedom to remix content as they see fit get their digital dander up when other people remix their own content? …

    The most important issue is recognizing that we all have to give up the control over our content that many of us demand of Big Media Corporations.

    That’s the key, I think; of all those crying foul over the Toolbar, almost every single one that I’ve read is entirely hypocritical in that they don’t want the Toolbar to change their content even though they themselves engage in exactly this same thing with other people’s content.

  • Houston’s glass public toilet

    Updated, see below.

    A while back, Jake posted about a public restroom in Switzerland that was made out of one-way glass. Well, apparently there’s one in Houston now; my friend Kerry sent me the pictures in email this morning.

    Here’s what it looks like from the outside:

    Exterior of Houston's glass public toilet

    And, here’s the view from the inside:

    Interior of Houston's glass public toilet

    Man, that’s just wrong. I just couldn’t use it, no way.

    Update: These are the photos from the original Switzerland toilet; looks like they’re being recycled again. So, take this all with a grain of salt. What’s funny is that I first heard of this (and then got the email) from people at work, and it’s making the rounds on other sites as well (a quick search on Google pulls them up), so there may be an actual Houston toilet; who knows.

  • Boss Hogg: Linguist

    Random fun fact for the day: Sorrell Booke, the actor who played Boss Hogg in the Dukes of Hazzard television show, was fluent in five(!) languages and served in the Korean War as a counterintelligence officer. Who would’ve guessed? All I could dig up for what languages he was fluent in were English (obviously) and Japanese; I’m curious as to what the others are.

    Sources: IMDB, Wikipedia.

  • Google’s AutoLink

    Lots of invective and rhetoric being written about Google‘s new Toolbar functionality, AutoLink. Originally I probably wasn’t going to write anything about it, it’s really such a non-issue, but I’m growing irritated by the number of bloggers—mostly A-listers—who are speaking out against it. I’m not irritated as a knee-jerk reaction in defense of Google, but because most of what I’m reading is just plain wrong.

    Quick background: Google’s new Toolbar (which is in beta, only runs on Internet Explorer for Windows and which you have to knowingly install to use) has a new function called “AutoLink” which, when manually invoked, searches for certain types of text on a web page and will automagically turn them into links, if there weren’t any links there already. The type of text it search for seems to be:

    • Addresses. These will create links to Google Maps.
    • ISBN numbers. These will create links to the product-specific page on Amazon.
    • Shipping tracking numbers.
    • Vehicle ID numbers (VINs).

    Right off, I have to say I agree 100% with what Cory Doctorow wrote about this on Boing Boing:

    It’s not a service I’d use, but I believe that it’s the kind of service that is vital to the Web’s health. The ability of end-users to avail themselves of tools that decomopose and reassemble web-pages to their tastes is an issue like inlining, framing, and linking: it’s a matter of letting users innovate at the edge.

    I think I should be able to use a proxy that reformats my browsing sessions for viewing on a mobile phone; I think I should be able to use a proxy that finds every ISBN and links it to a comparison-shopping-engine’s best price for that book across ten vendors. I think I should be able to use a proxy that auto-links every proper noun to the corresponding Wikipedia entry.

    And so on — it’s my screen, and I should be able to control it; companies like Google and individuals should be able to provide tools and services to let me control it.

    Of all the sites I read, I think this was the lone voice of reason on the topic. Instead, you have people like Robert Scoble and Dave Winer calling this “evil” and a “slippery slope” that will lead to the end of the web as we know it and mass censorship by Google.

    I’m not kidding. This is what Winer wrote:

    And if links are changeable, is text subject to change as well? Might Google correct our spelling? Or might they correct our thinking? Where is the line?…

    What’s next? Could they link it to Gmail, and where ever the name of a Gmail user appears in a page, change it to a mailto link so you can send them mail? If you’re in the widget business, might they change the links to your widgets to links to your competitors’ widgets? (Aren’t they already doing that to Barnes and Noble?) Would they add discussion software so that any Internet user can mark up your page with their comments, no matter how inane or immature?…

    The AutoLink feature is the first step down a treacherous slope, that could spell the end of the Web as a publishing environment with integrity, and an environment where commerce can take place.

    What’s funny is that email programs already autolink email addresses and web addresses—often wrong, I might add—in messages I get. And—get this—on any blog with comment functionality on it (like mine), users can already mark up that page with their comments.

    (A note on the Barnes and Noble reference, though—yes, AutoLink does link a plain ISBN on Barnes and Noble’s site to Amazon. I confirmed it myself. Personally, I find it rather amusing; I know B&N will successfully lobby to get this fixed, so I’m not worried about it.)

    And here’s some of what Scoble’s written:

    I believe that anything that changes the linking behavior of the Web is evil. Anything that changes my content is evil. Particularly anything that messes with the integrity of the link system. And I do see this as a slippery slope….

    The fundamental building block of the Web is linking. Linking is MY EDITORIAL CONTENT….

    My editorial is sacrosanct. Linking is editorial.

    Ironically, Scoble runs a linkblog where he reposts other authors’ blog entries, with his name highlighted, and adds a “Related” and “Comments” link to other people’s writing even as he writes the above.

    It’s even more ironic that people like these guys who are all about innovation and are outspoken user advocates would come off like this. I see a “slippery slope” all right, but it’s going the other way.

    How? Well, AutoLink is basically simplifying this process:

    1. Highlighting a piece of text on a web page (like an address).
    2. Opening a new browser window, going to Google (or MapQuest or Amazon, etc.).
    3. Pasting that copied text into the search box, and clicking the search button.
    4. Done.

    No one should object to doing this, right? Well, the way I’m reading many of these arguments, pretty soon they will be. There’s the slippery slope, pretty soon the “content producers” are going to object because you might be using their text to search somewhere else on the web. So, let’s ban copying text from the browser. But wait, someone could just retype the text in without copying-and-pasting. Better take away the users’ keyboards so they don’t infringe on your content.

    See? It’s a fun game.

    The arguments almost all object to a third-party tool changing the content of their web pages by adding links. Okay, but what about the many pre-existing toolbars, plugins, extensions, and browsers themselves that already do this? Hell, the ability to do this is even built into the browser—you can turn off images, JavaScript, and stylesheets, and I guarantee doing that will alter the content of many, many sites—I’ve developed sites myself that depend on JavaScript and/or images, so I’m not exaggerating. This is a ridiculous argument.

    In fact, the only good argument I’ve seen comes from Rogers Cadenhead: the copyright issue. By essentially altering a work (a web page, in this case) that is copyrighted for public consumption, the AutoLink feature may be in fact violating the copyright of that page. That’s a reasonable, intelligent argument and is something that should be addressed.

    Until then, jeez. C’mon people, like Cory said, it’s healthy for the web. It’s innovation. Instead of whining about it, why not be productive? I’ve seen suggestions for an opt-out feature on web pages, that’s a good start; make it a META tag.

    Or what about this? Make the toolbar smart enough to not change copyrighted pages, only those that are using an appropriate Creative Commons license, or are public domain. How would it know? META tags, again; Creative Commons licenses already embed RDF inside the content, so it’s not a stretch.

    In fact, this is a good incentive to do something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile: convert my blogs over to Creative Commons copyrights. I personally have no qualms about toolbars or other software altering my content for a particular user’s display, so I’ll make it totally legal for them to do so. Within the week.

    In the meantime, everyone complaining—take a breath and get over yourselves.

  • 25

    Weight loss update: as of yesterday and today, I’ve lost 25 pounds since the beginning of the year. That puts me at 203 pounds. Last weekend I finally broke down (under strong convincing from my wife) and bought a new pair of jeans and khaki pants, both a size smaller than I was wearing previously. Gettin’ there.

  • ORblogs growth

    I’m amazed every week at how much growth ORblogs keeps showing; as of right now, there are 605 blogs in the directory, and 18 were added over the past seven days alone. (Check the ORblogs Recent Additions page to keep up to date on new ones.) Oregon bloggers, we’re a growing bunch. And kudos to Paul, who developed and runs the site. Excellent work!

  • Leonard Nimoy’s Bilbo Baggins

    This is one of those links that’s too wacked-out not to post… Back in the late ’60s, Leonard Nimoy—riding high on his Star Trek fame, I’m sure—released an album of music called “The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy.” My friend Justin in Portland found the album at a thrift store or something, I’ve heard part of it. It’s pretty awful, but the craziest song on it is “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.”

    Yes, you read that right.

    What possessed him to sing such a song, we’ll probably never know… but what further possessed him to make a video from it—well, it’s really too messed up to think about much.

    Oh yeah. Not only do you get to hear the song, you get to watch the video too: The video for “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” (QuickTime).

    Update: here’s the YouTube embed:

  • Development in Bend

    It’s crazy how much development is going on around here these days. Downtown, they’re just about to tear down the old post office and start erecting a new parking structure. The “Firehall” is ongoing, with a giant plastic bag over the top of it (it’s truly surreal). The new building on the corner of Wall and Franklin looks mostly finished. Something’s going up on the old Eagle Lodge location, on the corner of Greenwood and Hill. The Old Mill District continues to grow and change. Up north, there’s of course talk about the Super Wal-Mart, but good grief, Bed Bath and Beyond is already open, Best Buy can’t be far behind, CostPlus and PetSmart are going up. Target is expanding, I hear.

    And everywhere you go, residential development is gangbusters. You can’t swing a dead cat in this town any more without hitting construction. (Ironically, I work for a builder that’s contributing to all this mess. And live in one of their homes.) I know growth and change has kind of been the theme for Bend and Central Oregon this past decade, but right now it seems like there’s more going on than ever before. Or is it just me?

    And of course the one thing Bend really needs—a mass transit system—is nowhere in sight.