When I first heard the the FCC had mandated the transition to all-digital television broadcasts, I was suspicious. In fact, I broke out the full-on crankypants rant routine. “Fuck that shit!”, I said, momentarily irritated enough to put down my delicious can of Hamm’s. “They just want me to spend two grand on a fancy new plasma TV.” And that wasn’t something I was about to do.

In fact, I hate this nerdy new pissing contest for technologically-savvy Neanderthals. The electronics industry can take their dozens of hi-def TV, DVD, DVR and gaming standards and shove ‘em up their ass. (Hell, we’ll lump the whole surround sound gimmick in there too.) It’s amazing how this pervasive electronics-lust permeates even the more conscious consumers out there. Somehow these folks think nothing odd of driving a Prius or insisting on sustainable organic farmers’ market yuppie food– while their living room houses a giant, overpriced, debt-laden SUV of an entertainment system.

Well, that shit ain’t for me. Our only television is a 20″ flat CRT I picked up at the Goodwill outlet (back in the “good ol’ days” before I gave up on that place). Netflix and downloaded content (played straight off a thumb drive by an awesome USB-equipped Philips DVD player) more than satisfy our entertainment needs, so we ditched basic cable about a year ago and learned to live with the free broadcast programming pulled in by our shitty rabbit ears. I can’t even remember missing it.

And then the end was announced: the TV part of the analog spectrum was on the auction block (again engorging my rant gland, this time to the tune of “how can they sell something the public owns?!?!”) and I’d be left to plunk down $2000 on a reluctantly adequate plasma monstrosity. To my delight, though, the government all but demanded the production of low-cost converter boxes for old sets. I eagerly put my name in the queue and waited for my $40 coupons to arrive.

In the last few weeks I’ve been casually reading up on the various boxes on the market right now. Hot Shit Candidate Number One is the Echostar TR-40– unfortunately not slated for release until at least June– and therefore possibly unavailable during my paltry 90-day coupon window. Made by the DirectTV people, this one is supposed to have the best features of any box to date. I couldn’t wait that long, but I am reserving my second coupon just in case it hits shelves in time.

In the meantime, my forty Gov’t Electro-Buxx were burning a hole in my pocket. My research dug up this CNet review of the most common boxes– offerred, not surprisingly, by bottom-tier brands like GE and Zenith. Yeah (and here comes the nerd-boner), I wish Sony or Panasonic would design a nice version of these. But this is all we’ve got, and since we’re lumped into a group of consumers comprised mostly of nursing homes and muffler shop waiting rooms, there’s no choice but to pick the lesser evil.

Fearing the audio problems of the Zenith DTT900, I chose the RCA DTA800(b). After a night of light use, I can say that although the UI sorta sucks and practically nothing about it is sexy– the reception is great. We’re pulling in crystal-clear versions of channels that were previously fuzzy at best. Unfortunately there’s no auto-detection of widescreen content, so I have to manually switch aspect ratios when flipping between fancy PBS nature documentaries and King of the Hill reruns. But as a whole, this is a huge improvement. ION comes in now, for the first time ever, as do a boatload of useless Christian channels featuring XTREEME gen-X X-boarders X-in’ it up for the big X. It’s pretty fuckin’ inspirational.

I’ve joined a band. After a couple frenzied months of almost considering playing “indie rock” again (but not quite having the guts to saunter over to some rehearsal with bands that sound way too much like Modest Mouse), I found some like-minded garage rock people who also seem to like a lot of the same shit I’ve been into over the last few years– like Gram Parsons and Blue Oyster Cult and the Groovies. That makes so much more sense than associating with the twee-bags this town seems to be overrun with. I mean, seriously, I don’t hate the music scene here, and there’s undoubtedly a ton I don’t know about it. But I can’t pass for a Sensitive Waif Dude / 22 year old lit major, and I sure can’t play in a band that revolves around precociousness and cellos. That’s just not my scene.

So here comes the surprise, though I’ve let the cat out of the bag to most everyone already: I’m not playing bass this time around, but guitar. Guitar! How fucking cool is that? Prepare for new heights of obnoxiousness and hearing loss! And, best of all– gear shopping. I picked up a Vintage Rat distortion pedal last week, which was cool. And while my little Blues Junior has been keeping up decently at practice so far, I decided I needed something a little larger. Though I intended to make a few torturous visits to Guitar Center and its local competitors and try out a few walls of amps (and perhaps actually save up my money before hand), that plan was dashed to hell: I found a sweet ‘lil Ampeg 2×12 combo on Craigslist. It’s a Reverberocket R-212R, and it’s so dreamy. 50 AB watts, two channels and a reverb that just drenches everything in awesome. I’ve spent something like ten hours hunched over in my basement since bringing it home, and it beckons almost every hour. I honestly haven’t been this excited about a music purchase in awhile, and it should compliment the other guitarist’s 40 watt Blues Deluxe quite nicely. God forbid we play the same brand of amp!

I’m building another bike. How surprising! Last summer I signed up for the IRO Rob Roy “group buy” on BikeForums. A group buy works like so: a bunch of internet-enabled bike nerds convince a small bike maker / importer to offer reduced prices in exchange for pooling all their orders together in one lump. The frame features and colors are worked out, deposits are placed ($60 in this case) and a few months later– frames! This batch apparently got held up by end-of-the-year production schedules in Taiwain, so instead of the standard three-month wait, it took closer to six.

The BikeForums folks were polled and suggested orange, green and matte black as the most popular colors for this buy. The Rob Roy is a single speed cyclocross frame, which is essentially similar to road bike geometry but with some mountain bike-style features: wider clearance for larger, knobby tires, and brake bosses for mountain-style brakes. Last night I recieved my green frame and set to work on installing the headset, bottom bracket and cranks:

I’m using the wheelset and cranks from the IRO Angus I bought a couple of years ago. I just haven’t gotten around to building it back up since moving from Arizona. Unlike my orange Angus, the Rob Roy is not exclusively a fixed-gear bike– it’s got the necessary mounts for a rear brake as well. I really haven’t had much of an urged to ride a fixed gear in awhile, and its practicality is almost always trumphed by coasting. Or shifting, for that matter. My single speed beater has been wholly adequate for commuting, so I’m basically going to use this as a more solid, slightly speedier version of that bike.

I’m through with Goodwills of the Willamette Valley. The prices are high, selection is usually poor, and they’re absolutely mobbed on weekends.

You occasionally might find good deals at the “bins” (as I’ve previously reported here), but for the most part it just feels like you’re standing around sifting through trash with a bunch of desperate-but-foolish people. I hate to feel like a snob, but watching welfare mothers dig through endless piles of random linens, rejected clothing and mountains of beyond-broken electronics is a little depressing. Don’t let the frantic digging lead you to believe there’s anything good in those piles– they’re largely crap. And I’m not just talking about the notable lack of suitably ironic hipster garb: I’ve spent a couple hours pulling apart garments and found little that even the poorest families would get excited about.

Regardless, they’re there, along with the scarily ragged rural homesteaders and car-dwelling vagabonds, trying to scrape bulk duds from the dregs of the Goodwill retail machine. As a new bin rolls out, people line up for the cart’s arrival, rabid with the promise of cheap treasures-by-the-pound. Elbows get sharp. Dirty looks abound. The cart arrives after its epic cross-store journey, the handler shouting “Get back! Wait until it’s stopped!” The shoppers froth at the mouth. Stopping the cart early would ensure that it never reach its destination– it’d be mobbed where it stood. People crane their necks as it rounds the corner, trying to get a jump on their neighbors’ as it rolls in. But it’s not full of NASCAR memorabilia or roto-tillers or pretty decent bridesmaids’ dresses (what do these people really want?). It’s bedding. Used bedding. Faded comforters. Mattress pads with suspicious yellow stains. The people take a few deflated stabs at the pile, hoping that perhaps there’s something else underneath– but no, it’s all frumpy bedskirts and loose stuffing. The dejected turn and drift elsewhere. Bystanders, aware of the hype but previously unable to get an arm in, swoop in and take their places at the big table of crap. The scene repeats every fifteen minutes.

The Goodwill Supercenter, though more of a traditional Goodwill, doesn’t offer much more. The prices are always about 20% higher than they should be. Completely unusable electronic items are the order of the day: SLR cameras missing film doors, food processors sans blades, walkie-talkies with broken antennas… Real landfill fodder. To make things worse, someone spilled the beans and told them they can charge way, way more for premium electronics brands like Harman/Kardon, Marantz or Panasonic, no matter how obsolete or non-functional the item is.

Digging through the LP bins is a similarly dire experience: Mantovani. 101 Strings. 101 Strings Plays Mantovani. All priced at $1.50. Double LPs are noted and charged as if they were two. I mean, christ, if I feel like taking a chance on a weird record, there’s nothing that’ll change my mind quicker than asking twice as much for it.

On the other hand, I really like our St. Vinnie’s on MLK in inner SE. I’ve only checked it out a few times, but every time I’ve come out with some decently-kitschy stuff for very little money. The store is definitely open to the public (though rather small), but has much more “classic” thrift store charm. Its salvaged display cases, improvised shelves, and reasonable prices are everything a thrift store should be. It’s weird to call Goodwill over-commercialized, but I think it’s apt– those guys think they can sell any old piece of junk. Vinnie’s seems to place functionality way higher on its list of priorities. Send your thrift dollars to them instead!

I’ve parted ways with my band. I’d started playing with these guys pretty soon after I arrived in Portland, even before I’d found a job. Since then, we’d played about a dozen poorly-attended shows and had three different drummers. We’d planned what was, in my opinion, an ill-advised tour and talked a lot about “getting serious” about recording and all that shit– but it wasn’t to be.

In a nutshell, I felt that my suggestions were getting drowned out. This had been eating at my enthusiasm for awhile, and I felt that there was little I could do to change things. By last fall, my initial optimism had soured. I felt like all our singer and lead guitarist wanted from me was to show up and play the bass. Our music was largely just riffs pasted together with little room for my bass to do anything interesting– so that sucked, right off the bat. Recording stalled and flopped, but any suggestion I made was deemed a waste of time. Even my opinions about booking and the scope of our first out-of-town jaunts got trampled in lengthy explanations about how they’d been doing this for years, you know, and what did I know about the Portland “scene” anyway? (cue the bullshit meters…) Increasingly, I felt like it was a waste of my time and effort.

Then, early last month, our rhythm guitarist quit, and stuff got a little unstable. Still, with our “tour” coming up and at least promising a few potentially fun shows on the road to San Diego and back, I decided to stick it out a little while longer. We hurriedly paraded replacement guitarists through our rehearsals, not really finding anyone that seemed compatible with the band’s sound. But one night, in the middle of our (very drunk) singer giving the potential new guy the rundown about “what we’re all about”, he let slip a few choice gems that summed the whole dumb predicament up: “I didn’t take charge of shit, nothing would get done. I could lean back against this wall and say ‘you guys write the songs’ and nothing would happen.”

At that moment, I knew it was over. I confronted him about exactly how much everyone else in the band contributes (he’d bring a few guitar riffs, which we’d develop and build into songs), but shit devolved into accusations, and I walked out. Our (other) guitarist tried to get us to patch things up with a “hash things out” session later that week, but the singer just took that opportunity to rattle off a list of things I’d supposedly done wrong. Again, nothing resolved.

Over email, our guitarist took the singer’s side and insisted I was being negative and pessimistic. The “tour” was one major point of contention. We were set to drive some 4,000 miles round-trip in a 20-year-old conversion van that had broken down at four of our twelve in-town shows. Never mind that we couldn’t get anybody to care about us in our home town, nor had we even attempted smaller out-of-town jaunts to more reasonably distant cities like Seattle, Olympia, Eugene, etc. Spend $500 of gas money to play a show in the singer’s hometown– when we don’t have anything decently recorded? Lame. Why not spend that money on some studio time and hit the road with a decent recording?

So yeah, it’s done, over, finished. Time to find something more worthwhile.

If I pursue a career in pro wrestling and need some ass-kicking entrance music, the Edgar Winter Group’s “Frankenstein” would be choice number one (followed by the mile-wide riffage that begins the Dictators’ “Minnesota Strip”, which I was pleased to see Seattle punks HEAD cover earlier this month):

And just for shits n’ giggles, here’s the BBC comedy Snuff Box doing a nice lil’ parody:

Holy shit, this town likes to puncture my tires. Maybe the season is to blame– after all, the rains must propel a near-constant stream of debris into the bike lanes. Could I just now encountering the shards of every bottle broken on my commute since last spring when the rains stopped? Is every meth-depleted syringe hiding in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to kill my tubes? (Good thing I’ve got fenders to deflect any airborne sharps.)

It’s odd, since I’ve been riding the same tires on the same route since April, and until October I’d gone entirely flat-free. I praised our lush little utopia and its lack of menacing, thorny things that want to kill you. A huge improvement from Tucson, I thought, my former residence where a four-mile on-road errand would oft pepper my unprotected wheel with no fewer than six thorns. I ran Conti Gatorskins for awhile, which helped but still managed to flat on occasion. Specialized Armadillos, though great, were hard to track down locally. For mountain biking, I settled for heavy-ass Slime tubes rather than convert to tubeless.

But now I’ve hit three flats in three weeks of commuting. That makes six flats total since October– and way past time to shop around for something durable. The Specialized 23c “All Condition” tires I’d been running on the Cross Check are out; in its place are 28mm Panaracer T-Serv Messengers. These look awesome! Thankfully they’re not as slim as is rumored. “28mm” fits more like 26mm than the purported 24mm, which is exactly what I was looking for. Much meatier than the 23s but not quite monster truck sized (though I did score a set of 700×40 Ritchey knobbies from the curb not too long ago and can’t wait to throw those on for a Forest Park run…). I also took the time to swap my Windsor / Alex “touring” wheelset for a barely-used Salsa / XT set I bought off craigslist a few weeks back. Bring on the shitty weather.

Dear god, I do believe we’re over halfway through December already. The year’s passed pretty rapidly, which is fine by me. And shit, how many hurdles have I already cleared?

I finally surrendered my Wisconsin driver’s license (after two years of skirting the law in two separate state) and traded up for a shiny new Oregon one. An additional $75 or so let me keep my motorcycle endorsement– but not after I failed the written test, and felt like a ‘tard for doing so. You see, I haven’t owned a motorcycle in two years, and I haven’t regularly driven in over three… so you could say I was a little rusty. I also hadn’t prepared for the exam– and therefore missed six questions, one more than produces a passing score. A skimmed PDF of the state motorcycle manual took care of everything nicely, though, and I was on my way with my chintzy black & white paper license. The real license arrived a few days later in the mail after the state curbed all sorts of terrorism by running my photo through some fancy facial recognition software. Oh, and my truck got new plates for the first time in 11 years. I feel so…legal.

Then I got dragged to the company holiday party. I hadn’t planned on going. I told Lisa not to arrange her work schedule to allow her to attend. But on the morning of the soirée, called before the president of our brance and sitting before both him and my boss, I was presented with a pretty decent holiday bonus check… and asked, straight out: “So, you coming to the party tonight?” Fuck. I was trapped. So attended. I hung around, alone, making awkward conversations with the people I sorta work with. I drank everything I could. And obligations fulfilled, I biked home with my liver all in a knot. Oh, did I mention this was a Wednesday night? What kind of Mormon sadists do I work for, anyway?

And speaking of bikes, I again braved the cold sheets of wind and rain on Friday night for the December Midnight Mystery Ride, making an impressive two months in a row for me. Lisa came along for this one (her first), as well as Kristi, Tim and Connor. We pulled up to the starting point just in time (midnight) and, due to our tight schedule, set out totally sober. About fifty riders participated this time around, despite it being a good fifteen degrees cooler this month. The ride headed north and followed the bank of the Columbia out to the I-205 bridge, where we climbed underneath, cracked our beers (we’d each been carrying seven tallboys in our bags for an hour) and shivered in the howling gusts. Below us on one side was Marine drive, and the other was a rocky descent to the river bank, our quasi-legal little gathering huddled somewhere in between.

T-minus four work days ’til the great 11-day vacation blowout, where I sit around the house and do nothing with all my vacation hours because 1) I can’t afford a plane ticket anywhere and 2) it’s too cold and wet outside to go camp / hike / bike comfortably. Well, I suppose I’ll do some of those outdoorsy things. But I’m not counting on the weather to provide much inspiration.

It rained. It got windy. I mostly stayed indoors.

But I guess everything from here to the coast is pretty messed up with floods n’ downed trees n’ sinkholes n’ stuff. Here’s your “feel-good-story” of the day:

In Tillamook County…Doris Hart, 90, died Sunday night or early Monday morning, apparently from a heart attack, said Tillamook County medical examiner Dr. Paul Betlinski.

Whenever a storm hit the area and the power went out, Hart would pack a bag and her heart medications, and then wait for a friend to collect her. Hart was found Monday morning in front of her home in Southeast Tillamook. A small suitcase, her medications and her purse were found nearby.

It was unclear whether she was waiting for a ride but the friend never showed up.

Things were far from dire in Portland (or at least in our ‘hood). We’re set on a lot a few feet above street level, so clogged storm drains flooding wasn’t an issue. Apart from the usual mini-river that runs through our basement whenever it rains (the result of rusted, clogged and otherwise damaged gutters), we suffered only a single leak. Thankfully, it missed my new mac by about 1 1/2 feet, choosing to saturate my ancient old inkjet printer instead.

Although I dreaded the morning bike commute and almost braved the undoubtedly delayed and overcrowded bus, I suited up anyway. It was wet, for certain, but also quite warm. This weekend’s threats of snow never panned out, and things only got warmer from then on– and the time the rain ceased last night, it was downright balmy outside. The sun returned today, gracing us with high temps close to 60 degrees. Not bad at all for December. I guess we should’ve thrown a hurricane party while we had the opportunity.

I can finally announce that I’ve had an awesome weekend. How often do those happen, as of late? They’re pretty rare. I’ve moved across the country twice in two years, and with that comes a great deal of social rebuilding. I’m not the kind of person who runs out and magically adopts a crew. It’s more likely that I’d hide under a rock. Alas, this weekend arrived with a full schedule, the perfect thing for staring down the ever-more-looming months of palid indoor frustration that lie ahead.

Lisa and I headed up Killingsworth to our friend Dina’s house for an informal sort of dinner party. Along the way, we procured beerstuffs at New Seasons. I had plans for later in the evening that called for a high beer-to-weight ratio with secondary objectives of economy and sharability. High Life was the only viable option. Six-pack strapped to my back, we continued to Dina’s and hung out for awhile, sampled the hot sauces, etc. Meanwhile, it’d become rather cold and wet outside. Shitty.

For months I’d considered doing the “Midnight Mystery Ride“– one of the many bike-related events in Portland. Now I’m usually conflicted about these hyper-social (and always mega-self-congratulatory) activities. It’s always centered around the ostensibly “fun” and “wacky” elements of the so-called bike “community”, and all too often they come off like a collection of overgrown man-children looking for an excuse to wear a tutu, an afro wig and clown shoes in a desperate bid for attention. In short: a little depressing.

But this ride promised booze and a couple friends of mine who’d agreed to go along. Most everyone bailed due to the cold rain that suddenly swept through the east side of town, though, and we were down to a crew of three. I decided to say fuck-it-all and go anyway, wetness or not. With a rain jacket– but lacking rain pants– I got a thorough soaking on my way to the Bullpen Tavern, the pre-determined starting point of the ride. Within thirty minutes, the place had filled with about forty wet individuals carrying lights and bike helmets. Kristi and her friend Jana showed up and had a couple rounds of PBR to prepare. At midnight, the ride was on.

The route unfolded, taking us along a whole mess of streets in SW Portland that I never manage to travel. We cut through PSU and crossed a pedestrian bridge over Hwy 99 towards the South Waterfront. Making our way was a little treacherous– forty people getting used to each others’ space; tall bikes wavering around gravel and difficult intersections…an awesome time for all. We meandered on through construction zones and wide, calm avenues now thick with blinky lights and hollering boozehounds.

We eventually hit the banks of the river at Willamette Park, winding along seemingly forever on the otherwise deserted footpath. A few chunks of development gave way to “the off-road optionl”– a muddy ‘lil segment of ruts along a level rail bed. Some of us sloshed ahead on that while others skirted it for the paved road above, which would down the hill past a powerboat shop’s towering fluorescent sign. The pavement ended at the onramp of a bridge, where we rolled into Powers Marine Park and stopped under the Sellwood Bridge.

Some folks hauled some wood along with for the ride, and soon we were drinking beer by campfire on the rocky, slippery shores of the river. I reconvened with my traveling companions and set about shooting the shit with an assortment of random folks. Good times were had. Several hours later, I tagged along with some NE-bound riders heading home for the night, taking the quite expedient Springwater Trail and Esplanade back home. I stumbled in the front door sometime after 5am, exhausted from a truly awesome night of actually participating in something for once. Huzzah.