©Cupcake Royale
Where to go for small-size yumminess
Vividly decorated, self-contained pockets of sugary goodness, cupcakes are one of the few items that can make even the grumpiest adult feel like a kid again. “Cupcakes are cute; they don’t have to be shared, are fun and colorful, and speak to people in a way that other desserts don’t,“ says Rachel Kramer Bussel of the widely popular Cupcakes Take the Cake blog, a leading authority on all things cupcake. “Cupcakes can disarm even the biggest curmudgeon.”
From their visual appeal to their perfectly rationed sizes, America’s love affair with what are known as fairy cakes in Britain elicit feelings of nostalgia. They’ve been around for as long as we can remember.
See our slideshow of America’s Best Cupcakes.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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Not one, not two, but three readers sent me links to this story, about a proposed income tax deduction for money spent on household pets. It’s one of those ideas that you might just laugh about at first, but if you think about it, it makes at least as much sense as some other federal giveaways we’ve seen lately. Not only would it put money in the hands of American households, but it might also relieve some of the intense pressure that animal shelters feel during hard times. Sure, having a pet is a personal choice, but so is having a child, borrowing money for a house or for college, making gifts to charity, and lots of other activities that the tax system subsidizes. This one’s worth more than a dismissive chuckle.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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Sincere congratulations to the winners of this year’s Spirit of Portland Awards. Whatever one might think about the government in these parts, it’s hard to deny that our community includes many talented, energetic, public-minded people who make great things happen.
The list of this year’s winners (alas, confusingly illustrated with photos of previous winners) is here.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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This gal is off to a rolling start. I hope she keeps it going.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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In Finland, they know their rights — to broadband. Time for the Sam-Rand Twins to head over and take a look, no doubt.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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The continuing saga of the Paulson family and their two spendy sports stadium projects took a wild turn the other night when His Lordship Henry III got up in front of the Beaverton City Council and said that unless and until he gets a firm deal on a new minor league baseball stadium somewhere, he won’t bring “major league” (by U.S. standards) soccer to Portland.
This bombshell, which was clearly news to the rubes at Portland City Hall who have already promised the Paulson boys yet another hopeless renovation of PGE Park for soccer, came on the heels of some other fascinating news: Even if the Beaverton council cuts a deal with the Paulsons for a new $60 million baseball stadium, the voters of that ‘burb are going to put it on the ballot. And the prospect of the project winning a majority vote of the city’s electorate is far from a sure thing.
Let’s take a closer look at these stories in reverse chronological order. First, His Lordship’s announcement:
At Tuesday night’s meeting, Beaverton City Councilor Cathy Stanton questioned whether Paulson has secured an agreement to buy and operate the pro soccer franchise beginning in 2011, requiring a $31 million renovation to Portland’s PGE Park.
“Yes,” Paulson responded. “But it’s conditional on finalizing the deal with Portland. And if I don’t get a baseball deal done, I’m not going to finalize the deal with Portland. So MLS will not come to Portland unless I do a deal for a new baseball park.”
This is the same ploy the Paulson folks tried when they were attempting to railroad a new pro baseball stadium into Lents Park in Portland. “If I don’t get my way with you, I won’t do the soccer deal. And then all my soccer fans will blame you.” The residents of Lents had the intestinal fortitude to show them the door anyway; it’s not clear that the Beaverton folks will react the same way.
Meanwhile, outside the city government, the citizenry of Beaverton has discovered that it should be easy to force any stadium deal onto the ballot. Given the relatively small population out there, they don’t need a huge number of signatures to require a public vote on any bond measure that would pay for the new minor league stadium. From the Beaverton Valley Times on Tuesday afternoon:
Opponents of the plan to build a stadium, who showed up in loud numbers at the council meeting on Oct. 5 and demanded that the issue be put to public vote, can make that request a reality if they choose. A bond decision can be forced to public vote if 5 percent of the electorate signs a petition within 60 days. That would be about 2,200 people, city officials say.
And from the opponents:
Wilson said her group has no money and is only loosely organized. But she said there would be “no problem” getting enough signatures for a vote.
“If the citizens of Beaverton want this, we will accept that,” she said. “But we don’t know that.”
Cities hate bond elections. They make the Wall Street types nervous, and they slow things down considerably. One of Paulson’s primary tactics is the short deadline — the guy’s a veritable font of deadlines, most of which aren’t real — and a bond election takes a while. And if the outcome of the election is negative, His Lordship finds himself back to Square 1 on baseball.
Now he says he’ll be back to Square 1 on the soccer stadium, too.
The drama on the Paulson deals never stops. If ever there was adequate warning about the stability and business acumen of a business enterprise that the politicians are going to bank eight or nine figures of public money on, this is it.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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Yesterday our topic of the other day got substantial play in the nation’s newspaper of record.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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It was an offer we couldn’t refuse. Tickets to the Blazer game — even an exhibition game — for under $20, and it was being held in the old Memorial Coliseum, as a nostalgia deal. We bought four and took the whole crew.
We love the old Coliseum, and a visit to the place, with an actual pro hoops game on tap, was a real tonic. Every seat in the place is a good seat. All the pretention of the luxury boxes and the courtside waiters and the showing off of one’s wealth was absent. They had the curtains down, and you could actually see from your seat through the glass walls to the world outside. It was a wonderful effect, in a building that’s definitely worth saving.
Blazer great Terry Porter was around, shooting everybody’s lights out in a halftime game of “horse,” along with Bobby Gross. Bill Schonely called the second half on the radio. Even the old Blazer organ player ground out a couple of battle cheers for old time’s sake. There were breakdancers representing the ’80s, and all that was missing was Chain Saw Bill, whose Oregon backwoods act used to intimidate East Coast teams, even those with hardened ghetto players on their rosters.
The concession lines were bad, and by that we mean really bad. Upon arrival, after waiting a full 20 minutes in line for hot dogs, we were about ready to head back to the garage and head home, but the Mrs. calmed us down and got us all to our seats.
There was no video screen, and only a bare-bones scoreboard, which made for little information flow. But the good news was that the night was all about the basketball on the floor, and not about whatever dopey thing was on a Jumbotron.
The Blazers didn’t look that good. The fans are obviously ready for big, big things — the roar of the crowd in the Coliseum is always loud, but tonight there was a note of serious expectation in that sound — and there will no doubt be some great moments in the season ahead. But tonight, it seemed that there is still a lot of work to be done.
The Blazers’ new point guard, Andre Miller, was impressive. The man is a stone-cold baller, that’s obvious. With him leading the Blazers on the floor, lots of guys are going to have banner seasons. LaMarcus Aldridge is going to be fed down low, and let’s hope he takes advantage of it. Miller is always going to be looking for Greg Oden, too. And Miller and Martell Webster shared some excellent plays at the start of the game (or at least, the part we saw after we finally got to our seats with the infernal hot dogs).
Miller wanted to run with the ball, but unfortunately from a fan standpoint, several of the Blazers seem to have no interest in running with him. Webster was ready to run, and so was Aldridge, but Brandon Roy and Oden are never going to be fast-break players, and so it remains to be seen how much the run will accomplish for Portland. The other thing we noticed about Miller is that he seemed a little banged up. Especially in the second half, he was moving around pretty gingerly, and we couldn’t tell what that was all about.
When Miller isn’t finding the open man, he’s making plays for himself. He shot 60% for the night and finished with 25 points. The only question is what Miller’s production is going to mean for Roy, who is obviously Portland’s franchise player. Roy had a bad night, shooting just 4 for 13 and taking only four foul shots. He and Miller don’t have spectacular chemistry going so far, and that could be a real concern if they don’t find one.
Rudy Fernandez hardly played, looked flat, and seems sure to be traded at an early opportunity, unless one of the other Blazer shooters gets hurt. Oden looked better than he ever has, but he’s still slow and a little clunky. Amare was not afraid to go head-to-head with him, and if Oden can stay out of foul trouble and out of the hospital, Portland is about to witness some epic big-man battles this year.
The Blazers didn’t play much defense against Phoenix. Steve Nash, Leandro Barbosa, and Amare Stoudamire put up big numbers. Nicolas Batum played terribly on the defensive end, and of course Travis Outlaw, who saw a fair number of minutes, wasn’t much help. The Blazers had Ime Udoka and Juwan Howard on the bench — those two probably could have done more to stop Phoenix than Batum and Outlaw.
The “replacement” referees took some razzing from the crowd, and a few of the players (including Channing Frye, formerly of the Blazers and getting a lot of minutes tonight with the Suns) seemed incredulous at a few of the calls. But actually, I thought the refs called a good game — no worse than you would get from Bennett Salvatore, and without all the histrionics.
On the way home early (school night), we caught a few minutes of the Schonz calling the end of the game. That voice is missed. They ought to bring him back for a game every year.
And with that, the throwback game is in the books. From here on out, the look is to the future rather than the past. Tonight we saw that future, and barring injury, his name is Andre Miller.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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I’m excited to report that we have 10 players signed up to play in our pro football underdog pool. All proceeds go to charity, and so that’s $200 so far. The winner in the pool, which will run through the playoffs, will get to designate the charity to which the lion’s share of the pot goes — and if we get some more action, we may let the second and third place players play charity Santa with a little of the pot, just to keep things interesting.
There is plenty of room for more players. The object of the game, the way to play, and details about entering are here. Think about giving it a shot for $20. You’ll help a good cause (or causes), and it will give you a new way to watch the big daddies of the NFL on Sunday. Think bragging rights.
We start officially with the games of the weekend of the 25th, but for a good warmup, check out this week’s slate of games, here.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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The guy who played Cyndi Lauper’s pop in her most famous video has left us. They broke the mold on that one.
Written by Travel News on October 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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