OPB Sucks

Longtime readers may remember last summer's sparkling, insightful analysis of how public radio sucks. In that article, I shared this constructive criticism of my hometown affiliate, Oregon Public Broadcasting:

Many individual public radio stations produce solid local content, or curate unusual or interesting content. I happen to listen, for my sins, to Oregon Public Broadcasting, which does neither well and thus especially sucks.

Fellow residents of the Beaver State naturally rose up with one voice to defend their own. Except that they didn't. "OPB does suck absolute balls," observed MyDogIsChelsea. "It's truly inexcusable. I don't even know why they bother."

Now, perhaps some of you out there in Blogland, particularly those of you who don't endure OPB on a daily basis, are thinking "Gosh, M5K and MyDog are just smug little radio snobs. I'm sure that this Oregon Public Broadcasting is a fine institution. They should just chill."

Well, here's the OPB monthly newsletter that arrived here at Castle5000 yesterday:


Case closed.

The Thursday Quiz XIII

Call the Men of Science! It's

The (perhaps rather difficult) Thursday Quiz!

The Thursday Quiz is, as always, a "Is It or Isn't It" game. From the list of twelve items, your job is to determine whether each IS or ISN'T a true example of the week's category.

Remember always the most fundamental rule of the cosmos:

No research, Googling, Wikiing, or use of reference books. The Thursday Quiz is a POP quiz. Violators will have their names erased by fire from the great Book of Days.

This Week's Category will get your feet back on the ground!

The Laws of Physics

There are surprisingly few basic physical laws of the universe. Some of the following are among those laws. The others are gibberish.

1. Bacon's Dictum: An object in motion will tend to increase in temperature proportionally to its rate of acceleration.

2. Boyle's Law: For a fixed amount of gas kept at a fixed temperature, pressure and volume are inversely proportional.

3. Conservation of Energy: The total amount of energy in any closed system remains constant, although it may change forms.

4. Einstein's Theory of Relativity: The speed of light changes relative to the position, direction, and velocity of the observer.

5. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: Measurements of position and momentum taken in several identical copies of a system in a given state will each vary according to a probability distribution characteristic of the system's state.

6. Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion: The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the sun at one of the foci.

7. Newton's First Law of Motion: An object will remain at rest, or will continue to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.

8. Newton's Second Law of Motion: Acceleration is determined solely by the force acting on an object, and is not related to its mass.

9. Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every force acting on an object, the object will exert an equal, yet opposite, force.

10. Newton's Theory of Universal Gravitation: Every mass attracts every other mass by a force proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

11. Plank's Formula: Decay of mass is proportional to the square of the amount of radiation energy focused upon it.

12. Second Law of Thermodynamics: The entropy of an system will tend to increase over time.

Submit your answers in the only fashion allowed by the matrix within which we operate. Then, have a fabulous Thursday.

The Crisis of the Satisfied

This is not exactly a fresh observation, but like many people I am having a hard time in recent years producing the annual Christmas wish list. My family practices a vigorous -- some might say "excessive" -- Christmas gift exchange, and of course it is only fair to give people an idea of what might be appreciated. The problem, of course, is that we've all reached enough of a comfortable level of grown-up success that when we want something in the reasonable $20-$80 gift range, we generally just buy it. In other words, shy of such big-ticket items as "a canoe and a place to store it" or "to live free of a mortgage," I've pretty much got everything I want. Which is great! Don't get me wrong! But this list....

Books aren't bad, I guess. Coffee table books, anyway. Regular old books for reading, I can just get from the library anyway, though, so what's the point.

Music used to be a big wish list item, but now if I want a recording I just get it. Time to appreciate music is a bigger bottleneck than money to purchase it.

Clothes... well, I really prefer to dress myself, is the thing.

Yard and home improvement tools... I pretty much already have all of those.

Really cool old stuff dug up at some estate sale or thrift shop? Sure, that's probably the best. But how do you put that on a list?

So, here's my plea to you the reader: can you suggest anything I might want? Any new gadget that will make my life easier, or more importantly more fun? Any must-have work of art, literature, or bric-a-brac that would make me happier? Help me out.

A Little Shameless Provincialism

Like many cities, Portland is sometimes claimed to have the highest suicide rate in the U.S., and as with most of those other cities the claim is bogus. (That kind of data is only aggregated at the state level anyway, but since you are asking: Alaska. Far and away.)

Still, when you are entering the darkest two months of the year and our trademarked sullen clouds are banked from here to the four green-grey horizons, it's not a hard story to believe.

So it's mostly to lift my own spirits, and only secondarily to bait the readership, that today I'm going on a provincial spree. It's the Truth as I see it. It's michael5000's five favorite things about Portland. Not necessarily the MOST favorite. Just five that come to mind.

1. The Outdoors Thing. Five months out of the year, Portland lures you outdoors with leaf-dappled sunlight, warm breezes, gentle sunshine, gloriously long days, and short warm nights. You are firmly encouraged to develop your outdoors interests, be it hiking or kayaking or cycling or, I don't know, ultimate frisbee or something. Plus, there's lots of outdoors to get out in. Walkable neighborhoods, big parks, and a huge variety of town, rural, and natural environments within an hour's drive all beckon you out of your room. It makes for a population that is, on balance, in slightly better shape, has a little more spring in its step, and has a kind of wholesomeness that comes from frequent exposure to big trees and running water.

2. The Indoors Thing. Five months out of the year, Portland politely suggests you retreat indoors from short, grey days and cool, wet nights. It doesn't ever really GET cold, but it FEELS cold, and so you pretty much need to get an indoor hobby. It engenders a city of coffee shops, of alternative movie theaters, of rock clubs, and of a performing arts scene disproportionate to the population. Portlanders spend the winter on the creative arts, making stuff and doing stuff, or reading books from our outstanding public library or our legendary bookstore. It makes for a population that is, on balance, a little better-read, a little quirkier and a little more creative, and has a little bit of the manic energy you would expect from survivors of chronic cabin fever. It's cool.

3. The Garden Thing. Primo soil, sun-drenched summers, and mild winters combine to make Portland a town where the challenge is not getting something to grow -- it's keeping your plants under control. But if they get away from you, no big deal. You can just plow everything under and start again. It makes people neighborly. Also, it makes things purty.

4. Bridges. It's fun just to list 'em. The green cathedral of St. John's in the north; then, the soaring, silver-arched Fremont; the pragmatic rust-red Broadway; the squat, gothic Steel; the flat, wide functionality of the Burnside; the machine-age Morrison; the Hawthorne, a sweet Norman Rockwell painting of a bridge; the Marquam, that much maligned ribbon in the sky: the high, spindly Ross Island clad in baby blue; and in the south the ricketty, narrow death trap of the Sellwood.

[edit: check out today's Wikipedia picture of the day!]

5. Houses. People in Portland love old houses, and so does the state planning code. Do we still have bland hateful sprawl out on the edges? Sure we do. But also have vital, thriving neighborhoods in the city's heart. You know what people call "inner-city problems" in Portland? Gentrification, that's what. And if you are going to have a problem....


Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Portland, Oregon, or Portland, Maine?
A: Give me a goddam break.

Q: You said "five months" and "five months."
A: The other two months are transitional.

Q: The things that you have mentioned do not interest me.
A: I should have said, we now have more breweries than any other city in the world.

Q: Gardening? Isn't that just for little old ladies?
A: Not in Portland. In Portland you could put your big dog in the back of your big truck after a full morning of snowboarding, listen to loud indie rock all the way back to town, watch a football game at a brew pub, and then go home and tend your roses. It's cool.

Q: Could I watch a basketball game, instead?
A: Of course.

Q: What about baseball?
A: We're not so much into that.

Q: How dare you minimize the horrors of gentrification!
A: On the whole, I feel that gentrification is a positive social force. This goes beyond its obvious and profound benefits for a city's basic housing stock. Gentrification usually acts to diffuse poverty through a wide area, and prevents any given part of a city from becoming a chronically impovershed poverty trap for everyone who lives there. It encourages investment in low-income neighborhoods. The idea that it breaks up community networks of support was always pretty specious, and more so now that communication costs are approaching zero. Sure, nobody wants to lose the lease on their place. It's a real drag. But foes of gentrification want to make their sentimentality into your social issue.

Q: You sound defensive.
A: Nah. It's just a different way of thinking about things than most people are used to.

Q: Do you realize that Seattle is not a part of Portland?
A: Oh, it's you again.

The Monday Quiz IV

Maps

1. Where is this?

2. What country is this?

3. What country is this?

4. What country is this?

5. What's the basic pattern shown here?

Weekend Notebook

Isn't Football a Fun Game?

Would any of you college football fans care to know what it feels like to go, in a week, from national title contention to -- I am not making this up -- having your fourth-string quarterback brought off the field with an injury?

No, I thought you wouldn't.

Eh, it could be worse. I could be one of the quarterbacks.

How's Your Health?

Six days later, I seem to be out of the woods.

Mrs.5000, however, is a different story. She spent much of the morning engrossed in the book shown at right. This afternoon, she took to bed and has been sleeping fitfully with a low grade fever.

Since she is not a football fan, I suspect that her illness is of occult origin. If any of you old X-Files fans have any advice for me, I'm listening.

Turning to Sports...

Before Mrs.5000's mind was captured by the mysteries of The Great Pyramid, we played a game of Scrabble last night in which we combined for 820 points. 423 - 397. That's got to be some kind of record, for us anyway. In fact, I know it is, since I, um, keep meticulous records. But you could have already guessed this about me.

Online Music....

Pandora added a classical library this week to their free online music service! And it is surprisingly broad and quirky. I'm in music-streaming heaven. With the station-mixing feature, I can get consecutive selections from my stations that specialize in the various rock musics, plus electronica, old country, soul, hiphop, folk.... and now string quartets, concerti, symphonies, etc. It's like the radio station I've always dreamed of. Bliss!


Comments on Comments

Comments from The Favorite Bands, 2007

OK, I've made it my business to bring home the music that a few of you suggested, such as additional Andrew Bird, Art Brut, Voxtrot, etc. The verdict -- too early to tell. It takes me a long time to assimilate stuff, these days. I'm sure I'll love it by the time everyone else has forgotten about it.

I'm afraid I still like Mike Doughty.



Comments from The Monday Quiz III

There has been a bit of a dust-up on the topic of just how darn easy The Monday Quiz III was. Anyone who doesn't know about the Sistine Chapel, it was argued, is either still in elementary school or has lived in a cave all their life.

Don't get me wrong, the Sistine Chapel was an intentional near-gimme. But, since I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have recognized the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel -- or any other painting outside of The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa -- at my graduation from high school, I thought this might be overstated.

Now me, I had a fairly minimal basic education. Niece #3, on the other hand, recently graduated from one of the best elementary schools in Washington state, and she won something like four of six of their "Most Annoyingly Bright Student" awards. Sent the Sistine Chapel image from Monday, she was asked to identify it, its location, and painter. Her response was: I don’t know the answers to any of your questions, but my mom does. She is being most infernal, and isn’t telling me them.

I have not yet been able to find a cave hermit so that I can complete this investigation.


Comments from Do The Collapse


To address fingerstothebone's forcefully stated concerns, here's Yoyo the LOLcat!!!




Comments on The Great Movies: All About Eve

I got some love for my recent Guided By Voices content, and that inspired me to upload the scruffy little cover of "Fair Touching" that I made to test out my new concertina last spring. Listen with love in your heart, as it is but a junky home recording. Also, I do not know how to play concertina.

Here it is. It made me sad I haven't been doing any home recording recently. Too much time blogging, I suppose.

The Great Movies: "All About Eve"

Curious about "The Great Movies" concept? Look here.

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All About Eve
Joseph Mankiewicz (1950)


Frankly, All About Eve seems more of a good movie than a great movie. I say this with fear in my heart, though. All About Eve is famous (among old movie people) for its crackling wit and its devastating sly humor. I have seen it described as "the smartest movie ever made." This raises a question of terrifying implications: What if I missed the best jokes? What if this movie is too smart for a lummox like me to fully appreciate?

Well, it's certainly possible. Roger Ebert is a lot smarter, and knows a hell of a lot more about movies, than me. But it's my blog. Me, I admired the assured skills of a primo cast who seem to be enjoying their work. They got off some great lines. The ending, as well as the entire premise, effectively combined that particular American dream of a young person seeking celebrity with a mild horror-movie creepiness. And if the film all but offers up its own feminist critique, I'm disinclined to scold a 60 year old movie for social backwardness. Basically, you've got a very solid film here. One of The Good Movies.

Plot: A Broadway star befriends a wide-eyed girl from the country, who then embarks on a cold-blooded attempt to commandeer her life. Hijinks ensue. People say lots of witty things and, as in real life, are very funny when they are drunk.

Dialogue: Sparkling, in that mannered way of actors from the black-and-white era, when everyone sounded like they just got back from three years in England and were feeling frightfully earnest.

Visuals: There are a few exceptionally well-composed scenes. The two that involve young women trying on their idols' dresses are particularly memorable; the dresses all but become characters for the length of the scene.

Prognosis: Recommended for people who like old movies, are into "the Theater," or who think Bette Davis is awesome. She really is something, in this movie.