Bend Living’s Best of Bend 2008

I just blogged about Gusto’s Best Of survey the other day, and now Bend Living has their Best of Bend 2008 survey up! Now all we need is The Source or KTVZ or some other sort-of-official-sounding entity to run a third "Best Of" list and it’ll be a perfect storm! … Continue reading

Weird find of the day

Saw this today when I was going to the bank: Yes, the "Bend Master Assassin Tournament." It was stuck to one of the free newspaper boxes you see downtown. And yes, the MySpace address is live, too. I’m not sure what to make of it. It sounds like it could … Continue reading

News from the Nature of Words

These are just distillations from a number of press releases I’ve received from the Nature of Words lately. First: Bend author and Nature of Words patron, David "D.H." Burns, reports that he is working with a Hollywood producer on a film treatment for Burns’ novel, "Day Follow Night: From Chaos … Continue reading

Wednesday wine tastings at the Blacksmith

Over on the Blacksmith Restaurant blog today, Paul points out their new wine tasting Wednesdays: Here’s a low-cost opportunity to taste great wines with guidance from experts. The Blacksmith Restaurant has started Wednesday Tastings after work, and each month spotlights a different beverage…. Cost is $10 to taste approximately eight … Continue reading

Gusto’s annual Best of Bend restaurants

You know by now that I’m a sucker for the whole "Best Of" and "Top X" lists that pop up every year, so naturally I had to post this. Bend Oregon Restaurants points to this year’s Gusto Magazine’s Best of 2008 survey page, where you can go vote on the … Continue reading

Free kibble

I got the email for this earlier in the month and it slipped by me: check out Free Kibble, a website dedicated to providing dog food to the Humane Society of Central Oregon based on the amount of user traffic and interaction the site gets. Basically, you visit the site … Continue reading

Bad idea of the day

This summer, two major parking lots downtown will no longer be free. The city of Bend will eliminate free parking in its two Mirror Pond parking lots this summer and install an electronic “pay and display” system instead, Jeff Datwyler, the city’s downtown manager, announced Wednesday at a meeting of … Continue reading

Bend city lights at night

This is fun… probably most everyone has seen the famous "Earth’s City Lights" picture NASA had published a number of years ago: a composite of satellite imagery showing the amount of light being given off at night across the world. Very cool (makes a great screensaver, too). Yesterday a user … Continue reading

KTVZ takes a stab at online classifieds

I’ve been seeing ads for KTVZ "Mark It Place" online classifieds lately, and tonight finally took a look at what they’re offering. The problem, of course, with this or any other similar endeavor is the 800-pound gorilla in the room—namely, craigslist. There is simply no competing with them; not only … Continue reading