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

Library Spring Book Sale

The third Saturday of this month is the Deschutes Public Library’s Spring Book Sale. All the usual details apply; it’s taking place at the Library Administration Building basement at 507 NW Wall Street downtown. Date is Saturday, April 19th, time is from 10am until 4pm. Get there early for the … Continue reading

The Bulletin’s E-edition, now free with regular subscription

I was going to blog about the Bulletin‘s E-edition (online pay-to-read news) finally offering free access to paid dead-tree subscribers (which I reported as a rumor here), but there’s really nothing I can say that will top Jake’s post. So go read that instead. The headline alone is worth it.

Silver Moon’s new sign

On my way home from work yesterday I noticed that Silver Moon Brewing was getting a new sign installed, one of those types that you can stick letters to so as to post events and specials and such. Nothing flashy, but it catches the eye when you’re driving on Greenwood. … Continue reading