Free Cowboy Hats

I spent the better part of my day roaming around Portland, shrugging off work responsibilities, and doing a bit of shopping. I must tout the 3-block radius of hipster heaven around Burnside and 12th. Jackpot records, Buffalo Exchange, Roxy's Diner (which really does have the best gd biscuits and gravy that I've ever had, as well as 'Portland Fucking Oregon' T-shirts). I also dropped damn near eight bucks playing pinball in the Ground Kontrol Arcade. I'm not really too keen on video games usually. I always join a good round of playstation football with a bunch of guys who have been playing semi-competitively for at least a year, and who, within 15 minutes have scored 57 points while I'm still trying to work out how to walk forward. That said, I played some damn pinball, and it was brilliant. My favorite pinball machine ever is around a circus or clown theme or something and I can't remember what it was called, but I used to play it in a bar in Chapel Hill when I was younger. My second favorite pinball game, however, (and let me just say that I hope to never again begin a sentence with the words 'my second favorite pinball game ever') is The Addams Family, with Bass Fisher coming in at a close third. So, this place had two of the three best pinball games ever made. I peed just a little. I am, of course discounting both the Kiss and Guns and Roses pinball games based on the fact that they are more novelty than actual brilliant design. For fuck's sake, The Addams family has a hand that pops out of a crypt and grabs your ball, the Kiss machine plays "I was made for loving you" and then the flippers fall off.

This really is one of the happiest places on Earth. Old Pinball and Arcade games + booze generally = a good time.

Check it:Ground Kontrol Arcade.
I'm really partial to their pinball 'league', and am considering giving up on life and just competing semi-professionally in regional pinball matches. My parents would be so proud.



On an unrelated topic. Here are a few things that you should not buy, ever.
















This is so you can keep up with friends while white water rafting or golden showering or doing whatever it is that you do involving a cell phone and water. I'll file this under 'Man's ongoing battle with mother nature,' or maybe just 'shit that you find in the REI outlet store.'


















This was the turd in the punchbowl of my day yesterday. After wandering around in a bit of rain for ages I found a record store, and in said store found this CD called MGR which stands for Mustard Gas and Roses. I overlooked the title which is, I believe, a Kurt Vonnegut-ism, as the artwork is quite nice. I was drawn to the record because, according to the bright orange sticker on the outside, it is the side project of someone in the band Isis. Isis is goddamn amazing and often come across as a metal version of Mogwai. Mustard Gas and Roses sounds like someone fell asleep on a casio and managed to record the entire ordeal, and then had the balls to release it as a record, and then had giant, horse-balls to charge sixteen bucks for it. I'm not sure what, if anything, to make of it. I get down with some odd shit from time to time, even truly experimental noise, but this is really just nothing. In a drunken haze I wrote a letter to Neurot recordings in which I explained (or griped, really) about how shit the record was, and how it was flagrant false advertising to claim the music was akin to a metal band while actually selling forty five minutes worth of windchimes and bird farts. I mean, the five songs on the record are titled I, II, III, IV, and something else, I don't remember...really?, not even titles for these piece of shit songs? The problem with the music industry is no one has any heart these days. I have yet to hear back from them for some reason. So, don't buy this record. So there.

Here's a side-by-side comparison, just in case no one believes me.
Isis-From Sinking
MGR-I




Do, however, buy a lamp that looks like Charlie Brown's sweater. It will make you feel better about yourself.
















Or if you don't have any money, pick up a few of those paper toilet seat covers in a public restroom and you and your pals can pretend you are cowboys. I must apologize for the quality of the picture. I took about ten, and this was the best of them. Trust me, someone really has written 'free cowboy hats' on the dispenser.