A new bar opened in downtown Portland. Raven’s Manor is a haunted mansion themed cocktail lounge that Christine and I were dying to check out.
Category: Portland
Fixing Oregon’s “I Voted” Stickers
Here in Oregon, everyone votes by mail. This is great because you can vote in a bathrobe and slippers, taking your time to research candidates and measures — all over a cup of tea. You then drop it in the mail or take it to an official dropbox, and you’re done. The one problem with … Continue reading Fixing Oregon’s “I Voted” Stickers
Walk to Work Day 2016
Several years ago, a local Portland organization — I think they were called the Portland Pedestrian Coalition at the time but are now Oregon Walks — put together a Walk to Work day. They designated meetup spots in each of the quadrants of town, each about three or four miles from downtown. You’d walk, drive, or … Continue reading Walk to Work Day 2016
Portland’s Escape the Room
About a decade ago, before smartphones and tablets, when Flash games were a big thing, there was a genre of Flash games known as “Escape the Room.” One of the first popular such games was The Crimson Room. I simultaneously love and hate the genre. I like the aspect of puzzling your way out of … Continue reading Portland’s Escape the Room
Dissecting ARGFest’s FestQuest
The Puzzled Pint team designed and ran this year’s ARGFest puzzle hunt. This is a behind-the-scenes peek at what was involved.
Puzzled Pint Portland heat map
In response to the previous post (Puzzled Pint surveys and metrics), someone had suggested building a heat map. I built a fairly primitive one with Google Earth and a short Ruby script. The radius of each circle is proportional to the number of attendees. The height is random-ish and only varies to help distinguish overlapping circles. … Continue reading Puzzled Pint Portland heat map
Puzzled Pint Survey Results
At the most recent Puzzled Pint event in Portland, we put out a survey for all players to respond to individually. Here are the results.
A Thanksgiving Prayer & A Hipster Thanksgiving
Every Thanksgiving I try to point to the William S. Burroughs “A Thanksgiving Prayer” in one form or another. Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts. Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison. Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and … Continue reading A Thanksgiving Prayer & A Hipster Thanksgiving
The mystery of the sidewalk discs
Those metal discs epoxied to urban sidewalks every few meters — what are they?
The Portland Afoot game
This past weekend was the Portland Afoot game. This was a sort of transit scavenger hunt put on by Portland Afoot, Portland’s 10-minute newsmagazine on buses, bikes, and low-car life. The whole event was themed like a murder mystery (who killed Faire LeSequare — that name being an inside joke for local transit buffs) and involved … Continue reading The Portland Afoot game