Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thank you, Interweb
I'm in the middle of trying to buy tickets for Elton John and Billy Joel at the Rose Quarter in November. I went to the Rose Quarter website to buy the tickets. Everything was going smoothly until I tried to pay for the tickets. No go. The website says something about my credit card information was incorrect, so I went back, reviewed all of the information. Everything was correct, so I hit the submit button again. Maybe you can see where this is going. Again, no good. The information was all correct, so... submit. Nope. Review again, no go. So I try using a different email address and nope. Then I find out that my card has been charged three times! My account with the Rose Quarter website says that I have no pending ticket orders. So here I am $1200 in and no tickets. Right now I'm on the phone with ComcastTix trying to figure this crap out. They tell me that they also show no tickets have been order, and so have to transfer me to customer service. I'm on the phone to them for the fourth time and everytime they try to transfer me to customer service, all I get is a dead phone line. Now they are transferring me to a supervisor, again, dead phone line. This time I'm just going to stay on the dead line for a couple of minutes to see what happens. Ok, I couldn't do any more dead time so I'm calling back again. This time the representative sounds a bit more competant. I explain my dilemma once more, and she explains about pending charges and no tickets have been ordered. Now I'm hold while she does something, she didn't explain. If nothing else, I get to listen to classical music. Now I have a supervisor and she says the same thing everyone else has been saying. But now I ask her if we can try again over the phone. I give her the credit card information and again, zip. So something is up. Card has been tried at least four times now and still no tickets. This internet business is really starting to get to me. Now I have to wait until Wednesday to try again and I'm sure by that time I'll be out of luck for good seats. Thanks, Al Gore. What a monster you've created.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Welcome to César Chávez Boulevard
Oh, Sam Adams, how I love the, how I wish the weren't a blabbering fool. Oh, how you give the gift of diversity whilst you remove our own city identity. Shall I compare the to a racial whitewasher, taking what was once unique and personal, and transforming it into an international renaming fest?
Ok, not Shakespeare (and maybe not even grammatically correct. But I think you get it.)
Yesterday on the radio I heard the first of a plan to rename South East 39th avenue (running from Sandy Boulevard in the north to some ungodly place south of Trader Joes by Holgate). The new name: César Chávez Boulevard / S.E. 39th Av. I mean come on! In the name of diversity, Sam Adams? For the sake of our Latin American community? Please! I am by no means trying to put down or disenfranchise the Hispanic community in Portland or the rest of the country. I am proud that America continues to diversify. My beef is this: if you want to promote diversity and pride in heritage, then don't change those things that we are borne of. South East 39th avenue is a highly recognizable and uniquely Portland street. It is part of who we are as Portlanders. I feel as if Mr. Adams is trying to say, "39th Av. was the white Portland, now, here you have César Chávez Boulevard, the integrated Portland."
Again, puh-leaze.
If you are trying to pledge some sort of symbolic homage to this city's diversity, then why don't we have more Latin-American inspired, city funded festival and art installations? On the East side. No more of this Downtown-centric bull. Ironically, I believe that if Adams wanted to make a bigger statement, he would have chosen a downtown inspired street to be named. How about City Hall at Chávez and Main?
Ok, not Shakespeare (and maybe not even grammatically correct. But I think you get it.)
Yesterday on the radio I heard the first of a plan to rename South East 39th avenue (running from Sandy Boulevard in the north to some ungodly place south of Trader Joes by Holgate). The new name: César Chávez Boulevard / S.E. 39th Av. I mean come on! In the name of diversity, Sam Adams? For the sake of our Latin American community? Please! I am by no means trying to put down or disenfranchise the Hispanic community in Portland or the rest of the country. I am proud that America continues to diversify. My beef is this: if you want to promote diversity and pride in heritage, then don't change those things that we are borne of. South East 39th avenue is a highly recognizable and uniquely Portland street. It is part of who we are as Portlanders. I feel as if Mr. Adams is trying to say, "39th Av. was the white Portland, now, here you have César Chávez Boulevard, the integrated Portland."
Again, puh-leaze.
If you are trying to pledge some sort of symbolic homage to this city's diversity, then why don't we have more Latin-American inspired, city funded festival and art installations? On the East side. No more of this Downtown-centric bull. Ironically, I believe that if Adams wanted to make a bigger statement, he would have chosen a downtown inspired street to be named. How about City Hall at Chávez and Main?
Safeway Bluesfest 2009
Kudos to Safeway for their sponsorship of 'Safeway Bluesfest 2009'. This guy steals from Safeway every day, so as a penalty, they decided that his admission should be $10 and four cans of food. Unfortunately for Safeway, all he could offer was $4.27 in dimes and some scratched up, stolen drumsticks.
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