Portland Restaurant Waiting Guide
The Screen Door restaurant on Burnside Street, Portland, Oregon. I’ve stood in that line.
Next up, on Iron Skillet Chef America our celebrity judge feels he’s entitled to share his opinions. Alloy cuisine!!! –Ed.
As a proud “native Oregonian” I’ve lived in Portland, on and off, since 1981. I’ve been to a few places to eat along the way. From food carts to neighborhood pub n’ grubs to world class cuisine, Portland has a veritable plethora of long waiting lines guaranteed to satisfy most any connoisseur of the latest trendy thing.
Voodoo Doughnut? I’ve never been. The line has always been too damn long. Who has that kind of time for a doughnut with bacon on it? My trick? Go to two different places, grab a doughnut from a regular place and a side of bacon from a diner. Voila! I call that Voodoo without the wait. When you’re downtown you’ll people toting around with their little pink boxes of Voodoo doughnuts as if to say, “Look at me! I did the wait!” Pro Tip: That pink box goes really well with plaid.
One World Border
Coming up with simplistic solutions that solve the world’s problems and really work is kind of my thing. It’s what I do.
Today’s idea is a simple one:
Make all international borders 25,000 miles wide.
This idea can also be represented by a phrase. I like to call it “One World Border.”
What is a border? It’s an arbitrary construct of the human mind. Often based on topographical features like a river or coastline. Well, why not the shape of Earth? That makes a nice topographical feature, too. Since borders live in our imagination we can pretty much do whatever we want with them, if we decide to agree.
How might this work? Think about the United States. It’s a pretty big place yet citizens enjoy the right to travel to any of its 50+ territories without restriction or cumbersome papers. And all citizens, regardless of where they live, are equal in the sense that they share the same basic rights. (Weirdness with so-called “state’s rights” notwithstanding.)
What if the whole world worked like this?
Easy to say. But how to get there? Luckily I planned ahead and brought a map.
Continue reading →
Second!
I don’t ever want to be first. Ever. The Abyss is decidedly a second-world country.
The other day I was surfing WordPress’ Freshly Pressed section and found a post entitled “How Long Are You Willing to Stand in Line? Are You Willing to Walk Away?” This was one of those times a headline really grabbed me and reeled me in. I was born to walk away.
The article was well written and thought provoking. I recommend you go read it. I was moved to comment and this is what I said:
Interesting. This is a topic I’ve been thinking about quite a bit since moving to the big city from a small town. We heard about an ice cream shop that was supposed to be really good. It’s called Salt and Straw and features homemade ice cream including the super trendy salted caramel and habaneros and things like that. Not just salt. “Sea salt.” And not just caramel. “Caramel ribbons.” That’s proof that it’s good! 🙂
We drove over one night and found a line of fedora-wearing-folk (also trendy) that was literally a block long just to get to the front door.
That’s when I realized my SBIGE formula. (Second Best Is Good Enough.) The hypothesis is that the difference in quality between best and second best is more than offset by not having to wait in an interminable line. Overall, that represents a huge gain in EE (Enjoyment Efficiency).
Good post and grats on being FP! 🙂
–Tom B. Taker, July 17, 2013
Ever put a comment on someone else’s blog and wish you had saved it for your own blog? Like I said, this was a topic I’d been thinking about. I decided to have my cake and eat it, too. Just as long as there’s no line to get into the bakery.
In the future I’ll be producing many graphs and pie charts and coming up with the exact formulae to support my SBIGE hypothesis.
The moral of the story is this: First is for the birds. If you aim for second (or lower) then at least someone like me has a theoretical shot. Besides, anyone who really is first is probably hopped up on drugs. We call this armstronging. And who among us wants to pee in neon colors?
Aim lower.
Time to mortar a brick
I’ve been hearing a lot of hubbub of late about online retail sales overtaking traditional “brick and mortar” businesses.
Boo freakin’ hoo. To my way of thinking that’s like worrying about one turd shitting on another.
Still, I thought it might be a good idea to reminisce a few moments about the proverbial good times of ye olde mom and pop. The good old days and the “little man” of Alan Jackson lore.
Brick and mortar? Mom and pop? Who the hell is in charge of naming this shit? Dr. Seuss? Family jewels are found in aisle 42. Bait and tackle in aisle 69. That reminds me: “Clean up on aisle 69!”
I’ve already written quite a bit about Mr. Online Entrepreneur. He’s slippery, slimy and makes jackals and amebas seem like highly evolved life forms. He lies about everything including – most especially – that the product you want is “in stock.” Then he gets your money and you wait weeks to find out if you’ll ever get the product he just totally lied about or if you’ll ever get your money back. Good times.
How about Mr. Brick Mortar? How does he compare? And who is this guy?
Does the plethora of dings on the side of your car give you any kind of freakin’ clue?
Continue reading →
Being put “on hold” while standing in line
Here’s a question. When you are waiting in line at the grocery store or the local retail outlet, who answers the phone when it rings?
In my experience, it is the person at the checkout counter. You know, the place where you have already been standing in line! The person who was, at least until the phone rang, paying actual attention to you.
In my city, this mainly happens at grocery stores and the local Staples. I’ll wait my turn, get to checkout when I’m finally being helped, the phone will ring and I’ll essentially be put “on hold” as a human being while the person on the phone suddenly jumps to the front of the queue and gets helped before everyone else who was already there.
What is the message here? The most obvious one I can think of is, “We’re cheap bastards. We can’t afford to have anyone besides the person taking our customer’s money answer the phone.”
The more subtle message, in my opinion is: “Hey sucker. We’ve already got you on the hook and we’re about to lay claim to your cash. The fish on the phone isn’t as got as you so they are a much higher priority than you. You sad, pathetic excuse of a customer. Please fuck yourself as you wait. Oh, and don’t forget to puruse last minute items like candy and tabloids.”
Shouts from the Abyss 
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