Welcome to Describetheruckus.com

The Bugs Upload New Songs To Their Myspace

January 30, 2009 10:33 pm

by Mike Burnett

The Bugs, who I interviewed last year, are still my favorite Portland band. If you’re interested in hearing a few more arguments for why they are great, head over to their Myspace page and listen to 4 new tracks: “On The Importance of Being Stupid”, “This Ain’t Rocket Science”, “Neon Sun”, and “The Living Dead”.

“Neon Sun” is on their LP, but I’m not sure about the others. More on that when I know.

Loving On A Better Cycle

January 26, 2009 9:31 pm

by Lauren Hudgins

Sick bike? If you’re worried you might have to put it down, try A Better Cycle, a worker owned and collectively run bicycle shop. They’ve been able to do things for me that other bike shops thought were impossible and for much less than the others, too.

It’s not that I’ve had bad experiences with the other bike places in town. It’s just that A Better Cycle has always left me feeling grateful and happy. How often do you feel that way when something needs fixed? I usually feel transportation doomed beforehand and then wallet doomed afterwards.

A Better Cycle is by far the least judgmental bike shop I’ve been in. They’re great for people like me who want a more intimate relationship with their bike than simply dropping it off to be fixed, but don’t have the tools or even enough know-how to borrow tools to perform even basic bike first aid. I want to learn. I’m learning, bit by bit. Unlike most other places I’ve been, they don’t look at me like I’m a complete idiot if I have to ask what a crank set or a chain ring or a bottom bracket are.

So there you have it. A Better Cycle: Kind to both you and your bike.

A Better Cycle
2324 SE Division St.
503-265-8595

Happy Prescriptions At Dunes Tomorrow Night

January 24, 2009 2:19 pm

by Mike Burnett

I’ve been listening to Happy Prescriptions take its new form in my basement over the last few weeks, and it’s sounding great. If you’re a fan of shoegaze, dreampop, spacerock, or any other collation of two words implying loud, distorted, and reverb drenched rock durges, I highly recommend checking out Happy Prescriptions et. al. at Dunes tomorrow night.

View Larger Map

Graffiti On Portland Trains

January 23, 2009 10:07 pm

by Mike Burnett

Brian Latta, posts photos of graffiti from all over the country to his Flickr account. What first caught my attention were his photos of train graffiti like this one:

Here’s a slideshow of all Latta’s photos tagged “Portland”:

My First Week On A Fixed Gear

5:25 pm

by Mike Burnett

After commuting for a week on a fixed gear, I’m leaning con the setup. I raised my gear ratio too, adding resistance to the pedals, which is an extra element in the newness of the setup. I do appreciate the extra resistance going down hills, but the incessant pedaling of the fixed gear setup outweighs that pleasure at this point.

Also problematic is the toe clipping on slow, tight turns. With a freewheel setup you can freely move your pedals to dodge the front wheel on hairpin turns, but on the fixed gear your feet are at the mercy of the cranks. I imagine there’s an art to timing these sorts of turns, as there is to much of fixed gear riding, but it’s alluding me at this point. The perpetually moving pedals have made me feel like even more of a buffoon than when I first started riding a road bike, because it’s such a different thing getting your feet into the pedal cages once the bike is moving. Again, I’m assuming this comes with time.

I experienced what felt like a “pedal strike” today taking a quick corner onto my home street, although it was probably just the extra length on the pedal strap hitting the ground. A pedal strike can occur on fixed gear bikes if the bike isn’t setup with enough clearance between the bottom of the pedals and the ground. While on a freewheel bike you can leave the pedals on a horizontal line parallel to the ground while taking turns, on a fixed gear you have to keep pedaling through turns, which means if you’re leaning in far enough to a turn and your pedal is down, it might strike the ground.

I can’t yet do a track stand, but I am starting to “feel” how it works. Also pretty fun is getting a feel for the hopping stops. Both of these techniques are a ways off for me, but I plan on keeping the bike this way for awhile. Ultimately, I think I’ll switch back to freewheel single speed setup, keeping this higher gear ratio. I want to get closer to realizing why people swear by this setup before that happens.

Bon Iver Likes Lauren Hudgins’ Photographs

January 20, 2009 9:09 pm

by Mike Burnett

Bon Iver, or at least whoever was assigned with coming up with cover art for Bon Iver’s new EP,Blood Bank, used a photo by our very own Lauren Hudgins.

Merkley Approves Additional $350 Billion Bailout

January 17, 2009 4:08 pm

by Mike Burnett

DailyKos.org takes Jeff Merkley to task for the difference between his campaign rhetoric and how he’s been voting now that he’s made it to congress.

Well, nothing has changed with the bailout that Merkley opposed to win the election. But now that he has his six-year gig, things apparently change, because yesterday, Merkley voted for $350 billion more in bailout money. So much for all that populist rhetoric.

Link

A Bike Light That Projects A Laser Bike Lane

3:39 pm

by Mike Burnett

This is everywhere now, but I just saw it on Boing Boing:

The LightLane is a conceptual bike light that projects a bike lane along the path of a bicyclist. This might actually be even more fun than the NiteRider, which I blogged about here last year. Especially because you can ride your bike anywhere — diagonally through intersections, on I-5, through supermarkets, and no one can say anything because you have a laser bike lane.

In my personal biking news, my bike is currently in the shop receiving a tuneup and conversion to fixed gear. I’ve already been accused by friends of selling out to fashion, but the fact is it all comes down to two words: track stand. You can’t do it on a regular single speed, unless you’re Philippe Petit. I’ve got to be able to do this:

MLK Day of Service

January 16, 2009 2:43 pm

by Lauren Hudgins

Monday, January 19th is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Most of us get a day off. It’s tempting to spend it huddled under blankets on the couch refreshing facebook over and over. But perhaps there is a better way to celebrate and honor the great Dr. King, especially the day before we swear in our first black president.

President-Elect Barack Obama has called on the nation to make MLK Day a day of community service. As a nation who has formally recognized the value in a humble “community leader” we should get out of bed this Monday and step up to our chosen’s call. Volunteer. We are facing a spiraling, anxiety-inducing recession. There is no better occasion to volunteer your time and abilities than when you have no money to give and when people have great need but have no money to offer.

You can find volunteer opportunities in the Portland area on the USA service site or on Hands On Greater Portland.

The Music Industry Is Getting It

January 15, 2009 12:05 am

by Mike Burnett

The MP3 (and file sharing) rose to ubiquity in a decade in which the music industry tried endlessly to suppress it. They even tried to block to the release of the first widely available portable MP3 player, the Diamond Rio PMP300.

For the first time I’ve seen, in an interview with Cnet.com, an executive at Universal Music Group’s eLabs, Rio Caraeff, is saying all sorts of progressive, level-headed things about digital music:

It’s clear that fans like to stream music on the Internet. We wanted to figure out how to create a business model to allow audio to be streamed on a free-to-consumer basis online. Before we had an ad supported streaming model for audio we had a subscription-based program for streaming audio and that’s basically a small amount of people who are willing to pay for that. [...] The removal of DRM on songs and albums is also a major example of how we’ve changed, [...] Basically pirates have every advantage. They have no licenses they need to take, no rules they need to abide by, no geography with which they have to be concerned about. That’s our competition. You have to compete with that in a marketplace based model. Other tactics, such as litigation or other legal remedies is something we always reserve the right to pursue, but I don’t believe that’s a definitive or long-term fix.

Link