Portland207

Pecha Kucha at Space tonight.  Come see what the creative types around Portland are working on.  Each presenter gets to wow the crowd with 20 slides, 20 seconds each.  That’s like 6.66666666 minutes per person.  From what I have read of the Rockland Pech Kucha, it seems like a pretty good time.  Plus Space has a lovely little bar in the corner of the gallery, should the presentations go south.  Doors open at 6:30 and PowerPoint gets fired up at 7:20.

The Ice Bar is back.  And so is Portland207 (after a brief 4 month hiatus).  The ever popular Ice Bar at the Portland Harbor Hotel opened last evening.  This year comes with a $10 cover, half of which goes to charity.  I suppose that the Portland Harbor is pocketing the other $5 to offset the skyrocketing price of frozen water.  A few ice bars and sculptures are scattered about the patio of the hotel.  Martinis dispensed through ice and Makers Mark cocktails are poured over ice in return for $8 drink tickets, while Sebago beers clock in at $4.  Opening night seemed to bring out Portland’s limited young professional crowd.  All eager to mingle among the ice, propane heaters and chimeneas, though most ended up inside after 15 minutes or so.  The patio and bar area at the hotel and undeniably swank, though the various rooms with the appetizer stations had the feeling of a bar mitzvah at the Holliday Inn.  Complete with chocolate fountain.

The Portland Harbor Hotel opens up their annual Ice Bar this weekend.  What used to be a month-long installation in the courtyard of this downtown hotel has been condensed into one cold January weekend.  A rare chance to drink like the Swedes.  I can’t claim to have ever bundled up in deerskin gloves and ski gear to attend this rite of Winter, but I have heard from reliable sources that after the first few nights, the Ice Bar was scarcely attended in the past.  Perhaps this is due to the fact that it is poorly advertised and dragged out for a month.  I have the feeling that attaching your face to the vodka ice luge and pounding Shipyards to fight the cold looses its icy luster after a night or two.  It seems the operators of the Harbor Hotel have gotten wise to that fact and given the Ice Bar a life span of 48 hours.  The doors to the courtyard open at 4pm on Friday (1/25).  Free food (from Browne Trading and others), a bit of country music and a few fire pits, which serve at the yang to the Ice Bars yin, will add to the atmosphere.  An Ice carving competition is being held from 9am to noon on Saturday and then the bar opens back up at 4pm.  More info in the To Do section. 

I am not sure why Portland loves the 80's so much (80's night at Bubba's, the Awesome, etc.) but you can't fight it.  I was fortunate enough to spend the last hours of the 2k7 and the first few hours of this cold new year clad in the finest pink tux jacket and piano key tie that I own.  It felt good to ring in the New Year in such style and to be surrounded by similarly dressed individuals.  Thanks to Binga's Winagas and the hosts.  Happy 2008.

Ah, the first snow of the season.  The clean, white precipitation covering the dirt and filth of the city...and all that nonsense.  It was a great first storm and a recent glance out the window tells me that it is still going on.  It is nice living in a city with an efficient and effective snowplow strategy.  They were out there as soon as the first flake it the ground.  Huge double-blade plows and little bobcat plows alike.  Being in Boston during a snow storm was always frustrating, due to the fact that the city would wait until all the snow had fallen from the sky before attending to the smaller streets and sidewalks.  Weary office workers and retail shopkeepers would have to trudge through narrow, but well worn paths down the sidewalks.  Like ants marching in a row. 

Enough snow speak.  A Monday night trip to The Stadium taught me a couple important lessons. 1, They have $4 Miller Lite pitchers on Mondays before 9 or so.   These are not so much pitchers, as they are huge Miller bottles.  The novelty of the huge bottles is almost enough to draw my patronage, but the $4 price tag will keep me coming back for a longtime to come.  2, The pheasant shoot in Big Buck Hunter is by far the hardest part of the game.  Those things are quick.  3, The food is pretty good.  4, it is nothing like Hooters.  I read an article a while back about how the city would not permit the owner of The Stadium open a Hooters franchise, so in defiance, he created a Hooters-like eatery, complete with scantily clad sexy waitresses.  Nope.  They are clad quite normally, and I think our waitress even had braces.