INANIMATE IMMORTALITY

I’m going to steal Jacob Grier’s idea and blog about my favorite mis­cel­la­neous things of 2011. Here we go.

Best local intox­i­cant: The kava at Bula Kava House. The staff at BKH has started to place more of an empha­sis on the potency of its kava (rather than fla­vor), and the results are stellar.

Best place to under­take a per­sonal vision quest: Float On on Hawthorne. Weightlessness, intro­spec­tion, buoy­ancy! All these things await you in a sensory-deprivation experience.

Best per­sonal pizza: I swear by the stuff at Nel Centro down­town. A taste orgy.

Best cof­fee: Caffe Vita, based in Seattle. I first expe­ri­enced it at Vintage Plaza in Portland though. I don’t remem­ber the exact blend/brew, but it was smooth with just enough rich­ness  and full-bodied fla­vor. A find!

Favorite writer: Daniel Kalder, author of Lost Cosmonaut and Strange Telescopes. The man also blogs at var­i­ous loca­tions, includ­ing the Guardian, RIA Novosti, When Falls the Coliseum and the Dabbler. Check him out in 2012.

Favorite humorist: Ricky Sprague, author of the Project: Child-Murdering Robot blog. Enter the world of Sprague via this Grover post, por favor.

Favorite restau­rant: Appethaizing on SE Division here in Portland. Small, modest-looking and great.

Best crit­i­cism of local gov­ern­ment: A tie between Jack Bogdanski’s excel­lent blog and Randal O’Toole’s Antiplanner site.

Best photographer/food blog­ger: Why it’s Jackie Baisa, natch.

Best TV Show: Red Eye. Hands down. Anything that Keith Olbermann calls “manure for pigs” is worth its weight in gold.

Best cover song: Richard Cheese’s epic treat­ment of Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”

Best museum: The Museum of Flight in Seattle. Pics here. More pics here!

Best exam­ple of nude exhibitionism/dead-animal usage: Jasha Lottin climb­ing into a dead horse. Duh.

Best cat: Tiger. Pics here.

Best dog: Carver. Here’s the hand­some devil him­self rid­ing shot­gun.

More to come, pos­si­bly, if I have time before the New Year.

Related arti­cles

• Climbing inside the horse, or: the uses of ani­mals (whenfallsthecoliseum.com)
• Village Visit:Soma Soma, Gnau Island, Fiji (naturalcourage.com)
• Horseplay (icedborscht.com)
• Reader poll: Who left the best com­ment? (bojack.org)

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