Great Expeditionary Blogging: an Episodic Gratuitous Blag: The Blog of the Planet of the Unipiper

Portland.

Well.

Apparently at servos you don't get out of your car to do it.

Seriously.

You do not.

They do it for you.

Weeeeeird.

But petrol is cheap here - $1.99 for a gallon.

HOLY MOTHER OF ZEPHYRA AMERICANS DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW CHEAP THAT IS!!

The Unipiper

This was the purpose of the entire trip.

This was what I had been gearing up for.

We met up on Saturday and had a pint together, along with the rest of my car, and talked about things.

He showed up in a leather jacket and an akubra, and Chris immediately said, "He's dressed more Australian than you, Dave."

That night, we went to an Ice Hockey game, the Portland Winterhawks vs. some other team.

They had a twenty minute halftime, which sounds boring.

During that, they had a mascot showdown, which sounds interesting.

That mascot showdown involved Portland’s own iconic figure, the man and legend, the Unipiper himself.

He's riding a unicycle on the ice

The Hockey Match: Portland Winterhawks vs. Everett Silvertips

What a game. Definitely value for money.

America gets so into their sport.

The rink stands are huge, and there were about 10K people there, but it wasn’t even completely filled.

There were mascots galore, dressed up as all sorts of things - pirates, Spiderman, a giant hawk, Deadpool, assorted other movie characters, Vader, and …….. one man, on a unicycle, dressed as Vader, playing star wars, on the bagpipes.

He was seriously riding his unicycle on the ice.

I could see him struggling, and as a competent unicycler I know that it would not be easy, but he did it.

What a legend.

I was kinda scared they might shank me

The game itself was very fast-paced and action packed. The rink was short, so the puck shot everywhere and it was hard to track where it was half the time.

My goodness, ice hockey is a vicious game.

In soccer, if you get within another player’s personal space, they’ll drop to the ground and claim an injury.

In ice hockey, you can intentionally charge head-on into another player and body-slam them into the wall, and the ref will see you do this and know that you meant to do this, and ….

… game keeps going. Refs ignore it.

It is pitched battle, with a hockey puck, on ice.

Every time the home team, the Portland Winterhawks, scored, the chorus of ACDC’s TNT played over the speakers and we all stood and fist-pumped “T-N-T! Oi … Oi … Oi … "

A great taste of home.

T-N-T

At one point in the game, the goalie trapped the shot and passed upfield to player 3, who caught the quaffle and threw to the striking chaser. They made for the goals but were cut short by a bludger, and their throw went wide into the crowd, scoring 6 and out. After a weird play-off scrum-type thing, Gryffindor’s centre forward grabbed the ball and ran for it, passing forward to player 13 to avoid a tackle from the other team’s quarterback, who then shot for the basket but hit the hoop.

Basically, the end result was that the Winterhawks won, 6-3.

It was a cracker of a game, going into the third third with a tie and the ball in the left umlaut (apologies to John Clarke).

By observation, I think the Silvertips were more skilled, and certainly their teamwork and passing was more precise and crisp.

We got on screen!!!

They had a roving crowd camera, and Harley and I had a plan just in case we got on Kiss Cam (unfortunately we never did), and then they turned the camera on us!!! I got on screen!!

Then they flicked it down the row to Shay, Matt, Chris, and Jenna, and Shay goes nuts on camera, and Chris laughs … and then realizes it’s him!

And then the view changed to someone else.

The duel

Some say we are but mere mortals.

They are wrong.

We are more than men, more than mortals.

We are myth, legend, lost in time.

Some people are made legends by the crowd.

Some legends forge themselves.

We are such people.

We are unipipers.

And Brian Kidd is The Unipiper, the man, the legend.

Firstly, in case you didn’t know, here is some context.

This is his iconic video, that has been all over the internet and even on TV.

He keeps Portland weird, which is what it also says on his bagpipe cover.

I asked Brian about this and he said, “The parking lot that says ‘Keep Portland Weird’? It’s opposite Voodoo Doughnuts."

We went there and I got all excited-little-kid.

I was there!!

The site of the Unipiper’s iconic, most famous video.

So what did I do?

Neo, riding a unicycle, played He’s a Pirate on the bagpipes.

That day, I kept Portland weird.

Neo, you are the One

Sooooo many people have posted that iconic video of the Unipiper's to my Facebook wall, claiming that it is me (some joking).
Finally, finally finally finally, it is me.
I did it.
Portland is weirder because of me.

Now, I know you readers are keen for the clash of the titans, but alas, you shall have to wait until next time for this legendary showdown.

Food

Portland has some nice food. The intern manager people at Micro$oft recommended many restaurants in Portland, but we were kinda there only one night.

So we got dinner at the hockey rink.

It was rubbish, but I expected that.
I should have got Mjollnir, but then I would have been hammered.

Let's get hammered bro!!

One recommendation was Voodoo Doughnuts, cos they did weird doughnuts like, I kid you not, a Maple-Bacon doughnut.

We went there, and it was directly across from the iconic sign, “KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD."

We had Voodoo doughnuts.

Most of these were weird and not very good.

Some were good.

One was truly delicious.

That purple one - it was beautiful.

Chocolate and custard, breakfast cereal, oreos, grape Kool-Aid

Something, something else, caramel, nuts, standard, Rice-bubble peanut butter,
m&ms, weird things, something else in the middle

Not sure what it was, but boy it was good.

That’s my review.

There was also Blue Star doughnuts, which was not as weird but apparently made up for this in quality. They were certainly more hipster, and had an good commentary on social media:

The funniest part is that the last one is accurate

Now for Matt’s final review from Whistler. Watch this space for more of Matt’s reviews from Portland!

Matt. He does food reviews

Matt's Food Reviews #3

Horton drank a Who

Tim Horton’s Iced Cap
In order to complete the circle, it was only fair that I went to a Tim Horton’s for an Iced Cap. Coffee enthusiasts that frequent gourmet establishments such as Starbucks will be familiar with the drink that could be described as similar to the Frappuccino.
The Iced Cap paralleled the Starbucks frappe in terms of its smooth finely shaved iced texture, however it had a subtly different flavor. The Tim Horton’s take on the classic was notably sweeter than other iced coffees I’ve had in the past, and the taste of condensed milk lent a unique flavor to the drink. For the Singaporeans out there, the icy beverage was surprisingly similar to the early morning kopis of old, albeit pleasantly more subtle and much, much colder.

Rating 3/5

Matthew Chiam is an intern at Microsoft, and the author of The Ideas Junkyard, a blog which he barely updates because he’s “too damn lazy”.

Thanks for those reviews, Matt! I now know what foods/drinks to avoid!

Gridiron in the Superbowl

Look, I’ve ripped into this enough already.

Out of respect for those mourning the loss, I shall not saying anything here.

I’ve left that job to someone else.

Computers

Some might say that my computer situation is becoming excessive.

I liken it to a still life painting.

I have three Apples and two Raspberry Pi's, and a Surface to arrange them on.

The Coolest and Biggest Video Store Evarrrrr
This was enormous.
It had sooooo many dvds.
But why was it so awesome?
It had original movie props.

There were loads of dresses and things like that from old movies I'd barely heard of.

Then there was one of the only two prop knives used in Psycho:

Bank heist money from Serenity:

Yoda:

And some soap from Fight Club:

Volunteering

Another intern event!!

Some of us volunteered to help out at a local food distribution centre that sent food to shelters and kitchens and other places/people that for whatever reason cannot provide food for themselves.

This was fun (except the rotten lettuce):