Heather "Alpha" C.'s Profile

I really wanted to hate this place. You have no idea how much. However, when I went to MatrixFillmore as part of our Second Annual Big Bad Blonde Wig Bar Crawl, in which we disguise ourselves (badly) as Marina girls to see how the other half lives and generally wreak havoc, I found to my surprise that MatrixFillmore has a few things to recommend it.

1. Fancy, clean bathrooms that somehow never had a line.
2. Charming, fast, handsome bartenders.
3. A giant dance floor.

Unfortunately, the douchbag percentage is pretty high. I will say though, we didn't get harassed by anyone at MF, aside from lots of leg humping, which is kind of what we went there to experience, (morbid curiosity.) And everyone seemed simply to be there for a good time. That's more than I can say about some of the other bars on that strip.

My suggestion, either go there with a giant posse that can surround you on the dance floor and deflect the leg humping, or go there for happy hour, before the people actually show up. Or, you know, go somewhere not in Cow Hollow.

Wow. I don't think I have ever experienced a restaurant's food going down hill to such a degree. When I first dIscovered Weird Fish, I loved the food so much that I went there every weekend. Their menu was a fresh take on breakfast fare, and everything was always made to perfection.

Now? I guess on the grand scale of breakfast places, the food is average, but compared to the Weird Fish of before, it's terrible. And the prices are crazy high for what they are offering.

I would gladly pay $9.50 for a Hood Combo that includes fluffy eggs, hashbrowns made with sweet potatoes, and the best French toast I have ever eaten. But $9.50 for average eggs, the same style of potatoes that are served at every mediocre crepe place in town, and blah French toast made with regular white bread, is far too much.

I am so sad that someone killed my favorite breakfast place. The restaurant is cute and the service is still friendly, but why pay so much more for food you could get anywhere?

R.I.P. Weird Fish.

Wow. Ground Kontrol is definitely in the top three of most fun bars ever. It's getting harder to find classic arcade games these days, and Ground Kontrol has all of my favorites, including Galaga and Elvira Pinball! This is a great place to take a date with whom you don't really have anything to talk about, as you'll both be so sucked into your arcade favorites that you won't notice the awkward silence. And they sell candy bars. What more could you want?

I went here for karaoke while on an Oregon coast mini-vacation. I have to say, my expectations were high. Not that I expected good food or anything, but I figured a karaoke bar in a tourist town had to be awesomely bad. I was hoping we'd get in a bar fight at the least.

No such luck. Not only was Pudgy's painfully mediocre and boring, but it was also packed with singers, not good for someone who likes to sing more than one song in a night. We got there right at 10:00, hoping to sing a few tunes before the joint got crowded. However, it took the KJ an HOUR AND A HALF to set up the equipment. Now, I'm not blaming him. It looked like it was his first night on his own. However, they should have had someone else trained on the equipment. By the time we finally sang, we were so over the place, that we left before singing a second round.

While I'm sure the long wait for karaoke was not an every night kind of thing, there wasn't really anything else to recommend this place. It's all kind of meh.

Much to my dismay, I briefly had to work in the Pearl District while between bartending jobs. The Pearl reminds me of everything I hated about living in San Francisco. The whole neighborhood is swarmed with condo living yuppies and their purebred dogs, running down pedestrians in their SUV's or hybrids while on their way to Whole Foods. Ugh.

The employees at Boyds were a rain of sunshine each miserable day I had to work there. While I wasn't that impressed with their coffee, going there was an excuse to leave work and talk to people who treated me like a human being of value and not a servant. I only feel bad that I was so amazingly poor then, that I could rarely afford to tip my fellow service industry workers. If I ever have the misfortune to find myself in that neighborhood again, I will be sure to make it up to them.

Chopsticks III is one of those places that I almost don't want to review, because what I really love about this place is that it doesn't seem to be all that popular. I love divy karaoke bars, and this one fits the bill perfectly. We went early on a Wednesday night, and we were able to hog the mic for a while before the crowd showed up. The song list is pretty good, and the KJ had a secret stash of his own that included more songs by The Zombies than I have seen anywhere else in PDX.

The food seems OK; the french fries were pretty good. I only had beer, so I can't speak for the drinks as of yet, but the bartender/ server was rocking the whole place by herself and still managed to be quite friendly.

I look forward to many more nights at Chopsticks III.

I am trying out a raw diet with my kitties for the first time. When I went into Meat, the owner was super helpful. She gave me samples of each brand of raw cat food, so that I can let my cats decide which one I should buy; raw food is really expensive, so the samples were a huge help! Meat has a great selection of food, including organic and free range, and canned and dry in addition to the raw. The store is also really cute, and it's in my hood, so it's perfect for me.

Is it just me, or do all of the employees at Pied Cow look like 1930's carnies? I kept expecting one to swallow a sword or grab me on my way to the bathroom and tell me a fortune that later turns out to be eerily true. I want to run away and join their carnival!

Also, the Cardamon and Honey Steamer is to die for.

Dr. Buettner totally changed my life. My back had gone out several times within a year, and I tried every other type of treatment. Dr. Buettner was the first person to give me real relief for my pain and increase my range of motion. I would recommend her to anyone who is struggling with back pain.

There is nothing better than the love of an animal friend. Nothing. It makes me sick that people pay hundreds of dollars to animal breeders to get purebreds who live up to their shallow and vain ideas of what a pet should be. Thousands of dogs and cats and other creatures die every day in shelters across the US. Adopting from the Humane Society means opening up a space for another animal to stay in their loving, kill free shelter.

This past weekend I took home two new loves of my life. Everyone at the OHS was helpful and friendly and passionate about finding good homes for their animal friends. The shelter also has a pet store with everything you need to bring home your dog or cat, and you can feel good about spending your money there, instead of some giant corporate pet store.

If you have room in your heart and home, I strongly encourage you to take a visit to the Oregon Humane Society. You just may find the love of your life as well.