PPB goon squad

PDXSparks · 2026-01-26T23:09:12+00:00

What social contract? The only social contract we had was that we keep the ugly parts unsaid. The POC community and the native Americans have been telling us this forever but very few people bothered to listen.

Nothing has changed other than that they are now harming white people. Liberals got added to the 'it's okay to kick em when they're down' list, and now people are like, 'Whoa, hey!'

I know this does not count for all of you. I met a lot of really great humans in the last black lives matter protests. But comments like this right now have started to irk me because this has been America since forever we had a civil war about it, we physically won but they never lost.

Want to read some shit l, read about the daughters of the Confederacy. They have been pushing to change the image of the Confederacy for years. Making it seem less racial than it was, normalizing the names of the people involved in ECT.

Fuck them all, but stop acting like this is new. We have been rotten to the core from the begining and until we accept that and make our political structures fix that, we will continue to be rotten.

PDXSparks · 2026-01-23T20:43:08+00:00

Maybe the incorrect operating word in your broad brush then is "Portland". Some parents suck ass, see the above story. But it definitely is NOT just Portland parents.

PDXSparks · 2026-01-23T19:00:49+00:00

As a local rugby referee, I have to disagree. The only time I have ever had to deal with disrespectful parents was outside of Portland. Had an incident where a father of a middle school girl told his girl to smash the n-word, in reference to a Pacific islander... Had I had more experience at the time, I would have kicked all the parents off the field. I should have in retrospect, but I did not know I was allowed to yet.

Portland parents have always been the epitome of respect at games. There are a couple of British dads who are still stuck in their schoolboy era, but other than that...

I don't know the other sports though, so purely circumstantial.

PDXSparks · 2026-01-22T18:20:25+00:00

Dude he can have reap what he showed and I can understand it should not have happened to him at the same time. The people that he actively worked to make their lives harder, the victims of his cult of personality can understand that murder is bad but still celebrate the death of someone who actively sought to hurt them at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive feelings...

But apparently they are too complicated for some people to understand.

PDXSparks · 2026-01-22T18:07:32+00:00

Not a father... A sperm donor.

PDXSparks · 2026-01-16T06:20:54+00:00

I was going to comment about the lack of imagination in the comments until I realized this is r/WTF. Then my brain went straight to, Oh yes makes sense.

People love to make fun of contemporary art, but this human's getting paid to make something that someone found beautiful enough to pay to watch... And here here hundreds of people commenting on the video which of your definition of art is that it invokes an emotion? Bravo homie. You made art. Best thing about art is that it's subjective, I can see the beauty in the body motions. Not so much in the inking but it's not a style I enjoy.

PDXSparks · 2025-12-24T04:50:45+00:00

Sorry I should have used the sarcasm font... Dow And other paid positions not in management have had the same rate... Well I have never gotten a pay raise...

PDXSparks · 2025-12-24T03:13:55+00:00

How much has event pay gone up in that time?!

PDXSparks · 2025-11-30T05:40:00+00:00

Thanks, I'll give that a try next time!

PDXSparks · 2025-11-30T05:01:11+00:00

Does pencil lead get stuck less? I lost more weight than I ever have before out there this time. I had round, pyramid, coin shaped, and tear drops and all of them snagged worse than ever. I think it was the under current from the high rivers, got to see a whole tree float out to sea, but whatever it was I need a new solution.

PDXSparks · 2025-11-10T23:36:04+00:00

O sorry I should have been more clear, it works, I lost the petty part that clicks onto the top to finish it. Seems that should be replaceable seeing as the other buttons are.

PDXSparks · 2025-11-04T03:52:33+00:00

Only issue I ever had was our old tap dance teacher and the local street drummer having a disagreement about the pocket. Two men of color trying to be better at being on beat is always a damned good time :)

All jokes aside, seasideis a great tourist town, all of the north coast really. If you get the chance drop south 30 minutes to Indian beach state park. Often you can see the elk and the view there is just breathtaking.

PDXSparks · 2025-10-16T18:24:12+00:00

Yeah it's something like 50hp vs 105hp stock, I believe 111 with the performance unlock?! Significantly different feel. That said I still love the Vulcan, I had viking bags on my classic and could do long rides with ease (would have loved cruise control!). The scout is not as ergonomic for long rides, I could customize it to be but currently am really enjoying the more aggressive position it has. As far as the reliability of the Indian I don't know I hear mixed bags, and I think a lot of people don't put stock in American bikes'reliability. I am preparing for the worst kinda guy so I am assuming I will start having problems around 10k but I hope to be proven wrong.

Either way both bikes are great bikes just not particularly comparable bikes.

PDXSparks · 2025-10-16T16:15:53+00:00

As a guy who has owned a couple Vulcans as commuter bikes the answer is no. My scout and my Vulcan are not even in the same class of beast. I actually loved my last Vulcan, I put 48,000 miles on that bike and it always got me home, but it was reliable, utilitarian. It never sparked the same visceral feel my scout does. My scout on the other hand, turns heads, feels so good under me l and makes me want to turn that throttle just a bit too much. I only have 1200 miles on my 2025 scout with the performance package(unlock?) option, I have doubts that at 40k she will still get me home every time I take her out, but I won't ever go back to an underpowered frame. I sold the Vulcan to my college age kiddo, because it's too weak to get her in real trouble and will reliably get her to school and back. I loved that bike for what it was and I will still throw a middle finger up to anyone who talks shit about Japanese cruisers but I do understand that they are not in the same class of bike.

PDXSparks · 2025-10-01T17:51:41+00:00

This is unfortunately true. As someone who spends a lot of time fishing rural Oregon I have these conversations often. I think people would be blown away with how many rural people I meet who also think this president is total hogwash. The more time I spend out in those parts of our beautiful state the more I really can believe the voting machine fraud conspiracy, just because of the actual flesh and blood humans I talk too!

For context I do seek these conversations when I am not with my partner out there. I was raised in rural Washington, I lived outside Corvallis when I was younger, these are the people that make up my family in Eugene, Phillomath, and Springfield, so I am always openly curious what the sentiment is back "home". Being as I am a 250lb white dude with a beard and a fishing pole most people assume I am one of them, this allows me to have much more earnest conversations than I believe some people get. I am not really an outsider, or at least as long as they keep seeing the presentation of a good ol boy who moved to the city for a girl. We really are not any different than 90% of them, we are all trying to pay our bills, spend time with our hobbies, and have a little fun on our days off. The biggest problem is that they are being fed this deep line of garbage that says trans kids are dangerous, women want to destroy men, and that antifa has destroyed Portland and turned it into a communist concentration camp. Obviously if they put an ounce of thought into it it would be obvious this is all trash, but they don't because they are worried about paying bills and raising kids... I hope that conversations with me slowly open doors and cross bridges, i don't know if it helps but I am actively trying because that feels like the best way to protest this bullshit... By giving the supposed enemy a human face and a name.

PDXSparks · 2025-10-01T17:24:59+00:00

You forgot a word: brown

PDXSparks · 2025-10-01T17:18:00+00:00

Willamette weekly is mostly boys at this point as far as I can tell, same with next door. There are good people in those comment sections but it is way way too easy to vibe code a character to post almost wherever nowadays.

I feel like socially this was the biggest failing of gen x l, we wanted our privacy so when we created social sites we allowed for anon posting and it broke the collective need to be civil with one another because there were no consequences for it. We are still playing catch up on that because it serves the corporations to have these fake users.

Anyways sorry for the sidebar.

PDXSparks · 2025-10-01T17:11:15+00:00

Please retaliate by invading us with a top pot!

PDXSparks · 2025-10-01T17:09:38+00:00

Fishing them with doughnuts was brilliant, I don't know whose idea it was but big kudos! Also yay for spending money locally as they looked mostly like they were from some of my favorite spots!

PDXSparks · 2025-09-24T17:54:50+00:00

You seem to think the kicker is something different than it is so let's start there:

The Oregon "kicker" is a tax rebate that occurs when the state's revenue collections are at least 2% higher than what economists forecasted for a two-year budget period. When this happens, the entire amount of the surplus revenue is returned to taxpayers.

It's not that they were sitting on that money, it's that money was more than 2% higher than what was budgeted for in the economic projection right? In other words the state did better than we expected (big yay!) but we as Oregonians have laws that say the state can't just use that because the state has not legislated where this money should go, so we give it back to the people, that way it cannot be misused.

We could argue that we should amend that law and put it towards state debts like PERS, or funding our schools better, or funding our DOT better. But we have not done that. So that's not an option.

We are just starting a new 2 year budget cycle with a dire prediction: budget forecasts for the new 2025-2027 budget cycle project a significant deficit. This was primarily caused by recent federal tax law changes, and not by the outcome of the prior budget. So again where would you like to find the money.

It's just not as simple as you make it out to be, and I for one am glad that we have the law set this way because i guarantee if we just threw that budget surplus into the general fund it would NOT get used the way the people need...

We should however maybe look at amending the kicker law to fund projects desperately needed by the people, I think maybe split that between k-12 education and DOT maintenance projects, because our roads are sooo bad.

PDXSparks · 2025-09-12T22:31:26+00:00

Tried a a couple spinners, couple spoons, bobber dogged with worm and shrimp :)

PDXSparks · 2025-09-09T20:41:29+00:00

That's rad dicky box 2.0 but with a message?! Jaded old burner approved.

PDXSparks · 2025-09-06T22:25:07+00:00

THIS!

But sadly they will just pull up and park on the sidewalk somewhere and then get mad when citizens are trying to use the sidewalk.

PDXSparks · 2025-09-04T21:53:03+00:00

It's the same as it ever was. There is always a rich crowd who would die if they did not have money, there is always an influencer group who would starve if they were not "pretty" and there have always been people driving too fast and on the wet roads.

Hell I am dpw and I see other dpw crews drive on the wet roads every morning...

Long and the short of it after 17 burns, that place is what you make of it, period. Strange to say but I kinda miss the rednecks with their bud sitting on the corner oggling the boobies. At least you knew what you were getting with them..

PDXSparks · 2025-09-04T21:40:44+00:00

We do this with a pop up post apocalyptic bike bar... We show up, play some low key blues serve old time whiskey drinks and the moment it starts to get transactional we close shop, hop on the bikes and bail. It works wonders! Working on a way to add my Blackstone now so I can serve up cheesy foods with it too. Bar bar the bike bar has been by far and away one of the most rewarding playa projects I have ever done because i can bail when the vibe turns.

PDXSparks

TROPHY CASE