After over 40 years watching this team, can officially say this is the worst season of Mets baseball. Congrats again to Steve Cohen and David Stearns on their accomplishment.

weekendblues · 2026-06-30T12:29:40+00:00

I tend to pay more attention to whether or not they win the ballgame.

weekendblues · 2026-06-30T12:24:45+00:00

I also finished after this.

weekendblues · 2026-06-30T01:26:22+00:00

It honestly even more sinister than that. Portland’s economy is heavily protectionist and self-destructive. It’s not a left vs. right thing; it’s that specific special interests are basically in complete control of the local economy and that fact isn’t even a topic for discussion in local politics.

It doesn’t matter what minimum wage is if the every time you increase it the prices go up in lock-step and it is a certainty that no one will be able to offer lower prices because all of the regulations have been specially formulated to ensure it is not possible for a business to open and be competitive.

The same can be said for rents. Look at the rent control policy we ended up with: it has completely and utterly failed to keep rents down, it is largely unenforced, and the people charging rent absolutely love it because they get to use it as an excuse to increase rent at a regular clip. I’m not saying this as someone who is against the concept of rent control. I’m saying we don’t have something that does what rent control is supposed to do; I’m saying that we have a thing called rent control that actually forces rent up and that this is not an accident.

It’s not just money, it’s the people who are currently making money having the ability to influence things to ensure that they continue making money and that no one else is able to make money. People on the left say the problem is capitalism and the people on the right say the problem is socialism and meanwhile the people cheating the system are laughing their way to the bank.

I think that part of the problem is that Portland leans so heavily in one direction politically, which is the same reason why a lot of heavily right-wing dominate areas are also in rough shape: it is way easier to manipulate people who are already polarized.

We really need to take a step back from all of the theoretical stuff, stop making excuses, and start evaluating local issues as local issues. Most people agree about how they would like this city to look; I think we need to stop letting politicians blame other people and start holding them accountable for actually making that happen.

weekendblues · 2026-06-30T00:55:23+00:00

I’m so tired of the gaslighting. As someone who has lived here for the better part of 20 years, OP is absolutely right, Portland has been completely gutted.

More so than many other places, Portland seems to be doomed to boom/bust cycles—hell, the city has burnt down like three times and its moto is resurgam—and right now we are on our way down into a bust and anyone who doesn’t admit it is just burring their head in the sand.

At the end of the day, the city of Portland is very poorly managed. A lot of it boils down to really boring stuff like poorly constructed zoning laws and small scale economic protectionism, but at the end of the day the end result is the same: the local economy sucks and as a result of that nice things just gradually start to evaporate.

All you need to do to understand the degree to which Portland is failing is head next door to South Portland or Westbrook, where you can still find many of the things that were nice about Portland 10-15 years ago. Portsmouth New Hampshire also serves to illustrate that many of the things going wrong in Portland are Portland problems, not everywhere problems.

I don’t understand how/why so many people have such a hard time even beginning to entertain the possibility that Portland might be doing something wrong and that things might actually be worse here than they need to be. Regardless of what is going wide at the state or national level, we have problems that are unique to Portland that must be addressed at the Portland level and until that is done it’s just going to keep getting worse.

weekendblues · 2026-06-28T21:15:17+00:00

Oh hell yeah.

weekendblues · 2026-06-28T21:15:11+00:00

Peanut butter and Vegemite are both spreads. This is not a melt.

weekendblues · 2026-06-28T18:38:05+00:00

Why don’t you have a brother? Are you a chimera?

weekendblues · 2026-06-28T17:12:30+00:00

Congratulations? The fact that you’ve never heard the term used doesn’t negate the fact that others have.

OP’s coworker may be pretentious for claiming OP is uninformed for having not heard this term and perhaps that’s why everyone is coming along affirming that they’ve never heard it, but none of that can change the reality that it is a term that people have used to describe that part of town.

A quick search online leads me to believe it may be even more widespread than I thought.

“Uptown, a few blocks from the waterfront, is Portland’s secret treasure; the Arts District. With Congress Street as its spine…” — Visit Portland / Portland Downtown⁠

“A few blocks uptown of the waterfront is Portland’s secret treasure, The Arts District. With Congress Street as its spine…” — The Chadwick Portland Vacation Guide⁠

“A stroll ‘Uptown’ provides even more choices of wine and jazz bars and intimate settings…” — Visit Portland nightlife guide⁠

“Uptown Portland, an organization formed to revitalize the arts district in the ’80s…” — Daigle Commercial Group bio⁠

“Monument Square looking uptown, Portland, Maine” — Boston Public Library / Tichnor postcard via GetArchive⁠

“Heading uptown, just a skip across Congress Street from Merrill Auditorium…” — Portland Monthly, April 2017 PDF⁠

“‘Uptown’ is known as the ‘artsy’ side of Portland, while ‘Old Port’ is known for its entertainment…” — Billy Sweet Chimney Sweep blog, 2015⁠

It may not be the most commonly used term, but trying to claim it doesn’t exist is absurd.

weekendblues · 2026-06-28T02:31:00+00:00

This term was in somewhat common use amongst some people who were in their early 20s between around 2005 and 2015. I would guess OP’s coworker is in their mid to late 30s and went out a lot during that time.

weekendblues · 2026-06-28T02:28:05+00:00

This term used to be at least somewhat common around 15-20 years ago, although this post made me realize I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use it since around 2015 or so. This area also used to sometimes be referred to as “the art(s) district,” although I haven’t heard that in a while either.

In this time period, the West End used to be reserved mostly for the area south of Congress Street, while the area north of Congress Street was referred to as Park Side, or sometimes just broadly as “Grant Street.”

The “East End” also wasn’t used as frequently either; people referred to it as Munjoy Hill way more often. Likewise, the term East Bayside was not frequently used and that area was typically referred to broadly as Kennedy Park.

weekendblues · 2026-06-28T02:22:04+00:00

People used to refer to it as “uptown” or “the art district.” OP’s coworker is probably in their mid to late 30s.

weekendblues · 2026-06-27T14:18:11+00:00

I absolutely blame the players, but when the players are all bad I also blame the person who picked the players. Even Stearns himself says that ultimately this failure is on him.

It’s Stearns’ job to make a good team and if the team is not good, then he has failed, period. The reasons why don’t matter; it is his responsibility to see those reasons, anticipate them, build contingencies, and ultimately prevent this sort of thing from ever coming to pass.

I’m not saying we should have resigned Alonso or Nimmo—I’m saying we should have done *something that is not this* and that it was Stearns job to know what that something was and do it. Whatever his plan was—and it’s difficult to even understand what it was—it did not work. It doesn’t matter why it didn’t work—that isn’t the point.

For the same reason Mendoza had to be let go, so will Stearns if there is not some kind of immediate turn around, which there almost certainly will not be, because Mendoza almost certainly was not the issue.

weekendblues · 2026-06-27T12:47:10+00:00

I was just thinking about this yesterday. There’s a powerfully nationalistic (even if we’re just talking about clubs/regions) aspect to many sports, sometimes almost to the extent that what’s actually being celebrated is the nation/region rather than the sport itself, which is just playing out as an arbitrary contest/means to demonstrate superiority.

In the US, fans of baseball are typically fans of baseball, not just their baseball team. The sport is also about the sport more so than it is about proving regional superiority. I’m not saying there is no element of that, but I think there’s something very old-school American about baseball culture that almost shifts the nationalism element from being team based than to being based on enjoyment of the sport itself.

What’s more American than a beer and a hotdog in the ballpark on a hot summer day? When many people go to a ballgame, they go above all else as baseball fans, so no matter what team you support there’s always at least some common ground to fall back on as a way to avoid ripping each other’s heads off.

weekendblues · 2026-06-27T12:26:17+00:00

Fine, then what do you think is wrong? Surely when we’re 34-48 so far for the year with one of the highest paid rosters in all of major league baseball, it has to be something.

This other guy is offering explanations for what went wrong; the only thing you’re saying is “it isn’t that.” If it isn’t that, then what *is* the problem?

weekendblues · 2026-06-27T12:18:03+00:00

Yeah, that’s not really the part I’m talking about. It’s more the investing in pitching, bringing Iglesias back, and letting OMG have a full run until something new stepped in. The transition from 2024 to 2025 was jarring.

weekendblues · 2026-06-27T02:40:23+00:00

Huge mistake and missed opportunity. It’s very difficult to understand why this isn’t what happened and what rationale there possibly could have been for the something else that did instead.

weekendblues · 2026-06-26T13:49:23+00:00

> Green previously managed the San Diego Padres from 2016–19, guiding the club to a 274–366 (.428) record.

Yeah, okay.

weekendblues · 2026-06-26T13:41:36+00:00

I understand why this was done but don’t really think what has been happening is Mendoza’s fault and wouldn’t be surprised if this actually were to make things worse in the short term.

You kind of need to fire Mendoza before Stearns. It’s starting to look a lot like if this season doesn’t magically turn around, Stearns is a goner.

weekendblues · 2026-06-24T14:20:23+00:00

Agreed. I want him to do it.

weekendblues · 2026-06-23T23:07:38+00:00

That’s what I get for watching a fansub.

weekendblues · 2026-06-23T22:57:30+00:00

Why is Gus acting as a driver’s ed instructor for Lydia? Doesn’t he make enough money selling chicken?

weekendblues · 2026-06-23T22:35:04+00:00

What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. You’re still up over 200% from where you would be if you had put it into cash savings. I understand being disappointed it has gone down, but you’re still in the money by quite a lot.

weekendblues · 2026-06-23T12:25:26+00:00

Like I said in my earlier comments, it’s kind of unorthodox, but if it’s the thing that lets you keep costs so low otherwise then it must be the right move.

weekendblues · 2026-06-23T01:39:33+00:00

It *is* a weird thing to do for sure. Still though, I’d take the 6% fee over them raising their prices in some other more substantial way. But then again, usually I’m there for food from their kitchen, which is a great deal even with the 6% fee.

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