The internet is generally where shy people hang out, and pretend that they’re functional and confident and attractive. And sometimes exchange money orders and photos of their genitalia. But the best part of the internet is making friends that you would never have met otherwise. Functional, confident, attractive friends. Like Dawn and her movie club. Or me and my sensual masseuse from Craigslist. Or ALL STAR sosovelo witty commenter Sixty, who introduced me to perhaps the greatest secret food establishment in all of Portland, Po’ Shines in Kenton. I made it ...

Posies Cafe is a new coffee shop in Kenton, and it has the biggest glass doors of any coffee shop in all of North Portland*. These glass doors afford Posies the grandest view of the “Up In Smoke” head shop of any establishment in all of Kenton. Until now, Kenton has been the place I buy my booze and pray to the Paul Bunyon shrine. But now I have a third reason to visit Kenton. Now I will sit in their cozy grandma chairs and look out through the giant ...

I really love it when I put a dollar in the vending machine at work and my Twix gets stuck. Then watching the vending machine angrily process it’s failure like R2D2, stomping around on it’s stubby little legs, before it sighs and concedes, dropping a second Twix bar for free. I know that this is anthropomorphizing the vending machine. But I swear he hates me. So I treasure these little victories. I don’t win often in life (my results in the Banana Belt race should make that obvious). So I ...

In light of recent preemptive attacks on my beloved coffee shop of choice, The Black Cat, I feel a certain responsibility to leap in with  a defense plan.  First of all, allow me to assert the controversial  reality that The Black Cat is the greatest coffee shop of all time.  Yes, I said it.  THE GREATEST. No, the coffee is neither rich, aromatic, delicious, nor brewed by Stumptown.  But hey, I’ll happily settle for a turbo boost S’mores-flavored cappuccino from the nearest gas station coffee bar, so what  do I know ...

Despite my obsession with all puns, the name Coffeehouse 5 did not initially sit well with me. Calling a coffee shop a “coffee house” makes me think of weird, fake-Beatnik types, like Mike Meyers in So I Married An Axe Murderer. But Coffeehouse 5 (Or CH5 as Cait and I call it in our text messages) has slowly overcome its name and become one of my favorite coffee shops. Before CH5, Cait and I were having relationship problems due to our different taste in coffee shops. I like Tiny’s or ...

I already like the Albina Press as a pre-ride meeting spot. And I already wrote about it. But now there is another one. It’s almost exactly the same. Except it’s on Hawthorne. Not Albina. But it’s called Albina Press. On Hawthorne. I know, I don’t get it either. But stay with me. Just like the other Albina Press, this one is sterile. I love sterile coffee shops. Everything looks clean, and that makes everyone act more responsible than they usually would. It’s a similar feeling to visiting the home of a ...

Sometimes I get sad. I’m a downer. In a general kind of way. My friends and family like to say “you’re no fun at all” and “seriously, I’m not joking, you’re dragging this party down, please leave.” But my pediatrician once told me: “When life gets you down, ‘lil sosovelo editor,” he said, “you just have to go drink enough alcohol that you forget about your problems for a little while. Then, when you wake up, you’ll feel sick. Instead of sad.” Then he gave me a dinosaur sticker and ...

The last time I went to the Belmont Stumptown to meet for one of the local celebrity team rides, one of the local celebrities farted. And one of the other local celebrities called it out. Like this. “Hey, one of you farted.” And everyone nodded and mumbled in agreement. And then everyone looked around for obvious signs of guilt, but no one was giving anything away. So we all just sat there, in that tiny little Stumptown, hotboxing on our own flatulence. (I mean, it was one of our own ...

Arleta Library Cafe has the best breakfasts in Portland. I know, I’ve said things like this before. But this time I mean it. It really, truly is the best breakfast in Portland. And the wait isn’t very long. And the people that work there are super nice. And the coffee is delicious and bottomless. And the baked goods are top notch. And the only real downside is that it’s off 72nd and Foster, which is a total black hole, cycling or otherwise. I don’t have anything bad to say about ...

I’m writing about burritos because as I sit here, eating a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of pepperoni pizza Hot Pockets and repeated shots of Pancho Villa tequila, I can’t stop thinking about the Pilgrims, and how beautiful those first burritos must have tasted to them in 1492. Things were harder back then, of course. The pilgrims ate turkey burritos, because chicken hadn’t been invented yet. And the whole thing was wrapped up in one of those weird cornucopia things. But the general idea was the same. Wrap a ton of food ...