About Oregon Expat
Sometimes the best view is from the outside, and an American expatriate living in Portugal is, in many ways, outside of both nations. The views can be spectacular. I’m also a science nerd, Mac dweeb, grammar geek, and science fiction author, so the posts in this blog tend to be eclectic.
Click the “About” tab if that wasn’t quite enough detail — or go to my official author website.
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Recent Posts
- Hope, an unfamiliar emotion
- Pompeii takeout and American assumption
- Far Enough
- I have an issue with Netflix’s “Away”
- Now, about *that* topic
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- Alsea Rising: The Seventh Star is in the wild
- Alsea Rising is out and #1!
- Coming soon: Alsea Rising
- On his terms
- Beyoncé: Homecoming
- UPRISING and balance
- The brain radio
- Alsea lovers: This is the one you’ve been waiting for
- The chicken church
Recent Comments
- Fletcher DeLancey on Porto’s most famous bookstore
- pablohaake on Porto’s most famous bookstore
- Alberto on Throwing flowers
- Rael on Portuguese idiom of the day: Lança perfume
- Rael on Portuguese idiom of the day: Lança perfume
- Fletcher DeLancey on Hope, an unfamiliar emotion
- Miriam English on Hope, an unfamiliar emotion
Categories
Monthly Archives: June 2010
Shopping mall established in 1461
Yesterday’s post brought up the interesting question of just how different a modern shopping mall is from a bazaar. Certainly the concept of gathering a multitude of merchants into one convenient location is almost as ancient as the concept of … Continue reading
Posted in culture
4 Comments
“No shopping malls”
I was reading an article in Salon.com about a reporter visiting South Africa for the World Cup, and found this description of Soweto: Old photos of Soweto show tracts of tiny, rectangular, one-story brick dwellings with bald lawns of worn-down … Continue reading
Posted in culture, Portugal, USA
4 Comments
Wallpaper Monday
Yet another on my long list of Places To Go, and almost exactly on the opposite point of the globe from Portugal: the South Island of New Zealand. This is Lake Wanaka, one of several spectacular lakes tucked into the … Continue reading
Posted in wallpaper
8 Comments
Egyptian grasshopper
We had a bit of excitement in the house last night. Our mighty hunting cat, who is constrained to several screened verandas filled with planters, was delighted when the largest insect she had ever seen dropped onto one of the … Continue reading
Posted in life, Portugal
8 Comments
World Cup widow
I now know what it means to be a football widow. The World Cup rules our schedule. We have out of town guests (hence the short blog posts this week), and on a day we’d planned to take our guests … Continue reading
Posted in culture
19 Comments
Tell them “only beautiful and sexy people may apply”
A Guardian article on the weekly “bikes only” day in Bogotá mentions that cyclists taking part needn’t worry about flat tires, mechanical issues, or bumps and bruises: there are hundreds of paid guardians on hand, carrying medical and tool kits. … Continue reading
Wallpaper Monday
Last week’s wallpaper took us to Hawaii…this week I felt like going a little further afield. And you can’t get much further afield than Antarctica. Even in good weather it can be a rough trip getting down there, because in … Continue reading
Posted in wallpaper
2 Comments
US/Portugal culture: Fences and walls
A recent article in the New York Times discusses the fate of a promenade along the edge of the sea cliffs in Newport, Rhode Island. The Cliff Walk, as it’s called, is lined in places by not-very-scenic chain link fencing, … Continue reading
Posted in culture, Portugal
49 Comments
If the penis were a muscle
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has nailed the male psychology: Click the image to see what happens in the rest of the comic. Hint: it doesn’t look good for the human species.
Posted in humor
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BBC proves scientists are more fun
Today the Beeb offered proof that scientists (and science journalists) are more fun than world news journalists. The proof is in the vocabulary. My newsreader collected this headline from the Science/Nature RSS feed at 9:43 AM: Less than one minute … Continue reading
Posted in science
5 Comments