Internet Miscellany: Portland calling

When do we get those high-speed trains? ‘Cause I need a faster, easier way to get back and forth from PDX these days. Today, I’m missing a press screening of Harry Potter Laughs All the Way to the Bank Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (thanks, Shawn Levy, for inspiring that strikethrough). I’ll go see it Wednesday and review it on this here blog the same day. I PROMISE. My fingers aren’t even crossed or anything. EDIT: I take it back. I’m going to go at midnight Tuesday and write like a … fast writer thing so there will be a review in this week’s paper. Because big Wednesday movie openings mean I can do absurd things like that.

Next Monday, I’m missing a screening of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, which shows as a benefit for the Portland Women’s Film Festival. Bigelow’s new film is supposed to be a good’un. Here’s hoping it gets here eventually.

And tonight, do-it-all-and-do-it-yourself woman of awesomeness Jessica Hopper reads at Powell’s on Hawthorne. On the Portland Mercury‘s blog, “everyone’s best pal*” Joan Hiller-Depper interviews Hopper about her new book, The Girls’ Guide to Rocking.

I actually went to Portland on a whim on Thursday, but that’s a story for its very own blog post.

* This may sound like a snarky way to refer to someone, but I think Ezra Caraeff is being totally sincere: Joan is possibly the friendliest person I have ever met. No joke. Most of us could take lessons in niceness from Joan and lessons in doing stuff from Jessica. Which is just one more reason it’d be nifty to be in Portland tonight.