Best of Eugene 2011-2012: Miscellany
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| photo by todd cooper |
Best Local Athlete
1. LaMichael James, UO football
2. Darron Thomas, UO football
3. Ashton Eaton, UO track
LaMichael James just keeps getting better and better, and this is since he won the 2010 Doak Walker award, a prize given to best running back in the country. Even with a dislocated elbow disqualifying him from NCAA statistical rankings (from missing two games), James is still No. 1 in Ducks’ hearts.
Best Alternative Sports Team
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| photo by trask bedortha |
1. Emerald City Roller Girls
2. Eugene Reign Women’s Rugby
3. South Eugene Ultimate Axmen
It doesn’t get much better than a high-speed, high-collision, high-scoring roller derby bout. The Emerald City Roller Girls bring the sport to life with their flashy uniforms and spunky pseudonyms like Alluya R. Doomed, Gasherella and last year’s Best of Eugene covergirl Bullet Brains. The next season starts in January, and fans are chomping at the bit.
Best Local Writer
1. Bob Welch, The Register-Guard
2. Camilla Mortensen, Eugene Weekly
3. (tie): Serena Markstrom, The Register-Guard; and Ken Kesey, deceased
Best EW Cover in the Last Year
1. Women’s Rugby
2. Loving Your Body
3. Sasha the Pit Bull & Women with Pit Bulls
Babes, boobs and pit bulls. ‘Nuff said.
Best Local News Person
1. Natasha Chugtai, formerly of KLSR
2. Marc Mullins, NewsSource Today TV
3. Shelley Kurtz, KVAL anchor
Oh Natasha, we hardly knew ye. Before she left us for KWWL in Waterloo, Iowa, Chughtai anchored and reported on Eugene’s FOX affiliate. But in mid-October she traded rain for corn, and Eugeneans are already missing her coffee-fueled enthusiasm.
Best Secret Romantic Hideaway
1. Not telling, silly!
2. Skinner’s Butte
3. Oregon Coast
What the hell? Are you people nuts? Skinner’s Butte? We’ve given blowjobs in truck stop bathrooms that were more romantic.
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| photo by todd cooper |
Best Annual Event
1. Oregon Country Fair
2. Eugene Celebration
3. Whiteaker Block Party
Every July the Oregon Country Fair attracts thousands of people who are craving a unique counterculture celebration and find it in the woods outside Veneta. Over the years the fair has evolved from a crazy hippy party to a vibrant, family-friendly festival of music, education and artistic expression.
Best Way to Get Your Outdoors On
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| photo by rob sydor • robsydor.com |
1. Hiking
2. Biking
3. Get to the River
EW readers are not daunted by rain, nor are they apparently prone to making specific choices. Best thing to do outdoors in Eugene? Apparently it’s actually be outdoors — walking though, not sitting still. Lane County is littered with good spots to hike. There’s in-townish hikes such as Mount Pisgah or the Ridgeline Trail and there’s moderate to difficult hikes within an hour’s drive out the McKenzie, Hwy 58 or in the Coast Range. Drive a little further east and you can hike the Three Sisters Wilderness. There’s wildflower hikes, waterfall hikes, big tree hikes, river hikes. You name it, we have hikes.
Best Thing That Could Happen to Eugene
1. Fix downtown
2. More bikes, fewer cars, better mass transit
3. Deal with the homeless/street kids
Some of the more conservative folks in Eugene who are embarrassed by the Eugene Celebration and Saturday Market think of downtown as Valley River Center or Oakway. But our readers overwhelmingly want to see the heart of our city revived and bustling with people of all sorts. It’s going to take a while, but downtown is on the mend.
Worst Thing That Could Happen to Eugene
1. More conservatives/tea-baggers
2. Not deal with downtown
3. Do nothing/stay the same
We couldn’t agree more. As the gerrymandering of Lane County has shown, even our own little Emerald City isn’t safe from anti-tax-at-any-cost (including education, social services and our environment) flying monkeys. Dear moderate and liberal readers, tell a friend that dismantling everything loving and wise about our society is a bad idea, and maybe we can melt that wicked witch.
Best Thing About Eugene Weekly
1. It’s free
2. “Savage Love”
3. Calendar/clubs listings
Well, you get what you pay for. Thanks for the support, Eugene.
Worst Thing about Eugene Weekly
1. Liberal bias, predictable politics
2. Advertisements, especially sleazy American Apparel ads
3. “Ask a Mexican”
We’re the children of hippies, we know. Maybe we should give the bike, bike, bike thing a rest. But we’re sticking to our flower-loaded guns on this one: Having an alt-weekly with progressive priorities — and more importantly, one that acknowledges exactly what those priorities are — is good for Eugene, a city that already has a “neutral” daily paper. No worries about the liberal bias-dislike though, all we have for you is peace, love and understanding.
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