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Filed Under Life
City Smackdown: Boston Vs. Portland
Posted April 2, 2007
All Day Coffee is relocating from Portland, Oregon to Boston, Massachusetts. Which one's better? Depends whether you prefer Hot Postal Workers or Sarcasm.
Access To Nature
Portland
Portland is close to rock climbing, fishing, surfing, windsurfing, skiing, mountaineering. Within a four-hour drive, you can either be on the Pacific coast, in the rainforest, the Cascade mountains, or the desert (kind of like on the Simpsons).
Boston
The closest thing that Boston has to nature is Cape Cod, a beach where the affluent gather to protest wind power.
Advantage: Portland
Sarcasm
Portland
I've spent five years explaining myself in Portland after saying that no, I didn't really move here because of the weather.
Boston
The home of the Red Sox will have if nothing else a great appreciation of irony in all its forms.
Advantage: Boston
Baseball
Portland
There seems to be a tiny park somewhere where a team named after the animal most likely to chew up baseball bats plays.
Advantage: Boston
Cool Nicknames
Portland
Stumptown, Rose City, Bridge City, Puddletown, Rip City
Boston
Beantown, The Hub Of The Solar System (according to Oliver Wendall Holmes), Cradle of Modern America
Advantage
Although they'll do better on history tests, your kids will never thank you for living in the Cradle of Modern America. Portland wins.
Hot Postal Workers
Portland
Everybody knows that Portland has the best looking postal workers, male and female. They wear shorts in the middle of winter to show off their tats, and they pull off the unimaginable: they make the post office uniform look punk rock.
Boston
Since postal workers here are forced to bundle up in parkas and snowshoes year round, nobody knows what they look like.
Advantage: Portland
Worst Architectural Defect
Portland
Portlandia, a hideous statue of a trident-bearing Harpy with an arm outstretched to devour lost children
Boston
The Big Dig, a project meant to both bury all freeways underground and also to exorcise the spirit of Babe Ruth from the city once and for all.
Advantage:
Boston
The Big Dig |
Portlandia, guardian of the children |
Final Score: Technically it's a draw, but sarcasm lends a slight edge. Boston wins.
 
copyright 2004-2024 G. Xavier Robillard
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