Portland is a pit of despair

Update, 5:39 ppm: Ok, here is the link to Business Week's "list" (which isn't actually a list at all...). Someone pointed out to me how ironic it is that for a lot of cities, they chose pictures that look like a rockin' good time! Portland has a riverfront festival with happy boat-goers, Cleveland is the birthplace of rock 'n' roll, Louisville has frisky horses, and Memphis has a crazy-funky-fun font! This looks awesome, not miserable. Madison, Wisc., on the other hand, looks dreadful.


Ha HA! Oh, I guess I should explain...

The lead story right now on Oregonlive.com (the poor excuse for a website that the Oregonian has to live with) is "BusinessWeek ranks Portland at top of 'unhappiest cities' list."

This is hilarious because Portland often gets ranked as the best city to live in, the greenest city, and yadda yadda yadda. (Not to mention the New York Times has an ongoing love affair with Portland.)

Personally, I agree with some of the commenters. I think this is an elaborately engineered hoax executed by Portland residents to move the rose-colored spotlight away from Portland and keep people from moving to the city!

Also, I think it is kind of ridiculous that the fact that Portland has 222 cloudy days a year is used as one of the reasons why the city is the "unhappiest." Anyone who grew up in Portland knows that the clouds offer a sense of security and comfort. I'm definitely not any happier here in sunny sunny Boulder than I was in stumptown.

Photo credit: Brent Wojahn/The Oregonian. I love how they picked this photo to run with the story. Ooooh, spooky!