Caffeinated and Unstrung looks like a really neat resource for finding a place to take your computer to get your daily caffeine fix. The site is set up using a wiki; so you can add information about your favorite wi-fi hangout if it isn’t already listed.
You could even put the wireless to good use by provide comments about a location using their own network!
[via livejournal's victrola_cafe community]

The Verizon Wireless Urban Challenge hits Seattle on Saturday July 24. As far as I can tell, it’s something like the Amazing Race on a local scale. Teams of two race around the city using only their feet or public transit to find (& photograph) twelve checkpoints. Unlike the Amazing Race, the event probably isn’t long enough for relationships to self-destruct when partners to realize that they drastically overestimated their compatibility.
Registration, which costs $150, is open until the 23^rd. Winners compete for $50,000 in the the national competition in Miami. [urbanchallenge]

Looking for a new music experience? How about competitive music mashing? Laptop Battles may be your thing.
The folks over at Fourthcity.net have been doing Laptop battles for a while now, and if you’ve walked around the Capital Hill or the U District, you’ve seen their flyers everywhere. But you may not have known just exactly what goes on.
Well, it’s like this:

The laptop battle is a competitive event for laptop musicians to match their skills against one another. Battles are chosen randomly and conducted in 3 minute rounds. A panel of judges decides which contestant advances to the next round, single elimination style.
It’s a fusion of sound design, composition and stage performance, and a chance for laptop musicians to prove their skills in battle and develop techniques and strategies

They’re at Lo Fi tonight and The Baltic Room tomorrow, and they’re worth checking out.

[photoblog]

{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com
Art installation, very targeted marketing, or something else? I didn’t have the initiative to solve the riddle to see what’s being advertised; so google to the rescue!
Upon searching, it turns out to be a job posting for Google. Coverage of the ad’s appearance in Silicon Valley reveals the solution. [cnet]

Redhook’s Moonlight Cinema Series kicks off this coming week, on Thursday, July 22nd at their location in Woodiinville.. The opening movie is Office Space, definitely a movie worth seeing more than once, but you’ll want to get there early, by 7:30 at least, because that’s when the first band plays. Amateur Boyfriend play passionate, dyniamic pop-tinged rock without gimmicks…and how can you beat sitting outside, watching a band and drinking beer?

It was a hot, muggy day in Seattle Saturday. It was too hot fo rme to cook for myself so I decided to take the bus down to Madrona Park for dinner. There are almost too many choices in MP’s quaint business district but eventually I settled upon Cafe Soleil, a charming little bistro with some amazing food. How do people who live in cities without a variety of cuisines ever survive?
Speaking of cuisine, I’m being leaned on to attend the Bite of Seattle, an event much like Bumbershoot that was much cooler back when no one involved was making money and it was a smaller, looser festival. At least Bumbershoot is somewhat salvalged by the convenience of so many entertainment offerings in one place; The Bite, anymore, is much like going to the mall.

Oh why not?
The samba drum and dance ensemble I play with, VamoLa, will be performing tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 at the Central Area Community Festival. It’s free, it’s early in the day and we’re pretty damned good.
And, hey, we might be able to help you get into Bumbershoot for free… if you ask nicely.

o.k. kids, the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale started today. You have until August 1 to get your “fall fashion forward” at pre-season prices.
It’s sort of like the R.E.I. garage sale, but for people who wouldn’t dream of setting up tents along Fifth Avenue for a chance to buy stuff.

Let the annual complaint and comparision rituals begin! The 2004 Bumbershoot [.org] lineup is gradually becoming available to the public. There’s a full page ad in this week’s copy of The Stranger and many of the acts are listed at Pollstar [listing, via toddv].
update: day-by-day and venue details about the acts are now posted by on the official site. [lineup] The worst news here is that the Exhibition Hall (with the acoustics and ambiance of a high school gymnasium) is back as a venue that happens to be hosting a lot of the better acts.

Last month, the personals section at the Stranger disappeared from the print edition and morphed into lovelab and lustlab. For those of us who considered the I SAW U ads as the closest thing this town has to a society page, missing this weekly must-read was a shocker.
A few weeks later, a few teaser ads (“… and many more!”) have returned to the paper. In their new incarnation the ISUs include sighting date and location as well as sex of seer and seen. While I’m sure that this is useful, some of the fun that came with ambiguity is lost.