We at Metblogs Seattle appreciate the clever bumper sticker as much as the next blog, and with all the fuss over gas taxes, monorails and light rail tunnels, it’s nice to see that somebody’s putting the “fun” back in “fundamental transit infrastructure crisis”:

Yesterday was my visiting Seattle alum friend’s last night in town. Of course, a mini whirlwind tour of places and drinks that one normally shouldn’t do on a school night was in order. And so it was.

We ended the night (technically early morn) at the Lava Lounge which happens to be the 2005 NWSource.com People’s Pick in the Dive Bar category [#]. Congrats, Lava Lounge! If you are a fan, as I am, of bar games, you must check this place out. They have bar shuffleboard! For free I should add. The game’s rules seem complicated, but they’re not if you pay attention (read: have not had one too many). Plus, the game is a refreshing change up from plastic-electronisized darts and high-stress have-to-keep-winning-to-play pool.

As an added bonus, a band member from REM was allegedly sighted.

Now, I’m not one to sing the praises of The Seattle Times. In fact, I’m more likely to tell my journalism students to use it for lining the bottoms of bird cages. But, in the midst of Hurricane Katrina overload, the Seattle Times websitehas a slideshow of photos that somehow capture the surreal horror better than twelve hours of CNN can do. (And believe me, I know, because I just can’t seem to turn it off.) Take a look at the photograph of the old woman’s waterlogged hands, after she survived two days in the fetid water. Or the shaft of sunlight beaming down on the soggy astroturf of the Superdome.

There’s something about a still photograph that makes this all real. And I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around this devastation. Can you believe it? But here it is, in the Seattle Times.

(Now, in the weird, tangential way of finding out information that only the internet can provide, I found these photographs on The Seattle Times, because I was reading Bakerina, a food blog I love of a woman in Manhattan. And in the comments on today’s post, a friend of hers from New Orleans, directed us to a man in Iowa, who is keeping track of the best news sources on the hurricane. This world is small and weird. And part of it is desperately waterlogged.)

Everything I need to know about Seattle/WA, I learned from the news: August edition.

Aug 3: We are a little passive aggressive

Aug 8: We are champion tree climbers

Aug 14: We have a special zoo for grumpy elephants

Aug 23: We steal brains

Aug 30: Sometimes we get computer rage

Pacific Northwest culture magazine, Tablet has distributed its last issue. After a five year run that included a transition from tablet-style newsprint `zine to a semi-glossy (at least the cover) magazine covering Portland and Seattle music, art, and fashion, the publishers are calling it quits. This month’s “Love, Tablet” letter from the editors bids readers farewell [#] and encourages them to start their own publications.

The theme of this month’s issue is “music” — pick it up while you still can, think happy thoughts about the good old days, and send imaginary or actual well-wishes to the Tablet staff. Although I’ll miss finding free new issues stacked up in cafés or record shops, I hope that the people who take up the editor’s charge don’t share Tablet‘s fondness for tiny fonts.

It seems like as long as there’s been a Stranger weblog [#], it’s been trying to hook readers up with the sepia toned “B-star design” who had “time for play, fun, friendship, and courting, even hot steamy sex.” After months of front-page constant coverage and a deactivated profile, there’s a new SLOG-endorsed personal in town — “stargazingchick” displaces “B-star”, at least for the moment.

It wasn’t clear what earned him star treatment or what led to the end of his reign, but it now appears that the Lovelab ad of the day rotates with page reloads.

I realize that we’ve posted about Bumbershoot pretty excessively (and are likely to continue as the festival kicks into high gear this Friday), but there are a few weird things that I just noticed about this year’s festival:

1. What happened to the Stranger‘s annual “Pizzazz!” city-wide talent show?
2. What’s up with this year’s no cameras (“Cameras are not allowed at Bumbershoot
   

Remember the mayor’s ultimatum to the Seattle Monorail Board earlier this month [mb]? The Seattle Times reports that the Board might stand up to Nickels’s demand that they put the whole thing up for another vote this September:

“If we’re not asking for higher taxes and not asking for a shorter line, I don’t believe there’s any reason we should go to a new vote, because we’re doing what people voted for already,” board member Cleve Stockmeyer said. Voters approved a car-tab tax for the monorail in 2002. [seattletimes]

From the looks of things, the issue of revoting (rather than any actual stand on building the monorail) appears to be shaping up to be a campaign issue among the candidates for the city council. I suppose this is the “Seattle Way”.

live at the midnight sale at sonic boom

oh yeah, Plans Is now onsale. Relieve any downloading guilt you might have and drop into your favorite record shop to buy a copy of the new Death Cab for Cutie ablum to put on your CD rack. Or stay true to your early-adopter roots and buy it on three sides of vinyl [barsuk]

Sound Transit

As many of you know, the downtown bus tunnel will be closing for up to two years starting on September 24th for the retrofitting of the light rail system