bloody valentine [spin]

Sure, there are a lot of Seattle-related bands to obsess over, but why not continue to dwell on Death Cab for Cutie? Look! — they’re on the cover of Spin this month [#] holding a bloody heart to symbolize their accessible emo charm, and they have a major label album coming out in a next week! Are you excited yet?

If you haven’t already downloaded a copy of Plans, now there’s an official “leak” available for your streaming pleasure [mtv]. Listen away in preparation for the big official release next Tuesday (30 August).

(via stereogum [#])

a map of seattle hotness. pictured, Lori [hotornot]

By now, if there isn’t a GoogleMap for a particular purpose you begin to worry about the ingenuity of web programmers and the dawn of a dark age of personal productivity. Today provides relief for map loving timewasters in the form of Hot or Not Maps (hotmaps.frozenbear.com). You may remember Hot or Not from your time-killing days in the early 00s when, for a few weeks, rating the hotness of total strangers (often from pictures taken at office parties) was the most compelling thing on the internet.

Few completely pointless websites remain completely pointless, especially when they’re expensive to maintain. Thus, the site has evolved to help the hot and not hot meet their raters for good old fashioned internet dating purposes. Through the miracle of the Google Maps, you can find wannabe hotties by entering the ZIP code, sex, and sexual orientation of your desired dating pool. Sorry stalkers, the map points are aggregated by ZIP code.

(via gawker [#])

As part of a continuing effort to occasionally bring you the best in craigslist personals, an entry from last week that may be of interest to some readers:

Domme needs Mac Comp Nerd – w4m – 25

I am a professional dominatrix who is looking to do some trade with an apple computer nerd. I have an Apple IBook g4 which starts up with “grey screen” problem and I tried the startup CDs and that didn’t work. Hopefully looking for someone who had an IBook G4 already (who has the CDs) and who has a lot of experience with fixing computers. My warranty has expired and I refuse to wait in line for hours at the apple store.

Once we talk I will send you the website link which talks has my photos and talks about the dungeon I work out of. This is strictly trade only, for things which are legal for me to do to you in my dungeon. I am a dark haired, light skinned fit and busomy bombshell. Many possibilities. [craigslist]

This ad is remarkable mainly because it’s a w4m ad in the “casual encounters” section, but also because it seems way too perfectly targeted to be true (although the part about not being able to wait in line was a nice touch). If this is actually more than an attempt to collect e-mail addresses for her dungeon’s website, I hope that the dominatrix in distress was prepared to handle the flood of willing e-mail responses.

I wonder if the Mac guys made her take on a domineering Microsoft personality as part of their payback package?

(via buffoonery.org [#]; apparently Manuel didn’t make the dom’s tech support cut.)

Small boats dotted the lake, glowing softly in the dark.

If you talk to me and the husband about the full moon viewing, we’ll have two different opinions. He was absolutely bored to tears by the poetry and story readings. He thought the musicians were untalented hacks. And his biggest complaint — the event ended an hour before you could even see the moon from within the garden!

It’s been a while since I headed for any event thinking, “oh boy, now I’m REALLY going to have fun.” Instead, my chief question is “can I photograph it without getting arrested?” Moon, schmoon; I had a couple dozen photos of the moon taken from my own backyard. I was there last night to take photos of fire without endangering my own property.

In that sense, I was in my element. The garden paths were peppered with white paper bag lanterns, a little tealight in each one, and I would watch them carefully as I walked around, in case something suddenly burst into flame and gave me a really good photo opportunity. Around 9, they finally released the boats, eliciting a muttered “finally!” from the husband, and a chorus of clicks and flashes from the groups of photographers surrounding each fleet of boats.

Poetry readings? Never heard it — I was busy making circuits around the garden in the growing dusk. Music? Sounded like every other piece of koto and flute accompaniment I’ve ever heard. I and the other photographers were kept honest by the Tripod Nazi — a woman who insisted it was not enough that I had the legs of my tripod taped together: the other two legs definitely had to be off the ground. Party pooper.

Did I have a good time? Just wait til you see my photos!

A local pizza delivery guy reports that despite (eventually) losing the gubernatorial election, Dino Rossi is [allegedly] sticking to his fiscal conservatism. Possibly inspired by the Domino’s commercials starring Donald Trump as a shrewd pizza negotiator, Rossi went for the 5-5-5 deal:

1 medium cheese
1 medium pepperoni
1 medium mushroom

talk about surreal experiences. he couldn’t look me in the eye.
and he tipped $1 and change on a $20 order. [lj]

The final bit of this delicious unsubstantiated rumor is the the customer paid with a check decorated with the creepy baby art of Anne Geddes. This example of shoring up the family values image and saving money might be a sign that he’s preparing for the next campaign.

But by now, even the marginally recognizable should be aware that their tipping habits are likely to haunt them in this age of the weblog. Last night at Elliott Bay Books, Chuck Klosterman talked about an account of his (decent) tipping behavior ending up on the internet, and even the non-famous can worry about ending up in the “shitty tipper database” [bitterwaitress].

For guidance on gratuities, see the Original Tipping Page [#].

An absolutely beautiful piece of property on the north east edge of Lake Washington. St Edwards

This is a wonderful place to get out of the ‘rat-race’ of the city and go for a hike or some technical bike rides. Once a year, it hosts a beer festival that always draws a cross-section of local brewers and provides wonderful locations for watching the sunset across the way.

Bastyr University shares the entrance and the grounds nearby.
Recent proposals from Bastyr about their growth has created a ground-swelling of protests by folks in the neighborhood regarding the negative effects expanding Bastyr would have on the area.

What amazes me is there hasn’t been a peep about the chance that Washington State government may allow private investment in the park. For as long as I have lived in this area, the rumors have been swirling that a local restaurant wants to build in St. Edwards.

The state has created a task force to begin looking at the proposal from one of Seattle’s restauranteurs. Plans
Wonder if the residents will protest?

As residents of a city that’s more than a little obsessed with its caffeine culture, it’s important to know one’s limits. Sure, with espresso stands and cafés at every corner, it’s hard to resist the lure of a little pick me up every now and then. While we know that no man can eat fifty eggs or drink a gallon of milk in under an hour, the limits of safe caffeination were less clear.

For those who have pondered just how many espresso shots, cans of Red Bull, or bottles of soda their body could sustain without dropping dead, there is the Death by Caffeine Calculator [energyfiend]. So go ahead, determine your limit and play safe out there!

a badly photoshopped vision of things to come?

In somewhat cheerier news for military betrothed, Le Belle Elaine Bridal Store will be handing out free wedding dresses to qualified fianceés tomorrow:

To qualify for a gown, candidates must provide proof of deployment papers for the bride or groom, dated after Sept. 11, 2001, and a wedding date set to take place before Dec. 31, 2007. Once the 100 gowns have been given away, the store will give qualified military couples who visit the store that day a coupon for a discounted wedding gown. [navytimes]

If it’s anything like the mad rush for $50 iBooks that occurred this week in Virginia [bb], it should be a really fun event for all involved. If emotions ran high for deeply discounted used computers, it can only be worse for stressed out brides desperate for good deals on wedding apparel.

Early this month I was listening to news about Oregon’s new law requiring prescriptions for cold meds (a.k.a. everything containing pseudoephedrine is now illegal), and thinking, oh, those poor Oregonians, they are just going to be sick all winter, unless they just hop across the border to Washington where we don’t put up with any of that silly nonsense.

Then today I was at Walgreens and happened to notice that they had taken all the pseudoephedrine-laced Sudafed off the shelves and put it behind the counter. What gives? Are we being polite and helping Oregon wean its citizens off pseudoephedrine?

Right next to the empty Sudafed shelves were shelves of bottles of Nyquil which also contain pseudoephedrine, and of course I have to go “there” and wonder whether or not you can make meth out of liquid nyquil. Common sense says probably not because of all the sugar syrup. Unless there’s such a thing as edible-meth. Meth brownies? (Help me out here, I honestly don’t know. You smoke it, right? Or sniff it?)

Oddly enough, the pseudoephedrine-laced Claritin pills are still free to roam the shelves. How long can this possibly last?

New Pornographers : on their way to Ballard

I realize that we’ve been a little bit possessive of your agenda by telling you what to do all the time, but if you haven’t already done so, you really should clear out your Monday late night for a little trip to Ballard. Instead of celebrating the Tuesday release of the new album from the New Pornographers with a typical listening party, the actual band will be at Sonic Boom Records at 11 o’ clock to play a live show.

It seems that every publication and his brother has been falling all over this band in anticipation of Twin Cinema, the third record from the Cascadia supergroup. Believe the hype. Their first album was genius, the second was a perfect pop masterpiece, so it’s not surprising that everyone is on the edge of their seats for this one. The idea that they’re playing a completely free show before opening the record sale floodgates is beyond amazing.

Forget that it’s on a school night. Plan to stay up a little bit late and be at the store even though it’s likely to be packed full of adoring fans. If you’re new to new pornography, check out their website [newpornographers] which includes a wide selection of free audio to make your ears happy.