google map of the house’s address [#]

Manuel points out [#] what is probably the weirdest craigslist room for rent ad I’ve ever seen. It’s for a spot in a “Madrona Manor” with a not completely weird sounding set of roommates:

We are a cadre, of straight, 20 something, college educated or professionally minded, young women, who are not promiscuous, do not use illegal drugs, and we do not abuse alcohol. [craigslist]

Sounds normal enough, but the posting must be seen to be believed. It’s like a performance art piece that relies on twee photoshopping, out of nowhere tributes to Princess Diana, motivational speeches, details about their house staff, and more spelling errors and use of color and highlighting than your eyes can handle. Oh, all of their water is hauled to the house by a Guatemalan who fetches it from the third deepest aquifer in the United States and they’re also looking for a new live-in housekeeper.

Is this for real? An art project? Somehow porn-related? I’m completely baffled.
(via buffoonery.org)

I have to confess; I both knew about and attended the Octavia Butler appearance at Elliott Bay Books last Thursday evening. I have no excuse for not posting a notice up on this page, except that I was torn. I wasn’t sure if a basic post filled with my excitement of seeing her would be as useful as a recap post. I ended up, obviously, deciding on the latter mainly because now I’ve finished her new book, Fledgling, AND because she’ll be back in town on November 7 at University Bookstore.
(more…)

(previously [mb])
We open to the trademark wet television-style Seattle weather. By which I mean, holy cow, is it ever stormy in “Seattle”! Pretty lightning is really having its way with picturesque cityscapes as the voiceover picks up to pre-summarize the episode for us: “Pain comes in all forms . . .”

Such as the form of a bad date. The Alex drops Isabel off at the Casa de Tres Interns. They’re looking all kinds of awkward, so we can guess that the date was about as good as we would have expected from Alex’s dodge of Isabel’s hello kiss at the bar last (week) night. Isabel curtly says that she had a good time and faux thanks him for the perfect evening, the best date ever. She especially liked the part where he treated her like crap all night. Alex plays the confused card saying that he had a good time. Isabel seems surprised enough to go in for a kiss, but again Alex pulls away saying that he has to go. She slams the door with a frustrated “Seriously!” which repeats as she finds her way to George’s bedroom to wake him up.

After the jump, a rundown of all sorts of hurt: pain that’s cured by pornography, the pain that requires a shaman, and the pain of a not heart attack. Plus, lots of interrobangs, a fair amount of pleading, a dramatic power failure in which George finally drops the Charlie Brown act in a stalled elevator.
(more…)

This week, an old friend from high school paid me a visit. K has a quirky sense of humor and boundless energy

Big weekend news in media: the Seattle Weekly’s corporate overlords (Village Voice Media) was just sold to the country’s largest alt-weekly franchise (New Times Media) [nyt]. Predictably, the Stranger is already using the sale as an occasion for boasting and figurative stone throwing [slog].

While the Village Voice’s layout won’t be adopting the New Times template, it sounds like the look of the other members of the Village Voice Media family will be standardized and the local political editorial content will be stripped to fit the new owner’s apolitical mold. What do you think? Is media consolidation still a bummer when it’s two chains getting hitched?

Image via Cat Koehn

When we think of Tutankhamun, we think of the boy King Tut who got himself buried with a whole lot of loot. But if you’ve ever wondered about where it all fits in to the larger geopolitical situtation of Egypt in the 14th century, have I got a lecture for you.

On Monday the 24th (yes, tomorrow) the American Research Center in Egypt, Northwest Chapter will be sponsoring a lecture titled “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.” It will be held in the Microsoft Auditorium in the downtown library and appears to be free. According to the website, the lecture intends to clarify the political and religious landscape of Egypt at the time:

“When confronted with such a huge amount of high-quality, high-cost burial goods, one of the first questions a viewer may ask is: why was there such intense and systematic preparation for the burial of the Egyptian king and elite? To clarify these questions further: does this mass of material embody sociopolitical concerns, i.e., as conspicuous consumption? Or might the intense preparation mirror deep psychological preparation for one

I don’t normally get evening cravings for chicken (or country – really, up here, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference) fried steak. It’s always been more of a Sunday brunch sort of food for me; a post-drinking and night out fortification.

Still, there’s always the exception, and tonight was it. Tonight, I really really wanted a good chicken fried steak dinner, with buttery mashed potatoes and the proper white sausage gravy. Problem being, the only place that immediately came to mind for such thing was The Crocodile, and there was no way I’d be getting a trailer trash breakfast (their name) at 9:30 in the evening on a Saturday night.

That’s when the lack of diner on the Hill hit me. The closest I could think of, outside of walking to the Hurricane, was Charlie’s, so that’s where I ended up. And while they did have their version of a chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, it just wasn’t that great. So I’m asking you, Seattle-at-large: at 9:30pm on a Saturday evening, where would you go to get your artery clogging, fried steak wanting cravings filled?

No, seriously. When we went to the store to get some, all the cowbells had been sold out. And now I’m very, very deaf.
(more…)