This can be seen on Denny Way at Pontius Avenue.
The T-Man is a morning D.J. on the local station KUBE 93. I don’t much care for him, but I think I’m warming up to him.

Last night I went on a third date to the Black Bottle gastro-tavern. I mention that it was a third date only because I don’t think that this would be the place to go for a first or even a second one. The menu is “family style,” which means that you really have to share, and the restaurant is very noisy and requires leaning very close to your dining companion in order to have a conversation. It’s all just a little too intimate for a first date.

The restaurant is located in the former Two Dagos space on 1st and Vine, and has been converted into one long, thin room with a brick wall on one side and a strange kinetic sculpture that strongly resembles an eye at one end. (The waitress, when presented with the question, “Does that move because of a ghost or a hobgoblin?” answered firmly that it was a hobgoblin, although she did quickly admit that there was also a fan in the space behind it.) The place was full when we arrived, but we scored a little table in a back corner surprisingly quickly.

Everything on the menu is priced at $8, except the desserts, which are $7. A request for a recommendation from the waitress ended up with a warning against the fresh salmon and fontina cheese balls, which are apparently made from farmed salmon. Forewarned, we ordered the prosciutto and bechamel flatbread and the mussels marseilles-style.

The flatbread, served in a cute scallop-sided dish, was rich and quite salty, which was just right for the cold evening. The mussels came in an oddly spicy sauce, not bad/odd so much as surprising/odd. I assume that’s what the marseilles-style is, and the triangles of bread that came along for the ride were perfect for dipping in the leftover sauce once we’d demolished the mussels themselves. Our cocktails were strongly poured, and the whole experience was just plain yummy. The wait staff was friendly and took my companion’s deadpan jokes in stride, although the guy doing the water refilling wandered around looking really confused.

Aside from the food itself–which was really quite scrumptious–what I liked about the Black Bottle was that it didn’t feel like Belltown. I admit to being irrationally prejudiced towards Belltown, and as a result I don’t spend a whole lot of time there. But the Black Bottle was comfortable, like no one was there just to be seen, and everyone was intent on their own conversations. I will definitely be adding it to the list of places I take my out of town guests to when I need to convince them that my fondness for this town is justified.

http://www.seattle.gov/parks/parkspaces/DiscoveryPark/art.htm

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 – Sunday, February 26, 2006

It’s President’s Day Weekend, it’s mid-winter break, it’s Octopus Week at the Seattle Aquarium! Join us for nine days of fun and learning about one of the coolest creatures in Puget Sound. Highlights of Octopus Week include:
• Giant Pacific octopus releases Saturday, 2/18 and Saturday 2/25 at noon. Say good-bye to some of the Aquarium’s giant Pacific octopuses as biologists release these incredible creatures into Elliott Bay. Watch video monitors as divers follow these animals as they take up new residence beneath the pier at the Seattle Aquarium.
• Octopus craft activities for kids daily 2/18 – 2/26, from 10am to 5pm
• Daily octopus feeding and talks.
• Divers in the Underwater Dome with an octopus on 2/21, 2/23 & 2/24

• Seventh annual giant Pacific octopus census 2/18-2/20. Puget Sound divers are asked to search for and report all octopus sightings to Aquarium staff over the three day weekend by calling 206-386-4346 or emailing roland.anderson@seattle.gov.

But most of all, remember that Octopus is best when lightly cooked and served over rice with a little wasabi..

Let me be blunt here: I burned out on “tribute” bands quite some time ago and I’m considerably less than impressed with the vast majority of cover songs. Oh, I know, Seattle, you love your tribute bands, particularly if they’re “quirky” in some way but for many, many decades we deserved our reputation as home to an exciting and eclectic music scene. If you really must know all the words to the songs in order to have a good time, go see bands more than once, alright?

(As an aside, here’s a tip: your hands will not actually fall off if you clap.)

So here’s the part where I am a total hypocrite and recommend that you all head out to Chop Suey for a tribute night show.

2.22 Wednesday Chop Suey Presents
KINGS OF THE NIGHT TIME WORLD: A TRIBUTE TO KISS with:
RAZ REZ
KANE HODDER
SHAWN SMITH
Sunday Night Blackout
Friel Brothers
Mos Generator
Key Note Speaker
Spanish for 100
Moc Moc
Patrol
Jasen Samford
FREE!!!
8pm door

How can this night not rock? Some of the hottest local musicians doing KISS songs and it’s FREE! Go! Have a good time!

And then go see at least one of these artists when they’re doing their own stuff. You won’t be sorry.

This sign, marking Route 706 on the way to Mt. Rainier, always strikes me as an image the Seattle Tourism Bureau can’t be happy with:

Tickets went on sale 15 minutes ago for a Dave Chappelle show at the Paramount on Sunday at 7 PM. The surprise show was just announced. See here for more details.

EDIT: Sold out. Wow, that was quick.

Further wacky Alaska Airlines hijinks ensued last night when a plane had to turn itself around en route to Denver and head back here because of a “pressurization problem” [P-I]. No one appears to have been hurt, although five people were taken to hospitals and treated for mild ear and sinus pain after landing. Most importantly, there were no oxygen masks dropping this time, as well as no big hole in the side of the thing and no tossed dogs.

Metroblogging outposts are multiplying like, um, bunnies! (What? I haven’t finished my coffee yet.) Now we’re welcoming Dublin to the fold, our first site in Ireland.

A couple of weeks ago I was waiting for the bus late at night, by what used to be the Bon and is now Macys, although I refuse to call it anything but The Bon. An elderly gentleman walked up to me and started telling really bad jokes, one of which was, “Why is Ireland the richest country? Because the capital is Dublin!”

Metblogs has added our forty-first city to our Vast Media Empire: Denver!

As the holder of a handicapped parking permit doubling as a degree from the University of Colorado, here are my five reasons why Denver is way cool:

1. They’re a frenetic people. Hiking, biking, climbing, rafting, spectator sporting, skiing, boarding, (in my day) raving… when do they have time for LAN parties?
2. Denver has The Valley, The Turnpike, The Two-And-A-Quarter, and the Mousetrap. We have 5, 405, 520, 90, and The Collector-Distributor Lanes. You’d think we could give our highways and interchanges interesting names here.
3. In Seattle, it’s nearly impossible to sprawl, since the lakes and sound and mountains eventually hold in the suburban push. In Denver, they’re on pace to have the suburbs extend to the Kansas border by 2010. You gotta love a city that’s trying to out-LA LA.
4. Boulder. New age cults, trust fund babies, snowboarders, old hippies, housing that makes Seattle’s prices seem like Ellensburg’s….
5. Unlike Seattle, they actually built a light rail system on time and almost on budget. Heck, they have a light rail system. We just sit around killing monorail dreams and whining about traffic.