On at least one occasion [#], I’ve used this space to sing the praises of (Band of) Horses [Ed: nice old-school parentheses. --of course.]. If you’re the sort who doesn’t believe everything you read on a local weblog, but will jump on the bandwagon of Pitchfork’s latest darling, I’m here to tell you that your ship has finally come in.

Yesterday, Everything All the Time, the debut album from one of Seattle’s finest rock acts scored an impressive 8.8 on the Pitchfork-o-Meter:

Ultimately, the band’s most winning trait is its delicate balance of elements– between gloom and promise, quiet and loud, epic and ordinary, familiar and new, direct and elliptical, artist and listener. Each of these aspects makes the others sound stronger and more complex, making Everything All the Time an album that’s easy to get lost in and even easier to love. [pitchforkmedia]

Snarky title of this post aside, it’s great to see that the midwest’s favorite indie kingmakers like the band as much as we do. As evidence of their local stardom, Band of Horses will be playing not one, but two(!), shows in Seattle next month. Catch them while you can — 13 and 14 April at Neumo’s.

With Seattle’s mandatory casual everyday attitude, it’s likely that there are at least a few women in town on the lookout for the next big thing in what to wear to work on any given Tuesday. Perhaps they want to stay true to their onetime affection to the Gap, yet simply can’t find anything to wear when they hit the three Gap-related megastores within in a two block radius of Pine and Fifth Avenue.

That is, somewhere there must be a woman who wishing that someone would go all Spike Jonze [ad-awards] on Gap’s new denim campaign, and was turned off of Banana Republic by the early safari years and the recent product placement on Project Runway. For them, a new day of Gapping is about to begin in Seattle.

That’s right ladies — the newest installation in the Gap family is scheduled to strike back. Forth & Towne, the newest store concept from the people who brought you Old Navy & Monica Lewinsky’s stain-sustaining dress, will descend on our city as part of the second phase of a slow rollout campaign to win the hearts and pocketbooks of America’s mid-thirties and up women [marketwatch].

Desperate to get a peak of how the store could change your life forever? The F.a.T. website isn’t especially forthcoming with style samples, but Slate took a look at one their first outposts and sent back a photo show [#].

Explain to me why I’m supposed to care about Saturday’s Belle and Sebastian show.

Slog and one or two of my Metroblogging co-writers seem to think this is the show that will at last allow them to experience multiple orgasms. I’m perplexed.

I’d thought I’d heard every scam in the book, but this gets me. Why would you try to scalp non-existent theater seats when you could scalp movie theater tickets and attract a much wider audience?

Anyway, the following sites are allegedly selling fake tickets for real ACT theater plays, according to Slog:

Ticketliquidator.com

Tickettriangle.com

Ballparks.com/tickets

Onlineseats.com

Ctlive.com

Gofox.com/tickets

Findalltickets.com

Tickets.mostvaluablenetwork.com

Ticketsplus.com

Cheappremiumtickets.com

Theseats.com

Caveat lector.

Technorati Tags: news, theater

A story on News 8 Austin today remarks on a change in Amazon’s search engines. Apparently, if you typed in “abortion”, you’d get a prompt that asked if you really meant “adoption.” (I had no idea that Amazon was trafficking in either abortions or adoptions, which just goes to show how much I know.)

Someone sent Amazon an email, and they changed the prompt because even though there are only two letters different between the two words, a search in the opposite direction didn’t provide the same sort of question.

“A spokeswoman for Amazon says the prompt isn’t meant as some kind of political or social statement but rather a technology issue.” Your computer–or maybe just your search engines–are the new morality police.

From the “Damn, that really sucks” files:

UW doctor Richard Root moved to Botswana a few weeks ago to help out with the health professional shortage over there. He’d just recovered from a difficult few years, had recently gotten remarried, and was feeling rejuvenated and totally into his new life’s purpose. Unfortunately for him (and his wife, and Botswana) he picked the wrong day to go on a tour of the Limpopo River. He was in the head dugout when a crocodile jumped up, snatched him out of the boat, and headed back under the water. None of him came back up [P-I].

It may be because I just finished reading Stephen King’s
Cell, but I’m starting to look suspiciously at my cell phone.

If it rings when I’m on the bus, I always try to keep the conversation short and low volume, because I assume the guy next to me doesn’t especially want to know when and where I’m meeting my wife for dinner.

One day last week, I watched in awe as a guy at the Montlake freeway bus stop bellowed into his cell phone over the roar of cars flying by at 60 MPH. He was simultaneously pacing up and down and jackhammering a piece of gum between his teeth. God save me, I thought, from sitting next to him.

Fly Girl reminds us that for awhile now, the FAA has been mulling whether to allow cell phone use on airplanes above 10,000 feet. By me, this is one of the worst ideas in modern transportation history. I can just see myself being trapped for seven hours on a flight to Boston next to the guy who needs to scream into his cell phone over the airplane engine noise.

Then again, this is why I have a pair of noise-cancelling headphones for my iPod.

Does anyone think that allowing cell phone conversations on a plane is a good idea? For that matter, do cell phone conversations on buses bother you?

She didn’t really just say quiet in an empty ER, did she? Oh.

Previously on Grey’s Anatomy:
Meredith cries, George grows a spine, we get confirmation that Cristina isn’t a morning person, Izzy is our little optimistic ray of sunshine, Meredith begs and George ignores, George has another moment with CutieDoc, Grey discovers that the Chief (Richard) visits her mom, and Denny’s heart is giving out and they need to do surgery.

Back by popular demand, the complete Voice Over, with incredibly cool funky beat in the background. We also get a nice flyby of Seattle, north pulling down to the Space Needle (which as you know, is directly across from Seattle Grace Hospital).

My college campus has a magic statue. It’s a long-standing tradition for students to rub its nose for good luck.

We’re now inside SGH, where a nurse is writing on the surgery board.

My freshman roommate really believed in the statue’s power,

Meredith is scrubbing in for surgery with Addison, who removes her wedding ring and pins it to the front of her scrubs with the world’s largest safety pin, right where Meredith won’t be able to miss it. She even pats on it. What a bitch.

…and insisted on visiting it to rub its nose before every exam.

Cut to Burke’s OR, where he’s asking a scrub nurse if she’s sure there are none to be found. There are none to be found.

Studying might have been a better idea; she flunked out her sophomore year. But the fact is, we all have little superstitious things that we do.

Montage scene already! Burke is cracking his neck back and forth, McDreamy declares that it’s a beautiful day to save lives and we should all have fun, Bailey seems to clench her fingers and then tilt her head back, pause, and say okay.

If it’s not believing in magic statues, avoiding sidewalk cracks or always putting our left shoe on first. Knock on wood. Step on a crack, break your mothers back.

A nice gusher pops out of Addison’s patient. Burke’s patient flatlines, McDreamy’s patient has a reaction to anesthesia. Bailey begins to lose her patient, as well. All four doc’s lose their patients, Addison making Grey call it.

The last thing we want to do is offend the gods.
(more…)

Go Dawgs!

Something strange has happened to me over the last few years. I can trace its evolution quite clearly. First, I started watching football at a local sports bar (Goofy’s – GO PACK GO! *ahem*), in order to spend more time with my male friends outside the clubs. Then I started talking football with Dad; not too uncommon, since he and I used to watch and root for the 49ers in their heyday, when we lived in the Bay Area. But now I could talk names, and stats, and scores, and ask things like “did you see that totally sweet tackle last week?” It was an ability lost in time, and he was delighted when it came back. Then, I’d come down to Portland to visit with my folks, and Dad’d turn basketball on, and I’d keep an eye on it just because Dad was. Bonding. A talking point.

But then, it finally happened.

I got back from running errands Friday afternoon and realized I missed the UW (men’s basketball) game. I paniced, I looked for Dad, I reached for the computer – I had to know how the Huskies did! I had to know NOW!

…my pride in my soon-to-be alma mater seems to have merged with my growing interest in sports! What madness can come from this new combination?! (Well, other than driving my mother nuts because my Dad and I spent a lot of the weekend in front of the TV, saying things to one another like “whoa, look at that rebound!” “Did you see that layup?!” “Ho-ly! He swished it from damn near midcourt!”) I’ve even found myself eyeballing my probable new University’s sports teams, at once happy I can keep colours, and a bit disappointed in the quality of the teams themselves. Will the insanity ever end?

Today is the first day of spring, and thus it’s time for the good people at Pike Place Market to have their ninth annual Daffodil Day. During lunch today they will be handing out 13,000 of them (in cut, blooming form — sorry, no bulbs) in various locations throughout downtown.

And, on this sunny first day of spring, recite some Wordsworth (And then my heart with pleasure fills/And dances with the daffodils) get outside, and remember that it’s supposed to rain for remainder of the week.