Because Amazon.com didn’t threaten my budget enough, they recently introduced a new online store: groceries.

According to their site, they will gladly sell you any of 10,000 nonperishable items, with free super saver shipping and Amazon Prime discounts available.

They do not, sadly, sell cat litter. (On reflection, that’s probably a good thing, since the shipping costs for cat litter drove the late lamented Pets.com over the proverbial Rainbow Bridge of Bankruptcy.)

Their selection is still a little random. They do have gluten-free pasta, coho salmon caviar, and a large selection of teas, but they don’t yet have light bulbs or corn starch in stock.

It’s not Homegrocer.com, but it’s a start.

Amazon.com Grocery

[Unto.net blog]
[Amazon's Grocery Beta info page]

My favorite part about the story of Safeco’s impending move from its U-District headquarters to downtown leased space is the effect that it will have on building names. The story in today’s Post-Intelligencer almost seems more excited about the high rises formerly known as the “Box that the Space Needle Came In” and “the Ban Roll On” being re-named Safeco Plaza. [#]

Hardly mentioned is the looming bidding war as local heavyweights wrangle for the rights to buy the soon-to-be vacated tower on 45th. Rumor has it that both Microsoft and the University of Washington are very interested in getting their hands on the property.

hello thursday, so much to do so little time.

• Let the SIFF invasion begin. The festival opens tonight with a gala presentation of mediocre opening night entertainment the Illusionist. After the credits roll, the crowd will mill from the Paramount to the soon-to-be MOHAI for snacks, sponsored liquor, a disco dance party, and the possibility of Jessica Biel sightings. [siff]
• the Thermals make lo-fi indie rock that sounds like it was recorded in someone’s garage in Portland. [Ed: it was actually a basement]. Whether the low production values make it better or worse is your guess, but the brilliantly urgent More Parts Per Million was pretty fantastic. They’re equally good live. [crocodile]
• In a sea of wolf and snake bands, Austin’s I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness has one of the best band names in the business. They play guitar-driven broody rock tonight at the University of Washington’s Husky Union Building. The Rogers Sisters open. [ticketswest]
• Everyone’s favorite band of merry mutants return for a third installment of movie magic tonight. X3 opens tonight a minute after midnight, which seems like the best time to see if Bertt Ratner made a mess of what Bryan Singer started. Plus, there will probably be people in costumes, which is always a nice addition to the usual special effects. [cinerama, etc.]

A man picks up two glasses of champagne and crosses the room. One is for him, the other is for a woman. Both are among the few guests still dwelling at a wedding reception. She’s a last-minute substitute bridesmaid, added for symmetry, not particularly close to any members of the wedding party who are her ex-husband’s friends. Neither hides the fact of their absent significant other: he has a younger dancer girlfriend, she’s married to an older cardiologist. But from the moment she accepts the glass of champagne, it’s clear that their flirtation will lead to a hotel room.

She’s Helena Bonham Carter; he’s Aaron Eckhart (neither character has a name). For almost the entire length of Conversations With Other Women [siff], each is exiled to a half of the screen as the film progresses entirely as a two-shot. The effect is both frustrating and fascinating, since they’re only feet away from each other you keep wanting the shots to simply resolve, but because each is directly on camera while the other is talking, you see their immediate reaction.

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suggestions from metbloggers about what to do tonight:

• Mariners vs. Orioles, 7:05pm. Plenty of good seats available for
  tonight’s baseball game. By “plenty,” we mean that there are nearly
  30,000 unsold seats tonight. By “baseball,” we aren’t referring to
  what the M’s are playing right now. Maybe you should find something
  else to do.

• Such as staying home to watch the Top Chef! Season finale! [bravo]
  

The Elwha River at Elkhorn Meadows Camp.

It’s a tough time of year: the weather is beautiful (some of the time) and the great outdoors beckons — but hiking in the Cascades may still be a snowy undertaking. Apparently the snowpack is melting fast but you may want to wait a while — a savvy native informs me that there are no good hikes below 3000 feet. (If you know otherwise, please enlighten us.) In the meantime, might I suggest a trip to the Olympic Peninsula? There are many beautiful trails in the Olympic National Forest and the Olympic National Park, and many of them are relatively low-elevation. Case in point: last weekend I went camping near the Elwha River, hiking a trail that didn’t get above 2000 feet. We didn’t get any big vista views, true, but the riparian zone was beautiful in its own right, with mossy trees and rushing water and dappled glades.

One of the major downsides of having a highway running through the middle of your city is the ugly factor. Whether it’s looking down at stalled, over the freeway at the lake, or walking under the elevated sections, mobility turns out to be a bit of a drag.

This summer, the part of I-5 that looms over the Roosevelt-Greenlake-Ravenna corridor will try to take a turn for the less hideous. Three artists will audition for the chance to spend $300,000 of Metro’s money to make the 65th Street bus stop prettier. After a cycle of testing and auditions, an arts panel will pick a winner.

Construction will start in the Fall; so take a peek throughout the summer on your daily commute or jaunt up to Green Lake. It’s not as if Seattle has a history of excellence in this regard; so it should be easier to top the Fremont Troll, Belltown’s creepy under-onramp fluorescent stalagmights, or the U-District’s Wall of Death.

(story via the P-I [#])

Hello Seattle! I just want to introduce myself – I’m heathervescent, metroblogger from LA and I’m a coming to visit! It’s mostly going to be a music packed weekend, but it’s been 17 years since I’ve visited your fair city, so what should I do?

Now, don’t make the mistake that I’m your stereo-typical blonde Hollywood celebrity watching Angelino. I’ve heard rumors about a pinball bar, and as a pinball fanatic I definitely want to check it out. Tips anyone?

courtesy Central Cinema

Yeah, yeah, SIFF is playing and all the cool people are spending their movie dollars there. But some of us want dinner with our movies, and Central Cinema at 21st and Union is here to help.

Run Lola Run, all speed and style and driving techno soundtrack, is playing a short engagement at the Central Cinema this weekend. Franka Potente gets a call from her less-than-clueful boyfriend, played by Moritz Bleibtreu, who tells her he’s going to get killed in 20 minutes if she doesn’t come up with 100,000 deutsch marks. Running ensues, in a wildly entertaining series of three almost-but-not-quite identical stories.

Shows are at May 25-28, with shows at 7 and 9:15. Tickets are $5. Dinner and a beer are sold separately.

I don’t know whether to credit the film or blame it on a day of watching three movies with a lunch of cold empanadas & caramel corn, but the Proposition [siff] blew me away. In all fairness, the movie — a dazzling Australian Western starring Guy Pearce, Emily Watson, and Ray Winstone — probably bears the lion’s share of the responsibility for my stumbling blinking into the daylight in a state of mild disorientation.

The film, written by Nick Cave, opens with bullets striking metal siding and making cinematic swiss cheese of the shack where two outlaw brothers stage a last stand against the police. Although there are occasional pauses for you to catch your breath, the intensity doesn’t really let up for the remaining hundred minutes. When the dust settles, Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) faces two shackled brothers and offers the title’s proposition. Neither of them is the chief law enforcement target — that honor goes to the sociopathic oldest brother, who recently masterminded a grisly rape & murder. If Charlie (Guy Pearce) agrees to hunt him down, his kid brother will be spared the noose. More a demand than a proposition, really. And he has only ten days.

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