Expect I-5 to be more snarled than usual today: a jack-knifed tractor trailer blocked all the southbound lanes for about an hour around lunchtime.

All lanes are now reopened for traffic [WSDOT] but it’s going to take quite a while for the several-mile-long backup on I-5 south and 520 west to unsnarl itself. Be prepared for an extra-long commute.

Sure, the weather has cooled substantially, but file this awesome time-series of a diver at Greenlake away for the next time you’re sweltering and at the mercy of the massive yellow fireball in the sky:

Almost as refreshing as diving into the lake without any of the scary algae. (Instant cooling action by way of eclecticism [michaelhanscom].)

According to an outaged anonymous tip in our suggest-a-story in-box, Oklahoma City Sonics t-shirts are already for sale.

After exhaustive searching (ok, it took, like, a second, but I’m trying to make myself feel better about leaving the more difficult stories for everyone else), I did manage to find some “OK Sonics” t-shirts for sale at some enterprising person’s Cafe Press store. They are, quite, obviously, unlicensed and unauthorized shirts (Hmm…how aggressive is the NBA about protecting its copyrights, anyway, and can fan-based merch like this be found to be a violation of copyright? Copyright laws do allow for parody for the sake of humor and editorial commentary, after all, but I’m very much not a lawyer and do not know this.) and the creator is quite clearly a clever capitalist as he or she has designs that cover both sides of the metaphorical fence: that is, there are both pro- and anti- moving the Sonics designs available.

Apparently the same person also has a Craigslist ad offering for sale OK Sonics shirts and the first available official tickets to the first OK Sonics game.

I hope you weren’t planning on running any red lights today: as of yesterday the city isn’t giving warnings anymore to people caught on camera running red lights. Now they’re handing out $101 tickets [P-I]. (Whose job is it to look at the cameras and issue the tickets? Sounds awful.)

So far, they’ve caught somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000 people, but they’re pretty sure those numbers will drop off once people have to start paying. Aside from fining people who are caught running red lights, they’re also going to look for people who turn right on red without making a full stop first, which is pretty hazardous to pedestrians. This pedestrian right here got hit just last year in that exact situation.

The cameras will photograph only the vehicle and license plate, and the tickets are treated as parking violations–they won’t show up on the driver’s record.

“The new cameras catching red-light runners are focusing initially on four intersections:

Rainier Avenue South and South Orcas Street, with cameras facing north and south.
Denny Way and Fairview Avenue North, with cameras facing east and west on Denny.
Roosevelt Way Northeast and Northeast 45th Street, with one camera.
Spring Street and Fifth Avenue, with one camera.”

A fantastic bit of officialspeak tautology in an article about the state of viaduct reconstruction:

How long state Route 99 would be closed during construction depends on how much time is allotted to the overall replacement project [p-i].

The short, rose-colored answer appears to be “approximately forever”. During this time, the biggest upfall of downtown congestion might be for lovers of the waterfront taxi [mb], which could see expanded service and bigger boats. Don’t worry — the six to ten year estimate is only for how long it will take to build¹ once construction “begins” in 2009 and doesn’t include the next few years of angsty deciding time.

(via west seattle blog [#])

–

1. this does not take into account well-intentioned grassroots efforts like the People’s Waterfront Coalition who argue against both the bridge and tunnel options.

Yesterday, I was thrilled to see that Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell had a “playlist” feature in the New York Times. Not just because I was interested in whether he was into the new Granddaddy album (he is), but because the introduction paragraph claimed [nyt] that the reason that Mat Brooke wasn’t on tour with the band was due to his work on his new bar. This is what I’d hoped ever since a friend mentioned his absence on the band’s summer east coast tour.

Unfortunately, if the Stranger’s music weblog and SubPop’s publicist are to be believed, it seems that the split is less than temporary. Dave Segal reports [lineout] that Mat has left the band’s incredibly volatile lineup for the long term. So much for the Grey Lady being hip to the coming and goings of Seattle band membership. Their details about the band’s composition did seem a little loosely interpreted, but in a state of caffeine and air-conditioned optimism, I was eager to believe that we’d be seeing the gang together again at this weekend’s Capitol Hill Block Party.

The Seattle Times takes a fascinating look [#] inside the Seattle Weekly in the aftermath of the paper’s acquisition by New Times Media and notes mass staff exodus. As is their custom, webloggers pick over the scraps and interpret the entrails.

Over at Pike Place Politics Will sees the bright side, hoping that the corporate shakeup marks a sign of better things to come [ppp] for the elder alt-weekly. Jossip, on the other coast understands the flight as a means of escaping “before their newspaper faces the tragic fate of resembling the Village Voice.” [#]

Among the many details in the article, I think I was most surprised to read that Knute “Skip `Mossback’” Berger might not actually be completely leaving [mossblog] the paper and that the Weekly is gearing up for (another) an exciting new readability redesign.

While you were complaining about the heat, seeking out shady spots to read your Sunday paper, or basking in the faux sea spray of the Cha Cha’s air conditioner, Ed Tang was busting the myth about Seattleites and their home climate control situations:

That’s right, I have an Air Conditioner.

… it is a commonly held myth that Seattle is a temperate enough climate that most residents don’t need air conditioning during the summer. I do, admittedly, live in an upper floor of a condo in an extremely energy efficient (read: airtight) building that’s incredibly warm (mid-high seventies to eighties) in the evening without additional heating in the dead of winter, that’s well above the tree line and without any sort of natural cross ventilation. I am, perhaps, being overly passionate about the subject at the moment because I’m living in the heat at the moment. [antiexperience]

From his fortunately cooled apartment, he gathers the strength to rant about the rest of us and our suffering at the hands of building codes that prevent residents of ugly condos from further uglifying them with window air conditioning units.

What do you think? Is poor ventilation just another reason to steer clear of high rise living? Do we just indulge in ritual heat whining because the rainy season is off limits and simply not complaining about the weather at any point in the year would be too American even for the latte liberal class?

I love video games. Yes, I openly admit that. If, like me, you happen to love all things pixelated and you enjoy a good frag now and then, might I suggest a trip to the Pacific Science Center for the traveling Game On! exhibit?

Once you pay admission, there are 100 games that range in time from Spacewar! to Nintendogs that are just ripe for the playing. It is fantastic. Awesome, even. I’ve been three times already and I plan to go back. It is, quite simply, “t eh r0xx0r”!

Game On! will be at PacSci until August 31. Take someone you love and then kick their butt at Street Fighter II. It’s what I always do.

Game On! at the Pacific Science Center
Now-August 31
Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Saturday-Sunday 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Adults $13 , Children $10

(For additional information regarding the history of this exhibit, a bit more of an overview and a PacMan trick that I know, please visit Aeropause. (Many thanks to Shane for letting me quote myself!))