So you want to open presents on Christmas morning in front of a fire but don’t want the hassle of getting your chimney cleaned/setting the living room ablaze? Well, it looks like some channel–KMYQ-TV, Broadcast 22/Cable 10–will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Yule Log broadcast by showing it from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on the 25th [#].

The Yule Log has played on Christmas morning in New York since it was filmed at Gracie Mansion in 1966. It’s been cleaned up and digitalized and the music has been restored, which was a bit of a process since half of the songs are out of print. (If you’ve never seen the Yule Log, it’s both completely worth it and exactly what it sounds like: two hours worth of video of a merrily crackling fireplace.)

If you’re traveling, you can also download the Yule Log podcast for your video iPod.

you may have noticed that we’re going into post-solstice semi-hibernation mode here. But before jetting off to michigan for a very midwestern xmas, a few of the items that have been accumulating in the in other blogs queue:

• although the editorial we is an odd fit for a personal tribute, this essay is a fitting celebration of the best cafe in the u-district’s best cafe [seattlest]
• a clever way to check for electricity from afar [westseattleblog]
• a fitting conclusion to a weblog about watching the watchers: tips for rock audiences (“Yelling `Freebird!’ at any show makes you sound drunk and old.”)[thefanalyst]
• triple threat! hating on the times for their multilingual warning and on the p-i for a stranger-quoting writer intro. [dailyweekly]
• unless one of the techies using Victrola as office space comes up with an automated way to hijack the “vote early and often” polling system, it looks like the Slog is on its way to a head-to-head matchup with the squirrels, in an esoteric Capitol Hill Tournament that included almost no contenders south of Thomas or west of 15th. [chs]

this photograph by Galen Ward (Icefield – No Dumping) will be displayed on a 30″ x 40″ lightbox at McLeod residence.

Tick tock. Are you still shopping? Scouring the stores for a perfect gift for that discerning person on your list? Others have already mentioned the benefits of waste-free giving. To those lists I add the suggestion of a membership at the McLeod Residence. I first saw the space last month and was really excited about its potential. When I dropped back in earlier this week, my enthusiasm for it multiplied to near-hyperbolic levels.

What, exactly, is McLeod Residence? There are several related answers to that question. It’s the realization of the teenage ambitions of Buster and Lele Mcleod, back before those were their names. It’s a new Belltown art gallery that will be opening to the public for the first time on the first Friday of 2007. There will be lasers, classic northwest art, and large-format new works presented on slick lightboxes mounted on cozy dark walls. Someday soon, half of it will be a bar, too. You’ll go there to hang out with your old friends, meet new people, and it will feel like an extension of your living room. All of the meeting and conversing and sharing ideas that have become second nature online will be translated back into the real world in unexpected ways. Probably over drinks.

While you’re there, if you have a pulse, you will marvel at the sexiness of the wallpaper in the foyer as soon as you walk up the grand stairway from street level. Seriously. It is so good that it rivals Chapel’s upstairs for the city’s best wall coverings. You’ll gather with people around a touch screen and suddenly your picture will be on the internet. [flickr] If you like the furnishings or the decorations enough, they are likely to be for sale.

mcleod interior // photo courtesy miss_eagle_eye [flickr]

And all of this is all just you’re just visiting! But if you buy yourself a membership [#], look out! Members will have bottle service, will become inventors and namers of a drinks, and will have the privilege of accumulating monthly tabs. They can host a party in the beautiful space for free. Members will no longer trouble themselves with staying home to wait for the UPS driver to ring — packages can be sent to the Residence. An exclusive room with rare Abstract Expressionist painting by William Ivey will be open only to members. But the best of all the perks might be use of the McLeod name. It is awfully catchy, isn’t it?

Yes, you’ll notice that there are a lot of McLeods involved with this project. The name is not by birth or marriage, but by choice, coin flips, and court documents. Is it a creepy death cult? The official word position is that it most certainly is not. Instead, it is an invitation to extraordinary living. At the introductory price of $50 ($200 for life), it might be the best gift you give yourself or a loved one this year.

At the very least, add yourself to the mailing list and you might hear about a fun party.

If you’re interested in reading something more coherent and less gushy, might I recommend their press release? [mcleod]

A lot of people were very upset by the whole holiday tree/menorah hubbub at the airport [mb], and then the problem just…went away. The trees came back and the menorah stayed away, and what is a person to do with all of this misplaced holiday anger?

Well, one could get all up in arms about the Capitol’s refusal to add a Nativity scene to its collection of holiday trees and menorah [P-I]. “Steve Valandra, a spokesman for the Department of General Administration, officials were concerned that in comparison with a tree or menorah, a Nativity scene might carry a stronger impression of government endorsement of religion.” I suppose they could nestle the creche in a grove of holiday trees and have it lit by menorah-light or…something. I don’t know; I can’t get excited about any of it. All of my holiday spirit is spent waiting for those creepy Nutcrackers downtown to mobilize in the middle of the night and take down the city.

The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that Ticketmaster has invested $13.3 million into I Like, a Seattle based music-sharing social network site.

Yesterday the Governor released her proposed budget, which includes:

• adding state jobs, including 1300 new positions at Coyote Ridge (Franklin County prison), 960 college and university positions, 300 Children’s Services positions, and Transportation and Natural Resources positions
• $2.8 billion for the Alaskan Way Viaduct
• $31 million in state money and $30 million in federal money to provide health coverage for an additional 32,000 (this is really cool, but how about something for all the uninsured adults, too?)
• $26 million for childhood immunizations
• $9 million to promote tourism, including nearly $900K for a marketing campaign to promote Washington as a tourism destination during the 2010 Winter Olympics

Why, just last week Seattleites were stung by the shame of being omitted from Forbes‘s list of America’s Most Brainiac cities [#]. Our bookish outdoorsy pride was crushed by the financial magazine’s lack of appreciation for our high proportion of undergraduate degrees.

Today, CNN puts us back in our rightful place at the top of a meaningless ranking system [#]. The Forbes champion, (Boulder, Colorado) is nowhere to be seen. Yes, as a city, we’re probably all bright enough to see that one study must be using flawed methods, but let’s just agree to be pragmatic enough to just agree with the results that we like best.

Although I don’t take the print edition of the Seattle Times, I knew that the power outage situation was grim when I noticed today’s cover through a newspaper box while waiting for my morning caffeine fix:

More interesting than the take home message (bringing charcoal grills inside = recipe for disaster) was the selection of languages — Vietnamese, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Somali — and how that might reflect not only the city’s overall demographics, but the specific demographics of the areas without power.

The P-I just got the memo about the impending condo development that will displace Winners Circle, the Cha Cha, Bimbo’s, Manray, and Kincora. Yes, this was in the Stranger three weeks ago [#], but the P-I held out on the story until they could find some blue collar patrons of the Cha Cha:

… on Saturday evening, Tom Wicken, 39, Mike Regan, 33, and Nick Anderson, 22, walked in carrying motorcycle helmets, having just gotten off work at the Auto Pro repair shop across the street.

Regan imagined the new development would charge higher rents and the kinds of the stores that could afford it would move in. “It’s like that Yuppie place over there on Pike,” he said, referring to a tapas bar. “They’re going to charge $7 for a beer.”

Wicken lamented, “I’m going to have to wear a clean shirt.” [p-i]

Although pricey beers seem likely, the long-term presence of auto repair shops in a shiny condo wonderland does not.

Since I work nearby, I decided to check out Josh’s suggestion of seeing the “snow” at Pacific Place.

I think it’s been mentioned here in the past that the “snow” is really bubbles. When you study it closely, it’s a little weird to see small clumps of bubbles dropping from above, but from a mere few feet away, it really does look it is snowing inside. I don’t think it would be worth a special trip just to see it but if you happen to be downtown at the right time, it is worth checking out.