pic via seattle daily photo [flickr] via our group pool

• Where have all the 40s gone? [seattle.lj]
• Roundup of Capitol Hill breakfast hotspots [seattle.lj]
• Local glamour! Matthew Baldwin posts the best picture of himself ever taken [defectiveyeti]
• FareStart is now open for lunch [seattlebonvivant]
• Finally, science does something good: caffeinated donuts. How soon and where can we get them? [gizmodo]
• Interview with Seattle abandoners, Band of Horses [pitchfork]

While we’ve all been worrying about what happens when the viaduct goes down, King County Executive Ron Sims has been talking to Metro and finding a sunny outlook for traffic amelioration. This, from his editorial into day’s Seattle Times:

I asked my Metro planners to tell me whether there were “a thousand different ways” we could use transit to reduce traffic on the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The answer was astounding. It wasn’t a thousand ways, or even one hundred. It was 49. Forty-nine traffic management ideas and street improvements that, when combined with expanded service options and the arrival of Link light rail, can remove about 30 percent of all trips on the viaduct. Forty-nine things can remove up to 35,000 car trips from the viaduct! [times]

This is all well and good — and refreshingly optimistic in these gloom and doom times — but does anyone else find it odd that they chose 49 as their number? I ask only because, despite its semi-recent revamping for maximum efficiency, Metro’s 49 route feels like the most chronically late and regularly slow bus in the entire system.

The list [pdf] of suggestions are included as text after the jump.

(via friends of seattle [#])
(more…)

• Martin Amis visits Town Hall in support of House of Meetings [elliottbay]
• What can we infer about the tastes of local hiphop fans from tonight’s lineup? Subtle [neumos] vs. the Game [themoore]
• Fun fact! Papa Roach is still a band. AND they’re playing at the Showbox. [upcoming]

Our Portland.metblogs cousins have been hassling us [mb] about not showing enough enthusiasm in the lead up to Lebowskifest 2007. (apparently two quick mentions weren’t enough for them.) Well, this makes number 3: today’s the day to buy your tickets.

There are two components to this celebration of all things Lebowski. The festival opens with a party, featuring a screening of the Big Lebowski at the Showbox. If you survive that, the next day will bring you to Kenmore for bowling (what else?). At both of these events, you’ll have the chance to drink White Russians with Jeff “the Dude” Dowd [mb], the real life inspiration for the character in the Coen brothers movie.

It all goes down 9-10 March, giving you plenty of lead time to memorize the lines (or actually watch the movie for the first time). Are you excited about this? If so, you’d better pay up early. The organizers claim that these things sell out like hotcakes; so why delay and face later crushing disappointment?

Party tickets [not yet on sale]
Bowling tickets [ticketweb]

The Woodland Park Zoo [site] is holding a horse-naming contest for the “community horse”, the last horse to be installed on the zoo’s historic carousel. The winner will be drawn randomly from all entries received and will get four tickets to the zoo and a private ride with three guests on the carousel. A plaque with the winner’s name and the horse’s name will hang for three months in the carousel building, long enough for thousands of people to be impressed by the great name you chose.

To enter, download an entry form from the zoo’s community horse page. [site]

In other WPZ news, the zoo will once again be offering a Valentine’s dinner at their Rainforest Food Pavillion. Listen to live jazz and enjoy a menu that includes Northwest Dungeness crabcakes, fresh asparagus soup, Romaine hearts with blood oranges and orchids, and choice of entrees: roasted cedar plank wild salmon, grass-fed beef tenderloin, or vegetarian portabella mushroom Wellington. It’s well worth the $50 per person to have your night of romance in such a unique setting – if you’re interested call for your reservation (or to get more info) now at 206.684.4825 as reservations go fast.

photos via WPZ

photo by b mully [flickr] via our group pool

• plan ahead! McLeod Residence plans a costume party. Once the paparazzi action is finished and the photos have been selected, come dressed as your favorite notable. [upcoming]
• Monitor breakdown highlights cash shortfalls, motivating a fundraiser. Help a liberal ‘blogger out. Send any extra cash this way, we like new tech, too. [horsesass]
• Audrey goes to Sundance, sees Zoo, yawns [seattlest]
• Now that the damage is done, and maximum publicity has been attained, FOX wants that hilarious YouTube video of slurry Paula Abdul taken down. [lostremote]
• Sugar-watchers panic at reports of a sugarless cinnamon dolce syrup shortage. [starbucksgossip]

Honestly, people, how often do you get a chance to watch campy 70’s porn both in public and in 3-D? (That’s a rhetorical question, please don’t answer me.) “Hard Candy” is a truly surreal experience, and not just because of the 3-D. Plot summary is as follows:

“Three ancient Greek centurions wearing inner tubes wash up on a California beach looking to storm the walls of Troy. When they come to an impenetrable wall, one of them puts on an Easter Bunny costume and jumps over it on a trampoline. He crash-lands in a candy factory that’s about to be taken over by an evil fertilizer company, where he inadvertently spills a thermos of cream-of-yak soup on the lollipops, which in turn become powerful aphrodisiacs.”

Do you need any more encouragement than that?

The Lollipop Girls in “Hard Candy” is showing Friday and Saturday night at midnight at the Egyptian, located at 805 East Pine St.

Stuck in a lunchtime rut? Too lazy to pack up leftovers or make yourself lunch in the morning, but too cheap to drop a lot of cash on lunch? The good people over at Chowhound are working hard to solve all of your thrifty dining problems.

Challenged to come up with ideas for $5 (or less!) meals, users made a ton of great suggestions for eating on the cheap [chowhound]. The discussion from last year seems to have been re-discovered and is picking up new suggestions all day. So far, Zum Zum, the Crumpet Shop, and a host of spots in the International District are popping up on several favorites lists. File the thread away for the next time you’re hungry and digging through cushions for spare lunch money.

Feel free to share your favorite spots that they missed in the comments.

Our neighborhood pub is a very kid-friendly place, to its credit, but sometimes it leaves the childless couples such as ourselves feeling a bit put upon.

“We ought to be able to bring in our greyhound,” my wife told the bartender one day. “She’s friendly, polite, and a lot less noisy than the kids.”

“if I didn’t have to worry about health inspectors,” said the bartender, “you’d be set.”

Apparently state Senator Ken Jacobsen of Seattle thinks the same way. He’s introduced a bill to allow bars and restaurant owners with liquor licenses, at their discretion, to let leashed, well-behaved dogs into their establishments.

Senator, you have our vote. Plus four paws up.

Alright, here’s what I think you should do tonight:

Argo and Central Services will be joining Julep at Nectar tonight for the release of their first EP. Julep’s got a girl drummer, Jen Trujillo, and lady drummers are hot.

Not sure how many belts you should be wearing this year or if your neck bandana is still in style? The Lashes will be at Chop Suey with Rocket to answer those questions.

If you’re like me and you’ve been falling a little more in love with Earl Greyhound every day, you’ll be sad to hear that their show at the Crocodile has been canceled because their van flipped on a patch of ice. The band and their gear are ok, and now I don’t have to figure out how to be in two places at once. Instead, we should all just go to Nectar.