image, via Wikipedia

Man, those packs of marauding dogs down in SeaTac have to be stopped. (The fact that I wasn’t aware that roaming canines were a problem until just now is neither here nor there, thanks.) On Sunday they chased a couple of ostriches from their home, at which point the ostriches started running around busy roads like, well, large flightless birds.

“They were reported running down the middle of the road heading north. Then they were running south, then apparently they were walking because they became exhausted [Times].” The birds have since been corralled, but the dogs are still at large. I can’t urge you strongly enough, people, to lock up your ostriches until this has been resolved. Ostrich safety begins in the home.

Were you looking to get yourself a genuine service-used ferry? Well, you just missed out on a great chance to get one – the M/V Steilacoom, a 71 year old former Navy vessel used as a back-up ferry by Pierce County sold to an E-bay buyer for $49,500.

via OSP

Interested in symphony tickets this fall?

For those contemplating ticket packages for the symphony, Microsoft developer and music lover Raymond Chen presents his annual visual guide to the Seattle Symphony season, with some commentary about the pieces to be performed.

Poems on the bus
Word art by us, the people
Enter now, and here

Subsequently, any comments should also be a haiku, or your favorite style of poetry.

So dpolls died, taking our balloting system with us. Who knew the “d” stood for Diebold?

I’ve replaced two of the polls — Ballard and U District — with new ones. In the other two, I’m going to go ahead and declare winners, since I knew the margins were already wide and I don’t think Chris Pirillo was about to loose his minions upon the poll… unless that’s what brought it down….

Please congratulate West Seattle Regional champion Seattle Daily Photo and Capitol Hill Regional champion Lookout Landing. On Friday they will face off for the a berth in the Championship Round. The Ballard and U District champions will also face off on that day in the other semifinal. Maybe if one of you is nice you can make some nice “regional winner” graphics, because I sure can’t.

Technology sucks.

via The Weird Worlds of A.E. van Vogt

Serious about writing science fiction or fantasy? Want to make a career out of it?

Clarion West, the annual six-week intensive workshop for prospective SF writers, is accepting applications for their 2007 workshop, to be held here in Seattle this summer. Instructors include Samuel R. Delaney, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Kelley Eskridge, Graham Joyce, Larissa Lai, and Nancy Kress.

It costs six weeks of time and some real money: $2900 including room and partial board. There are scholarships available, however, and if you apply by March 1, they’ll knock $100 off the tuition. (The final deadline for applications is April 1.)

See the Clarion West web site for more details.

Thanks, Patrick!

Yes, we know that the polling software (dpolls.com) is broken. No, we don’t know when they’re going to fix it.

Yes, we know who was winning when it all broke. No, we’re not rigging it.

Yes, if it continues to be broken, alternatives will be found and the show will go on. No, I didn’t know you actually cared.

(Honestly, if you can find better online polling software, let me know.)

via BetweenTheCovers

In a halftime ceremony at tonight’s game, former Sonics star Spencer Haywood will have the honor of having his number retired by the organization.

Every time you see a young high-school player join the NBA for big-time cash, say thanks to Haywood. He was the first to bypass the league’s then-current rule that a player couldn’t join the league until they’d been out of high school for four years. Haywood points out that the best college players don’t see a dime of the megamillions they’re making for their schools and the NCAA.

Haywood put up some impressive numbers – when he left in 1975, he was the Sonics’ leader in career scoring average (24.9) and rebounding average (12.1). Still, if you really want to know why Haywood’s number is being retired now, you have to look carefully near the bottom of the long Seattle Times piece about him:

Haywood, 57, continues to give back to basketball. He wants his jersey ceremony to help revive the city’s passion for the Sonics and to build an arena in Renton. And if it happens, owner Clay Bennett has agreed to allow the construction arm of Haywood Group LLC to help build the facility.

Deep Throat was right. Follow the money. Always follow the money.

Vancouver with a viaduct, via Flickr user paytonc

We here at Metroblogging Seattle are just about as sick of the entire viaduct discussion as you are. This may be the first time in history that we think LJ’s Jameth has a point.

I still think the city could make good money by auctioning off the right to press the button that causes the viaduct to collapse on itself, a la the Kingdome.

However, we’re here to serve, and so we bring you a Flickr user’s visual comment on what other waterfronts would look like if they, too, had viaducts like ours.

Vote no. Twice.

If I hadn’t found myself at the Tacoma Doma bus station with time on my hands and the craving for a latte on my mind, I wouldn’t have found a reason to look around for a place to get some coffee and therefore would not have encountered Celebrity Cake Studio [CCS site] at Freighthouse Square. As it happens, I did, and I’m glad because cake is one of my favorite things and Celebrity Cake Studios does cake right.

The shop attached to the bakery is bright and inviting and the service was friendly and helpful. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t get my latte decaffeinated, but, hey, they’re not a coffee shop, they’re a cake shop. And what a cake shop! Choosing which slice of cake I wanted was an actual challenge because there were a large and wide variety of cake options from which to choose, each and every one of them looking appealing. Even the chocolate–and I am no fan of chocolate cake. Ultimately I chose a white cake with a raspberry ribbon and was glad of it, but I have a feeling I would have been happy with any of my choices. The cake was moist and flavorful, the filling was tasty without overpowering the rest of the cake and the frosting was light and frothy.

It might seem a small point, but I appreciated getting my to go slice packaged in a small box: if you’ve ever been given a slice of cake in a bag, you’ll know why. I carried my box all the way up to Seattle before eating it and it survived being bounced around as I walked back to the bus stop, got on the bus, rode all the way up to Seattle, got off and took another bus home without any damage.

You don’t have to go all the way to Tacoma to get it: their cakes are sold at area Metropolitan Markets and Thriftways. If you’re going to Tacoma anyway, though, you might as well head down to another location that sells Celebrity Cake Studio cakes, the Point Defiance Zoo, and have your cake and eat it at the zoo.