Announcing the first ever Metroblogging Seattle photo contest! Hopefully this will become an ongoing way for you, our dear readers to get involved around here. You may even have a chance to win a prize, pending our ability to come up with something to give away.

Our first photo contest is going to be all about New Years Eve Parties. We want to see how you bring in the new year! Whether you are going to this year’s epic party, the space needle, your friend’s dinner party, or whatever; we want to see it!

The Rules:
1. All photos must be posted into our Flickr Pool
2. Photos must be tagged with seattlemetblogs_contest01
3. Photos must be taken on December 31, 2007 and January 1st, 2008
4. Keep it clean-ish. The winning photo must be able to be featured on the site!
5. Metroblogging Seattle authors are not eligible to enter photos, but bonus points to anyone who can catch one of us tearing it up somewhere!

Deadline for submissions will be January 10th 2008. This should give everyone enough time to sober up and post some pics. We will select a winner and announce it here on January 20th.

I’ll be writing about each of these events in detail as their dates draw closer, but go ahead and save the date now for:

• The Northwest Flower & Garden Show – not only am I Death to All Plants, I don’t even have a garden in the first place, and yet this show is so wonderful that it’s seriously one of my most favorite events of the year, every year. It’ll be at the Washington State Convention Center February 20 – 24, 2008. There’s going to be some focus at this year’s show on gardening for condo owners, so if they can only teach me to curb my horticultural homicidal tendencies, I might finally have a garden after all.
• Another show at the convention center that I enjoy every year is the Seattle Wedding Show. Cake! Flowers! Caterers! Fancy cars! Hotels, motels, inns and B&Bs and all kinds of destination getaways. Gorgeous dresses. Decoratiions and music and so much more, and, oh, did I mention cake? If you’re thinking about having a wedding, you don’t want to miss this show but even people as devoted to staying single as I am can find much to enjoy at this show. January 5th & 6th.
• Eyes Without a Face, quite possibly the best-made horror film ever, plays at SIFF on January 26.
• The Seattle Children’s Film Festival opens on January 25.
• The farewell tour of Riverdance is coming to Seattle, Jan 29 – Feb 3, 2008

Josh backs the wrong side
squirrels are soon going down
vote hillku instead

1. I hope you’ve already left to go shopping this morning. Oh, you haven’t? Then the day is already lost.

2. But here’s the trick for Saturdays at Costco: Time your trip so that you arrive around 5:30 and can get out of there no later than 6:15. It’s the eye of the “hurricane” — everyone has already checked out and is either heading home for dinner or chowing on Polish sausages and pizza at the Costco food court. You’re in, you’re out, Christmas is done. Sure, Grandma may be looking askance at the 30-pack of Charmin under the tree, but she’ll be thanking you later.

photo by seizethedave [flickr]

Do you really want this to be the first thing you see in the morning? I fear that if the squirrels don’t defeat hillku, they might turn from a life of carefree adorable nut-burying to one of window-licking vengeance.
Vote squirrel before it’s too late. Then vote again. And again. And again. The poll software isn’t the brightest bulb on the roofline. [capitolhillseattle]

Today’s the shortest day of the year. Why not celebrate at the Seattle Center, where the annual Winter Solstice festival features this year a performing art installation that blends words, movement, music, fire performances and luminaries. The festival starts at 3:45. Make sure you get there by 3:45 to join a procession that begins near the ice rink and moves at sunset to the International Fountain. It’s a beautiful and fun event.

image by Ricardo Martins via Creative Commons

I took this a few weeks ago when the last snow storm rolled through town. They say there is a chance that we could get more this evening before it gets warmer tomorrow. If you are out tonight, be safe!

Brian Dewey [flickr] shared this reflection of the doomed fun forest via our group pool [#]

• the bus tunnel will never re-open. or maybe that’s just how it feels. [times]
• cynical note to seattle concertgoers. [seattle.lj]
• unscrew the crocodile employees. twice! [threeimaginarygirls]
• the weekly is too grim for ferrygoers. [dailyweekly]
• can you figure out how to order a Starbucks drink that costs more than $13.76? [starbucksgossip]
• maybe by going to Denmark? [thegogglesdonothing]

Once again, Slog is trying to crush the Squirrels of Capitol Hill. They couldn’t do it last year; don’t let them do it this time either. [capitolhillseattle]

It’s not quite a tradition in my family to go to the movies on Christmas Day but it’s not something rare and shocking. Even when I was a kid and the majority of businesses were closed on Christmas Day, there was almost always a movie theater open somewhere. I don’t know why this is. Maybe someone else does, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s just nice to know that whether you celebrate Christmas or not, you can still get your flick on. (If you happen to be downtown, you can follow your movie with a latte from Monoral Espresso who are also open on Christmas Day.)

still from Persepolis courtesy Sony Classics.

There are quite a few good movies already in theater, plus a few more open on December 25th:

Persepolis is based on a graphic novel that was the first “Seattle Reads” selection. It tells the story of how young Marjane’s life in Tehran was drastically changed by the fall of the Shah.

The Great Debaters is yet another “inspiring teacher” tale. This one might be better than most, though, since it stars Denzel Washington.

A young Scottish boy finds an egg that hatches into a creature who looks suspiciously like a certain legendary Scottish “monster” in The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep.

Fans of violent alien creatures are no doubt excited about the opening of Alien vs. Predator: Requiem.

The Bucket List stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two terminally ill friends who go on a road trip to fulfill a pre-dying wish list. Oops, I was premature: this doesn’t open in Seattle until January.