clash photomontage via st. vincent [myspace]

• Us, wonderful us. It’s our rescheduled monthly Metroblogging super fun drinky times. Tonight at Bimbo’s. We’ll be pouring over the latest in the Tournament of Blogs showdown over margaritas and nachos. Drop by to say hello, influence the polling, protest the results, or just sit quietly and observe from the bar. And yes, there will be snacks. 6:30 pm [facebook]
• Ignite, part the fifth. Another sure-to-be crowded parade of breakneck paced PowerPoint presentations about topics deserving of more time. For instance: Dick Carlson on “Bad Powerpoint! Bad! Bad!”, Mónica Guzmán on “How to be an awesome news story commenter”, Justin Martenstein on “the six hour startup”. So much excitement jam-packed into so little time. 8 pm, Capitol Hill Arts Center [igniteseattle]
• Charles Muedede, Kathy Fennessy, and Jay Kuehner face off at the Northwest Film Forum on the topic of whether film criticism is still relevant now that everyone has a ‘blog. $3/5, 8pm [nwff]
• Grand Archives begin their world-conquering record rollout campaign today. Their almost self-titled release (the Grand Archives) from Sub Pop hit finer record stores across the country this morning. They’ll be on KEXP today at three, KNDD tomorrow Thursday, and playing a double-header at the Triple Door tomorrow. Tonight, you’ll find them playing a free in-store at Sonic Boom in Ballard. If you thought the four song demo EP was nice, just wait until you hear the album. It is excessively full, rich, and gorgeously produced: old Carissa’s Weird pals Sarah Stoddard, Jenn Ghetto, and Sera Cahoone show up all over the place and one song even has a Flugelhorn! [myspace]
• St. Vincent is the band configuration of sometimes Polyphonic Spreester, occasional Illinoisemaker, and always incredible Annie Clark. Aside from being spooky, dreamy, and lovely, her latest album (Marry Me) is named after a running joke on Arrested Development. With Foreign Born. $12, 8pm. [neumos]

Dave Niehaus is this year’s Ford Frick Award winner and will be enshrined in the broadcasters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. (Wing’s a bit of a misnomer; it’s really a room behind the main Hall on your right, right before the gift shop and the library.)

Niehaus is most remembered for going completely apoplectic whenever the M’s did anything right. I swore he was going to drop dead in the saddle during the 1995 playoff run. Next year, he almost did.

Yeah, he is getting older, a little slower, and is calling a few too many shallow fly balls as if they’re homers, but he’s still the Voice Of Summer in Seattle.

About time, Hall of Fame.

The library must be doing well. When I went to drop off a book at the Capitol Hill branch- I found the drop box over-flowing with returned books and even a cd. Since the library was closed yesterday due to President’s Day, I did not leave my book in the drop box. Do you use the library? How often? I visit the library about every two weeks. I’m working my way through Time Magazine’s all time top 100 novels from 2005 as it’s easier to borrow them than to buy them.

photo ~wesa~

Huskies Fan chomped Capitol Hill Seattle, while Lookout Landing opened up an enormous lead on Three Imaginary Girls, which is to be expected when their competition is imaginary. And now, it’s Mariners vs. Huskies. Two sad, downtrodden fan bases competing for the only title they’ll see this year. Between Carlos Silva’s pitching and the Huskies inability to play defense, I’m expecting a high-scoring matchup filled with incredible frustration. Because that is, after all, what every Seattle sports fan expects — the crushing of all hopes in the most indignant way imaginable.

Bottom half of the Squirrel Bracket begins… now.

UPDATE: Apparently, there are some folks who think gaming the system is fun and exciting. Well, gaming the system can hurt you. It can damage tendons and ligaments. It can cause aggressiveness. It can make your balls shrink. Do you want to end up like Jose Canseco? No, you don’t, do you.

This is why you can’t have nice things. It’s back to the crappy polling system for you.

UPDATE 2: And that system just quit, too. Wonderful. So, on to version 3. Written in old fashioned HTML that makes me wince when reading it. Just kill me now.

The clock runs out Monday at 9pm PST, or when someone fires Bavasi, whichever comes first.

And now, the perfunctory links to the other open polls:
West Seattle Blog/Citizen Rain – Hillku/Kirida (closes Tuesday night)
Seattle Daily Photo/Blogging Georgetown/Mid Beacon Hill – Defective Yeti/Glitter Pissing (closes Wednesday night)
Seattle Bubble/Accidental Hedonist (closes Sunday night)

The original bracket post

Tomorrow: Can poetry beat motherhood? Can Citizen Rain stage a comeback? Are we staring at a West Seattle showdown?

photo by Wesa

My husband and I were sneaking through Pike Place Market on Sunday when we ran across this humorous display at Fero’s Meat Market. I love these guys.

photo by aimee (mia) wenske [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• John “in the morning” Richards talks about his move to NYC diary [lineout] and interview style. [reverb]
• How have I never noticed this? Metallic profile of Washington in Freeway Park. [seattledailyphoto ]
• Remember the waterfront street train? The one evicted by the OSP? It might have a new home. [seatrans]
• The joys of the airport, and the road to and from it. [chtriangle]
• Seattle, slightly more wired this year than last. But still trailing Atlanta. [seattletraveler]
• The transition from Flexcar to Zipcar, it is not going well. [slog]

• Photos on Yahoo: Ballmer about to devour Yang [boing boing]
• Microsoft to buy mobile software firm [nytimes]
• Starbucks to offer limited free Wi-Fi [p-i]
• Hey Yahoo: Why not launch a takeover bid for Microsoft? [p-i]
• Yahoo Is Said to Be in Talks With News Corp. [nytimes]
• Microsoft Shakes Up Online Team Ahead of Yahoo [nytimes]
• New Amazon.com service shows competitors’ prices [p-i]
• Microsoft Reassigns Several Top Executives [nytimes]
• Amazon Using Computer Bestseller List to Push Kindle Content? [o'reilly radar]
• Amazon’s storage service briefly shuts off [p-i, nytimes]
• Ignite Seattle 5 Schedule Posted [o'reilly radar]
• How virtualization solves real problems [seattle times]

I think I speak for most of us here at Seattle Metblogs when I say that Hillku is one of our favorites. Shrouded in mystery, they appeared out of the blue and charmed us with their haiku poetry about Capitol Hill. Below is a Q&A I did via email with City and Final, the two gracious purveyors of Hillku.

(Note: Hillku is facing a tough Round 2 charm-off with Kirida; voting is still open [m-b].)

Q:
who are you really?
the mystery confounds me.
at least: girl or guy?

A:
Straight Obama girl,
Homo Hills boy. Politics
Won’t divide us, though.
(more…)

And there will be a new champion this year, as Seattle Bubble destroys USS Mariner. On the other side, Accidental Hedonist knocks out Vintage Seattle. Guess you folks like to eat more than you like to look at old pictures. What the hell is wrong with you people?

So, real estate vs. food. Welcome to the first quarterfinal, or the first semifinal of the Squirrel Bracket. However you want to refer to it is fine by me.

In the other brackets, the races in the bottom half of the Squirrel Bracket are far from settled (closing Monday night), the top half of the Coyote Bracket is not completely settled (though you Hillku fans better get on the ball before Tuesday night), and the bottom half of the Coyote Bracket is wrapping up Wednesday night so vote early and often.

For those of you confused about how this process works, here’s the original bracket post.

Tomorrow: Are we looking at an all-sports quarterfinal? Did J and/or K anger the wrong sorts of Huskies fans? And can anything stop to Lookout Landing juggernaut?

One of my co-workers pointed out recently that every time I talk about some big trade show (the bridal show, the event planning show, the women’s show, etc.) I claim it’s my favorite show of the year, but the Northwest Flower and Garden Show really is. Now in its 20th year, the show has a little bit of something for everyone, from the gorgeous full-scale show gardens (this time there are no less than 20 of them) to helpful seminars to vendor booths offering merchandise that includes bulbs and seeds and plants, garden tools and furniture, and even packages of bees to help gardeners with their pollination needs. The atmosphere is always lush and warm and inviting inside the show, giving visitors a nice little oasis from the usual nastiness of Northwest winter weather.

I’m extra excited about going this year because there’s an increased focus on container gardening. Since I live in an apartment and have zero yard space, I’d thought that having a home garden was completely out of reach for me until I first heard of container gardening, a fancy term which basically means you’re growing your garden in, well, a container. It’s a great form of gardening accessible for just about anyone who lives in an apartment or condo; after I first heard about it I suddenly started noticing just how many people in my own neighborhood had container gardens. In addition to all the seminars they’re offering on the topic, the show will be hosting a container garden exhibition with showcases every bit as creative and stylish as the yard sized container gardens.

Other fun things at the show include “Funky Junk”, a showcase garden created by local high school horticulture students and non-profit organizations that blend plants and recycled or found objects, the “Dream Turf park”–a unique greenspace made with synthetic grass perfect for having an indoor family picnic, the Women’s Health Pavillion, which offers a series of free health screenings and presents a seminar on “Gardening for Good Health”, and “Sproutopia”, a hands-on area for kids to learn about gardening.

Even if you’re not interested in growing things yourself, it’s fun to simply walk the show and check out all the beautiful plant life. The Northwest Flower & Garden Show runs from February 20 through February 24, from 9 am to 9 pm Wednesday through Saturday and from 9 am to 6 pm on Sunday.