photo by seattle bon vivant [flickr], via our group pool [flickr]

• Business Week profiles [#] Vivace, from its humble sidewalk cart beginnings to perfection-obsessed mini-empire. (via capitol hill seattle [#], who deems them “outside of our normal stomping grounds”.)
• It’s not too late to register for Sunday’s “Chilly Hilly” [bikeseattle]
• The Here & Now edition of Monopoly proves to be prophetic. Although they won’t get the coveted pyramid penthouse view, other people may soon be allowed to live in a condo-ified Smith Tower. [times]
• Can’t wait to see Charlize Theron & co. dressed up as Seattle circa 1999? Some Battle in Seattle stills were posted this week. [movieset]
• Addison might tire of ferry boats and spin-off from Grey’s Anatomy [givememyremote]
• In case you missed it: the ultimate guide to viaduct comment threads [slog]

photo by Puja Parakh [flickr], via the group pool

• Happy Birthday, Henry [seattleartblog]
• Breaking the editorial we to tell you how they feel about DRM [seattlest]
• Please let this gossip be proven incorrect: rumors have surfaced about dead character Denny “Tin Man” Duquette will be returning from the grave on Grey’s Anatomy. [popwatch]
• Jen Graves, on SuttonBeresCuller, their impersonators, and what it all means about Seattle’s art scene / “art” scene / art “scene” [slog]
• Of the 204 local responses to Capitol Hill Seattle’s mock viaduct advisory vote, 1% said yes(tunnel)–yes(viaduct); 47%, yes–no; 18% no–yes; 33% no–no. For all of the worries about web surveys being biased and non-representational, these numbers look fairly similar to last year’s [mb,mb] professional polls . [chs]
• courtroom drama! Watada trial ends, not with a verdict, but with a mistrial in the wake of misspecified stipulations. [p-i]

photo, adam berry [andrewbird]

• a new episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Want a recap? cast your vote. [mb]
• A dying kid in Colorado wants you to eat some ice cream tonight at Cold Stone. The yellow cake, chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkle concoction is free; tips will still induce unjust employee singing. [p-i]
• Andrew Bird counts professional whistling among his many talents. Live, he recreates his songs from scratch, looping layer over layer until something whole and new appears before the audience. But will there be snacks? [chopsuey]
• Man Man don beards and war paint, pound on eclectic instruments, and chant in service experimental psych folk, leading indie critics to wax philosophical [popmatters]. Hometown soon-to-be heroes, the Fleet Foxes open. [neumos]
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Devotees and wannabe fans of “Seattle”-based medical drama Grey’s Anatomy [abc] who need a refresher on the show’s finale (as if our extensive tag-team recappery [mb] wasn’t enough) might still be able to download the last episode free of charge as part of ABC’s “million hit lowdown” [abc] promotion. Get that sucker on your iPod and relive the Snow Patrol soundtracked angsty cliffhanger that’s been hovering over your summer like a bad habit.

Speaking of our favorite pseudo-obsession, ABC is planning to stream new episodes of the show, which has its third season premiere on 21 Sepetmber, free-of-charge over the internet [zap2it]. So people with Thursday night plans and no DVRs will be able to watch it all the next day on their high-bandwidth lunchbreaks. Kind of makes hastily-typed excruciatingly-detailed recaps seem horribly outdated.¹

(via popwatch [e.w.])

–
1. That is, I’m not really sure that there’s a point to doing long recaps about a show only tangentially related to Seattle. But, if you want them to continue — or better yet! want to write them, please drop us an e-mail at seattle.metblogs (at) gmail.com

After the jump, a recap of last night’s Grey’s Anatomy. One case — hillbillies vs. hospital intern, and the aftermath — dominates the medical intrigue. There’s a little bit of character development and relationship advancement and the showdown we’ve all been waiting for, possibly as a way of setting the stage for next week’s two-night season finale.
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Previously – George looks like Mr. Katimsky, who gave up on Momnesia and Meredith when Mother Grey wouldn’t give up on the hot hot love from the then not yet Chief. However, this lookalike business has gotten George into all sorts of trouble, such as occasional heckling and cuddling with Mother Grey and a long term rental in the Grey House and one night of weepy sex with Meredith. Daddy complexes are fun like that.

And with that, we’re off. A basketball player (#2, Robinson)
wearing home jersey scores a basket. And the crowd, watching the game on
television at Joe’s: the Only Bar in All of Seattle, goes wild. While everyone
cheers, Meredith knits.

Voiceover Meredith says: “A good basketball game can have
us all on the edge of our seats. Games are all about the glory, the pain, and
the play-by-play. And th
en there are the more solitary games we play. The games
we each play all by ourselves.”

And all of a sudden it’s inverse intervention time. Joe, to
no one in particular: “Dude? Is she knitting?” Apparently barroom knitting is a
big no-no, as the customers are scared of it. Dempsey makes it a double-team,
crossing the bar from his background perch to to tell her that she looks a
little weird. He says this as a “friend”. Meredith, not really looking up from
her domestic work, says that can’t have a drink because she’s celibate. They
both think that this Dartmouth grad is having vocab issues, but she doesn’t
mean sober. Well, sort of. For her, sobriety helps with the celibacy since drinking makes everyone look porny, and then her clothes come off, and good
times ensue. Naturally, AddiSatan lurks just around the corner to make it a
full-on triple assault on Meredith’s “just say no” approach to a night at the bar. After a fair share of
“what, you – celibate?” Grey points out the obvious – for her,
every guy turns out to be married or mark or George. She leaves out the guy
with the non-stop erection, which is understandable here. With that, the peer pressure gang lets her go back to her sweater making, which she claims will
help her surgical dexterity.

“The social games, the mind games, we use them to pass
the time, to make life more interesting, to distract us from what’s really
going on.”

After the jump: the Chief and Sandra Oh face off in the classroom, a spelling bee champ visits the O.R., something of a 1990s ABC primetime reunion, Alex talks tough, a whole lot of knitting, a little background basketball, and much much more!

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She didn’t really just say quiet in an empty ER, did she? Oh.

Previously on Grey’s Anatomy:
Meredith cries, George grows a spine, we get confirmation that Cristina isn’t a morning person, Izzy is our little optimistic ray of sunshine, Meredith begs and George ignores, George has another moment with CutieDoc, Grey discovers that the Chief (Richard) visits her mom, and Denny’s heart is giving out and they need to do surgery.

Back by popular demand, the complete Voice Over, with incredibly cool funky beat in the background. We also get a nice flyby of Seattle, north pulling down to the Space Needle (which as you know, is directly across from Seattle Grace Hospital).

My college campus has a magic statue. It’s a long-standing tradition for students to rub its nose for good luck.

We’re now inside SGH, where a nurse is writing on the surgery board.

My freshman roommate really believed in the statue’s power,

Meredith is scrubbing in for surgery with Addison, who removes her wedding ring and pins it to the front of her scrubs with the world’s largest safety pin, right where Meredith won’t be able to miss it. She even pats on it. What a bitch.

…and insisted on visiting it to rub its nose before every exam.

Cut to Burke’s OR, where he’s asking a scrub nurse if she’s sure there are none to be found. There are none to be found.

Studying might have been a better idea; she flunked out her sophomore year. But the fact is, we all have little superstitious things that we do.

Montage scene already! Burke is cracking his neck back and forth, McDreamy declares that it’s a beautiful day to save lives and we should all have fun, Bailey seems to clench her fingers and then tilt her head back, pause, and say okay.

If it’s not believing in magic statues, avoiding sidewalk cracks or always putting our left shoe on first. Knock on wood. Step on a crack, break your mothers back.

A nice gusher pops out of Addison’s patient. Burke’s patient flatlines, McDreamy’s patient has a reaction to anesthesia. Bailey begins to lose her patient, as well. All four doc’s lose their patients, Addison making Grey call it.

The last thing we want to do is offend the gods.
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Intervening events (the Winter Olympics (or rather, my roommate’s obsession with the Winter Olympics), schoolwork, and my own upcoming trip to Amsterdam (to visit Josh, who I am supposed to be filling in for)) are delaying the extensive recap, for which I sincerely apologize. A thorough recap is coming soon! Cross my heart, and hope not to turn into “pink mist” [see last week's episode [#]]. After the jump a quick and dirty–very quick and dirty–recap of this week’s episode, The End of the World As We Know It (Part II).
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take that nicolette sheridan. grey’s anatomy appeals to the superbowl demographic

Although I think Seattleites would agree that “code black” ought to be the code name for the Seahawks losing the Super Bowl, it actually involves Alex and Izzy getting it on, the Nazi about to give birth, a guest appearance by Christina Ricci, and other events marking The End of the World as We Know It (Part 1) . . .
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a thanksgivingday “ferry boat” ride.

Sorry for the long delay, but the full recap is now posted on the other side of the jump. The rundown on Isabel’s day in the kitchen, Chief Wannabe #2’s surprising social graces, George’s hunting expedition, a trailer park lovestory, Meredith’s angst, a short-lived miracle coma recovery, Joe’s gay boyfriend, and the hospital as an escape from personal drama.
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