photo by Chris Villanueva [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• Oh, look: more parking in Capitol Hill. The 500 block of Pine to go gravel while the developers fight about cornices. [slog]
• Hey, it’s the first Thursday of the month. How about a video to tell you about Art Walk in Pioneer Square? [alexgarcia]
• Other commentary about the Great Shopping Bag Tax: (1) anything to reduce contributions to the FLOATING GARBAGE PILE in the Pacific Ocean, (2) stores should start selling sturdier bags. [horsesass]
• Become Seattle’s next top amateur model? [blackbird]
• Radiohead is coming to Seattle. Maybe at the end of their West Coast tour, maybe with Grizzly Bear. Rumors, rumors, to be confirmed or denied next week. Maybe. [brooklynvegan] Update: more rumors and speculation that they’re “here” on 20 August. And by “here”, they mean White River Amphitheater(a.k.a., a million miles from anywhere by two lane road to a terrible parking lot.) [lineout, earcandy]

• OMG OMG OMG: Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo [bbc, nytimes, o'reilly radar]
• Firefox share up over 20% in Europe, mostly at expense of IE [ars technica]
• Sprint, Clearwire in new talks on WiMAX partnership [ars technica]
• Panoramic VR Photography of Seattle Artists In Their Studios [laughing squid]
• Microsoft Ruling: Split Decision, Two More Years of Oversight [ny times, ars technica]
• Amazon’s Profit More Than Doubles [nytimes]
• Amazon CEO: We can’t keep up with demand for Kindle [ars technica]
• Amazon buys Audible, promises to kill DRM if we complain [boing boing, nytimes]
• “Cookie-cutterish” wedding registry won’t do for Edmonds couple [seattle times]
• Amazon’s Hot New Item: Its Data Center [nytimes]
• Amazon’s anti-DRM tee [boing boing]
• Web Trend Map 2008 [boing boing]
• Yahoo switches music service to Rhapsody [p-i]
• Amazon MP3 store to go global [boing boing]
• Bill Gates and his iPod [boing boing]

photo by david hogan [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• Radiohead is coming to Seattle sometime in 2008. Before or after their Euro tour and to some unspecified venue. [p'fork, every other blog in universe] Based on Thom Yorke’s comments to David Byrne about what an ecological disaster touring is, we can only hope that they choose an in-city venue to make us kill the environment a little more softly this time around. [wired]
• Sonic Boom is consolidating its forces, closing down their Fremont location. [lineout, everyotherblog in the city]
• The Henry gets a new curator: Sylvia Wolf (former photography director from the Whitney) [arttogo]
• Putting Nicole Brodeur’s suggestion of a city-wide ban against pit bulls in perspective. [seattlecrimeblog] (See also, Malcolm Gladwell’s “Troublemakers: what pit bulls teach us about profiling” [newyorker])

photo via laser radiohead

By now, true fans have gorged on In Rainbows, the In Rainbows discbox, the In Rainbows webcast, the In Rainbows CD packaging, and all other things Radiohead. But wait … there’s one more was to celebrate your adoration of the most important band in the universe. No, not the archives of the NYE webshow. Yes, Laser Radiohead at the Pacific Science Center’s planetarium, which premieres tonight. I have no idea what this will be like, but I’m hoping that at least one of you is brave enough to check it out to let the rest of us know just how mind-blowing it turns out to be. 9:15 pm, LASER DOME [myspace]

photo by b mully [flickr] via our user-powered group pool [#]. please show us something pretty.

• Even a public intern can’t solve the chaos of DJ Riz’s home record collection. [slog]
• Worst Football Weekend EVER: caused by a roommate’s bad luck girlfriend? [seattlest]
• (male) sports fans have dirty hands. [citizenrain]
• No, Feist didn’t lift moves from Mandance. [hotsplice]
• When a piece needs a bold “this is humor” footnote, maybe it needs to be funnier? [crosscut]
• Microsoft, Starbucks, WaMu, Nordstrom, & REI get perfect scores from Human Rights Campaign on the Corporate Equality Index. [qseattle]
• Sean Nelson looks at Chris Crocker, sees Tarnation. [slog]

photo by grundlepuck [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• Tailgating in seattle sucks, apparently the worst in NFL country. (but what about the Husky Stadium?) [bigblog]
• Death Cab might be planning a plan to record a follow up to Plans. [p'fork]
• Regina Hackett thinks that you should skip the Stranger’s Genius Awards party in favor of a Motel. [arttogo]
• holy maths! google does Roman numeral calculations. [iheartteriyaki]

I can totally sympathize with those who strategically try to arrive at a show at the exact moment that the headliner takes the stage, but sometimes if you show up early you can luck into seeing openers that absolutely kill. Such was the case at Neumo’s on Saturday night.

:: Siberian ::
more photos from the show [flickr]

I spent most of Siberian’s set astonished at just how good they were and baffled by who they reminded me of. Had I heard them before? Do I own their CD? Now I remember that their lush shoegazy guitars probably sounded so familiar because I listened to a few songs on their website a couple weeks ago when I saw that they were playing with Wolf Parade.

Finn Parnell’s vocals occasionally got lost in the mix, but that seemed pretty o.k. since their music is more about cascading waves of pretty simmering guitars, their interplay, and eventual roaring climaxes. He also forgot bandmate Zach Tillman’s birthday, but any minor tension resulting from this oversight was quickly remedied with a shot of whiskey as the band moved on to satisfy the shouted requests from the audience (”… some songs are good, and some songs we play in the middle.”) as they led to a crowd pleasing finale. Now, instead of wondering who they sounds like, I’m going to switch to being puzzled over why they aren’t a little more famous.

:: Holy Fuck! ::

An exclamatory expletive name is a tough hurdle for a band to set for themselves in the expectations department. But in the face of two tables filled with plugs, cables, pedals, all sorts of gagetry and four guys, I repeatedly did find myself thinking “holy fuck!” as the relentless and spazzy dance music overwhelmed the defenses of at least the front half of the club.

Samantha, who often has trouble with lyrically-free music started imagining them as what would happen if M83 & Junior Boys had a baby who grew up with Explosions in the Sky and played electronic Battleship in their community center rec room. While I saw where she was coming from, I just thought that the Toronto quartet was making the sort of rave soundtrack that would have played over the massive party scene in one of those Matrix sequels if all of the people who escaped the evil robot simulacrum were music nerds instead of computer geeks with too much time for philosophizing on their hands.

A stage littered with casios of various flavors (often swapped quickly within songs), a seemingly bottomless suitcase stuffed with musical toys (including a melodica, a fisher price telephone) was complemented by live guitar and drums (I’m a sucker for this live percussion over beats every time). Without a laptop to be seen, the athletic on-the-fly mixing, complete with screams into a tiny microphone, keyboard swaps, worked into a nonstop dance and jumping performance was all the more jaw-dropping and show-stealing.

:: Wolf Parade ::

With rumors of a new album on the horizon to follow up 2005’s magnificent Apologies to the Queen Mary, Wolf Parade’s show was bound to be a great place to get a sneak preview of new material. Sure enough, Dan Boeckner opened by saying “we’re going to play a bunch of songs that we haven’t played before” and the band proceeded to play a set heavily dominated by tracks destined for release maybe next spring that sounded like a logical, if slightly less noisy, progression. Even the rowdier members of the audience were mildly supportive of the new stuff, despite repeated and annoying track requests.

My primary experience with listening to music is as a private soundtrack, usually on headphones; so a great part about going to a show is exploding that hermetic experience by sharing a room with a bunch of other fans who are thrilled to be in the company of a beloved band. Yet, occasionally, this experience has the opposite effect and I find myself wondering what the fuck is going on when fellow fans turn out to include people who shove their way to the front, stepping on toes along the way, throw sweaters on stage, pump fists recklessly, appear to be on the brink of fights throughout, seem not to have bathed regularly, and yell track numbers as setlist demands. It was some comfort that the band seemed equally befuddled by this reception, making a running joke of being expected to act as a live jukebox to overly intoxicated people at the edge of the stage.

Luckily, the side benefit of hearing a lot of new music was that these songs also served to keep a certain contingent in check between the wildness triggered by the likes of “Sons & Daughters of Holy Ghosts”, “Modern World”, “Disco Sheets”, and “I am a Runner”. Aside from the absence of the theremin [insert sad emoticon of choice here], it was a really good performance and the band (again) claims that it’s their best Seattle show [mb], chiding Sub Pop for not showing up to catch it. (Later, someone in the back identified themselves as being from the label).

I’ll admit that at one point, I worried that my old-fogey grumpiness at the crowd and being repeatedly hit by an oblivious willowy hippie dancer and her backpack threatened to outweigh my enjoyment of Wolf Parade’s accomplished show. But then, they closed with a fourteen minute long epic, complete with lengthy instrumental flourishes and I was sold again. By the time they came back out for an encore, playing “This Heart’s On Fire” and “I’ll Believe in Anything” [.mov]—a pair of songs that helped to saved my fragile sanity during an eight-hour early winter layover as I listened to them over and over again, riding the moving sidewalk along the terminal until I was convinced that the latter was somehow a commentary on the Isreal–Palestine situation—I, too, found myself among the bouncing singing along masses, feeling the tug of my arm reaching for the ceiling.

You’re the kingpin of metro Seattle conservabloggers. You could argue that you’re a minor local celebrity. I mean, having a regular gig in The Stranger once upon a time counts for something, right? I mean, you’re not exactly MySpace maven Ken Schram, but a decent-sized chunk of the locals know who you are.

So, you know that with a little bit of celebrity comes a little bit of the fishbowl. If you aren’t thrifty, clean, loyal, and obey the law of the pack, then people are going to talk. And if you cultivate an image that’s counter to the conventional wisdom of everyone else in town, some people are going to be predisposed to having a negative opinion about you. Like this guy.

Having dealt with the constant vitriol by retreating to the safety of your young family, you schlep down to your local and have yourself some dinner. There’s this waitress there. Maybe she’s a little crazy, maybe she just hates you with the burning hate that’s hotter than the twin suns of Tatooine. Whatever. You undertip her by Seattle standards, 10%. (I mean, really Stefan, 10%? What did she do, serve you the BLUE Plate Special when you wanted it on a RED plate?) Maybe the kid was being five.

And then it turns out the waitress was blogging it.

Now, you had two options before you. You could take the high road, shrug it off, not even mention it on your blog, drop her a private email telling her to take all the shots at you but your family was off-limits, and just let it go.

But the high road… no, that’s not what Ol’ Stefan Sharkansky would do.

So, congratulations, Stefan. By publicly responding to something you probably should have just let go you made yourself look as petty as Ms. Vindictive did. In fact, now she’s a sympathetic character, and you look like a bloviating boob reinforcing this town’s stereotypes about the right wing. And bonus points for going after her at both her jobs!

Way to go!

Update (day late edition): Show’s over, folks. Or is it? No, it’s just turning into a gossipy pissing match. More like a slapfight, really.

I hemmed and hawed over whether I should delete this post. Ultimately, I’ve decided that stet is probably the right option. I’ve always been a optimist about blogs, that they are tools of great good that build community, spread ideas, and spread freedom and the free exchange of ideas. But there are some detractors who think blogs are nothing but aliterate devices of unprofessional people who act like thirteen year olds. To those who decry blogging, it’s about stroking egos, spreading libel and slander, and using massive retaliation, bullying, and intimidation to crush others.

And I usually wave those people off as just print journalists unwilling to grok the media paradigm shift of the last ten years. But then something like this comes along, where you have three people playing out exactly what they say happens — a little slander and a lot of bullying. So, in the end, I can’t delete this, because in a sense, I’d be saying that a single mom and a Stanford-educated computer programmer can’t act like a seventh grade drama queen and an eighth grade uber-bully instead of being adults.

The critics have a point. Doesn’t mean we can’t hope for better, but it is worrisome when they’re right.

Following the lead of other IKEAs, including the recently-opened branch in West Sacramento, our very own IKEA down in Renton has received self-checkout stations as part of its recent remodeling and expansion.

I managed to completely miss the scan-it-yourself stations on a recent trip, but there they were when I returned a few days later (just can’t keep me away from those Swedish Meatballs in the cafeteria.) Just like similar stations at other stores with bulky items such as Home Depot, IKEA gives you both a surface scanner for small items as well as a scanner on a cord for those 13-foot couches you think will fit in your Mini.

Two items of note: first, there’s no easy “QUANTITY” setting for when you buy dozens of the same item at the same time, as I am wont to do. And second, what’s up with the COIN slot here? Is anyone really driving down to Renton to convert rolls of dimes into a loveseat?

As is usually the case with these stations, whether at Home Depot or QFC, I found my experience highly dependent on who was in line in front of me. If there’s a clear spot at one of the stations, I can go through with my engineered-wood coffee tables in under a minute. But god forbid that you get stuck behind other customers who wouldn’t know a barcode from a tribal tattoo: you’ll wait forever as people experiment with the code reader in four dimensions of time and space, trying futilely to register a sale. Hence the paradox of self-checkout: it can sometimes be faster to go in a line with a real checker, who’s at least trained to scan the items for his or her job.

photo by serakatie [flickr], via our group pool [#], which hungrily awaits your lovely submissions

It seems like most of team metblogs have been drawn away from their keyboards by the balmy weather. Happily some brave souls continued to provide entertainment for those stuck inside:

• Wardrobe in need of a seasonal refresh? Easter weekend sale at Ian. [seattlechic]
• Doggie Day Care as fodder for Women’s Entertainment [capitolhill]
• Baby harbor seal watch! So far, no confirmation of a sad ending. [westseattleblog]
• Tips & tricks (and troll bait) to help auto drivers get along with cyclists. [slog]
• where to get your warm weather frozen dairy fix in capitol hill [chs]
• After one very successful show [mb], Archives add a Grand to their name and take an opening slot on the Modest Mouse tour. [myspace]

Speaking of things being relatively quiet on ye old metblog, we’re gearing up for a spring recruitment drive. More details next week, but send a note to seattle.metblogs (at) gmail.com if you’re interested in joining the fun.