Tonight I was turning on my phone after watching A Little Help at the Harvard Exit to tell a friend that it’s totally worth watching when I learned the sad news. As he said, he and I have been around for the whole time and what a time it’s been. I have truly enjoyed writing for this blog and all the great people I’ve met and experiences I’ve had because of it. Thank you to everyone who has participated in some way, whether you’ve been an author, a regular reader or even an occasional lurker. It really has been fun.

One of those things I’ve been meaning to do for a while is to get serious about keeping up my own blog, created when I realized that while nobody really cared all that much about my artistic portfolio (the trials of being mediocre in a city filled with the gifted), people do sometimes want to read the things I write. The loss of Metblogs is a gain for my output there. All of the things that I would normally post about here – film, theater, visual arts, civic events, restaurants, bars, concerts, sports, my ongoing issues with zombies, our wonderful city parks, I will now be posting to my own blog, Art by Zee.

I would love to have you all join me there. I will be continuing SIFF 2010 coverage there, including feature pieces on A Little Help‘s Jenna Fischer and Linas Phillips, the Seattle-native filmmaker whose BassAckwards is likely to be a SIFF-hit this year. There’s additional content beyond Seattle-related events, and, who knows, I may finally start posting about Seattle Back in the Day, an idea I’ve terrorized my fellow Seattle Metblogs authors with for years now.

Thanks to the Metblogs network for hosting this party for this long, and, thanks again to you, our readers.

hordes of hungry people descended on interbay for the mobile chowdown. danny ngan [flickr] captured some of the scenes and shared it via our group pool [#].

• Molly Moon is now a big enough enterprise to demand dairy that’s free of corn syrup. [wallyhood]
• Mountlake Terrace might be getting its own medical marijuana storefront. [mltnews]
• Now even the voters guide has an outtakes and deleted scenes reel. [times, via slog]
• there was an equality march on Sunday on Broadway [chs]; from apartments overlooking the parade, some nonrepresentative chants may have been misheard. [slog]
• Some people think we’re unattractive with good farmers’ markets but terrible Thanksgivings. [travel+leisure]
• Others, at least, appreciate our above normal intelligence. [dailybeast]

photo by umeshunni [flickr] via our group pool [#].

• the tribute flashmob has come and gone, but there’s still time to learn to dance like Michael Jackson before Halloween. [seattlest]
• hints and allegations of some sort of international feud playing out at Nectar between Mad Rad and Datarock. [reverb]
• The Paramount’s iconic power-hungry marquee is getting a meticulous LED makeover. [genestout]
• Rancho Bravo is staying in Wallingford, and maybe keeping doughnuts in the neighborhood. [wallyhood]
• First Capitol Hill got a Pony, next up, a Unicorn. Crazy french circus to replace the Satellite. [chs]

yikes! already getting within range of halloween season. photo by shawnmebo [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• Oh no! Winchell’s is dead. Seattle’s classic, non-trendy doughnut options are further narrowed. [wallyhood]
• Curious about that stretch of abandoned condos along Cal Anderson? A troubled economic times foreclosure mystery. [chs]
• The Stranger has caked a new crop of geniuses. Carbs earlier this week, party to follow. [slog]
• A little piece of Paris is opening downtown. Get your french style cheeses next to the Spanish table. [voracious]
• The quirky names of a baker’s dozen Seattle cafes explained. [bigblog]
• the “Seattle style” hot dog exists and is apparently underreported. [seattlest]

photo by {mpg} [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• It turns out that the Stranger is still looking for a new News Editor. [slog]
• Indie darling newlyweds dine at Cafe Presse, which someone interprets as a threat to the vegan credibility of the bride. [chs]
• Have $50 an an interest in the future of news? Seattle U has just the conference for you. It’s even cheaper if you happen to be unemployed or a student, the parties probably most likely to benefit from the daylong seminar series. [barrymitzman]
• Starting today you can carshare and cause shared cars to honk from your iPhone. [zipcar]
• TUESDAY AGENDA: charming Norwegian troubador Sondre Lerche has a pair of shows tonight, a perfect hideaway from the rain. [tripledoor]

photo by J. Kraemer [flickr] via our group pool [#].

• Josh Feit considers [publicola] the (must read) implications of McGinn’s anti-tunnel, pro-surface advocacy. [times]
• The state, however, is moving ahead with replacing the viaduct with a tunnel. [postglobe]
• Maybe because I also spent Labor Day crowded in photo pits, the appeal of browsing Bumbershoot photosets hasn’t abated, particularly when they’re killing it as hard as this latest set from Dan Muller. [kexp]
• Follow-up to a criticism of the first article by the Stranger’s new news editor from the Stranger’s old news editor. Inside baseball! [publicola]
• Cunningham Hall is on the move; wheeling to a new home at the University of Washington. [hankblog]
• This is cute: Pearl Jam is hiding limited edition vinyl copies of their new album around town  in advance of their two Key Arena shows on Monday and Tuesday. [bigblog]

photo by simple insomnia [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• I took some pictures at Bumbershoot. [stereogum]
• If you’re creeped out by the Kurt Cobain avatar in the new RockBand, just imagine how Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic feel about seeing his animated ghost singing not only Nirvana songs, but also being puppeted into parroting Public Enemy and Bon Jovi. Oh, wait, you don’t need to imagine their horror. They released a statement today. [music-mix]
• The surviving mayoral candidates sat down at Cinerama today; not to catch Inglourious Basterds, but instead to duke it out over who wins the keys the the city this November. [publicola]
• In other smackdowns, Team Neighborlogs is bringing the heat to KOMO’s new, not very active neighborhood empire for some less-than-savory story-lifting. [chs/cdn]
• The spark that started one of those fires was the Capitol Hill Design Charette [crush3r], which aims to bring together designers and other beautiful dreamers to envision the future of Broadway beyond the light rail pits of Sound Transit. CHS thinks it’s important and that you should be there, world-class city style. [chs]

this photo of our increasingly misty mornings was taken by evil robot 6 [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• After a million years of being out of print and impossible to find, even on eBay, Aviation records is re-releasing the first album Jenn Ghetto released under the S moniker, sadstyle. Rejoice, broodily! [reverb]
• the Bumbershoot pre-party features Born Anchors, Grynch, Victor Shade, the Redwood Plan and a raffle for passes and swag to help send a kid or two to Bumbershoot. Feed the cycle, etc. [earcandy]
• the story on the hows and whys of the vast asphalt covered pits of Capitol Hill, and a tipline for convincing Sound Transit to let you turn it into an end-of-summer roller dancing soiree. [chs]
• The Emerald City Search has been solved, medallion located, and fantastic prizes claimed. [ecs]
• Perhaps you’d like to buy your favorite street sign before it gets sent off to the recycling factory? [seattlest]
• This, friends, is what a baby flamingo looks like. [fremontuniverse]
• the official Bumbershoot afterparty has been announced. It’s free with RSVP at Neumo’s. The Faint DJ’s (Depressed Buttons). And the top secret headliner (who also happens to be performing twice at Bumbershoot) just might have a religious expletive in their name. [antics]

photo by scott [flickr] via our group pool [#].

• the MJ flash mob will not be choreographed. [chs]
• Nike and Sub Pop to get married on your feet. [p’fork]
• I’m not entirely sure why people continue to pay to see Cat Power be uncomfortable performing. [reverb]
• Molly Moon unveils two new seasonals — blackberry sage & lavender lemonade — and adds Theo chocolate to the permanent collection. [twitter]
• People who travel to Forks for Twilight tourism are probably getting exactly what they deserve. [videogum]
• Speaking of that rainy vampire burgh, Death Cab for Cutie wrote a song for the sequel soundtrack. [lineout]

one of the many great photos of the “lullaby moon” festivities from riko colin chock’s [flickr] splendid photoset [flickr]; found via our group pool [#]. if, like me, you had no idea that “lullaby moon” was a thing, walking out of a cocktail tasting into the parade of white-clothed costumed performers could be awfully disconcerting.

• Front page news: the “colorful” multi-lingual “characters” of Rainier Valley are sticking to riding the rickety old bus instead of making use of the sleek modern light rail. Maybe it’s because the routes aren’t all that similar, but it could also be because they’re so “colorful” and enjoy overly slow, long bus rides, with frequent stops on the way downtown where there’s plenty of time for arguments, fights, and other occasional crimes to erupt. Or maybe they like it so much because they can calling it “The Seven” because that’s so much more “colorful” and it merits as much Title Case Capitalization as is journalistically allowable. [times]
• Godzilla sighting in Bellevue; corpse crawling with people. [anotherbouncingball]
• Via Trib’s breaking down walls in Belltown. Hope they remember the Great Smith Falling Door Saga during the refurb with a rolling garage door. [belltownpeople]
• Yoko Ono hasn’t yet returned an e-mail from Jen Graves. j/k, this is actually a fascinating story about what happens when a guard overparticipates in a piece of participatory art. [slog]
• What hyperactive neighborhood blogs often look like to outsiders. [ohmygodseattle]