This Week's Events of Note

• It's Hunger Action Week for King County from Jan. 25th through the 29th - can you feed yourself on only $7 a day for a whole week? Many, many people do that every day since that's the maximum food benefit for an individual in the state of Washington. This week in particular however, a bunch of people are going to try it even they don't have to, including the mayor and a hell of a lot of bloggers. What about you?
  
  
• PubliCola is having it's first birthday this Wednesday, January 27th down at The Crocodile from 7pm till they kick everyone the hell out. Come schmooze, drink and celebrate a year of local news and political coverage for FREE.
  
  
• If you're not feeling like a wonk schmoozefest, there's also a Haiti Benefit (Jazz) Show at Faire Gallery and Cafe the same night from 9pm on.
  
  
• The first Seattle Startup Drinks of the year is this Friday, January 29th from 7-10pm down at Two Bells Tavern. Come on down to Belltown and talk about what you're up to.
  

Rent's Due

I recently discovered that a favorite (delicious and affordable!) restaurant of mine that did not wish to be named is moving out of the center city in favor of more affordable pastures to the north. Even though they're on a main thoroughfare, that thoroughfare's been hitting hard times as of late. Despite the decline in foot traffic, rents are still at the same levels as several years ago. This bums me out. In a time when we're all still broke and in need of comfort food, a decently priced restaurant gets pushed out beyond reasonable bussing distance by an unyielding landlord and an unequally unyielding rent. Rats.

Recently, on CHS Blog: Pies in Mason Jars, Carbon Coaching & an Urban CSA

These last two weeks I've posted on CHS Blog about Mini-Empire Bakery, David Lyman's upcoming free Carbon Coaching class, and Alleycat Acres. (I can't really count the John and Summit naming stuff cuz I didn't post about it, even if I did help write the letter.) I feel accomplished :)

Kiki the Robot: Origins

Upon learning that Metrix: Create Space had a soldering room, my friend MJ decided it was high time to finish building her robot Kiki. While Kiki is presently a mere pile of parts, she will soon become an adorable (I presume) little bot that can navigate mazes with the help of her wee little light sensors. Once she's up and running I'm sure I'll write a post in the Metrix blog, but for now, I just wanted to document her very earliest beginnings. Think of it as the digital version of bronzed baby shoes.

This Week in Kickoffs: The Uprising Art Opening, Office Nomads Resolutions Party, & B-Way Light Rail Stations Construction Begins

The Uprising, this Tuesday night's (8-11pm) Zombie Art Show Reception & Zombie Potluck at Zero Zero, begins my week in Capitol Hill kickoffs. This is a must-attend: you can meet Zero Zero's Jason of the amazing double handlebar mustache, and of course, there will be zombie art.

Thursday is going to be an event double-header with Office Nomads Resolutions Party/Winter Open House and then the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station Construction Kickoff over at Seattle Central. The party at Office Nomads goes from 6-9pm and the Construction Kickoff presentation will go from about 6:30 to 8pm...yeah, so maybe it isn't actually physically possible to make it to both. But I can try.

Cal Anderson Park Alliance Looking for New Board Members

Kay Rood, Hill-famous CAPA President, has requested that I spread the word about CAPA's search for members to fill their newly-expanded board. The Cal Anderson Park Alliance is the continuation of the badass community group that convinced the city to turn Lincoln Reservoir into a spectacular park rather than a big cement lid. They're still active and making Cal Anderson Park activated and amazing, so if you've got the time and that's what you're into, I recommend applying to become a CAPA board member.

The Cal Anderson Park Alliance is accepting applications and will start reviewing them at the end of January. You can find the application form at the CAPA website.

Grand Openings: Inauguration Day Seattle, Kraftwerks Night, Salvage Marsupials, Radio8Ball Show

This Monday's pretty momentous if you're a massive local politics nerd like I am: at 2pm, Mayor-elect McGinn, City Attorney-elect Pete Holmes and the Councilmembers-elect Sally Bagshaw, Mike O'Brien, Richard Conlin and Nick Licata will be sworn in down at City Council Chambers. I'll be there, shaking hands and taking pictures. Slideshow coming soon :)

This coming Tuesday night is going to be much more interesting than the average Tuesday night because it will be the grand opening of the weekly craft night at Metrix: Create Space and of my wee Etsy store, Salvage Marsupials. Kraftwerks Night (hee hee) will go from 6pm till midnight, and the grand opening of Salvage Marsupials will occur once I show up to Metrix with celebratory cookies.

This coming Sunday evening will be extra exciting too because it's the first Radio8Ball Show of the season and my first time twittering for said show. It should be interesting posting tweets about a "show where questions are answered by picking songs at random and interpreting the randomly chosen songs as the answer to the questions, like shaking a musical 8ball." Wish me luck!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

So, here's the belated cheesy Christmas cracker joke I owe my faithful readers:

What is a minimum?
A very small mother

And as a New Year's Bonus, here's Steve McQueen the Cat, to the tune of the opening theme of McGyver.