Catalog Christmas Day 8: Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2012 everybody. May your lifestyle choices be easier on you than Little Peter's are on him.

Catalog Christmas Day 7: Searching for Santa

Happy New Year's Eve everybody. Here's one last Santa card, since I figure I can't really get away with them anymore after today.

Catalog Christmas Days 5 & 6: Creepy Santa

This is hands-down one of my favorite cards I made this year. 

 Seriously, you don't want to eat that.

Rules of Avoidance: Restaurants

These are just rules of thumb, and can sometimes be ignored to your great gastronomical enjoyment. But once I thought about it a little (once I was done laughing), I find that they have generally held true in my experience.

{My S.O. thought these up, so as a note to the interested digital archaeologists of the future, the credit for this blog post goes to John Sepulveda.}

When considering where to eat, one should avoid:

1. Restaurants with "hut", "den" or "shack" in their name. "House" is also suspect. I have never heard of a restaurant with the word "slum" or "tenement" in its title, but if I had I would not want to eat there either*.
2. Restaurants whose names include their primary menu attraction, such as fish, BBQ, sandwich, or lobster.
3. Restaurants named after a person who has, in all likelihood, never set foot inside the establishment named after them. Linda's is fine since it is named after local entrepreneur Linda Derschang and she does not yet have so many restaurants that she is not able to go and visit all of them. Marie Callendar's is not.

A hypothetical example of a place you probably don't want to eat is "Bob's Lobster Hut", unless of course Bob is right there in the kitchen boiling the fresh caught lobster and he has an ironic sense of humor.

*Though a place called "The Delicious Apartments" might be pretty cool, especially if it specialized in tapas that you could pick up out of little cubbies connected to the kitchen.

Recent Events: SteamCon II and Son of Snowpocalypse

It has been an exciting fortnight. I got to spend a week home sick, got well enough thanks to modern medicine to work at SteamCon II, and now it's snowing like mad in our fine city of hills.

At SteamCon the 2nd, I mostly admired other people's costumes and helped them accessorize further with the wares of Realms of Regalia. RoR mostly sells the extra fiddly bits - pins, feathers, ribbons, lace, cords, applique, jewelry. You can imagine our booth was extraordinarily popular at a steampunk convention. I'll have another post with pictures and stories to follow.

As for snow...wow, what a fitting start to the beginning of steampunk season: the more layers the better! I was delighted to wake up this morning to a fine view of our winter wonderland. I only have to commute to UW and back (Evans School, whatwhat!) so when evening classes were cancelled, it only took me two hours to get home. Steve, the driver of bus #2384/ the #48 this evening is to be commended for his commitment, skill and dedication to duty. Even though we crawled along more slowly than an arthritic hamster, Steve got bus #2384 up the back of Capitol Hill. This is way more than the drivers of the 10 or so cars we passed on the way up can say, that's for sure.

After a couple of hours of excited tweeting and Desert Bus viewing, I made my way down to the inevitable sledding party on E Denny Way. See next post for details.

(sledding picture courtesy of David Lichterman)

My Mom Has a Blog

My mother, of My Mom vs. Tom Carr fame, just started a blog. It's called Dickens 3 in the OC, a reference to where she lives now and the old style of telephone prefixes from her childhood in the San Fernando Valley*. Basically, she's going to write the kind of stuff she'd write in exasperated letters to the editor at the Orange County Register. If you saw the email fight between her and Tom Carr, you'd see she's a dab hand at this kind of thing. So if you think my mom is awesome, and you want another amusing blog to read when you're killing time at work, it's worth a look-see.




*The prefix used to be Dickens 3 or DI3, which translated over to 343 when they changed from letters and numbers to just numbers. That was also, by the way, before area codes. This led to a conversation about how she used to use a manual typewriter to write up papers in college. And now she's in the blogosphere. Kind of a weird thought that technology has changed so much in such a brief time.

6/25 - 1st Annual Prom Dress (Quake) Rugby Exhibition Match & Brocklinds Summer Garage Sale

In the fine tradition of gender-bending summer sporting events in Cal Anderson Park, Quake Rugby will host their first ever rugby exhibition match played in prom dresses. This means if you're looking for any larger or plus-sized formal dresses at Value Village right now, you're screwed.

However, if you really do need that large-sized prom dress in time for Pride (or just some bargain-priced formal wear), you might have some luck at Brocklinds Summer Garage Sale. The sale is this Friday (9a-6p) and Saturday (9a-5p).

The Radio8Ball Show, or The Pop Oracle

Michael Upchurch of Seattle Times says "You'll have fun at this show." I wholeheartedly agree, though I might be just a wee bit biased since I've been live-tweeting for them all season. Then again, if I didn't like the show, I wouldn't still be running Radio8Ball's Twitter for them, now would I?

Check Upchurch's article for a good explanation of the show, but the one I nicked off the Radio8Ball Blog works too: it's the show "where questions are answered by picking songs at random and interpreting them like musical tarot cards". It's also group therapy, intentional/unintentional comedy, really New-Agey meaning-making and a really intimate acoustic basement show all rolled into one. It's not for everyone (especially if you're allergic to words like "synchronicity" or "feelings"), but if you're into it after one show, you're hooked.

I certainly am, anyway. And now so is my S.O. after I towed him along to celebrate my upcoming birthday and got my question picked(!) - "Question #5 (me!) How can I help my S.O. realize his dreams? Song answer: Say you love me [by Jenny Jenkins]". It was really the cutest damn thing ever. If you really feel like reading how that particular musical question & answer went, backwards, see below. I gotta warn you, it's pretty mushy.

(happy birthday to me!)

John sez: I love you too - you are my dream.

I say: I love you John Sepulveda!

Andras sez that sometimes all you need is to realize your dreams and get thru life is someone who believes in you and loves you

trying to understand her S.O.'s language of love

Jenny sez that this song is about

I dont' know much about being stable/ but thanks for cleaning up after me /sorry I'm not making any money

When you're gone I go neurotic/ now you're back it feels exotic about

Question #5 (me!) How can I help my SO realize his dreams? Answer: Say you love me

Beard & Stache Fest comes to the Hill

Beard & Stache Fest is a month-long homage to facial hair and an extended fundraiser for Treehouse, a non-profit committed to improving the lives of foster kids in Washington state. It's had some events around Seattle previously, but today is the first day it came to Capitol Hill with the Wifflebowl in Cal Anderson Park. I only walked by, but I must admit, it looked like a lot of fun.

If nothing else crazy gets planned for Valentine's Day, I fully plan to attend the next Beard & Stache/Cal Anderson event, the Lover's Quarrel Cardboard Tube Fight. You bring the cardboard armor, the enthusiasm and lots of friends; the Beard & Stache folks will provide the cardboard tubes. It's free (though donations are appreciated) at Cal Anderson Park on 2/14 from 1-4pm, w/a pre-quarrel brunch at Bluebird and an afterparty at Po-Dog.

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.

We wish you a Merry Christmas (2)

A Christmas card for my faithful readers, courtesy of St. Matthew-in-the-City of Auckland, New Zealand and AP News.

Outside:



Inside:

The true meaning of Christmas...

Happy Hols everyone,
Jen

We wish you a Merry Christmas

In the fine and upstanding Life on the Hill Christmas tradition, it is customary to post bad jokes that hail from the British Christmas Crackers that my mom buys every year. Since she told me one a few days early, I will now deliver it fresh to you:

What do you call a video game system in a Nativity Scene?
A Wii In a Manger

Don't worry, there's more where that came from.


P.S. Courtesy of XKCD, here's a much better Christmas joke.

This week in obnoxious side projects: S.T.E.A.M. Assembly at Metrix Create Space

Words are more potent when spoken to a group of creative, like-minded people. Instead of simply being idle, talk becomes action. When one speaks to steampunk types about creating a union for airship mechanics, zeppelin grease-monkeys and the like...idle talk can become extremely silly action. And hence I will be serving tea and cakes in Metrix Create Space at 3PM this Saturday afternoon to the members and supporters of the newly formed Society to Emancipate Airship Mechanics. First a Facebook group, then a blog, and now plans to agitate openly in the streets for the rights of airship workers everywhere. I'm almost afraid to ask what's next...our own cooperatively owned and fully functional airship?

{image courtesy of the ineffable Molly Friedrich}

Rise Up, O Workers of the Air!

One of the side effects of a good convention are all the new projects that pop up afterward. It's just what happens when creative like-minded people gather in those numbers. I don't know about all the creative fallout after Steam-Con, but I do know about the part of it that fell on me: the Society To Emancipate Airship Mechanics. One moment I was just a simple zeppelin grease monkey enjoying my day off and then - BAM - I'm in charge of an airship workers union. I must have been extremely charming on Sunday. That and everyone must be really tired of losing extremities to unprotected propellers.

No HUMP for you >:(

Gay Cap Hill just reminded me that HUMP 5 is next weekend....and that I can't go because I'm flying home for a friend's wedding at noon on Friday. Please, The Stranger, add a Thursday showing! Maybe Sunday night?

For all of you staying in town from October 9 - 10 who haven't yet gotten their tickets to everyone's favorite amateur porn film festival , it's your lucky day - The Stranger just added two matinee showings on Friday because all the other ones sold out. Act now or forever hold your...hump?

Looking forward to fall: Events in October

According to popular belief, things slow down in Seattle once summer ends and the rain curtain falls. This is crap - all the cloudy days don't catch up with us until after the holidays. Until then, we're all still sailing on a Vitamin D high til we can coast on holiday bonhomie/grinchiness, which eventually runs out in January. This means I'm going to be socializing around the Hill for at least three more months until we all go into collective hibernation til Spring.

Anyway, I've already pitched about all the steampunk-y goodness that's coming up this month and next. I'm even more excited now that I've (only just) realized I can recycle all my new steampunk goodies for Halloween. One mad Victorian scientist, coming right up.

It's fortunate I have a relatively family-friendly costume for Halloween this year since I'll be one of the chaperones/shepherds for the Capitol Hill Community Council Halloween Walk. I know that two hours of herding small children up and down Broadway doesn't sound like a ton of fun, but little kids in adorable costumes makes me happy. Especially since the little blighters would be cheated out of all that tooth-rotting goodness if the Council didn't do the Walk on Broadway -it's kind of hard to go trick or treating at apartment buildings.

In nerdier (and consequently more exciting) event news, the Capitol Hill Community Council is going to host it's very own mayoral candidate forum on Oct. 17th at Seattle University's Pigott Auditorium. I know it's not an event venue that non-alums are very likely to see, but I can guarantee you - it's a very nice auditorium. The acoustics are so lovely you can forgive the fact the whole place is painted mauve.

The focus of the forum is on community and neighborhood activism, so the Council is inviting attendance and questions from as many Cap Hill community types as possible. If you'd like to help out with the event or just throw in your two cents, but the Policy and Planning boys at chcc.planning(at)gmail.com.

Oh Snap: My Mom vs. Tom Carr

I posted about Tom Carr blocking Faire's attempt get a hard liquor license a few days ago, and I've been meaning to write a letter in support of Faire to our City Attorney ever since. Well, my mom beat me to it. And she has a lot of practice writing cranky letters to city officials (let's just say Garden Grove doesn't have the world's best city council...). She is so good that despite the fact that she lives hundreds of miles away, she got Tom Carr to write her back. The correspondence is below.
(picture courtesy of my mom :D)

======================================================

Sir:

My daughters live in Seattle, and I am a frequent visitor. I find your targeting of Faire distressing. They are good people, hardly the supporters of drunken louts or disruptive partying, and you are wasting your time and theirs by delaying their liquor license.

If you succeed, by your delays, in putting them out of business, you will have done no favor for the neighborhood. Cap Hill does not need, nor does its residents want, to be protected from Faire by you.

Leave them be, and let them get on with it.

Thank you for your attention,
Elise Power

=======================================================
We are not targeting Faire. They have a liquor license. They applied for an enhanced license to sell hard liquor. At the time of the application, one of the owners had a warrant out for his arrest in a pending DUI case. We brought this fact to the attention of the Liquor Control Board as is our duty. I don’t know where you live, but here, we are concerned about people who can’t control their own alcohol intake being responsible for serving others. I have a particular concern about someone who is told to do something by a court and needs to have an arrest warrant issued to get him to do it.

You have no idea what Faire Gallery will be like when serving hard liquor and neither do I. I do have questions about one of the owners, which it is my job to raise.

Thank you for writing.

Tom Carr
Seattle City Attorney

=======================================================
I read the story, I know about the DUI case, I also know about the details of the outstanding warrant and why it was issued, as do you. We here in Garden Grove CA worry as much as the next person about people who drive drunk.

Faire is a gallery, not a party venue. If a person attending such a place has a problem with drinking, they can do so on the license in place, they don't need hard liquor served to them to do so. If Faire has done just fine on the alcohol that they have been serving, they are more than likely to continue to do so.

I stand in support of them, as does most of Capitol Hill, whom I presume you are trying to protect. We are saying we don't feel the need to be protected from Faire having its hard liquor license, and want you to know.

I also presume you care what the neighborhood (and their friends and family who visit there) think, so we are here to let you know.

Thanks,
Elise
-----
In re-reading your reponse, I must agree on one point. Raising the questions about one of Faire's owners was/is indeed, your job. However, having heard all of the circumstances, the Board ruled in favor of Faire's hard liquor license.

Your intent to appeal then takes on the appearance of being merely an obstructive delaying tactic, and thus punitive in nature, even spiteful.

EP


{This post is getting long, so the saga continues here.}

Gnomedex 9.0

Surprise Tech Conference! My friend MJ Kelly of Girls in Tech (Seattle chapter) put out a call for volunteers, so I find myself at Gnomedex 9.0 in the Bell Harbor Conference Center chatting up people who are famous on Twitter. So far I got to play with Microsoft Surface tables, watch Bre Pettis make a resin mini-replica of someone's skull with a MakerBot, and get lots and lots of swag.

Oh, and I also started by very own Twitter wave - meet Chrissa, the Girls in Tech booth mascot. Yes, that's a throwboy pillow of Chris Pirillo's face with a bow on it.

Chopped liver

Gah, the world for my digital camera! There was a foie gras protest in front of Quinn's at about 9 o'clock tonight - bullhorn, pretend corpses on the ground, the works. There were even some cops drifting around nearby. I run home to get my camera, I make it back in like fifteen minutes and WHAT DO I SEE? Nothing! The PETA-types had already wandered off. Protesters these days...no staying power.

What to do?

VS

I'm conflicted on what to do tomorrow night. Should I got to Viva VHS! at the Northwest Film Forum (which needs the money desperately, by the way) or should I attend Theater Schmeater's The Twilight Zone Live! Marathon? Decisions, decisions...