With today's release of her new album Circus, the narrative dictates that Britney is making a comeback. But with last weekend's MTV informercial and recent trainwreck live performances, we say she's still a hot tranny mess. Either way, it's just announced that Ms. Spears is heading to town next year: "Britney Spears will bring her highly anticipated The Circus Starring Britney Spears 2009 Tour to the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, WA on Thursday, April 9. The 27-city North American trek, her first arena tour in five years, follows hot on the heels of Spears’ long-awaited sixth studio album, Circus. Emmy Award-winning choreographer and director, Wade Robson, is helming the incredible tour production, which also features special guests The Pussycat Dolls." Squeeeeeee! Tickets go on sale this Saturday at 10 a.m. Prices start at $35. more ›

Tonight's the all-ages Red Bull Big Tune Battle at Neumo's. It's a big hiphop competition (twelve producers are picked to compete, whittled down from the eighty who applied from all over the Northwest and even northern California), and the regional showdown for one of the only legit national beat battles. This year's featured guests are Detroit's Black Milk and Elzhi. more ›

Seattlest Trivia draws Seattle's sharpest teams, but we're still sometimes dazzled by the breadth of your knowledge. On July 1, teams averaged over 6 points on 7 of 8 rounds (brush up on Fictional Plants), including a very strong performance (6.94 points!) on Britney Spears. In the end, Reichert Did It squeaked out a half-point victory over Steve Pool Party in My Pants (70 to 69.5), thanks in part to a misremembered Die Hard title. Other rounds: Geography, God Bless the USA, Triangulation, Movies, and an audio round on bands that sold out. Congrats to the winners, and we'll see you again August 12. more ›

Augh, we don't know, dawg. It was kind of weird for us, dawg. We don't know, man, she almost kind of worked it out, but not really. It was just alright for us, just alright. more ›

Fremont's own Getty Images wants to auction itself off and could sell for up to $1.5 billion, reports the NY Times. The stock photo agency has had a rough go of it lately:

But the rise of digital photography and the Web created a host of competitors that charged as little as a dollar for an image. Recent events — from the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, to the latest foibles of the entertainer Britney Spears — have led to a surging popularity of low-quality but on-the-scene photos, many taken by cellphone cameras. more ›

So the lovely and talented Britney Spears has reached that beautiful moment in a young celebrity's life when the media decides they need to draft your obituary. Yes, it seems the AP has concluded that Ms. Spears' mortality is sufficiently imminent they need to prepare for the story. Of course, drafting an obit in advance is an industry-wide practice, but for a 26-year-old? Of course, 27 is just that by kicking the stool out from under her sometime before Dec. 2, 2008. more ›

Last year Seahawks kicker Josh Brown publicly announced his crush on Carrie Underwood. He'd even gotten her phone number. But soon after, Underwood was linked to Cowboys QB Tony Romo. more ›

will be Melinda, Blake, Jordin, and Lakisha," but we won't put any money on it. Then, when that's exactly what happens (as it did last night), we'll be all, "Gah! Why didn't we put money on it?" Maybe we should just go ahead right now and say we'll put ten bucks on Melinda taking it all? Anyone in? more ›

--Chuck Klosterman in Esquire: It has now been five days since Britney Spears became Xavier McDaniel. more ›

Apparently there's a reason we don't usually start the quiz fuelled by a shot of Jack Daniel's -- we give away answers. Sharp-eared teams -- which was most of them -- noticed that we gave away the answer to a Wizard of Oz question when talking about Hugh Rockoff's interpretation of the book as a parable about the gold standard. We didn't realize it until we were reading the answers, and suddenly understood why Brazilian Mietze had wagged their fingers at us. more ›

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. more ›

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Seattlest's token bicycle hobo friend (who would himself blog for Seattlest if only Google would unveil the much-needed hobo translator language tool) clued us in to a little eBay scheme his friend - also a bicycle hobo - recently initiated, whereby said hobo tries to sell a half-eaten corndog and egg salad sandwich allegedly touched by Britney Spears and her rapping man-child pet K-Fed. more ›

Ever wish you'd watched a Nirvana show before Bleach came out? more ›

Since there is nothing we like more than technology and music (okay, that's a lie, we like smores more, but it's bikini season, so we'll hold off), we were delighted to find Icelanic band Sigur Ros has a Flickr account that they are updating while on the road. Admittedly, the band's Flickr account is not the most interesting photo set on the site, but we still think it's pretty great that bands are willing to take the time to post their photos. We are delighted bands are embracing new technology and social software and we think it provides a great treat for their fans. more ›