Show of hands - How many people are ditching work on Friday? Not that there aren't a million reasons to fail to show up to work on any give day, but the start of the World Cup should keep more of you than usual away from the cubicle. 9am Friday morning is the first match of the tournament with Germany set to eat Costa Rica like a plate of schnitzel. Should be fun to watch someone from our qualifying group get destroyed in front of four fifths of the world's population. Here's a helpfull hint for your World Cup fantasy pick 'em group: Germany will win that game. Alright, we gave you the first one - Now go sign up for the Seattlest World Cup Challenge. What did we say we'd give the winner again? Sounders tickets, possibly. Obviously that pales in comparison to the reflected athletic glory and acclaim that will be awarded the winner, but in case you needed that extra bit of motivation. more ›

We recently started reading Tom Bissell's Peace Corp Revisited book Chasing the Sea, but when we came upon this interview today it struck us that cultural imperialism through the Peace Corp is so 1980s. Hip and happening now is Seattle-based EarthCorps. The environmental magazine Grist interviewed EarthCorp program director Su Thieda yesterday: more ›

Our friend Stacey overheard this while getting her nails done: "There's going to be, like, a bunch of soccer teams from different countries here, and that means that there's going to be, like, a bunch of awesome food for us to try!" more ›