AT LONG LAST: The Colored Pencil Society of America will be presenting its 16th Annual Colored Pencil Society International Exhibition for the next month or so, starting today. We've been wondering all year if we're alone in our colored pencil hording, but alas! There are others like us. No, we haven't actually been hording colored pencils. But, it's good that there are people who do such a thing, and that they'll be gathering downtown today......

Tonight's the night: The smartest trivia players in Seattle gather at the Old Pequliar for eighty questions. At stake: cash -- all the entry fees, doubled by the bar. Seattlest James is hosting, because it's the first Tuesday of the month. (It's also Super Tuesday, so he'll be glancing at the bar's television sets to see if "yes we can" translates into "yes we did.") Want a free pitcher of beer? Be the first......

The best part about The Big Picture was not eating popcorn from a Veuve Clicquot bucket, or the bar. The best part was listening to the two older couples behind us, who couldn't have been happier with having wine in their seats: "I can't wait to tell everyone that I saw a movie at El Gaucho and drank wine!" The only real negative: the sound system isn't as good as the rest of the......

About three lives ago, when we were living in a scientific research station in Ecuador, we watched The Postman (Il Postino) with a group of Westerners. After the movie, which is one of our favorites, we were sitting there, wondering why the room had suddenly gotten all dusty, when a privileged teenage British hipster/tourist named Aelys (pronounced like Alice, but her parents preferred the Welsh spelling) announced that she hadn't liked the movie because it......

We successfully navigated the B-word over the weekend without seeing John Moe do his McSweeney's dance, which is not very neighborly of us. It's something we would love to see and hopefully he performs again sometime soon, although that seems unlikely because he's got this whole book thing going on as well. It looks like he will be making the rounds in October promoting the book, though, that should launch him into Partly Cloudy Patriot......

Seems like everybody and their mama has been raising money for the Red Cross or other agencies helping in hurricane relief efforts. Even Seattlest's local karaoke dive bar was taking cash for the cause last Sunday night. What follows is by no means a comprehensive list, but just a smattering of upcoming events by local businesses where your money can make a difference: · Restaurants: If you dine at any Chow Foods eatery (5 Spot,......

Photographers, start your cameras! The Discovery Park Advisory Council is sponsoring a photo contest, with winning submissions to be published in a photo calendar (presumably for 2007)....

Well, it's certainly no Brew and View, but The Big Picture, Seattle's upscale movie theater-cum-bar suits us just fine. The self-described "boutique meeting and event facility" is located on 1st Ave. in Belltown, but last Friday, they opened an additional venue. This one's on the Eastside in Redmond Town Center (on the second level, across from Macy's). So after a long hard day working at Microsoft, or after a long hard day protesting Microsoft, you......