What do Amanda Knox and the Chamber of Commerce president have in common? They are both leaving. Meanwhile: octopi, a sentencing in the Steve Bushaw murder, a new social, etc. club, and a townhouse fire. Coming up: a ton of chances for yelling at public meetings, and some cool recognition for West Seattle Blog leader Tracy Record. more ›

Plan ahead, commuters: The King County Department of Transportation has announced that the West Seattle Water Taxi has suspended service starting this afternoon, and will not be running at all until Monday, March 28. more ›

West Seattle Blog has a nice little interview with the Blue Angels representatives who came to town for a winter planning meeting (and are jetting off right about now). more ›

This list of Google searches specific to various cities has some interesting stuff about the Pacific Northwest. The top ten search terms in Seattle: more ›

Speaking of Mike Davidson, the Seattle PostGlobe posse, and all-digital news platforms, tomorrow night is round two of No News Is Bad News: "Making It Work" (7-9 p.m., Bertha Landes Room, City Hall). The focus is on current and near-term models in the post-newspaper ecosystem, and Cory Bergman (MSNBC, LostRemote.com, MyBallard.com) moderates a panel that includes WSB's Tracy Record, Penny Arcade's Robert Khoo, Newsvine's Davidson, Instivate's Scott Durham, Seattle PostGlobe's Kerry Murakami, and InvestigationsWest's Rita Hibbard. You can reserve your free ticket here. more ›

Over the weekend we--and seemingly every other news person in the city--got a note about a stolen Schnoodle (Schnauzer-Poodle mix) that made us question humanity itself: more ›

• PizzaFusion, that organic pizza joint up on Capitol Hill's 12th Avenue, has closed abruptly. CHS tweeted a photo and wrote up the closure. What's weird is that the place was active on Twitter--really, really active--all the way up until yesterday.
• The Seattle Courant reports on a magazine sales scam that should sound awfully familiar.
• The Daily Score Blog's heart is hard as concrete towards mega-highways in this installment of their Economic Turnaround series.

• Seattle Metblogs sent Josh over to The Croc for last night's Soundcheck, and true to form, he brought back a report and some photos. Jealous!
• Mmm, fry bread. And mmm, justice! West Seattle Blog gives ups to the Duwamish tribal "Fry Bread For Justice" event happening this weekend.
• Andrew over at Seattle Transit Blog speaks up in support of the federally funded overpass between Microsoft's campus sections.

• Hella Bus is back with the rap from unexpected sources, this time flowing from the verbally gifted mind of Mark Trahant, the editorial page editor of the P-I ("until tomorrow," Hella Bus sadly notes).
• Seattle Transit Blog has an opinionated piece on solving Metro's budget gap, with two suggestions that have elicited dozens of comments.
• Seattle 911 is talking about the case of the untaxed cigarettes in Stilliguamish.

• A neighborhood-based local business discount card for Capitol Hill? Um, yes please! CHS tells us the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce is exploring the idea (take a survey about it here), and JSeattle leaks via Twitter, "Think it's definitely happening. Question is how it works." Rad.
• West Seattle Blog posted a surprisingly brief blurb on Mac Clay's $15 million settlement from a lawsuit over his paralyzing injury two years ago at West Seattle High School.
• Have you taken your walking tour of the viaduct yet? Queen Anne View reminds us that we have another chance on March 21. It's free, and only 45 minutes. Do it.

We've now "observed" two future of news media via Twitter (the City Club and ONA events) and watched the Seattle City Council and "No News Is Bad News" events go down via their live stream (while eyeing the #nnbn Twitter channel). One caveat before we recap: what we've learned is mostly useless in practical terms. more ›

The son of former Seattle mayor Charles Royer is running for mayor himself, and that's straight from the HorsesAss. On the plus side, it looks like Jordan Royer is more together than mayor Nickels' son, Jake. West Seattle is sort of freaking out about the snow, while the Rainier Valley Post is freaking out for another reason: the Lakewood Seward Park Community Center is in danger of closing--there's a meeting about it Thursday. But where one door closes, a produce stand is poised to open. MyBallard reports that Top Banana should soon be back in business. And PhinneyWood has the 411 on how to find out when your bus will arrive. more ›

CHS is wonking on (and on) about development plans around the Capitol Hill light rail station because there are community forums coming up and if you don't go, you can't complain later that your ideas were ignored by "the Man." Also, Cap to the Hill pleads for you to stop in at Boom Noodle. West Seattle Blog noted Elliott Bay Brewing is pouring a chocolate porter. 'Nuff said. The Rainier Valley Post reminds us all that February 7 is Neighbor Appreciation Day. The Magnolia Voice hits a recessionary note, with news of a townhouse developer switching to apartments mid-stream. And The Southlake details why condo financing is such a touchy subject down in SLU. more ›

Did any of our readers catch Mars Hill Church's feature on Nightline last night? ABC ran their three page 'summary' of the feature online yesterday with the beautiful headline, "Pastor Dude's Mega-Church Draws Crowds." (It's almost as good as the New York Times' Driscoll headline, "Who Would Jesus Smack Down?") We're wondering when the program will be online so we can catch the visuals. West Seattle Blog tweeted overnight that their site received a "miniblitz" of folks who had, presumably, seen the program and were googling for more info about Driscoll and homosexuality--a subject which didn't figure prominently in ABC's write-up. We love us some generous national media attention, don't we, Mars Hill? more ›

• The B-Town blog's seventeen-year-old film critic loves racist grandpa Clint Eastwood. In other Burien child labor news, the blog has also taken on a fifteen-year-old intern.
• If someone broke into your car and stole your things sometime before December 11th, MetBlogs has the info on how to stop by a police station and claim that which has been ganked.
• Phinneywood reports that the 12,000 tons (24,000,000 lbs!) of sand spread during Snowmaggedon will be all cleaned up a week from today. As always, when it comes to city services, we'll believe when we see it.

• West Seattle Blog and CHS documented yesterday especially carefully. To celebrate the anniversary of the first Denny Party landing on Alki forever ago, the Southwest Seattle Historical Society is putting together a time capsule that will include print-outs of Thursday's blog entries, among other various and sundry detritus.
• For every headline about county budget cuts, there are hundreds of people who will have their day-to-day lives affected by the loss of the eliminated programs. Rainier Valley Post asked Public Health spokesman James Apa about the projected impacts on their specific community.
• Aarwenn's CHS post about catching a glimpse into others' private lives, both beautiful and thought-provoking, breathes new life into the idea that one neighborhood could be the heart of a city. Even if you don't live in Capitol Hill (and we know many of you don't), this one's worth the read for poetic value alone.

• West Seattle Blog has been covering a weekend diving accident at Seacrest which left one man struggling for his life at Harborview.
• The Central District News also spent the weekend updating and covering a sad story of two youth shot near Garfield High School. One of the young men died at the scene, while another was taken to Harborview to care for his injuries.
• Oh no. Now that Halloween is over, the Christmas/holiday lights and decorations are arriving. Capitol Hill Seattle reports the lights are already being strung up and down Broadway.

• The White Center Blog wants you to remember this is your very last day to register to vote.
• If you live in West Seattle and have a pet door of some sort, you might want to keep a close eye on it. According to West Seattle Blog, burglars have been using cat doors to get inside homes.
• It seems as if those people always sitting outside the Starbucks on 15th Ave have saved their beloved outlet of the coffee giant--for now.

It really isn't surprising that scam and scum are only separated by a single vowel. The latest scam hitting Seattle, made us literally sick to our stomach. According to the West Seattle Blog, who was called by their friendly local police officer, some scam artists are targeting owners of missing pets. The scammers use the contact email address left on missing posters and send false ransom emails to the worried pet owners. So Seattlest readers, if you've recently lost a pet, not only do we send our condolences, we send you this warning in the hope that your pain and worries aren't doubled by some heartless scam artist. more ›

Alexa, the internetz rating service, is out with a ranking of Seattle's top 50 media websites. Not surprisingly, da Timez-&-Pee-Eye combo site, nwsource.com, is numero uno. Our good friends at Slog are in fourth place. Seattlest.com is a more-than-respectable tenth. WestSeattleBlog is 15th. Says Alex Mayer, publisher of dead-tree Belltown Messenger (#42) and live-electron Downtown Dispatch (#36), "The future of media is on the web." more ›

• West Seattle Blog's photos of the sunset over the water remind us that we live in an absolutely stunning part of the United States -- and WSB also reports that something interesting involving fisticuffs (details vague as of yet) went down at Chief Sealth High School.
• Victory tastes so sweet... and failure? Well, resounding failure makes for a great blog entry. B-Town Blog has the details on a Kennedy 61, Highline 0 football game last week. Ouch.
• These are trying economic times, but Subterfuge Seattle comes to the rescue with hints for saving money the fashionable way. Step #1 is to share pants (no, really). Who needs $0.10 ramen noodles when you can share pants?

• West Seattle Blog has the latest update on Nickelsville. WSB also pointed us to a Nickelsville Google Group where residents and supporters are posting updates and minute-to-minute news.
• MyBallard has photos of hygiene stations planned for neighborhood homeless car camps. Maybe Mayor Nickels could talk to some Ballard community activists about options for homeless residents, at least Ballard seems to be dealing with the issue in a humane way.
• The most interesting meta post we've seen in an eternity: the strange (and occassionally yucky) search terms that lead folks to Tacoma's crime blog, Lights & Sirens.

Last night, Seattlest and friends—up for a light dinner and a few glasses of wine—discovered that West Seattle’s cozy, just-down-the-street Blackbird Bistro is, as of this week, shuttered. (No more half-price-bottle Tuesdays!) A note on the door and papered windows cited a sale of the curvy space and promised the new owners will not disappoint. (As usual, West Seattle Blog knew this was coming and we didn’t.) Of some consolation: The Bohemian, new on the California strip a few blocks south, offers decent $15 bottles of cab and merlot. Every day. more ›

• The always helpful Central District News offers Crave, who recently lost their Capitol Hill lease, some available locations in the CD. We second the idea, Crave in the neighborhood sounds great to this CD resident.
• Did you find a My Buddy Doll drunk in Belltown? Because someone lost one drunk in Belltown and have taken to Craigslist and Belltowner to find the doll.
• Sure they are gas guzzlers, but we're a total sucker for a gorgeous old car. West Seattle Blog has photos galore from this weekend's Junction car show.

• In the dark of night, a two-story house was pulled across Fremont. Check out the story on the newly launched Fremont Universe.
• Someone stole a tow truck from Gene's Towing in Tacoma. Not the most inconspicuous getaway car.
• Do some good, go to Dutch Harbor and swig a few beers with Sig and the crew of The Deadliest Catch. The Nordic Heritage Museum is auctioning off the trip on September 21st, according to MyBallard.

• The West Seattle Blog notes, with great pride, that a West Seattle High School alumnus has been chosen to command the next space shuttle mission. We bet that guy's stories will be hard to beat at the next class reunion. "So Greg, what have you been up to?" "Oh not much, just being an astronaut with NASA, commanding space shuttles in, you know, outer space."
• The Slog reports recently-for-sale Capitol Hill club King Cobra is being threatened by the state over their hosting of a semi-professional wrestling night. The state wants King Cobra to obtain a sporting event license to continue hosting the matches. If King Cobra refuses to comply the state is threatening "administrative action" which, we assure you, isn't nearly as scary as Seattle semi-professional wrestler Billy the Fridge.
• The Mid-Beacon Hill blog posted a crime story under the headline "Don't Read This if You're Having a Nice Day" and it was pretty spot on. Don't do it.

More photos, courtesy of Christopher Boffoli, after the break.
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News from a day where we spent hours looking for a two-cent stamp. more ›