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Cupcake Royale ‘legalizing frostitution’ with free cupcakes at new Capitol Hill café
by Angelo Carosio on Jul.22, 2009, under Blog

Cupcake Royale employee Samantha Pease serves up the 'cupcake of the month': strawberry 66, with 66% local ingredients. Photo by Angelo Carosio
The sweet toothed residents of Capitol Hill will have yet another temptation starting Wednesday when “Seattle’s best cupcake” winner Cupcake Royale opens the doors to a new café at 11th and Pike.
In celebration of the opening the bakery is giving away a free mini “strawberry 66″ cupcake to anyone who comes by and simply says a phrase.
Flaming Lips announce tour stop in Redmond, new album promotion
by Angelo Carosio on Jun.23, 2009, under Blog

Flaming Lips' frontman Wayne Coyne is known for his crazy stage antics.
Lips fans, rejoice! The incredible stoner-psyc-alt-rock band just added a string of U.S. amphitheater dates to their upcoming tour, and it includes a stop at Redmond’s scenic Marymoor Park.
Frontman Wayne Coyne and the rest of his “fearless freaks” will be stopping by on Aug. 21, and the show is certain to be a spectacle. The Lips are known for their crazy stage antics, including but not limited to: gigantic plastic balls with Coyne inside, confetti cannons and ridiculous amounts of balloons.
The band also recently announced the title of their upcoming follow-up to 2005’s “At War With The Mystics”: “Embryonic,” supposedly a double album. Coyne has been talking about the new release and is giving fans a chance to preview the songs before the album comes out.
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Trent Reznor tweets to save a life
by Angelo Carosio on Jun.01, 2009, under Blog

Eric de la Cruz and his sister Veronica. Veronica is using social networking websites to raise money for a heart transplant for her brother.
Eric de la Cruz needs a heart transplant. In his home state of Nevada, there are no doctors who perform the surgery that de la Cruz needs, and he’s unable to look out-of-state due to insurance restrictions.
Cruz’s sister, former CNN anchor Veronica de la Cruz, has been milking social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook like crazy over the last several weeks to raise money for her brother’s operation—and she’s gotten some help from some notable celebrities.
Trent Reznor, frontman of industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails, has taken up the cause and raised over $850,000 thanks to his 589,986 twitter followers.
Delicious Library fuels collector’s OCD
by Angelo Carosio on May.14, 2009, under Blog

Delicious Library is a collector's dream. The software lets you keep track of all the stuff (records, cd's, books, etc) that you own in a fun, easy-to-use interface.
Everyone likes to collect something. Whether it be CD’s, vinyl, DVD’s, books, baseball cards, Pokémon cards, or stamps, the need to collect seems ingrained in the human psyche. For those of us who have it a little stronger than most, Delicious Company has recently released a piece of software that will do nothing but fuel that desire.
Delicious Library 2 is a library management utility which lets users keep track of everything they own, but it’s best suited for managing collections of media. The program’s effortless interface lets you scan in items using your Mac’s built in webcam as a barcode reader, but also has a way to manually add things for those of you who are without the iSight. The software connects to a database with thousands of items containing information like cover art, artists, producers, resale value, and much much more.
SU’s drinking fountain situation makes ‘banning the bottle’ unlikely
by Angelo Carosio on May.05, 2009, under Blog

The "Ban the Bottle" campaign is putting up signs advertising "Free H2O" above campus drinking fountains. Photo by Angelo Carosio
Water is delicious. You just can’t beat the feeling of a nice ice-cold glass of water at any time of day. The problem with water, however, is that even small amounts of minerals or impurities and small differences in temperature make a huge difference to the taste of the water. Regardless of whether or not unfiltered tap water is a healthy drinking option, it usually tastes a little bit funky and is warmer than you want it to be.
The Ban the Bottle Campaign has been putting up signs above campus drinking fountains encouraging students to drink the “Free H2O” that they offer. The only problem is that most campus drinking fountains are way below par in the taste and ease-of-use department.
‘Star Trek’ is the perfect prequel
by Angelo Carosio on May.03, 2009, under Blog

The new Enterprise crew. Image courtesy Paramount Pictures
Prequels are one of the trickiest sorts of movies to pull off correctly. When you’re working with characters that people have known and loved for years and years, it’s very hard to get everything right. For every “Batman Begins” there are 10 that just don’t get it right: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, X Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek: Enterprise come to mind as prequels that landed way below the hype and expectation created for them and only served to disappoint loyal fans of their respective series.
J.J. Abrams adaptation of the original Star Trek crew blasts away any low expectations viewers might have about its integrity. The cast, script, special effects, and story are all top-notch, successfully bringing the aging (and before this, deteriorating) franchise into the 21st century. If you consider yourself any kind of a fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, or sci-fi in general, see this movie. Hell, even if you just like a good summer popcorn action flick and haven’t seen a Star Trek episode in your entire life, this movie is still for you. The positive reviews are all over the place: Star Trek will disspoint no one.
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My Bloody Valentine @ WaMu Theater
by Angelo Carosio on Apr.28, 2009, under Blog

My Bloody Valentine playing in Brazil. Photo courtesy Baptiste Pons via Flickr.
The signs posted around the outside of the WaMu theater said it best: “Tonight’s show will be extremely LOUD”.
My Bloody Valentine, the Irish alt-rock “shoegaze” band who hasn’t released an album since 1991’s smash “Loveless” destroyed the earbuds of thousands of fans Monday at WaMu Theater. Earplugs were given out at the door, and MBV–known for their use of distortion, pitch bending and noise–put them to good use and pushed the limits of how loud a concert can get.
Officials hope to trap bear living in I-5 median
by Angelo Carosio on Apr.23, 2009, under Blog

A black bear has made a home for himself in the median between I-5 northbound and southbound. Image courtesy kirotv.com
Wildlife officials are attempting to capture and move a lone black bear which made an appearance Thursday in the I-5 median near Stanwood, Washington.
Rancho Bravo Tacos brings taco-truck Mexican to Capitol Hill
by Angelo Carosio on Apr.10, 2009, under Blog

Rancho Bravo Tacos has opened in the old KFC building. Photo by Angelo Carosio
Since the unfortunate demise of Taco Bell, it’s been hard to find a good burrito on the hill under $5. Taco Del Mar never tastes quite as good as you want it to, Tacos Guaymas is way too expensive and also not that good, and Bimbos is pretty excellent but doesn’t allow minors in, even during the day. Last week a new contender opened for business in the old KFC building across from Cal Anderson park on Pine, and Rancho Bravo Tacos seems to understand what people want in a burrito: cheap, big, and delicious.
Memo to Apple: Smaller is not always better
by Angelo Carosio on Mar.11, 2009, under Blog

Apple introduced a new model of iPod Shuffle on Wednesday
It’s the way of technology that over time gadgets will become smaller. The first iPod was a hunky beast of a device, too big for most people’s pockets. The iPod mini became the iPod nano generations 1, 2, and 3 while getting smaller every time, and the pregnancy test / tampon-esque first gen iPod shuffle became the button sized second generation. Apple’s designers have been at it again, and the result is a device that’s going to be harder for its users to keep track of than a lighter.
The previous generation iPod shuffle was already small enough. As an added bonus, the space that Apple sacrificed for this new model means that the device no longer has any buttons. No buttons on the device itself, nowhere, nada. Instead, they boast that the earbuds that come with the shuffle have the necessary controls on them, and that one of those controls makes a computerized voice speak the currently playing song title and artist to you.
Wait, what?
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