West Seattle Noise invasion

It was a fun night at the Twilight Collective in the West Seattle Junction. Great sets by Prisonfood, PXKX, Noisepoetnobody , Masamitsu Fuji and everyone else. 

Masamistsu Fuji had a energetic fuzz blast finished with screaming.

After PXKX's set the whole place smelled minty fresh for the rest of the night.

Noisepoetnobody mellowed it out with analog bubbles.

Prisonfood finished the night with some bleak sounds and weird  test pattern visuals

Man runs almost naked from Al Star Fitness

I went to the gym early this morning and saw a man run out through the fire exit in the pool area wearing only a small towel. When I was in the shower two employees were asking someone in the showers to come out or they would call the police. It must have been him leaving. I never got a good look at him, just thought it was odd.

AMA AMA again

So my brother in law and his family gave me a gift certificate to AMA AMA. We were there a few weeks ago for the happy hour menu, but when we arrived today the menu had quite a few changes changed. We stuck to items on the small plate side of the menu so we could try a bunch at one time.

We started out with the Ahi Tuna Tartar and the Dungeness Crab Cocktail. The Ahi was a Mediterranean flavor with eggplant baba and sliced Moroccan olives. It was a party in my mouth. The crab cocktail was served on top of a avocado puree that complimented very well.

Next we had the iron roasted mussels. They were served on a skillet like fajitas, and were covered in a spicy rub. Amazing as well, I thought it was the best mussels I had ever had.

Last came the Crispy Veal Sweetbreads and the Pork Belly slider. It was a heavy duty end to a great meal, both dishes were very good, the Pork Belly was very rich, so I would suggest eating it earlier on, but I still recommend it.

If you haven't been to AMA AMA yet, now is the time to go.

La Costa in Burien

So my wife and I have been on a search for a new Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood since the one we frequented closed several months ago. We have gone to several and some have been good for certain items, but not for others. Well on New Years some friend told us about La Costa in Burien and Monday night we went.

La Costa has been around for some time, they opened in 1984, but its hidden away in Burien and it is amazing. Both my wife and I ordered the El Patron. It comes with Carne Asada, Chili Relleno, Enchilada, and a Taquito as well as pico de gallo and rice and beans with cheese. It was perfect.

The Carne Asada was grilled just right and not over spiced. I could still taste the flavorful meat, while it had a little heat to it. The Chili Relleno, a favorite of my wife, was not over breaded and had the most amazing cheese mix inside. The Enchilada was better than ElGallito, which has previously held the award for my favorite Enchilada. The Taquito was crisp and filled with shredded beef that melted in my mouth. The El Patron was too big for either of us to finish, but it gave us a great into to our new Favorite Mexican dining experience.

If you live in West Seattle/South Seattle/Burien area do yourself a favor and check out La Costa. Believe me you'll love it.

Flooding down the street

So I was checking out the West Seattle Blog and they had some photos of the road between Delridge and 26th. I guess the Longfellow Creek flooded and was covering the street a couple of hours ago. I'm glad we live on the second floor.

The photos of the car in the Allstar Fitness parking lot covered to the roof is awesome.

New stickers and a nice dog

My Capitol Hill correspondent sent me this photo of some new dumpster stickers:

and last night I saw this guy at Westwood Village when I was getting a pizza from Giannoni's and picking up a copy of " Dishdogz" . I couldn't resist a photo.

Terminal 5 skating

This is video my wife shot of me skating at Terminal 5 in West Seattle.

Me Skating Alki

I made a video of some still photos my wife took of me skating on Alki last week.

Longfellow Creek pics

I took some photos on a walk through the Longfellow Creek path down the street from our house earlier this summer and have just got around to getting them off the camera.

I like the wire wrap to keep out the beavers.

Giannoni's

So my wife and I finally made it to the new pizza place in Westwood Village called Giannoni's. Now anyone who knows my wife, knows she is old school east coast and hasn't really ever found a pizza place that filled the hole left when she moved out here. It might be a little soon to say , but the search may be over. Giannoni's was by far the best East Coast style pizza we have had ever in Seattle. Now don't get me wrong, there are some good pizza places, Tutta Bella, Pegasus, Northlake to name a few, as well as some straight up Italian restaurants that have pizza that is good also. But for a just straight ahead pizza, salad, soda joint, Giannoni's beats out everything else in Seattle. Pagliacci's has been on my bad side for years and I am happy to say I don't think we will be eating it any time in the near future.

Do yourself a favor and give it a try, you will regret it if you don't.

lazy saturday

So we were awoken to the lovely sounds of the city of Seattle doing construction in the street below our window today. After our rude awakening my wife and I went to the Chelan Cafe for breakfast, I recommend the BBIT if you haven't been before, get it with three eggs if you really want a hearty breakfast. After breakfast I had to renew my tabs, which included getting an emissions test. Definitely an exercise in patience.

Then I headed off to buy a new skateboard at Snowboard Connection. It is 46 inches long and 9 1/2 inches wide. The Sector 9 Supercruiser. I love it. I also stopped at a friends yard sale down the street from Sno Con and bought some candles that look like eyes.


After that I went down to Alki to try out the new board, it runs real smooth. Then I remembered my wife wanted some new cds so I went to Easy Street at the Junction.

On my way home I heard that Riko Kiley were playing at The End's beach house on Alki, so I headed down and skated over there. I saw my friend Andrew who had skated his longboard as well. We made fun of the people from The End while we waited 45 mins. for the band to play 2 songs. Oh well it was fun to finally check out the beach house, and the 2 songs they played sounded great.

Delridge skate park

According to the West Seattle Blog there was a meeting last night about the Delridge Skate park. Being that I only just started skating again and I haven't been following the cities skate park plans, I had no idea. It will be great to have a skate park just a few blocks from my house though. I just got new bearing and wheels and have been cruising the block for the last couple of nights.

Shootings in Delridge area.

In the last two days, two shootings occurred in my neighborhood. If I am to believe this article in the PI, the shootings were over a dispute about a ring. Now I know people get all riled up about jewelry after the Tolkien trilogy was made into the movie extravaganza by Peter Jackson, but come on shoot somebody over a ring. When I was younger that was just a beating offense. If kids today really need to resort to violence, I think they should stop turning to guns. Delridge already has a bad rep. Look at the comments to the PI's article. The first one is a sarcastic remark about shootings in Delridge. Our neighborhood is better than that. Think about it.

Cool stickers on Alki

My wife and I were down on Alki last night getting some fish and chips, when she saw these cool stickers. I don't think these are the work of NTG, but they looked cool anyway. Sort of an angry cat / skull mask. Meow!!!

1 more old graffiti photo

I keep forgetting to add this one. It was taken at the same time as the other train shot I had. I love the horizontal lines. Its like they make it move faster. I need to get out and take some more photos. Maybe this weekend.

Standoff at Brandon St.

Well my wife called me this afternoon when I was still at work and as we were talking she looked outside and said something must be going on. She saw lots of police in the road. Thinking nothing of it we continued our conversation and said our goodbyes.

A little later she called and said something weird must be going on because they were talking on a megaphone telling someone to come out. Being the sound freak I thought, "honey get it on tape", "Use the camera record some video". She wasn't too into that idea, but I coaxed her into it a while later. I didn't get any megaphone of use, but some good sounds of her bitching at me. (note: save for later)

When I got home I took some photos. these aren't in chronological order. The first is the S.W.A.T. team vehicle in front of the house

This on is out our window of a police officer looking at the house.

This is the police loading the tear gas gun.

This is the smashed car that the man barricaded had allegedly busted up with an ax. I saw the ax sticking out on the new report. You can watch it here: http://www.kirotv.com/video/13208135/index.html

As I watched from the street dr called right when they started to launch tear gas into the house. Not long after the police told us they had already taken him into custody and he was no longer on the scene. It felt anti climatic, like waiting for a rock star to emerge from the backstage door, only to be told they have already left after you have sat for an hour.

I felt bad for the guys who were working on the houses next door. They had to finish after the cops left. The standoff lasted from around 2:00pm to 5:30pm or so. Kind of surreal to come home to. Its after 9pm now and the news trucks are still on the scene.

new sticker under the bridge

So when we were driving to work on Monday my wife and I saw a new sticker under the West Seattle bridge. Actually it was two. this is the first time I have seen a combo in this series.

I also saw some new stuff on the way back to the car. I received a message from a fellow graffiti fan who goes by the name phase 3 which is the name we chose for our latest musical experiment. he asked what the influence for the name was. For him it was the graffiti artist from New York named phase 2 and wanted to know if I had seen his work. I looked him up and found a little bit of history on graffiti. Phase 2 was the first to use bubble style lettering. When I saw these I thought of him.

I have wanted to take a picture of this piece for a while. Its on the back of an old boat covered in ivy.

More Graffiti from the area

Here's some more of the graffiti I found when I was walking around under the West Seattle Bridge.



These two were hidden in an area between a fence and an on-ramp. I didn't stay long because someone was living there and I didn't want to disturb them.

This is my favorite. The squared letters are a type I have never seen before.