Online Newspapers
Looking for a first home can be a sizeable task. How do you know a good deal when you see one? Are you secretly being ripped off? This can be especially difficult when looking at newly built housing developments, where some homebuilders have methods of deceiving the buyer, so you
Online Newspapers
How much is a good night's sleep really worth? According to one 20-year veteran in the mattress market, it's less about worth and more about our personal tastes and how much we want to spend. "A high price doesn't always correlate to a better bed. I've had customers find that a
Music
One of my favorite songs by Ween is a shady little ditty called "Zoloft." Coming from a band that once claimed to have recorded an album under the influence of huffed Scotchgard - though they later fessed up to this being a lie, just the "most slime-bag thing" they could
Reviews
ANNOUNCER: Open for several months now, Cooks Tavern near Tacoma's Proctor District has found an audience - diners that like well-crafted food in a light, easy-going environment with plenty of unique twists on the menu to keep things interesting. Though, why call it a tavern? JASON: Why they named a restaurant
Features
This might be the first time a dish of nachos was good for someone's health. Patrons of The RAM may be surprised to find Easter-pink tortilla chips in their Mexican fare, but that ingredient is meant to raise awareness of breast cancer prevention and treatment. "Our nacho chip provider is
Arts
The exhibition of drawings and paintings by Kathy Gore-Fuss at Salon Refu offers proof positive that practice makes perfect. Gore-Fuss has been making art for a long time. She was one of the first artists I met when I moved to Olympia in 1988. She was good then, and she's
Stage
Olympia Family Theater's Elephant & Piggie's "We Are in a Play" is a small play that packs a big wallop for kids. I was not familiar with Mo Willems' series of children's books, Elephant & Piggy, before reading about them in the program. The stories about Gerald, the elephant and
Music
One would be hard-pressed to find a group of artists, at least in the modern era, who have been more intricately and consistently studied than the Beatles. Since emerging in 1963, the lives of John, Paul, George, and Ringo - individually and together - have been catalogued and documented to
Stage
This weekend, Lakewood Playhouse will host close encounters of the radio kind. For his ninth year in a row, James Venturini is directing a cast of vocal talents to perform, live on stage, a radio-drama-style program for Halloween. Venturini and his cast create live sound effects as well. This year's
Attractions
You don’t have to go scary to enjoy the Halloween and harvest-time options available around the South Sound and beyond this month, and many won’t give a fright to your pocketbook. Whether you want to dress up your children, yourself or your fur kids, take a romp
Outdoors
Airman Marc Tiemeyer has led an active life. Born and raised in Forks, Washington, Tiemeyer came from a logging family. "When I was growing up, I was surrounded by the outdoors, and the forest was my playground and my refuge," said Tiemeyer. "I spent my youth hiking ... hunting, camping
Music
In a place like Tacoma, it can be easy to get a little cozy and start taking things for granted. There are certain businesses, people, bits of natural beauty, artists and bands that we all collectively assume will just be around forever. When it comes to bands, it's easy to
Arts
The traveling exhibition "30 Americans," from the famed Rubell Family Collection in Miami, makes its first West Coast stop at Tacoma Art Museum. With 45 works from 30 of the best African American artists since the 1970s, this is one of the more important shows to ever grace the galleries
Music
Some artists are so inextricably associated with where they come from that it's nearly impossible to not mention them and their hometown in the same sentence. Once this connection gets formed in your mind, there's no getting rid of it. I could ask 100 random people the first thing they
Features
It goes by the Latin name Homarus americanus. It can stretch to over two feet long and weigh 40 pounds. An Atlantic-dwelling, herring-munching monster, it's the heaviest arthropod on the planet. Forget Jurassic Park, this spiny devil originated during the Cambrian explosion a half-billion years ago. Pretty intimidating, right? Now
Stage
I'm absolutely certain that there's a way to make a musical version of The Addams Family that lives up to the source material's macabre inscrutability and iconic style, but I've unfortunately yet to see one. The Addams Family musical - with a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise, and
Stage
Visitors to legendary comic Emo Philips' Wikipedia page learn in its first sentence that Philips is a master of the paraprosdokian. That was a new one on us, too. A paraprosdokian, from the Greek for "counter to expectations," is a witty remark in which the last phrase is a surprise
South Sound Cinema
At the best of times, being a lover of film provides an unending journey of discovery, sifting through the hundreds of films released each year in search of gems. This feedback loop of sorting and viewing and discarding and embracing new sights and voices has been reinforced in recent years
Arts
The annual juried art exhibition at Tacoma Community College is usually a sampling of much of the best art created by South Sound artists. There is always admirable art to be seen, and this year is no exception; there are works worthy of admiration by such artists as Lois Beck,
Music
Fame can have a drastic effect on anyone that approaches its proximity. Some people slam up against brick walls trying to capture fame, and some retreat into the shadows in an effort to avoid it. There are artists that languish in fame's thick sludge for decades, their limbs atrophying, growing