Get ready! Get set! Go!

Bacchante Wine & Essentials will host a wacky, made-for-TV-style scavenger hunt Saturday, Sept. 8 in celebration of its four-year anniversary.

The event requires four-person teams â€" only one $20 pre-registration fee â€" to race through Tacoma, scavenger-hunt style, looking for clues that will lead them to fame and glory.  Those who know and love their city will win the day.

Bacchante asks participates to be 21 and older, and to bring their camera, cell phone and sense of humor â€" sounds like the Weekly Volcano’s normal shopping excursion.

The race will start at 1:30 p.m. and end at 5 p.m. over food, wine and awards.

The sign-up sheet is at Bacchante Wine & Essentials. â€" Suzy Stump

Myself and nine other people lunched at Mary's Burger Bistro, which opened yesterday.

Apparently some of the troopers who attended the inaugural walked away disappointed, but from the pictures I've seen, it looks like everyone (SO many people!) showed up at once and caught the crew quite off guard.

As for my experience, I waited for the two people ahead of me to order, and a nice employee offered me a cookie. I politely declined, but appreciated the gesture.

I love what they've done to the inside of this space, with purple, red, blue and white checkered flooring, purple doors and a very shiny silver kitchen. The outside is just as cute as the inside, and it's nice to watch the world buzzing by on Pacific Avenue.

As for food, I'm waiting on a fiesta burger with pepper jack cheese, jalapenos, lettuce, and I had them hold the tomatoes and salsa. I also made a basket out of it and grabbed the hand cut fries and an old fashioned vanilla shake. That all came to $8 and some change.

It arrived right away!

The fries remind me of Dick's, greasy, falling over and a little on the cold side, the shake is perfect, and the first bite of my burger was caliente, just the way I like it.

As I left 15 customers filled the joint with order popping like fireworks.

Don't let anyone's first-day tales keep you away. Let's support Mary while she works the kinks out. Check it at 23rd and Pacific Avenue. â€" Natasha

So you wonder â€" as I do â€" how the Tacoma Art Museum will trump its community celebration, Glitter, Glisten, and Gleam, held several weeks ago.

First in the equation, leave the kids at home.  Next, add drag diva Sylvia O’Stayformore and DJ Vodka Twist. Add the band Lushy, performing with go-go dancing troupe Tangerine Tonic. Then throw in the Dockyard Derby Dames roller derby team Femme Fianna and let them roll in the museum plaza. How about a couple of artists painting live body builders? How about food and booze? Maybe even a specially-designed martini glass created by M Space.

And presto!

Twinkle! Pop-Crush-Fizz, an enchanted evening of grown-up art and culture takes place tonight at 8 p.m.

See full story here. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler

I couldn't think of a better way to spend a summer Sunday than on a hot date with myself listening to loud rock and roll and watching tough-as-nails roller derby chicks knocking each other on their asses. Yes, my Sunday will be spent with the Dockyard Derby Dames characters like Janesaw Massacre, Nancy Hardagain, Sybil War, Anita Hit Sum Won, Lola Pistola and Moana Lisai crammed at the front of the flat track jumping around, screaming my lungs out, picking fights and hocking loogies. Being up close and personal blows away watching the action on television.

Hell, with a beer garden, girls in fishnets at halftime, a rock band, this is entertainment at it's fullest. After the bout everyone will head to Doyle’s Public House in Tacoma. â€" Brad Allen

[Skate n Station, Sunday, Aug. 26, 7 p.m., $10, 301 133rd St. S., Spanaway, www.myspace.com/dockyardderbydames]

Spew would like to jump on the "Rock Zombie" benefit auction love fest initiated by Exit133 and followed up by GritCity.  Vin Grotto Cafe & Wine Bar â€" the restaurant where "Zombie" star Jason Ganwich works â€" will host the event Saturday, Aug. 25 beginning at a 3 p.m. 

The Weekly Volcano wrote about the film and the art director/auction in past issues.  The flick is so worthy.  Support it by buying goods, drinking wine and having the stars autograph your body parts. â€" Suzy Stump.

THE DAILY WORD
Learn it, use it, spell it

Pied-a-terre \pee-ay-duh-TAIR; pyay-dah-TAIR\, noun:

A temporary or second place of lodging.

USAGE EXAMPLE: Though not frequently, from time to time during Bobble Tiki’s marriage, a particularly fierce disagreement with Mrs. Tiki (or even an unnecessary nightcap) has led Bobble Tiki to establish a pied-a-terre in the front yard. Usually, this pied-a-terre consists of the Tiki family camping tent, a cooler full of Pabst, and Bobble Tiki’s collection of back issue Victoria Secret catalogs.

THE MORNING NEWS

HOMES: Down, down, down.

TALIBAN: Pushing poppy production.

ATLANTA: Pull your pants up!

WINGS: Eat, Forrest, eat!

HUSTLER OF CULTURE
You can stand atop the mountain and scream your naked desires to the universe or shed that synapse epilepsy and hug the South Sound today with your fellow man:

MUSIC: Your little hood rat friend makes Bobble Tiki sick.
But after Bobble Tiki gets sick he just gets sad.
Because it burns being broke and it hurts to be heartbroken.
And always being both must be a drag.

Luckily The Hold Steady tickets go on sale at noon.

As do a slew of other shows. Check out the Volcano’s Concert Alert!

MORE MUSIC: What's on tonight.

THE EVENT: Peace Festival 2007. 

BOBBLE TIKI'S THREATS AND PROMISES COLUMN
Duke Robillard is a guitarist â€" in the truest sense. Over the course of a career that has spanned four decades, and probably twice as many styles, Robillard has again and again proven he’s one of the best pure guitarists to ever step on stage or set foot in the studio. His career began in 1967 when he co-founded the jump blues band Roomful of Blues with pianist Al Copley, and he’s still touring and teaching guitar to this day (obviously, since he’ll be at the Capitol Theater Aug. 29.)

As always, Bobble Tiki doesn't care what you do today because he doesn't even know you.  And unless you check out the Weekly Volcano's Web site, Bobble Tiki doesn't want to me you.  Besides, it's time to blow this joint because it's so obvious you are becoming further and further removed from all that is genuine and real and visceral and virtuous and Bobble Tiki doesn't play that with his morning bowl of Quisp.

OK, Bobble Tiki apologizes.  Please be his friend here.

Breakfast with Bobble Tiki runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  Deal with it.

The Tacoma Fire Marshall has shut down the all ages Alano Club (15th and Market) again for fire code violation, which includes a sprinkler system among others. â€" Brad Allen

The Tacoma Art Museum’s Twinkle! Pop-Crush-Fizz fund-raising party Friday night started like most arts events, with a fair amount of milling about and politely shared pleasantries.

The milling was actually hugely enjoyable, with painters Steve Jensen and Merrilee Moore working on live, very scantily clad bodies and with the "Sparkle Then Fade" exhibit open for viewing, not to mention the fab drinkie-poos (I was digging the star fruit cosmos, for sure!) and a chocolate fountain that smelled an awful lot like Heaven. 

But as the evening’s temperature cooled down, the action heated up, starting off with a taste of roller derby provided by the Dockyard Derby Dames' fabulous femmes of Femme Fianna.  The ladies seemed to help the crowd break the ice and release their inner party animals.  That feeling was then enhanced by the lounge music stylings of Lushy, who got the bodies up and moving, encouraged by the groovy go-go action, though DJ Vodka Twist was keeping the energy thumping and kept it there even after Lushy finished.

I was loving seeing recognized friends like Jenny Fab and The Frenchman as well as arts fixture KAke and some of the hippest Junior League Ladies I’ve ever met.

Even the significant one, not known as being Mr. Socialite, enjoyed himself, which is saying volumes for how the TAM can throw a party.

I can’t wait til the next one! â€" Jessica Corey-Butler

When I was a sophomore in high school, time in gym class was devoted to such sports as bowling, foosball, and roller skating.  Junior year, though, roller skating was eliminated from the curriculum due to the amount of injuries sustained the previous year.  As my introduction to the world of roller derby proved to be far less painful and much more entertaining, it will hopefully sustain its run for a greater length of time.

The second bout of the season for Tacoma’s Dockyard Derby Dames roller derby league started strongly for me last night with the thrill of partaking in a new activity, in this case supplemented by driving to Parkland and standing in the lime green Skate N Station roller skating rink.  Things continued to go well even as I entered the dizzying heights of abject confusion.  I’ll freely admit to spending most of the first half in a bewildered daze as I watched fishnet clad temptresses merrily zip around an oval track.  Despite a helpful demonstration of rules at the beginning of the match (few things would prove to be funnier than watching a 35-year-old man blatantly shove a 14-year-old girl to the ground in order to demonstrate an illegal foul), I was in far over my head when it came to following the intricacies of fouls and scoring.  This didn’t seem to be a sport of finesse, and the beer garden’s deal of unlimited drinks for a modest $10 only strengthened my convictions.

By the end of the night I could tell the difference between a Pivot and a Jammer, and the Trampires and Femme Fiannas had been declared the official winners.  But as the Dames, officials, spectators and I all headed to Doyle’s Public House to celebrate, I couldn’t help but feel that we were all truly winners at heart. â€" Will Pearson