JAKE DE PAUL: MONDAY FOOD LINKS >>>

Eight new rules for ordering wine

Welcome back, Roquefort

Watch out half double decaffeinated half-caf Frapuccino-lovers

Today’s South Sound Specials

King Estate wine dinner, 6 p.m., $75, Duke’s Chowder House, 3327 Ruston Way, Tacoma, 206.985.9466.

$5 Wine Mondays, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., $5 glass of wines, Rosewood Café, 3323 N. 26th St., Tacoma, 253.752.7999.

Half-price Wine Night, Budd Bay Café, 525 Columbia St. N.W., Olympia, 360.357.6963.

LINK: South Sound happy hours

STEPH DEROSA: TASTY SALAD, AND A NASTY TEXT >>>

Farrelli’s Wood Fired Pizza, DuPont location
Phil’s Creation
Price: Whole $9.99, Half $7.99
Rating: Three out of four croutons

DuPont is the perfect spot to stop for a bite to eat as you’re escaping out of town to the south. On a Friday evening, my family and I found ourselves past the Fort Lewis exit and heading into some grizzly traffic on southbound I-5. Taking up an hour to deter us from gridlock, and filling our bellies for the trip ahead, the DuPont exit made our dinner stop effortless â€" and off to a DuPontite-packed Farrelli’s Wood Fired Pizza it was.

Description: A crisp iceberg/romaine lettuce combination tossed in creamy and sweet honey mustard dressing hid beneath a fortune of texture and goodies. Pineapple, caramelized onions, crushed cashews, roasted chicken breast, and cheddar cheese piled charitably atop the lettuce mix â€" and it was at that point I figured it simply couldn’t get any better. I was wrong. With a delicious drizzle of hot bacon dressing, it did nothing but get better â€" WAY better.

Taste: Did I mention the hot bacon dressing? I know what you’re thinking. The trendy, over-marketed love for bacon is so passé, right? Honestly, I could give a shit. I still love the salty goodness those strips of fried-up pork belly can do for my faded taste buds. With a complex tongue lashing of sweet pineapple, caramelized onions, soft cheddar cheese, and delicious cashews, there isn’t anything I don’t like in this salad bowl. Seriously, folks, who doesn’t love the taste of cashews â€" those sweet, crunchy legumes disguised as nuts?

Conclusion: Let’s go ahead and put it out there â€" there’s nothing low-fat about this salad. It’s gluttonous, hearty, delicious, and decadent. I feel as though I might as well have had that pizza the rest of my family was eating. (That pizza, by the way, was FIVE DOLLARS OFF thanks to the coupon we found inside a Weekly Volcano.) Only difference is maybe I got a bit more roughage from the lettuce. You remember, the lettuce that was covered in delicious honey mustard dressing? Yeah, that lettuce.

Dressing on the side
OH. MY. GAWD. I’ve misfired texts before (just ask Patricia Lecy-Davis of Embellish Multispace Salon), but the one I received this weekend TOOK the friggin’ CAKE. It didn’t just nicely walk up and steal a piece of cake. No. It ran up, did a cartwheel, masturbated, screamed loudly, and then ran of with the whole damn 12-layer devil’s food chocolate cake.

Wanna know what kind of text it was? It was a SEXT. Yes! I accidentally received a misfired SEXT! (“Sex text”, for all you Star Trek fans who haven’t had sext before.)

Just for shits and grins, I wanted to type this sext out. I wanted to see how much of it got past my editor, but I can’t. It starts out fine saying, “Tonight you’re going to dream about me, when you close your eyes … blah, blah, blah,” but then it gets pretty explicit. It goes into graphic detail about the beginning of what I can only assume will be an extremely satisfying sexual encounter, via text, that is.

I have no idea who it is, and I’m not sure I want to know. I’m going to assume it’s a girl talking to a guy, and they’ve done the dirty deed before. The text I received moments after the illicit sext read, “I AM SO SORRY I sent that to the wrong number.” This whole deal is classic, simply classic.

 What I would like to say to the sender of this sext is â€" Don’t feel bad. You accidentally sent your sext to the best person. We’ve all done it (those of us who are fundamentally sexual), and we’ve all misfired texts to some degree. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, and I fully support you “gettin’ it on” with this individual via texting.

[Farrelli’s Wood Fired Pizza, 1570 Wilmington Dr., Suite 280, DuPont, 253.912.5200]

MICHAEL SWAN: KING OF THE SURF GUITAR >>>

In September 2007, when Dick Dale played Hell’s Kitchen, the show was easily one of the highlights of the year. It’s not everyday that the man who invented surf guitar plugs in at the Kitchen, and it’s not every day you get a chance to stand only feet away from his amps.

Dale is coming back to Hell’s Kitchen Saturday, June 27 with Forever Came Calling (featuring Dick's son Jimmy) and Girl Trouble.

Tickets are $20 and available now at TwicketWeb.com.

MICHAEL SWAN: TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2009 >>>

1. Local band Operation Ivan devotes their entire set â€" entire existence, really â€" to former underground neo punk band Operation Ivy. Check them out tonight at Hell’s Kitchen with McMonster the Devastator, Paper Mache and Mury.

2. Polar bear cubs tumble their way to the sea. Birds of paradise make displays of ethereal beauty. Storks fly above the Himalayas. You watch it all at 4, 6:10 and 8:20 p.m. when Earth screens at The Grand Cinema.

3. Tacoma book artists Chandler O’Leary (Anagram Press) and Jessica Spring (Springtide Press) discuss their collaborative process, which begins with Chandler’s hand-drawn illustrations to generate plates for printing a letterpress edition in Jessica’s studio at 10:30 a.m. inside the Tacoma Art Museum.

4. Ed Hoffman’s Burning Man photos at Art House Design are burning hot images of the freewheeling annual celebration of art in the burning sands of Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

5. Danny Vernon presents his free The Illusion Of Elvis show at 6:30 p.m. inside the Red Wind Casino.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

MICHAEL SWAN: I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE BICYCLE BICYCLE >>>

May is National Bike Month, and from May 11-15 in particular, cyclists are encouraged to bike to work. If you live close enough to where you work to be able to make your way on two wheels, now's the time to ditch the excuses and get some fresh air. It really is an incredible way to start your morning, even if you do get to work a little sweaty and breathless.

TODAY’S SOUTH SOUND BIKE WEATHER: Showers and a chance of thunderstorms. Heavier showers may contain small hail or ice pellets. Highs in the lower to mid 50s. Southwest wind 10 to 15 mph.

BEFORE YOU HEAD OUT: Washington State Bicycle Laws

BIKE TO WORK WEEK TACOMA-PIERCE COUNTY: Details regarding the Bike to Work Week Commuter Challenge, Bicycle Commuter Guide and events calendar are at PierceTrips.com.

BIKE WEB SITE OF THE DAY: Bicycle Alliance of Washington

TODAY’S RECOMMENDED BIKE ATTIRE: Novara Lifeline Full-Finger Bike Gloves

TODAY’S BICYCLE SONG:

TODAY’S BICYCLE REPAIR TIP:

TODAY’S BICYCLE STUNT:

NEWS TEAM: GOOD MORNING SOUTH SOUND >>>

State Of The State: Hate crimes in Washington jump 27 percent in a year

Microsoft Bond Sale: $3.75 billion offering

A-Khost-ed: Taliban storm strategic Afghan city

Afghanistan: Gates recommends McChrystal for top command.

Michael Phelps: Just when you thought the waters were safe … a stripper orgy!

JAKE DE PAUL: TUESDAY FOOD LINKS >>>

Wild thing: Nicotine in mushrooms?!

Naked Chef to give fattest cities in America a food makeover.

Goldilocks: dread of mixologists

Today’s South Sound Specials

Spring Wine Collection tasting, 5:30-8 p.m., complimentary, Pour At Four, 3814 N. 26th St., Tacoma, 253.761.8015.

Wine Tasting Tuesday, Jacqueline and a wine expert discuss and pour, three wines paired with appetizers, $25, Primo Grill, 601 S. Pine St., Tacoma, 253.383.7000.

Half-price Wine Night, Pacific Grill, 1502 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.627.3535.

Tightwad Tuesdays with $2 tacos, $2 beers, and $2 wells, Hell’s Kitchen, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003.

Wine Tuesday, 20 percent off bottles wines on regular list, Toscanos Cafe and Wine Bar, 437 29th St. N.E., Puyallup, 253.864.8600.

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

ERIK EMERY HANBERG: MAGIC BUS >>>

When you want to talk about technology and the environment â€" especially as it relates to the future â€" at some point you have to talk about transportation.

That means talking about cars and talking about transit. Let’s start with the cars.

For 16 consecutive months, Americans have driven less than they did the previous year. It started because of rising gas prices, but then the global-financial-panic-recession-meltdown-crash-thingy (GFPRMCT) happened, and that drove miles down further. The trend doesn’t seem to be changing, either, prompting Nate Silver to wonder â€"with the help of some statistical charts  â€" whether we have ended our “car culture.”

Sixteen consecutive months of less driving and you’ll start to notice. I have a friend who commutes from Seattle to Tacoma every day. He told me that when the crash hit and its effects started to be felt in companies and jobs losses, traffic got better. Not even just a little better, a lot better. Since October I-5 has cleared enough that my commute saves at least twenty-five minutes each way.

Some of those people aren’t on the road because they’re unemployed. But many others have opted for transit. Sound Transit ridership had record highs in every quarter last year, increasing over the previous year in double digits. Perhaps it’s because of how much we’re using commuter rail, buses, and the Link â€"  more than 12 million rides in 2008 â€" that in the middle of the GFPRMCT, we still passed Sound Transit 2 by a healthy margin.

To me, what’s interesting about transit technology is not just the actual technology that created the transit â€" the wheels, the engine, the tracks, etc. It’s also how technology is being used to create a better service for the customer.

Pierce Transit is installing Automatic Vehicle Locators into their fleet of buses â€" think OnStar, but for buses. Drivers will be able to signal the central dispatch for emergencies and their GPS locators will identify exactly where they are.

The next phase of this program is what Scott Morris, a spokesperson for Pierce Transit, calls Next Bus Technology. The goal, he says, is to allow customers to locate exactly where their bus is before it arrives. “The technology’s there,” he told me. It’s natural to bridge it to customer applications. What if I could text or Twitter and find out where my bus is? Or just call it up on my phone and see if it was running behind schedule?

Unfortunately, Pierce Transit has not yet partnered with Google to offer routes and times in Google Maps. The transit feature is an incredible service, especially when on the go with a mobile phone.

I was recently in San Francisco and standing at the airport trying to figure out how to get to my hotel. I plugged in the name of my hotel into my phone and then asked for directions from my current location. It gave me a driving route, but also offered me the information I needed to take transit. It displayed station info, route times, fares for the BART and the cable car, and where I needed to go to get there. I followed it stop by stop and ended up a block away from the hotel.

Morris told me he would love for Pierce Transit to be able to offer that service, though they haven’t gotten there yet due to concerns about schedule changes (if Pierce Transit has to implement an emergency schedule due to snow, Google wouldn’t know).

Still, as the technology becomes better integrated into our phones and computers and the guessing game is gone, riding buses will become that much easier and the amount of time we spend behind the wheel will keep decreasing.

LINK: Hazardous Business archive

ABOUT HAZARDOUS BUSINESS: Erik Emery Hanberg's Hazardous Business column - which looks at the business of technology and the environment in Tacoma and the South Sound, and how it will shape our future- appears every other Tuesday here on Spew.

RON SWARNER: IT’S RECORD RELEASE DAY >>>

Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown

Meat Puppets, Sewn Together

Crystal Method, Divided by Night

Steve Earle, Townes

Dr. John, Who was Mac Rebennack?

Paul Wall, Fast Life

Maximo Park, Quicken the Heart

The Church, Untitled #23

DJ Vadim, U Can’t Lurn Imaginashun

Jeremy Enigk, OK Bear

Manic Street Preachers, Journal for Plague Lovers