DO YOU KNOW YOUR TACOMA HISTORY ... AND LOVE FOOD? >>

Foodcaching is a new smart phone app alerting customers of awesome food deals at 15 restaurants in the greater Tacoma area. You may download the app for free on your iPhone and Android here.

The Weekly Volcano has teamed up with Foodcaching for the True Tacoman game. Every Tuesday and Friday right here on Spew, we post a Tacoma history trivia provided by the Washington State History Museum. If you know the answer, run to one of the 15 participating restaurants, come clean with answer and you'll receive points on your Foodcaching app, which you downloaded free here. We'll be running the True Tacoman trivia game through the end of the year.

The person will the most points on Dec. 31 will be crowned the True Tacoman and be flooded with various food prizes.

Tuesday's True Tacoman trivia answer

Tuesday we asked if skiing above Paradise on Mount Rainier was popular in the 1930s and 1940s. You spent the last three days telling the restaurants listed below it was, in fact, popular – and, thereby you scored points on the Foodcaching app. It was an easy task – a lot easier than trying to ski above Paradise.

Today is Friday, which means we post another trivia question as part of the True Tacoman contest.

Today's True Tacoman trivia question

In 1883, Tacoma organized a huge Independence Day celebration. It was hoped that the day could be ended with a 50-gun salute. This did not happen because:

• A) The guns, borrowed from the state armory, were taken to Eastern Washington for a potential fight with Native Americans;
• B) No one remembered to purchase gun powder;
• C) There we not 50 guns in the territory.

Answer the question correctly at one of the 15 participating restaurants below and score points - besides scoring awesome food deals from the restaurants. The correct answer will be revealed Tuesday, Dec. 27 on Spew. Also, keep an eye on this blog for bonus game points and a special invite to the True Tacoman Game Party in early 2012.

Oh, you can download the free app here.

Participating restaurants

• 1022 South, 1022 South J St., Tacoma, 253.627.8588, Facebook
• Capers Cafe & Take Home, 2602 N. Proctor St., Tacoma, 253.761.4444, Facebook
• Dirty Oscar's Annex, 2309 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.572.0588, Facebook
• Dorky's Arcade, 754 Pacfic Ave., Tacoma, 253.627.4156, Facebook
• Harmon Brewery & Eatery, 1938 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.383.2739, Facebook
• Harmon Tap Room, 204 Saint Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.212.2725, Facebook
• The Hub, 203 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma, 253.683.4606, Facebook
• Massimo Italian Bar & Grill, 4020 Bridgeport Way W., University Place, 253.503.1902, Facebook
• Marrow Kitchen & Bar, 2717 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.267.5299, Facebook
• Over The Moon Cafe, 709 Court C/Opera Alley, Tacoma, 253.284.3722, Facebook
• Pacific Grill, 1502 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.627.3535, Facebook
• The Social Bar & Grill, 1715 Dock St., Tacoma, 253.301.3835, Facebook
• STINK Cheese & Meat, 628 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.426.1347, Facebook
• Top of Tacoma Bar & Cafe, 3529 McKinley Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.1502, Facebook
• TWOKOI Japanese Restaurant, 1552 Commerce St., Tacoma, 253.274.8999, Facebook

FRIDAY, DEC. 23, 2011 >>>

1. You have traversed every last garland-lined escalator, scurried around every strategically placed bit of mistletoe and made out with the marketing guy at the office holiday party. You and your ugly holiday sweater need some you time. Head over to TWOKOI or Pacific Grill, pound a couple peppermint drinks then hit the ice at the Franciscan Polar Plaza. Don't worry about the sweater. It's Ugly Sweater Night at the downtown Tacoma ice rink. You'll be in good company. And you will score a dollar off admission price with gem of a sweater. The rink will be open 4-10 p.m.

2. The Waterstreet Café in downtown Olympia will warm up the winter solstice with the Caribbean sounds of Pony Boy Recording artists Ocho Pies. Join Connie Bunyer vocals, Steve Luceno guitar, Paul Hjelm guitar and Michael Olson percussion as they blend the music of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Mexico with Waterstreet's awesome food from 7-10 p.m.

3. Maia Santell and House Blend will deck the hell out of Jazzbones' halls beginning at 7:30 p.m. The band's holiday jazz and blues show is a tradition at Jazzbones.

4. Sure, children's Christmas pageants are cute, but sometimes more grownup entertainment is necessary to get into the holiday spirit. Fortunately, the Gritty City Sirens burlesque troupe will be jingling bells and making spirits bright at their one-year anniversary vaudeville shows at 8 and 10 p.m. inside the Grit City Comedy Club. The Tacoma hotties will be dancing and stripping down to their skivvies, even though it's cold outside.

5. O'Malley's Irish Pub on Sixth Avenue hosts a hip-hop show featuring City Hall, Don't Talk To The Cops, Bruce Leroy, Noony and OC Notes beginning at 9 p.m. A can of food for the food bank eliminates the $3 cover.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: This week's freebies

LINK: Santa Says Blog

LIVE MUSIC TONIGH TIN THE SOUTH SOUND >>>

Cryptatropa Bar Olympia - Downtown. Badger Acid, Crepusculum, Port Of The Sun. 9:30 pm.

Harbor Greens/Forza Wine Bar Gig Harbor. Jennifer Lind Christmas Concert. 7 pm. NC.

Harmon Tap Room Tacoma Stadium District. Myles Crew. 9 pm. NC.

Hell's Kitchen Tacoma - Downtown. Pioneers West, C.F.A., Smooth Sailing, Tallest Tree. 9 pm. $5.

Jazzbones Tacoma - Sixth Avenue. Maia Santell & House Blend. All Ages. 7:30 pm. $8.

Louie G's Pizzeria Fife. Dies Drear, Highlight Bomb, James Hunnicutt, Amanda Hardy. All Ages. 7 pm.

The New Frontier Lounge Tacoma - Dome District. Partie Animale Part 2, featuring Death By Stars, DJ Babycham. 9 pm. NC.

O'Malley's Irish Pub Tacoma - Sixth Avenue. City Hall, Don't Talk To The Cops, Bruce Leroy, Noony, OC Notes. 9 pm. $3 or can of food.

The Red Room Tacoma. Red Room Christmas Show, featuring Navigator, Days Of Ivory, How We Fall. All Ages. 7 pm. $5.

The Spar Olympia. James Coates. 8 pm. NC.

The Swiss Tacoma - Downtown. Spazmatics. 9 pm.

Waterstreet Cafe Olympia. Solstice Party, with Ocho Pies. All Ages. 7 pm. NC.

LINK: More live music and DJs tonight in the South Sound

SATURDAY, DEC. 24, 2011 >>>

1. It's Christmas Eve (finally, finally, finally).  Having exhausted all financial resources barring the sale of various vital organs or offspring, you drive the streets, dejected, unsure of what to do now.  You venture into Spanaway, and you see stars - white stars, red stars, blue stars, in fact all sorts of colored lights. It's Peace on Earth. Your mouth forms a wondrous "Oh." You reach out for your loved one's hand. He/she slaps it and tells you to stop being so sarcastic.   It seems to be coming from Spanaway Park.  Yes, you're sure of it.  Well, God bless us, everyone, it's Fantasy Lights.  From 5:30-9 p.m. the whole park is one big ol' jolly drive-through light display, animated mind you.  The windows fog up.  OK, we have to stop there.

2. Several local theater companies stage 2 p.m. holiday shows, including Tacoma Little Theatre's A Christmas Carol, Capital Playhouse's Scrooge: the Musical and Harlequin Poductions's Stardust Serenade.

3. The Tempest Lounge will be open 4-9 p.m. with favorite Christmas TV classics on the screens and plenty of free hot cocoa and cider to the kids.

4. Christmas Eve is typically reserved for plenty of things - baking cookies for Santa, wrapping last minute gifts, sitting alone drinking the pain away - but there's nothing that says seeing Myles Crew perform ‘70s classic pop rock and Jimmy Buffett-ish tunes at the Hub can't be on that list. Even better? Watching Crew while wearing an ugly-ass holiday sweater. Yup, the Hub has added an Ugly Sweater Contest with cash prizes to its annual Christmas Prefunk Party. Two dollar pints of Harmon brew add to the excitement. The party begins at 7 p.m.

5. Jazzbones on Tacoma's Sixth Avenue hosts a Drummer Vs. DJ battle featuring DJ Switch and Wiggles beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Santa Says Blog

SANTA DAY, 2011 >>>

1. My Week with Marilyn playing at The Grand Cinema is not about hanging out with the mayor of Tacoma. The film is based on the diaries of a young man named Colin Clark, who talked his way into a lowly job on a Marilyn Monroe movie. For one troubled week, while her husband, the playwright Arthur Miller, was absent in Paris, she asked the worshipful 23-year-old kid to join her at a hideaway cottage. She was 30. Roger Ebert says of the film, "It was about her gift of her wonderfulness to a kid who stirred her sympathy. Michelle Williams evokes all the Marilyns, public and private, real and make-believe. We're probably looking at one of this year's Oscar nominees." Ebert gave it three and a halfout of four stars. Catch it at The Grand at 11:30 a.m., 1:45, 4, 6:15 and 8:35 p.m.

2. After you work your way through the Christmas tree, you can ditch the Claus-induced calories and that extra side of grits at the Franciscan Polar Plaza, which is open from noon to 6 p.m. The 40 by 100 square feet of ice is sure to be full of skate crews demonstrating their mad skillz and test-driving their recently unwrapped winter garb.

3. As the sun starts to sink on Christmas, prepare yourself for an untamed night at ZooLights Tacoma, where thousands of twinkling, animated light sculptures illuminate the nocturnal paths of the animal kingdom. Peddlers offer hot cocoa, while you ride the carousel or camels.

4. Fiddler on the Roof - back again this year at the annual Dec. 25 sing-along at the Capitol Theater - was released in 1971 and is set in 1905, but some of its themes have never felt more topical. In one scene, Perchik, the student revolutionary (played by the late Bert Convy, probably best-known as a staple on TV game shows), says to Tevye: "In this world, it is the rich who are the criminals. Someday, their wealth will be ours." The sing-along, a project of the Olympia Film Society and Temple Beth Hatfiloh, is in its eighth year, and Fiddler has been the film of choice for six of those years. Sing along at 6:30 p.m. inside the Capitol Theater.

5, Arrendadores will fill El Tenampa's large back room will various Mexican dance music beginning at 10 p.m. 

Weekly Volcano's bosses ran the numbers and decided that since you'll all be drunk anyway, there's no use in turning the lights on Christmas Day. So: We'll be back Monday with more frivolity. In the meantime, thanks for reading and commenting this past year. Consider our stockings stuffed.

So "Merry" this and "Happy" that, whatever suits your fancy or your need. Just don't forget the "Ho Ho Ho" that, maybe better than anything else, keeps it all in perspective.

Oh, and Happy New Year. That's unambiguous.

HEAD INTO THE DARKNESS >>>

Gathering 'round the tree is all well and good on Christmas morn. But what do you do after the last shred of wrapping paper lands in a trash bag, the feast is demolished and you've tired of admiring – or deploring – your gifts?

Go to the movies!

Click here for a schedule of what's playing tonight.I

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Kalakala vs. Coast Guard And Army Corps Of Engineers: Four options must be met now. (News Tribune)

Crime Hot Spots: Tacoma Police Department's fledgling program might get axed in the budget cuts. (News Tribune)

Rescuing The Ruskies: A research ship has arrived to help rescue a Russian fishing vessel that got stuck in the frozen waters off of Antarctica 10 days ago. (CNN)

Syria: Not good. (BBC)

Apple: New patent filings have revealed that the computer company is planning to power its laptops and smartphones with longer-lasting hydrogen fuel cells. (Telegraph)

PETA's Grinch of the Year: Janet Jackson. (NME)

Year End List: Ten best mobile games of 2011. (Paste Magazine)

Year End List II: Top 25 people of 2011. (USA Today)

Real Life Superheroes: No comment. (The New York Times)

MONDAY, DEC. 26, 2011 >>>

1. The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation Award is a big deal. Being nominated is an honor bestowed by one's peers, and being chosen as the award recipient is an even greater honor. It's just about the biggest award granted to local artists. The nominees this year were: Jennifer Adams, Sean Alexander, Nick Butler, Lynn Di Nino, Oliver Dorris, Kristin Giordano, Ellen Ito, Matt Johnson, Rick Lawson, Nicholas Nyland, Elise Richman, Peter Serko and this year's winner, Jessica Spring. Spring is the founder of locally-based Springtide Press. Her piece for the Foundation Award, titled "Ingrained," is an art book created on handmade paper made from ancient Western red cedar logs and printed with poetry written by Spring. The pages hang from a display rack similar to those used by stores to display flooring. Today, check out Spring's works and others from the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation Award show at the Chamber of Commerce Building at 11^th and Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma. And for more insight, find Alec Clayton's full feature, click here.

2. One of the best names in Tacoma hip-hop, EvergreenOne, along with the Sandlot Hip-Hop Collective, will bust out the jams tonight at Hell's Kitchen.

3. Usually on Mondays you get wasted on Jager Bombs at Jazzbones then break into the rockaroake. Tonight, do what everything you usually do - only do it under the title of a "Night After Christmas Party." Awesome.

4. Chris Stevens & The Surf Monkeys will drop in on The Swiss in Tacoma for a free show starting at 8 p.m.

5. Get in on the party during Micro Monday with DJ Melodica at Magoo's Annex --  and expand your musical horizons and knowledge.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Live music tonight

FREE EVENTS THIS WEEK IN THE SOUTH SOUND >>>

Ugh. Bobble Tiki thinks he's officially reached middle age. Old and tired. Bobble Tiki used to do things like go to New York for Christmas or stay out dancing all night. This year for Christmas, one of Bobble Tiki's best friends gave him a toilet tank, and Bobble Tiki was in bed by 10 p.m. Ah well. Bobble Tiki will just keep on laughing to keep from crying. In the meantime, here's a quick look free events happening this week in the South Sound centering around old things - just like Bobble Tiki.

MONDAY, DEC. 26: Free Christmas tree collection and drop-off opportunities are available in Thurston County after the holidays. It is important for the safety of the crews and machinery that Blackwater ornament, pickle ornament, Frosty the Blow Job ornament, lights, tinsel, nails, wire, garlands and stands be removed from the tree. Bobble Tiki's rule of thumb is to take your old tree to the recycler in the same condition as he would find it naturally in the forest. For more information, click here or see the website below or call 360.754.4398.

TUESDAY, DEC. 27: On the way to the bathroom at 5 a.m. to pee for the fifth time of the night, Bobble Tiki's foot caught the cord of his old Apple 3400c and the laptop got slammed to the ground. He can still use it for word-processing, but the modem and floppy drive no longer work, meaning he has no way to transfer information off the computer. It's time to get rid of the thing. SBK Recycle at 10733 A St. S. in Tacoma will recycle it for free from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. SBK will take old computers, laptops, monitors, printers, scanners, televisions, VCRs, telephones,

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 28: For a generation of youngsters raised in a world of electronic convenience it's hard to understand how people survived before the advent of cable television, the Internet, video games, Kindle Fires - much less electric lights and air conditioning. For them, The Job Carr Cabin Museum is like taking a step back into time, specifically in the mid 1800s. The museum itself is actually a log cabin, a replica of the one Job Carr built in 1865, less than two blocks from its original location. Check it out from 1-4 p.m. before it closes for the month of January.

THURSDAY, DEC. 29: How does the simple act of planting trees lead to winning the Nobel Peace Prize? Ask Wangari Maathai of Kenya. Back in 1977, she suggested rural women plant trees to address problems stemming from a degraded environment. Her tree-planting mission, which grew into a nationwide movement, has been documented in the film Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai. Community Cinema Olympia will screen the film for free at 7 p.m. inside the Washington State Capital Museum.

FRIDAY, DEC. 30: The Delbert McBride Ethnobotanical Garden, located on the grounds of the State Capital Museum, displays more than 30 species of Northwest flowers, shrubs, and trees that have been used for food, tools, and medicine throughout history by the Native American tribes in Western Washington. Check it out from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

SATURDAY, DEC. 31: The best album of all time is the Spinners' Pick of the Litter. (Of course, number two is Gino Vanelli's Storm at Sunup, but that's another Freeloaders column.) All five musicians grace the silver cardboard with sexy smirks and checkered bell-bottoms. Bobble Tiki has heard lots of people say they don't like album covers that contain a picture of the band, but the Spinners do it differently. The five men can be cut out in paper-doll fashion and then glued to Popsicle sticks for your very own Spinners Puppet Show. (Disclaimer: Singer Pervis Jackson is squatting in the picture, so cut out Maurice White from Earth, Wind & Fire's 1973 release Head to the Sky and have the two sumo wrestle). The '70s may always be remembered best for bands like Journey, Foghat and the Bee Gees, but the Spinners remain one of the few bands that unfairly slipped through the cracks. Bobble Tiki's glad that more than 35 years later, as he dances before them Saturday during the band's free concert at the Emerald Queen Casino, he finally can look over at his friends and ask, "Can you dig it?"

SUNDAY, JAN. 1: Bobble Tiki and his creaky bones will run hysterically down the Point Defiance Marina into wintery waters of Commencement Bay in the hopes of a fresh start for the new year. Santa Claus has all the cold details here.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Live music and DJs this week