THIS JUST IN >>>

The city of Tacoma just sent this exciting news to the Weekly Volcano World Headquarter:

TV Tacoma, the City of Tacoma's government access television station,  is now utilizing web streaming technology and services provided by Granicus Corporation.  This technology provides support for PC and Apple users, as well as support for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.  And it provides closed captioning online on programs where closed captioning has been made available, for viewers who are hearing impaired. ??The City of Tacoma began utilizing this technology Jan. 1 for TV Tacoma's live web stream, and will also use it moving forward for all newly produced TV Tacoma programming content that is made available on tvtacoma.com.

TV Tacoma is carried on both the Click! Cable TV and Comcast Cable systems. TV Tacoma can be seen on Channel 12 in the Tacoma City limits and in Pierce County on Click!, with the exception of University Place, where it can be found on Channel 21. On Comcast, TV Tacoma can be seen on Channel 12 in the Tacoma City limits and on Channel 21 in Pierce County. For programming information or program streaming, visit tvtacoma.com.

BOOK RELEASE >>>

What story were you told about how babies are born?

This is the question local author Rebecca McCarthy posted on her Facebook page to facilitate a conversation about sex. 

"Out of the mother's tummy, I was puzzled how I got there."

"From a seed of some type."

"The cabbage patch."

"Mom and dad rolled around naked and tickled each other."

"The stork."

These are some of the answers, and a few of the many reasons McCarthy wrote her new book, Writing the Diaphragm Blues & other Sexual Cacophonies. 

McCarthy has organized an online launch party for her book Wednesday, Dec. 12 at noon. Yes, 12-12-12 at 12 p.m. The online launch includes a Google hangout, live streamline from Youtube and Facebook.

There are no barriers on who can be there," she says. "From Mississippi to Japan, all areas can participate."

Choosing to do an online launch is significant to McCarthy because she feels like it's a safe place for people to say what they want. 

"To use social media at that moment in time is important," she says. "We're usually talked at, or we react. It allows woman to talk about these things without feeling unabashed. It's a resource."

The book rolls humor, playwriting, sophistication and science into an accessible book for everyone.

"You can't speak for all woman," says McCarthy, "but can speak about your own experiences and open the door for other woman to speak about theirs."

Rebecca McCarthy is a writer, educator, artist and roller derby skater with Tacoma's Toxic 253 League. She holds a PhD in Comparative Studies from Florida Atlantic University. Her published works include the influential Origins of the Magdalene Laundries: An Analytical History (2010), which traces women's plight in the laundries from the Middle Ages to modernity.

You can also add author of a compelling perspective on modern sexuality.

BAKE OLYMPIA >>>

With the popularity of food blogs these days, local bloggers are using their reach to positively affect their community. Bake Olympia, a bake sale to fight hunger, will be doing just that at the Make Olympia Street Market this Friday, April 27 during Olympia's Spring Arts Walk. The proceeds from the sales of the baked goods and donated food items and produce will go to Thurston County Food Bank.

As a food blogger that focuses mainly on fresh produce, bake sale organizer Jenni Crain (of The Plum Palate) is well aware of the price of food and that not everyone can afford to eat what she's eating and blogging. "It makes sense to turn that around, even a little bit, by organizing people who are passionate about food to help alleviate hunger," Crain said. She hopes to raise $1,000 for the food bank, as well as collect food and raise awareness of the issue of hunger in the community.

Crain was inspired by Seattle bloggers' Will Bake for Food, an event that raised over $2,500 for the Emergency Feeding Program. "We don't have the star power Seattle does, but we do have a small group of committed food bloggers and the Thurston County Food Bank, which is working to eliminate hunger right here," she said.

Some of the anticipated treats include salted caramel brownies and s'mores bars (from Krista and Jess), chocolate cherry big cookies (from Fresh Scratch) and lavender meringues and macarons with mango (from OlyEats). Jenni Crain's blogging partner, Chie Okazaki, is working on a savory gluten-free scone.

You may purchase or exchange fresh produce and non-perishable food items for these baked goods and more on Friday, April 27 at the Make Olympia Street Market (100 block of Columbia Street, downtown Olympia) during the Arts Walk 5-10 p.m.

GRAB A CUP OF COFFEE AND A NOTEPAD >>>

Tacoma has a bustling art/culture scene. Most "in the know" Tacomans know this, as do some of us deserters. Dozens of art galleries and workshops. A secret society of cartoonists. Talented videographers. Wonderful restaurants. A rocking indie music scene. Way cool. It's so awesome to live in Tacoma, right? I mean, I know exactly what's cool all of the time because there's a centralized way to experience Tacoma. Wait a second. There isn't? You mean, I have to actually know the right people or scour Facebook groups and local rags and attend tons of conflicting events to really experience "art city?" Well, my friends, you've come to the right place, because I'm going to present Tacoma (and you) with an opportunity it doesn't even know it needs. What's more, this could potentially be one of the most engaging and fun opportunities available to any Tacoma enthusiast. This could become your life. This could become your job. Here it is, 253's blueprint for an Internet television show.

Yes, the Internet. Al Gore's gift to the multiverse. Why the Internet? Because it's everywhere and can be accessed by everyone. Why is an Internet television show valuable to Tacoma's cultural identity? Because with so much excellence and innovation going on it Tacoma, it's hard to keep track and focus in. Where would comedy be without SNL making the faces of today's biggest comedians? Where would our understanding of politics be without Stewart and Colbert? Where would America's music lexicon be without American Bandstand? OK ... bad example.

Outside of actually experiencing something (which, with so much to see, is hard to do), video is the most comprehensive medium there is (outside of smell-o-vision of course). Yes, there are a bunch of excellent magazines/newspapers/blogs out there like the Weekly Volcano, Exit133 and The Melon that highlight what's up, but to really experience it you need to see it. You need to hear it. In our world of chaotic day-to-days, sometimes making it out to a show isn't possible. With video you can reach people on their own clock. People who are afraid to leave their homes or are just too damn tired from all that living.

Imagine a monthly (or ideally weekly) online show that anyone could tune in to. A show that features local bands, interviews local politicians, presents local artists and filmmakers. A show that visits restaurants like Infinite Soups or gets a haircut at Supernova. A show that samples the local brew at The Red Hot, or sees a new show at the Tacoma Little Theatre. Hello, McFly! The possibilities are endless. Every week there's something new. Every week people would rely on the show to highlight something amazing about art city. It would be a beacon. The flag that perpetuates art/culture/life in the city to better itself. Tacoma has usually been smart about not trying to be or live up to any other city's expectations. This is an opportunity to unite everything that makes Tacoma special.

So how can you (yes, you! who else is going to do it?) make this happen?

The Blueprint

Step 1: Form your team

This is the hardest part. To make this happen you need the most creative, hyper-energetic go-getters you can find. They don't need to be the smartest people in the world, but they need to be hard workers and most of all they need to be reliable. Reliability is a key to success here. You'll run into a lot of people who say they're interested in the idea, but end up not answering emails or texts or sexts. Starting any project needs people who do what they say and say what they do. These are the people you need:

Producer: You or your head honcho of creativity. Your Lorne Michaels. Someone who can direct this production and will be the little engine that can, will and does.

Staff: Your talent scouts and bookers. Your staffers and organizers. Your dedicated folks you can rely on type something up, to email someone and get things done.

Host: The face. The talent. The Johnny Carson. The Dave Letterman. Someone respected in Tacoma, or charismatic enough that people will want to see him or her week after week. Needs to be a talented interviewer and speaker. Funny is a must.

Reporting Crew: Additional host-like folks who can host features.

Promoter: Your Facebooker. Your inviter. Your gossiper. Your marketer.

Business Manager: This will come in later. This person will keep books, come up with your budget and do other businessy things. Surprise, you're giving birth to a business.

Every person on your team will be wearing multiple hats and will have multiple responsibilities at first. But that's what it takes.

Read more...

Comment On This Post

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Tacoma Takes The High Road: Cheney Stadium Sustainable Stormwater Project is actually cool. (Weekly Volcano)

Checking In With Wily Washam: Pierce County Ethics Commission says Pierce County assessor-treasurer Dale Washam used public resources for campaign purposes in an effort to unseat county Prosecutor Mark Lindquist. (News Tribune)

Oh Lovely: Anders Behring Breivik, who admits killing 77 people in Norway last summer, used the video game Modern Warfare 2 as training. (CNN)

Oh Lovely II: India successfully launched a missile with nuclear capability and a 3,100-mile range, giving it the ability to strike Beijing and Shanghai. (The New York Times)

Pulitzer or Peabody?: Colbert and Huffington debate. (Poynter)

Families And Flying: Should airlines offer children-only seating areas and flights? (Huffington Post)

Which Cities Are Setting Music Trends?: Not the ones you'd think. (Time)

Because 50 Isn't Enough: 53 reasons why we need a new Star Trek TV series. (Huffington Post)

Record Stores: Popular musicians come clean with their favorite records stores. (Pop Matters)

Got 99 Cents And Love Craft Beer?: There's an app for that. (Craft Beer App)

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Washington State Legislature Wins In Double Overtime: The Legislature adjourned late last night after the Senate passed the budget measure on a 44-2 bipartisan vote and sent the bill to the governor for her signature. (News Tribune)

Stolen Tacoma City Hall Laptop Computers: The computers were taken from Tacoma City Council-member cubicles on the 12th floor of City Hall. (News Tribune)

It's Official: City of Biot, France, is Tacoma's new sister city. (Exit133)

Indonesian Island Of Sumatra: It was hit by a magnitude-8.6 earthquake. (CNN)

Jerks: The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit charging that Apple and others colluded to raise the price of e-books. (The New York Times)

When Unicorns Attack: The horror. (Huffington Post)

Color Analysis: 50 shades of grey. (The Hairpin)

Documentary: Kid's self-built cardboard arcade hits the big time. (Time)

Freaky: Elsa Schiaparelli's Skeleton Dress. (Who Killed Bambi)

True Geek: Battlestar Galactica wedding cake. (walyou)

Bob Ross Would Be Proud

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2012 >>>

1. It's Tuesday  - you should go support your local budding artists. The students of Hilltop Artists have created glass object based on the archaeological relics of a lost tribe of their own creation. We're curious if the Tempest Haggarty tribe will be represented. Wait. According to hype, "Each tribe has chosen its unique spirit animal and has created work reflecting the tribe's connection to nature, the cultural significance of food, the sacredness of water, and the values shared by all. The individual tribes have also created a petro glyph illustrating the mythos of their origin." Very cool. And creative. Lost Tribes of Hilltop opens today at 10 a.m. at the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory. Check out the world of the Raven, Wolf, Cheetah, Snake, and Iguana tribes. There's no better way to support the fine arts and the fine artists - you know, those 12- to 20-year-olds who keep getting their funding cut? Plus, who knows, you may see someone's art, who could be world famous tomorrow. Then you can say you saw them when, and annoy absolutely every one you know in the process.

2. Joy Eckwood - Diversity Program manager at the Washington State Bar Association and the founder of Emergnz, an effort dedicated to helping individuals along the continuum of self-actualization - will discuss "Empowered to Emerge: Moving beyond America's Power in defining the norms of Race, Gender and Sexuality through Religion" at 12:30 p.m. in the West Coast Grocery Building, Room 104, on the University of Washington Tacoma campus.

3. The Grand Cinema will screen The Times of Harvey Milk at 2 and 6:30 p.m. as part of its Tuesday Film Series. The documentary, obviously, centers on San Francisco's first openly gay politician, city supervisor Harvey Milk. Shown in coordination with the Tacoma Art Museum and its Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture exhibit, UWT Prof. Claudia Gorbman and Executive Director for The Rainbow Center Michelle Douglas will co-facilitate a discussion following the film's 6:30 p.m. showing.

4. Tacoma has a large segment of the population that is obsessively passionate and loves to read about and intelligently discuss food and restaurant-related topics. Feeding those hungry Tacomans are a group of food bloggers, who not only write on their own blogs, but also post and chat on each other's blogs and social media outlets. Tonight from 6-8 p.m. at Bluebeard Coffee, the Social Media Club gathers the local food bloggers for a panel discussion on the local food scene, social media and, yes, tasting the bloggers' favorite homemade treats. The panel of local food blogging aficionados includes Weekly Volcano scribe Adrienne Kuehl (A Big Mouthful), Marisa Mez (Clearance Cuisine) and Roxanne Cooke (RoxanneCooke.com) and will be hosted by SMC Tacoma board member Dawn Quinn (Vegan Moxie). RSVP: http://smctacomafood.eventbrite.com

5. Fireside Bookstore hosts a book launch party for Jim Lynch's new book, Truth Like the Sun, at 7 p.m in the Olympia Ballroom.  The book is an entertaining political novel about the cat-and-mouse story of urban intrigue in Seattle both in 1962, when Seattle hosted the World's Fair, and in 2001, after its transformation in the Microsoft gold rush. 

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: South Sound happy hours

IT'S ABOUT ALL THREE THIS WEEK: >>>

Thing: Webcams

Place: Hound Hangout

Person: Kylie Markin

On their live: Webcams

The dogs are: Being dogs

They might be: Sniffing butts

Or: Drinking water

Or: Humping

Or: Scooting their butts on the ground

But most likely they're: Just playing

With: Kylie "Magnifico" Markin

A few months ago I found an iPhone webcam app called "Spy Cam."  I immediately became enthralled with the real-time action of various cities from all over the world.  (And no, pervs, they're not porn webcams.)

The Spy Cam app watches places such as a college computer labs and pet adoption agencies in America, ski lifts in Norway, ice skating rinks in Japan and busy intersections in Brazil. It really is quite addictive.

Tacoma's even made its small mark on the Spy Cams iPhone app.  Onlookers can stalk the main quad of the University of Washington in Tacoma, but that's about it. 

Well, that was about it ... until I found the live webcams at Hound Hangout.

The Hound Hangout cameras aren't on the aforementioned Spy Cams iPhone app, but instead located directly on their website at www.thehoundhangout.com

I had to know more about these dogs I had been watching and who in the heck these people were that were so happily playing with the dogs, so I contacted Kylie Markin at Hound Hangout.

Know as a "pack leader" or "dog wrangler" Hound Hangout employees like Markin out of sheer love for animals. A typical day consists of playing "chuck it" with a tennis ball, scratching furry bellies and making sure they don't "get too humpy," as Markin puts it.

As a loyal dog wrangler, Markin admits to never getting used to the smell of poop and to having two sets of clothes, which she says, "One set that I work in and one set that I have to change into right when I get home from work because of the smell."

Everybody loves watching dogs. You know you do. Markin even tells me that it's very common for people to stop along their St. Helen's location and peek through the garage to watch the dogs. 

"The dogs just go nuts when people stop and look through the garage," Markin tells me, but with the live webcams, "The owners can watch what their dogs are doing all day while they're gone."

Yes, the owners can watch all day long, but so can Steph DeRosa: A confessed webcam stalker. 

[Hound Hangout, 414 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.383.4264]

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Let's Start Off With The Weather: High winds tonight! (Seattle Times)

Tacoma Cash Mob: The first one invaded Teaching Toys and Books yesterday. (Weekly Volcano)

City Of Olympia: You'll be able to Like It. (News Tribune)

Carrie Brownstein: She's going to write a book about her life in music, which centers around Olympia, Wash. (Rolling Stone)

Let's Hate Hackers: A data breach at a payments processing firm has potentially compromised up to 1.5 million credit and debit card numbers from all of the major card brands. (CNN)

Fatal Encounter Between Trayvon Martin And George Zimmerman: It has polarized the nation, shining an unforgiving light on issues such as race relations and gun control. (The New York Times)

Bin Ladens Bunch: Osama Bin Laden's three widows and two eldest daughters are charged and sentenced for living illegally in Pakistan, their lawyer confirms. (BBC)

Touring Bands' Vans: Let's take a look at them. (Paste Magazine)

Adam Sandler: He swept the Razzies. (Yahoo)

Dude Should Just Shut Up: Keith Olbermann to blabber on David Letterman's show. (The Hollywood Reporter)

We Didn't See This Coming: Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! is coming to Broadway. (Flavorwire)

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Tacoma's Lower Pacific Avenue: It will open to traffic for the first time since June. (News Tribune)

Tacoma And Puyallup Police: They've had it with the whole smash out a car window and steal stuff trend. (News Tribune)

Holy Crap: There are Washington state high schools where four out of 10 students do not earn a diploma in four years. (News Tribune)

Madoff Madness: The owners of the New York Mets reached agreement today to pay $162 million to settle claims related to the Bernard Madoff case. (CNN)

Apple Computers: Investors will score big this summer. (The New York Times)

Rosie O'Donnell: Oprah fired her. (USA Today)

Never Too High To Talk: George Clinton takes fashion, fishing and fun. (SF Gate)

Shirley Manson Of Garbage: She was on Chelsea Lately. (Pink Is The New Blog)

Rock Stars: Let's see what they look like old. (Buzz Feed)