Blog Six Degrees of Paul Allen stumbled on this gem: a music video of The Paul Allen Band "On the Road to Nola." The video is pretty tongue in cheek, with the Microsoft co-founder (and one of the richest, most influential people in the world) driving an old beat up VW van. Musically, the band sounds pretty good! Allen's band will be among a number of cable industry musicians performing next Tuesday, May 20th, in the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans for the NCTA's "Battle of the Bands" charity fundraiser. Proceeds will go toward New Orleans schools, libraries, and organizations dedicated to helping New Orleans rebuild.

A band of Harry Potter-loving Huskies has taken up playing quidditch, the sport of wizards in the popular book and movie series, blogs School Zone. Naturally, they've made a few modifications. Instead of flying around on brooms, they run on a field with brooms between their legs chasing kickballs. And the golden snitch, a small, flying ball Harry has to capture to end the match, is actually a guy dressed in yellow running around campus with a gold ball tied to its back. Players say it's a lot of fun and good exercise. "It's a lot more athletic than you would think it is, just running around with a broomstick between your legs," one student told the UW paper The Daily. Watch the muggles in action in this HuskyCast production.

Seems like Fremont can never have too many odd statues. There's Lenin, the Troll, now Seattle's famous homegrown clown will also take up permanent residence in Fremont this summer. A new J.P. Patches statue will be unveiled to the public in August. The life-sized bronze statue called "Late for the Interurban" will show J.P. Patches (a.k.a. Chris Wedes) and his girlfriend Gertrude rushing in opposite directions, with arms linked, near Fremont's "Waiting for the Interurban" sculpture. (Photo courtesy jppatches.com)

In response to an online crime map that's popped up on Central District News blog, Capitol Hill Blog has started a "good news map." Users can pinpoint an address where the good time was had, and explain it to viewers. Instances of good times so far include "Watched another great sunset" at Bellevue and Denny, "Gave baby a free flower," on 15th Street and "Bought the new Death Cab album at Sonic Boom." Cute idea.

So much for the standard butterfly tattoo. The latest tattoo trend seems to be getting permanent tributes to four-legged friends. Seattle pet blogger Lisa Wogan looked into it, and writes: "I saw tats that ran the gamut from photo-realistic portraits and cartoon renderings to stylized names, paw prints and abstract mementos." She features a pet tat by Seattle artist Ed Lott on her blog today. I found this image on a dog training Web site, where several pet owners display their tattoos. While I adore my pooch, I just can't fathom getting this done.

Another upscale retailer has signed on to operate at the Bravern, the fancy-pants condo/shopping development set to open next year on the Eastside. Today the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa announced it will open its first Northwest spa at the site. They'll join the first Neiman Marcus in the region, the first Jimmy Choo in the Northwest, and the first David Barton Gym. And the developer has deals with other retailers in the works. While he's mum on their names, he's hinted at Louis Vutton, Hermes, Gucci and Prada. Yowza. You can view construction progress on the Bravern's Web cam.

Break out your Manolos. Seattle's Big Picture will begin selling tickets to the May 30 premiere of "Sex and the City" at noon Friday. Online ticketing currently isn't available - so I wonder how many Carrie fans will line up to get a guaranteed seat. The address is 2505 First Avenue, if you're interested, and the schedule of showings through June 15 is here. Meanwhile, in New York, it seems they're already burnt out on the movie hype. And does anyone in Seattle really wear Manolos?

As part of their reinvention campaign, Starbucks re-introduced its vintage 1971 brown-and-white logo featuring a two-tailed mermaid (or siren, to be specific). But Mother Jones' Mojo blog reports the image of a female figure spreading its tails has made a few Christians vow to boycott the company. "The Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," explains alarmist Mark Dice, of a Christian group called The Resistance. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks." As MojoBlog and AdAge point out, the Starbucks siren is half fish, so she doesn't even have two legs to spread. But I guess those details don't really matter. Anyway, for interesting reading, here's a short history on the evolution of the Starbucks' logo.

Seattle MLS co-owner Drew Carey will be in Seattle this Friday to talk serious soccer business at a MLS Members' Association meeting at Kell's Irish Pub in Post Alley Pike Place Market, blogs GOALSeattle. "As a Member, you are invited to Kells at 4:00 p.m. on May 16. Due to the limited space at Kells, Sounders FC will also give you a chance to watch the event live on soundersfc.com." As chairman of the Members' Association, Carey will discuss member benefits, voting procedures and introduce the Members Association Council.

Last week, CultureMob published a completely unsubstantiated rumor that Johnny Depp was going to buy legendary Seattle rock venue The Crocodile Cafe. 'It's going around the streets of Seattle like wildfire that Johnny Depp is going to buy the old Crocodile Cafe and make it much, much cooler (and hotter) than it ever was before. This is from several unreliable sources, some of whom were at least partially inebriated at the time of bean-spillage. It's a juicy one though, and Seattle would LOVE it to be true, am I right?' The consensus, at least with Seattlest and Belltowner, is that it's a croc of nothing. Oh, well. It's nice to fantasize.

Apparently a whole lot of WSU students leaving Pullman are dropping off their pets at the Whitman County Humane Society. The AP reports 30 percent of all animals they take in yearly arrive right after WSU graduation. "The staff tries to find homes for unwanted pets, but the departing owners leave a burden for staff and city of Pullman," say staff.

Want to know how long you'll live? How about an optimistic guesstimate? Consumer Boomer has been blogging about life expectancy calculator Virtual Age; specifically how the online tool is quite generous with the predictions. After answering 35 questions about family history, exercise, diet and the like, Virtual Age estimated the CB blogger would live to be 97. After I answered the questions, Virtual Age said I'd live to be 99.6. Holy cow. Do I want to live that long? Anyway, let us or CB know if there's a more reliable life expectancy calculator out there.

Acknowledging the growth of local blogs, the Democrats have selected 55 bloggers to cover the national convention this summer in Denver. They perused a pool of 400 applicants - both volunteer and full-time professional bloggers - and chose one writer to represent each state. Representing Washington will be David Goldstein's Horse's Ass blog. He and the other bloggers will get "unparalleled access to state delegations and the floor of the Convention Hall," according to a press release. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said: "The Internet has played a critical role in connecting Americans to elected officials and candidates seeking office. The DemConvention State Blogger Corps will continue to foster this dialogue - in all 50 of our states and our territories too - as we head towards this year's historic election."

The annual Seattle Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market is just days away (yay!) and the local media is already eating it up. The Seattle Times has a profile on a teenage cheese maker on Vashon Island who seems to be headed for the top, plus recipes for five-cheese macaroni and Beecher's cheese fondue. The P-I has instructions on preparing a perfect cheese plate. And food blogs are starting to pick up on the story. Finally, NWsource has the scoop on the theme of this year's event - terrior, or the effect geography has on cheese characteristics.