Wednesday, October 31, 2012

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It's the Year of the Labbit's 300th post!!11!!!one!! CRAZY RITE? So, what better way to celebrate than with a family portrait. Since most family portraits are lame and boring, the labbits decided to get in costume for Halloween, the best holiday of them all.

Okay, so, not all the labbits participated. Some of them, like the Easter Labbit, and the 1.5" Christmas labbits are already celebrating in their own, untimely holiday style. There's one last 1.5"er in there, and he's in full combat dress and would like to stay that way, thank you very much. Sooo, there's that.

Why don't we focus on the non-party poopers and take a closer look at the labbit costumes? Yeah!

Here's Chief Labbit Warren, in full Labbit Von Droog glory. He prefers his moloko vellocet to be almond milk. And drug free. ;)

Ted de Coste in a nod to Groucho Marx.

Clover does her best Dr. Frank-N-Furter. She wishes she had a wig, but you work with what you've got.

Clover had to twist Captain Holly's ears to get him to dress up for Halloween. He finally gave in to a costume, and went with his biggest fear. Babies.

Captain Holly requested a photo of his swaddled baby butt.

Patrick felt he had to be a cowboy, naturally.

Pipkin opted for the majestic, elusive jackalabbit.

The mini plushies got together and did a group costume. The most colorful of the labbits, they worked with what Kozik gave 'em and used their colors to their advantage and became the Angry Birds.

How did you dress up for Halloween? Did you get lots of candy? No doubt the labbits are going to be eating a lot of candy in the next few days...if it lasts that long. The labbits wish you all a wonderful Halloween!

Friday, October 26, 2012

Stickin' It To Seattle

Pipkin and Domo arrived at Pike Place Market with an important mission.


They headed to Post Alley under the Market, supplies in hand. They were going to leave their mark in Seattle, and they were going to leave it here:

This is Seattle's famous Gum Wall. It is a brick alleyway wall, and it is covered in gum. Chewing gum. Chewed chewing gum.

They went with strawberry flavored Bazooka Joe gum (classic!). Domo's got a bit of lockjaw going on, so it was up to Pip to carry out the task.


Now, where to stick it?

Nope, not this side.

Something on this side!



Right over there!

Here? Yes, definitely. Not too many pieces here.

Yeah! (Blech!)

 YEAH!!!!!1!11!one!!


Thursday, October 25, 2012

Shhhh! It's a library!

It's been a pretty adventurous trip in Seattle so far. Pipkin never anticipated facing bicycle eating cephalopods, giant spiders or face hugging aliens, and he's sure there are more freaks to follow. Domo's already expressed excitement over a giant troll who lives under the Fremont bridge.

For now, Pipkin is content to spend some quiet time at the Seattle Central Library downtown. This 11 storey, glass and metal structure looked like a giant stack of books to Pipkin, at least from the outside. On the inside, on the top floor, Pipkin enjoyed a view of downtown Seattle.

What Pipkin likes best about the library is its clever display of the non-fiction section. A long, gentle footpath spirals upwards through the center of the library, allowing visitors to peruse the books uninterrupted. The books are displayed in order of the Dewey Decimal System, with 9 floors dedicated to each of the 100s, 200s, 300s grouping and so on through the 900s. It was nice for Pipkin to hop up the ramp instead of getting trampled by kids running on the brightly lit escalators.

Looks like Domo found himself at home at the library, too. On the fourth floor there are restrooms, meeting rooms, classrooms and an administrative office. The hallway connecting all these rooms is a smooth, curving, hallway all in bright red, which starkly contrasts the soft blues and cool metal tones in the rest of the library.


To read more about the history and design of the Seattle Central Library, visit the wikipedia page or the Seattle Library's website, which also lists ongoing special events. If you visit the library, make sure you get a visitor's map on the first or third floor, and take the guided walking tour of the library. It's a great place to visit, and a quiet break from the city.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Kitten In The Street

Every largely populated city in America has its share of people on the streets who for some reason or another do not have a place to call home, and Seattle is no exception. While there are warming shelters downtown, and job training and work placement programs, these resources aren't always enough to help everyone.

Mimi is looking to make enough money to buy herself a tent to stay dry in the coming winter months. The Pacific northeast is a cold, wet place in winter, and Mimi, like most cats, just wants to stay dry. Pipkin's sad that she has to beg for money on the streets. While he had little to offer her, she was grateful for the little bit that he could give to help. Mostly Pipkin hung out with Mimi and talked. Mimi was happy for the company, and for someone to treat her with kindness. She hates being chased or shooed away. She's trying her best to not be a stray.





There are nice humans, too. This lady left some money and gave Mimi a little love. Pipkin hopes Mimi gets a tent for the winter. He and Domo went to the REI store in Seattle and saw a great tent that would be perfect for a cat.


The store wouldn't sell it though. It was a "demo model only" - whatever that meant. The staff didn't think it would be good for anyone, but obviously they haven't met Mimi.


Labbit Travels: Experience Music Project Museum

Ohhhh, it's exit through the gift shop, not enter through the gift shop, isn't it? When Pipkin and Domo showed up at the Experience Music Project museum, the found themselves walking through the gift shop, and after the day Pipkin had had so far (giant Harvestmen! Cold, metal, spiderwebs! Bicycle eating cephalopods!) Pipkin just didn't have the stomach for rabbit zombies.

EMP isn't just a museum for music, but it also explores themes in popular culture, and the science fiction and horror genres. Pipkin felt he and Domo should explore on their own. He'd had enough fright for the day.


So Domo headed downstairs to check out the sci-fi and horror galleries. Domo likes a good scream (he can't help it, really). The first thing he saw was the facehugger from Alien. DAAAAAARGH!


He then turned a corner and ran into a full grown alien. Domo's actually a little envious of the mouth within a mouth. Scary!


Even scarier...this book! It's going on Domo's reading list once he gets home.


Domo can't imagine not having a mouth. Happily, he got to go into the Scream Booth - a soundproof booth with some guided scream therapy. Ahhhhhh...





While Domo chilled in the Scream Booth, Pipkin listened to different bands covering Nirvana in the Sky Church. The Sky Church can host over 800 people as a live performance venue and as a cinema. Sky Church was a term Jimi Hendrix used to describe a place where people of all ages and cultures could come together to experience music.

Pipkin loved this giant tower of instruments. Titled IF VI WAS IX, Seattle sculptor Trimpin put together over 500 instruments in this tower, which is equipped with headphones so people can listen to electronic music that Trimpin had programmed into some of the instruments. Some of the guitars, which are hard to get to, are tuned automatically whenever their pitch is too sharp or flat.

The EMP Museum is a place where you could spend the entire day (and then some) going through the interactive displays watching interviews with musical artists, film directors and actors, or working your way through the top floor's Sound Lab, learning to play keyboards, drums, guitar and bass, or taking to the stage to perform your favorite songs by Seattle artists. Pipkin and Domo both had a great time at EMP and they recommend you spend the day there!

Do exit through the gift shop. There's lots of fun stuff there, but you'll get distracted and spend too much time there instead of in the museum.

Monday, October 22, 2012

More 8 Legged Freaks!

"RUN PIP!"

Seems like Seattle Center is just overrun with 8 legged freaks. First there were the two Harvestmen on top of the Armory, then Pipkin almost got caught in a metal spider web while walking around Seattle Center. Now there's this cephalopod by the bike racks.

Pipkin went running away as fast as his labbit legs could take him. Domo stayed back and tried to reason with the beast.






As it turns out, you are what you eat, and this guy's not interested in labbit or...whatever Domo is (a walking, talking ice cream sandwich?). He's into the metal from bikes, and he enjoys your meaty 3 speed cruisers, the simplistic single-gear, no-brakes fixie, to the fully tricked out, my-wheels-cost-more-than-your-car tri bikes. He'll eat them all (but spit out the rubber tires).



So they're in luck. There will be no eating of labbits or screaming ice cream sandwich monsters today!

Hello, Autumn!

You have to look up at the trees very carefully this time of year. If you are quite lucky...

...sometimes you will find little orange and red labbits...

...just ripe for the picking!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Labbit Travels: Arachnid Invasion!

After hanging out at the Seattle Center, Pipkin and Domo took a ride in the elevator up the Space Needle. Eek! What's over there? Something's crawling on the roof of the Armory. Something with a lot of legs. Hmm. Maybe they could take a better look from the observation deck.

Pipkin climbed on top of some binoculars to take a better look. Hm. Nothing from this side. But from here Pipkin could see the rooftop of their hotel, and Puget Sound. It's quite nice up there. They walked to the other side of the observation deck to try and locate the spiders. It stinks when you see a creepy crawly and then you lose track of it. You never know where it might appear next.

DAAAAAHHH! Domo spotted not one, but TWO!

But they're not spiders, they look like Daddy Longlegs, which Domo explained to Pipkin was not actually a spider (although it is an arachnid) and that its wee fangs wouldn't break human skin. Well...maybe they could, at that size! These guys are giant!


But Pipkin and Domo waited for a while and they didn't seem to move. In fact, they waited a really long time and the shadows didn't move either! Weird...

It turns out, these Daddy Longlegs are not a part of some giant pseudo-spider invasion, they're a trompe-l'oeil, a technique of painting that creates the illusion of something being three dimensional. The artist Marlin Peterson painted the two spiders recently on the roof of the Armory, so that it could be seen from the Space Needle. Phew! Pipkin felt a lot better knowing they weren't real.



Feeling a bit more relaxed, Pipkin and Domo took their time strolling around the observation deck before heading back down in the elevator.  They were on their way to check out the Frank Gehry designed EMP Museum when they ran into...


DAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! Run, Pip!

It's okay, Domo's got it under control. What's up, Seattle? Why do you like to scare your visitors?