Christopher Lantz

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The fine tuning is complete. As the state’s apple crop ripens in the golden sun of lovely Royal City, Washington (and Seattle!), the highly anticipated Capitol Cider is open for business — officially — starting Thursday night. Though some of you have already begun working your way through its orchard-deep cider offerings.

The former art gallery transformed into a 4,000 square-foot, two-level cider bar at 818 E Pike features a 30-tap selection of ciders, another 100 bottled ciders and gluten-free pub food. It neighbors French-inspired shop and cooking school Paris Eastside and an in-the-works Starbucks at Pike and Broadway.

Cider is a trend — and also part of Washington State’s agricultural history.

“Drinking fresh cider from the farm is part of our heritage. It’s a traditional American beverage,” first-time pub owner Spencer Reilly told CHS when we first talked with him about the project in August 2012. “There’s a culture of cider in almost every small orchard town.”

The new pub intends to have “the largest array of draft cider in the USA,” according to the announcement of Thursday’s official opening.

Reilly and business partner and chef Jordan Sinclair have brought in Phil Thompson, formerly of Coterie Room and Tavern Law, to manage the bar. Or bars.

Capitol Cider intends to be taken seriously for its food in addition to its cider. The pub offers “a gluten-free menu with recipes naturally designed to exclude gluten ingredients; everything offered on the menu is made in-house, from the cold-brew coffee and hand-cut fries to the batter on the fish & chips.” Thompson’s will also be mixing a “craft cocktail program” with “fresh-squeezed juices and ingredients, and features a wide array of liquors, including the largest selection of apple brandy and Calvados in the state.”

Capitol Cider is divided into two levels — each with a full bar fed by the dozens of ciders on tap. Downstairs, cider drinkers will find The Ballast Bar & Gameroom replete with”two 18-foot shuffleboard tables, a stage with a 107-year-old piano, a fireplace and a 20-foot communal table and plenty of room for games and shenanigans. Consider it a cousin to the subterranean Narwhal addition to the Unicorn up E Pike only patrons are playing checkers, not Galaga.

Upstairs, visitors enter into a pub hung salon style with original oil paintings created by students at Capitol Hill’s Gage Academy of Art where Reilly’s mother — who also provided design expertise for Capitol Cider — chairs the board.

Included in the oils is a portrait of founding father John Adams who, we’re told, “attributed his long life and good health to a tankard of cider before breakfast.”

You can choose which Capitol Hill food and drink trend to file the timely project under: from gluten-free experimenters to drinking halls and pubs to single-focus specialties to 2013′s continuing wave of new Hill bars and restaurants – this makes 17, by the way.

Capitol Cider will be open daily, 4p-2a with food until midnight.

You can learn more at capitolcider.com or on the Capitol Cider Facebook page.

(Image: @gageacademy)

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer and poster for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the second part in The Hobbit film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson. The film is scheduled to release in the US on December 13th, 2013.

The second in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” continues the adventure of the title character Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) as he journeys with the Wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and thirteen Dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) on an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor.

image via The Hobbit

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Art of the Brick is an upcoming solo art show by artist Nathan Sawaya at the Discovery Times Square museum in New York featuring “the world’s biggest and most elaborate display of LEGO art ever and will feature brand-new, never-before-seen pieces by Sawaya.” The show opens Friday, June 14th, 2013 and will be on display until Sunday, January 5th, 2014. Tickets are available to purchase online from the Discovery Times Square website.

images via and video Discovery Times Square, Nathan Sawaya

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In Sasebo, Japan in January 2013, 134 costumed character mascots (known as yuru-kyara) danced in unison to the song “The Beard Dance” by the Japanese band The Drifters. RocketNews24 reports that they were vying for the Guinness world record for “Synchronized Mascot Dancing” and succeeded.

via WTF Japan Seriously

Berlin, Germany-based artist Hilmar Stehr (aka “Okarola”) of No Cats On The Blog has created “Darth Pro,” a powerful mashup of Star Wars’ ruthless Sith Lord Darth Vader and the newly announced Mac Pro desktop computer from Apple. This takes the Force Quit command to a whole new level.

via Nerdcore

Comedian William Haynes has created “True Facts About The Corgi,” an adorable video that mimics the style of Ze Frank’s hilarious “True Facts” videos.

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The tiny walls of this pool are no match for our love. 

gpoy

Cracked imagines what Disney cartoons might be like if they were based on real events in history.

The State of California is considering legislation that would fine businesses $6,000 per employee who has to turn to Medical, the state's version of Medicaid. The bill is especially targeted at WalMart, which notoriously counsels its employees to use food stamps and other social programs to make up for the shortfall between the wage it pays and the minimum cost of staying alive:

The amount of the fine is no coincidence.

A report released last week by the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, estimates that the cost of Wal-Mart’s failure to adequately pay its employees could total about $5,815 per employee each and every year of employment.

“Accurate and timely data on Wal-Mart’s wage and employment practices is not always readily available. However, occasional releases of demographic data from public assistance programs can provide useful windows into the scope of taxpayer subsidization of Wal-Mart. After analyzing data released by Wisconsin’s Medicaid program, the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce estimates that a single 300- person Wal-Mart Supercenter store in Wisconsin likely costs taxpayers at least $904,542 per year and could cost taxpayers up to $1,744,590 per year – about $5,815 per employee.”

California To Wal-Mart: Enough! No More Taxpayer Subsidized Profits For You [Rick Ungar/Forbes]

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(Image: Walmart-World, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from zooboing's photostream)

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“Millennials in the Workplace: A Helpful Guide” is a hilarious mock educational video that explains how to deal with a new kind of worker: the whiny and difficult millennial. The video was created by Official Comedy.

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“The Great American Mech Battle of 2042” is a series of illustrations by Oakland, California-based freelance artist Super Ugly depicting United States presidents as robots who battle monsters. They will be in display during the Ghosts and All art show at WWA Gallery in Culver City, California starting June 8, 2013.

In the year 2042, when climate change is at its worst, monsters descend upon the country. Destroying many metropolitan areas, it falls upon a Underground Shadow Cabal to unleash the next stage in armory for the United States. These Giant Mechs, models MARK VI, are built to resemble some of the United States greatest heroes, in a hope to inspire the last remnants of our fragile society. Some will rise to the challenge and others will fall, where will you be when the dust settles?

images via Super Ugly

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