It’s been a quietly exciting summer in my neighborhood. After living close-ish to a little main street area the next neighborhood over we are finally getting businesses setting up just a block from our house here in Hillman City.

Tin Umbrella Coffee is a coffee roastery and shop that will be offering a coffee bean delivery subscription via bicycle! If you live in Seattle I’ve heard from Joya that they are looking to deliver as far north as Greenlake. My friend Naomi wrote more about Tin Umbrella them over at Seattle Weekly. Tin Umbrella’s opening was last weekend and the mayor was there, which was awfully cool. (Note to Seattle residents, they currently have a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo.)

Spinnaker Bay Brewing is a women founded, owned and run brewery with a spacious tasting room. They brew strong beers in a traditional English style and the place has been hopping since they opened a few months ago. They don’t have food but they do have a rotating set of food trucks that come set up in their parking lot, which are also a very welcome addition to the neighborhood. Also, I’ve been learning to brew beer there for the past few months and it’s been amazing. (More on that later.)

I’m bursting with pride that I’ll have both coffee and beer that are actually made blocks from me, and made by people who really love what they do. You will all come visit me in my neighborhood now that there are places to visit, yes? Yes!

Mini Sugar Skulls That Double as Sugar Cubes, at Laughing Squid. Cute and so very creepy.

The Food Lab: 7 Old Wives’ Tales About Cooking Steak That Need To Go Away | Serious Eats. The searing tip (cook over low heat, sear last) is alone worth reading this.

Jeffrey Morgenthaler » How To Make Your Own Ginger Beer. Via @voraciousgirl.

How to: Make Your Own DIY Smoked Cocktails | Man Made DIY.

Nora Ephron’s favorite cookie comes from Seattle | Seattle Times. Recipe from Tom Douglas.

Satan’s Circus Recipe: Bon Appétit. Via Orangette.

Naan | eCurry – The Recipe Blog. See also How to sort of make naan at home at Serious Eats. I’m hoping to make naan as good as what we get at Poppy here in Seattle.

About an hour of Christian Marclay’s The Clock at Kottke.

The Story Behind the Lacoste Crocodile Shirt | Threaded.

The Maze. A mysterious choose your own adventure puzzle thingy.

Text to Morse code convertor. You never know when you’ll need it.

Sir Realism – Soul Searchin’. An indie game I really must finish someday soon, very clever idea. From a previous year’s Ludlum Dare.

Conjuring – Futility Closet. This card trick isn’t an illusion, but it’s really neat to do over and over to prove it true.

Checklist | Get Your Shit Together. A straightforward and very helpful guide to how to prepare your shit (wills, passwords, bank accounts, life insurance) just in case.

What TV show should I watch next? | Ask MetaFilter.

The Technium: The Clock in the Mountain. All about the Long Now foundation’s clock.

Amazon.com: PocketToolX Mako Titanium Bike Tool. This looks useful, and tiny.

Robbed! by Megan Seling – The Stranger. How bands and individuals can insure their instruments, and plenty of devastating examples as to why you should do this right away.

Giant Colin Firth Terrorizes London – The Atlantic Wire. I must see this for myself.

I want give a huge congratulations to Kirby Krackle on the release of their new album, Sounds Like You. The band worked really hard to get this out and it’s been great to watch as everything came together. It was also thrilling to see their album release show here in Seattle at the Triple Door pack the house. (Full disclosure: my husband Scott plays bass in the band so obviously I’m a fan.)

Both Kirby Krackle and The Doubleclicks released albums this week and I really like the thoughtful review up at Geekdad (spoiler, he liked both albums): Kirby Krackle, The Doubleclicks Present the New Sound of Nerd.

Kirby Krackle is headed out on a week-long tour, if you’re at San Diego Comicon later this week you can go watch them perform with Nerfherder (!!!). Here are all the dates:

• July 14th: Seattle, WA – The Triple Door w/ Molly Lewis, The Doubleclicks, and H2Awesome (FB Event)
• July 15th: Portland, OR – Things From Another World w/ H2Awesome (FB Event)
• July 17th: San Francisco, CA – Hemlock Tavern w/ DJ Dan and H2Awesome (FB Event)
• July 18th: Newhall, CA – Brave New World Comics w/ H2Awesome (FB Event)
• July 19th: San Diego, CA – The Merrow (Formerly Ruby Room) w/ Nerfherder and H2Awesome (FB Event)
• July 21st: Las Vegas, NV – Supanova Comics w/ Megaran, H2Awesome, and Danimal (FB Event)

Inside Digg’s Race to Build the New Google Reader | Gadget Lab | Wired.com. Also see Feedly Cloud, with an all-web interface. Both via Waxy.

The Shapes of CSS. How to use CSS to create basic and not so basic shapes.

How To Create Vibrant Color Photographs – A Beautiful Mess.

Good resources to learn current HTML and CSS for web design? Especially looking for best practices for creating blog websites for modern browsers and devices. | Ask MetaFilter.

Ipad puzzle games | Ask MetaFilter. Great suggestions here.

The HTML Editor – Your best Web design friend | CoffeeCup Software. Anybody used this? Do you like it? I’m still looking for an HTML editor that will be as easy to use as Homesite.

We aren’t doing anything special for this July 4th, unless you count sitting on our deck reveling in the sunshine. Ahhhh. But I do want to point towards my post from earlier this year talking about star shaped foods. I made these for the Oscars but hey, stars are versatile. I’m definitely going to make the star shaped corn chips again, they were easy to make and strong enough to stand up to guacamole but not so strong that they Captain Crunch the inside of your mouth. You know?

Other star foods I’m eyeing include the star shaped mini pies at Say Yes to Hoboken and, of course, the star shaped watermelon slices for fruit salad.