Seattle IAM Daily Blog Report: Trendy Kirkland Startup, Sonics Rock Solid, Rep Hankins' Record Penalty, New Mariners Knuckler

by Inveslogic | December 6, 2007 at 09:51 am

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This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from SeattleIAM where you will find the best blogs from Seattle, Washington as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring

All Eyes on Kirkland Startup

Brier Dudley’s recent post announces next week’s launch of FigurePrints, a Kirkland startup company that “will use advanced 3-D plastic printing technologies to produce custom game figurines.” Their first contract will be “printing” the characters from the online multiplayer fantasy game “World of Warcraft,” which boasts more than 9 million subscribed players. This may be just the beginning. “Customizable characters and avatars are now standard features of online games.”

The company was started by Ed Fries, former head of Microsoft Game Studios, Dudley reports in his post. “Fries worked his way up from intern to vice president and played a big role in the Xbox business before leaving Microsoft in 2004.” The official announcement has yet to be made, “but details came out this week when Dell announced a new ‘World of Warcraft’-themed laptop.” Extras that come with the system include a “gold ticket” redeemable for a FigurePrint.

Solid Playing by Sonics

Gary Washburn over at the Seattle Sonics Blog gives us the rundown of last night’s win against the LA Clippers (95-88). The Sonics played a solid game with a total team effort. “The return of Nick Collison boosted the team… he took the rebounding pressure off Kurt Thomas and compensated for Chris Wilcox who picked up five fouls in 13 minutes and took just four shots.” There was plenty of double figure scoring. Wally Szczerbiak scored 17 points in 25 minutes, Kevin Durant had seven rebounds and 18 points, and Chris Kaman had 19.

“The point-guard situation appears no closer to being solved,” states Washburn in his post. Delonte West was out with a foot injury and expected to return Friday, “along with Luke Ridnour, who will practice Thursday to test the recovery of his torn left quadriceps.” Earl Watson started in place of West and “had a solid 37 minutes with six assists and 10 points,” but our blogger questions whether he’s starting material.

Largest Legislative Penalty Goes to Rep. Hankins

Chris Mulick’s Olympia Disbatch Tri-City Herald blog recounts a story posted in their morning paper about the Legislative Ethics Board's ruling that state Rep. Shirley Hankins, R-Richland, “broke ethics laws by using her office to promote her daughters' tire baling company.” The order document is going to be released publicly today, although you can already find it posted on the Herald’s website.

The post reports that Hankins’ penalty “consists of a $2,000 fine for four separate violations of the law and $2,174.62 to cover the board's investigative costs.” This is the largest fine ever levied against a legislator. Before this determination, former Reps. Tom Huff, R-Gig Harbor, and Rep. Karen Schmidt, R-Bainbridge Island held the record. “They were both fined $1,862.25 in 1998 for producing and mailing to reporters at state expense a booklet the board determined to be a campaign document promoting Referendum 49.”

Seattle Lands a Knuckler

Larry Larue of the Mariners Insider reports from the Winter Meetings that the Mariners have “landed a starting pitcher… selecting 33-year-old knuckleball specialist R.A. Dickey in the Rule 5 Draft.” Dickey had a “long climb to the majors” when he was with the Texas Rangers, but it wasn’t until 2005 that he started throwing a knuckleball. He had a “16-19 major league record with a 5.72 earned run average.”

Dickey then returned to the minor leagues and took up the knuckler fulltime. Larue writes in his post that Dickey “seemed to find the touch on that pitch last year, when he went 13-6 with a 3.72 in Class AAA Nashville.” The Mariners will be bringing him to spring training “as a starting pitcher/long relief candidate.” He must stay on the club’s 25-man roster all season, or else be offered back to the Twins, due to being a Rule 5 draftee.

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SeattleIAM is part of a groundbreaking network of city-focused blog aggregation, user generated media and social networking websites currently rolling out across North America. Each IAM website filters and organizes blog content as well as offering video upload capabilities, social networking, blog authoring, favourites lists and rumours. The IAM Network is a division of SoMedia Networks Inc which also operates Inveslogic.com, Greenedia.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com. For more information or to register an account, visit SeattleIAM.com.