ALBUM

I’m probably too old to be as excited as I am about Macklemore, but whatever, the hip-hop startup, along with producer Ryan Lewis, is straight killing it. The marriage-equality-loving, Mariners-hat-sporting, goofy-rhyme-purveyor’s new album, The Heist, is the culmination of Macklemore’s do-it-yourself climb to the pinnacle of the Northwest musical landscape over the past few years. It’s a slick, creative and unique record that rose to the top of the iTunes top-seller list immediately upon its release last week. Even if you don’t dig the music, you have to love the Northwest pride this dude dishes.

WIZARD

Let me be so bold as to say this: One of America’s greatest athletes is a guy named David Blaine. Yes, the magician. And yes, I’m totally serious about this. He started on the street with dumbfoundingly complicated and seemingly impossible card tricks before graduating to stunts that include, but are not limited to: burying himself underground for a week, freezing himself in ice for a weekend, staying underwater for seven days. Last week, he stood on a plank for three days while a million volts of electricity surged through his body. The guy is a master endurance artist who should be saluted after announcing now that he’s stepping away from endurance feats.

FOOTBALL

If you, like me, suffer from an incurable college football fixation, yet find yourself completing inane tasks like cleaning basements and buying groceries on Saturdays, you no longer need to worry about setting the DVR. The new PAC-12 Network keeps a full schedule of live conference football games on Saturdays, but if you missed it, they boil the game down to 60 minutes and show them throughout the following week. That’s right. They do the fast-forwarding, commercial cutting and half-time announcer silencing for all of us who can’t settle on merely scrolling through scores on Sunday mornings. It’s nice to have an enabler like this.