Lewiston, Idaho (where I went to high school) was and apparently is still this way. A few years ago, I was talking to a friend who I hadn’t seen in a while, and asked him how things were going in Lewiston. He said “we have a new Home Depot now”. Around that same time, my dad (who also left the area) asked one of his friends how it was going, and he said the same thing. The coming of Home Depot is apparently a very important thing.

These are my people, and I’m not so hip and metropolitan that I can’t totally relate. The source of great speculation and bated breath here in West Seattle for most of this past decade came with the remodel of the Westwood Village shopping center. For years, the rumor was that there would be a movie theater (oooo…ahhhh) going in, and speculation would run amok any time the foundation was poured on any building that looked remotely like a movie theater. This was long after the point at which it was announced that there would be no movie theater; the chain that promised one pulled out years ago. Nonetheless, the movie theater speculation soon subsided as the new excitement was around the Barnes and Noble that went in last year. Unfortunately, the remodel is mostly complete, so there’s not much left to get really excited about.

With that painfully long and rambling introduction out of the way, it’s with great glee that I announce that I’m scooping the West Seattle Blog. According to the Westwood Village website, there is a Taco Del Mar and a Gionnoni’s Pizza (whatever that is) opening there in “Fall 2006″. It’s no movie theater, but hey, you heard it here first.

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“There are children alive today who don’t know what a Whaler is,” the mayor said at the signing ceremony. “All their lives, they’ve known only the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish. If you look into the eyes of such a child, you realize why it’s important that we save our shared Burger King heritage.”