MISC. WISHES A FOND ADIEU to Courtney Love, who (if you believe the British papers) is apparently leaving Seatown for good in order to further her new career as a Hollywood professional celebrity. Unlike some local print outlets, this column has prepared for the loss by building up an ample supply of non-Love-related items, and hence will not run short of supplies for at least the near future.

IN OTHER BABY-DOLL NEWS: Kelly, billed by Mattel as “Barbie’s Baby Sister,” is already showing signs of rebellion against her careerist, acquisition-obsessed sibling. Evidence: the new “Potty Training Kelly” model, shown in Saturday-morning TV ads “tinkling” into her own toddler-size toilet. Besides demystifying the mechanics of female elimination for young male cartoon viewers, the doll allows females just beyond toilet-training age to act out on an inanimate victim any traumas their own moms had imposed on them, potentially preventing deep psychological issues that might surface later in life.

CATHODE CORNER #1 (via Sherman Lovell): “Am I the only one who’s annoyed by the new KCTS VJs? All three of them are attractive, congenial sorts, but they don’t really seem to have any purpose other than to say `Wasn’t that great?’ and `Coming up is…’ If we have to have VJs on the PBS station, can’t we get Daisy Fuentes?” (Actually, they serve a third purpose: to give advertisers–oops, “underwriters”–more noticeable between-show spots to buy.)

CATHODE CORNER #2 (via Michelle Ellefson): “The KONG commercials on KING are driving me nuts… I’m just hoping (in vain, I know) this isn’t some dumb King Kong gorilla thing. The last thing this city needs is an inflatable gorilla on the Space Needle, and that’s what I see coming.” (It’s a UHF TV station out of Everett, to launch later this year after being in the works for nearly a decade. While nominally independently owned, it has some sort of joint marketing or programming arrangement with KING, just within the letter of FCC regs against one company owning two TV stations in the same metro area.)

THE BITS AND THE BYTES WERE THERE: The UW Computer Fair attracted all the usual exhibitors again this year. There were CAD/CAM graphics-software vendors, MS Windows training seminars, mouse-pad imprinters, and scads of Internet service providers. What I missed were the unusual exhibitors. After peaking earlier in the decade, the number of truly innovative or offbeat vendors at the fair has shrunk, perhaps due to the veering of PC-related business back toward corporate markets after a prior flowering of hobbyist/ home action. The most notable exception was one Tom Bourne of Bothell selling $79.95 handcrafted wood computer mice, items looking less like electronics and more like something fallen off an old Chris-Craft yacht. Bourne’s silly product name, “Li’l Woody,” doesn’t do this elegant product justice. (See for yourself at www.isomedia.com/homes/lilwoody.)

THE NAME GAME: There’s a (quite impressive) record store in Belltown called Wall of Sound. As of this week, there’s also a music-news website in Bellevue (part of Paul Allen’s Starwave organization) called www.wallofsound.com, which might get into selling records later on. Wall of Sound (the store) is now talking about possible legal action against Wall of Sound (the website). As far as I know, neither outfit ever discussed use of the name with record producer Phil Spector, credited with coining the phrase circa ’61.

TRIDENT IMPORTS, R.I.P.: Beyond the competition from out-of-state chains like Cost Plus and Pier 1, Trident was stuck with the de-romanticization of imported household goods. At one time, when most furniture, clothes and even shoes were still made in America, the first Cocktail Generation regularly sought for moderately-priced exotica to furnish its otherwise lookalike tract homes. Back then, the word “import” signified something more than mere pennies-a-day production wages. It meant affordable beauty, an unthreatening glimpse of an older and more rooted culture, even if in the form of a Tiki-god lamp fixture or a bamboo throw rug. There’s been lotsa talk about big, big development projects on Trident’s waterfront site, but you just know whatever goes in there won’t be half as much fun.