The vultures are circling. With the Post Intelligencer on the auction block,

The vultures are circling. With the Post Intelligencer on the auction block, speculators are bandying about ideas over how daily news in Seattle will change over the next few months. But Steve Hall, president of wristbandfactory.com, isn’t concerned about the earning ability of the PI’s online operation or entanglements with the JOA. He just wants the globe. Wristbandfactory.com sells blank paper sheets and pre-printed wristbands to everyone from local party promoters to an animal shelter in Texas that uses them for feline IDs. Last Friday, Hall wrote to PI Managing Editor David McCumber offering to take the several-ton orb off the paper’s hands. “I haven’t heard what it’s worth, no one’s called me back,” Hall says. He adds that it might make sense of the globe to go to a museum, but if the paper shutters, he’d like the chance to buy it. “We need a landmark to promote our Wristbandfactory.com personalized wristband business nationally and internationally,” Hall says in a press release. “If we could buy the Space Needle and wrap it with a wristband it would serve our purpose well, but a big banner would probably jam the Space Needle’s elevators, so buying the Seattle P-I globe is the next best thing to get attention, and in this recession, for less money.” If he ever does take possession of the globe, he says, he’ll treat it with respect. “If we ever got it, I think the first thing we should do is administer the PI’s last rites with it.”