Want to get away from the craziness that is Seattle during the Fourth of July? Try the San Juan Islands. This Seattlest will be packing her camping gear and kayak to explore the beautiful (and likely rainy, WTF?) San Juan Islands. If a tent and campfire are not up your alley, the islands offer a few inns and B&B’s that cater to every need from luxury spa service to private airplane tours. How do......

"Jump Off 15th," courtesy of Seattlest Flickr user JeanineAnderson Seattlest, as you know, has long been an advocate of playing hooky on Friday. Today, if you're looking for an excuse to cut out early, just tell your boss you can't bear to sit in the office any longer on the Happiest Day of the Year. How did "they" figure out that today is the happiest? A simple math formula, of course: "According to the......

We remember having pillow fights as a kid and always loved them. We'd smack our friends upside the head for a few seconds and then, invariably, we'd fall over shrieking with laughter. So when My Ballard tipped off us off to a flash mob pillow fight planned for today, we knew we'd have to go. Turns out a planned, massive fight is a lot different from those of our youth. First of all, it lasted......

Comfort is a two-way street. Sometimes we need comfort. And sometimes we give it. Crave has been the giver by way of its menu of “contemporary comfort food,” which includes favorites like blintzes, overnight baked beans, and shiitake macaroni & cheese. Now is the time for us to give. Diagnosed with two forms of lymphoma, Crave’s chef-owner Robin Leventhal is giving away her collection of copper Jello molds to some of Seattle’s finest chefs.......

Image Courtesy of the dualy talented, Jay Cox of The Sea Navy and Our Seattlest Flickr Pool Long spoken of and rarely acted upon, the renovation and remodeling of The Seattle Center was again on the docket for Monday's City Council meeting. Center officials presented a number of new design ideas for the redevelopment of the Center. Central to these are the demolishing of Memorial Stadium and The Fun Forest. Proposed uses for the......

Some much-needed clarification on the primary/caucus fiasco: Washington holds both caucuses and a primary in order to decide how to allocate its delegates for the presidential candidates. We hope you were able to make it to your caucus on Saturday to cast your vote for the Democratic/Republican presidential candidate of your choice. You should have picked a party, gone to the designated caucus location for your precinct, and written in your choice next to......

On Saturday, we took our godson, his mom and his dad to Baby Loves Disco. Since we don't have a kid of our own and don't have any experience with kid-themed events, 17-month-old Eli agreed to let us interview him about the party. We'd like to preface his comments by saying that from the moment we walked in until the time we left, Eli was trailed by a gaggle of older-than-him little girls. Undoubtedly this,......

We've been locking our keyboard in a drawer to keep ourselves from putting up any "this is the weekend the green line would have begun service" posts, both because it's been done and because it's history. Yes, it would have been great to have, but we decided against it. If there's anything like a blog to mark the day in the distant future when we'd have it paid off we'll be impressed. But a reader......

This Seattlest started his carpet-bagging campaign here about ten years ago, so maybe we have an imperfect understanding of the Fun Forest and it's cultural baggage. When we heard that the City Council had elected to raze the Fun Forest in 2009 our first reaction was "What?! They're clear-cutting the Wenatchee National Forest?!" But then we caught on, as we occasionally do, and realized they were talking about the little carnivalette that lives in Seattle......

Bellingham jazz funksters, Megatron, had a few impressive solos, but for the most part, their songs were fairly simple and somewhat repetitive. But we're not here to harsh on Megatron. They did a good job warming the cold December crowd and getting everyone excited for our lady of the evening, the illustrious Ms. Sharon Jones and her acclaimed backing band, The Dap Kings. If Megatron had the crowd warmed up, The Dap Kings got them......

"Azalea Way" by B.K. Dewey from the Seattlest Flickr Pool. A pleasant reminder of a fun snowy day, before the rain came and ruined everything.......

Husky football coach Ty Willingham--who's status as coach was the focal point of heated debate--will be back the Huskies in 2008, reports The Seattle Times via "a source." We highly recommend reading the Dawgman football message board for the rest of the afternoon, it should be extremely entertaining. Just a sample: "Have fun with Ty, maybe I'll check a box score or two as we have our 6th straight losing season and Ty puts......

Birth of a fetish: The Register reports an unfortunate MSN messenger encounter between two young girls and Microsoft's badly programmed Santa chat bot. Apparently "RoboSanta" has "a shocking predeliction for casually dropping in that it likes to talk about a certain sex act." The Register (El Reg, below) replicated the conversation, starting out by offering St. Nick a piece of pizza: El Reg says: pizza (pi) Santa says: Yum! What do you want for......

Look up the definition of “hot-to-trot” and you’ll find two sets of meanings: (1) willing and eager and (2) sexually exciting. To us, hot pot is both. All the recent hot pot talk on food message boards and in the local and national newspapers tempted us to do a turkey trot to Seven Stars Pepper (at 12th and Jackson, our favorite food corner in Seattle) on Thanksgiving Day – thankful to the Chinese for having......

Besides the Big Wood Festival going on up at Brouwer's (which even exceeded expectations last night), this weekend marks the 3rd Annual Winter Beer Festival put on by the Washington Beer Commission. The Winter Beer Festival is held at Hale's and will feature over 30 different winter beers from Washington brewers. It can get a little packed, but it's a great time and last year was a solid lineup. This year keep your eyes......

Seattlest wanders. ¡Mira! is no more. Not even the upside-down exclamation point was able to save it from the, er, difficult location (basement of the Labor Temple). Intrepidly going where so many others have failed is the Middle-Eastern Zaina, installing a clone of its Pioneer Square falafel stand in subterranean Belltown. Cafe Minnie’s is no more. Belltown’s greasiest greasy spoon, and only 24-hour joint at that, was finally done in, not by crappy food and......

This weekend Mr. and Mrs. Seattlest drove out to North Bend to cut a Christmas tree down and haul it back to Seattle. No, we didn't hike up Si with an ax and harvest a sapling, although that does sound fun. There's a tree farm out there by the name of Crown Tree Farm. It was our first time getting a tree from anywhere other than those road-side dealies or the enclosures that pop......

Ah, football. We love it. It’s easily our favorite sport to watch as it gets our usual docile selves all fired up and yelling at the television every week. Basketball, even with its fast pace and high scoring, is a bore. And baseball? Baseball is almost as fun to watch as golf or the Lifetime channel. But for all of football’s glory, there remains its biggest upset. Which is that it’s one of those high-testosterone......

On our walk back up from the Pike Street Victrola the other day, we noticed a new store has arrived in the space that used to be a...what?...ethnic foods, was it? We always meant to go in and see. But we didn't. Not even during the "Going Out of Business" sale. God, it was awful. Some days the owner would come out and stand there, looking downhearted. Eventually we started looking for reasons to cut......

Bill Resler, beloved coach of the Roosevelt High School girls basketball team, which was featured in the documentary Heart of the Game, was fired on the eve of the season, reports the Times' Craig Smith. Roosevelt administrators aren't saying why, at least not publicly. Privately, according to Resler, they're telling parents he held forbidden offseason practices, which Resler denies. Smith cites previous complaints against Resler that he encourages rough play and sometimes swears. Those haven't......

(This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs.) Seahawks vs Artery Clogging Fiesta Preview Bad ideas often disguise themselves as good ideas. How......

A sign inside Fremont's High Dive states that the little bar's maximum occupancy is 98. Saturday night, with Bellingham's The Trucks in the house, it felt more like 398. Good for the band's young ladies, not so good for the claustrophobic. When Seattlest arrived, the Dive was already crowded for opener Black Eyes and Neckties, an appropriately costumed hard-punk outfit. The hyperactive, Seth Rogen-y singer's unintelligible shouting quickly became tiresome and the set--admittedly well-played,......

Being born about three decades too late early to appreciate Go, Diego, Go LIVE: The Great Jaguar Rescue, a musical based on the TV show of the same name, we sent our two-year-old nephew. Seattlest: How did you like Go, Diego, Go? Our Two-Year-Old Nephew: (swaying from side-to-side) Goooood. Seattlest: Did you have fun? Our Two-Year-Old Nephew:: Yes. Seattlest: What was your favorite part? Our Two-Year-Old Nephew:: (Prolonged silence) Wow, we had no idea that......

It's so easy to keep going to the same places in Seattle over and over again. With the abundance of great places to grab a pint that we can get to from a bus ride and a quick walk, it's tough to hop in a car and go anywhere for a drink. But it is always great fun heading out to the breweries away from town to see what is going on. Snoqualmie Falls......

Ravens & Chimes [myspace] have been artist of the day on Spin, and you've heard them on John in the Morning. Their new album, Reichenbach Falls, "dropped" last month. They are hot. Two Ravens, Abe Pollack and Brittany Anjou, are Seattle types. Pollack went to U Prep, Anjou's a Roosevelt grad. Word! We emailed Pollack some questions, he emailed back answers. 1) How did you end up in Brooklyn? I moved to New York six......

Seventeen teams showed up at the Old Pequliar last night to see if our voice would give out. We managed to get through the evening without having a Peter Brady moment, but we're grateful to those of you who were willing to step up to the mic at a moment's notice. We thought we'd produced a slightly more difficult quiz than usual, but we were proven wrong -- every team got 40 or more......

We would like to take a short minute to let you know what we did on Sunday night instead of hitting up the Rakim/Ghostface/Brother Ali show for $32. Instead, Seattlest trundled over to The Comet, where we got to sit down (albeit in rickety wooden chairs), drink $4 whiskey sodas, and enjoy the hooting and hollering of a crowd of thirty at the Nite Owls show. We had never been to a show at The......

Seattlest loves the planet with a lusty and soulful passion. Just wanted to say that up front. But the Green stuff is getting to be too much. Maybe we should say "greenwashing" as, of course, we have no problem with actual, beneficial efforts to protect the Earth. You want to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, compost in your kitchen and load your groceries into your little burlap sack, fine. It's gonna take you a hell of......

Beaujolais, perhaps the world's most popular wine, goes through life as a comic's punchline; its brash and awkward youthful incarnation--Beaujolais Nouveau--gets no respect. Fun to be around, but nothing all that serious. (Eddie Murphy isn't Nelson Mandela, Wanda Sykes isn't Condi Rice, etc.) Sure, Beaujolais Nouveau provides the excuse for a great party every November--Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé! It's Beaujolais Nouveau time!--but over the years, the folks who enjoy the ritual of raising a......

Last night, Seattlest hit up the Red Bull Big Tune 2007 Championship at Neumos just like we said we would. The idea of the competition was to showcase U.S. hip-hop producers in the form of a beat battle, tournament-style; in between rounds we were treated to the skills of DV-One and Just Blaze, and also to a mini-concert from giants De La Soul. We were not expecting this last, and it was kinda fun. Our......