Rant, Rave, Bitch, Moan

Seattlest has long picked the Seattle Times' "Rant and Rave!" on Sundays as the most entertaining and irritating section of the paper. What does it say about our city that we don't have the cojones to confront the things that make us crazy...but we do have the energy to write to the paper about it? Case in point:

I'm sick of being irritated by the rudeness of my fellow bus riders every morning! I'm talking about the unmitigated gall of some people who arrive just before the bus and strut right to the front of the line. They don't even bother to look embarrassed.

If you're so sick of it...and you can take the time to write to the paper about it...maybe you should say something to the rudies.

The Raves, though, tend to make us smile: Good samaritans return lost wallets, help strangers change flat tires, and are nice to elderly people.

Well, now the P-I has gotten into the act. Today they debut a similar column, called "Life in the City." Here you don't necessarily rant or rave, but you tell a clever little story about life in Seattle. The debut--which appears on B-1 of today's paper, but has yet to be posted on the P-I site--is one of those stories where some guy talks loudly on his cell phone on the bus, then everyone makes fun of him once he departs. Oh, the hilarity.

Seattlest had a job once where we joked about programming F7 as the key to autowrite the repetitive junk. Wethinks F7 could set up the Rant and Rave folk for months: Someone was rude to me. Someone was nice to me. I got cut off on the freeway. I hate those people who drive too fast/too slow. Bicyclists hog the road; cars hog the road. People talk loudly on cell phones. Etc.

Do you need to rant or rave or tell clever stories about life in Seattle? Now, Seattlest would never condone making these things up...we'll just tell you that rants and raves go to rantandrave@seattletimes.com and all other cleverness goes to kerymurakami@seattlepi.com.