Good News, Bad News

The Good News:

• Second place is the new first place, a notion proven by Seattle Town Hall, which came in so narrowly behind the Puget Sound-based schooner Adventuress in running for a preservation grant that Partners in Preservation decided to award both projects the $125,000 in funding they were requesting. It's like Pee Wee soccer all over again - every one goes home with a trophy!
• Organizers are working to add a third day of performances to this year's Capitol Hill Block Party, which is good news for music fans and bad news for people who like to sleep on Capitol Hill.
• This is refreshing - it turns out at least one Seattle sports team doesn't need millions of dollars in public financing for a new stadium. And oddly enough, it's the Huskies, who, after being turned down for state funding by Washington state legislators, just decided to make do with a less fancy renovation of Husky Stadium. Apparently the teams threats to move the entire University of Washington to Oklahoma City were not taken very seriously.

• Seattle's most recent achievement in the world of sports? Successfully defending our crown as America's Most Miserable Sports City, a dubious honor presented every year by Forbes magazine, the nation's leading authority on misery.
• Key Peninsula residents run the risk of losing their only ambulance if they vote no on another levy funding Medic One services.
• Nintendo cut the ribbon on its new Redmond headquarters yesterday, and while the building's green credentials (including loads of exotic foliage and heating provided by geothermal energy) are certainly laudable, we can't help but think the whole place seems a little dangerous, as evidenced in the following video tour.