By now, it's probably not news to you. If you've so much as walked past any place that is selling newspapers, you're unlikely to have missed the giant front-page-sized announcement that Jordin Sparks is the new American Idol. For all our Blake-loving, by the time the show came on last night, we were prepared for our hometown boy to lose the whole thing. Nonetheless, we sat through two hours of Idol filler for you, dear......

--Someone fired a gun six blocks from Gov. Gregoire today in Tacoma. There are also reports of gunshots in downtown Seattle today and Seattlest is 90% sure we saw Gregoire in Seattle at 5th and Virginia at noon. 90%. We thought about introducing ourselves or ripping off a few rounds to mark the occasion, but didn't. --Home grown Washington State biodiesel is on the way. --Check out the Uptown in West Seattle if you're looking......

Three years ago, we all hoped for aging middle infielder Omar Vizquel to fail a physical so the M's wouldn't complete an agreed-upon deal for him. And our pleas were heard. Well, M's fans, break out your prayers to the patron saint of aged middle infielders failing physicals again, because we need another favor from him. Pending a physical, the M's are going to deal two good young prospects, Chris Snelling and Emiliano Fruto, for......

It's a holiday week, and people are too busy stuffing themselves with turkey and cranberry jam to talk much. Just hang on until Tuesday, when things really pick up. Thursday, November 23 >>>Our parents' house, all afternoon. Dad talks on "The 7 Worst Habits of Today's Generation." Mom covers "Communication Breakdown: You Never Visit." Join the annual panel for a starchy Thanksgiving meal, that mysterious "fruit" salad with mini-marshmallows, and an in-depth critique of......

M.I.T. professor/design guru John Maeda arrived at Elliot Bay theoretically to talk about his latest book, The Laws of Simplicity. Instead of doing a traditional reading however, Maeda danced around the book, giving a peek into his head in a casual monologue, inviting those in attendance to see the world through his eyes before finally closing with a few of the ideas that he's put on the printed page. The engaging delivery brought an......

Ah, so now we know where the festive audiences are: seeing the Scissor Sisters or Kinky. Because they were certainly not at the sold-out Showbox Wednesday night for the Brooklyn band double feature of Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio. Kicking things off, Grizzly Bear was less grizzly than bearish, and not at all what we expected from the talented foursome. We had heard their Pitchfork-acclaimed Warp release and weren't sure exactly how they'd......

Admittedly, last night we were not expecting much from The Presets. Seattlest had already spent a great deal of our evening surrounded by dudes in baseball caps and girls who were trying too hard (thanks a lot, Scion), so we really weren't in the mood for a late night set at Chop Suey. We had heard good things about the Australian electro-rock duo and felt obligated to attend. But now we're glad we did:......

With the Seahawk football beginning on Sunday, there is simply not a better time to look at the upcoming season than right now, sorry nnnnnnnnnnow. Following last season's exploits, we are extremely optimistic about this year. The navy blue, other kind of lighter blue, and green return a very strong team in a very bad division. Yet, we are finding it hard to get over the departure of Steve Hutchinson. We have nightmares of Hasselbeck......

Other countries have them, official "Route des Vins" complete with signposts. Why not here? Indeed. Imagine a road actually called the Washington Wine Highway linking the state's major wine-growing regions, with signs to tell you what wine was all about: it would begin in Puget Sound, meander a bit in Woodinville, cross Snoqualmie Pass and take in the entire Yakima Valley. Or it could cross Stampede Pass and noodle around Lake Chelan, follow the......

Cool: Active/inactive holds breakdown. Seattlest noticed that now, in addition to telling you how many people have a library item on hold, the online catalog tells you the total and how many of those are active vs. inactive holds. You can find out on the item information page (for example, if you want the Revenge of the Sith DVD, there are now 193 holds: 160 active and 33 inactive) or in your hold requests list......

Seattlest spent a couple years in Seattle without a car and it wasn't really that bad. Buying liquids at the store was the #1 problem. When you go to QFC and buy OJ and a half rack plus a few other odds and ends it doesn't sound like much, but it's a bitch to get home. We were the sole member of our household at that point, though, so not having a car shouldn't......

After Wired ran a story documenting the GoogleCenter of the United States a bunch of ists jumped on the opportunity to figure out their own middle. Gothamist, Chicagoist, Bostonist and Seattlest all zoomed in on their creamy GoogleCenters. A crack cartography team is hard at work determining the GoogleCenter of the Ist-a-verse as you read this... Austinist read a book about Olympian Bode Miller and liked it. They also took a few pictures of the......

We came across this news item and felt that the Reality TV watchers out there would appreciate a link. Minnesota newspapers are reporting on a Seattle family that got shanghaied by The Discovery Channel on the promise of a free vacation. What did they do, pull an B.A. Baracus on them? "I ain't gettin on no plane! I pity the fool who participates in the pariah that is Reality Television!" clunk The Matthews family awoke......

Over the weekend, Seattlest had the chance to make it the Grand Illusion's showings of Love Crazy (1941) and Double Wedding (1937). (These aren't from the Thin Man series, but we thought more people would twig to a post titled "Nick & Nora" than "Bill & Myrna.") You have until Thursday to see them, at 7pm and 9pm showings. Both of these pairings of William Powell and Myrna Loy had the tiny little theater in......

For the second time in a week, Seattlest found ourselves enjoying some live music, even though we didn't have a clue as to what the songs meant. Last Wednesday it was Sigur Ros, and yesterday it was Dungen (pronounced "doon-yun"), a Swedish band that plays what everybody's terming "folkrockpsych" due to its decidedly '70s throwback feel. Hipsters and hippies alike have been drooling over this album for a while now, which the diverse crowd at......

After a week of stellar performance followed by almost total disappearance a week later, Seattle's reality-TV contestants are back flying under the radar. On The Apprentice, Seattle's Alex was a pleasant presence in the background--think wallpaper--as his Magna Corp "book-smart" team absorbed two "street-smart" players and pulled out a win. The teams had to convince mid-level musical celebrities to donate prize packages to an AIDS charity auction. Imagine uncomfortable scenario after uncomfortable scenario--Moby being......

Seattlest hasn't made it to a Seattle Weblogger Meetup yet - in fact we just missed the latest one last Wednesday. However, we love the weblogger community and have fun checking out the details of what happens when online characters hang out in real life. We signed up for the March meetup and will hopefully be able to attend next time to meet more Seattle bloggers. Anita Rowland has been running the Seattle Weblogger Meetup......