Somehow we missed this on Friday, but better late than never: the P-I published an AP article about college students on food stamps, centering around the UW and Washington's food banks. The gist of the article is that food costs more these days, and tuition certainly hasn't gotten any cheaper, so students are turning to charities and food banks for help with getting enough to eat. Seattlest is having a really tough time feeling sympathetic......

TODAY IS WORLD REFUGEE DAY! The International Rescue Committee is hosting a benefit night of poetry, music, dance and crafts from our local refugee community at the Seattle Center, and John Hilde's Made In China (a documentary about his father's childhood in pre-WWII China) is screening at the NWFF with proceeds going to Mercy Corps' work in the devastated Sichuan province of China. Be a good neighbor and enjoy these artsy celebrations of diversity and......

"What’s exciting about sitting at a resort somewhere? Where’s the living in that?” Travis Arket asks, and sets down his pho chopsticks. Matt Crabtree nods. “Not exciting.” Travis and Matt (pictured) are two of the three members of Team Robot House, a non-profit adventure philanthropy corporation based here in the Seattle area that takes on a few extreme challenges each year to raise money for charities such as Mercy Corps. This weekend they’ll be......

If you weren't lucky enough to nab a pair of tickets to an April Eddie Vedder show via Pearl Jam's fan club presale or Ticketmaster's sale last Friday, you're only screwed if you aren't extremely wealthy—and charitable. Though his six-city, expanded-to-10-date tour sold out within minutes, there are a few sweet seats reserved for big-time, big-money fans who also wouldn't mind seeing the West Memphis Three go free. Per the press release: For all......

This is pretty heartwarming stuff. The NBA asks teams who play against New Orleans to do a little community service while they're there. Teams do, often haphazardly, sending a couple of players along to some pre-selected site. But the Sonics entire staff--coaches, players, security people--showed up to serve food at a New Orleans substance abuse center for 45 minutes, reports the P-I's Gary Washburn. Then, after that, coach P.J. Carlesimo wanted to do more, so......

So that paper Clay Bennett mask didn't score you the costume-contest office pool? Your Lewinsky dress was irredeemably soiled? It's not too early to think Haloween '08. And we've got the coolest outfit idea for you: Jerry Cantrell. The Alice in Chains guitarist/singer will even trade you his threads for a charity donation. Starting November 5 (and going through 11/26), Cantrell's auctioning off some of "his favorite clothes from key moments in his career" to......

Seattlest confidant/subliterate henchman "Pete the Polak" told us a long stupid story this weekend about how a friend of a friend of his once knew Duff and this credible source claimed that it was he and not Axl who wrote the lyrics for the timeless classic "Paradise City" and that said song was based on Seattle. We immediately called horse shit on this obvious lie, but upon activating a computer we could find no evidence......

The first thing Mike Hargrove did after quitting the Mariners? He followed Alan Jackson's advice and bought a Ford truck. Jim Moore of the P-I talked to Hargrove's car salesperson:Jerry Korum of Korum Ford in Puyallup read that the Hargroves always said when they retired, they would get a red truck, call it "Retired Red," load up their belongings and drive off into the sunset. Korum called the Mariners and told them he had a......

What would you do if your salary was suddenly slashed to only $1.1 million??? Fire a bodyguard or two? Heat the pool only to 85? Drink Bollinger instead of Cristal? The mind boggles at the indignity of it all. Thankfully, former UW star and current New York Knick Nate Robinson didn't have to face too many of these excruciating decisions during his 10-game suspension for on-court fighting, which cost him $108,000 of his $1.2 million......

No, the Other Theater: The new movies out this weekend are shite, so this is your chance to catch up on the wealth of quality films already in theaters. Babel, Borat, Casino Royale, For Your Consideration, The Fountain, Little Children, Marie Antoinette, The Queen, Stranger Than Fiction, and Volver are all continuing their Seattle runs. Go now before you get back-logged further with the scads of Oscar contenders released later this month. Movie time......

--That lovey dovey crap we said about Microsoft and China earlier today? Forget it. --Best unloved Reality TV-based Halloween costume. Ever. --Couple local skiers seem to be mixed up in a porn thing with a guy called Warren Miller. --John Moe unveils the girls team secretly plotting the violent overthrow of the boys team. Go on, girls! --SeattleDuck says no to procrastination, yes to Getting Things Done. --Renton's Displaced Hipster displaces himself even further,......

Fall? No. College football season. We hate it. Specifically, we hate the Cougar/Husky rivalry. Why? Because we don't care. We went to a microscopic liberal arts college in the midwest. But we hear about it anyway. It's easier to avoid Packer-themed jibber-jabber in the shadow of Green Bay than it is to avoid Dawgs and Cougs exchanging antique insults and warmed-over jokes originally told about more interesting teams. We're sick of mass emails sent to......

-The contract the P-I's union has tentatively accepted stipulates higher severance packages if the paper stops publishing. Well played, union. -Ben Gibbard's playing Lance Armstrong by offering these guitar string bracelets for charity. Via Indieblogheaven. -Sound Transit has decided to build light rail alongside I-90. Construction begins 2045. -"Here is a molester!" Tokyo subway groping ain't what it used to be. -The B.C. guys who spent a year and $400,000 digging a drug tunnel......

Torontoist immediately wins our heart by using the word "Jackass" in a headline. In fact, we love their use of it so much that we're going to use it as much as possible throughout this post. For example, it looks like there are Toronto-area jackasses besides those who misuse the sidewalk: look at the crap on sale on Toronto's craigslist. But it looks like Toronto doesn't contain the kind of jackasses who pee in public......

While taking a leisurely stroll through Bellevue’s business district earlier this week, our heads cocked a little to the side when we spotted this strapping young black deer all painted up like the solar system. It seemed like a strange thing to put on the sidewalk outside an abandoned office on 108th Ave NE, but then again, this is Bellevue - a town that has hardly an inkling of the artistic stact of its......

A week ago Friday, Seattlest arrived at work to discover that our '93 Mazda 626's engine was pouring out more white smoke than a '40s film noir. We dropped it off at the nearest repair place and awaited the bad news: we'd sprung a coolant leak and blown a headgasket. At 192,000 miles, the engine had died. We flirted with the idea of getting a rebuilt motor, but soon decided we'd rather have a car......

John Bruce "Jack" Thompson is an attorney often cited in the media for his views on the effects of obscenity and violence in popular media. That's cribbed directly out of the Wikipedia entry for him and that same Wikipedia entry contains a large warning that the neutrality of the entry is disputed, which is cool to see in an encyclopedia. Jack Thompson has been hating on popular culture (the neutraility of this post should definitely......

While soccer, hockey and a handful of other second-tier sports have been fighting to get themselves into your living room for over a decade, a few activities have managed to make the jump recently. Witness NASCAR, golf, and poker. Poker! It's on the TV nonstop and while some of us are looking forward to the day it gets its own cable channel (thereby getting the hell off ESPN2) others of us are apparently pretty into......

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......

Once, the pinnacle of fame for an American athlete was to appear on a box of Wheaties. Now, however, the Wheaties box is less relevant. The meal itself is a relic of a bygone era. With what product do we jumpstart our 21st century mornings? Starbucks! So to maintain that proud breakfast tradition, Starbucks is introducing its first (and assuredly not last) collectible Starbucks card, featuring Ichiro. Starting on Opening Day, April 4th, baseball and......