Last week Seattlest sent us down to North Carolina to find out how people in that crucial state feel about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and being the focus of the national media. During our forty-five minute lay-over at Charlotte's Douglas Airport, we spoke with people of all races, ages, and height. At "The Official NASCAR Gift Shop," a young Caucasian woman named Sally was neatly stacking hats. Was she one of the many Democratic voters......

Photograph of investigation at Times Square recruiting center by kerfuffle & zeitgeist on Flickr Gothamist found that an explosive set off outside the Times Square army recruiting center may be similar to five past bombings in New York City.Seattlest worried when severed right feet and bottles of rat poison started washing up on local beaches.Shanghaiist was surprised by Bjork's rooting for Tibetan independence at her concert (see video), and the political fallout has only......

Forbes Magazine must have gotten tired of making the same "Richest People in the World" list, because the magazine has moved on to ranking the "Nation's Most Sinful Cities." In order to do so, Forbes came up with measurable methods to rank the proclivity for each of the seven deadly sins in America's urban populations. (For example to measure the sin of "wrath" the magazine used murder rates for cities.) Of course, you're curious, just......

"The Next Slum" is the name of the article in the March Atlantic (not online yet), and Seattle gets lots of mentions. Author Christopher Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues that as demographics and energy use changes over the next 15-20 years, there will be a growing surplus of large-lot homes that no one wants, decaying on the market. While there should be about four million more households with kids in 2025......

The ability to endure month after month of days like today is an unappreciated phenomenon unique to this corner of America. Elsewhere winter storms may be harsher in the traditional frozen pipes/paralyzed infrastructure sense, but the psychological toll of Steve Pool’s constant grey "with a chance of light rain" is just grueling. Long-time Seattle residents are not unlike seasoned veterans of a lifelong Chinese Water Torture and Seattlest appreciates the local grit required to......

Could we be any vaguer? No, but that doesn't mean there's still not any reason to get excited. With In Rainbows making its formal debut atop the Billboard charts, Radiohead is set to cover North America in two tour legs, one prior to and one following their recently announced European summer tour (June 6 in Dublin through July 8 in Berlin). There's no exact dates or venues just yet, but the band has confirmed......

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. Grits with Ham and Homemade Applesauce preview Rarely do we think, “I really......

It's become fairly commonplace for the brighter real estate bloggers, like Timothy "The Tim" Ellis over at SeattleBubble, to mock P-I reporter Aubrey Cohen once a month. See Cohen--the P-I's lead real estate reporter--writes an article about the state of the national housing market once a month when the industry standard Case-Shiller numbers are released. The Case-Shiller index (from S&P) tracks the changes in home prices for 20 US metropolitan areas each month as......

Not to be outdone by his ex-wife’s recently rebounded career, Eddie Van Halen has reunited the band to hit the road again this fall in a joint effort remind everyone that they’re still alive. Forcing his kid to take sides in his battle for the spotlight, Eddie has appointed his sixteen-year old son, Wolfgang, to replace Michael Anthony on bass while David Lee Roth rejoins the new and improved band because it's Van Halen, not......

It ain't easy being a mid-sized professional theatre: not that long after Seattle's Empty Space declared empty pockets, the 30-year-old Tacoma Actors Guild has closed down. In January of 2005 TAG faced a coronary-inducing $400,000 debt, and though it had made some progress retiring it, their Board president Jim Handmacher said in the Tacoma News Tribune that key foundations were standoffish: “We were optimistic with (new director Charlotte Tiencken) that TAG would get back......

At the Weather Underground there's a weather advisory for Wednesday night: ... A strong front will move through western Washington Wednesday night... A low pressure system was starting to develop far out in the Pacific today. The low pressure center will deepen rapidly tonight and Wednesday morning. The low pressure center is forecast to track toward the Queen Charlotte islands Wednesday night... so the effects of this strong low will just brush our area. However.........

When we lived in Los Angeles, we would spend our Saturday evenings in a small theatre watching two shows of "Beer, Shark, Mice" with, among others, the janitor on Scrubs and Champ Kind. Yeah, that show was really funny, but nothing compared to what would follow—Asssscat. We'll say it again because we don’t even give a flying fudge, Asssscat. Made up of the four original members of Upright Citizens Brigade (and this guy), Asssscat......

Now that Memorial Day weekend is past us, and Folklife and Sasquatch have played their last rain-soaked notes, it's time to focus on the things that really matter: SIFF films. Just for fun, go check out the SIFF 2006 profile on Flickr. It's got a lot of great pics, including a bunch of Jessica Biel looking vacuous and a dozen photos of Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. Dudes, we understand that you really like......

About three hours before the quiz started at the Old Pequliar last night, we realized we'd written a really difficult slate of questions. Congrats to the winners, who earned their cash. We'll let you know next time we're hosting -- Charley, the regular quiz guy, should be fully operational again by next week. If you didn't make it, here are the ten questions from round 5, Seattle trivia. The average team got 5 correct. Answers......

If you are afraid of fast cars (Tracy Chapman) or of movie characters existing in reality (Tom Cruise), then don't go downtown today. Because two characters from the upcoming Pixar film Cars---sotto voce: in theaters everywhere June 9th---are making an appearance at Westlake, as real-life cars. Life size models of hotshot rookie racecar Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) and Sally Carrera, a snazzy 2002 Porsche 911 (voiced by Bonnie Hunt) will be on display......

Recently, Seattlest had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with actor Thomas Haden Church, regarding Over The Hedge, Dreamworks' new animated feature opening in theaters May 19th. We got to watch Over The Hedge the evening before this interview, and we're pleased to report that it's really funny. Full of satirical jabs at us crazyass humans... Our cell phones, our single-occupancy SUVs, our artificially flavored lives... (And Steve Carell as Hammy the squirrel is just......

Just a few weeks ago, we attended a coffee-tasting ritual (called a "cupping") at the Victrola, and crazed roasting genius Tony was there, espousing his bean religion with such fervor that we left inspired ourselves, sinuses filled with nutty aroma and hearts jittery as a tambourine. So when we walked in Tuesday morning and heard he'd been "let go," we didn't quite know what to make of it. We clutched at the bar and looked......

Last week the Minnesota Vikings shanghaied Pro Bowl guard Steve Hutchinson from the Seahawks by including a "poison pill" in his contract--a provision specifying that Hutchinson had to be the top-earning offensive lineman on the team; a provision the Seahawks couldn't match. We wondered how ridiculous these clauses could get. And the Seahawks have answered that question. In their offer to Vikings' receiver Nate Burleson, they included a clause that would make the contract guaranteed......

The final day of Bumbershoot (last Monday, September 4th) usually brings out the biggest crowd (well, at least it did last year with the Pixies headlining). This year’s main stage headliners, the reformed punk legends Iggy Pop and the Stooges headlined with local grunge kings Mudhoney warming up the crowd for them. While it was a little more crowded than the previous days of Bumbershoot - it was nowhere near as packed as it......

As previously alluded to, Seattlest is unabashed in our love for television. We tend to gravitate toward the good stuff, but we are by no means too highbrow to watch reality TV. Case(s) in point: the gloriously addictive trainwrecks known as Surreal Life 5 and Being Bobby Brown. For us, the viewing of such apocalypse-heralding fare is merely a spectator sport; that is to say, we've got no aspirations to be the castmember who actively......

Apparently (and we wait for your shock and, perhaps even awe), music labels pay record stations to play their songs. We now pause for you to catch your breath and let your tears dry. This week, Sony BMG (after being pressured by our favorite Attorney General Eliot Spitzer) paid 10 million dollars to settle allegations that it paid to have their releases played. Granted, this story happened on Monday, but one of our favorite music......

It was cramped in there, and I was surrounded by commanding walls, both black and lush red. Despite its petite size, it wasn’t hot, even though 80 people must have been stuffed into the place. With the exception of two men, one of whom was the director, everyone else was a woman. I was at the Stone Soup Theater, eagerly anticipating my first ever viewing of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, directed by Charlotte Tiencken.......