Redmond native and actual Guitar Hero Carrie Brownstein did some work on the advertising of the game Rock Band. You might have seen these commercials; four rocker-lookin types sit around and cut on each other in the jaded and weary fashion of musicians on the road. That's not her work, thank god. She was on a different team pushing a different concept. Anyway, she's got an article up at Slate today about her experiences with......

Seventeen teams showed up at the Old Pequliar last night to see if our voice would give out. We managed to get through the evening without having a Peter Brady moment, but we're grateful to those of you who were willing to step up to the mic at a moment's notice. We thought we'd produced a slightly more difficult quiz than usual, but we were proven wrong -- every team got 40 or more......

We're sure a lot of people bought tickets to Friday night's Symphony Legacy concert strictly to see Ann and Nancy Wilson or Alice in Chains. We were there primarily to see how the rejuvenated grunge band would sound with a new singer and backing orchestra at Benaroya Hall. But the symphony, written by Mateo Messina, benefited Children's Hospital, and we like to think that by the end of the evening, everyone appreciated the composer's philanthropic......

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo claims a subsidiary of First American Corp., eAppraiseIT, has been generating inflated appraisals for First American and Seattle mortgage-lender WAMU. This would represent collusion and would be what's technically known as "illegal." Unfortunately for everyone involved who wanted to keep their job, Cuomo has emails that say things like: eAppraiseIT's president told First American: "We view this as a violation of the OCC, OTS, FDIC and USPAP influencing regulation."And:......

When we heard that Vern recently released a book called Seagalogy, we were perplexed. Why would the voice of badass cinema write a book about NFL cheerleaders? Then we noticed that it's not Sea Gal-ogy. Seagal. As in Steven Seagal. More badass, less hotpants-clad ass. To quote Vern's PR email: More than 5 years in the making, the new book SEAGALOGY by Vern is the first serious analysis of the films of Steven Seagal. Using......

Seattlest left Cooper's Alehouse at 10:40 last night with a brand new bucket, part of our team's prize for coming in 5th place. And we wondered why we'd never managed to check out their trivia night when we lived within walking distance. It was a good quiz. Cooper's quiz is scheduled for 8:45 Tuesday nights, though last night's kicked off at 9:00. It's 40 questions, uncategorized. Teams trade answer sheets for scoring. After about......

It's still raining, but that's not stopping us this weekend. As we get ready to head out the door, the Seattlest staff is once again sharing our weekend plans in the hopes that we'll see you along the way. Kim will be burning up the dance floor tonight for Gay Salsa Night at Century Ballroom after eating piles of sushi at Maneki. If she decides it’s worth breaking the bank, she might attend some silly......

Unbeknownst to us, producers of CBS's glossy detective series, Cold Case have been using all sorts of pop music from Toby Keith to The Postal Service to elevate the cool factor of each episode. Their website even has a page listing the "Music of Cold Case" -- some episodes of which showcase a single recording artist (such as the 2/18/07 "Blood on the Tracks" episode featuring music from Bob Dylan). So there we were, watching......

Sketch Fest Seattle is into its second (and final) weekend. Last year we wrote that the world is a sad place so you might as well laugh while you can. Well over the past 365 days, the world hasn't gotten much un-sadder--despite our ass-kicking in Iraq. So you can either watch the news and cry, or watch Cory and Doug bring the worlds of sketch and improv together. If they can do that, well, maybe......

The unfortunately named Grand Ole Party opened for Rilo Kiley Saturday night to an audience presumably not too familiar with their work. GOP have a strong, simple, raw kind of sound, not unlike White Stripes or Sweet 75, kind of directionless and inert, but impressive and energetic nonetheless. They ended the set with the first song on Humanimals, "Look Out Young Son," which after a couple of listens sounds like the strongest effort on the......

Seattlest was recently in the market for an engagement ring. Knowing almost nothing about diamonds, settings, or the metals they bling on, we guessed that finding the right ring was going to be a long, arduous and intimidating quest. We were wrong. It wasn’t arduous. What we did know was where to find rings—thanks to the plethora of radio commercials featuring maddening jingles for Jared, Tom Shane expounding on his pleasure business trips to Bangkok,......

Much like the team the Mariners' TV commercials have gone down hill fast in the last few years. This year's crop aren't groan inducing, and aren't that funny-- they just kind of hang there like a Joel Pineiro curve ball. They are available for viewing here, here, but not here. We're pretty sure Ken Hutcherson is going to have a problem with the Lopez/Betancourt spot, and if Jarrrrod Washburn could deliver a fastball like he......

Ever since Jack Roberts died and Cal Worthington disappeared, there's been a definite lack of goofy commercials on Seattle airwaves. If you, like us, are jonesing for silly ads, this ought to well satisfy your cravings. A Seattle transplant working at MTV dubs it "the best music video I've seen in a long time."......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

-Lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, wrath, envy, pride...blogging? -A USS Mariner pizza feed (we love that terminology, by the way) goes terribly awry when one pushy dude threatens to eat all the pizza and a few sports bloggers as well. -Some guy in Colville, Washington tried unsuccessfully to put a hit on his unborn child. -BoingBoing hammers on Vista today on two fronts: licensing and licensing. -A bunch of pro-strip club commercials are out there in......

A Washington State political race got some national ink on Friday at Slate under the unflattering headline "Unusually Stupid Campaign Ads," but unfortunately for us the headline alone doesn't really indicate which campaign Michael Kinsley's talking about in this article. It's Monday and a semi-holiday, so we'll spare you the effort of dredging up all the current campaigns. He's talking about McGavick/Cantwell. If you knew nothing about Mike McGavick except what is in his......

Answers will be forthcoming this afternoon, along with final standings and any other information we feel like we can cram into a post. In the meantime, entertain yourself with the questions from last night's quiz at the Old Pequliar: Round 1: Geography 1) What is the busiest airport in Europe, measured by passenger traffic? 2) What glacier created Lake Washington, Puget Sound, and Green Lake? 3) What country is home to the tallest skyscraper in......

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......

Things have been all kinds of messed up with our vaunted content management system today and you may have noticed long periods of silence and posts appearing in the past. We here at Seattlest HQ kind of feel like the girls on the TV commercials who have their cell phone networks cut If we're still talking about Zidane's crazy headbutt or how generally awesome Mondays are or something tomorrow, it's stuff that we tried and......

Seattlest loves John Moe, so we figured it was high time we interviewed him. Don't know Moe? He's the voice behind KUOW's The Works, Power of Voice (sometimes), and amusing weather updates. He's also a frequent contributor to McSweeney's, a blogger, and an author with a book to promote. How did your career path lead you to KUOW? Have you always wanted to be a disembodied radio voice, or did you stumble across the......

In a not-always-successful attempt to keep our TV watching to a minimum, we have a no-reality-TV rule at home. But we do have one exception: Top Chef. New episodes broadcast on Bravo TV at 10pm on Wednesdays, but the Bravo people must be even more into the series than we are because you can watch practically the entire season every day, and we think that next Wednesday you can, in fact, watch the ENTIRE season,......

The Hawks' own Matt Hasselbeck and his (not un-foxy) mom will join with the man who bested him in Super Bowl XL, Ben Roethlisberger, and longtime soup pitchman Donovan McNabb, for a new season of Chunky Soup commercials. Yes, someone's already posited that there's a Chunky Soup curse. Photo courtesy AP Photo/Campbell's Soup, Diane Bondareff......

Fresh from his quarter-hour of fame as a food blogger, Ronald is preparing a giant Spanish torta for a neighborhood party in Belltown. He plans to stalk chef Kerry Sear's cooking class at Cascadia on Saturday morning. On Sunday, he'll make is way into SoDo territory where wine writer/wine merchant Rich Kinssies promises to roast a pig and pour samples of Spanish reds at The Wine Outlet . We hope it goes well with the......

There are many things that Seattle liberals hate: the increasing price of fleece vests, driving over 25mph on arterials, and when one of their senators votes for war in the Middle East. Senator Maria Cantwell is facing increasing pressure from those on the left because of her vote to authorize war in Iraq, bailing on an Alito filibuster, and voting to re-up the PATRIOT Act. Two weeks ago she was booed at one of her......

We'd like to say that this year's crop of commercials might be the most entertaining thing about this Mariners season, but we've seen the commercials. It won't be all bad, though - The White Sox are coming through in April, right?......

They may not have a winning tradition on the field, but the Mariners do have a tradition of winning commercials. There was the famous early 80's Jacket Night commercial, in which Mariner Tom Paciorek, asked to do a commercial with no script and a single prop (a pair of funny nose glasses) ad-libbed that it was "Funny Nose Glasses night..." Announcer: No, Tom, it's Jacket Night. Everyone who comes to the ballpark gets a......

Here's another entry in the categories of "Until There is a Portlandist" and "Seattlest Has a One-Track Mind." An AP article making the bloggity blog blog rounds has dug up a swath of indie bands telling Hummer to go stick it in their 10MPG gas pipe and smoke it. Hummer ad execs, while drinking designer vodkas and wondering how they could be as hip as that Cohen kid on the O.C., must have picked up......

Over at the mass-market music stores like Sam Goody and FYE, the “Best-Seller” lists are occupied by those finger-puppets artists you’d expect to hear on KISS 106.1 or KUBE 93 (i.e. Black-Eyed Peas, Kelly Clarkson, Jamie Foxx). Meanwhile, at Seattle’s two most successful indie-music shops, Easy Street Records (West Seattle, Queen Anne), and Sonic Boom Records (Ballard, Capitol Hill, Fremont), they too maintain Top-Seller lists—along with earthy atmospheres, scruffy sales clerks (many of whom are......

The Seahawks are 6-2. Happy times! Let's let visions of Super Bowl rings and Gatorade showers dance through our heads. Not so fast, say the killjoys at the Seattle Times: The Seahawks were 6-2 in 2003 before going 4-4 to end the season and losing a road game in the first round of the playoffs. They were 5-3 last year before going 4-4 in the second half. Seattle clinched the division on the final day......

Winter sports enthusiasts of Seattle, there's life beyond Warren Miller ski movies. We are so tired of how tired they are. Despite recent attempts on old Uncle Miller's part to incorporate "new" styles and footage into his films (news alert Warren: snowboarding has been around for multiple decades now), his annual fall films only amount to aggregious Nissan commercials interspersed with that same old story about how he started out in Sun Valley. If we......