Results tagged “convention”

"Sustainable is a crappy vision," announced Peter Senge (pronounced "senn-gay"), author of The Fifth Discipline, which has nothing to do with the film Milla Jovovich was in. He was just off the plane from China, making a stop for a leadership keynote address this morning to the Americans for the Arts meet-up at Seattle's Convention Center, before continuing on home to Massachusetts.

So, you think you have been to a beer festival before? Maybe you went to Fremont Oktoberfest , or maybe you even went to the Seattle International Beer Fest this summer. If you really want to go to a beer festival, get yourself to Denver in 10 days.

When entertainment giant AEG Live announced plans to create a new and innovative music venue inside Quest Field Events Center, we imagine a big to do with all the local press in a large room packed with music lovers on one side and bankers on the other. Wonder which side was clapping more wildly...

The scene in the basement of Seattlest HQ last night when FOX showed Ichiro rounding third and heading home on his inside-the-park home run was what I imagine an old-time political convention looked like after they nominated the hometown candidate after 86 ballots.

On Saturday, Frank Hughes of the Tacoma News-Tribune reported that local real estate developer Dave Sabey had offered to buy the Sonics from Clay Bennett and make them the centerpiece of a development he's planning south of Boeing Field.

Last Friday we were lunching outside Von's, and a stream of conventioneers was passing by. Some of them stopped at Von's and we couldn't help but notice that a number of them tripped on the single step on the way in. They'd alert the ones behind them, and they'd take a ridiculously large step through the door. When Von's filled up and they started filtering back out, they tripped on the way out. We didn't remember ever tripping on that step, so we asked this one guy what the convention was, and he told us it was the National Association of Elementary School Principals. We don't normally laugh at people tripping over things in real life, but when elementary school principals do it, it's very, very funny. (The conference's theme was "Soaring to New Heights.")

YOUNG BLACK CULTURE: Studies claim that African-American male culture has continued to decline despite generally strong national economic growth. Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas with moderator Carl Livingston Jr. and a group of respected panelists discuss their attempts to "defy convention and support the success and progress of African-American boys."

SEATTLEST BOOK CLUB PICK: For March, we're reading Jonathan Raban's Surveillance, set in a not-so-distant future, when everyone's actions are highly monitored. Get a head start on the conversation by hearing from Raban himself. (We'll know if you went or not.)

--Mystery at the Mystery Bookshop: their author signature book disappeared during the Left Coast Crime Convention.

BOOKS: Like mysteries? The 17th Annual Western Mystery Fan convention continues through the 4th. For a group focused on clues and figuring things out, they spell things out incredibly well on their website. Where's the fun in that?

MUSIC: God help you if you can't appreciate the genius of Stephen Malkmus. Alright, so he's not playing with Pavement (best indie band EVER, pleeeeeease reunite!), but tonight with The Jicks, he'll have one thing that Pavement never had: badass Janet Weiss on drums. Hells yeah!

No, not "Say WA." Popular opinion seems to be split, but we firmly believe that "Say WA" was better than "metronatural," just like Carmen Electra is a better actress than Paris Hilton.

Update: KIRO wants to know if you like metronatural, don't like it, or don't have an opinion. Since "stupidest slogan we've heard since 'Say WA'" wasn't an option, we chose "don't like it," as did 78% of the people who bothered to weigh in.

Thirteen teams turned out for Seattlest trivia last night at the Old Pequliar. Want to see how you'd do? Here are all the questions. We'll post answers later today, along with a list of team standings and anything else interesting we find to say about the event.

That Old Nerd™ we told you about the other day who filed a lawsuit against the publisher of the world's greatest cartoonists, claiming defamation and violation of his right of publicity (apparently over some alleged stories of the man's past recounted in one Fanta book and a lack of the requisite "TM" next to his trademarked name on the cover of yet another), recently made the legally dubious decision to grab the breast of an author and award presenter at last month's 2006 World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim, CA.

Now that there's a chill in the air, Seattlest has taken to closing our windows at night before curling up in a warm bed with some hot cocoa and earplugs. That's right, it's officially the fall tour season, and there's live music galore. Behold!

We'll be quick with this post, since we've got "tournament training" to finish. This weekend is PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. This will be the third and largest incarnation of the conference, which is part symposium, part convention, entirely geeky. Gaming nerds of all stripes descend upon Bellevue's Meydenbauer Center for a weekend of competition, education, concerts and demonstrations from the gaming world.

Sea-Tac is currently fucked. The wait at security averages 82 minutes. Said a spokesperson:

Sometimes you need to clean yourself up, get serious, and move in with daddy for a few months before you head to Latin America for a new gig. The District bids Jenna Bush adios. D.C.-based television shows have an elderly audience and DCist has Butterstick the panda bear a birthday bash.

Washington's Democratic Convention went down this weekend in Yakima and depending on your perspective the caucus either contained a diversity of ideas and opinions on the war in Iraq or was torn in two over the war in Iraq. Maria Cantwell, of course, seems to be the focal point of a lot of contention, regardless of how seriously you view that contention. Dueling chanters did battle when she took the stage arguing, "No more six!" and "War more years!" until she was finally allowed to speak. An exhasutive scouring of the internets has failed to turn up the text of that speech but according to the Seattle Times:

-That weird storm earlier caused eighteen thousand cars to crash into each other on I-5 near the Thorn Lane exit.

Would it be worth it to get out of bed that early on a Sunday to score some "free" and no doubt choice real estate probably located on the Moon?

We were dithering outside Town Hall last night, trying to decide whether to attend the Science Lecture -- Harvard's Daniel Gilbert talking about our ability to predict what will make us happy -- or the convention of transportation nerds upstairs. Both were $5. Both started at 7:30pm.

Her name is Tess Altiveros and, in the current UW production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (jointly staged by the Schools of Music and Drama), she plays the mezzo-soprano "pants role" of the love-struck pageboy, Cherubino. The operatic convention of an adult woman portraying an adolescent male makes musical sense; there's no better practitioner than the beloved Frederica Von Stade, who brings a golden voice and a winsome sprightliness to her art.

Back in our freelance days, Seattlest was happy to get 50 cents a word. So imagine the triple cherries that flashed before our eyes when we learned that down in PDX you can get 250 writers for three measly bucks!

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.

Earlier this week kissy couples were wading through roses and red tissue paper deeper than an east coast snow dump and singles shook a tiny, lonely fist (no ring!) at it all. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - Valentine's season is in the can, finally.

We mentioned briefly yesterday that Seattle was on the list of potential sites for the 2008 Republican National Convention and that we have been itching for someone to shout at for a while now. If their convention came to be here in 2008 would it be a WTO type of mess of democracy or would protesters be contained in their pens and ignored by the TV? There's no way of knowing. Still, you have to wonder why exactly the GOP would even consider a liberal outpost like Seattle (or Portland, also on the list, for that matter) believes itself to be. We're within driving distance from the border and Eugene, Oregon. Shouldn't that exclude us from consideration? What are the criteria?

-Liberals think he's guilty of hypocrisy. Conservatives would convict him for being gay. A Federal Court has decided there are no charges to be brought against ex-Spokane mayor Jim West.