ALL INCLUSIVE: Knowledge is power. Bone up on making your website design more accessible to every PC, Mac, and Blackberry by taking this course, sponsored by Refresh Seattle. Consultant Wendy Chisholm will speak and everyone will head over to the Red Door for snacks afterward. 6:00 p.m. // Fremont Public Library, 731 N. 35th St. // Free WEDDING SEASON: Our ex-boyfriend from college introduced us to the excellent band The Wedding Present. Even his......

Cancer Rising at the Georgetown Music Festival by Abbey at SoundontheSound. We'll take it for granted that you will get pleasantly buzzed on nutritious, delicious microbrews at this year's Fremont OktoberFest, which might as well be called BeerFest. Someone else will have to fill you in about all the different kinds of beer this weekend (we heard there would be something like thirty breweries serving up!) at another time, though, because we would prefer......

After a dreary week of rain and cool weather that promises fall is right around the corner, we're stoked to be heading out to Hale's Palladium tomorrow for beer, bbq and a little bit of rock and to enjoy at least a brief return to summer weather. Hale's Brewing turns twenty-five this year, and while the official b-day party was last month, they're revisiting the good time this weekend, hosting a hootenanny $5 at the......

"En La Mer" by Seattlest Flickr Pool contributor Forrest Pangborn. Trust us-- we'd rather be exploring some tide pools today! CHS, Cap To The Hill, and Seattle Metblogs are all talking about the coolest new hyper-local, easy-on-the-eyeballs website to hit the Emerald City. Hint: restaurant inspection reports are so public record! West Seattle Blog was one of the first to report results from the Primary vote yesterday! Dang, those guys are good. Now, has......

"Scary Clown" (indeed) by Jay Cox The Daily Weekly reports that the City of Seattle has successfully sold its scandalous public toilets on EBay....for over $80,000 less per toilet than they'd hoped.While we know it means our Seattle Native card could be revoked, we are still less than thrilled that a new clown statue in honor of JP Patches is set to be unveiled this Sunday. We hate clowns, we always have, and since JP......

Seattlest is on the road, delivering an automobile to The Other Washington. The previous night, we stayed in a charming little motel in Wallace, Idaho. We've been to Wallace before, very briefly, and made a note to return someday. The town is an architectural and historical gem; it is also the "Silver Capital of the World". That's the beauty of this great nation of ours: it's got more self-proclaimed capitals of this, that, and the......

Just in case you forgot why you live in Seattle, a photo-refresher course. A rum drink really sets the mood, if you have anything like that handy.......

The Budos Band opened up the night in style! Photo by Seattlest's Abbey Simmons. The Saturday Knights/Budos Band show at Nectar on Friday night was sold out by 9:30 p.m., as in guest lists closed, no further entrance, and crowds of people partying outside the gates. Seattlest arrived at a normally respectable hour of 10:45 p.m. to find the Budos Band's shiny brass horns blaring, congo drums thumping, and every inch of Nectar packed with......

"Psychedelic Cat Man" by Bukanza Thirsty for more Solstice pics? Parade on over to our Seattlest Flickr Pool. We've got cotton cady too.......

FREE BOOTY: Scion is desperate to be cool, and the latest result of that pathological drive is a CD sampler of work from IHEARTCOMIX, the LA-based label/lifestyle company. The CD is available at Scion dealerships, but the real cool news is that IHEARTCOMIX is sending dj Franki Chan (with Radiocl*t and Drop the Lime) on a limited and exclusive tour to support the release that comes to the War Room tonight. The show's free, but......

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......

When we were growing up in New York City, two kinds of circuses came to town. The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus arrived at the same time each year in a flurry of spectacle so big that it shut down one of the under-river tunnels leading into Manhattan for a parade of animals into Madison Square Garden. In the days before anyone worried about animal rights, this three-ring extravaganza was truly exciting. The......

With Memorial Day weekend approaching, the weather warming (sort of), and boats a-sailing, it’s time to think about eating outdoors. We’ve got lots of gorgeous places to gorge, but few are finer than Ponti Seafood Grill. Ponti offers two outdoor patios where you can watch the boats go by as they make their way below the Fremont and Aurora bridges. We recommend a reservation now if you’d like to enjoy the view while at......

HUGE AMOUNTS OF CHEESE: The Cheese Festival is upon us! This is one of our top three favorite events of the year (#2: our birthday, #3: Christmas). Several reasons: a city block full of cheese, friendly vendors, wholesale prices on bottles in the wine garden (don't buy the red wine that says "bacon" three times in its description, we made that mistake last year), and (it bears repeating) a city block full of cheese. 10......

For those of you that like a little funk in your beer, the Brouwer's Cafe Sour Beer Festival kicks off tomorrow. Now, sour beer definitely is not for everyone. Okay, sour beer isn't for most people. Even the hardest of beer geeks likely said, "What the hell was THAT?" after having their first taste of a sour treat. One Seattlest recently described the Russian River Deviation (Bottleworks Anniversary beer) as tasting of human sweat,......

As if chocolate alone isn’t enough, tonight Theo Chocolate adds music, massage, and meditation to the menu. Can you believe it? Head over to Theo’s fun shop in Fremont to sample some chocolates and sip some Choice organic tea. They’ll have a string quartet playing, and if you’d like even more relaxation, you can enjoy a complementary Ayurvedic mini hand massage with Sweet Beauty chocolate lotion. Or ante up and purchase a two-person Ayurvedic......

As previously mentioned, tonight's Wig Bash at the High Dive, as well as the second, final, and sold-out performance of Nada Surf at the Showbox. Also sold out: Springsteen at Key Arena Saturday. But never fear, there's still other options out there, like Golem at Nectar tomorrow night. We don't know much about them, but we've heard that the six-piece klezmer band play "Eastern European drinking songs" and that they're "fun as hell." That's enough......

ALL-STAR PANEL: The Hugo House 2007-2008 Literary Series presents "Answered Prayers and Other Tragedies," a colloquium with authors Sherman Alexie and Michelle Tea, the Stranger's man-about-town David Schmader, and musician Sean Nelson. All are responding artistically to the question, "Is the only real tragedy getting what you want?" Ben Blum, the winner of the Hugo House New Works Competition, will also be there, wondering if this is what he really wanted. Friday, 7:30pm //......

Been a while since we've been out for a truly good time on a Saturday night. We want music, but not just any music. Something upbeat and a little crazy. Something that'll leave us sweaty and exhilarated when it's all over. Lots going on this weekend, sure, but one show in particular shines bright through a crowded calendar. It's a triple threat of great music this Saturday night at High Dive in Fremont. First off,......

Tonight: Style Out in SoDo or Neema/Cool Nutz/Cancer Rising in Fremont? The choice is difficult for local hiphop fans. On the one hand, we've got Alpha P (classic and skilled pros), The Physics (hilarious and enthused), and a host of talented performers working the social movement angle of hiphop. On the other hand, we've got Neema (he's promised a bunch of new material tonight), Cool Nutz (from NE Portland, repping the deliciously dope King......

This Seattlest's liver already hurts just thinking about all the beers we're going to try this weekend. Granted, the Hard Liver Festival at Brouwer's Cafe in Fremont officially runs all week. But, some of the good stuff will be gone before the afternoon is out on the opening day this Saturday (Doors at 11am). But, if you don't like crowds, don't come on Saturday....it will most likely be packed by noon. The sixth annual......

The second-longest serving member of the Washington House of Representatives, Helen Sommers, is retiring at the end of the current session, according to Crosscut. The second-longest-serving member of the Washington Legislature has confirmed she will not run for re-election. “This is my last session. I’m not going to run again.” Asked why, she laughed and said: “Because I’m 75 years old and I’ll be 76 in a couple weeks. That’s why.” She's been in the......

Sometimes this Seattlest is a bit behind the news, so an e-mail we just got from a friend who works in Fremont let us in on the fact that the Fremont Sonic Boom is closing and selling its CDs. 30% off new ones and 50% off used. When we saw that, we wrote a post bemoaning the loss and making the required statements about missing the Fremont of yore. But Seattlest Audrey pointed us......

"Fremont Soapbox Derby Trolls!" by Jo Marie Riedl A potentially child-traumatizing moment you can find in the Seattlest Flickr pool. Add yours!......