But we don’t get the people that hike Discovery Park, that choose to spend their time appreciating nature's beauty, and still have the nerve or sociopathic disregard to throw their garbage on the beach or trail. These creeps shift our lazy personality profiling system of out whack. Who does that? Who likes nature enough to seek it out but not enough to respect it for convenience's sake? more ›

This beauty has been sitting out at the corner of 14th Avenue East and East Thomas for a few days now. Do not let the missing cushions throw you off. That only adds to the unique nature of this item, which is not urine-scented to an offensive degree. more ›

You can tell it’s almost summer because people are gleefully filling the sidewalks with the trash of a consumer society and, in a enlightened spirit of philanthropy, marking "free" on it. There was a time, not so long ago, when putting out a lightly used item you no longer needed was a kind of urban recycling. Who among us hasn’t grabbed a chair or desk from the street? Who?! more ›

• What's going on in White Center, you ask? Really, we can hear you. These walls are paper thin. White Center Now reports that King County Sheriff Sue Rahr (RAHR!) will not be closing the sheriff department's storefront there. We don't really know what that means, but they have video of it, Sue!
• Meanwhile, West Seattle Blog reminds you there's just one day left in the Elliott Bay Water Taxi season, so if you have not tried out the tiny ship yet, a sunny fall day is the perfect time.
• PhinneyWood reminded you a few days ago that this time of year, storm drains need help staying unclogged, what with all the leaves comin' down. *cough* The city will give you special Drain Unclogging Gear if you ask. *crickets*

After a committee vote yesterday, the full City Council is set to decide on Monday if Seattle will adopt a 20-cent fee for plastic bags at grocery, drug, and convenience stores, as well as a ban on polystyrene food and drink containers. If passed, the fee and ban will go into effect on January 1, 2009. Stores that use the plastic foam containers to package meat will have a year to figure out an alternative method. (May we suggest butcher paper? We imagine that is how it got its name.) While it might be annoying to get charged a few bucks for plastic bags after a big shopping trip, it will hopefully remind us to always bring a reusable bag, which is a benefit to everyone. more ›

According to the P-I, Honolulu's thinking about sending island-style trash our way. Walt Disney doesn't really tolerate landfill stench wafting over its new resorts, and there's only so much space on Hawaii for garbage (Walt Disney resort memorabilia aside), so companies are in the process of bidding for the privilege of hauling the refuse to a new mainland location. It's possible that Washington could be the trash's final resting place. more ›

In New York, a place where we once lived, recycling does not--despite being mandatory--actually happen. more ›

In the chapter on invasive species in David Williams' awesome book The Street-Smart Naturalist he says of blackberries: more ›

We've been trying to keep abreast of the latest strike news via the networks as well as our singular Canadian television channel down here but both the quantity and quality of coverage has been most unsatisfying. So we took matters into our own hands. (Confidential to Metroblogging Vancouver: If you don't provide any sort of contact address, we cannot reach you for guest/expert commentary.) We contacted The Vancouverite because we believe in their attractive tag line --"Hyper-Caffeinated Snarky News & Opinion". More importantly, following The Onion's precedent, we assign greater cultural credentials to sites employing the definite article. Here's what Editor Jackson reported about the strike: more ›

This week's Comment of the Week was posted as a reply to a post about an immigration announcement out of the office of Mayor Greg Nickels and uses the word "homo" six times, including such creative constructions as "homo liberals," "homo culture," and "liberal homos." more ›

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. more ›

Ding dong NASCAR's dead. The ISC came a'knocking with promises of garbage bags full of tourist's cash if only the state legislators would agree to a tax-payer-funded track on the Peninsula. It seemed like kind of a longshot from the beginning, and NASCAR's local guys failed spectacularly at judging the state of things in the Puget Sound region. "Hey, guys, they just voted down a tax-funded basketball venue and it looks like they're gathering in front of Key Arena right now with torches and pitchforks. Get Petty over here today!" Yeah, Richard Petty came and instead of having politicians falling over themselves to kiss his belt buckle they insulted him and NASCAR fans in general and sent him on his way. We're kind of neutral on the prospect of a NASCAR track in the region. We'd go, sure. But tax-payer funded? C'mon. more ›

SATURDAY: In addition to talks and tours, you and the kids can see live demonstrations of wood carving, drum-making, and weaving at the Opening Day Celebration for In the Spirit of the Ancestors, the Burke Museum's new exhibit of contemporary Northwest Coast Native art. more ›

Last year Eddie Guardado had a terrible April and lost the M's closer job to J.J. Putz. He thought Mike Hargrove would give him a chance to win his job back, but, in his mind, he didn't get that chance. And he's not happy. more ›

So. The Huskies. The team that's our city's best chance at a 2007 championship trophy, and they can't even beat the Cougs. Historical fact: No team has ever lost to Washington State University and gone on to win the championship of anything. more ›

, baby, and that's enough. more ›

Does anyone reading expect Trick or Treaters at their house tomorrow? Because every year we fall for one of those garbage bag-sized sacks of really tiny candy bars and then only five or six kids come to the door and we end up eating all the candy ourselves a dozen at a time. Those bags are expensive and we can't handle the tummy aches like we used to, but if a single little ghoul shows up at our door and we don't have anything to drop in his plastic pumpkin we'll have failed as neighborhood residents. more ›

Local dance collaborative locust debuted the world premiere of their new dance-video-music mashup "Mockumentary" at On the Boards last night, and it was one of the most intriguing, beautiful, dark, and thoroughly enjoyable performances that we've been to in a very long time. more ›

Picture all the money in the state rounded up and stuffed into an enormous paper mache taxpayer suspended from the Space Needle. Blindfold Governor Gregoire and Mayor Nickels and hand them each a baseball bat. more ›

The official word from Starbucks is that they're cool with the Ghetto Latte. "Customization is a fundamental attribute of the Starbucks Experience. We provide condiments to our customers so they can make their drinks to their liking and we appreciate their patronage. We trust our customers to make the choices that are right for them," Starbucks Gossip reports. more ›

two years ago for serving the best, er, institutional food in the country. more ›

Breaking the law, breaking the law We -ist folks love us some crime, and no misdemeanor is too petty for a post on any of our sites. This week, join us for a rogues' gallery of miscreants major, minor, and alleged. more ›

According to a recent discussion on the Hobo Bicycle Elite Message Board, there was an incident with some assholes who assaulted bicycle enthusiasts during last night's Critical Mass festivity. Allegedly the instigators later played the ingenious "PSYCHE! We're actually cops but we waited till after kicking your ass to tell you that" save. That's a good save to pull if you can get away with it, unlike, say, DMX, who wasn't all that convincing as an FBI agent that one time. Maybe it was the barking rap thing that gave him away. more ›

Seattlest joined a subdued crowd of about 80 at Greenlake's Kiwi and Kangaroo for this morning's US-Ghana game. more ›

Unlike Seattle's University District, the town of Whistler is a bit more used to living with, and near, bears. Over the past holiday weekend, we discovered just how close one can get, as the record-breaking snowfall from this past winter at Whistler means the bears coming out of hibernation this spring can't get very far up the mountain just yet. more ›

Seattle's "urban primitive" community (aka drunk hobos with a fetish for bicycles, holier-than-thou bicycle-related political rhetoric and harrassing people at Critical Mass) have now formed an elite squad in order to better organize their drunk bicycle fetishizing efforts. Behold: "The Bikery!" Ostensibly "a new bike collective project that is about to explode all over town.... Working towards the goal of opening a bicycle resource center and community space for all folks who love bikes and want to learn about them." No word yet if there are going to be any classes on pranking your co-workers with food you dug out of the garbage. more ›

The kitchen garbage was pretty full this morning, and while we generally wouldn't think twice about leaving it sit until sometime later this week, today we wanted to get a look at the garbage outside, so we dumped the morning's coffee grounds, tied up the bag and hauled it outside. Seattlest lives in the top unit of a duplex and we share our garbage with the couple downstairs: that's Seattlest plus Seattlest's lovely fiance plus Seattlest's two cats plus the two people downstairs and their dog. The four humans in our building and our twelve legged pet friend usually produce three to five bags of garbage a week. It fits in two cans which we store IN FRONT of the building in a wooden structure that it looks like the landlord hired a team of four-year-olds to build. Apparently our landlord is unfamiliar with the concept of "curb appeal." more ›

-The president of China is hitting Seattle for a little vacay next week and you absolutely cannot come to Seattle without stopping by Bill's for a little of Melinda's casserole. Hopefully he'll be taking a few souvenir Boeings home with him. more ›

Teamsters Local 174 has voted to authorize a strike. Local 174 members work for Waste Management Inc. and Allied Waste Industries Inc. meaning, yes, they're garbage men or waste management engineers or whatever. They're looking for health coverage improvements, safer working conditions and less mandatory overtime from their contract renegotiations or they're going to stop working and we know you've always been a fan of organized labor and that a garbage strike sounds very New York or Paris, but we bet it could get pretty unpleasant around Week 2. more ›