There are a lot of things we can see being seized at the border between Canada and the United States: handguns with the serial number filed off, bricks of heroin, briefcases with the radioactivity sign on the side. Hard drives we'd expect to make it through, but unfortunately we'd be wrong. The guy bringing the masters of the songs Chris Walla recorded in Vancouver back down to Seattle had the drive containing them yanked by......

(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.) New Orleans may be the American city best known for its cuisine. If you add,......

Hurricane Lilly splashes down in the Seattlest Flickr Pool care of * Minette. Nice shot. Where are yours? Share!......

Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU, spoke last night at Town Hall to publicize his new book In Defense of Our America. Notwithstanding the scheduling genius that placed Romero opposite mega-bestselling author Khaled Husseini (The Kite Runner) the lower auditorium was full of citizens waiting to voice their displeasure with ACLU policies. Romero didn't get any criticism for defending the Ku Klu Klan, Neo-Nazis, Ollie North, Fred Phelps, and NAMBLA. No, Seattle's citizens......

To recap our past few weeks spent with Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time: the initial disaster set-up was working for us (collect all the characters, watch as they fail to heed dire warnings, shake heads as rain stops coming and wheat stops growing), but Seattlest Michael questioned whether people could really relate to the days of mud-houses and not eating and all that. What we hadn't thought along the way was that Egan's book......

This just in: Seattle Rep’s 2007-2008 season in the Bagley Wright Theatre begins with Shakespeare’s beloved comedy, Twelfth Night, followed by a powerful play about the Cuban revolution, The Cook by Eduardo Machado. A new play, The Breach about Hurricane Katrina comes next, then the classic Molière comedy, The Imaginary Invalid, and finally Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney brings his skills to a classic Greek adventure in The Cure at Troy. In the Leo......

Providing yet more evidence why you should avoid documentaries with far more than a 35-millimeter pole, the producer of Iraq in Fragments today released a gag-inducing "open letter" to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences calling on them to apologize because someone made a joke he didn't like. The offender? Jerry Seinfeld who, to quote the aggrieved documentarian "poked fun" at documentaries in his introduction of the five nominees for Best Doc., and......

After spending all day yesterday leading up to the Menomena show at the Croc singing the Muppets' menah-menah doo doo da doo doo song in our heads, we were stoked to have a band that sounds exactly like Radiohead buzzing in our ears. Or, as it were, buzzing all over our bodies. (We were standing dangerously close to the speakers.) The evening started with Siberian (the band that sounds like Radiohead and Coldplay combined).......

Hurricane Katrina forced the NBA's Hornets to play most of this and last season in Oklahoma City, but they'll play all 41 of their 2007-08 home games in New Orleans.The New Orleans Hornets planned to let a deadline pass Wednesday on the team’s option to play a third season at its temporary home in Oklahoma City. “Obviously we’re extremely grateful for the people in this community, the way they’ve embraced us and have supported us,”......

Our own Madame Hooky divines whether it's worth calling in sick Friday and heading for the slopes. She'll conjure your excuse and tell you where to go. I woke up yesterday just happy to have a house--at 4am the wind shook it so hard I thought I heard some shingles fall off. Earlier in the day, I sensed that Crystal or Alpental would be the front-runners for Friday's work aversion excursion, but with hurricane-gale force......

The holiday spirit was in full-swing Friday night at The Crocodile, as Three Imaginary Girls hosted a jolly evening of karaoke, preceeded by a special performance from the U.K.'s Jim Noir and solo sets from members of Tiny Vipers and the Fruit Bats. In short, it was a blast. Something about this event not being a a full-on rock show made it feel very casual, friendly, and a lot of fun. Seattlest arrived about halfway......

You've been in a meeting all morning. Exactly how many coworkers have to pontificate on the benefits of the new TPS reporting system before they let you out of there? All of them, apparently, even though everyone in the room knows you're moving to the new reports. "Um, excuse me, but can we go over the submission system again?" "Which part of it?" "All of it. I just got here." It looks like a few......

Even as the stores sport back to school sales (which depress us, even now), summer lingers on your friends the -ists. This week's collection of links provides some of the best, worst, and oddest bits of summer fun. So, bring your laptop up onto the roof, make yourself an umbrella drink or ten, and enjoy this week's choice posts from across the Gothamist network. Torontoist (where it's 75 degrees F as of this writing)......

Okay so West Seattle isn't exactly the most convenient place for going out on a weeknight, unless, of course, you live in West Seattle. But for those of us acoustic music enthusiasts here in the cool part of town (ouch!), it'll have to do for now. A new group of local promoters, going by the moniker of Four Sheep (we're not sure if this is a biblical reference or not, but we'll let it slide......

DCist is screwed in the event of an oil crisis. Not that we're not all screwed in the event of an oil crisis, just D.C. is more screwed. Don't sell your car yet, District resident, a cabbie can kick you to the curb if he doesn't like your address. Not even Metro can save you now. Londonist experiences the London of the future through the wonders of 3D modeling, but while the 3D guys are......

-As if enough people weren't already shot this week, Puyallup suffered a shooting this morning and two suspects are in custody. -Kyle Huff's apology letter to a Montana artist for attacking his installation with a shotgun is really weird. -REI announced that 20% of their electrical demands will soon be met by green power. Utter bullshit. REI should be using 100% renewable energy. Nice start, guys. Finally. -A Federal Appeals Court decided that Jim......

Congressman Jim McDermott is calling for Seattle to move quickly on a plan to replace the Viaduct. This leaves us wondering if he’s spending to much time in that other Washington, because clearly he has forgotten how we do things out here. Upon returning from a tour of areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina he told the AP, "I came away with the strong feeling that here in Seattle we have to have our own plans......

Note to programming execs: Surprises are generally more surprising when they aren't teased within an inch of their life in the week prior to said surprise. Exhibit A: The bombshell info Izzie drops on us halfway through this week's episode that we just Did. Not. See. Coming. Just when we had written off these pre-Super Bowl episodes as a month of filler, you snap back to it and rock us like a hurricane. Nicely done.......

The Senate was asked to support the troops this morning via a defence spending bill that included money for soldiers in Iraq, Katrina aid and, of course, drilling for oil in the Alaskan wildlife refuge. Attaching ANWR drilling to a defence spending bill that must get passed was the brainchild of Senator Stevens of Alaska who has been trying to dig up the refuge for twenty years, a move that Senator John McCain called,......

Apple Cup week in Seattle means one thing: really crappy weather (rimshot...crickets). But there is also a football game, and this year is no exception. On Saturday at Husky Stadium the 2-8 Huskies will take on the 3-7 Cougars, in what is sure to go down as an official NCAA game. The Cougars, however, have already claimed the first victory of the week by out raising Husky alumni and winning the Space Needle Challenge. For......

Q: Why was there a Washington State Cougars flag flying above the Space Needle yesterday? And a Husky flag today? A: Because of a contest to raise money for Hurricane Katrina relief. The school's alumni who donate the most money to Habitat for Humanity each day get to see their school's flag flying above the city. It's part of the buildup to the Apple Cup, the football game between the state rivals, played annually the......

With the weather having finally made its turn, and daylight savings coercing us to retire for the evening at ridiculously early hours, it's hard to convince yourself to make it out. Staying at home is an all-too-easy and oh-so-warm option, but you'll have to fight that temptation and make it out. It's good for the spirit as well as the body (well, provided you don't abuse the body too much with drink specials). A healthy......

The Second Annual Value Village Fashion Show is pouring a 50-gallon drum of gasoline on the fires of costumery this weekend, so don't think that you're finished with dress-up for the season after you trudge home commando in your gorilla suit Sunday morning. You still have to get to the Rendezvous Sunday evening for this show. Seattlest has once again failed you by not getting the entry form to you in time to model your......

Here's a shot at a fun night out for a very good cause: The Lawnmowers, Alicia Dara, and the X-Ray Eyes are playing a benefit Wednesday night at the High Dive in Fremont for CASA's hurricane relief effort. CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) trains community volunteers to serve as court advocates for abused and neglected kids. Imagine being one of those and on top of that dealing with the effects of Katrina...now imagine getting......

Kanye West, we hear, is one hot rapper hiphop artist. And he samples Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman" on his single "Gold Digger." Thus, in an attempt to appeal to the kids, we will sample the late great Ray on this post. Here we go again She's back in town again I'll take her back again One more time The Seahawks are once again tantalizing us with great play early in the season. Last......

Why do some people prefer pets? Mark Twain answered the question (probably with his corncob pipe resting at a rakish angle) thusly: "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." Hundreds of starving dogs owe their lives to a group of volunteers from local animal rescue farm Pasado's Safe Haven. The dedicated animal lovers traveled......

Our mysteriously long commute this morning (the rain? aurora borealis centralized on 99?), in concert with an even more mysterious mp3 player outage (battery power? the gods telling us we need an iPod? technical ineptitude?) forced us to catch Harvey Danger on KEXP. KEXP is broadcasting out of the Museum of Television and Radio in NYC currently, which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Harvey Danger (we think it was Sean?)......

Seems like everybody and their mama has been raising money for the Red Cross or other agencies helping in hurricane relief efforts. Even Seattlest's local karaoke dive bar was taking cash for the cause last Sunday night. What follows is by no means a comprehensive list, but just a smattering of upcoming events by local businesses where your money can make a difference: · Restaurants: If you dine at any Chow Foods eatery (5 Spot,......

If you weren't mortally wounded from the bitter Oasis/Blur feud that tore our country apart in the mid-nineties, then check out Oasis tonight at the Everett Events Center. As of the last time that we checked craigslist, tickets can be had pretty cheap. Personally we like both Oasis and Blur, but we always did consider ourselves to be the Switzerland of rock fans. Tomorrow night, Keith Urban is playing at the Gorge. We are not......

You've seen the before/after shots more times than you can imagine, you've heard New Orleans mayor Nagin begging for more help, and you've given money to the Red Cross or other organizations, but you still feel helpless to really do anything about the havoc wreaked on the Southeast by Katrina. Get off your kiester, and drive/bike/bus it down to the Seattle Red Cross office and volunteer to help displaced evacuees that are being sent to......