A couple days ago, we received an email plea from the Washington Homebrewers Association to help get State Senate Bill 5060 (PDF), which eases some restrictions on homebrewing, passed. While homebrewing is perfectly legal, currently it is illegal under state law to transport or provide any homebrewed beer or wine outside the home of manufacture, except for competitions, in which no more than one gallon may be transported and provided free, and only to judges. Easing these restrictions helps pave the way for homebrewers to find a public and will help promote the local craft-brewing industry. Anyone interested in supporting (or opposing) said legislation can attend a public hearing before the the Commerce, Labor, and Consumer Protection Committee tomorrow in Olympia, currently scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Check here for details. more ›

While we don't know if Mayor Greg Nickels' latest proposal to ban concealed weapons on city lands will ever become law (we imagine a little thing called the Constitution and this little group called the NRA might have some problems with that one), hundreds of new laws will take effect in Washington this Thursday. more ›

Thanksgiving doesn't allow for us Seattlesters to partake in our usual rock and roll lifestyles. Instead it's friends and family and mellow times about the house. Our drinking's liable to be more restrained and coordinated with a heavy meal of rich food. (Seattlest Geoff offered some choice beer recommendations earlier this week for those who've got a pit-stop planned on the way to grandmother's house tomorrow.) And according to the weather report, it's going to be cold but clear tomorrow, with morning to afternoon sunshine to make that drive a little more pleasant. more ›

From the PI this morning: "Three shot inside Capitol Hill club." Apparently, a fight broke out on Sugar's dance floor around 1:30am; three people were injured, and police aren't saying much more than that. Someone was firing a gun the club, so this isn't one of those ambiguous cases of violence within fifty feet of the club doors. The night's event was Sin Sunday, an 18/21+ weekly event featuring a DJ spinning hip-hop and R&B mash-ups. more ›

this ain't. more ›

Seattlest doesn't go to a lot of concerts -- we never did, and once parenthood embraced us we tend to invest in babysitters for stuff like movies and restaurants. There's less thrill in staying up until 1:30 when you know, no matter what, that 7:00 would be sleeping in. more ›

, "Seventeen bouncers, bartenders and other nightclub employees were arrested Saturday night for allegedly violating state liquor laws." more ›

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. more ›

brought it up. more ›

The City Council finally got around to passing "adult cabaret" zoning laws that just might let Seattle develop a strip club scene worthy of a would-be world-class city. more ›

Don’t you hate when you’re out by the lake sitting on a dock with your best buds, sipping on some mass produced brew, just laughing and having a caucasianly good time, when someone pulls out a guitar and starts strumming until a song breaks out—evening ruined. more ›

What defines a terrorist or terrorism? You know, besides standing between a Republican and the camera he wants to install in your panty drawer? Is it your actions? Is it your nationality? Is it your race? Is it your intent? We better figure it out because there are suddenly a whole lot of laws on the books all over the place that say criminals get this sentence and terrorists get this other one. Down in Eugene right now the (and this next word is important) eco-saboteurs who perpetrated a string of arsons across the Pacific Northwest are about to be sentenced. more ›

Our quest to make it from Renton to Ballard for happy hour was nearly dashed yesterday because some drunken idiot craving attention almost jumped off the Aurora Bridge. more ›

SILENT MOVIES: It's Week II of the Paramount's Harold Lloyd retrospective. Silent Movie Mondays brings you Dennis James on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ and ought to be on one of those things-to-do-before-you-die list because that's just the kind of experience it is. Of course, if you're into fast-paced comedies, it's just something-to-do-tonight and there's no reason to make a big fuss about it. Trader Joe's is the sponsor, by the way, and they're being generous with free snacks in the lobby. more ›

If you've ever hit anything on any sort of party circuit, you'll find this video by Soulwax absolutely hilarious. Oh the fun of the old rave days. We're damn near straight-edge, so none of the drug references here apply to anything we've ever done, but that's not to say we haven't been around a lot of these characters. more ›

Jonathan Lethem understands what being an unabashed fan feels like, and we are an unabashed, dorky fan of his many books and recent essays. When we heard that he is non-exclusively sharing some of his short stories for $1 to be reused in other works of art (films, songs, etc) and he is giving away the option to his new novel, You Don't Love Me Yet, and releasing the ancillary rights after five years, we realized he was moving even further into territory very dear to our heart. We chatted with him in advance of his appearance at the Seattle Arts and Lecture series Wednesday night. more ›

Is Seattlest the only person left that hates seeing the last of the city's beer-only drinking venues launch themselves into the new cocktail era and start serving hard alcohol? The Comet--that was a blow. We loved the fact that you could only get beer and wine there up until a year or so ago. You could buy everyone who was bellied-up a "shot" for like $20. The shot was actually some weird glug or something that walked the line of alcohol content they were allowed to serve, but it was cheap as hell. Now the Blue Moon has apparently made nice with the Control Board and is updating their liquor license to enable the sales of hard alcohol. Great, great bar, as it is. Great residents, great transients. One of the funnest bars in Seattle and the patrons seem to get plenty drunk on the current offerings. When Seattlest Dan and Seattlest MVB were in there recently we hadn't been sitting for ten minutes before some woman from Alaska dumped the contents of her purse on our table and sprayed us with cheap perfume. She got 86'd about 20 times and every time she returned she'd show up at the table looking for her phone and her coat. The last thing she needed was a shot, but if it were available at the bar we have no doubt someone would have slipped her one. Now, we understand that bars make a crap-load of money from the sales of hard alcohol and that dives have been getting killed lately by the smoking thing and the sprinkler thing, but we still love us a pub. Are there any left? And if we're going to continue to phase out these Draconian, Victorian-age drinking laws where are we going to address the ridiculous state-run liquor stores? more ›

Someone wrote in via our tip widget today: more ›

You're at an intersection staring down traffic, trying to get someone to stop so you can get across. Suburu Honda, Honda, Suburu, that new Mustang, Prius, then someone with those damn studs on their tires that scrape the asphalt so loudly you can hear the road repair coin getting sucked out of DOT's wallet: Krkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkr. Of course this is the guy that stops. Mountain man, down at sea level to pick up a few tanks of propane and tear the roads of Seattle a new asshole with his little metal knobbies. The car that finally stops always has to pay for all the cars in front of him who didn't, but little metal knobbies guy gets an extra long pedestrian meander. When he takes off again: Krkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkr. more ›

Earlier today, one of you told us this: "Seattlest, you have a bit of the grumpy old man in you." Is it true, we wondered? So we asked Seattlest contributors if they've ever pulled that ultimate old man move: calling the cops. Turns out we are grumpy old men. And how! more ›

Wednesday, February 14 more ›

We returned to the homeland over the holidays. Lugged skis and snowboards to the land of 3.2 beer, special garments, and the "Greatest Snow on Earth" only to find they had half the snow base compared to what we have here. Everything seemed backwards. more ›

We don't know if you caught this weekend's Seattle Times article on the downfall of an Eastside mortgage company, which suffered a mini-Enron implosion this spring. We note that the local business media never saw it coming, due to the proximity of their lips with the company's ass. more ›

We read the Stranger's article on the death of Pike/Pine yesterday. Hm. Yes, it does suck that the Cha Cha et all are going to be replaced by what we're promised will be a gross condo building soon. To say that the character of the neighborhood is going to change is like saying that Three Gorges changed the character of the Yangtze. Then we read the Weekly's jeering "now choke on it" post on their blog which argues that after advocating for density for years "now that said density threatens to shutter some of the Stranger staff's favorite walking-distance watering holes, the paper has done a 180 of sorts." Hm. Well, kind of. Previous density has come at the expense of nothing. Belltown, Downtown, Bellevue; these aren't really places that inspired a lot of passion from anyone before they were densified. We're probably somewhat wrong there in the case of Belltown. Some people did like it the way it was. more ›

The simple breakdown of the talk after the jump. more ›

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Everyone's going to get all lovey-dovey today and say, "Oh, I don't care who you vote for, just get to the polls and make your voice heard for the sake of democracy, blah, blah." Even President Bush, the most partisan president in a century, said as much this morning. more ›

-Urban Golf Part Deux went down over the weekend. more ›

Microsoft sent out invitations to its video community website beta Soapbox on Monday and last night we got around to checking it out. The interface is awesome, the video quality is awesome and the price they paid in development is probably somewhere under what Google paid for YouTube. The content and the user base... Well, there is no content or user base. Did Microsoft ever seriously consider buying YouTube's content and user base? Check out Ballmer's Business Week interview on the subject. He thinks it's a fad and there's no business model. "Is YouTube really some permanent, long-term thing, or is it a fashion?" and "Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion." more ›

RSVP is req'd. more ›