• White Center Now reports that King County Executive Ron Sims has proposed two staggered fare increases for Metro buses on his blog. In other news--Ron Sims writes a blog?!
• Yesterday's late afternoon thunder and lightning struck a little too close to home for a West Seattle Blog reader. A cedar tree in their neighbor's back yard was split in two by a lightning strike, sending cedar chips flying everywhere.
• PhinneyWood wants to let you know that, if you've had trouble with getting a green building permit, there's a meeting scheduled just for you this Wednesday at the Phinney Neighborhood Association.

We've been remiss in cultivating our Flickr moving images pool. Thankfully, the purity and essence of Flickr hasn't been diminished by a flood of YouTube-style video. On the other hand, it seems like relatively few people are posting video to Flickr. And we've been inexcusably lazy. more ›

Lightning, thunder, and heavy rains are beautiful and exciting, particularly to us in the Pacific Northwest who get to witness them so infrequently. When a storm comes in we always hope we're near a window (or camping, so said people on the bus this morning) so that we can catch random glimpses of nature's fireworks. more ›

Seattlest has been making some semblance of a living writing about music for a few years now. During that time, we've tried to put into words performances by some truly great artists (Chris Thile comes to mind), and it never gets easier to verbalize music. Talking about music really like dancing about architecture, although we have felt the inexplicable desire to dance inside extraordinary buildings before. more ›

When we heard that Vern recently released a book called Seagalogy, we were perplexed. Why would the voice of badass cinema write a book about NFL cheerleaders? more ›

The Go! Team - "Grip Like a Vice" more ›

On our way out of Kirkland, we decide to stroll along the waterfront. While stepping through an alley (as dubious as they get in downtown Kirkland), we hear indie-acoustic music coming from the cappuccino haven on Seattle’s Eastside, Kahili Coffee. Without hesitation, we advance. more ›

You know the type, the ultra-picky customer whose complaints ruin dinner for everyone in the restaurant. The self-appointed lightning rods for tough steak, spilled wine, fallen soufflés, incorrect checks. Waiter, there's a fly in my drink! Miss, there's no gremolata on the osso buco! You want to find her car in the parking lot and let the air out of her tires, or send a mash note to her table: "STFUA!" more ›

Last night, Young Frankenstein, playing at the Paramount through September 1st, came to life, sang, and did some wicked dance moves. The official world premiere of the new Mel Brooks musical, based on his horror-comedy film of the same name, had the full house's rapt attention from the initial flash of lightning over Transylvania Heights. The script preserves many of the film’s great lines ("Put...the candle...back!"), while adding nearly two dozen original songs with music and lyrics by old nectarine-pushing Mel. While this run serves as a chance for the company to work the kinks out before heading off to Broadway this fall, as of last night, the kinks are primarily sex-related. more ›

We asked our fellow Seattlests: What's the last good book you read? And what's coming up on your summer reading list? more ›

Dustin and her racing partner Kandice (Dustin's the blonde...with the nice teeth...the one who doesn't kinda sorta resemble Maggie Gyllenhaal) achieved All-Stardom by coming in fourth place last season on Amazing Race 10, and also by being blonde, perky, upbeat, mutually supportive, and lightning rods for bitterness from other teams. They wanted to be the first all-female team to win the race, though surly long-time rivals "Bama" ended up coming a little bit closer. more ›

Nowhere is racial bigotry more starkly communicated than during coverage of the NFL draft. more ›

Go see Parsons Dance at the Meany tonight or Saturday. You should go to watch one man perform one solo, and you will thank Seattlest for telling you to do so. In all our many years spanning from actually being a dancer to attending countless modern dance performances, we have never in our life seen anything such as Parson's 1982 work Caught. (That we had never seen it, much less heard of it until now, is pleasantly humbling.) Thursday night, it was performed by Jeremy Smith, a newcomer to the company. You may not have the good fortune of seeing Smith in action, as two other dancers will likely take his place Friday and Saturday. And while we're certain those performing it tonight and Saturday will be skilled, and you will indeed still thank us, we saw them on stage with Smith in other pieces, and we know that he is lightning incarnate. more ›

It'd been awhile since we'd last been to the Tractor Tavern and, well, we found that we'd missed the place -- the faded old cowboy boots hanging from the ceiling, the curious glory-hole in the men's crapper, the huge oil painting of the bright red tractor, and then the other one of the majestic horse with all the lightning in the background. Okay, that one's kind of weird, but it fits somehow with the country but not too country attitude of the place. We're just pretty damn happy whenever we pay a visit to the Tractor. more ›

Seattlest carries an umbrella in our shoulder bag every single day. All summer long we carried it, even though we were experiencing the driest season ever recorded in Seattle. In mid July sometime, a friend from out of town made one of the lame, old Seattle Rain Jokes, and we forgot momentarily what he was talking about. Even the word was unfamiliar - "What is this 'rain' you speak of?" more ›

-Seattlest once did this, except instead of falling asleep and hitting a cop we hit our dad. Not sure which is worse. more ›

Dean Logan is stepping down as head of King County Elections. He will be taking the Los Angeles County Deputy Elections Registrar position-- which will allow him to take improv classes at night. more ›

About three songs into her set, Neko Case gave up on it. Hail the size of dice had the crowd shouting in excitement and alarmed pain. (Note to self: never wait for the weather you see coming across the plain out here to arrive.) The storm, with lightning, lasted about 45 minutes, sending everyone streaming toward cars and tents. more ›

If you are afraid of fast cars (Tracy Chapman) or of movie characters existing in reality (Tom Cruise), then don't go downtown today. Because two characters from the upcoming Pixar film Cars---sotto voce: in theaters everywhere June 9th---are making an appearance at Westlake, as real-life cars. more ›

Fresh from his quarter-hour of fame as a food blogger, Ronald is preparing a giant Spanish torta for a neighborhood party in Belltown. He plans to stalk chef Kerry Sear's cooking class at Cascadia on Saturday morning. On Sunday, he'll make is way into SoDo territory where wine writer/wine merchant Rich Kinssies promises to roast a pig and pour samples of Spanish reds at The Wine Outlet . We hope it goes well with the all the uneaten torta. more ›

We love this town. But we'd love it ever-so-much more if it had these things in it. (Budding entrepreneurs, take note.) more ›

Were you at Bumbershoot on Friday? We were. Here is what we saw… more ›

Here at Seattlest, we love the New Pornographers, but one big reason we love them is our obsession with Neko Case, the female voice of the band. Her alt-country (whatever that is) solo work makes our teeth just vibrate with excitement. more ›

Seattlest faves and old skool raves, the Go! Team, are headed back our way (10/25, to be exact). Yes, yes- you missed them the first time around. So did a lot of people. "It's too hot," you said. "I don't want to come home smelling like an ashtray," you said. "The album is too treble-y. Where's the bass?" you said. Well, Go! more ›

With their blend of schoolyard chants, '70s TV themes, and old school hip-hop, the Go! Team creates music made for summer. And since summer finally seems to be upon us, last night was the perfect time for the band, recently signed to Columbia, to play a sold-out show at Neumo's. Seattlest is happy to report that the U.K. multi-culti girl-boy indie collective lived up to our lofty expectations, as well as their own exclamation point. After their explosive performance at Intonation (can Pitchfork stop talking about it now, please?) and in their second Seattle show in as many days (they were the surprise guest at the KEXP barbeque on Sunday), the Go! Team certainly brought the rock. But before that we'd have to sit through three opening acts. more ›

The tagline for the Seattle branch of the Dorkbot group is, "People doing strange things with electricity." Usually that entails something pretty benign like video displays, robots or "teledildonics." Less often are bolts of lightning shooting through the CoCA gallery, but that's exactly what you may find there on Sunday during Tesla Night. more ›

Seattlest loves Vancouver. It's got a feel up there that's almost, you know, urban. We could sit here and list all of the things we like aboot our northern neighbor, but we're sure you have your favorite activities north of the border as well. Instead we'll just give you one extra reason to load up the car and dig out the passports this weekend: The vibrant Vancouver blogging community is throwing itself a little conference at UBC's downtown campus Saturday. more ›