These are, you'd think, the pertinent numbers about Washington Mutual's 2007. Stock price at start of 2007: 45.40 Stock price at end of 2007: 13.07 But apparently the 71% drop in stock price is not among the criteria by which Washington Mutual judges its executives, because those executives will get six-figure bonuses for last year, reports Drew DeSilver of the Seattle Times. Chief Operating Officer Stephen Rotella gets $912,000 for chiefly operating WaMu to its......

M. Coy Books on Pine is closing, and, because we spent hours and hours there as a teenager without buying anything, we're feeling a bit jerk-ish for not having patronized the place more in adulthood. Founder Michael Coy (yeah, he founded Bailey/Coy, too) sure knows how to make us feel like a tool. He tells the P-I: "We're going to miss interaction with our customers, but we will not miss waking up in the middle......

What it is ain't exactly clear, however. Back on December 2, PopMatters published "So Long, Something Weird," which made it sound like locally based exploitation/sexploitation distributor Something Weird Video was going out of business. It’s time to call out the carnal color guard and get the bugler to blow a rather trashy and tawdry Taps. After nearly seven years celebrating the best of exploitation, Something Weird Video has parted ways with chief home theater......

Turns out Amazon.com's customer service department isn't staffed by computers -- just sarcasm-savvy people who use computers. Consumerist broke the story: Amazon Sends "Best Customer Service E-mail I've Ever Received". We'll summarize: One of Amazon.com's Black Friday deals was the chance to win a $1000 laptop for $299. Many people entered; most of them were unsuccessful. Some theorized that Amazon employees had snatched up all the good deals, since no one they knew had won......

Last year we invoked the name of Cal Worthington as a flimsy excuse to post the amazing "Montgomery Flea Market" ad. Now, we actually have an ad from the master himself. Big ups to Cal for wearing a Mariners jacket (and also for the zebra). There is a definite lack of men on horses leading zebras around in our television advertising today. Worthington, incidentally, is still alive--he turned 87 last month. This terrific profile in......

Today John Cook mentioned a new, locally based social networking site in his Venture Blog: ListenToYourWife.com. Howard Ro, the husband in the husband-and-wife team behind the site, explains: Ro, an IT consultant, says that many married women feel as if they are not "being heard." "It's not due to abuse or neglect, but just due to the nature of male dominance in a marriage," he said. "We wanted to create a forum for wives to......

The historic Moore Theatre turns 100 this year. December 28th is their big centennial celebration. We got to thinking about this major milestone the last time we were there. It was last Monday night, the Iron and Wine show. We were sitting in our seats, waiting for razor-shy Sam Beam to take the stage and we got to looking around. As always we were impressed by the high ceiling, grand arches, intricate moldings... Then we......

To see Seattle's culinary scene up close, just like the locals do, get thy butt over to the Gray Line tour desk! Aunt Minnie from Moline can spend a summer afternoon watching a real live chef! Gray Line of Seattle figures plenty of rubes will want to tag along on a trip through the market and demo in the kitchen. Jason Wilson of Crush is the only "name" to sign up, but the Space Needle,......

Birth of a fetish: The Register reports an unfortunate MSN messenger encounter between two young girls and Microsoft's badly programmed Santa chat bot. Apparently "RoboSanta" has "a shocking predeliction for casually dropping in that it likes to talk about a certain sex act." The Register (El Reg, below) replicated the conversation, starting out by offering St. Nick a piece of pizza: El Reg says: pizza (pi) Santa says: Yum! What do you want for......

We're not going to fault Nordstrom's for their decision to ax the piano players in some stores. Instead, we'll blame Nordstrom customers, and their preference for new-fangled pop music. From the Seattle Times: Some Nordstrom department stores are discontinuing their live piano notes in favor of commercially recorded music piped in over speakers. Nordstrom's store at Bellevue Square recently did away with its pianist, and the Alderwood mall store in Lynnwood will soon follow suit,......

It's become fairly commonplace for the brighter real estate bloggers, like Timothy "The Tim" Ellis over at SeattleBubble, to mock P-I reporter Aubrey Cohen once a month. See Cohen--the P-I's lead real estate reporter--writes an article about the state of the national housing market once a month when the industry standard Case-Shiller numbers are released. The Case-Shiller index (from S&P) tracks the changes in home prices for 20 US metropolitan areas each month as......

Despite what you may have heard the past few days--scuttlebutt about the sale of the Showbox Market and subsequent consolidation of venues at the SoDo location--it turns out that the original (and best) Showbox is staying right where it is, thankyouverymuch. Says Chad Queirolo, Talent Buyer/Manager for both Showboxes: It used to be once a year an especially virulent rumor that the Showbox lease would end in March. This has been happening for at......

Downtown at 6th & Pine we spotted Santa's Castle abutting Nordstrom's and an elf standing around with nothing to do, so we thought we'd point you to the web page with the hours of operation and photo costs, but the downtown Nordstrom's store site doesn't believe in Santa. He doesn't show up on their events list, which doesn't seem right. We mean, Santa didn't just build an extremely faux Bavarian castle-hut next to Nordstrom's without......

Retailers have been slopping their Christmas come-ons into the weeks before Thanksgiving since at least 1986--that's the earliest citation Word Spy has for "Christmas creep," the retailers' own term for the phenomenon. The exception: local customer-service nirvana Nordstrom. As reported on Consumerist and elsewhere, Nordstrom hasn't put up their Christmas decorations yet. But they have posted signs explaining why: "We just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time." Reaction is mostly positive.......

Amazon released an eBook reader today, it's three years in the making. They call it Kindle. Here's a big 'ol Newsweek piece about it. Barnes and Noble has seen its stock drop 5% today (as of 3:01 EST), as investors ask and answer the question--is print dead? (Note--you aren't reading this in print.) News of the Kindle launched a spirited discussion amongst various Seattlesters touching on the merits of eBooks, of iPods, book history, and......

Aw geez. Another noble Seattle name goes into the toilet. Redhook Brewery, the brand launched by Paul Shipman and Gordon Bowker more than 25 years ago, will become part of a corporate entity called Craft Brewers Alliance after it takes over Portland-based Widmer Brothers for a reported $50 million. Names are terribly important, as Bowker would tell you himself, were he not the most modest of men. It was Bowker, a Ballard native, who co-founded......

Outfit called Not For Tourists has just published a guide to Seattle. It's a handsome book, looks just like Moleskine journal, complete with oilcloth cover, fat elastic closure, gorgeous paper. The Seattle version is tenth in a series, cobbled together by a design staff in faraway Noo Yawk with input by a locally based "city editor" named Fred Beldin, who contributes occasional music reviews to The Stranger. NFT Seattle starts out with a grid of......

CHS had the news last night, and then Metblogs posted before us, too, so to make up for our tardiness, we visited the Office Nomads site, chatted with cofounder Jacob, and took pictures. They just signed a 3-year lease the beginning of this month, and are in full prep-mode before their opening on November 1. (Open House 6pm-9pm.) The new Office Nomads offices are located in the old Heath Printers building on Boylston, the block......

Click-YAY! Click-YAY! Click-YAY! That's the Call of the Amazonian today. Amazon.com stock closed up 10%, at 100.96, after the company announced profits have quadrupled. It's not just well-wishers that are buying in on the stock, it's also panicked short-sellers. There's a 36.8 million share short interest that comes due at the end of September, and those who own a big or even small part of it are buying now so they don't lose their shirts.......

A friend just emailed Seattlest, gushing with glee that our season's passes to the Summit (Alpental, really) grant us 5 free days of skiing at Crystal Mountain. We'd already written about how the ownership of the Summit by Boyne Mountain (who also owns Crystal Mt.) might be a good thing for mountain bikers. So it sounded like it was already working out for those of us that go mostly to Alpental (due to sheer proximity,......

We may have invested in a DSLR camera a few months ago, but we're not made of money. Which is why we've never gotten around to investing in Photoshop. At this point in our learning curve, we'd rather spend our time taking a lot of photos than tweaking them to death on our MacBook Pro. Give us infinite possibilities and we're paralyzed. Which is why, when we've been editing photos, we've been using locally......

We had a good time at Mosby Farm's pumpkin patch on Saturday morning. The pumpkin patch was abundant, the wheelbarrows were plentiful, the hayride was free. Little Miss Seattlest and her friend ran shrieking through the fields and got satisfyingly dirty. They discussed getting stuck in the muck when the tractor pulling the hayride got, well, stuck in the muck. We bought pumpkins, and they're beautiful. But the reason we went: the corn maze.......

Sometime this week it's going to be announced that Seattle's soccer team the Seattle Sounders will be entering the MLS. GOALSeattle says tomorrow. Our friend in Chicago who knows about these things says it'll be announced at MLS Cup, which isn't until November 18, so we'll discount that and say tomorrow. It seems pointless, by now, to argue whether or not it will be announced. The Sounders aren't selling 2008 season tickets, Paul Allen......

Seattlest feels dirty (not in a good way) after reading the Oxford American's article on indie rock and Seattle. Bill Wasik's piece about indie rock and the blogs and radio stations who love them revolves around Seattle and KEXP. He frames us as the first city of indie rock, which, first of all, doesn't seem right. We have a decent amount of indie-type bands and some clubs and Capitol Hill, but... do you think we're......

In a few seasons, Seattle indie stalwart Sub Pop will shed its adolescent husk and turn 20. Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, the dudes who put Soundgarden and Nirvana in bins before major label reps stormed Seattle, will, according to this bio, celebrate "as conspicuously as they can manage." As well they should. They were the fuse to said bands’ (and others’) genre-birthing TNT, after all. And though maybe not as globally revered since the......

Stand at the corner of First and Pike, and you almost hear the thunder of Seattle's hotel wars, the howitzers of the future as they battle for attention in the trades, the travel mags, the lifestyle glossies. First into battle: a new Four Seasons, across the street from the downtown Art Museum: 21 stories, 149 hotel rooms, 36 residential condos, opening 2008. If your memory goes back more than two years, you'll recall that Four......

Rockstar Seattlest commenter (ex; you're dead to us, Jake) 8bitjake had the scoop earlier this week for those that were paying attention. He got an email from a friend at the Eastside game studio Bungie: "So heres my big secret. You should google Bungie + Microsoft + separation this week. You know that big ol BILLION dollar franchise Bungie has created for Microsoft, to show their appreciate Microsoft is letting Bungie leave. Of course Microsoft......

If you're having trouble getting used to the gray days of fall, head over to Salon Dewi this weekend for a UV-infused pick-me-up. This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we are offering complimentary trips to our UV - Infrared Sauna. This little hot box helps with the effects of SAD. It is also nice and toasty - it will help loosen up sore muscles and give you a mini break from your day! As previously......

"No more moons-over-my-hammy", documented by mary and filed in the Seattlest Flickr pool. We don't mean to steal Mary's thunder; however, her photograph moved us to write down some of the thoughts we've been having about the Ballard Denny's closure. We knew it was coming; however, just like the presence of vampires in Sunnydale, we didn't actually want to think about it. The light, the clouds, the darkness of the trees, and the Shell......

A bunch of Zune videos showed up on Youtube yesterday following the announcement of the new Zune 2 interface, Zune DRM-free downloads, Zune Nanos and Zune Last.fm. It may be our imagination, but in the following video does Bill seem like he's not taking all this entirely seriously, like he just ruined the previous ten takes with little outbursts and asides? "A little card that shows what you're listening to? What the fuck does that......