The weather, it just gets worse. Hoping for summer? Keep hope alive! Remember spring? Surely, we must have had one. (Missed it last year; we were in the bathroom.) Wait, a dim memory: a vague recollection of a spring-like afternoon last week. It comes back to us now. We were on upper Queen Anne. A whole street of yellow blossoms catches our eye. Goldenchain, they call those trees, don't they? Laburnum, in the garden store.......

Just Monday we were writing about how much we love farce, and here today, San Francisco plays host to a farce of global scale as the Olympic torch--a flash-point for anti-China rallies--arrives in the Bay city. (Follow all the news at SFist.) Regardless of what you think of the hosts of this year's Summer Olympic games, your position on Tibet or Uighur ethnic autonomy, or whether Western nations should symbolically protest Chinese crackdowns by......

Photo credit: sniderscion Torontoist spent its week uncovering who was behind mysterious ads for a drug called "Obay" that popped up across the country (Scientology? Frank Shepard Fairey?), first tracing them to an advocacy group called Colleges Ontario and then confirming their suspicions a few days later.Phillyist learned how to put on a puppet show – it's not as easy as you might think!Shanghaiist discovers that the average starting monthly pay for fresh graduates......

Just months after spending $240 million to own a portion of the company, Bill Gates has removed his personal Facebook profile. Gates had supposedly purchased a small portion of the social-networking company because he'd so enjoyed using the website. However, after Gate's investment in the company and his personal profile came to light, the Microsoft founder was inundated with friend requests. The London Sun reported that Gates was receiving up to 8,000 friend requests......

We had heard a lot of good buzz going into Sunshine Cleaning, starring the perpetually lovable and talented Amy Adams and the nearly as up-and-coming Emily Blunt as sisters who break into the lucrative niche growth industry of crime scene cleanup. Dealing with the literal blood, guts, and body fluids of the recently departed forces the ladies to examine some of the biohazards in their own lives. Wackiness and personal growth ensues. Unfortunately, the movie......

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. Seahawks vs. Arizona Style Enchiladas with Homemade Corn Tortillas and Salsa preview When preparing food......

N+1, the NYC-based literary magazine, launched with a bang back in the fall of 2004. In the inaugural issue, the editors took aim Dave Eggers & the McSweeneys/Believer crowd, deriding them as "the regressive avant-garde," and at the iconic critic James Wood (then at The New Republic, now at The New Yorker) whom they called a "designated hater," and who--along with his TNR co-horts Leon Wieseltier and Dale Peck--they accuse of writing literary criticism that......

In the lobby of the ACT Theater, 25 minutes before curtain of A Christmas Carol, a pretty 20-something girl wearing a cute holiday sweater surveys the scene. Four Dickens Carolers are singing in lovely harmony. Children toddle by, then look back at the carolers, their eyes wide with wonder. Garland and lights are everywhere. The 20-something's face spreads into a wide smile. She turns to her boyfriend and stage-whispers: "I love this!" What's not to......

A few hours from now, London folktronic sextet Tunng kicks off the weekend early and for free at Nectar. Doors are at 5pm for the 21+ happy hour show. Saturday night offers a solid all-ages show at the Croc, with Art in Manila (including ex-members of Azure Ray), The Good Life (Cursive side-project), and singer-songwriter Johnathan Rice. Here's the latter looking pissed at an inattentive Showbox crowd earlier this year, even though he's dating Rilo......

For a guy who's nearly tone deaf, Eddie Argos has done pretty well for himself in the world of rock music. When his band Art Brut broke a couple years ago, their sound--spoken-word lyrics over choppy punk rhythms and AC/DC-inspired riffs--stood out in the London indie scene, amongst Britpop redux bands like Babyshambles and Bloc Party. Their debut album, Bang, Bang, Rock & Roll was a Pitchfork and KEXP fave, and the first time......

Tonight only, the British disturbo-cabaret group Tiger Lillies appear at the Moore for their Misery Guts Tour. If you're not heading to a Halloween party, a Tiger Lilllies show is a reliably transgressive alternative. They've been called a "Brechtian punk cabaret combo," and that's by people who like them. Martyn Jacques croons in falsetto his tales of London's underworld, prostitution, slayings, and bestiality, to rollicking gypsy-flavored accordion accompaniment. 8pm // Moore Theatre // Tickets $25......

Balagan Theatre burst out of the womb of the Capitol Hill Arts Center last week with the opening of their new season in the La Spiga building at the corner of Pike and 12th. "Three weeks ago this was a concrete box," someone said before the performance, "and thanks to the hard work of many people, today it's a concrete box with curtains." It's actually pretty fly for a concrete box with curtains. The......

A few weeks ago, Nobel Prize Laureate and co-discoverer of DNA Dr. James Watson blew through town, reflecting on how he's stayed away from stupid people, then delving into his now-customary slurry of sexist patois. Apparently he waited until he got across the pond to London to pull out the big guns:The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that......

Tonight the Elliott Bay Book Co. hosts a trio of writers touring as the "Akashic All-Stars." Akashic is a small literary press based in New York (specifically, Brooklyn--is anything cool left in Manhattan?). Only ten years old, Akashic is a sign of a promising future for American letters. Like the music industry, publishing is being transformed by technology, allowing for smaller firms run by people with both business smarts and passion for what they......

Our postings have been light (OK, nonexistent) this summer as we gallivanted about the western US and Canada teaching people how to ride mountain bikes. We were most excited about a trip in late August to Blue River, BC, the spot of legendary Mike Wiegele's heli-skiing outfit. The plan was to get dropped at 9,000 feet via helicopter and escort about 40 people back down through fields of granite rock slabs and unending alpine......

No question about it: there's too much Bordeaux on the market. The answer: find new ways to sell it. Howard Goldberg, who once wrote for the NewYork Times, thinks the answer is for Bordeaux estates to sell shrink-wrapped, powdered wine, which could be reconstituted (with designer water, to be sure) into vino. Great idea, Howard; we'll get back to you. Seriously, it's time for international action. Justin and Andy, what's your plan?Cut a hole in......

No, not that Michael Jackson. The other Michael Jackson, the world's leading beer critic/scholar/historian/writer, was found dead in his London home last night. Likely, not many of you have heard of the anti-child molesting Michael Jackson. He was possibly the most important driving force in the world-wide beer community over the past 30 years. Starting with his first publication of "World Guide to Beer" in 1977, he has always been a strong voice for......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

While you are now officially unable to see Hootie and the Blowfish this weekend in Roslyn, WA (get well soon, Hoots), next week offers a great show at the High Dive. And it's on a Wednesday night, so you don't have to contend with the mongrel hordes and/or white-capped frat boys that inhabit the Fremont environs every weekend. Magic Bullets formed in San Francisco a couple years ago, and the sextet's first album a......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

The cholesterol in butter, whole milk and organ meats is good for you, nothing short of brain food, while industrial food makes you sick. That's Nina Planck talking. Modest, funny, spiritual godmother to farmers markets from New York to London, she came to Seattle to promote the paperback edition of her bestselling book, Real Food: What to Eat and Why and stayed an extra day to have dinner at the Volunteer Park Café with a......

Air France 046 touched down right on schedule Monday--the first-ever nonstop flight from CDG to SEA, water cannons spraying the Airbus A330 in a festive salute, the pilot waving French and American flags from his cockpit window. Champagne toasts and official speeches followed, blessing this long-overdue rapprochement of the Eiffel Tower and the Space Needle. Francophile Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur said we'd finally been kissed on both cheeks by the standoffish French. But the......

Like a chorus of howls at the moon, there’s a rumor going around that one-time absolutely incredible super-band Temple of the Dog will reunite for a Seattle show. Next month. People are already begging for tickets on Craigslist. We haven’t the slightest clue if this is a cruel hoax meant to fuck with our Singles-era-loving heads, or if there’s truth to the rumor. Seattlest Jack did say he “saw fliers” for such a show at......

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making......

Arcadia @ UW Playhouse Theatre Weds - Sun, through May 6 // Tickets: $15 general/$12 senior/$10 student The handy thing about the UW Drama Department producing Tom Stoppard's Arcadia is that you can pop over to the UW afterwards and register for a classes on fractal mathematics, Byron's poetry, English gardening, chaos theory, Romanticism and Classicism, thermodynamics, and maybe a refresher on Fermat's Theorem. There's a determinedly intellectual bent to the play, which revolves......

Monday WOMEN & MONEY: Personal finance expert and author, Suze Orman talks about the complicated and dysfunctional relationship that women have with money in her book, Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny. 7:30pm // Town Hall // $5 AGORAPHOBES TAKE HEART: Everything you’ve been told about dating is wrong. Love Will Find You is a new approach to love from dating expert Kathryn Alice. It may be the first dating......

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an......

Monday SEATTLEST BOOK CLUB PICK: For March, we're reading Jonathan Raban's Surveillance, set in a not-so-distant future, when everyone's actions are highly monitored. Get a head start on the conversation by hearing from Raban himself. (We'll know if you went or not.) 7pm // UW Bookstore // FREE FANTASTIC FICTION SALON: Connie Willis, an award-winning SF writer, hosts this discussion of sci-fi/fantasy fiction writing. (As a new member of Hugo House's "Writing Fantastic Fiction"......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......