The state is trying to figure out just how much you'd be willing to pay to cross the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge without being deterred by the cost to change your route. According to a study released yesterday, most drivers would continue to use the bridge, even in the face of fees up to $6.85 per roundtrip. Apparently, the state believes if you have a job on the Eastside, adding nearly $40 to your weekly......

Tomorrow night, novelist Garth Stein (Raven Stole the Moon, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets) and his piercing eyes are making a crosstown trek from Stein's Mount Baker home to the Elliott Bay Book Company, where Stein will read from his latest book, The Art of Racing in the Rain (6/25, 7:30 p.m.). We hear HarperCollins bought it for north of $1 million, so Stein may arrive in one of those vroomy Ferraris......

Two eastside teens have been arrested for the false bomb threat that shut down Mercer Island High School on Tuesday. The teens, a 15 year old female student from Mercer Island High School and a 16 year old boy from Renton. The arrests were made around noon on Wednesday. The teens were booked into a juvenile detention center, upon suspicion of phoning in the bomb threats. On Tuesday morning, shortly after 8am, someone called in......

Mercer Island is not just the home of the fifth richest man on earth. And 98040 isn't just the wealthiest zip code in our state. It is now known as a childhood home of Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Dunham. Yes, she was born in Kansas. Yes, Obama was in the Midwest this morning, touting his deep Kansas roots. But his mom spent most of her adolescence in Mercer Island, and was a standout member of......

So we may have found a new favorite website--last night, a friend pointed us to the seriously awesome image to the right, courtesy of Vintage Seattle, a high-resolution visual blog documenting Seattle history, a labor of love undertaken by one Jess Cliffe. There's plenty of fantastic stuff at Vintage Seattle (we've only barely begun to sort through it), but nothing's struck us so much as this pic, posted back on Jan. 3: According to Cliffe,......

Real estate search engine Rotten Neighbor promises to help you "find bad neighbors before you move." What evils have users uncovered behind the closed doors of the Emerald City? Near Carkeek Park: Grouchy Old Man w/ Loud Music The grouchy old man who lives here likes to play his radio very loudly in his backyard. Lately he has begun playing it in the middle of the night and the cops have been called several times.......

Is the office slightly quieter today? Were there fewer parents dropping the little ones off at school this morning? Were there a lot more parked cars in certain spots around Wedgwood, Seward Park or Mercer Island? If so, then you noticed Seattle's very low-key signs that Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year is here. Growing up Jewish in New York City, we're always a little surprised when the New Year rolls around in Seattle......

Our land, this inlet on the western coast of the North American continent, is a fortunate one, endowed with natural riches and settled by people who do not confuse prosperity with moral superiority. Modesty becomes us; we do not flaunt our advantages. With pleasure, then, we open Kurt Dammeier's new book, Pure Flavor, which celebrates our region's bounty and offers some suggestions for simple preparations that enhance the pleasure this fare brings to our senses.......

"Mercer Island Business District and Seattle" by acordova. Another great shot snatched up from the Seattlest Flickr Pool.......

Yesterday we were down at Pike Place Market feasting on a Three Girls Bakery sandwich and on the way out we spotted the Seafair Pirates making their rounds. "Pardon us, pirates coming through!" they said, making their way through the molasses-like flow of tourists which we thought was probably not authentic pirate behavior. (We wouldn't be completely outraged if a pirate lopped off a head or two of the sidewalk-gawking variety of tourist who's astonished......

Seattlest grew up in a tiny town you've never heard of in Central Florida, where a real sandy ocean beach (on which you could drive) was 20 minutes in one direction, and a crystalline gulf beach was an hour and a half in the other. Now that we live in the Land of the Rain, we wait all year for weeks like these, when the sun is high and hot, the breeze is soft and......

Too late! That's what we'd scream at state reps McIntire, Pedersen, McDermott and Pettigrew if we had them gathered in a room together. Their statements yesterday--that it's time to discuss a surface option for the Viaduct replacement, that we should be talking about moving people and goods instead of cars--would have really helped get something we may have felt ok marking "yes" next to on the "just for funsies" ballot we signed, licked and mailed......

While those of us in central Seattle enjoyed a three-day weekend, 234,000 people, mostly on the Eastside, are looking at their fifth night without power, and PSE's telling some of them--mostly in eastern King County (Duvall, North Bend, etc...)--that they won't be back on the grid for days. --18,000 people in Seattle still don't have power--mainly in the Rainier Valley and West Seattle, but some in Madrona and Leschi. The P-I reports they'll all have......

-Outdoor advertising leviathan Clear Channel got a contract to wrap some Seattle community transit buses in their advertising. -Please disregard all this "landslide in the making" stuff. People hear that crap and they don't bother voting. -The shack that originally housed Gates, Ballmer, Allen, et al. in Bellevue was sold for $38.6 million this week. Meanwhile Jimi Hendrix's old house almost got bulldozed a year ago. -Fundraiser time at KUOW - Let the complaining commence!......

Summer brings a cornucopia of free outdoor theater to the bewooded groves of Seattle's parklands. Thanks to the Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival (Wooden O, GreenStage, and Theater Schmeater), there were five plays offered at Volunteer Park last Saturday and Sunday: As You Like It, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Robin Hood. The Seattle Times has whipped up a comprehensive calendar of the outdoor theatrics, so we don't have to.......

Tuesday 18th >>> Thievery Corporation at The Paramount 8pm; $25-$35 (not including Ben Dover fees) Wednesday 19th >>> Billie Burke Estate at Tractor Tavern. Gay piano pop 70's style, complete with horns and overall fabulousness. 9pm; $5 >>> Quintron and Miss Pussycat, The Trashies, Herry Marry, Erin Jorgensen at the Sunset Tavern 9pm; $10 Thursday 20th >>> Digable Planets at Neumos. 'Cause we're cool like that. 9pm; $23 advance, $25 dos (Thursday and Friday)......

We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you're crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is an undersized cornerback, and an......

One thing you may not know about Seattlest is that we're hardcore. Hard-fuckin'-core. So normally, we don't venture onto Mercer Island much. Mercer Island is for pussies. We'll be there at 9 a.m Sunday, though, when the bland mound of glacial till will be transformed into a Theatre of Pain. It's the Mercer Island Half Marathon Marathon with about 3,000 runners each playing their part. (There's also an 8k Classic, which have never done,......

-Mercer Island was swallowed by the righteous sea today and no longer exists on any chart or map. -Area Man Richard Honour was arrested on charges of transmitting a computer virus via a Darkmyst chat room. -Add the bus shelter to the list of place you can't legally smoke in the state of Washington. Do we have the same 25' rule for the bus shelters? -Tonight is this month's Drinking Liberally so get your......

It's not all work and hard-nosed politicking in the state senate. Every once in a while the senators enjoy popping the tops off a few cold ones and voting up a state mascot or something. Excuse us, "official marine mammal of Washington." That would be the orca, of course, and the senate voted 46-1 to pass the bill and send it up to the Governor who is expected to sign it. Killer whale hater......