Amtrak has some good prices going fast for its fall fare sale. You have to order your tickets by Friday, August 8, and you can get to such exotic locales as Wenatchee ($19), Spokane ($37), and Portland ($24). Whitefish, Montana, is just $67 and...let's see...multiply the denumberator...323 hours away. Those are all one-way prices, and you gotta travel between September 2 and December 11, 2008. Still, $48 r/t to Portland is not bad, though we......

The Tour de Fat bicycle festival, sponsored by New Belgium Brewery, took place at Gasworks Park today. Naturally we bicycled over to see what it was all about. On the way, two guys in a pickup pulled up next to us and rolled down the window. Uh oh, we thought. "Hey, nice bike!" they yelled. "And nice shirt!" (We were wearing the cream of our Hawaiian shirt collection.) They gave us a thumbs up. Then......

As Tuesday afternoon rolls around, we're trying to recall what we did last weekend and remember—hey yeah!—we hit two concerts: a five-band line-up at the Showbox on Friday, and Nine Inch Nails on Saturday. How could we have forgotten? Oh that's right, it was a boring-as-hell time. Friday night we headed down to the Showbox at the Market to catch Tea For Julie with Slowly We Survive and Shyforshy, all opening for Gin Betty! and......

"Chromeo @ Capitol Hill Block Party, 7/26/2008," by Seattlest Donte. Ahh, Saturday! A chronologically arranged discussion of the Block Party, Day Zwei (Day Eins here): The Physics: It's weird to see them in daylight, but then again, their happy, casual version of hiphop meshes well with a sunny day and a stomach full of the Champagne of Beer from the nearby beer garden. Justo and Thig had Monk Wordsmith (Thig's brother) on stage with......

This is the second part of a series that follows the Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic along its route, and explores the history and transformation of the Pacific Northwest through the communities and stops along the way. See here for part 1. As 7:30 a.m. rolled around, we were ready for breakfast and tired of slowly following the STP riders through Kent, so we made our way back to I-5 and headed south......

This summer is turning out to be a great one for special beer releases. If you're tired of the same old summer beers, give one of these a try. Deschutes recently released the Black Butte XX, an imperial version of their popular Black Butte Porter that was brewed for their 20th anniversary. It is made with coffee, cocoa nibs (from Theo), and was aged in bourbon oak barrels. This was distributed in limited quantities,......

Welcome to Oregon by Flickr User goatopolis Add this to the list of "another reason to consider moving to Portland." A statewide initiative is being launched in Oregon this week to legalize marijuana and to sell it as a taxable, controlled substance at Oregon stores, similar to alcohol. The initiative needs over 80,000 signatures to make the cut for a statewide vote in 2010. If the ballot measure passed and Oregon were somehow able to......

Yesterday, we inquired how all of you had stayed cool over the blazing weather this weekend in the Pacific Northwest. Thankfully, none of you submitted the following idea, which was enacted by two Portland 20-somethings. It does sound like a lovely idea right now, though, as we sit in our stifling home: Portland police arrested a couple in their 20s early Saturday morning for skinny-dipping in the Mount Tabor Reservoir. Both were cited for......

LOCAL LIT: Tired of living la vida loca after pride weekend? Sick of the sun and the heat? Want to retreat back into your dark, shade-drawn house and dream of the rain? Of course not, which is why it's so hard to recommend you spend your Monday at a literary reading. Still, local author and medical expert Carol Casella has a reading tonight down at Elliott Bay Books, for her debut novel Oxygen. Casella, a......

Will the "Bento Bandit" be next? By Flickr User Bento Panda The local office of the FBI seems to be fresh out of creative names for its criminals. Behold the most recent stories regarding criminals the FBI are looking for locally--the Waddling Bandit and the Candy Man Bandit. The Waddling Bandit apparently has a distinctive gait while Mr. Candy Man robs banks while sucking on lollipops. The names don't exactly inspire a citizen corps to......

"King Cobra's hiphop hymen has been broken!" declared Gatsby of Cancer Rising last night. It's true: The Physics were the first hiphop group ever to grace the newish stage in the rock-n'-roll-ified nightclub, and Cancer Rising made it extra official in a mixed line-up featuring the metal-rock, electric guitar-wielding Emeralds as well as Portland's indie rockers Caves. The night was "magical," as Caves singer Jacob Carey deemed it. Welcome, King Cobra, to Seattlest's short list......

Only a few more states now. Tonight Kentucky and our downstairs roommate Oregon will have their voice spun. Wouldn't candidates save a whole bunch of time, money, and fuel if primaries were held geographically? Plus the media could label each night like they do with the Potomac Primary. Washington, Oregon, and Idaho could be Sasquatch Saturday. Senator Clinton should take the Bluegrass State for certain reasons, and Senator Obama will win Oregon for other......

Heading to Portland this sunny weekend? If you answered, "Why yes I am," then you're no doubt also paying a visit, as per usual, to Powell's Books. While you're there, be sure to head up to the Pearl Room (where the Rare Book Room is located), where you'll be met with a visual treat sure to please your campy, polyester-wearing soul. Portland's Velveteria Museum of Velvet Paintings has taken over the art gallery space......

Dear Universe, Our month of May is ruined. Carly Smithson was voted off American Idol—which, granted, actually happened in April, but matters now because the finals are in May and she should've at least made the bottom three. Then, last night, Hillary Clinton got canned in North Carolina and barely eked out of Indiana with a win, suffocating every last hopeful breath that our next president would be a strong, confident woman with a wide......

Laura Veirs has been writing and performing dreamy folk and pop songs for nearly a decade. She graces Seattle with a solo performance this Friday night at the Triple Door. 7:30pm & 10pm (21+) // Triple Door // $17 adv, $20 dos // Liam Finn opens Seattlest: Can you tell us a little about the solo tour? Laura Veirs: I start on Wednesday in Vancouver and then the second show will be in Seattle. It's......

It's weeks like this that make us glad to be writing about rock in Seattle, because a pair of American indie's leading lights are coming to town this Thursday and Friday. First up, Thursday night The Dirty Projectors play Chop Suey. A Brooklyn indie rock outfit started by Dave Longstretch, The Dirty Projectors are touring in support of their fascinating 2007 album Rise Above. As the story goes, Longstretch was cleaning out some of his......

The failing state of the roads on Capitol Hill (and maybe all over Seattle, we just happen to spend most of our time cursing Capitol Hill potholes) has been getting to us the last few days. Biking around, we're spending as much time avoiding potholes that will swallow our front tire as sleep-deprived drivers on cell phones. We wanted to get a photo to illustrate what we're talking about, and the only issue was, which......

Girls Rock! is a documentary about a week-long summer camp in Portland where girls between the ages of 8 and 18 go to learn how to make music, form bands, and perform in front of a live audience at a showcase. Tonight it opens at SIFF Cinema. We got to watch the movie earlier this month and loved it. The stories of the girls the filmmakers followed were funny, touching, entertaining and illuminating. The movie,......

When we used to work at the Starbucks in the Bank of America building (nee: Columbia Center), one of our duties was to bring up boxes of cups, napkins and other sundries from the storeroom located in the garage on level E, five stories below ground. According to one urban legend in the building, the lowest level of the parking garage was supposed to be the safest place to be in downtown Seattle during an......

Forbes Magazine must have gotten tired of making the same "Richest People in the World" list, because the magazine has moved on to ranking the "Nation's Most Sinful Cities." In order to do so, Forbes came up with measurable methods to rank the proclivity for each of the seven deadly sins in America's urban populations. (For example to measure the sin of "wrath" the magazine used murder rates for cities.) Of course, you're curious, just......

Popular Science released its list of the 50 Greenest cities in the U.S. recently. Of course, liberal, green Seattle was on it. We came in eighth. It surprised no one at Seattlest HQ, however, that our neighbor to the South, namely Portland, came in first since some of us believe that Portland is better and we all love PDX regardless. Popular Science "collected survey data and government statistics for American cities of over 100,000 people......

Unlike our beloved baseball All Star Game, we’ve tended to skip the NBA's version in recent years. However, with our hero Brandon Roy, in Sunday's game we can’t wait to watch our fellow ex-Bulldog cram some FANtastic™ action down the East’s face. However, we’ll be in Vancouver--sorry TNT. Local Connections: Brandon Roy--Played for Garfield High School and the University of Washington. Currently for the Portland Trailblazers. Steve Nash--Native of Victoria. Then U-Dub coach Lynn Nance......

"The Next Slum" is the name of the article in the March Atlantic (not online yet), and Seattle gets lots of mentions. Author Christopher Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues that as demographics and energy use changes over the next 15-20 years, there will be a growing surplus of large-lot homes that no one wants, decaying on the market. While there should be about four million more households with kids in 2025......

Being a Chicago guy originally, this Seattlest is definitely a little biased towards this jamband from the windy city (via South Bend, IN). Umphrey's has managed to fill a little bit of the hole left in our musical soul when those four guys from Vermont decided to call it quits a few years ago. These guys can rock your ass off, pull out some sweet, tight jams and they work incredibly well together. In......

Paul Weller may be MIA, but the rest of his first band play the Moore tonight under the moniker From the Jam. Or head to the Showbox to pump your fists with Cinder Road and Tesla. Actually, this show (along with the tour's upcoming dates in Portland, Spokane, and Boise) has just been postponed, due to inclement weather and road closures. Tonight's sold-out show has already been rescheduled to Sunday, March 9th at Showbox SoDo.......

Here's something you don't see much anymore, outside of reservation smoke shops: display cases of cigars. Cohibas, Coronas, Partagas. Romeo y Julietas, Macanudos, Rocky Patels. Sure didn't expect to come upon this lineup at the Spar, a traditional lunch counter & pool room much loved in Olympia. The Spar's been around for three score years and twelve, a citadel of rugged male drinking and a bastion of union strength back in the days of......

We remember 1998 rather well. We were living in Buffalo, NY, smoking a lot of the ganja, playing a lot of the folk music, and occasionally going to class to discuss contemporary literature. Good times. A year later, we would move to Portland and, eventually (by way of New York, New Orleans and Orlando), make our way to Seattle to live happily ever after. We'd never really thought about Seattle much, but MTV's The Real......

Chris Walla is best known for being the guitarist in Death Cab for Cutie. Or he's known as a producer for Tegan & Sara and the Decemberists. Or maybe you heard about the little incident he had with Homeland Security confiscating his computer last fall. Now Walla's got another reason for notability: his first solo album, Field Manual, out today on Barsuk Records. Singer-songwriter stuff ain't exactly our bag, but Walla's smooth delivery ensures......

It wasn't until a good friend of ours quit smoking and decided to get healthy that we ever heard of the Seattle to Portland ride. A grueling-sounding (though apparently not in reality) 204-mile bike ride between Seattle and Portland, the STP takes place this year Saturday and Sunday, July 12 and 13. (The hard-core riders apparently do it in one day; most do it in two.) Despite our until-recent ignorance of the event, apparently like......

If you have enjoyed any beer from Hair of the Dog (HOTD) brewery from Portland, you know that they specialize in big, non-traditional beers (that kick your ass). Going into this past Saturday night's brewers dinner at The Collins Pub, we wondered how their new chef, Erik Wood (previously of Ray's Boathouse), would handle the pairings. He did a fantastic job. Six HOTD beers were expertly paired with six amazing dishes. That wasn't all......