In the 11th grade, we busted our Mom's lava lamp playing soccer in the house. (Yeah, she had a lava lamp. Whatever.) Our seemed-like-a-good-idea solution was to vacuum the two quarts of red oily goo with the family's shiny new Electrolux. About a week later, an odd smell started emanating from the storage closet where the vacuum was kept and we were grounded for two weeks. On Day 9 of the Great Grounding, we had a chance to see Lollapalooza. We begged to get a reprieve. We pleaded. We begged some more. We succeeded. That night we rocked out with Les Claypool and then didn't bother coming home until noon the next day, when there were more groundings. more ›

At least that's part of the lesson we learned from reading the Seattle Times feature news story on how corrections officers and cops troll Seattle festivals like The Bite and Seafair for lapsed felons and folks with outstanding warrants. The other thing we got from reading the story was never wanting to go to another free festival again. You only have to read the first sentence of the story to be convinced, but we assure you the whole thing is filled with reasons not to attend.... The opener: more ›