Seattlest gets around. We cover all sorts of newsy stuff. We've covered houses burning, politicians resigning, musicians overdosing, businesses bankrupting, hikers plummeting, homes foreclosing and all the rest, and every single time, we have seen tears shed. Heck, years ago, we covered a teachers' union meeting when news rippled through the room that Sesame Street creator Jim Henson had just died, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. The point is, we've......

"Why is that green thing in the street?" Little Miss Seattlest asked us recently. "It's for bicycles," we replied. But we'd have been mystified (putting green? guerrilla ad?) if we hadn't read Erica C. Barnett's lament about how they weren't working. Today's "Getting There" column in the P-I repeats our daughter's question. "They signal to turning motorists that bicyclists might be in the bike lane," explains Eric Widstrand, Seattle's traffic operations manager. Of course, a......

The Seattle-PI asks in the headline of a couple-hundred-word story a question we could answer in one word and a single photo. The P-I: Have hippie dancers become a dying breed at Bumbershoot? Answer: No. Evidence: Dancing Scarf Guy by Seattlest Flickr Photog smohundro......

We're no prude, but we have to admit to being a wee bit (okay a lot) shocked to see the following banner ad attached to a local news story on the Seattle P-I's site. And since most of you thought we doctored the photos from the great bad soup debacle of early 2008, here's a photo showing it's actually on the P-I's news site and not their version of LustLab or erotic advertisements. (We haven't......

Today in two-newspaper town coincidences: real estate made the front page of both the Seattle Times and the P-I. "King County home sales edge up in June," says the Times, while the P-I makes a stronger claim for temperature-based sales, "Local housing market warming up with the weather." Both are referencing an insignificant increase from last month--compared to a year ago, sales are still down almost 34% and listings are up about 42%. That has......

The Seattle P-I—that liberal bastion of Seattle daily newspapers—has a very important question on which they want your opinion: Miss Universe contests in their swimsuits--hot or not? We've been frequenting the P-I's unintentionally hilarious photo galleries from the Miss Universe competition being held in Vietnam. We've shaken our heads at the Project Runway reject dresses the contestants have chosen for their evening gowns, and laughed heartily at the national costume galleries. (Miss Bolivia FTW!)......

The way Bonnie Hunt tells it, the movie Dave started as a short film with her in the role of a White House tour guide. Then Kevin Kline dropped by the set, started riffing, and the whole project changed. That's how we feel about Seattlest Alumnest Seth, who took a story about our pre-pubescent missed chance with Janine Turner, and spun it into a very funny piece on the Safeco Field singles scene. it was......

"SPD Patrol Cars" by Slightlynorth, from the Seattlest Flickr Pool. Thanks! Ooooh—the Seattle P-I has launched their new crime blog, Seattle 911. It's a resting place for the flotsam and jetsam of the city's police and fire departments, where morbidly fascinated readers can take in side stories, breaking crime news, and details from daily reports. The site promises "news both fresh and forgotten," which we hope means that there will also be info about......

"71" by the talented Tim Willis With the ever-increasing cost of gas, the Seattle P-I seems to have taken an extra keen interest in public transit. A quick perusal of the local news on the P-I's site found more stories about taking the bus than any other topic in the local news. It sounds like an exaggeration, but these were all headlines for different stories, from the same day. * Bus Trip Planning Can Take......

With 1,967,000 unique visitors in March, the P-I comes in twentieth, in fact, according to the Nielsen ratings of the U.S. online news field. (Oddly, that's a drop of 8% from March last year.) The Seattle Times didn't crack the top 30, so we don't know where they're at. But Village Voice Media, the alien overlords who run the Seattle Weekly, can boast a 12th-place finish, with about 2.8 million visitors to their network. This......

Last weekend, two men were shot at an afterparty for a book-signing of an unauthorized account of Dr. Dre and West Coast hiphop down in Tukwila. One of the men died from multiple gunshot wounds and was identified to the press late last night as a 24-year-old from Renton named Deon T. Guidry. We've been following the story via the P-I, wincing at the familiar knee-jerk comments (Socially Inept writes, "People tend to get......

We just read Melanie McFarland's farewell column and we're a little choked up. It's good news for her -- she's off to become a TV editor at IMDB. But we're out a reviewer who likes all the right shows for all the right reasons. McFarland's that rare breed of critic who has high standards and knows when to check them at the door. She won a place in our hearts forever with her reviews of......

After our lengthy discussion about how bad Dick's fries suck last week, Seattlest rejoiced that we would always have Frites, the little Belgian frites shop next to Neumos. We just saw this article on the Seattle PI about Frites closing their doors "due to unforeseen circumstances". The owner could not go into any more detail because of legal action being taken against former employees. We pray to the Belgian frite monster that they reopen......

The presidential election is still over a year and a half away, and we already have our favorite bit of analysis: "People think of [Rudy Giuliani] as a leader and a tough guy, and he has this image as somebody who tamed the city of New York and made the trains run on time, and seeing him dressed up like a girl would run contrary to all of those things," said Neal Thigpen, a political-science......

Seattlest sometimes has a hard time reading on the bus because we're too busy checking out what everyone else is reading. The 48 had a great vibe to it today, must be the increasingly yummy weather but everyone seemed happy and there was lots of reading to surreptitiously sneak a peek at. Kafka--We didn't catch which title, as the gal had it clutched to her with only the top of the book showing. Maybe this......

There are about 17 of us who really enjoy following local politics. We can name the members of the city council, know our state representatives, and generally aren’t that popular at parties. We understand why there aren’t many of us, and are fully aware that that local politics can be mundane and that continually checking the city’s website to see if anyone is raising money for a run against Sally Clark is not the best......

Seattlest had avoided reading our favorite national papers over the past few days because we feared what stupid conclusions they might reach about Saturday's shootings, especially since the stupidity was so present from the beginning with our own damn local papers. However, the New York Times, of all places, instead recently printed a short article wondering what we're going to do with our homeless Wonder Bread sign, now that the property is slated for......

There are some Seattle sports fans who complain that our teams don't get enough national media attention. Yeah, we know it's true, and there are times when it irks us a bit, but we understand. Seriously, have you seen where we are on a map? Ultimately we really don't care because know it doesn't matter. There is one national publication, however, which has been giving our local squads a lot of attention recently, The Onion.......

The Battle in North Seattle and Surrounding Areattles appears to be over. With still a couple of absentee ballots making their way in from overseas, Bob Ferguson has taken a 1,300 vote lead over Carolyn Edmonds in the race for King County position number 1, and Edmonds has reportedly conceeded. Ferguson will now head towards the general election, making the winner...him. Unless King County Elections somehow screws it all up, and puts it in the......

Seattlest has our finger firmly on the pulse of the local food writing scene. From the abundance of local food blogs, to the food critics of the local newspapers, we like feeling a part of something bigger. That we add our own din to the noise is something we feel a tad bit proud of. So we here at Seattlest feel a tad bit of sorrow that one of our favorite Seattle Food Critics......

The Seattle PI's Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist David Horsey recently offended neo-conservative subliterates with his take on our nation's latest Imperial march toward the Dark Side. PI Editorial Page Editor Mark Trahant responded to the hordes as long ago as Sunday, which Seattlest just got around to reading today. As Tranhant stated eloquently: We have an interpretation gap. There's a natural tension between freedom and sedition that is as old as this country (even during......

The fourth annual Olympia Comics Festival will take place Saturday May 28. Reached for comment, Festival director Frank Hussey (pronounced "Hussy" as in a lady of ill-repute, not "Hoo-say" like "Dan Pussey!") insists to Seattlest that, "One of the key phrases to me is that this event is 'the anti-comics convention comics convention' -- the goal is to be fun, entertaining, fascinating and social as opposed to providing back issue browsing and waiting-in-line-for-an-autograph opportunities." In......

The latest local record-setter is fisherman Brian Harber, who recently became the first person to finish off the $13, 2 pound 'Alaskan Pride Challenge Burger' at Juneau's Northlander Grill....

Paul Allen is a billionaire, so it's probably okay if some things don't always quite succeed. The Experience Music Project may be one of those failures. Seattlest has already compiled the latest media outlook on the inauspicious history and present state of the museum. The Seattle PI's latest story asks people what would they do with an empty EMP. In the meantime, Seattlest and many of our fellow camera-toting citizens will take lots of pictures......

Yesterday Kevin Shaw failed to make headlines again. The man arrrested and indicted for his murder, despite phone records and DNA evidence linking him to the crime, pleaded innocent yesterday. To date no news article we've been able to track down has mentioned what seems to be the obvious possibility that Kevin Shaw was gay, and his murder was a hate crime. The following article by special guest Mario Paduano wonders why. When you're murdered,......