Hailing from more subtle topography, we're quite familiar with contradictory claims of cosmology and vaguely defensible claims of capital-ity. In the folly of our youth, we may have thought that when one's town or region is naturally endowed with big things, there is no need to boast or to construct big kitschy things to compensate for a lack of overt interestingness. Well... perhaps that's not true at all. The other day in Seattlest HQ,......

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......

We're now Number 18 on the list of American tourist destinations, the Emerald City, for all its faults, leapfrogging the City of Brotherly Love. That's the word from Global Insight, a Massachusetts outfit that counts visitors. The weak dollar and more convenient international flights (Air France, Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM, etc.) make Seattle an increasingly attractive destination for European travelers, not to mention all that good press we've been getting (you know, green mayor,......

Walking over to Baguette Box for lunch yesterday (the all-star Salumi's cured meat sandwich, $7.50), we were startled by a U-Haul with the most alarming marketing artwork we've ever seen. We're not sure anyone moves to Manitoba strictly for the snake dens ("We're alive with snakes") in the first place, but just to the right of the snake explosion is the tagline, "Where will U go next?" (Sorry, we were keeping one eye on the......

MUSICAL: Just you wait, 'Enry 'Iggins! Lerner & Loewe's proto-Pretty Woman fantasia, My Fair Lady, opens at the Paramount, starring British theatre actors Christopher Cazenove and Lisa O'Hare as Professor Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle. The production unites the original U.K. artistic team with Trevor Nunn (director), Matthew Bourne (choreography and musical staging), and Anthony Ward (production design). 7:30 p.m. // Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine Street // Tickets: $25-$72 MUSIC: Peter Morén, the lead......

Ahh spring. So wonderful and yet so fickle. Thankfully for us, spring was fully sprung Saturday when we took the wife up to Lopez Island to celebrate her birthday by riding in the annual Tour de Lopez. We’d never been to Lopez, but we’ve spent some time on Orcas and San Juan, so we were a bit leery of riding our bike around any of the San Juans. They are, after all, islands and they......

With temperatures today solidly in the low, mid-50s and sun shining down on us, it’s hard for this Seattlest to believe that just this past weekend we were skiing at Mt. Baker in the best powder we’ve encountered. You probably remember last week’s disgusting wet weather and cold temperatures which brought big, fat, wet snowflakes to the sea-level environs of Seattle. We sure do, since the non-sticking white stuff scared the bejesus out of every......

Not too long ago, we were attempting a trip to San Francisco. As soon as we got to SeaTac, we found that our flight was somehow already an hour and a half late. The employees at the ticket counter, civil without being friendly, couldn't get us on another flight, so we got some food and a drink and watched our delay get longer. Eventually, it was time to board (on what was now the......

Pity poor Pluto. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified the celestial body as a dwarf planet. Along with being totally emasculating, the IAU's declaration meant that Pluto was stripped of its rights as a full-fledged planet, including health insurance (medical, vision, and dental), a sweet parking space, and a Platinum American Express card. Well, now Pluto is fighting back, or at least it's found a group to take up the cause: On Saturday,......

Man, this Folk Alliance conference has been total insanity. Last night, the wait for the only four elevators going to the top floors of the hotel (where all the artists showcase) reminded us of waiting for the subway in New York on the 4th of July. Good luck. With all these people from all over the world flooding Memphis, and with all the folkies in Seattle, we're surprised that we've made it all the......

We got into Memphis last night, and we'll be here for the rest of the week, celebrating folk music along with people from all over the world at the annual Folk Alliance conference. We'll be going on and on about that in articles for another job we have, but we just wanted to take a moment to express how much we love Seattle. We miss Seattle. But mostly, we miss people. There don't seem......

What with the Internetz, the Google and the digital camera, a new generation of wine touring guides is long overdue. Last April, there was a post over at Cornichon.org about a book called Touring the Wine Country of Washington, written by The Oldest Seattlest some 25 years ago. Everything you wanted to know about all 37 of the state's wineries, back in 1983. Now, with over 500 bonded premises in the state, with formal......

The last time we went to see Rick Steves at Town Hall, he was arguing how important it was for "regular Americans" to get out and see the world, to find out how other countries work, how other people see the U.S., or what really useful mass transit looks like. Broadening horizons costs a bit more since the Bush presidency -- the British pound is worth US$1.96, the Euro is US$1.46, and the Canadian dollar......

Billionaire balloonist Richard Branson is finally doing something to get us closer to the Sun. His Virgin America airline begins cut-rate service to San Francisco starting March 18, and Los Angeles starting April 8, reports the Times' Carol Pucci. In an effort to beat Virgin to the punch, Alaska Air is adding more, cheaper flights to the Bay Area. Other airlines are matching Virgin's fares: weekend round trips of $175 to San Fran and......

Since there's a "Blogger Lounge" here at MacWorld, we figured we'd use it. What the hell. So we're at MacWorld and if you have a computer and/or are capable of reading, you've probably heard that Apple is pushing even more shiny things on the world and some of those shiny new things were announced on Tuesday. We didn't attend the keynote, but friends of ours who did described it as Oprah for geeks; with all......

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. On Wednesday we took our special touch friend to see The Kite Runner. She spent......

The other week we enthused about the new passenger-only ferry to Port Townsend, read the post about the beer in Port Townsend, and put two and two together. The ferry is temporary, until January 6 last we heard, though you can sign a petition to keep the Seattle-to-Port Townsend run around. Here are the departure times. If you're tempted to make a dash for it, here are a few tips. It turns out the Seattle......

10 out of 10 Pro Bowl voters agree--the Seahawks have more talent on defense than on offense. From 2002-2004, the Hawks didn't send a single defense-er to the Pro Bowl. In 2005, rookie linebacker Lofa Tatupu went. Last year, Julian Peterson joined him. But this year, fully 36.36% of the Hawks' starting defense are Pro Bowl starters, as Patrick Kerney and Marcus Trufant will travel to Hawaii as well. We're happiest about Trufant, a Tacoma......

This Seattlest took one look at the weather forecast and headed to sunny Florida yesterday. Now here we are in our hometown of DeLand, population 24,375 (per 2006 census). Our mother doesn't have wireless at the house, and is operating off a 1997 iMac. It's cute and compact, but slow as hell, so we headed out this morning for the one source of public wifi in town: Boston Gourmet Coffeehouse. A couple of things about......

Sometimes the world really is a beautiful place. Specifically when there's beer involved. Jack's meeting friends on Saturday for a session of oak-aged beer tasting at Brouwer's Big Wood Fest. He'll then spend the rest of the day rubbing his tum tum and smiling a lot. Thrilled about the possibility of the year's first snow fall, Kim will spend as much of the weekend as possible getting over the cold that's been lingering for a......

Are you a seasoned editor with online media know-how, management experience, a passion for the news, and an appreciation for life's absurdities? If so, Grist may be the place for you.... Grist.org is the country’s leading online source of environmental news and analysis, reporting daily on the events, issues, people, and trends that affect our planet. We shape the nation’s conversation around all things green, educating, informing, inspiring -- and eliciting guffaws -- from our......

Bashing the Noo Yawk Times is just too easy. Story in today's edition that's getting lots of attention: The Frugal Traveler, Matt Gross, visits Seattle for the express purpose of sampling happy hours. Goes to Cascadia, naturally, but is disappointed to find the $1 miniburgers "bland and overcooked, they tasted like they'd been sitting under a heat lamp." Dude! Dollar miniburgers haven't been around for ages. They're now a princely $2.50. Don't they have fact-checkers......

As if The Terrorists haven't already been winning by employing their agents, the American Indian, to poo-poo on our Thanksgiving parade of turkey, football, and/or explaining your deviant behaviors to your meddlesome aunts and uncles whom you only see once a year. This time, worst of all, our very own government is getting in on the act. Are you flying this holiday and wondering if you can bring aboard your grandmother's delicious jelly or......

Francophiles attending the Beaujolais Nouveau gala in Bellevue Friday will have the chance to bid on more than a dozen travel packages (tickets to Paris? ho-hum...) as well as some rare and valuable works of art. An original lithograph by the French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is likely to draw the most interest. (The gala, which celebrates the release of the first Beaujolais of 2007, is sponsored by French-American Chamber of Commerce and takes place......

Tonight's three-man show at Roq La Rue brings three quintessential pop surrealists to town. Brian Despain: Scott Musgrove: And -- our personal favorite -- Ryan Heshka: Our only regret from our Jeopardy! audition was forgetting to answer "Buy an Ryan Heshka original" when they asked what we'd do with the money. We went with "travel." All three artists will be there tonight, so while you have until December 1 to get there, this is the......

Outfit called Not For Tourists has just published a guide to Seattle. It's a handsome book, looks just like Moleskine journal, complete with oilcloth cover, fat elastic closure, gorgeous paper. The Seattle version is tenth in a series, cobbled together by a design staff in faraway Noo Yawk with input by a locally based "city editor" named Fred Beldin, who contributes occasional music reviews to The Stranger. NFT Seattle starts out with a grid of......

We got an Amtrak phone survey call over the weekend and they wanted to know if having a snack bar in business class would make us more/less likely to travel by rail. How much would that be worth? In-station hotspots? Now how much would we pay? Private lounge with butler? On the other hand, what if they put leather seats in coach and added more legroom? How did we feel about that? Bit of a......

Stand at the corner of First and Pike, and you almost hear the thunder of Seattle's hotel wars, the howitzers of the future as they battle for attention in the trades, the travel mags, the lifestyle glossies. First into battle: a new Four Seasons, across the street from the downtown Art Museum: 21 stories, 149 hotel rooms, 36 residential condos, opening 2008. If your memory goes back more than two years, you'll recall that Four......

It's a big, bad world out there, and there are plenty of reasons to be mad as hell. An undisclosed conflict of interest? Well, depends on the circumstances: whose conflict, whose interest? Used to be, reporters of all stripes were treated to trips, tickets, meals, drinks. Then came a wave of holier-than-thou moralizing and publishers began to insist on paying reporters expenses. Granted, Seattlest gets an occasional free beer, but big whoop. More of an......

The next time you take a sip of a clear, golden pilsner, you should thank a man named Josef Groll. No, he's not the guy that sold you the beer. He's the man that invented it. Before October 5, 1842, the world drank beer that was dark and cloudy. On that day 165 years ago, a group of brewers tasted the world's first pilsner and things were never the same. Josef had come to......