How many bowls of clam chowder could a $1,000 Ivar's gift card buy? If you become the next Ivar's Clam Star, you could find out--and you'll also receive a Clammy Award trophy, along with a possible ringtone deal. Let Seattlest repeat that, Biden-style: ringtone. All you have to do is recreate one of Ivar Haglund's ballads on video and be creative about it. Dear God, do local musicians realize the potential for ironic hilarity here?......

Valleywag is reporting that the $300 million Microsoft ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld has been canceled as the company seeks other ways to remind consumers that its products, like the characters in the ads, were totally cool in the Nineties, but now, not so much. As one commenter on Valleywag opined: "the Bill Gates ass wiggle still haunts me." Here's the long version of the second ad, which Seattlest saw once on Sunday night during......

"Alice in Chains w/ Northwest Symphony Orchestra," by Seattlest Flickr contributor architecturegeek In the midst of Seattlest's angst over the Seahawks' 33-30 overtime loss last Sunday to the Niners, we totally forgot to mention that Alice in Chains played at halftime. Duh. The 12-minute performance featured Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir," and the band was accompanied by the Northwest Symphony Orchestra and some righteous smoke machines. Aside from the music, our favorite moment in the set was......

We've been remiss in cultivating our Flickr moving images pool. Thankfully, the purity and essence of Flickr hasn't been diminished by a flood of YouTube-style video. On the other hand, it seems like relatively few people are posting video to Flickr. And we've been inexcusably lazy. But when reader RedRaspus posted a link to his spectacular lightning video last week and dropped it into our pool, our attention was jolted. Upon looking around, we found......

It's Thursday night, and we're getting pretty psyched up for Sasquatch. We've spent the better part of our day online, listening to but a small sample of the bands we'll see this weekend. And tonight, we finally got around to watching this "Open Windows" Death Cab documentary video for Current. If you're a fan, you'll love this one. Lots of great footage from their current tour. While we're at it, congratulations to the band for......

Attention all you videographers, long photographers, phonographers, experimental photographers, and media-ographers of all stripes... Given Flickr's recent implementation of video, your Seattlest photography komissars sequestered themselves to ponder thoughtfully on the possible implications of YouTube-style videos of last Saturday's kegger, say, or 90 seconds of impertinent poodle tricks on the purity of the photography pool. In the end, the passive voice stepped in and decisions were made. It was decided to make the photo......

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......

I don’t think there is a better way to describe what it’s like to be a Seattle sports fan than though this video. The hill is the season, the skateboard is anyone of our local teams, we are the kid, and the pole, well, the pole is postseason. http://view.break.com/442299 - Watch more free videos Video via Deadspin, where one of the commenters suggests putting Jerramy Stevens on that ride, we agree.......

We don't recommend the unwashed hair look, or skinny jeans for that matter, but that won't stop us from recommending The Blakes' new video. The Blakes: "Don't Bother Me" This local garage rock trio pays a visit to Chop Suey on February 15th. A little far away, we know, but it's never too early to mark the calendar. (Tickets are $10 adv.)......

Seattle-related only in the sense that we are but a minor gathering within the greater worldwide collection of souls who understand why Radiohead is the greatest band ever. Found this gem on the webs today. Thought it best to share, for those of us who've yet to come across it. It's a video made "for New Year's Eve, 2007" and features Radiohead performing every song from In Rainbows. Speaking of In Rainbows, color us curious.........

In Garfield High alum Brandon Roy's national coming out party, he didn't have a great statistical game, shooting 6-23. But anyone who watched the Blazers 89-79 win instead of just looking at the boxscore saw that he was clutch when it mattered. The turning point was a 18-4 Blazers run at the beginning of the second half. During the run, the Blazers scored 10 baskets. Roy either scored or assisted on 8 of them. It......

Monday afternoon, instead of sitting around in our pajamas and baking cookies, we had the pleasure of attending a King County Food Worker class, a necessary evil which must be endured in order to obtain a Food Handler’s Card. On our scant and unpaid time off, we the food workers of King County trundle off to strange and inconvenient locations to listen to a lecture, watch a video and fill in a Scantron sheet. The......

Time magazine claims, "You can't swing a dead cat this time of year without hitting a Top 10 List." Never one to waste a perfectly good dead cat, we decided to take a swing and create a Top Random-Number Shows Seattlest Saw This Year. And now, without any further ado, here's how your favorite bloggers broke down the year: According to Dante, everything else pared in comparison to Daft Punk at WaMu Theater 7/29/07. OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!......

Five night Hip-Hop Extravaganza "The Program" began last night at 8:45pm, and we were in our pajamas eating stale Cheeto Puffs and drinking cheap red wine from the grocery store. What's that? Did you just call us a slacker journalist? Hardly -- we were watching the show on SyncLive, which streamed the entire show (plus soundcheck!) in surprisingly good video/audio quality. Once we figured out how to re-buffer the feed without refreshing the entire page,......

The Seattle Times is reporting, way at the top in an unlikable breaking news sentence (read: cub reporter with a police scanner), that there has been an accident involving the Mercer Streetcar. According to the bolded sentence paragraph, an SUV ran an intersection and collided with an empty streetcar at the corner of Mercer and Terry. If this is true every anti-streetcar hippie just got their second morning wood of the…morning. Exclusive Seattlest Video of......

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......

"They should take off their left socks." "Let's dance to Jesus." "Let's talk about Jesus." "It's a time to be jolly after all." "It's like a wine disco." "It's like hanging out covered in blood." "We need some leap frog!" "We need some Percosets." Seattlest actually heard all of the above during Clockwork Reduction Live Friday night at Northwest Film Forum. Some of the words came from the mouth's of performers, others came from the......

Things always die down right around the holidays, so not much is going on tonight, except local noise mavens X-Ray Press will be celebrating their CD release (and the addition of their new keyboardist) at Jules Maes in Georgetown. Meanwhile, on Saturday David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion and Headphones) plays at the Croc unless you want to go to Chop Suey and get rocked (non-threateningly) by Shonen Knife. Here's a video from last night's......

Last night there were tons of Ron Paul's people outside the Showbox Sodo. Before, during, and after Barack Obama's fundraising event/rally, the Paul supporters waved their signs and interacted with anyone who would give them the time of day. Too bad they couldn't afford tickets to the event due to the current tax structure--if only someone would abolish the IRS and the Federal Reserve.... Meanwhile, inside the venue was a crowd of teens, twenty-somethings,......

What it is ain't exactly clear, however. Back on December 2, PopMatters published "So Long, Something Weird," which made it sound like locally based exploitation/sexploitation distributor Something Weird Video was going out of business. It’s time to call out the carnal color guard and get the bugler to blow a rather trashy and tawdry Taps. After nearly seven years celebrating the best of exploitation, Something Weird Video has parted ways with chief home theater......

This weekend, it's all about Friday and Saturday; Sunday is the Lord's day, so music is taking a night off. Tonight, there's another great Canadian band, Immaculate Machine, at the Vera Project. The pop trio features Kathryn Calder, who just so happens to be the New Pornographers' Carl (A.C.) Newman's niece. Way to keep it in the family. Meanwhile, the High Dive's got so-so-hot Chicago collective Scotland Yard Gospel Choir who, despite mountains of accolades,......

Franklin vs. Garfield is one of the Seattle sports events that you just shouldn't miss. Here's what we wrote about it for The Stranger in September:True local hoops fans don't miss this game between two perennial inner-city basketball powerhouses, even at the cost of connubial tranquility. The 2005 game at Garfield fell on Valentine's Day, but happily married Husky basketball coach Lorenzo Romar was there anyway. A win in this game means neighborhood bragging rights......

The Program (Dec. 18-22) will be way cooler than we initially thought, folks. Not only will some of the biggest names in NW hip-hop be on stage for your entertainment five nights in a row, but the latest news is that there are all kinds of technological tie-ins that will make this event very, very 21st-century. For instance: if you bring your cell phone to the show (haha! Who doesn’t bring their cell phone to......

Redmond native and actual Guitar Hero Carrie Brownstein did some work on the advertising of the game Rock Band. You might have seen these commercials; four rocker-lookin types sit around and cut on each other in the jaded and weary fashion of musicians on the road. That's not her work, thank god. She was on a different team pushing a different concept. Anyway, she's got an article up at Slate today about her experiences with......

In previewing Monday night’s Macage Harybu Trio show, we admitted that we don’t know jazz from Shinola. What’s more, we really don’t like the stuff. (This stuff, anyway.) Truth be told, if Matt Cameron wasn’t one-third of the act, we wouldn’t have driven to Northgate’s intimate Seattle Drum School to see them play. We were surprised—and pleased—to find that Cameron (drums), Geoff Harper (upright bass), and Ryan Burns’ (keyboard) "take on [Thelonious] Monk’s classics"......

Please, oh please bring the Shaolin: Temple of Zen exhibition to Seattle. From the Aperture Foundation:For the first time in history, the notoriously guarded warrior monks of the fifteen-hundred-year-old Shaolin Temple—a Chinese Buddhist sect dedicated to preserving a form of kung fu known as the "vehicle of Zen"—have allowed their secretive society to be documented. With the blessing of the main abbot, Justin Guariglia earned the trust and full collaboration of the Shaolin monks to......

Grayskul's coming home to the 206, and Seattlest will be there to welcome them at their concert on Friday night. We have been thoroughly enjoying Grayskul's 2007 release, Bloody Radio, since it came out in September; the first single from the record, "Scarecrow," is catchy as hell. Grayskul's music is a richly melodic, edgy journey through the weird and the relevant; listen here, and don't miss Grayskul's older stuff, especially from Deadlivers. We recommend "Prom......

Enough. It's Bacon Salt Backlash time. Seattlest got in our car to drive home last night and Bacon Salt came on the radio. We opened up the newspaper yesterday and Bacon Salt. Bacon Salt, Bacon Salt, Bacon Salt. Nothing against these guys personally, but if we are subjected to one more recounting of the glorious beginnings of Bacon Salt we're going to go nutso. Yes, well, little Bobby was playing baseball in the yard and......

We've said it before. It's impossible not to have a good time at a Presidents show. Seriously. You can try all you want. You can stand in the corner, scowling at everyone and thinking of all your dead relatives, but once that toe starts tapping, it's all over. Soon you'll be smiling and before long you'll be rocking out along with everyone else. Such was the scene last Friday night at the Pyramid Alehouse Get......

We're doubling up this evening, and dropping in at chamber guitar group Tuning the Air, in their new CHAC-tastic location, for some Robert Fripp-ist unchained melodies. Here's the pdf of their Seattle Magazine profile. If you like acoustic guitars, this is your home on Monday nights. 8-9pm // CHAC // $10 suggested donation Then if the power's still on, we're off to Fremont, and the Jenny Owen Youngs show at the High Dive. We had......