Best of 2005: Yet another people's picks list

We're suckers for end-of-year countdowns. Heck, we're suckers for any countdowns but really love the approaching new year because it gives all sorts of sources an excuse to count stuff off. NWSource.com (which is run by the 'Seattle Times Company representing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer' -- whatever that means) joins the parade with the tried-and-true 'best of your city' formula -- NWS 2005 People's Picks

Unlike a lot of the 'Best of' lists in Seattle which leave us wondering how many people from Bellevue vote, NWS's 2005 list actually has some intelligent, thoughtful picks. Usually, we can only depend on the non-vote-driven Stranger list for legit 'best' choices but NWS seemed to get a smart response pool this year. We'll take their word for it that these were truly the choices of the 'people.' Maybe the 'people' are getting smarter! yay! Also, good to see nearby venues take the top slot in movie house, dive bar, and art gallery.

--j

Tags: uptown, seattle, bestof2005

Adios 'Pompous' Room! Now stop parking in public spots

We've already danced on the grave of carcinogen-soaked nightlife in Seattle but we can't resist one more jab at an old enemy. Normally, we try to focus on the things we like here in Uptown. But we don't have anything nice to say about El Gaucho.

So, what's our beef with the psuedo-swank steak mill? We guess it's the way they treat the 'little' people. There is a stinky old-fashioned air of superiority about the operation that has manifested itself in plenty of ugly ways over the years. I got my best look at it when I lived on the other side of the alley behind the place for two years. There have been a handful of ugly incidents between staff 'bouncers' and civilians -- nothing more than somebody being forcibly shoved to the sidewalk but still not the kind of interaction I've ever seen at another restaurant in this city.

Before you blame this kind of thing on the kind of upper-crusty-wannabe clientele the place attracts, I can also say I've had my own run-ins with the staff and management over the years. And I wasn't even a customer (so they didn't push me down). I complained because it seems El Gaucho's eager valet boys have been told it's OK to use the city streets to park Richie Rich's Humvees and Escalades. Now, call me a rule follower, but that ain't right. The street parking is for the people -- not to further the business of the Pompous Room. So, between their disregard for their neighbors and their version of customer interaction, I'm not sorry for El Gaucho in the least. We take extra special pleasure in knowing the overpriced, under-classed joint has a big empty living room where once was a pretentious cigar lounge. Adios, Pampas Room. Maybe you can reinvent yourself as a vomitorium to fully round out the decadence. (OK, tht's just mean but it's good to get it out of our system!)

--j

Tags: uptown, seattle, elgaucho, restaurants

Uptown Condo 4-Sale

We weren't kidding around when we said we were leaving. Here's proof. As they say in those 'everything must go' commercials, our loss is your gain. We're moving out of Uptown and leaving our cute lil condo behind to go build a nest up on Capitol Hill.

If you're interested in owning one of the last chunks of downtown housing selling for less than $400-per-square-foot, here's the craigslist listing.

Note we sold out and listed the 'Downtown' condo as being in 'Belltown' -- we had to admit that too many people just wouldn't know exactly where Uptown is. It is downtown and it is in Belltown. But it's uptown too. Oh well.

Also note that we didn't mention this added bonus -- the place comes with a blog you've probably heard of.

--j

Tags: uptown, seattle, condo, realestate

Where to celebrate the smoking ban

DSCF0027
Originally uploaded by asabass.

It's hard not to feel vengeful. We admit it. We want to dance on the grave of an edangered species. Seattle smokers, after midnight tonight, will no longer be a direct part of our nightlife. What else to say but... yipee!

So the real question is where to celebrate? Our first instinct is to mark this event in the (formerly) smokiest of Seattle's bars. A place like the 5 Point or the Noc Noc seem perfect if we were really seeking to rub it in. But I'm not sure we're ready for the human element. Are we prepared to see the pittiful huddles of used-to-be bar smokers shuffling around aimlessly? It might be too depressing. And, worse, we could find ourselves in the middle of a smoking protest -- don't want to be anywhere near the 5 Point when jack-booted riot police show up.

So we'll probably take a different tack -- why not celebrate at one of the places that was there for you all along and now face a new environment for their businesses. We're thinking about ringing in the new nightlife in an always-smoke-free bar like the Virginia Inn. Think of it as a reward for all the fine work they did through the years giving us a nicotine-free option. Of course, if we're feeling really vindictive (and we have a large enough posse of pals) we probably won't be able to resist laughing it up at an ex-smoking joint. We're talking years of pent-up anger here, folks. And dry cleaning bills. And lung tumors, etc.

-- j

Bloggers gets busy with real world, Seattle moves forward

This blog ain't our day job (lucky for us) so we've been away tending to life bidness. We're happy to poke our nose back into the world and find a few good things have happened -- even without our valuable input!

As we noted recently, the Stranger's Slog has been both a) one of the coolest local blogs going and b) frustratingly lamely executed from a geek-tech perspective. While we were away, the Slog rolled out a key piece of goodness -- integrated comments with each post. We'll waste 2 more hours there every day now... 3 if they change design so you can view each post and associated comments on a single screen and click back through the post stream. Go, Stranger geeks, go!

And, for things that truly matter, it's great to see the City Council looking for a way to put some teeth in the management of liquor problems downtown. While we have general reservations about infringing on the liberties of man, we also don't think it's a slippery slope. Banning problem alcohol types from problem areas (and identifying those 'problems' using cold hard datasets) is an important part of the equation. There are going to be plenty of other substances to abuse and we'll need to figure out responses beyond curbing the sale of malt liquor but we're cool with progress. And we didn't even have to write about it to make it happen. Magic! :)

-- j

The Stranger loves Boat Street, too

We already shared our love song for the Boat Street Cafe and Kitchen -- this week's Stranger weighs in and confirms our enthusiam.

Boat Street, the sequel, feels charming and complete in a way that totally new restaurants cannot.

Read the rest.

Also, here's our review from early last month.

--j

20 Seattle streets to avoid if it snows

snow1
Originally uploaded by candid.

Seattle Department of Transportation has this handy list of the 20 Steepest Streets in Seattle.

The Queen Anne area claims a lot of these climbs, no surprise.

Mix and match this list with the 5 highest points in Seattle if you want to test our your Outback's 4wd for the first time.

Here are the top 3 on the steep list.

PERCENT SLOPE	STREET NAME	FROM	TO
21	E ROY ST	25TH AV E	26TH AV E
20	W BLAINE ST	9TH AV W	10TH AV W
20	E TERRACE ST	RANDOLPH AV	ERIE AV

--j

Tags: uptown, seattle, snow

5 best places to sled without leaving Seattle

Yellow curb and sculpture - Seattle Center
Originally uploaded by Belltown.

If you measure sledding opportunity by proximity to God's intelligently designed snow making machines, we're here to help. Here's how to toboggan without leaving Seattle.

SDOT's Highest Elevations in Seattle

1. High Point above sea level, 6 parcels south of watertower at 35th Ave SW and SW Myrtle Street - 520 feet - NAVD88
2. Near Bitter Lake, on N 145th St just east of Greenwood Ave - 493 feet - NAVD88
3. NE 92nd ST and Roosevelt Way NE - 466 feet - NAVD88
4. Queen Anne Hill, at First Ave N and Lee Street - 456 feet - NAVD88
5. Highest point in Volunteer Park - 453 feet - NAVD88

Of course, if you measure the opportunity by likelihood of achieving light speed on your shitty plastic disc sled, you might do better to check out this list of the 20 steepest streets in Seattle.

Also, be careful -- urban sledding is dangerous!

--snip--
There’s no more dangerous place for kids to sled than the very place where his injury occurred: the street. When Children’s Hospital of Seattle tracked sledding injuries after one major snowstorm, for instance, it found that although 44 percent of kids sledded in the street, 76 percent of injuries came from street sledding.

"They hit parked cars, moving cars, telephone poles, trees, fixed objects, sometimes they overshoot their target," says Dr. Tongue, a clinical associate professor at Oregon Health Sciences in Portland.
--unsnip--

--j

Tags: uptown, seattle, snow, sledding

Starbucks rip-off: 5 ways to score free coffee

Not very X-masy of us given that the corporate coffee giant is planning a holiday "Cheer Party" (edited 7:50p 11/30/05) from 4p-6p Thursday night where they'll be giving away free drinks and goodies but we liked this list too much not to share. Bah humbug, we guess.

Barista Laments: How to get free coffee drinks
Rule number 1: Go the busiest store near you to capitalize on worker confusion.
The key is to find a *$ that is busy, where confusion makes it easy to get away with things. If you go to an empty store where the person who rings you up is the same person who makes your drink, you aren’t getting away with anything.
more...

We get all preachy: EMP art belongs at SAM

blue on blue on...
Originally uploaded by ChrisB in SEA.

We're usually agnostics when it comes to corporate giants with billions to burn. But Paul Allen is pushing his luck. The blurred lines between public and private are getting to be too much -- it's hard NOT to be jealous for Seattle's museums and public spaces.

Seattle Times: Paul Allen's Experience Art Project
Paul Allen is about to break the secrecy that's long shrouded his art collection. Over the years, ARTnews magazine has cited Allen as one of the world's top spenders on art, yet few people seem to know exactly what he's been buying.

Maybe we're being naive. Maybe public art museums are structured business entities just like Allen's EMP. Maybe we should be glad Allen is sharing his collection with the proletariat. But we'd rather see this kind of spirit enriching a true public institution vs. the qausi-public institution in Seattle Center.

EMP is a non-profit today but that's not the long-term goal. Be careful putting too much of your city's culture in hands that are seeking profit.

--j

The Usual Suspects: Seattle's 3 urban nesting grounds

So, where do wanna-be yuppies who can't afford to breed in downtown Seattle start looking for nests? We're on the hunt for a new home after (sadly) discovering that it is impossible for a family to live in Seattle's downtown.

General loacation requirements:

• Within 2.5-mile radius around Space Needle
• Within walking distance of at least one coffee shop, one restaurant and one grocery store. Bar is bonus

This pretty much narrows our search to these usual suspects:

Queen Anne
It's very difficult to accept the fact that this might be our perfect nest. Just feels too Volvo-y. But we need to face facts - QA is perfectly located and has a lot of gorgeous little (expensive!) homes. And we could still walk to a Macrina. And we don't have to live on top of the hill. Somehow, staying low makes us feel we can live in QA and retain our street credibility. (Of course, admitting that we've looked at homes in Magnolia kinda blows that credibility away, no?)

Capitol Hill
We'll use Capitol Hill to encompass everything from Volunteer Park to 1st Hill and Madison. Lots of diversity in those areas but the areas with homes for sale are mostly similiar and share Cap Hill's attributes: the highest prices around, proximity to downtown, unique homes and its own neighborhoods and business cores. Even with all this, Cap Hill's yuppie hoods aren't the slam-dunk choice they used to be. Overpricing and decay around areas like Broadway make the area less attractive. But as long as lots of people read that and say 'Good. Glad you don't like it. Let us have it!' the family home areas of Capitol Hill will be in high demand. We want to be there mainly because that is where our friends are and we kinda dig false bohemia. Groovy. But maybe our friends will move to QA to be where we are.

Magnolia
We're not sure why more people don't talk about Magnolia as an option for young, family-raising types. Strip away the urban grit and false bohemia of Capitol Hill and you'll get Magnolia -- near downtown, filled with a mix of very expensive and some relatively affordable houses and replete with its own little retail core. Magnolians refer to this area as 'The Village' and there aren't any smack dealers -- so the Capitol Hill comparison is a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea.

There are a few options outside this immediate ring of potential nesting grounds -- but no sense insulting those places until we actually are thinking about living there :)

More construction in Uptown

Poor, poor Seattle. We look kind of pittiful right now with our sillty little monorail collided and stacked up in a sad hunch. Uptown also looks a little worse for wear with torn up pits of gravel and mud on nearly every corner. You can add the intersection of Denny and Queen Anne Ave to the list of construction projects in the area -- we returned from the turkey day holiday to find the Shell gas station lot being fenced off and dug up. Directly across the street, the mud pit that will become the Trio condo project deepens while just around the corner they're piling gravel high in the Olympic Sculpture Park construction zone. If you have a 3-year-old who digs Tonka trucks, Uptown is the hood for you right now.

Happy Turkey Day

Pumpkin Pie - Thnxgiving
Originally uploaded by ebs1123.

Here's something to get your bellies geared up -- flickr's pumpkin pie stream. Yum! We're out of here for the holiday. See you on the other side. Looking for something to do? Seattle Times has this round-up including a few events of note. We'd freeze through the parade Friday morning if we were around because we're corny like that.

10 Mercer: Great place for wine-by-the-glass

Speedy post here but we wanted to share. 10 Mercer -- in addition to having a groovy ladder-aided wine tower -- also offers one of the best selections of wine-by-the-glass of any restaurant in Seattle. It's also a good place to catch a late meal after a movie at Uptown Cinema -- we loved the mussels and (don't laugh) the salads are wonderful treats that make you forget about the space you're wasting on lettuce.

-- j

Leaving Uptown Seattle

Afternoon (wide)
Originally uploaded by Sunburn.

We've been kicking around admitting something here for a week or two. This post to the Slog is a good wall to bounce the thoughts off of. We're part of the statistics in the post -- 83% of residents downtown are single. Technically, K & I are single but we've recently decided to change that and the next step is finding a home together to become un-single and raise a family. We both harbored naive hope that we would be able to make a go of it in the city's downtown. We don't see a lot of kids downtown but we wanted to change that and to make the city's social, art and political structures part of our family's roots. We knew that we'd pay a price for this -- if nothing else, it would be more financially expensive let alone the other types of costs and burdens. But we believed the benefits would outweigh the effort.

Now we know it just ain't going to happen. We've looked. And looked. But there isn't an option for anybody looking to make the next step. Downtown is full of small condos and apartments and the few larger living spaces are designed not to provide an option for families but, instead, an upgrade option for the extremely wealthy. Mind you even these people (whomever they are -- K's a lawyer and I work for a large software behemoth) aren't getting a useful space -- they are buying a downtown luxury space with the extra room added in features like humongous bathrooms.

We are leaving Uptown even though we were willing to dedicate ourselves to being part of the structure and contributing to its changes. Now we know downtown Seattle just doesn't have a place for us. We still hope to be part of the city -- but our roots will be planted in some other neighborhood, away from the core and away from the heart and soul of what drew us here. Poor, poor Uptown -- we could have been friends.

Visitor 3,000

Lots of numbers this week so a quick post to note a milestone -- last night at 10:24 PM, the 3,000th visitor landed on UptownSeattle. We entertained our 1,000th guest back in September so we're seeing more than 1,000 of ya'all per month.

#3000 came to the blog via Google where s/he had searched for i heart rummage dec 4th -- a solidly constructed query! Now, we're not the definitive source on all things i heart rummage but we are a running stream of thoughts and ideas about Seattle and its cool stuff like i heart rummage -- so Google's nifty math equations pointed the user to us and a few dozen other links.

#3000 chose our link from Google's search results and ended up on one of our archive pages where we had a useful little post about the upcoming i heart rummage schedule. Of course, it doesn't always work that way -- we feel bad for those of you who end up here hoping to find lots of BDSM info besides our post about Belltown's own pleasure dungeon. But it's cool to be part of the info flow.


-- j/k

Oops: There are actually 17 Great Seattle Blogs

When we posted our 15 Great Seattle Blogs, we forgot one. Obvious Diversion deserves a place in our pantheon of sources for good data on the city. And now it's award winning so we really better mention it. So, that makes 16 Great Seattle Blogs (read that in deep radio voice please). What's with 17? That's us, silly. Right?




--j/k

Tags: uptown, seattle, blogs, obviousdiversion

25 for $25 in Uptown: Flying Fish

We're not usually swayed by the over-hyped 25 for $25 dining promotion. In fact, we actively avoid it as an introduction to a restaurant we've never been to before. It's the wrong way to say hello to a new menu, we think. But last night we were at an old favorite and found ourselves ordering the pieces of the 25 promo menu anyway -- so, what the heck, why not have pumpkin cheesecake too? Like we said, we'd rather you have your first experience with Fish free of the constraints of the deal menu -- but we also understand saving some cash. BTW, surprising that 25 for $25 doesn't have some sort of charity component. It seems like that would be a good way to give the whole promotion a little heart and soul.

--j

Tags: uptown, seattle, restaurant, 25for25, flyingfish

15 great Seattle blogs

We've updated our sidebar list of favorite local blogs. We limit our list to blogs that (mostly) cover local events, thoughts and issues. The web has a global reach and some of our favorite sites harness this worldwide power. But we also think there is plenty of room for a more local focus and that there is power in that too -- strangely enough, even the most local, navel-gazing post about your neighborhood will draw interest from around the world. We'd recommend these 15 to everybody from Cape Town to Belltown.

1. Belltown Bent (neighborhood)
2. Cascadia Scorecard (enviro)
3. Cornichon (foodie)
4. Evergreen Politics (enviro)
5. HorsesAss (PNW politics)
6. Metroblogging Seattle (pro)
7. Queen City Cruise News (GLBT)
8. Rain City Real Estate (real estate)
9. Restless Reader (literati)
10. Seattle Bon Vivant (foodie)
11. Seattle LiveJournal (community)
12. Seattlest (pro)
13. Slog (pro) )
14. USS Mariner (jock)
15. You Deserve the Truth (media)

-- j/k

Tags: uptown, seattle, blogs

The 31st most relevant Seattle blog... ever

According to Technorati, we rank 31st among Seattle blogs in terms of 'authority' -- Technorati bases its authority calculations on the number of current incoming links and sources to a given blog tagged 'seattle' in the Technorati system. So, really, there are lots of more authoritative, more relevant blogs about Seattle that either aren't tagged for Technorati or not linked to in a way that is counted in the Technorati rankings. The other problem is way simpler -- tagging a blog 'seattle' is just too easy to do. Some of the blogs in the rankings above and below us aren't really about Seattle at all. Some happen to be written by people living in the city - others happen to work for big corporations like SBUX that have their HQ here.

So, what's the point beyond our ongoing need to be measured and treat life like a competition?

First, if you're a blogger yourself, make sure to include a link to your favorite blogs in a fashion that registers in Technorati. We need to update our links -- a few of our faves have faded away. There's a responsibility to link -- no matter why somebody keeps a blog, having visitors is important. If you like something, you need to link to it to help keep it alive. Systems like Technorati hold the key to connecting with an audience. This is especially important for small, homebrew micro-blogs like ours.

If you leave the blogging to attention-starved writer types, you need to be a discriminating consumer. Don't settle for the top scrape from the various search engines and tagging systems. Sometimes you just have to get more specific -- we like our ranking for 'belltown,' for example, very much!

--j

Tags: uptown, seattle, blogs, technorati