This is my first entry, and the first entry on the site at all.

And this is me explaining it all.

I'm Jason. My last name will likely not be terribly hard to find out, but for the moment, I'm not using it. With my friend Brandon, it's my quest to drink at all the spirits-serving establishments (SSEs) in Seattle. And that is pretty much the basic idea.

But how did this come about? Well, the Stranger had an article about drinking and the law, and mentioned in it that there were more than 500 SSEs in Seattle. I got to wondering if anyone had ever drunk at them all. And I couldn't think anyone had. So I talked it over with Brandon, misremembering the number as 570. And so it came to be that we had an idea, and a quest. And a day later, or thereabouts, we had our first drinks. And the start of this site, courtesy of Sean.

Now on to the first week.

It's been a pretty busy week. Since we started, last Thursday, we've already hit 17 bars. Which is only a tiny portion of our goal, but isn't bad in a general way.

We started on the 21st, with the idea of just going for a drink. We'd already talked about the concept of hitting all the SSEs in the city, but it didn't seem likely to begin any time soon. But then, as we were heading toward the Moon Temple for a drink, I suggested we should maybe hit a few bars in the area, and start that night. Brandon was all for it, and so we began.

The Mandarin Room in the Moon Temple was quickly followed by the cozy Jitterbug Cafe and collegiate Murphy's. Those three, that was going to be it. But then we were in Wallingford, and there were so many bars just within the block. We decided we'd go to Goldie's, and maybe hit another bar after. O'Shea's, maybe, although it was a couple of blocks away. But in Goldie's, with their fine Trivia night and darts, we kind of decided to skip O'Shea's. It seemed we were done.

Which fails to explain how we ended up, three minutes later, downing cheap booze in Changes, the isolated gay bar of the north end, while the Golden Girls played on the TVs.

And there really is no explaination. It was there. So we went in, because we were there.

But on the drive home, we decided we could hit one or two more bars. So we went to the friendly Tin Hat, and had a drink while playing Yahtzee. And we walked a few yards to Molly McGuires, and finished off the night listening to Karaoke.

Seven bars. A bit less than four hours. I'm not sure what we were thinking.

We were started, though. And now we were committed. Or maybe just should be committed.

The next night, the 22nd, my friend Alan's band was playing at the Raindancer, in the lovely University District. We arrived to watch him play and realized we were rather early, so that we decided to have a drink at the All-American Sports Bar and Grill. A sadly empty place, which is strange, because they had $3 iced teas and were very nice. We ran into my friend Dan, about whom more will likely be shortly heard, since he's (hopefully) doing some work for us. And after that reasonably short stop, we headed off to Flowers, just a block away, to get in another drink. I should note that the whole goal of this is just to drink in every SSE, and as I'd already drank in Flowers, only Brandon had a drink.

We then moved on to Raindancer, and had a drink there. It's a nice place where they give new bands a chance, and it was a good time. We saw Alan play, and I met a few of his other friends (hello to Janet and Jessica). Sadly, the show went late enough that we couldn't hit another bar, since I had to work the next day. But ten in two days wasn't bad.

The 23rd of March. 10 bars in the last two days. And I haven't mentioned, but I was really rather sick all day on the 22nd. Those seven bars on the first night, and all that. But tonight there's another show, with people I used to work with playing at the Sit N Spin, and my friend Sam's band is playing, too.

It's Brandon and me, and this time my brother Wolf is coming along as well. He's not drinking at present, so he's just along for the show and the fun.

I've never been to the Sit N Spin. It's a great place, though, and I don't know exactly how I never ended up there. We had pizza and drinks right away, and I chatted with people I knew from work. Anyway, we watched the Dutch Flat play, and they were great, but then there was some middle band no one knew anything about, so we decided to go get drinks in the neighborhood.

The Brasserie Margaux in the Warwick Hotel is very nice. Their drinks are very nice. And my brother was very nice, in that he became our very first sponsor by buying us our drinks there. Which, considering their price, is a good thing for me, as I'm very much poor.

From there we made our way to the Dahlia Lounge, which has very freshly squeezed orange juice for their screwdrivers. It was nice, but again, kind of spendy.

On our way back, we ran into Lee Anne from my work, who said the middle band was a) terrible and b) hidden in the fog of their smoke machines. Reglecting on the wisdom of missing their show entirely, we returned to the Sit N Spin.

Until the Sweet Science started, I talked with my by this time rather drunken friends and acquaintances. It's funny. I'm on this quest to drink everyplace, and they're staying in one place getting far more drunk than I am. I don't know what to think about that. But I suppose, if I had the money, I'd be as drunk as all of them.

Sweet Science was great. The rest of the night was great. And the next day, we went to a very late breakfast at the Rickshaw Restaurant. Upon discovering they were just a bar after 1 am, we realized we had to have a drink there, and so took number 14 at about 2 pm on a Sunday.

Scandalous, what we'll do in the name of our quest.

We didn't drink on Monday, which seems to my now addled mind to be a waste of a good night. But I'm busy with other things on Monday, so it's not very convenient. There will probably be very little Monday drinking in this quest.

Tuesday's a different matter. On that night, Brandon and I and a bunch of friends are pretty much always together at Brandon's place anyway, and I knew we could hit a couple of bars.

The first one was right after work. Brandon picked me up (he has a car, while I am a sad little pedestrian) and we went to the Canterbury Arms, where they make a large and strong beverage, but where the bar is in some ways rather seedy. Free condoms, loud music, dim lighting and worn counters. Good value, though, and we were started for the night.

Hours later, after we were all done hanging out at Brandon's, we went out for drinks, and encountered our second sponsor, who will be called Mr. Anonymous . In any case, we were bought drinks at the Satellite, which is a funky little place with a cute bartendress, and then after an attempt at the closing-early 1200, ended up at the Elysian Brewery, where we raised a glass to our friend Tony's successful purchase of a house, and where we finished off bar number 17.

And Wednesday turned out to be another dead night, since we would have gotten off to a late start, and Brandon has stuff to do to get ready for his Passover seder tomorrow. Which might rather slow us down for another night.

So perhaps nothing more til Friday.

Great holiday, Passover. It's a memorial, a ritual occasion, a chance to have a great meal with friends, and a chance to drink a lot of wine.

More than that, it didn't slow us down on the path to our goal. Rather, Passover served as a jumping off point for the Wild Rose. After dinner, Brandon and I, along with our webmaster Sean, went there, and we had a great time. Everyone was friendly, there were strange guys selling crappy toys, and a nice girl bought a drink for a slightly scary troll woman, totally anonymously.

I then went home and wished I hadn't had so many glasses of wine. But it went okay, and nothing major resulted. Huzzah.

I highly recommend everyone make a brisket as soon as they're able. So tasty.

This was a big night. First, and perhaps foremost, the trailer for the Two Towers was released attached to the Fellowship of the Ring. So Brandon and I planned to go see a 9:10 show downtown, which would give us about 2 1/2 hours to check out some local bars.

We started with the vastly crowded Dragonfish, a most excellent hotel restaurant. After a quick stop there, and a testy waitress who had some reason to be testy, but still, we moved on to the Cloud Room on the top floor of the Camlin Hotel. Fortunately, it was mild enough to have our drinks outside, because the place was packed. Knowing we needed to get a bite to eat, we almost stopped here, but the prices are a bit high, so we didn't.

Our next stop was the 727, in the Elliot/Hyatt hotel. If you have the means, eat here. Often. It's terribly swanky. Sadly, I lack the means. From there, we returned to the Pacific Place mall, wherein we were to see the FotR. We stopped in at Desert Fire, a supposedly southwestern eatery that has interesting cuisine and acceptable drinks. The food was better than the booze, and (odd to say this) the service was too fast, so that we were left with a gap of almost a half an hour before our show.

That brought us to Von's. I don't recommend allowing much of anything to bring you to Von's.

After the movie (great film, and great trailer at the end. Ents!) we made a stop by my house, at the Old Pequliar, an Irish-esque pub in Ballard. There's a lot of Irish pubs in this town. There was a crowd of collegiate types, it being a Friday, and after just the one drink, and pretty much sober from the enormous length of FotR, we called it a night, cause it was kind of late, and six bars seemed like plenty.

I'm told that outside of our greater metropolises, Denny's Restaurants very frequently have bars. Not so within Seattle, where a Denny's bar is a rarity. Fortunately, the Denny's in Ballard, where I live, has one, and as it was on our list anyway, and as the after-effects of a few parties last night had left me in a great want of breakfast food even in the early afternoon, we journeyed with a party of like minded souls to Denny's meeting up with sundry persons there. Or really, there were just five of us.

We had food, which was kind of slow, cause it's Easter Sunday after all, and the brunch crowd was out in force. We had drinks. Mine came with a monster straw, so as, I suppose, to facilitate rapid consumption. I'm not sure what that implies. And then we mosied.

I'm presuming most people have been to Denny's, so I don't need to say much more.

Short but sweet.

As we leave the Paragon, and begin the walk back to the cars some five or six blocks away, I note that Brandon has toilet paper stuck to the heel of his boot. Does this come of his obsessive desire to inspect the bathrooms of all the bars? Or is this an outgrowth of very strange bathroom incident I had, and a sign of further strangeness to come?

Who can say?

All I can say was, it was funny. TP on the heel is a great gag, any night of the week.

At this point, I will give much love to the Sponsors.

My brother Wolf, who picked up Brasserie Margaux and Hoyt's, thereby spreading out the joy of sponsorship.

Mr. Anonymous, for the Satellite and the Elysian Brewery. May it soon be safe to reveal your secret.

Jeff Ketchel, for the Shilshole Connection of Hiram's, Ray's and Anthony's. And what's more, he's promised another such night next month.

And to the future sponsors--Gwen, LeeAnne, Alan and Chris, who have agreed to sponsor at selected locales, and have thus already earned much praise.

Without all of you there'd be no way this could work. So to you all, my deepest thanks.

Finally, a last big thanks to the giver of the mad money. Nineteen bars to your credit, all unknowing.

We've been at this for just two and half weeks. Three more nights, and it's three full weeks. And in this time, we've lost all track of bars. If it wasn't for this page, we'd have no idea. We quiz each other: "Bar 17?" "Okay, Wildrose was 18, so it was the one right before that...uh, was it the Elysian?" And we have no sense of time in regards to the bars. We don't know how long we've been in, since you enter bar time the moment you cross the threshhold. There is no time in bars, no time except Last Call. And a greater sense of time is gone, too. With so many bars, going out doesn't mean anything. We almost have to say, The Other Night, because there's almost no connection to a particular night. Wednesday is a night to go out as much as Saturday. Even more, perhaps, because Wednesday is less crowded, and more likely to have drink specials. So each and every night becomes almost the same as any other. We don't go out Sunday nights, so that's special, I guess, but in the week, five or six nights are nights for going out.

So we're going to cut back a little, for three reasons. First, we've got a good start already. In three weeks, it looks like, we should have 50 bars. And we're out of mad money, so we can't afford quite as many bars a week. And we've gotten dissociated from normal time, already, so slowing down a bit can only help.

That's what's up so far, from my end.

Why do I see all this weird shit that's so very normal in reality, but seems mighty odd at the time?

So we're in the Admiral District Safeway in West Seattle, having just stopped in for snacks after the Benbow, and we're roaming the isles when, at the end of one of them, places very carefully and precisely in the middle of aisle, is a pickle jar. There's no one really around except a guy stocking shelves half way up the aisle, but there's still this jar of pickles, just sitting at the end of the aisle, like it was trying to make a break for it but we caught it at the last minute. It seems even to have been placed there, very carefully. The label is turned toward us, even.

Just strange.

We thought this was a perfect picture opportunity. Brandon has forgotten his digital in the car, so he has to run back and get it, and by then, the stocking guy, returning to the end of the aisle, claims the pickle jar and hastens it off to the back. Concealing the evidence, I say, but what do I know? I'm just some guy who saw a pickle jar when he was drunk.

Dante's is an institition. In my younger days, I would often visit the bar, cause it had lots of pool tables, lots of college kids, and seemed to be pretty damn cool.

It's still got lots of pool tables, still has a lot of college kids. But the cool has kind of worn off.

Okay, there's not just pool tables. There's foosball tables, and air hockey, and darts, and video games, and pinball. It's sort of a one stop fun center. And the beer flows pletifully, which keeps the college kids showing up.

But we weren't there for beer, and didn't have time for air hockey, which is really too bad, cause it might have left me feeling better about Dante's.

It was rather busy for our poor bartender, and we got our drinks and then sat there and sipped, pinned in a corner. Brandon had gotten out one of our cards, cause the bartender was a bit of a hottie, and he wanted to talk to her. But she was far too busy, and I completely gave up hope of speaking to her. But finally, just as we were about to depart, she had a moment to ask if we wanted another drink.

While we didn't, we got to talk with her, and found out her name was Rhiannon, which is a lovely name to go with a lovely girl, but sadly, we had to take off cause we were already done with our drinks.

Which were, apologies to Rhiannon, really weak. I know it's a college bar, and people go there for beer, but still. They weren't at the level of Murphy's, but it wasn't a large difference. I don't think I'd go back for a mixed drink. For air hockey, sure, with a pitcher of beer, but for purposes of this quest, Dante's was kind of a bust.

Still, I hear from my just-now-turned-21 friends that the place still seemed pretty damn cool, so they're doing something right.

So I haven't posted a journal entry in a while, and now I'm going to, cause I'm mostly caught up on the bars. At least, I'm less than 10 behind.

I work at the University Bookstore. It's not the best job ever, cause I could, like most people, use more money. And it's kind of repititious, but after four years, there are very few jobs that aren't. On occasion, things happen that I feel are stupid, but it's a job, so that happens.

What I love about the job, and what keeps me there, are the people.

I love my coworkers.

I'm a cashier. We're an odd lot, at best, and right now, we're at the oddest we've ever been. A little crazy, every one of us, together we're almost totally insane. And it spreads a lot over the rest of the books department.

But that has little to do with this quest, so I'll get to the good bits.

My coworkers, when presented with this quest, pretty much just said cool. Security Steve paused for a moment to try to figure out how many bars he'd been to in Seattle, but then had to give up, guessing the number to be at least 100, but he wasn't sure, cause he went to bars all over the area. Well, at least in Seattle we're giving him a run for his money.

The cashiers get regular updates, and they seem to at least think they're funny. Alan and Sandy have sponsored me, and Kathryn/K-Dogg comes out to take pictures whenever we think to call her. Jon's getting jealous of my sudden seeming immunity to hangovers. LeeAnne has picked up a bar, and Annie from the customer service desk says she's going to. I'm under the impression a lot of them at least glance at the site from time to time.

So I love these people.

But I better have a doctor's note ready if I ever call in sick again.

This site seemed to me to be about posting, when and as we could, what we did. So that's what I do, and I leave it as that. I've even, sadly, left Dina's name as Nina in the Village Pub post, cause that's what I wrote. I apologized for it, but that's what I wrote.

Brandon, on the other hand, edits the site to fit reality. I don't approve, but he has a good reason.

Those of you who read often may note that his posts just show up, after my posts in time, but before in their placement. That's cause Brandon edits his posting dates. This bugs me for reasons I can't even fully express, mostly having to do with accuracy and reality, but then, he has a very good reason for doing otherwise.

My method could leave you thinking we went to all the bars from Benbow to the Waterwheel in a single night, cause that's when I posted them. Even if you can get from the messages that it wasn't the case, and I think you can, it's still unclear that the Benbow was the last bar of Friday the 26th, the three U-District bars were on Saturday the 27th, and the other 5 on Sunday the 28th. Brandon's method lets you click on the day after the bars, and actually read what we did the night before, or the night of. Which is handy, and I can see the value. But I don't really like it, anyway.

He's telling you all a story, though. The story of this quest. You should read it, cause he's doing a better job than I am. But then, he's looking to make an actual story out of it, while I'm just looking to be inspired by it, so he's got more reason.

Still, I don't like it much.

So I see that Jason has said his peace on this matter. I am fine with that. At first I was annoyed that he would even bother. I mean why point out that I edit my posting dates. What does that really accomplish? Nothing in my opinion, but it annoys me nonetheless. Do our fine readers really need to care about when we actually post our journal entries and reviews?

As far as I am concerned we are only using this whole Weblog format because it is convient. Now if this were a live journal I could see that our lovely readers might get upset that we were editing reality, but it isn't, as has been pointed out to me on a number of occasions.

Now as I said, I am not nearly as annoyed now as this post might seem to indicate. You see, what it comes down to is that Jason and I have very different views on this quest, on posting, and the mere concept of "reality." He has this bizarre notion of keeping to "the truth," despite the fact that he is almost exclusively a fiction writer (by "trade"). As for me, I am a journalistic writer by "trade" (not an actual journalist mind you). I belive that the story should flow and that it should not leave the reader confused and wondering how the hell we ended up in the Admiral District when the last post seemed to come from the ID and before that we were in Ballard. My concern is for the reader, not the truth of when I posted my account. No one really cares WHEN I posted my things, only when it was posted for.

So, what it comes down to is this. Since Jason and I have fairly similar opinions on too many places, there needs to be something that seperates us and this may need to be it. I will continue to "edit reality" as I see fit, in order to keep the reader enganged and entertained. I will at no point lie (knowingly) or embelish with falsehoods. I might focus on something that wasn't nearly as important in the moment, or lead my readers in a particular direction. I have even pulled several of my own early posts from this site as I deemed them inappropriate, annoying or perhaps unneccessarily damaging to my currently non-existant lovelife. I reserve this right and while I will not edit my co-authors or my commenters, I will edit myself.

What you see here is the true story of what happens to us on our quest as we visit each Spirits Serving Establishment in Seattle. Everything else is mutable and I do it all for you, our readers.

-wOOt

Tuesday the 7th I did extracurricular drinking, in that I went to the 7th Avenue Pub to visit with Dina, who we met at the Village Pub in Magnolia. The 7th Avenue isn't on our list, since it doesn't have a spirits license, only wine and beer, but we said we'd stop in, and while Brandon couldn't make it, the place isn't far from my house, so I made the side trip on my way home.

It's a workmanlike bar, just a neighborhood place where you can hang out and knock back a few beers after work, and that was pretty much what was going on. Dina was getting off shift shortly after I arrived, so I figured I'd just hang out and we'd talk then, cause she was pretty busy to talk. I ended up talking with this guy at the bar who was pretty much clueless, whose name later turned out to be Jeff but who asked, I think seriously, to be called Bubba. He had some strange obsession with Russian authors, and with the idea that any bar will be successful if you can just get hot chicks to show up in it. He may be right on that point, but he just wouldn't shut up about it. Nice guy, but god damn.

After Dina got off shift, she joined me at the bar, and we talked for about an hour about family and work and bars and the quest and what have you. It was a good talk, and I hope I get to run into her again, cause I think I'd like hanging out with her. Bubba kept butting in here and there, with charming lines like, "I don't mean to offend, but you're both completely wrong", and at one point asking Dina, who has a lovely and quite natural caramel skin color, if she tanned. I thought for a moment violence might result, because Bubba was just so very clueless. But the danger passed, or at least, was on hold when I left.

I also met the bartender Amber, who was nice and cute, and had been working there for about 2 years, since, I think, she turned 21 or thereabouts.

Tuesdays, I should note, you can get your beer for 2.25, and that was pleasant.

So it was a good visit with Dina, and well worth it as a side trip. And somewhere out there, Jeff/Bubba is busy being clueless some more.

The first stop on the Greatest Hits Tour ended up being the most recent of the greatest, Elliott's. That's not exactly the way I would have planned it, but it's a great place, so I can't complain.

Vince, Holly, Chris and I were on the waterfront getting food, and Elliott's was right nearby, so we stopped in for a drink. It being exactly one week after the first visit, Ethan was of course bartending, and we ordered drinks and chatted a bit. However, he was kind of busy, so it wasn't much. But the drinks were still good, and Vince was impressed that they have chartruese available. However, as I've mentioned before, they have an enormous bar, and for me it was just expected.

Ethan returned a bit later to suggest to Vince that he try a Chartruese Lemon Drop, which Vince agreed to, and another bartender quickly prepared. Vince loved it, and I didn't actually despise it even though it tasted of licorice, so that's a pretty good drink.

A bit later, Ethan returned with an espresso based beverage that had been mixed a bit off, and while it wasn't a drink I'd get normally, it was free and not bad and very, very strong.

There was more conversation, and everyone agreed that the place was great, and then, with a check that continued to please with the cheapness of the drinks at such a great place, we moved on.

Volume 2 will be more planned, I assure you.

So after a hiatus that has seemed to last for ages, but really only for 17 days, we've returned to our bar crawling ways. With Brandon's return from Paris, and mine from the Yakima River, we can now recommence what we do best, drinking at bars all around us.

And, we're off to a brilliant start, with five bars last night alone. Here's hoping everyone can join us at least once in this second hundred bars.

A great night.

We picked up our friend Nick and headed for the waterfront, and we were supposed to meet one of Brandon's coworkers, so we arranged to meet him at Elliott's. But before that we had time for a bar, and I'll just say you should avoid Ivar's Acres of Clams at all costs.

We went to Elliott's and spent most of an hour there waiting for Brandon's coworker. He didn't show, but we didn't care, cause we had a great time at what is very rapidly becoming my absolute favorite bar. Ethan's the greatest, and Joe's pretty damn cool too, and we ran into Michelle who used to work at Bucca de Beppo, and was our waitress when Brandon's mom was in town last year.

Red Robin was a pleasant surprise, and although the long, long walk to the further reaches of the waterfront was a bit rough on young Nick's bladder, we perservered and had a great time in our final destination, Waterfront, which is a truly great bar.

A very good night, June 1st.

It's getting kind of hard, in a lot of cases, to say anything about some of these bars.

All I can report is drink strength or price. Cuteness of people (usually non-existent). Maybe a hint of decor, but not so much anymore.

I'm jaded.

The bars are all the same after a while. Oh, sure, there are differences. But they don't matter enough now. In the first few dozen bars, everything seemed new. It was important to note boardgames, or the bronze backdrop, or cool artwork. Now, I barely see those things. Boardgames are common enough in the long run, metal accents all blur together, artwork is cool the first time, interesting the second and background all the rest of the times.

All that's left is the bartender, the drink and the unique, and there isn't a lot of the last.

That, and the crowd we go with, which doesn't have much to do with the exact, narrow purpose of this quest, and also often makes me pay much less attention to where we are.

But I guess as long as I have a drink (and I do) and as long as I report on how good/strong/expensive it was (and I try to) for this site, I'm covering the bases.

I just didn't think I'd get so blasé about the whole thing this quick. Of course, "this quick" is still 150 bars worth. So what do I know.

When I was a kid, my mom spent a lot of time in bowling leagues. Ostensibly, it was because she liked to bowl. The real reason was that her team went on a trip to Reno or Vegas every year, and this way she could go without it seeming to be the purpose of the trip. I can't complain, I'd do the same thing. But what it meant for me was that in the years before we were deemed old enough to stay home alone, I spent a lot of Wednesdays in the West Seattle Bowl with my brother, roaming the halls in a nearly feral fashion.

While I can't recall much of the period, I can think of all the places we would run around in, and how there were on occasion other near-feral children like ourselves. But mostly, it was all about playing video games, of which they had a rather unremarkable assortment, and about getting snacks from the vending machines, which was one of my favorite things.

However, this meant getting money from our mom. We couldn't really disturb her at the lane, cause we didn't walk down there much, it just didn't happen. There were all these kind of scary adults down there, and we were all of perhaps 7 or 8 in my case. But she made trips to the bar with some frequency, getting drinks for herself and her team, as was the style in those days. And in the bar, whether she was getting a drink, or having a post bowling round, or waiting for the rest of her team to show up, we could hit her up for coin.

With one problem. We were underage, and already knew, with perfect clarity, that we couldn't enter a bar except on certain special occasions, like at a Christmas party or something. So we'd hang around at the door and call to her, and she'd get us a few quarters or a couple dollars, maybe, if we wanted snacks.

As a result, I never set foot in that bar, and wasn't living in West Seattle by the time I was a bar crawling kind of guy. So even though I'm thirty, I've never been in the bar.

Last week, Brandon and I hit some of the bars of West Seattle. We decided to stop in at the West Seattle Bowl, cause it was a better choice than Legends. However, I didn't know how late the place was open, although I knew it wasn't 24 hours.

We got there, and the alley was still open. Unerringly, I guided us to the bar, after a moment of stunned recognition of my old childhood haunt, which I hadn't been in in probably 15 or more years. There was a guy coming out of the bar, and he shut the door behind him, but I've seen other bars where you have to open a door to get in, so I was going for it. Brandon expressed a concern that it might be closed, but I just shrugged and reached for the handle.

As I pulled open the door, the guy who had just walked out called out, "It's closed, guys."

So I'm holding the door open, standing in the exact place where I always had as a kid, looking into the bar that was, unlike in my youth, pitch black. And still, after 20 years and at the age of 30, I couldn't go into this bar.

I don't know how I feel about that. But it's a story about a bar, so I'm telling it. We ended up going to Legends after all.

We went out with Melody a couple weeks ago, and we were supposed to meet up with her husband Scott at the Frontier Room. But the Frontier Room, in addition to sucking enormously, is closed on both Sundays and Mondays. As it was a Monday when we appeared, there was nothing for us to do but wait outside for Scott, since we didn't have any way to get a hold of him.

Enter Sam.

There was a guy sitting in front of the gated door next to the Frontier Room. I can only assume it's some sort of cheap apartment housing, cause I guess he lives there. He's a caramel sort of brother with an Amish style beard, and he shines shoes there. It's a bait and switch kind of deal, cause he says it's only a quarter.

Brandon was wearing boots that had seen better days. Sam offered a shine. Sean and I both offered the quarter, so Brandon had to go along.

And it was quite the shine. A long, slow work, full of skill and pride. Every step handled with care. And when the finished product was revealed, a boot full of polish, Sam smiled and said it was a quarter for the first boot.

Then he laughed, and went to work on the other foot while all of us laughed after a moment. It was funny, but he did mention he worked for tips, and it was a great gimmick. Brandon got the other boot shined with just as much attention to detail, and tipped Sam a few bucks.

You would think that would be it.

However, we still had to drink at the Frontier Room. When we tried to come back, the following Sunday with Chris, Sam was there, in his spot, and he called out to Brandon, asking how he was doing. We were all wearing sneakers, a lucky chance, cause Brandon almost wore his other pair of (still dull and dusty) boots, and I almost wore my Doc Marten's shoes. Then Sam holds out his hand, and Brandon goes to shake it (cause what else can you do?) and it turns into the manly hug. You know, hands clenched in a shake, arm loosely around the shoulder, two or three thumps, then break.

What do you do when the shoe shine guy recognizes you, and gives you the manly hug?

You flee in terror, is what.

The Frontier Room was closed, of course, cause it was Sunday, but we hadn't known. Sam kindly told us as we approached the door.

Which meant we would have to come back.

And we did, just two short days later. And realized we were wearing the boots and the Docs, and that there would be trouble if Sam was there. Which he was. We saw him from kitty corner across the street, and we made south away from him, fleeing in odd terror from the thought of him immediately starting in on a shine before we could do anything. Such polite urbanites, we are.

A while later, two bars later, we thought we'd sneak up on Belltown Billiards, around the corner from his haunt, and then make a dash past him, skipping the Frontier Room once again. Cause you've got to do what you've got to do.

But he wasn't there when we finished with Belltown Billiards, so to avoid ever having to come back again and maybe getting cornered by him, we went in for a drink that was probably one too many, but oh, well. That's the price you pay to not be so popular with the local color.

And after all that, the Frontier Room sucked. Lo, how the mighty have fallen.

Looking over the site, I've figured out why Brandon puts his reviews up for the day after the bar visit, rather than the day he actually writes it. Oh, he can protest it's cause he wants an accurate chronology (and that's a valid idea, too.) But the real reason is that he wants to look better than me.

I'm looking, and I'm seeing his reviews for the Night of Eight, with my reviews for twenty bars before just after them. And I'm realizing it makes me look like some kind of king of slack, or rather, makes Brandon look just about perfect.

Which is funny. Cause he only overtakes me about once a month, for a couple of days, before falling behind. But it looks good on paper.

I'm on to you Amancio. And now the world knows...

(The preceding is true, yet also meant to be humorous. At least to the half dozen people who read regularly enough to have a clue why it might be funny.)

We were going to hit the Joint Cover Clubs, 7 clubs with 6 liqour licences in the Pioneer Square area. Okay, we thought it was 8 with 7, but that turned out to be wrong. Oh, well.

We were planning on going with Melody and Scott, who both used to work there, and still know people in the bars. Which was great, plus they're great to hang out with. Ole from our 5 Point night was also going to be working at the Bohemian, one of the clubs, after 10:30 or so, which was an added plus.

As the day grew near, I heard from people they were joining us. Sean was coming, and so was Clarkie (although he bitched out at the last minute). Bridgit was needing a night out, and Annie was coming. Brandon said Clara was coming, too.

And all of them made it.

But we also had surprise guests. We discovered something we had always expected, that we had real life flesh and blood readers, not just the comment posters we love but have never actually seen. For there she was, Kathrine, who is also and hereafter refered to by her first name Star, who had also brought her friend and fellow reader April, and their friend from college Kyle.

Which brought us to a great friggin' huge group.

We went to the Old Timer's first, where Scott and Melody got Brandon and me in free and everyone else for half cover. Wonderful of them to sponsor us in this non-drink yet very valued way. And after that first bar, kind of slow because it was early yet, we went out and discovered Trevor was trying to find us, and had succeeded.

So now there were a dozen of us, which is amazing, because we stayed all together through a crazy Saturday night in Pioneer Square.

There was a bridal party, normal ladies from California on vacation, bumping and grinding, extra strong drinks, hot cream cheese on a napkin (oh, so tasty), talking, making friends, kissing, missing people. Look for the details, such as I recall, in each of the bar reviews.

After it was over, and we had lost April to her home, and Melody and Scott to the Old Timer's, we all piled into cars (literally piled in some cases) and went to find one last drink. But Tia Lou's had a $10 cover even though it was one in the morning, so while Bridgit and Star went to the Croc to talk to a couple of Star's friends, the rest of us went to the Lava Lounge to meet up with them later, and have a beer. Because it's just a beer and wine place, it's not on our list, but we still hit it, cause it was that kind of night, when you needed to finish it off with another drink.

And at just before 2, when last call showed us to the door, we split up further, most of us piling into Bridgit's car two deep. Star and Kyle departed now, but the rest of us, saving Annie, went to Brandon's for snacks and conversation. I was rather lit by this time, but I recall it was all very pleasant. There are pictures, too, although I'm not exactly certain I was there for them. But I'm in them, so I must have been.

We all got dropped off eventually. It was almost 4 when I got home.

If in my reviews I don't comment too much about the prices or the drinks, it's because they didn't seem to matter. Really, the prices are a little high, and the drinks, if you didn't know people or get fancy shots like we pretty much did, aren't anything great. But you don't hit the Joint Cover for the quality of the drinks, or the great prices. You hit it for the experience.

An epic night, and thanks to Scott and Melody for covering cover, to Star/April, Kyle and Bridgit for sponsoring, and to everyone who came out for the Pioneer Square event.

Hopefully, we'll get as many for the Eastlake wackiness in a week or two. Six more bars, and maybe a stop in the terrible Hooters to really make it a night.

Once upon a time, we thought the drinking would be the hard bit. The web site, that was just an extra. A little something to fill some extra time with. Just a few minutes here and there.

Ha.

It takes about as much time to do the entries as it does to go to all the damn bars. And that's including drive time. And we though, once, that we could do overall journal entries about the nights. I gave up about a week in. Brandon last a month, a bit more maybe, before he couldn't do it.

Between all the entries, the occasional editing, the updates that need to be posted, all of that, the web site's way more of a job than any of the other things we do.

Funny how wrong we were.

I don't know if it matters, the revisit. But I think it does. So here's a very quick sampling of places we revisited, and their revisit value (with a 1-10 rating. Good god, I'm rating something!).

Wild Rose--Very worth it. The place is still friendly, Florence is still great, and we need to stop in again soon. (9)

Elliott's--My favorite bar to hang out in now. I feel like I should always hang out there. Everyone's friendly, the drinks are great, and the location is sweet. (10)

Mulleady's--No reason to head back. It placed good at first, but on a repeat visit, even knowing what we were doing, I was told by my bartender of the first visit that I hadn't been in since (it was only like 3 weeks later) so what did she care? To which I say, what then do I care? No reason to go back, I said, and I mean it. The worst of the revisits. (1, because that's the lowest I gave myself)

The Dubliner--Dollar wells on Wednesdays is always a winner. The staff is quick, considering how busy they are, so go here often. (6)

Blue Bistro-- Still funky, still a great place. And cute staff, too. Hot toddys rule. (7)

The Vogue--I danced this time back, but the drinks were still only so-so. Still, dancing is a plus. (5)

Palisade--Still fabulous, with gorgeous koi ponds and such. And the Vanilla Sky is worth a revisit, for sure. (8)

El Gaucho--Not even reviewed and already revisited. And totally worth it, even with the cigar smoke-filled room. (9)

Ozzie's--Came back for a bachelor party. Wasn't better. (4)

Bada Lounge--Great style, always. Drinks were still good. (7)

Cloud Room--Who couldn't want to go back? (8)

and lastly

Claudio's--Once it had great revisit value--a (10). But with Melody gone, I don't think so. I'd have to go again to be certain, but I don't know that I will. It was a summer romance, I think. (3), just because it's still the cutest little bar.

(note that these are not in the order I revisited or anything, and that by and large they were revisits without Brandon, most often when he was out of town. He can make his own list, if he likes.)

Bridgit and I are walking from her car to meet Annie and Brandon so we can go drink at Kincora (which we didn't have to, so you'll never see a review of it) when we pass by a hot dog cart. We both kind of pause as I give thought to the idea of a hot dog, or at least, yes that's right, hot cream cheese.

So we ask the guy at the cart, who's just going about his normal nightly tasks of grilling dogs and such, if we can have some hot cream cheese on a napkin or something.

He looks at us like we're crazy and kind of laughs. He's a young guy, probably not much past 21, and his friend, about as old, also chuckles. We assure them, it's really good, and explain that normally people charge about a buck.

He says if we put something in his tip jar, we'll get some for free, and still chuckling, he scoops out a chunk and places it, in a carefully made aluminum tray, on his grill.

When it's ready, we get the guy (whose name, we have discovered, is Ryan) to try some, along with his friend, and they both acknowledge the greatness of hot cream cheese.

A bit later, having failed at Kincora and drank at R Place, we cross the street from the latter to his cart, and I get a hot dog. Once again, there is more hot cream cheese, and this time, there are other customers, who look at us as if we've gone crazy because of the hot cream cheese. But Ryan, who is a very nice and pretty cute kind of boy, agrees with us now, so we've made at least one convert.

And then we end up wandering past like two more times, so it's a Ryan night like it was once a Sam the Shoe Shine Man kind of week, although not in any way unnerving like Sam somehow was.

So if you're in the area, like at the Cha Cha or whatever, get yourself a dog from Ryan. He's a good guy.

So in the last week, we've picked up 10,000 unique visitors. In the 5 1/2 months previous, we had 13,000.

This kind of unnerves me. It's a massive change. While I'm very happy for anyone at all to come and look at our site, some sort of barrier appears to have been crossed.

We've reached the level of weird little site to tell your friends about.

That makes me nervous. But thanks to everyone who comes here and laughs at or with us, as your own personal readings dictate. I'm happy for every one of you who appears.

So look around, read a few entries, come back and read us often. We're always drinking somewhere, so if you're close, drop us a line and come out for a drink or three.

But not all at once. I'm already pretty nervous.

(Jason's Note--I've discovered "nervous" is not the proper word, but rather, "anxious". So in all places where you read "nervous" instead read "anxious", etc. Many thanks to Mr. Snicket for clearing up the distinction between these two words. I'd change the text, but I'm against that, as I've noted before, so instead there's just this rather verbose note.)

Who thought it would be such a pain? We just needed to pick up the four bars in Beacon Hill, and then we'd be at 299, all ready for Bar 300 the next day. But no, it couldn't be that easy. The first was simple, and then we quickly realized, with mounting hope, that all four were very close to one another. But at the second bar, trouble struck.

It was called House of Teriyaki on our list, but in person, it's something like Andy's Chinese Food. Whoever this Andy character is, he apparently doesn't speak English, because no one at work at the place could. So although there was a full bar not fifteen feet from us, we couldn't get at any of the succulent liquor, because no one there knew Vodka from Whiskey.

So we had Chinese food.

Cafe Ibex, Perry Ko's, easy.

And then we needed a fourth bar.

We thought to go pick up the waterfront World Trade Center, which was listed, and which would finish off the waterfront. But they don't have a regular bar, only one whenever the conventioneers there want one. Maybe all day and all night (the law permitting) for a great many days. But not, still, a regular bar.

So no use.

Then I thought we could pick up a bar at Pioneer Square, where several restaurants with bars lurk, and where the hour was such that they would all still be open. It wasn't even 6 pm, for god's sake.

Brandon thought there might be a full bar to be found across from Trattoria Mitchelli. There was not.

So we ended up at Aladdin. And how awful that turned out to be, you'll just have to read.

I'd never been a Key Lime Pie kind of guy before going to the DeLuxe Bar and Grill at the north end of Broadway. But we started going there years ago for drinks, and there was this big splash item on their menu about the pie, so we got a slice to split between three of us.

After one bite, no one wanted to split. We all wanted our own pie. And from then on, we had it.

Six months ago, give or take, a new head cook tampered with the recipe. He should be beaten about the head and shoulders for it. The new pie, although it looked mostly the same (just a shade lighter) had none of the succulent and sweet key lime goodness that I had gotten to enjoy. It was less flavorful overall, and it lacked the candy-like lime flavor. The crust didn't hold together as well, even.

We wrote it off.

Then a kind and generous reader told us the old recipe was back. And we stopped in, six of us, and had five slices. Some fool didn't want one. But they had half a slice anyway, and we all wanted more. It was the old recipe, in all it's glory, with a tiny exception. Once there was a sort of caramel like sauce drizzled over it, and now there's some sort of lime sauce instead. But who cares? It's delectable, it deserves enormous praise, and although it has nothing to do with drinking, everyone who reads this, whether you've ever liked Key Lime Pie before or not, should go and have some. Right now. You can get it all night long.

Stupid, stupid .Ing. They apparently "closed" about two weeks ago, if by closed you mean they suddenly went away for perhaps as much as a single day and were replaced by a near duplicate. What was once our bar 250, sponsored by our own Annie, is now bar 343, Cobolt Blue, sponsored by our own Clarkie.

What's different?

There are stripes. And a new sign on the front of the bar. Everyone say it with me, "Oooo, Ahhhh."

Stupid, stupid bar.

The review, when it comes, won't be all that much different, but there it is. Another dead bar. Sort of.

Part of Bridgit's complaint about the night was the true fact that Brandon and I are really fucking jaded, and we are, we can't go to a place and just be there anymore if we've never been there. We're always marking them down for this, up for that, whatever. We analyze too much. And the funny bit is that we don't even need to, since we aren't (really) a review site or anything. We review, but really, we're just doing this to do it. It has no further meaning, this whole site is just extra. I'd like to say I've thought about this and gotten better in the last couple of weeks, but that's not the fact. I haven't.

I am jaded. I announced that months ago. And I'm getting worse. It takes a lot to wow me. But I think I'm making a bit of an effort to be more positive. And later bars, of course, are always better, because your critical facilities decay with the increase of booze.

Maybe I'll get more interested in just going out and hanging out. I don't know. I just hope this doesn't affect the whole rest of my life.

While we're walking from the car to the Rios Cafe (no longer in existance) between the stops at Andy's Chinese Food and the Aristocrat's Club, a strange encounter occurred.

We were paralleled, roughly, by a black man of about 40, who may or may not have been homeless. He's strutting along, calling out none to quietly, "That fucking white bitch. Fuck that white bitch. Goddamn white bitch. Ima get that white bitch." And so on. This left me momentarily concerned that one of us indeed the white bitch in question, since he'd occasionally glance at one of us. But no, it was apparently some other white bitch.

So as we get to Rios, this guy, who has been walking in a line in spite of any obstacles, or streets, or anything, is getting out of earshot. We discoverer Rios is gone, to be replaced by the Vesper Lounge in the new year, and I turn to the other two and announce, "We should be careful. I understand there's a white bitch on the loose."

Hilarity ensued, and we went to the Aristocrat's. But remember, we never did find the bitch, so be careful. It could still be out there. Possibly even allied with a wild fandango.

So we drank last night at the Olympic Broiler, a place where the regulars are fused to their seats, the waitresses are profane, and it seems like they've just been waiting for you to arrive.

In short, we loved the place.

However, they're closing on New Year's Eve. They've been taken over by the Turf, a dive of broken down proprotions that doesn't even measure up.

So if you've never been to the Olympic Broiler, downtown at 200 Pike, now's your last chance. Literally. And it's a wonder. They're friendly, their drinks are strong, and it's the last few days. They know it, so there's a special feel in the air.

I'm going back again, I know that. We'd been there five minutes before we realized we'd miss the place. I want to miss it a little more. It's worth it.

See, look at what happens when Brandon goes out of town. I get all caught up, and then there's nothing left for me to do but write a journal entry or something. But I don't have much to write about, so it ends up being some rambling affair about nothing.

Anyway, we're closing in on the end now. In fact, it's less than two months away. On March 21st, we'll be doing the last bar, but here's the issue. It's not going to be 570, or even very close to 570. There just aren't enough bars in the city. We're thinking about going for drinks at some places that were a bit marginal from our original goal, just to get a bit closed. And because without them these last two months will be a big cakewalk, and that seems a little anti-climactic. We wanted to have to really rush at the end, and now it looks like we can take a lot of naps and skip days and all that. Not what I, at least, was expecting.

Well, in any case, it's down to 60 short days at this point. For all those who have been reading, thank you for your attention to date, and keep reading for the denoument. For those of you have who have been drinking with us, there's still about 75 more bars to hit, and we'll see you all there. For our sponsors, the game's not over yet, and the standings can still change. And many, many thanks to each and every one of you, whether you've picked up one bar or 30.

That's about it for now.

It's getting to be a real pain to get Brandon to go out. He's just not up for it so much any more. That's why there haven't been many (any) bar entries from the last while.

Oh, sure, he's got good excuses. "I have to do some paperwork." "I've got to train my replacement." "I'm on the other side of the continent." Yeah, whatever. Like any of those, with the possible exception of the other side of the continent thing, should slow us down.

And now he says, "We need to go out this weekend, but I'm busy Friday." Hel-lo, isn't Friday night part of the weekend? But, okay, he's got something going on, so fine, we won't go out. Ah, but then it's not til 8 and he's (surprise) actually willing to go out before. So a couple bars, maybe.

Hopefully, this is just temporary. Hopefully he'll get back into stride. He did have all that "other side of the continent" shit going on.

Until then, good luck with "something" Brandon.

So last night we tried to go out on a carefully planned itinerary with Bridgit, Bridgit's Mom, and the Russian Baroness. I had thought of all the places to hit, it being BM's 50th birthday, and we were going to start at Canlis. We were all dressed appropriately, and all was well.

Except they were closed. I'd called them before to find out their hours and nothing had been mentioned of Sunday closure. So, grrr.

So the big starter was done. We decided we'd go hit Mr. Lucky. It's new, but I'd called them too, and they were supposed to be open 5 pm to 2 am every day.

Well, they aren't. They still had lit neon, but they weren't open at all. So, further grrr.

Bridgit's Mom and Russian Baroness are now throwing out places to go drink, and we've been to all of them so far, but we still have a couple more places to try.

However, Medusa is apparently also closed on Sunday. Not that we saw that last time we checked their hours, but maybe we just missed it?

Last stop, Bernards on Seneca, a Hotel Bar. Called just last week, and they should be open every day. The sign on their door in fact insists that the dinner hours are 5-9, Monday thru Sunday. But it's locked, and the woman at the desk looked at us like we were crazy when we asked if the restaurant was open, and then asserted that it should be based on the sign. I think she entirely wanted to deny the existance of the sign.

Finally we found our way to another bar, thanks to the Russian Baroness's intimate knowledge of downtown drink spots.

But why must it be like this? Why must we hit five places, two of which have vowed their most definite open states, to get a single drink? What is wrong with this city?

It's getting really annoying. We're in the last weeks here (actually, we have 18 days remaining) and there's only about 25 bars left. So why must they always be closed?

Day after day we hit these bars, some with phone numbers that don't work, some with numbers that go to someone's cell phone, some too new to have listed numbers. It's all a crap shoot at that point. Maybe they're open, maybe not, but we'll never know til we go.

And then there's the places I've called. I called every bar I could get a number for, and got hours. Well, apparently people either lie to me, or don't understand what I'm asking, because we've had three places, at least, that weren't open when they claimed they would be. Not counting Bernard's on Seneca, which even has a sign on the door to say they'll be open when they aren't.

Why must they all be closed? What's the deal with that? Can't they sense we're in the last days and don't have time for this shit?

You'd think we deserved better by this time. But no, apparently not.

Well, fuck them. They're the dregs anyway (as you can pretty much tell by the fact we haven't been there yet) and so I suppose we get what we pay for, in this case not much.

But still...it would be so much easier if they could just be open. A little.

So when we went to I-Spy, lo those many moons ago (it was bar 97), we saw a band called Circus Contraption. They're a truly huge band, with like 10 people, most of whom didn't seem to do much on most of the songs. We were rather confused by the whole thing, although the music was great, vaguely sinister vaudville/clown kind of music, voices projected through bull horns, all of that sort of thing.

Then I observed three weeks ago that they were giving a full show in Tukwila, with apparently aerialists, vaudville, music, juggling, all that sort of stuff. We had to go.

But we didn't, as something came up. So then a week later, they were going to be in Redmond, and this time, between Fuji Sushi and the next bar, we did go.

It was spectacular. Music, rope people, dancing, aardvarks, insects, wrestling duchesses, juggling, puppets, opera. Everything. They're great, and I know they're doing their routine, one more time, somewhere tonight. They were part of a King County arts program. But they'll probably be somewhere else sometimes soon, and you should go see them. Also, it explained why they had all these extra people, since they were the jugglers, aerialists, and etc.

Good stuff. After, we went to find another bar to hit.

And so it's happened. We did bar 569 last night, and so we're done with the sort of free form, wandering drinking we've been doing for the last year. There's no more bars but the last one, no more drinks to be had. I never need to look at the bar list again. It's done with.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. It's just the first stage of finishing, of course, since there's still one more bar, and still a lot of bar entries to put up. But this is the conclusion of our wild drinking year, since the only spot left is carefully planned and laid out.

We went out with Annie and Jim last night, and had to hit four service bars in just three and a half hours, give or take. That can be tough with service bars, which are a lot slower than normal bars. But we did it, and in enough time to go get pizza before we even expected to be done. One of the service bars was slow as molasses, but the rest were quick enough, and it seemed almost like they were real bars. We had three sponsorships out of the four bars, and in the one bar that Brandon paid for I got to pass the five dollar bill for the last time.

I don't think we've ever made a journal entry or anything about the five. For a while in the middle, we were taking it in turn to pay for stuff, and the for a while one of us would pay and the other give cash. Eventually, it came down to just this five, being passed back and forth to keep track of whose drink it was. I don't know exactly when it came into being, bar 250, bar 350, somewhere in there. But for more than 200 bars, whenever we paid, it moved back and forth. And last night, I passed it for the last time to Brandon. We never need to think again about who has the five. We never need to wonder what bars we'll hit. We never, at least as part of this quest, will have a strange and wild night of unknown treasures and wonders, hidden gems and dives better left unturned.

I'm really pretty sad about that. Once you've explored everything, there's an emptiness to that part of your life. And that's what we've got, really.

Even last night we discovered new things. The most painfully expensive drinks in the city (but not at an actual bar, so what can you do?) The tastiest Chicken Satay any of us had had. The wonders, known to me but missing to others, of La Vita e Bella.

That's all over now. Ah, well. What a year.

This is just ridiculous. Not me, although I'm behind. But I'm only 24 bars, and only 10 days, back. Brandon, on the other hand, is now 69 bars back, and 24 days. Good lord. I'd tell him to get some up on the site, but then he'd rush, and his spelling's a bit iffy as it is, so he needs the time.

Well, I hope you'll forbear to comment as I have so manfully done, by not pointing out in any way shape or form that he's 69 bars back. 69 bars, I tell you. But I'd never mention it in any way shape or form.

So rather than bring up how many bars back Brandon is, I'll just mention that classic film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and ask you to recall how future Bill and Ted proved to present Bill and Ted who they were. I think they had to think of a number, or something.

It's Saturday morning, 10:20 am. Outside it's sunny and the wind blows the bare branches of trees wildly. It's the start of a new year.

The calendar would say different. It's nothing new there, just another day, a spring day that looks to be very pleasant, or, based on the clouds that are looming, very awful. Still, it's the start of a new year all the same.

Last night we finished the quest. Finished the quest. The words sound strange, read strange, are strange. There's no meaning to them, nothing that makes me think it's actually over. Instead, I find myself wondering what bars to hit in the next few days. The answer is, of course, none at all, but that hasn't sunk in yet.

We were at the Last Bar, Buca di Beppo, where we had a lovely room, wonderful servers and a crowd of 40 of our friends. We ate, we drank, we gave gifts and reminisced about all that had happened. There were, as at all such events, party crashers who spoiled the mood, a few people no one knew, both more and less booze than you would want, and at the end a lot of left over trinkets and candy. It was, as Shanda said, very much like a wedding reception. It was wonderful.

So now it's all over but the writing, and there's a year to look back on. A year of 570 bars and all that happened in them. What did happen?

There were a lot of drinks consumed, by me, by Brandon, by all the people who came out with us, and by the living heart of the city as viewed in the places where people come to live. I've had great drinks, terrible drinks, regular drinks and one offs, a few beers and glasses of wine. I've seen so many drinks go down the hatch, mine and others, that I wonder at that most miraculous of organs, the liver.

I met so many people. Most of them were, in the words of Fight Club, single serving friends, bartenders or patrons at the next stool who had a good word to say or a joke to share. The sort of people you usually ignore, comfortable in your own little group, whatever it might be. Some of them became friends, though, people met along the way and now precious. And then there are the people who came out to drink with us, people we barely knew, and friendships were forged over drinks and in car rides around the city to places no one had heard of.

I'm very glad I did this, very glad that Brandon joined me in a wild, stupid quest to drink everywhere in the city. How simple it seemed at the beginning, and how complex it got as time went on. For a year, we gave up our lives to do this thing, but it was more worthy a goal than any I'll likely have. Stupid, yes, and in many ways pointless, but satisfying too, and there are such tales to tell, such richness of life in the last year.

Now it's all over. My new year has started. People have been asking what I'll do now. I don't really know. A bunch of my friends don't know me as anyone but the guy on that quest, people I've met in the last year and spent a lot of time with, but time that was centered on this quest, time that distorted my life to look like nothing it was before. And probably nothing it will be after. But I don't know what's in the future. I don't know what I'll do now. There's no "next quest" as people want there to be. There's nothing planned at all.

I'm going to write some bar reviews. I'm going to take some time off drinking. I'm going to go to Europe. Beyond that, I can't say.

One last thanks to all the people who came out to the last bar last night, to the wild and wonderful people who braved the rain and the crowds and the silly secretiveness of the site to join Brandon and me. It's a moment that I'll never have again, and I was very glad to have all of you there.

The sun's gone, and it's starting to rain. I think I'll write up a few bar reviews now. Tidy up the old year in the first days of the new. And think about the future.

We left Jalisco to go to the Royal Palm, seven of us trailing along, Brandon and Lilly already joined at the hip. It was both cute and nauseating. And this after just two weeks.

The Royal Palm had only beer and wine, but before we found this out, Lee had decided he needed cash, and none of us knowing right off where a bank was nearby, we sent him to Whole Foods to buy something, like a Chapstick, and get cash back. So we found ourselves waiting on the corner across from the Royal Palm, in front of a Dania furniture show room, to which Bridgit, Sandy and Lilly excused themselves. Brandon went off to get cash from a bank that, from this corner, was really obvious, and suddenly it was just me and LeeAnne on the windy corner, looking at the girls in the showroom and wondering where the hell Lee had gotten to.

The girls came out from the showroom, and we all huddled in the eave of the building until we saw Lee walking up the other side of the street toward the Royal Palm and called him over. He was carrying a bag of apples which he had been persuaded to buy for all of us, and all at once everyone was eating apples. I'm told they were very good, and I had a bite of one and it was quite tasty in truth, but I'm not much of an apple man.

Brandon was gone forever, and Bridgit said, farcically, that perhaps he too had gone shopping, at QFC right by the bank. This turned out, upon his return, to be true. He had bought English Muffins for Lilly, who had wanted one that morning but been unable, as Brandon only has rye bread at his house most often.

Finally reunited, we headed back to the cars, Brandon and Lilly and me in one, all the bookstore folk in the other. We were going to the Mojito Cafe, up on Lake City, but it's in the little bit of Lake City Way between the Roosevelt Safeway store and the I-5 entrance. An odd little spot indeed. When we finally arrived, we got a call from Bridgit, who had followed Lee's directions and made it all the way up to the Rimrock and such in the furthest north. With a little bit of guidance from us, and with us waiting in the wind on the street, they found the Mojito at last, and in we went, for a wonderful surprise.

We left the Fu, and moved to Giggles. We were going to be a little early, we knew, since they didn't open til 6 and it wasn't half past five yet. So we were going to stop in to Scarecrow and visit with Wesley, but he wasn't in. As a result, we needed to kill a bit of time, and Dante's seemed the obvious choice. Just next door to Giggles, it's got video games, pool tables, air hockey, foosball, and a lot of booze.

All went well in Giggles, as the South Park pinball machine pleased some, we all revealed we sucked at Foosball, Lee and LeeAnne turned out to be pretty good at pool and Sandy showed some skill once she got a little practice (she used to be a bartender in Nordak, so what else did she have to do?) There was a little drinking, some more pool, a few games of air hockey, and then we thought we'd give another shot to Giggles.

They were open, or at least, their door was, but they didn't have their bartender yet. He was running late. It was half past 7 by this time.

Well, we needed to drink there. So a few of us went over to Pete's Pizza for food, and the rest went for another game of pool. LeeAnne and I ordered together like old pros, but Lilly and Brandon had to look over the menu for ages. It was ridiculous. We played some Pictionary because they had cards and pads at the tables, and I revealed my mad skillz at that game. Lilly's not so bad herself.

Rejoining the rest of the host a few minutes later, with Brandon and Lilly still eating, we discovered the bartender had appeared, and I gathered up the two missing lambs so that we could have our drink. Their pizza, it turned out, had been nothing but an ocean of cheese within the confines of a paltry crust, so that after one slice they were both plenty glad to give it a rest. And so we made for Giggles.

And so we come to that point in the quest when it's all done but the shouting. Or the shout-outing.

A big shout out, as it were.

Words are barely suited to what I have to say in this post. I've given thanks to all the sponsors, to all the people who came along. I've even thought, a la the Oscars or the Source awards, of giving thanks to God, my manager and my momma, but that's not happening.

Instead, I want to thank Brandon.

We've accomplished the nearly unthinkable. Not hitting 570 bars in a year, all the bars in the city and then a few extra. With some time and money and just a little bit of grit, anyone could do that. Well, almost anyone. But rather, hitting all those bars, and still, at the end, being able to be friends.

So this is a big thanks to Brandon, my best friend, for the last year. It was wacky, it was amazing, it was tiring. Without you, more than all the sponsors and all the supporters and all of everyone else, it would have been impossible. Not just because it was supposed to be both of us at each and every bar (only two sick days in the whole lot) but because there's nobody else in the world I think I could have done it with. Anyone else would have killed me. Really. I totally earned it over and again. And I would have killed anyone else, because of them earning it. Not that we didn't earn it, but that we looked over it. And that's a rare thing.

Brilliant fucking year, my friend. Brilliant.

So I lay my ace of trump atop all the other thanks I've given in this long and bizarre year of drinks. And I say, once more,

Thank you, Brandon.

A year of my life gone by, and everyone asks me what it's like now that it's over. I gave that some thought these last couple of days, and all that occurs to me is this: the same as it was before we ever started.

It's like the year didn't happen. It's already seeming like some kind of odd time loop, a parallel sideline to my actual life. I spent a year travelling around and drinking and having a blast, meeting people and going to several hundred interesting places. You would think that would seem momentous.

I guess it does, but not in the way I would have thought. It's like I've just picked up my life again, from where I put it down a while ago, and that period in between is a capsule of experience. I know this isn't a good description, but I don't know that I can make it clearer at all.

Whatever the case, my life is back to normal. I kind of miss trying to figure out what bars to hit, but that already seems kind of distant to me. Like a long ago habit you still sometimes find yourself doing when you're not paying attention. The new friends and the new hangouts almost seem to have just sprung up, as if they were from some very distant time, so that you can't exactly recall how they came to be your friends, or why precisely you hang out there.

Strange, but that's how it feels. After the encapsulated year, I feel pretty normal. Back to normal, that is.

This is a dry month, and not just in entries on the web site. Rather, I'm taking the whole month (with the exception of Passover dinner) off from drinking. Which is odd, coming after 12 months of near daily intake, often in very large quantities.

It's kind of strange, passing on booze. There's so much drinking in day to day life that I don't know how I failed to realize it. Tonight I was at a drinking event. A couple nights before, the same. Drinks were offered me over the week prior on three occasions, and again last weekend. There's always something. Normally, I'd just drink and not even notice, but now it's getting kind of odd. And it's not even a heavy month. Just normal, or even a little light, because I'm not myself producing opportunies for drinking. I'm not even trying to find these events, they're just everywhere I go.

Parties are a little more boring, that's for sure.

Oh, well. It's just a month, right?

We did a Tech TV interview tonight, and it was odd. It's a little room at the Fisher Communication building, with a Seattle backdrop. And there's me, and there's Brandon, and there's a camera. In a room next door are Lilly and Bea and the site producer, Jordan. We can't see them, because they're sitting down. And watching us in San Fransisco are the studio audience and Martin, the host of Unscrewed.

We can't see them at all.

So I kind of forget I'm on camera. It's almost like a radio interview. And I spend a lot of time scratching my nose. At first, I don't even realize I'm doing it. Then I suddenly recall I'm on camera, but my nose itches, and (it seems) there's no one watching, so I scratch again. And I think again. It's like an 8 minute interview, and I scratch my nose like half the time. Not really, but in retrospect it seems like it.

Satellite interviews are rough, that's all I can say. You have no idea what you look like at all. But we got some laughs, and that was good. And the producer said we didn't suck (he actually said we were good) which is nice as well. And mostly, it's over and done with, and the next, if there ever is such a thing, will be easier.

But let's just pretend it does mean I love you, when you watch it.

It's been nearly a year since I posted anything here, or at least six months. So what motivated a new post after all this time? First, I have actually been to more bars, and should review them. But mostly it was a party last night.

It was Melody's birthday, and we went to the Ould Triangle to celebrate with her. A moment after we arrive, she tells us that one of the owners of the bar is also the owner of Molly McGuire's, and wants to give us (good-natured) shit for our reviews of the bar. Well, we didn't give Molly's a good review at all, neither of us, for different reasons. And so, we're kind of freaked at the idea of meeting this woman neither of us has ever met.

But Melody can't be stopped, and in a moment, we're confronted with the very attractive, slightly older Tracey, who is the nicest complainer in the history of complainers. She found the site at some point, didn't like the review, but read on. And discovered that some girl named Melody was mentioned a lot, and eventually realized that it was the Melody who worked at her other bar. And told said Melody she just had to meet us. So she razzed us a bit, and we got all sorts of excuses out, and it was just delightful in the end. Because she was a lovely person, and didn't hate us, and it was a great time.

But embarrassing? Oh, yes. It certainly was.

Happy 30th, Melody.

Last night we were sitting around without much to do, and then Brandon suggested we could hit a bar or two. Or I suggested it, but it doesn't really matter. Because then we were talking about all the new bars we knew about, and which we should go to, and then we were in the car, and then, quite rapidly, we were back into quest mode. Belltown had spawned a whole new set of bars, and we drank at Shorty's, the Lava Lounge and Viceroy, and skipped over the Hideaway and Madrid 522 because of covers, and then hit one more bar I'd been to but Brandon hadn't.

And it was all just too easy and familiar. We kept laughing about it.

So I guess we're kind of back in business again.

After the Ould Triangle ribbing concerning our review of Molly Maguire's, I was renewed in my interest in sampling their Irish Breakfast. I had read that they had one on Sunday, and as I love such a morning meal, I got Brandon to go out with me just a couple days later, the very next Sunday, to sample the breakfast.

And it was good. Oh, so very good. I didn't have a drink, so I don't think this is even terribly relavent to the site, but in fairness to Molly's I had to post this. Delightful in every aspect, the Irish breakfast should be had by all those who eat meat. For the rest of you, well, you're missing out with your foolish vegetarian/vegan ways. Me, I'm going back.

Another Friday brought another round of bars. We were thinking three, but then we were joined, midway, by the inestimable Clara, and suddenly the night was continuous. And yet still early.

Brandon and I started at Cayenne, the bar in the new Silver Cloud Inn at the south end of Broadway, which actually featured a first in all the bars we've been to. Then we went to Chapel, the most sacriligeous bar we've been to, and met up with Clara there and had some food. A trip to Mamounia, which was once Cobalt Blue and .Ing, brought us to the expected three, but we weren't near done. So we ventured to the Full Circle, formerly the Sea Wolf, and site of our interview with Melanie McFarland. From there, it was back to Ballard to take me home, but not before stopping in at Oaxaca, a delightful Mexican bar.

I should note that for once, I wasn't the guy knocking down drinks. Clara and Brandon both did it without me even helping.

And Clara picked up a sponsorship, bless her American by way of England self. Plus she has a motorcycle now, which kind of rules.

All this, and we were done before midnight. How effecient.

So I've run out of bars to review, because Brandon and I are slackers. I've reviewed all the places we've been to (with the exception of Mojito Cafe on Western, because I'm not sure when we went there, but I'm trying to figure it out) and until we hit some more bars, I've nothing left to do.

Meanwhile, Brandon's just slacking in not putting up reviews of even the bars we've been to. But I'm sure he's got a good reason, like NetFlix just sent him Jeepers Creepers 2 or something like that.

Anyway, I'll get him out to some more bars soon, so that he can not review them and hopefully I can. Soon. Really. I mean it.

Man, it's been a long time since I posted anything. Six months. Much longer for Brandon. But I guess things keep turning up here, in the form of stupid spam comments, and so all the space the site has is used up. So our host is shutting us down, because he needs his space, and anyway, we're not hardly using it.

It was quite the experience, though.

For anyone who read us, thanks.

Edit--Looks like we're dealing with it, and this may not be the end after all. Lots of clearance going on. We'll see.

Further edit--Sean unleashed a whirling dervish of spam destruction, and we're back on, with no real problems of comment accumulation. Perhaps we'll even open the comments feature again, but I don't know.

Once there was a girl who came out drinking with us all the time, who took a run for the number one sponsor position and almost made it, and then very suddenly ceased to appear. Oh, at the end she made a few more appearances, and then she and I went to Italy together for a couple weeks, but then really, she was just gone.

In the last few weeks, she's resurfaced, and now, in a wonderful turn around, she's coming out with us tonight. She gets married in a week, and moves to New Orleans in two, so this is the very last chance, perhaps ever, that I'll have to go out with her. I'm rather glad she's making the time. We're going to new bars, so maybe we can get her, for old time's sake, to sponsor. Which would be funny, as we're done, but then, we have had one or two sponsors since, so it's not unheard of.

It was a strange sort of 570 reunion. Bridgit had just gotten married, because that was why there was a reception, you see, and so we had come to attend, given our invites last week when we went out, after it was evident that there was still a great level of comfort present among us all.

There was a table with our old sponsors LeeAnne and Sandy (who did her own mini-quest for those keeping score). Bridgit's Mom and the Russian Baroness were there, and the RB threatened again to take Brandon off to St. Petersburg to be her pool boy. And then of course Bridgit was there, a bit late because she had instructions to let the guests mingle a bit before she arrived. And we were in Cafe Campagne, where we had drunk a drink as a rather large group during a night that ended with me pouring a glass of water over a sponsor's head for reasons still murky with alcohol.

It was delightful. There was good wine, PBR, tasty food, the company of old friends, and a wedding to be celebrated. So that all was well. Good times.

Congratulations to Bridgit, who has a new last name and is moving and all, but will always be one of 570's favorite people.