I am not that picky about what I drink. Whether is it is fine taste of the top shelf, or the bitter after taste of the well, I like my drinks to range appropriately.

Sure, you will find the occasional bar where you can get high quality liquor for very reasonable price but usually these places are making up for a lack in atmosphere, clientelle, or location. So they lure you in with a cheap, high quality drink. Of course this also means that you have to suffer with the environment it is served in. On the other end you have the cardinal sin of bars, and that comes in the form of over priced crap.

There is absolutely nothing worse than paying $5 or more for absolute and total crap. If they charge me $5 and they serve me monarch, then I better be getting the waitress over here making with the favors because otherwise I end up walking out of the place with a limp cause my ass hurts.

The rules are fairly easy, so why can't places follow them:

1) If you serve crap, charge low ($3-$4) - Goldies
2) If you serve quality, charge quality ($5-$6) - 727
3) If you have your clientelle trapped with no escape (Ball games, Airplanes) charge whatever you like - Safeco Field
4) If there are other, better bars within a block of your establishment, charge a similar or less expensive price than them, especially when you are using cheaper crap - Von's is the major violator of this rule

There is a corrolary to this, that I only recently encountered, and that has to do with the fact that size matters. Now ladies, be quiet in the peanut gallery. I am talking about the size of the glass here. When you serve a drink, it should be at least average tumbler size. If you are going to serve crap in a small glass, then you should be beat about the head and shoulders or give it away for a $1.

However, I have noticed that many places, at least the nicer places, will serve you in big glasses, with a generous dose. I like this. I like this alot. But skimping on the booze, because you put in a tall glass, is uncalled for. I will say that I have not witnessed this yet, but I suspect that I will find it.

So in a nut shell remember:

1) The price of the drinks should be equivilant to the quality of the booze
2) Never under pour
3) Don't insult me with a tiny glass

-w00t

I don't know what the deal is. I live in Ballard, a rather antiquated part of the city in some ways, and all sorts of places are closed on Mondays. Fine, they're open Saturdays, so be it. I'm sure it's some sort of old fashioned deal, and that's all there is to it.

What's bugging me is the trend of bars closed on Mondays. It became recently noticable when we were out with Melody on the 1st of July, a Monday, and discovered that the Crocodile, where we were meeting, was closed Monday, and only Monday. It continued later that night, when the Frontier Room was also closed Monday. I'd noticed it before in Madrona, where another restaurant/loungey kind of place was also closed Monday.

What the fuck is up with this? People like to get their drink on Mondays as well as the rest of the week. And I know there's no shortage of bars (Lord how I know) but I still can't believe it. Why all the Monday closures? Get the fuck out there and serve up some drinks. I'm tired of it.

Six years ago, I vowed never to return to the Ram. And I hadn't, except now I had to for the quest. And I won't again.

The Ram Sucks.

The difference between bar napkins and coasters was pointed out to us at the Courtyard by Mariott by Kim. To be honest I never really paid it much attention since we were always only having one drink. Now though I find that it really bothers me that we see so many bar napkins.

Sure Bar Napkins are cheaper but they are inferior to Coasters to every other way. Let me list the ways:

1) They stick to the bottom of the glass
2) They disintigrate after only one drink
3) You can't do bar tricks with them (flipping them and then catchin them)
4) They are never attractive
5) They just create more waste to fill up our landfills

Bar Napkins should be handy incase you need one for your gum or to hock a loogie into, but otherwise they should stay from my drink.

-wOOt

The restaurant is one of those Fondue joints, but we were there for the bar, so the rest of it was kind of a mystery. They said they were closing shortly, but that turned out to be an error in chronolgy, so we could've lingered longer than we did.

We being me and Brandon and Clarkie and Gwen, later joined by Chris and Dave.

We sat up at the bar, ordered drinks from Adam the bartender that were certainly acceptable, but nothing special. When Clarkie mentioned the quest, we were forced to spend some time explaining it, which resulted in something very annoying.

The long haired gamer waiter person spoke.

Oh, he had already spoken, but not in such irritating fashion. What he said was, "That's less than two drinks a night."

No shit.

Then he said, "I drink two drinks a night, easy."

Really.

And where did he drink those two drinks a night? "At home, pretty much."

Any jackass can drink two drinks a night at home. And evidentally, at least one does. But there's a word for that, and it's called Alcoholic. When you proudly boast of going home to have at least two drinks a night, and you're doing it only at home, you're pretty much an alkie. Which is cool, but it doesn't mean you can say we're moving slowly.

Whatever his name is, I'd like to see long-hair try to make it through 100 days of this quest. I'd like to see him make it to bar 173 at all, in any amount of time.

I'd like to say the jackass didn't impact my opinion of the Melting Pot. Sadly, I'm petty that way.

The Melting Pot bar pretty much sucks. While the drinks are okay, they're kind of spendy, and the portion of the staff that roams, rather than staying behind the bar, is apparently full of fucking idiots (100% of those we spoke with). I'd advise not going there at all, ever.

Props to Gwen for picking up the first of four sponsorships for the night. It took forever to get that rolling, but we had much fun later.

We also ran into a couple sitting just past Chris and Dave who would resurface later in the night, but that'll be mentioned at the appropriate point.

I own a Saturn. I like my 3-door coup (How did you trick out the door?) Up till now, my service agreement has been great. I paid about $650 up front and then when I drive it up every 3000 miles they tune it. But now, I am nearing the end of the agreement (36,000) and if I go even 1 mile over (36,001) they don’t (and won’t) have to give me my 36,000 mile tune up. This would not be a big deal if it were just a $20 oil change (they have dicked me on one those as well, see below) but rather it is more like a $250 tune up.

So I miscalculated slightly and realized that I had to stop driving my car (me being 80 miles out from 36K) in order to not go over before their first available appointment. The reason I am ranting so much about this, is two fold: The first and foremost, is that I paid for X number of tune-ups. Those tune-ups were all accounted for in the purchase price and each tune-up I miss or am denied is money in their pocket. This is made worse by the fact that when I bought the agreement I had already had an oil change. The prick manager went all Glengary Glenross and refused to discount me that initial oil change ($21) which is already paid for in the coverage. Instead he said snidely, “but I will happily pick up the oil change you are in here for now.” Prick.

These two service policies have really ticked me off and make me doubt whether I would buy a Saturn again.

The second reason I am pissed is that in order to take care of my driving obligations last night (8/22/02) I needed to rent a car for $45 rather than use mine for the freakin’ 40 miles that I drove. God I’m pissed off.

So let this be a warning out there to all you people who are thinking about buying a Saturn/Service agreement be warned. One mile over and you are taking up it up … well you know. I suspect that this goes for every other car company out there, but Saturn claims to be the friendliest. Yeah Right.

-wOOt

We are now firmly in the 200s and have easily broken the 40% mark of completion. Where once we could go to a block, any block, and hit 4 bars, this is no longer the case. We are leaving the foot loose and fancy free times of our youth. We are now entering middle age.

Here we will need to pick with more caution. Here we will need to take the time to plot a course and choose a path. With the Pioneer Square joint cover clubs done, there are few big ticket areas to hit. We still have the south curve of Westlake (Daniel’s Broiler, Buca, etc …) to do, but that is not going to be the uproarious good time that Pioneer Square was.

We still have lots of downtown, Queen Anne, and ID bars, but now things are becoming more difficult. I can see the time when we hit bar 450 (did I just say bar 450, gah) when we need to plot out 2 bars that we can hit in an hour, rather than 4 bars in an hour and 20 (like we just did recently.)

We really have matured on this quest though. It seems weird to say that, but perhaps I should clarify. We have not so much matured personally, as we have become much more savvy and clever in how we approach these nights. We know who might be willing to go out on a specific night, we (generally) know when and how to pick up a lot of these crappy places so that we don’t waste them. Sometimes a place like El Gaucho sneaks up on you though, but that is just what makes this quest special.

We are still discovering a lot, but it takes less and less time to get a feel for the place and determine whether the bartender is worth talking to.

Anyhow, this is just a small rant and a small glimpse. I do want to say thank you again to all of our sponsors who help to keep this bizarre quest viable. Keep coming out with us and we will keep showing you a good time.

--wOOt

So I have been lead to believe that we might have somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 readers or possibly even more. I have no way to tell though.

I do have a complaint about those readers we do have. It is simply this:

We have forums and we are willing to chat, but do you guys ever use them?

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Maybe you don't even want to talk to us. Hey that's fine. I know for a fact that we have hot chicks cool cats, and suave gentleman reading this site. There are people here who you want to meet. Trust me.

On a different note, I am getting a little tired of seeing that I posted the last message in each and every forum that we have. Sure I sit in front of the computer all day with nothing to do but wait for someone to post, but that is no excuse.

I know that our readers must have something interesting to say. We get entertaining comments. Now I would like to see some chatter as well.

That having been said:

-wOOt

I would first like to cast scorn upon the Emerald Star. This “Bar” is listed as an actual establishment, rather than as a ship, which would be the truth. When we tried to go there we discovered that the ship was out of dock and there would be no drinking there. Because of this, we were going to fall short of bar 285 and would have to find another.

Past the Lake Union stretch is Siam and Azteca. They are about a 10 minute walk away and it was decided we should try to go up there for bar 285. What I did not know was that Bridgit had called Siam and knew that it was already closed. Neither myself, Melody, or Sean was informed of this issue.

It was decided that we would walk up to those places. I assumed that we were going to Siam. I had fallen back in the string of people walking. Back there was Sean and Melody as well. Now I love Melody to death, but when she had been drinking, she gets playfully violent. It is usually not a problem, but she is incredibly strong, incredibly skilled (at defending herself) and knows all of the bad things that you can go to another person.

As we were walking up, Melody and Sean and I were “playing.” I don’t really know how else to describe it. My only really complaint is that she got me in this really heinous nose lock (I know who would of thought there was such a thing.) I will simply say that she marked me and that I am not going to play with her any more.

The 3 of us lost sight of the rest of them and then turned off the road to go to Siam. While we on the 10 minute stumble to Siam (and back) the rest of the group back tracked past where we were. We got to Siam and they waved us away. We started to make our way to Azteca when the call came. Wolf called Sean to let him know they were back at T.G.I.Friday. We could not leave Siam since Scott (Melody’s husband) was supposed to meet us there. Thus I started to walk back to pick up the car. I would pick up the car and come and get them once Scott had showed up.

So I walk the 10 minutes back only to find out that Scott is with the rest of the group in front of T.G.I.F. We then stand around and wait for Sean and Melody to come back from Siam. I finally get tired of it and go and pick up my car. I bring the car around and everyone is standing around no doing anything. Nothing is being decided and I can’t be bothered to get involved. I am pissed off at this point. I was bleeding, my leg was acting up, I was sober, and no decision could be made. I gave Jason the list and decided to take a nap while listening to a mix CD of mine (it is both the new Elvis Song and “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash.)

Finally a decision is made and we go. It took to long. There was too much miscommunication and I don’t like getting ass kicked by Melody. As you may notice I seem to have a bit of a chip about this but it should pass. It may just be too fresh.

Anyhow, everything was great until the quest reached bar 285. Oh, I should mention that we ended going to the Lobo Saloon & Café that had a loud terrible punk band. At least it had more personality for bar 285 than either Siam or Azteca would have.

-wOOt

We were going to go to Emerald Star, which was ostensibly a bar in the same building as Daniel's Broiler. But that was not to be. Because although the people at Daniel's assured us it was behind them, there were only docks there. Which dishearted me, until a passerby leaving the dock told us that it was there. A sushi restaurant, he said. At the end of the dock.

So we headed down the dock, and along other docks, and looked into places, and eventually found the empty slip.

It was a fucking boat. The Emerald Star was out cruising Lake Union.

But it's not over. Because apparently, it sits in port on Sunday mornings, and perhaps at other times, when it has a brunch and apparently serves sushi, and so, despite our no boats pledge, we may still have to go there.

The worst part is, it tossed off our count, precipitating the Lobo Saloon into our equation, which really, really was terrible.

Oh well. It was an experience for the half way point, and better than many we almost picked.

So what I am including below is an email that I just received from a new reader. He had asked me a question that I happily responded to (concerning gin and juice.) Then I received the following letter. I am posting the letter as I think he makes some interesting points that I would like to respond to.

------The Original Letter Unedited----------

Just in my own humble opinion, if you were to come in to my bar and order a "gin and juice" and then tell me you were reviewing local bars, I wouldn't give you all that much creedence.

Also what is the point of 570 bars? Who funds you guys, yourselfs?

Not to be rude, but you seem to let everyone know you are going to review their
establishment and thats why your there, hoping for some free hand outs, and then you rate them well if you receive free shit and if some extraordinary level of service or personalism comes from the bartender. Isn't the point of a review kinda supposed to be a review of what an ordinary customer would get if they visited the bar.

Secondly I read a comment about you bashing a bartender at Pesos for giving more attention to the "beautiful babies" and not giving you and your friends enough attention. Well duh, the best advertising any young, trendy bar such as Pesos can have is word of mouth about good looking girls hanging out there. As a bartender, we are told to take care of the good looking girls, so they hang out there and bring in dudes to buy them drinks and shots. Pretty high expectations, and silly if you ask me.

I admire the time and effort you all put into the project, but your doing no one a
service with your current way about reviewing places. The one thing that bothers me is the way I stumbled across your website, via google search on Ball room. I just hope the readers are intelligent enough to realize you guys aren't experts, or connoisseurs and are just doing it for fun, on your own dime, and they don't neglect visiting a place because you didn't get free stuff there or you had to pay a cover.

chris c
--------------End Original Letter------------------

And here is my response:

> if you were to come in to my bar and order a "gin and juice" and then tell me you were reviewing local bars, I wouldn't give you all that much credence.

Most don’t. So, I’m curious, you don't happen to bartend at Von's or Cassis?

>Also what is the point of 570 bars?

The specified goal is: To drink in every Spirits Serving Establishment in the City of Seattle.
The point of the 570 Bars Quest: There is no point. That is the beauty of it. This is the personal quest of two guys who were looking for someway to spice up their otherwise humdrum lives.

>Who funds you guys, yourselfs?

We are primarily self funded. While we are happy that our friends (and people who became our friends due to the quest) have chosen to sponsor us, but really, they simply allow the quest to complete more quickly.

>Not to be rude,

Why is it that every time somebody (including myself) starts a statement with “Not to be rude,” They are immediately rude and often accusatory?

>but you seem to let everyone know you are going to review their
establishment and thats why your there, hoping for some free hand outs, and then you rate them well if you receive free shit and if some extraordinary level of service or personalism comes from the bartender.

Let me give you the reality of the situation since you are talking about things that you don’t seem to understand. We spend about 20 minutes to an hour in each bar (not including drive time, parking time, walking time, or getting lost time) which tallies up to anywhere from Six to Ten hours in bars each week. Then we each spend about 5 – 15 minutes writing each bar review. That means we spend roughly 25-40 minutes (on average) of our life on each bar. To say that we are doing all of this work to get “free shit” is, not to be rude, a completely asinine (absurd) statement.

Oh, there is something that I should also explain. You are probably assuming that we walk in, slap our card down and say, “Hi, we are the 570 bar guys. We are reviewing your place for our website. Treat us right or we will screw you.” In that, you would be very, very wrong. The card is always the last thing to come out. We sit down. We have our drink. We may chat with the bartender if they seem friendly, and then finally, if we have a good feeling about the place and the bartender we give them a card. Over half of the places we have been to never even knew we were there. Sometimes this is because the bartender was to busy to talk to us, we were with a large group of people, we just generally didn’t like the place or felt that it was too “scary” to draw attention to ourselves.

Any person in the world can get themselves “free shit.” In fact hustlers make a full time job of it. Do we get excited when a bartender comps us a drink or gives a free shot? Hell yes. Does it happen often? Nope. Not at all. Have we ever gotten a free drink from someone who didn’t like us? Well, only once that I can think of, and that was at Tiki Bobs. Our “free shit” does come partially from what we do, but it also comes from the fact that we are personable and we entertain the bartenders with something that often interests them and that THEY think is very cool.

>Isn't the point of a review kinda supposed to be a review of what an ordinary customer would get if they visited the bar.

When Jason writes a review, he is reviewing the experience more than he is reviewing the bar. When I review the bar, I tend to be more (but not totally) objective. It has been my experience that the places where we are treated nice or where we have a good time, are generally good places all around (Elliott’s, El Gaucho, Temple Billards). But this is the eternal struggle of all reviewers. Most reviewers go multiple times to a place to get an “average” feel of a place. We do not have this luxury. We simply can’t afford it in time or money.

I won’t debate the point of “ordinary customer” since I have already explained our method which I imagine is not the method you thought we used.

>Secondly I read a comment about you bashing a bartender at Pesos for giving more attention to the "beautiful babies" and not giving you and your friends enough attention.

I not asking for equal attention. I am asking for a basic level of good service. The bartender at Pesos would walk past us, without looking at us (using the bartender/waitress no eye contact trick) and then walk right over to make sure the ladies were well taken care of. I can respect treating the ladies well, but ignoring your regular customers is not called for. Oh, did I mention that we did NOT card Pesos. They never even knew who we were.

>I admire the time and effort you all put into the project, but your doing no one a service with your current way about reviewing places.

What are we, fucking Fodor’s? No! We are two guys reviewing the places where we have been because we thought someone out there might be interested in reading about a strange and bizarre journey. If we have given anyone out there, even the smallest amount of entertainment then this quest has more than made up for it. It is a lot of work, way more than we ever expected, but I am glad that I am able to put something out there that makes someone smile, gives them a better idea of how to spend their evening, or inspires people (yes, we have people who want to duplicate this in other cities.) The reviews are a bonus. Not the purpose.

>The one thing that bothers me is the way I stumbled across your website, via google search on Ball room. I just hope the readers are intelligent enough to realize you guys aren't experts, or connoisseurs and are just doing it for fun ...

Oh boo hoo. The web is the poster child for ‘Let the Buyer Beware’. There is so much crap on the web now, I am surprised that you found anything even remotely close to what you were looking for by typing Ball room. You also probably got six porn sites, two supermarkets with supervised ball rooms, and a couple of dance halls. What we have to say is as useful or valid as any other review site I have seen on the web. Generally all you get on places like Citysearch is a fucking useless wanker description of the place and a rating from the 3 people who liked (or hated) the place enough to bother logging back onto the site after visiting the establishment, just to give it a rating. You try looking up some of the reviews that “real” sites give and compare them to what we say. I think you will quickly find that what we have to say about a place is a lot more real than what you will get from them. You get full disclosure from us (“they comped us X”) and if we were there at an awkward time (4 PM on a Saturday) we generally mention it. You don’t get that kind of disclosure from any of these sites.

So Chris, is summary, I wanted to thank you for giving me a spring board to get this all off my chest. Your questions really helped me to solidify my viewpoint on this quest and gave me a way to rant about all of these issues in a way that did not make it seem like I was pulling all of this shit out of thin air.

I hope you will be a regular reader of our site and if you are interested in coming out, or sponsoring us, drop us line.

-wOOt

So several of my entries, post two days ago, just vanished.

I have no idea why.

This sucks.

I am getting so freakin tired of Mexican Restaurants with bars. So far I think we have been to somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 + Mexican places, probably more. Now I know that there are tons of Chinese Lounges, Irish Pubs, and Steak Houses, but even so, the Mexicans Restaurants rule by sheer numbers. At first they were a god send. We got free chips every time we sat down and the drinks were strong. But as time progresses I feel their weight crushing me every time Jason says, “Are you up for another Mexican place?” “No I am not, but it has to be done.”

There is just something about them that is starting to rub me the wrong way and I think it is the “festive” decorations. I can only stand to look at so many brightly colored Piñatas, Villas painted on the walls, coat after coat of bright yellow or orange paint and then there is the Mexican music. I like Mexican music in small doses, but I would swear that they all ordered the same CD from the Mexican Supply Store and are playing the same 6 tracks. How it doesn’t drive the staff insane is beyond me.

I started to feel the same way about the Irish Pubs, but we haven’t seen any of those lately. Plus Irish Pubs usually do food as a sideline, but the drinking is the main purpose. There are no Mexican Bars in Seattle (that I have seen.) Rather they are all restaurants with a small bar or maybe a lounge. The bars are always utilitarian and uninteresting. They are festive like a house decked in Christmas lights on February 1st. It is forced and tiresome.

Please someone help me and spare me of any other Mexican Restaurants that I must drink at. Someone … please … help ….

-wOOO … *gasp* ….Ot

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.

We were supposed to meet a bunch of people at Club Medusa at 7PM. No one arrived there on time (except for the one guy who we did not know so he stood around outside waiting till our mutual friend arrived.)

We were supposed to meet a bunch of people here, but apparently the concept of on time totally escaped them. Everyone I called was either not there or were “just getting ready to go out.” I think that we are spoiled. Jason and I are always “ready to go” and everyone else assumes the time to go out is actually the time to get ready. Bah.

I am not innocent in all of this, but why is it that whenever you give a time for people to meet to go out, no one is ever on time. You can’t blame traffic at 9PM but I suppose you can blame parking. Why don’t people get ready with enough time to actually drive to where they are going. They could get ready or drive there and be on time, but not both.

I am almost always within 15 minutes of being on time. I am on time if I am the organizer. I don’t know why I am bitching, it is just human nature. I guess it just pisses me off and I want everyone to stop being fashionably late and just fucking show up when they said that they would.

-wOOt

What were we thinking? Of course service bars (which really means restaurants) are going to be busy on Friday night (and by the same token Saturday night.) These two dining nights are going to be their busiest and here we are, 3 dumbasses who just want a drink and we want them to make it quick. It is no wonder that it took us so long.

That combined with the fact that I kept letting them give me a menu. I feel bad if I don’t at least preserve the illusion that I might be interested in food. Really Jason probably has it right on this one. Just tell them up front and maybe they will serve you quicker. I believe though that if you tell them, they will ignore you more since you are not really going to be making any money for them.

Anyhow, the service bars were all slow as shit and ultimately we only were able to hit 2 of them in a night when we really wanted to hit 4. Oh well, life happens.

-wOOt

So I have just learned that the Camlin Hotel has been bought and the new owners are going to get rid of the Cloud Room.

I heap nothing but scorn upon TrendWest resorts who have decided that they should build penthouse suites for the few rather than keep the Cloud Room for the many.

I doubt a letter writing campaign would do anything but as it turns out their world headquarters are right here in Redmond Washington.

The secretary just came back to ask me why I wanted to talk to someone about the Camlin Purchase. I will say, that while I am sitting on hold, that Sylvia, the woman who answered the phone was very nice.

Well, Sylvia just came back on to tell me that the person I had to speak with not available, so instead I got her information.

Contact should be to:

Sonia Tolbert
1-425-498-2500 x 2687
9805 Willows RD
Redmond, WA 98052

SoniaT@trendwestresorts.com or click here

I will be sending email. I know I should write a letter, but ... well ...

So nothing will happen, but I least I will feel better.

--B

There's been a bunch, but I'm only now posting them, because I haven't posted anything in a month and more. God, that's terrible.

Fleming's Steakhouse closed some months ago, although I only heard about it last month. Harbor Place, where the most remarkable thing about the place was that it had an airplane bathroom, is also gone. Functional Fuel looks totally dead. The Belltown Pub is gone, but I didn't care for it much, so oh well. Figaro Bistro, an overpriced place apparently much beloved by Seattle's French community, closed a couple weeks ago.

There's probably more, but that's all I know about right now.

We shut off the comments feature some time ago, not because we don't like comments, but because of the endless supply of spam comments we were getting. However, the old comments, where they were, were able to still take new ones. So for about 250 of the entries, you could still comment, maybe 1 in 6 or 7.

Friday night, and into Saturday very early morning, over about 6 hours total, those 250 or so entries got hit by 2000 comments. About 8 each. Which we have to go through and manually remove, one by one, because the system isn't well set up to do it any other way. The entries we can take out easier, but the comments, well, no.

Sigh. I just did about 150 of them. 7%. It took about 12 minutes. So I've got hours of work to do on this. I'm not happy.

But if I need online gambling, boy howdy do I know where to find it.