Joe Szilagyi

In no real or specific order, these are probably my favorite local Seattle institutions and places, since we’ve moved out here in 2005.

• Best new bookstore: Elliot Bay Book Company in Pioneer Square. All wood, all creaky floors, all nice helpful stuff. It’s scale is absurd, too, for an independent book store.
• Best used bookstore: Twice Sold Tales (the Capitol Hill one, not the one in the University District, but that one is good too). Inexpensive, great selection, and the place is lined with sleepy, bored, and surly cats.
• Best coffee shop: Seattle Coffee Works at the Market. Their stuff is just the best, sweetest coffee. Runner up: Espresso Vivace’s little sidewalk bar on Broadway.
• Best food shopping: Pike Place Market. Duh.
• Best grocery store: Safeway, hands down.
• Best park: I really like Volunteer Park, but I have to go with Alki Beach in West Seattle. Rocky expanse of water, bitterly cold and windy in the winter–it reminds me of home. And one of the best views of the downtown Seattle skyline. Nail in the coffin: when the sun sets over the Olympic Mountains to the west, around 10pm in the summertime, Alki is hands down the best place to watch it. On a clear day, the sun ignites the whole sky with what I’ve been told (who knows if it’s scientifically accurate?) remaining particulates from the Mount St. Helen’s eruption. It looks like the sky is on fire, and the mountains as if someone ripped a slice out of the sky into blackness. Gorgeous.
  

  View of the Space Needle from Alki Beach.

• Best museum: The Museum of Flight at Boeing Field. Fine arts? Modern art? Sculptures on the waterfront? Yeah, sure. But do you have a stealth fighter docked in your museum? I didn’t think so.
• Best movie theater: Cinerama on 4th Avenue. Fantastic sound system. Fantastic screen. Gigantic, enormous screen, bordering Imax levels. They show old films sometimes–Lawrence of Arabia is a regular there in the off seasons from the big blockbuster releases. Sit in the balcony, dead center, about 4-5 rows up for the magical sweet spot.
• Best comic book store: Golden Age Collectables. It’s a retail Disneyland for geeks and nerds in every way.
• Best way to get around: King County Metro bus service. To be honest, it’s almost like having Boston’s train lines just… everywhere. They even put a lot of their information out in the public, for people to make tools like One Bus Away. This is the reason I do not miss having a car any longer (for a city of our nature, size, and scale, a surprising amount of the population relies heavily on Metro).
• Best cheeseburger: Charlie’s on Broadway. Runner-up: a Dick’s Deluxe, any of their locations. Greasy, vile, perfect.
• Best breakfast: The Athenian Inn at the Market, for their wonderful Hangtown Fry. An omelette with oysters? Yes, please. Even better with liberal hot sauce usage and a Bloody Mary.
• Best place to see a show: The Triple Door, hands down, full stop. Runner up: The Showbox at the Market.
• Best pizza: Pagliacci; Grand Salami Primo. If only a) they delivered before 4pm; b) they weren’t so pricey…
• Best local beer: Pike Place Place Brewery, “Kilt Lifter Ale”.
  

  Nectar of the gods.

Amazing, that it’s been already one year since hatred and improper out-of-state financial carpetbagging by Mormon extremists conned California into rejecting equal civil rights via Proposition 8. The fact that civil rights, or any human rights, are something that can be voted on is a whole other filthy mess that needs to be legally challenged up to our Supreme Court level. At least in Washington state, when the hatred of Referendum 71 was presented–similar to California’s Proposition of hate–our state voters smartly and overwhelming rejected it despite more out-of-state financial carpetbagging by Christian extremists from Oregon and other areas.

The people of Maine were not so fortunate, where it was reported that some Catholic churches conducted secondary collections to help fund anti-gay voting.

Like women’s rights and interracial marriage, delegating the question of equality to the whims of the state level are fundamentally flawed and unethical. Like what happened with abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973 and the rights of blacks to marry whites in Loving V. Virginia in 1966, I’m thinking this won’t end until someone can challenge it to the Supreme Court. You simply don’t vote on “rights”. The biases of any religion cannot be allowed to affect the lives of all your other citizens who don’t follow that religion, full stop.

It’s gotten so bad now one year later with dangerous religious extremism trying to sway American legal destiny that the Catholic Church announced it would terminate all charity work in our nation’s capital if Washington D.C. legalized gay marriage locally, in revenge.

We’re now getting closer daily to the desires of the far Right for concepts like dominionism and Christian doctrine to be our version of an American Sharia law. Both ideals are patently dangerous, wrong for a secular multi-cultural nation like ours, and frankly evil if imposed on everyone who doesn’t subscribe to those limited precepts. If it happens, our nation is pretty much doomed to become the next Iran.

There were nationwide protests a year ago this weekend, where millions of people opposed the religious hatred and civil rights violations last year in California. These were my photos from the Seattle protests:

Washington State has a mail-ballot system, so that we can vote ahead of election day by up to three weeks. On the six “big” elections, as it applies to the City of Seattle, this is how I will be voting:

§ Initiative 1033: Oppose

This is the stupidest bit of “citizen governance” that I’ve ever seen in my entire life, or even heard of being proposed. It’s so stupid, in fact, that it’s fooling people into thinking it’s a good thing by hiding it’s stupidity in plain sight. It’s an initiative to lower taxes! Yippee, what could go wrong there? Read on.

The existence of I-1033 is essentially the State of Washington being trolled by far-Right lobbyists from various extreme anti-taxation camps. How bad will the state be if we had I-1033 in place for a decade? Even if the recession breaks 100% on January 1st, 2010, Washington State will be locked into the nightmare financial situation we’re in today. In most ways it’s an end run around calling it outright a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a sham concept pushed by the ultra-right and anti-government groups.

As far as I know, the only real “taxpayer bill of rights” that’s somehow become law was in the state of Colorado, and it caused so many problems for them that over several years they legislatively neutered it into irrelevance. The Colorado TABOR, as they call it, has been a disaster for them. We can’t even allow this craziness to get a foothold here, and have to stop the fringe and wealthy barbarians at the gate now. If we don’t, we’d end up cutting all manner of social services, teachers–everything.

This initiative exists to serve no purpose but to save money for the selfish wealthy. I have zero desire to live in a Washington State that looks like a Mad Max film.

Thankfully, it looks like it’s finally starting to show signs of death in polling. Why is I-1033 stupid? Simple: It ties government spending to current levels, and forces the state and local governments to refund collected taxes above those limits–and ties all of this to the level of spending and tax revenues for the preceding year. It basically forces all state and local governments to freeze their taxation at 2009 levels, which are the lowest they’ve been since the GREAT DEPRESSION.

I-1033 lock us into that approximate level of government taxation and revenue for the entire time period that the initiative is law. Even if we need to raise funding for critical reasons, it forces you to cut spending elsewhere. Need more teachers? Cut homeless shelters. Need more homeless shelters? Cut some animal shelters. Need some more animal shelters? Cut some teachers, and so on.

Vote oppose on I-1033.

§ Referendum 71: Support

Besides I-1033, R-71 is the huge war currently rolling, which has even reached the United States Supreme Court before it’s even been fully voted on, and there are a host of side lawsuits already underway. Every last bit is being fought over, up to and including anti-gay groups trying to get Washington State’s campaign finance laws overturned as an “exemption” so that they can flood the state with anonymous (literally!) money for more advertising. From Approve Referendum 71.org, this is why point by point we need Referendum 71 to pass:

Gay and lesbian families need domestic partnership laws to provide essential protections for their families. Committed couples who want to take care of each other should be allowed to visit each other in the hospital, take family and medical leave when a loved one is seriously ill, and have insurance coverage. By voting to Approve Referendum 71, you will vote to ensure that all families are provided the same protections under the law.

Families with children need the protections provided by domestic partnership laws, especially when a parent dies. By voting to Approve Referendum 71, you will vote to ensure that all children are provided the same protections under the law.

Seniors need the protections provided by domestic partnership laws. For seniors, domestic partnerships mean that their hard-earned social security, military or pension benefits are not put at risk. By voting to Approve Referendum 71, you will vote to ensure that all seniors are provided the same protections under the law.

Police officers and firefighters who risk their lives to protect our communities need domestic partnership laws if they are hurt or killed in the line of duty, so that their families are taken care of by their pension or workers’ compensation. By voting to Approve Referendum 71, you will vote to ensure that all of our communities’ first responders’ families are provided the same protections under the law.

Short version: If R-71 isn’t approved, unmarried couples and same-sex couples in Washington State will lose all their legal protections, as R-71 will negate existing state legislation that gives all of these tens of thousands of couples various rights. A vote against R-71 is an endorsement of hatred, bigotry, prejudice, and unchristian ideals of intolerance. Vote support.

§ Housing Levy: Support

This one is simple, and a no-brainer. Vote yes. By voting to support the new extension of the Housing Levy, we keep the annual funding from the city to maintain or expand affordable housing at their current levels, plus inflation. You’d have to hate poor people to oppose this.

§ King County Executive: Dow Constantine

Simple: if you want someone who is in alignment with traditional Seattle and King County values, you want Dow Constantine. If you want someone who’s gone on the record as supporting a woman’s right to choose, you want Dow Constantine. If you want someone that will work to protect existing mass transit, that our region relies on, you want Dow Constantine. If you want someone who is willing to move forward with the voter-approved and voter-endorsed plan to expand light rail over the planned, budgeted, and paid-for East Link corridor over the I-90 bridge, you want Dow Constantine. If you want someone who wasn’t previously affiliated with an extremist right-wing foundation that praises conservatism, and that advocated for the teaching of Christian creationism in public schools, you want Dow Constantine. If you want someone that hasn’t contributed to the election campaign of socially regressive politicians like Mike Huckabee… do you see a trend? Dow Constantine.

§ Seattle City Attorney: Pete Holmes

This is easy.

Read this.

Then read this.

Then read this. And this. And this. And this.

Can you see where this is heading? Voting for Holmes is voting to endorse the existence of a viable nightlife and culture in Seattle. It also means voting for a City Attorney that will put the needs of his constituents and the people of Seattle first. Vote for Pete Holmes.

§ Seattle Mayor: Mike McGinn

McGinn gets my vote over Joe Mallahan for several simple, bullet pointed reasons.

• McGinn has more civics experience than Mallahan.
• McGinn’s campaign has been run by a volunteer, grassroots organization, unlike Mallahan’s paid staff.
• McGinn is always willing to speak directly to the media. Mallahan speaks through the campaign.
• McGinn’s views on the Alaskan Way Viaduct are generally inline with my own. It needs to come down yesterday, not six years from now.
• McGinn came from running a community non-profit. Mallahan came from the corporate world. Little thing, big difference.
• I agree with McGinn’s positions on transportation.
• I agree with McGinn’s positions on the city budget.
• I strongly agree with what he’s saying on land use in Seattle.
• I disagree in various ways with Mallahan’s positions, and don’t feel he’s clueful about what Seattle truly needs.
• As a final game breaker, McGinn has a nice beard.

§ Summary:

I-1033: NO
R-71: YES
Housing levy: YES
King County Exec: Constantine
City Attorney: Holmes
Mayor: McGinn

I just realized this October marks our fourth anniversary in Seattle. Time flies too fast…

L-R: Space Needle, Seattle Center in the summer; 2nd Avenue with what counts as our bad weather during summertime; sunrise in our neighborhood; former King County Exec Ron Sims during a rally; people dancing at Westlake; Julie & Andi under the Needle.

If you’re not from Seattle or Washington State, this may bore you and/or go over your head.

This isn’t surprising, but I hope they litigate the hell out of it. From the article:

Public records from the state Department of Transportation (WSDOT) contain a number of disturbing revelations about the process that led WSDOT to move forward with the deep-bore tunnel on the downtown waterfront early this year.

Emails, internal memos, and other agency documents reveal that WSDOT appointed longtime advocates for the deep-bore tunnel as “experts” on tunnel costs; redistributed tunnel costs to make the price appear lower; and failed to study the surface/transit/I-5 alternative, subbing in a faux four-lane “surface” alternative that included none of the transit and surface-street improvements in the surface/transit/I-5 proposal.

I went on a tour of the Alaskan Way Viaduct that the deep-bore tunnel is slated to replace back in March. I’m wondering now how much of what seemed like a well balanced, reasonable series of explanations and science presented there were in hindsight political spin and out-and-out nonsense. I’ve got photos here, if you’re curious what the viaduct tour is. For people not from here, it’s our waterfront elevated freeway that needs to be desperately replaced, and that has been at the center of endless legal battles on both the state and local level. It’s especially bad if they played dirty politics here, since this deal to build the tunnel had the City of Seattle on the hook for any and all cost overruns. Not the state.

Read the rest: http://publicola.net/?p=16697

I mailed my state representatives in Olympia late night on Monday, October 19th 2009, for the 36th WA state congressional district. It was based on this submission I did concurrently to Slashdot, which was published by Slashdot early in the morning on Tuesday the 20th: Legal War For WA State Sunshine Law

I wrote to them:

Hello,

I am copying all my 36th reps on this. Please introduce something like this. The I-1033 & R-71 obfuscation is a cancer on WA state. Proposed wording:

###

All Initiatives and Referendums in Washington State are public activities for registered voters, and for purposes of open government, transparency, and so that voters can check all such activities to ensure they are not falsely misrepresented, shall be public record.

The State of Washington shall publish the full names, date of voter registration, town or municipality of the registered voter in Washington State, and the date and location in which they signed the initiative or referendum petition, in a public manner on the Internet for all Washington State residents to review.

The data must be accessible to the public on the Internet with no registration required, in both a searchable (“free, online”) web-based format in addition to normal “offline” formats.

All state generated referendum data will be considered a matter of public record for the good of the community and transparency. Actual public elections and votes will remain private, as subject to other laws.

###

Please get this proposed in Olympia as law. Get it passed, and then if the anti-democracy types want to challenge this in court, let them make a stand.

Thank you.

That went to Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Representative Reuven Carlyle, and Representative Mary Lou Dickerson.

I joined in today at the rally at Volunteer Park in Seattle, Washington, which then became a march across Capitol Hill, down Pine Street, and finally into a huge celebration and second rally at Westlake Center. I guestimated about 10,000 people, and am seeing estimates online now of 6,000-9,000. It was amazing, and a strong nationwide civil rights action. There were protests and actions in nearly all major American cities, it looks like. These are my photos:

Click here for a non-slideshow view of them all.

We have a local grocery store chain here in Seattle, called Thriftway (I assume they’re local; I’ve never seen them elsewhere). Like all of these chains these days, they have a fairly decent lunch counter with pre-made sandwiches, and hot soups. We’ve both gotten to really like these little baguette sandwiches, with ham and brie cheese, that are pretty cheap. That’s all the sandwich is–usually honeyed ham, some brie, some bread. They’re amazingly tasty and filling. Well, yesterday I go to Thriftway to get us lunch. As I’m standing in the checkout line, the cashier and I both sort of caught a whiff of… something. Was it a rotten scent? We couldn’t quite place it, and it seemed to disperse.

Literally, at the same time, we noticed it. We looked around, couldn’t spot it, and went on with our business when it faded. In the parking lot, putting the bags of groceries in the trunk, I smelled it again, and looked around, but couldn’t place it. I figured some animal had died somewhere nearby. Perhaps on the roof of the store? I shrugged and drove home. When I got back inside, and set out our lunch on the coffee table, to try to catch up on our growing Tivo archive while we ate, I smelled it again.

“Honey, do you smell that?” I asked Andi.

“Did you step in something? Check your shoes,” she said, wrinkling her nose. My shoes were clean.

I looked around, at the door, at Mojo, our cat, who stared back at me in confusion. The smell then faded. I unwrapped the sandwich and took a small bite, and started working on my soup–I’m a weirdo, and usually eat a sandwich or cheeseburger last, always eating my side salad, French fries, soup, or whatever else is at hand first. The smell immediately hit us both again, and Andi unwrapped her sandwich–they were the source of the horrible stench. I figure it was the brie somehow, that went bad, but the sandwiches were date-stamped for the day I bought them. I don’t think I’ve ever had a stinky sandwich before. We pitched them both in the garbage.

The soup was good, though.

Woman: “Someone offered me $25,000 for my child. I don’t think security would have liked that.”

What is urban life without a little excitement, spontaneity and strangeness? Instead of your usual routine, try rounding up people to go pole dancing in a crowded subway car. Alternatively, send mass emails to get your friends to dress like Santa and wage urban guerilla warfare with feather pillows! [images and video included]

read more | digg story

Adama for President by Xaotica, on Flickr. Found I presume somewhere in Seattle:

Just now, on instant messenger.

Mike: ahhh the sounds of someone puking in my alley…
Me: ha, just now?
Mike: yep… as I type he is spitting
Mike: shoulda heard the juicy splat as it hit the ground

Why do I suspect I’ll be looking down from up on the Space Needle today? Also, I have a craving for Lockspot. It’s peanut butter and jelly Hefeveizen and fried fish time!

Tonight, our friend Jakob flies into town, and tomorrow, Rebo does, for the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. That means in two days I’ll be making two trips down I-5 to SeaTac airport and then two more as they fly out on Sunday and Monday. People from work have been staying home and and working remotely because of the massive I-5 construction. This’ll be my first foray into it. Wish me luck…

1. Replace all the belts on your car plus an oil change: $104.51

2. Replace the two oxygen sensors on your car because of a check engine light 9 days later: $259.00

3. Replace the entire exhaust pipe that severed itself violently from the vehicle frame due to 5 1/2 years of New England rust and road salting 22 hours later: $421.34

4. Aside from routine maintenance, having no other repair costs (jinx?) on your car since it’s purchase in November 2000: Priceless.

5: Realizing that as much as I adore using Seattle Metro bus service day to day, that I feel naked not having a car for just four days after having one continuously since about 1996 (literally, each day not counting vacations to mass-transit heavy cities): Aggravating as all hell.

I’ve been swamped at work of late, and we’ve been out and about a fair bit when not working to decompress. That’s why the blog and Livejournal had gone dead of late, and it’s taking me ages to get back to anyone on e-mails and Instant messaging (among other things, that are done with…). We just got back from a three day weekend with family out on the Olympic Peninsula, and this week looks to be even more hectic. It’s the Bite of Seattle, Dolores O’Riordan is playing Seattle, and some crappy book is coming out on Friday (pre-delivered from Amazon, w00t!).

And, if all goes well, I may be the owner of one of these bad boys for only $350 this week, rather than the $550 retail price. Long, convoluted story. Suffice it to say, Sprint takes care of customers with accounts dating back over ten years for their cellular service when push comes to shove. For the nerds out there, yes, I know a ‘newer’ model with Windows Mobile 6 is out this very week. I don’t need nearly the firepower that model has, and I specifically need Windows Mobile 5 for my purposes. This model will easily last me 1.5 to 2.5 years, I’d imagine. It’s not the best smartphone for Sprint. That would probably be the IP-830W, but that’s a sexy international model. Which I can’t afford, and again, Windows Mobile 6. Alas.

I do love having a million things to do, though. It’s refreshing. So is the nice tan I got this weekend, and the fact that I spent time in as close the real world is going to get to the Misty Mountains. Just gorgeous, out there.

Folklife starts today in Seattle Center, for the holiday weekend. Anyone going? Tons of great music, each year.

The Seattle Cheese Festival is this weekend. God help my colon, but I’m going this year.

On second thought: I’m such a dork. I really want to try to get to the Maritime Festival down on the waterfront in Seattle today. It might end up being lame–no idea on that, as I’ve never been before–but the nautical wannabe in me wants to check it out anyway. I’ve always been fascinated with things like that ever since I was a kid growing up in Connecticut. Now to see if I can convince Andi to go… Then, tonight, we’ve got the Yankees at the Mariners. I finally get to see Alex Rodriguez. And I get to safely jeer the Yankees in person for the first time (only ever seen them at Yankee Stadium before, and I am not suicidal)! Of course, we’re in the upper deck, so they won’t hear me. But it’s the thought that counts, damn it.

Now, to see if I can avoid spending too much money on the GPS…

Tonight, our friend Doug is part of an art show downtown, for his print work. This will certainly lead to one too many drinks, especially given that there will be obligatory wine and chatting at the art show, and obligatory hanging out afterwards. It’ll be fun. If we have time (and aren’t three sheets to the wind) we may try to see 28 Weeks Later. Maybe.

Either Saturday or Sunday morning we’re going to run down to REI to check out their selection of GPS units for geocaching, and we likely need to do a full grocery store run (which is a pain). We usually let it go until all our supplies are run down, and then go and get 2-4 weeks of stuff at once. It’s fun, except for the half-dozen trips it requires up and down the stairs and forever unloading and storing stuff. Saturday night we also have the Mariners/Yankees game, and then Sunday is Mother’s Day, so off to West Seattle. I was tempted to check out that Martime Festival down on the waterfront as well, but aside from maybe getting to ride around Elliot Bay in a tugboat, it looks pretty bland.

There’s other stuff as well, which I know I’m completely forgetting now. I think we’ll have free time while we’re asleep.