Blogs about seattle from Pew Pew Laser Blog

City Layout.

Some cities have their streets laid out in a Cartesian coordinate plane, with the "NW", "SW", "SE", and "NE" street designations relating to the four different quadrants. Once you discover the origin (0,0) of the city, you can generally navigate without familiarity of the named streets. For instance, the origin in Portland is Burnside and the Willamette river. So, 1500 SE 40th would be about 15 blocks south of Burnside, on 40th.

This practice is probably more common in cities that were deliberately designed, and younger cities. Unfortunately, this very simple navigation equation can break down when faced with natural topography such as large hills and lakes. (Seattle and Camas, I'm looking in your direction.) Regardless, this concept was immensely enlightening when my dad explained it to me many many years ago.

Favorite PAX Moments.

Here are a few of my favorite moments from PAX 2009:

• To escape the crowds (and convention pricing) for our mid-day repast, we usually went down to Specialties - home of the best cookies that can be bought in Seattle. One of the helpful employees recognized my t-shirt and said "Yay Zelda!". We then had a brief conversation on Zelda - how she was stuck, and had I played Twilight Princess? She may not have known that PAX was afoot just a few blocks to the east.
• During Jonathan Coulton's concert, the audience rickrolled Mr. Fancy Pants himself. During a pause, a dozen people near us started singing :

  Never gonna give you up
  Never gonna let you down
  Never gonna run around...

  The singing petered out about there, but the point was made. Turn-about is fair play, Mr. Fancy Pants. (If you plan to play a similar joke in the future, do be sure to hand out reference cards with printed lyrics to your co-conspirators.)
• Overheard at a handheld lounge:

  What did you think of Paul and Storm?
  Awesome! I loved them!
  I had no idea how awesome they were!
  I bought tons of their stuff!

  It's great to hear Paul and Storm getting the mad props that they deserve.

PAX '09.

This weekend I went to PAX - a gaming exposition in Seattle put on by the folks at Penny Arcade. It was a ton of fun.

I participated in the brilliantly conceived Distributed Tournament System (DTS) - wherein every expo attendee can participate in a tournament. Every attendee gets two DTS buttons, and can challenge other button-wearing attendees to any game; the winner takes a button. The top 20 ranked button owners earned fabulous prizes. I won two buttons playing Tetris DS, but then lost 2 in Tetris and 1 in New Super Mario Bros. The husband lost one button in a Thumb War. We weren't contenders, but at least we came away with a souvenir button.

I enjoyed the various card / tabletop games that we played. After we'd had a Fluxx game going for about 5 minutes, we got some interested looking people to join. We learned how to play Munchkins in the official Steve Jackson gaming nook; I wouldn't mind having a copy of Munchkins. And we were invited to play a pick-up game of Catan that included quite a few laughs.

The Saturday night concerts (with opening band Freezepop, Headliners Paul and Storm, and Closing Act Jonathan Coulton) were excellent. That the concerts lasted until 2 am was a little extreme.

On the day after PAX, I discovered I had come home with a little unanticipated swag. Remember folks, I'm staying in my pajamas all day for your safety.

Heinlein's Dreams Come True.

Sometimes, there's a whole lotta weird in Seattle. I know you folks in Portland won't believe me without photographic proof, so here it is. It is not at all SFW: Fremont Solstice Parade: The bikers.

Also, check out this related airline safety video.

A Transition.

The husband bought season Sounders tickets and I love it. I love the games and the team, and I'm not going to apologize. I'm hooked on the joy of cheering for my team along with a crowd of twenty thousand. Winning a well played game is a powerful and addictive happiness.

As a native Portlander, I've had a stormy past with pro sports teams. I fell into the Rip City crowd of the early ninties, but the near wins and the subsequent team attitudes were far too depressing. The Winterhawks were the best thing happening, but I just can't drag myself out to Renton to see a game in unfriendly territory.

It's been more than 2 years since we've moved to Seattle from Portland. We've got a house and two cats. I'm ready to admit that Seattle is my home - for now. Supporting a sports franchise is part of the transition. I can't be Sounders 'till I die, but I can be Sounders while I'm in Seattle.