In their annual food drive Saturday, Seattle-area letter carriers collected hundreds of thousands of expired and undesirable foods donated by local households.

The food was brought to distribution centers, where it will be sorted and eventually delivered to people that are so hungry they will even happily eat French onion soup dated September 1998.

Common items picked up by the local postal drivers included canned cranberry sauce, kidney and garbanzo beans, and evaporated milk, most commonly having expired between 2003 and 2007…

At Mayor Nickels’ annual Youth Town Hall on Saturday, hundreds of teens aired their cliché teen concerns and shared their naïve teen hopes and dreams.
The predictable youths asked all the usual questions, from concerns about their schools to requests for more city programs geared toward their excessively needy demographic.
“It’s great to have a forum where [...]

Continuing the Seattle-area’s proud history of innovation and entrepreneurship, a pioneering new company opened its doors this week. Lynnwood-based Public Embarrassment Enterprises promises customers “a warm steaming puddle of (perfectly legal) revenge.”

When murder for hire companies fell out of favor in the late 1980s due to a series of legal challenges and negative media attention, then-student James Rodney—now the CEO of PEE—was taking notes.

Struggling savings and loan giant Washington Mutual announced Wednesday that they will no longer be making payments on their mortgage for WaMu Center, the company’s 42-story downtown Seattle headquarters.

The decision by WaMu follows in the footsteps of an increasing number of distressed homeowners that have walked away from their mortgages as the real estate market continues to experience record declines across the country.

In the latest shot across the bow of the beleaguered local software giant, friendless loser Ted Elias is suing Microsoft for $25 million.

A statement released by Elias’ lawyer on Friday accuses Microsoft of “totally destroying his mental, social, and physical health by providing my client with unlimited access to the addictive Xbox 360 video game console as well as an unending stream of engrossing hit games.”

“Before he was introduced to the virtual mind-control of the Xbox 360, my client was a successful, well-developed 27-year-old,” said attorney Martin Finklestein, representing Elias in the case. “However, after just two years under the influence of Redmond’s electro-brainwashing, he has lost his job, his friends, and even his basic sense of hygiene.”

In an announcement on Amazon.com’s front page this week, CEO Jeff Bezos declared Kindle—their handheld electronic reading device—to be an overwhelming success, unmatched since the dawn of time by any achievement in the universe.

“Dear Customers,” begins the message from Bezos. “We continue to be astonished at your insatiable hunger for Kindle: our earth-shattering nirvana delivery system.”

“To date, we have sold more than three hundred Kindles for every man, woman, and child on planet Earth,” the note continued, “That’s over two trillion Kindles in just six months.”

Senator John McCain said Monday that the Republican stance on immigration is chasing Hispanic voters away from the party, a problem that he has a plan to personally solve.

“I believe the majority of Hispanics find me to be an attractive guy, and I hope to have the opportunity to take them out and explain my policies to them over a nice bottle of wine,” the Senator said.

In an insipid turn of events this weekend of interest only to die-hard political junkies, hopeless Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton issued an empty challenge to the soon-to-be-nominee Barak Obama: that they face off in a moderator-free debate.

In the bizarre attempt to stave off her inevitable electoral elimination, Clinton invoked the memory Abraham Lincoln; the most famous Republican president of all time.

When you think of the Seattle Aquarium, do you think of a bunch of white-jacketed scientists sitting around a pond, obsessing over algae counts or water quality? Well, that’s because you’re not very smart, because the aquarium isn’t anything like that at all.

As it turns out, staring slack-jawed at a bunch of fish for hour after hour is not nearly as boring as you might imagine. And that’s just the beginning of the exciting possibilities available to you when you visit the very best aquarium in the entire world, right here in Seattle.

As Érik Bédard comes close to making his way off of the disabled list, Mariners management staff admits that they are now kicking themselves for having bought the extended warranty on the star pitcher.

“I mean come on, it was only $29.95 at the register,” said team president Howard Lincoln.

General Manager Bill Bavasi took full responsibility for the oversight, saying Thursday that he “always thought those things were a scam.”

As sunny weather begins to return to the Northwest, so do the problems associated with warmer temperatures, including one of our area’s most troublesome nuisances: panhandlers.

The street beggars have begun their yearly migration back to the green utopia of the greater Seattle area, and by mid-June you’ll hardly be able to drive three blocks without being accosted by dozens of their carefully crafted cardboard pleas. It used to be that they stuck to downtown street corners, but surveys in recent years have found panhandlers in over 87% of Puget Sound neighborhoods.

You’re a compassionate person, but you can’t give them money every time you drive by…

Thanks to its irresistible natural, economic, and cultural allure, the Puget Sound has seen an explosion of population in the last few years, and will continue to grow ever more rapidly in the years to come. In fact, over ten million people are expected to move here just next year, escaping such inhospitable locales as California, Japan, and Portland.

Growth is great for the local economy, but all these new residents obviously need places to live…

In response to Monday’s devastating earthquake, the People’s Republic of China has declared war on Earth’s tectonic plates.

“Killing over 10,000 of our citizens and destroying our highways, schools, hospitals, and countless homes is clearly an act of war,” said Premier Wen Jiabao. “For too long we have allowed the brutal aggressions of the tectonic plates to go unanswered—no more.”

Embracing the country’s long history as the premier place to send the lawless, Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced today that the country will do away with laws entirely.

Prime Minister Rudd responded to probing questions from the press by hurling microphones at reporters and challenging indignant cameramen to fisticuffs.

A public vote was held on Monday, in which 97% of the citizens voted in favor of eliminating the overbearing burden that rules and regulations have brought upon the one-time haven for the lawless.

You see this burger? The one right here in front of me, sitting on my plate? I can eat this entire burger in one bite.

That’s right; I can just pop the whole thing right into my mouth and scarf it down all at once.

You don’t believe me? Well, that’s a crucial error on your part. I know my mouth better than I know the back of my hand, and certainly well enough to make an accurate assessment of how much food it can or cannot hold at one time.

It seems like the popular thing to talk about these days is all the racial tension and “hidden racism” against African-Americans. That is fine, I am as anti-racism as the next progressive, but let me tell you something: it is not easy being white, either.

Let me just start with the word “white.” Who decided that it was okay to call me that? I prefer “Euro-American” or simply “Amero-American.” But white does not even accurately describe the actual color of my skin. Do you know what is actually white? Toilets, mayonnaise, and snow. People call me white right to my face; day in and day out. What they are really calling me is “snowy mayo toilet-skin.”