seattle

hit the town today. it was good. seattle’s burbs are huge and sprawling and obnoxiously congested, but you do get a sense of place. if you count all the burbs as part of the city, seattle is FUCKING HUGE and hilly, so you’ll be driving down a valley, then the hills part and you see the spiring downtown blocks, like ten miles away, and it’s totally impressive.

when you get closer, the skyscrapers are even taller and from the south, the entire city slopes upwards from short little stores and warehouses into thousand story tall monoliths.

well, it feels like that anyhow.

it’s totally cool.

downtown seattle is the same as portland as far as the mix of modern and vintage architechture, with elements of nyc style crammed buildings and lofts and brickwork and sunken basement shops and so forth, but not nearly as much of it as nyc. which means you appreciate it more, because one block you’re ancient turn of the century pioneer square and just a few later you’re in full modern downtown. surrounded by giant old department stores.

it’s crazy.

if i were to live anywhere in washington, it would have to be an apartment in downtown seattle at least 15-20 stories up. a good view, near enough to pike place to do my grocery shopping there.

i could put my zeppelin dock on the roof of my private skyscraper.

naturally i left my possibly functional camera here in the apartment, so i didn’t get any pictures. part of this is motivation to get the new camera i want, and part of this is motivation to get either a phone or a pda with a 1.2 megapixel camera so i always have one on me and never miss a photo op.

we’ll see.

wandered around pike place for awhile, then got some piroshkies from pirosky piroshky! that were AMAZING. and some donut holes from the donut hole shop.

then wandered around the malls. westlake lost its big bookstore, the bon lost its toy department(although it was never very good), and fao is gone gone gone. didn’t bother looking much in bookstores. none of the ebs, sam goodies, or suncoasts had anything except more hellboy 1.5 figures i may or may not get.

the comic shop at pike place had the new lotr stuff i was looking for, but ranging from a $2 to a $6 markup. i’ll wait until i find them in person, if i never do, THEN i’ll consider paying through the nose. nice to see them in person though. super posable boromir looks good, as does the new greydalf and the superposable uruk and goblin captains from rotk. denethor and prologue smeagol look nice, but i’m not sure i need them. no sign of peter jackson as a hobbit. heh. they also had gir, but for $23 vs $15. i hate shops that do that, even if i should be blaming the people willing to pay $15 for a $6 toy.

i’ve been there, i shouldn’t talk. somehow it’s more okay if it’s on the internet though. you don’t get the feeling that this IS the figure you couldn’t find at tru, because the comic shop beat you to it and is asking for an extra $6 for their trouble.

old navy had a silly coat that i really wanted to buy, on sale for $39 vs $76. it’s a big army green jacket with a fuzzy lined hood. it’s really thick and cool, but it’s way too warm for me, i would never wear it unless i lived somewhere where it snowed constantly.

if i could get it in a trench coat version, i’d buy it in a heartbeat and wear it all the time. that’d be too silly to pass up.

i’m tempted by old navy’s peacoats. they’re on sale half off, so maybe now is the time to get one.

at least i can write stuff like this into my comics. the Turk from tesla: 1919 wears a peacoat, and gary dirin’s coat that i designed is pretty much the trenchcoat version of that field jacket already.

if i could get that jacket as a trench coat, plus a fuzzy red army hat, i would SO wear that.

aside from the piroshkies, gas, and parking, all i got were some christmas toys half-off at rite aid. hooray for reliable yearly sales, and hooray for off-brands i already like being put in generic packaging, sold for cheap, and going on sale around christmas. i ended up with a badass chap-mei 2pack of wildlife experts and a super-posable soldiers of the world 12″ figure for $3 each. chap mei has started using clear plastic in their little figures gear, to excellent effect. the tomb raider looking girl came with a magnifying glass and a specimen jar with a gecko inside. very cool. the girl from their rescue line had a clear red blood transfusion bag and some kind of clear emergency light.

more on hats: some fleece hat-making conglomerate needs to market three new hats. and in large-headed sizes, none of this one-size-fits-most crap.

one — the cat in the hat hat, full-fleece, with flip-down ear warmers. you could also get it in goretex with a fleece lining. available in classic red/white as well as black/red, blue/black, lime/green, and etc.

two — the shub hat. a redbrown hat in the shape of shub-niggurath, as seen at the end of quake 1. red/orange mass of short tendrils at the top with three long jester-hat type tendrils on three sides, preferably with a differently colored interior.

three — red army hat. standard goretex or canvas outer shell with fuzzy fleece lining. big red star sewn into middle of forehead panel. you know you want it.

four — the dr who scarf. stripey in orange tones, blue tones, green tones, and blue/greens, in either knit or fleece varieties. available in sm(8′ long), med(10′ long), or lg(12′ long).