Comments on Maverick Moment of the Day

He couldn't afford the rent in Redmond.

would someone please 'splain the significance of this to us rubes out in flyover country?

That county is pretty conservative for the surrounding area. So it fits.

waiting for mccain to denounce with outrage today's horsey panel in the p-i. not bad.

perhaps there could be a mccain mag cover competition?

@1 Oh ha ha. Bellevue has better office space anyway in its shiny new towering infernos.

@Mike in MO: Bellevue is a gross place where rich yuppies spend money on high end chain restaraunts and stores.

It's a sterile place that conservatives feel safe in and that shuts down around 9pm each night. Mini-me republicans tucked into bed in over priced mcmansions, while their fake blonde mother and 'new money' father go through their wine cellar filled with merlots from California and Syrah's from Austrailia.

In other words, they are more willing to vote McCain.

@4

It's been done... http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=1792

Oh... Ooops... that would be the "horsey panel"... wouldn't it. Blush....

@6: That was the best summary of Bellevue I've ever seen.

@Mike in MO:
That other post refelcts the intense Seattleish bubble think. Bellevue is a near suburb with its own little collection of hih towers, across Lake Washington. People in Seattle are way too hip for it, but actually, it's in a district that is tending Democratic, like most affluent suburbs these days.

McCain would put his office there because yes it does have way more GOPsters in it than in Seattle, where ther are almost none.

IT's close to the high value high donor waterfront properties near where Bill Gates and his ilk live.

"Bellevue is a gross place where rich yuppies spend money on high end chain restaraunts and stores."
Yup everyone in Banres and Nopble and Crate 'n;' Barrel, fuck 'em, we certainly don't want to unite with them, or get THEM to vote for Obama.

"It's a sterile place that conservatives feel safe in and that shuts down around 9pm each night."
Except for the many restaurants and bars where it doesn't.
" Mini-me republicans tucked into bed in over priced mcmansions," are just part of a population that includes lits of democrats, lots of misslde class, and susrprisingly, more diversity than Seattle, due to the presence of large numbers of Asians.

" while their fake blonde mother and 'new money' father go"

ah yes old money is soooo o much coller like the Kennedies now.
" through their wine cellar filled with merlots from California and Syrah's from Austrailia."
Actually liberals drink wine, too.

"In other words, they are more willing to vote McCain." than Seattle but on the whole that district is going to vote OBama and also for Darcy Burner, our congresssional candidate in the 8th CD.

If you need a metaphor imagine Northern Virginia or Westchester, higher income, but now Democratic, and chock full of those affluent Obama voters that are part of his coalition.

@6: Or, put another way: Bellevue is a clean, safe suburb with excellent schools and well-maintained parks, where you can walk the streets without homeless people harassing you for booze money. And where you can ride the bus without sitting next to a stinky, piss-drenched lunatic trying to cop a feel. Where you may not be able to get Laotian food at 2 a.m., but there are plenty of excellent, non-chain restaurants.

And, interestingly, Bellevue is a place that has a huge immigrant population, and is in fact far more diverse than much of Seattle (hello, Wallingford, Magnolia, Ballard, Leschi, Madison Park, etc.)

@PC: Do you live in Factoria or something?

Confidential to Mike in Mo: Factoria is the armpit of Bellevue, where the poor-er folk live. Its a destitute place of strip malls and fast food. That is all.

@ 6: Thanks! We have a lot of those areas 'round this neck of the woods.

Bellevue is a clean, safe suburb with excellent schools and well-maintained parks

BOOOOOOORRRR-IIIINNGGGGG!!!!! (kinda like my area of The Lou)

@6,

Ugh. The scary thing is the number of people I've seen in Seattle who fit that description. Although at least our boring bottle blondes are nominally liberal.

@11 Bad schools, dirty piss drenched buses, crack parks, homeless folk and late night food are what makes Seattle a great city. Also I would not call the immigrant population of Bellevue as more diverse I would however call it stealing jobs from Americans.

Most people in Bellevue live in fifty-year-old ramblers, not mega-mansions. And Bellevue does in fact have a more racially diverse population than Seattle. If you don't believe me, you should spend an afternoon at Crossroads Mall sometime.

@11:

Bellevue is a clean, safe suburb with excellent schools and well-maintained parks,

So are many parts of Seattle. I have many well maintained parks in WALKING distance of my house.

where you can walk the streets without homeless people harassing you for booze money.

well, very few people "walk" father than 4 blocks in Bellevue, and all the homeless are on EVERY off-ramp begging for money. Yeah, that's not annoying.

And where you can ride the bus without sitting next to a stinky, piss-drenched lunatic trying to cop a feel.

Not true, I have ridden busses all over King County. Those people are on any bus.

Where you may not be able to get Laotian food at 2 a.m., but there are plenty of excellent, non-chain restaurants.

Yes, but you have to drive to them. And the average person in "the bell" fawns over crap like The Keg, PF Changs, and the Cheesecake factory.

But PS...Love you! MEAN IT!

@Fnarf: 50 year old ramblers that cost $650K.

I understand it's diverse, I was just trying to put out a description for Mike in Mo. Get him a feeling for the place.

Also, crossroads and factoria are slums.

@19 -- There's a higher percentage of $650k-plus homes in my neighborhood (sort of West Green Lake-Phinney-Woodland Park) than in large swathes of Bellevue. And there's more $350k houses available over there than in Seattle. And Crossroads is less of a slum than frigging Fremont.

Bellevue also has better Indian restaurants than Seattle. And you can't get Laotian food at 2:00 AM in Seattle either; there's precisely ONE (partly) Laotian restaurant I'm aware of, down on MLK, and they close at 8.

Oh, and Bellevue has a vastly superior library as well -- you won't see its architecture featured in The New Yorker, but it has BOOKS in it.

@6 -- Yeah California Merlot's are not as tasty as they could be, but the Cab Sav's are delicious. Personally I like a Australian Shiraz every now and then.

Now why don't shut your whinny soy latte drinking, Subaru driving, Urban Outfitters wearing, sushi eating face and stop stereotyping people.

People outside of WA: Bellevue is the largest city on the Eastside, the portion of King Co that is east of Lake Washington. The Eastside is more affluent but less interesting than the city of Seattle. Bellevue has a large, skyscraperish downtown with tons of business development, and many Eastsiders (and not a few Seattleites) work in Bellevue or nearby Kirkland and Redmond.

Bellevue and the Eastside is currently represented in the House by Dave Reichert, a tool and Bush yes-man most notable for having caught the Green River Killer. The district is trending Democrat, though, and his likely Democratic rival, Darci Burner, has a very good chance of winning this year.

Seattle people are required by law to disparage the Eastside at every opportunity, just as people on the Eastside, busy working and raising kids, are required to not care. Except those of us that are Class Traitors enough to follow the SLOG.

California wine is almost all piss. It's all that new oak, over-irrigation and over-extraction. Wine isn't supposed to be 16, 17%, and it isn't supposed to pong with vanilla extract either. New World wine is a curse on the planet, and the disease is infecting the real wines in France and Italy now too. Spain is mostly a lost cause. It's going to be another decade before the biodynamic producers are strong enough to change things.

@25: I completely agree. Also, earlier I was just being a snot. It was fun.

We don't get nearly enough haters now that Poe is on Gawker.

Sven, you might also mention that while no individual city on the Eastside is as big as Seattle, as a whole these suburbs make up more than 2/3 of the county. Seattle's failure to grok the suburbs is a loss for the former, not the latter.

Monique, you are EVIL, which is why I like you.

Also about wine, German red, in my opinion, is fantastic. It's harder to get over here, but generally it is pretty damn awesome.

Also, Austrian wine is similar and delicious. If you are looking for some new regions to try.

I've only had one German red wine, and I'm not sure I know where to lay my hands on another. But I'll have to look. Lately my favorites have been reds from Saumur and Chinon in the Loire Valley -- mostly Cabernet Franc. But I like most acidic reds that are under 14%, preferably under 13% -- the alcohol doesn't overwhelm the acid.

There's a few good ones, Fnarf, especially with climate change.

You should go with what tastes good to you, and ignore the price - and then stick labels on the bottles that say it's expensive, as a higher priced bottle actually increases how much you enjoy it.

As to McSame - boooooooooooring. Nobody cares.

@29 --- You can pick some up German Red's at Trader Joe's on Capitol Hill. It's a very small section placed in the dark corner of the wine section nearest the check stands. I don't know if any of it's any good.

by the way, Fnarf, most of our Fremont "slums" have houses that cost $500 to $600 K ...

You can also get German reds at PCC or Ballard Market.

@18 for the win.

Thank you, Fnarf, for providing a more accurate picture of Bellevue. The old stereotype at post 6 is still true, but only of enclaves here and there. To reinforce one of your examples, Crossroads is definitely more ethnically diverse than North Seattle.

I'm a native Seattleite and I much prefer the city to the suburbs (though I currently live close to "downtown" Bothell). But many Seattleites have a dated, simplistic idea of what the Eastside is about. It's less like that caricature every day.

@25,

The first, and last, time I drank a Chilean wine it tasted like nothing but vanilla. And I don't mean vanilla extract, I'm talking artificial vanilla flavoring. I thought I was going to die.

There are no German reds at the Green Lake PCC, nor were there any at the Ballard Market last time I checked.

Damn Original Monique, did you graduate from Bellevue High School or something?

Bang up job defending Bellevue, Fnarf. I appreciate that at least some people on Slog (besides my fellow class traitors) understand there is more to the area than meets the jaded Seattle eye.

p.s. It's my birthday today, don't slam me too hard just because I live in Redmond.

Texas and rural Mississippi are more ethnically diverse than Seattle or Bellevue.

Fnarf: Considering Bellevue today has about 10x the population it had in 1960... no, most people in Bellevue don't live in 50 year old ramblers. Most of them live in generic housing developments with identical McMansions. That's even more true of people who live in Bellevue's exurbs.

If you want to see what Bellevue is really like, look here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=bellevue,+wa&ie=UTF8&ll=47.614336,-122.184309&spn=0.004867,0.009398&t=h&z=17

Poppy, more people in Bellevue live in APARTMENTS than live in McMansions.

You're being ironic by calling yourself Original Monique & talking in cliches?

Seriosly, my fake blond is just hightlights, and I'll take a smooth agave tequila over a California merlot any day, and money has been in my family for many months, so you are so wrong. :)

38, that satellite view is misleading because it hardly shows any of the downtown core, which is all west of 405.

The downtown core is here: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=bellevue,+wa&ie=UTF8&ll=47.614336,-122.184309&spn=0.004867,0.009398&t=h&z=17.

Sure, land-use in Bellevue as a whole is horrible and outside of the small downtown core is built around driving, parking lots, and strip malls. But you can't generalize from that to sweeping commentary about the kind of people who live in Bellevue.

@36 - try the Fremont PCC. Why would you go to the Greenlake PCC? You can also try the one in Kirkland, they used to have a good selection.

PopTart, one of my high school classmates from Trail, BC, lives in Redmond too.

I travel all around the eastside every day. Sure, all kinds of people live there, but by nature the city is car-centric, pedestrian- and transit-unfriendly, much more conservative than Seattle, full of generic chain stores and restaurants, and populated largely by wealthy people (of different races) living in identical-looking McMansions.

Much like Seattle's townhouse regulations, Bellevue recently passed strict design regulations on these housing developments because they were dominating the city. Bellevue McMansions are far more prevalent, though.

Fnarf: Census data shows most Bellevuers don't live in apartments. Look at some of the other numbers there before claiming that most people in Bellevue actually live in 100 story towers surrounded by green space.

Fucking hell, Poppy. Put words in my mouth, why don't you? Who said anything about towers? That's Will's job.

The apartments that are all over Bellevue are not towers; they're low-rise complexes.

I didn't say MOST Bellevuers live in apartments; I said that more live in apartments than live in McMansions, which is true. Car-centric? Of course, but that's not what we're talking about. Car-centric doesn't mean "rich". And Seattle is just as car-centric as Bellevue is, outside of the downtown/Capitol Hill/First Hill core, which is an extremely small portion of the population.

Is it me or has downtown Bellevue kinda gone downhill recently?

Whenever I had to go to CompUSA there (because Seattle has never had a good computer retail presence, for whatever reason I can't understand), I remember it being boring but as described above.

However, last time I was there, CompUSA was heading towards liquidation/death, and on my way to the Bellevue Transit area, there were a number of meth dudes darting around the area really fast hiding from something, like in some horror movie.

Also the Bellevue City Hall frontal courtyard has possibly the worst ever public art on display in the country.

And speaking of a friendly Bellevue neighbor:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008053152_webwarcrime15.html

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