Huskies Fan chomped Capitol Hill Seattle, while Lookout Landing opened up an enormous lead on Three Imaginary Girls, which is to be expected when their competition is imaginary. And now, it’s Mariners vs. Huskies. Two sad, downtrodden fan bases competing for the only title they’ll see this year. Between Carlos Silva’s pitching and the Huskies inability to play defense, I’m expecting a high-scoring matchup filled with incredible frustration. Because that is, after all, what every Seattle sports fan expects — the crushing of all hopes in the most indignant way imaginable.

Bottom half of the Squirrel Bracket begins… now.

UPDATE: Apparently, there are some folks who think gaming the system is fun and exciting. Well, gaming the system can hurt you. It can damage tendons and ligaments. It can cause aggressiveness. It can make your balls shrink. Do you want to end up like Jose Canseco? No, you don’t, do you.

This is why you can’t have nice things. It’s back to the crappy polling system for you.

UPDATE 2: And that system just quit, too. Wonderful. So, on to version 3. Written in old fashioned HTML that makes me wince when reading it. Just kill me now.

The clock runs out Monday at 9pm PST, or when someone fires Bavasi, whichever comes first.

And now, the perfunctory links to the other open polls:
West Seattle Blog/Citizen Rain - Hillku/Kirida (closes Tuesday night)
Seattle Daily Photo/Blogging Georgetown/Mid Beacon Hill - Defective Yeti/Glitter Pissing (closes Wednesday night)
Seattle Bubble/Accidental Hedonist (closes Sunday night)

The original bracket post

Tomorrow: Can poetry beat motherhood? Can Citizen Rain stage a comeback? Are we staring at a West Seattle showdown?

I think I speak for most of us here at Seattle Metblogs when I say that Hillku is one of our favorites. Shrouded in mystery, they appeared out of the blue and charmed us with their haiku poetry about Capitol Hill. Below is a Q&A I did via email with City and Final, the two gracious purveyors of Hillku.

(Note: Hillku is facing a tough Round 2 charm-off with Kirida; voting is still open [m-b].)

Q:
who are you really?
the mystery confounds me.
at least: girl or guy?

A:
Straight Obama girl,
Homo Hills boy. Politics
Won’t divide us, though.

Read more

And there will be a new champion this year, as Seattle Bubble destroys USS Mariner. On the other side, Accidental Hedonist knocks out Vintage Seattle. Guess you folks like to eat more than you like to look at old pictures. What the hell is wrong with you people?

So, real estate vs. food. Welcome to the first quarterfinal, or the first semifinal of the Squirrel Bracket. However you want to refer to it is fine by me.

In the other brackets, the races in the bottom half of the Squirrel Bracket are far from settled (closing Monday night), the top half of the Coyote Bracket is not completely settled (though you Hillku fans better get on the ball before Tuesday night), and the bottom half of the Coyote Bracket is wrapping up Wednesday night so vote early and often.

For those of you confused about how this process works, here’s the original bracket post.

Tomorrow: Are we looking at an all-sports quarterfinal? Did J and/or K anger the wrong sorts of Huskies fans? And can anything stop to Lookout Landing juggernaut?

As the action heats up in this, Metroblogging Seattle’s second annual Clash of the Titans Tournament of Blogs, those of you in the home audience might be wondering what exactly lies at the end of this conflict-worn road for the eventual champion. Well, aside from the glory that comes with the victory of several rounds of single-elimination combat and the sure-to-be-awesome homemade trophy that we’ll be constructing, a few very generous local institutions have kicked in some fantastic prizes.

Hotel Max took over the 20th century neon-emblazoned landmark Hotel Vance in 2005 and turned it into “the most artistic downtown Seattle hotel” by featuring local artists and painters throughout the premises. They’ve offered a night of luxe accommodations for the winners of the tournament to celebrate their well-deserved victory.

Sub Pop is among Seattle’s most venerable and celebrated record labels. They were instrumental in putting our city on the map musically, and they’ve kindly provided a huge gift box for the blog that comes out on top of the tournament featuring a stack of fresh music, stickers, buttons, and other tokens of musical credibility.

Since reclaiming the beleaguered property whose ownership cycled seasonally since the closure of (old) Moe’s a few years ago Neumo’s has consistently booked an eclectic calendar of some of the best local and national acts. In the process, they’ve strengthened Capitol Hill’s live music scene and helped to form a new center of gravity for the nightlife in the neighborhood. To congratulate the eventual best blog in the city, they’ve offered to do their best to get the winners into the show of their choice.

Northwest Film Forum, a membership-based regional non-profit center for the film arts, exhibits an eclectic collection of local, national, international, and archival selections 360 days per year, maintains an extensive film library, has onsite production facilities, and throws exceptional parties. They’ve donated a pack of tickets so that whomever wins this contest can take a break from electioneering and typing to catch a movie or two to relax.

A million thanks to these folks for their participation in our little contest to recognize some of our favorite weblogs in the city. Now, back to your campaign speeches and voting booths!

Polls are open for: Seattle Bubble vs. U.S.S. Mariner , Vintage Seattle vs. Accidental Hedonist, Lookout Landing vs. Three Imaginary Girls , Capitol Hill Seattle vs. Huskies Fan , West Seattle Blog vs. Citizen Rain , Hillku vs. Kirida , Seattle Daily Photo vs. Blogging Georgetown vs. Mid Beacon Hill , and Defective Yeti vs. Glitter Pissing

First off, let’s deal with the Hood Group. The poll fell down went boom over the weekend. So, to be fair to the two blogs that were getting the most votes, I’m going to send both Mid Beacon Hill and Blogging Georgetown through. Meanwhile, Glitter Pissing pulls off the upset.

And in the meantime, here are the last two of the seeded blogs, Seattle Daily Photo and Defective Yeti.

So.

Poll closes up Wednesday night at 9.

And that’s Round 2. But you might want to go back and vote in the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday matchups.

photo by arion potts [flickr] via our group pool [#]. we’re always looking for new contributors, so send you pretty pictures our way!

• Sean Nelson vies for title of today’s smartest Slogger, writing on the topic of electability and how being undecided doesn’t mean being braindead. [slog]
• Starbucks to reboot barista training on 26 February [sbuxgossip], rebooting wifi in a switch from pricey t-mobile to a little closer to free at&t [sbuxgossip]
• KEXP to “liberate” NYC radio. [kexp]
• Green tacos to go with green beer (biggest surprise: chipotle broke its ties with mcdonalds). [bravenewleaf]
• Scanning craigslist, finding lots of people all hotted up by caucusing. [seattlest]
• A preview of next week’s talks, including “A pseudoscience guide to geek dating”. [igniteseattle]

tournament of blogs reminders:

• Round One — closes tonight: music & P-I groups (three imaginary girls have a few more votes than sound on the sound; huskies fan ahead of ear candy)
• Round One — closes tomorrow: people & friends & “enemies” groups (kirida with a huge lead ; citizen rain fending off the big blog)
• Round One — closes Thursday: art & ‘hoods (pike/pine trails glitter pissing ; mid-beacon hill a few votes up on blogging georgetown after a polling reset)
• Round Two (started today): Seattle Bubble with an early lead over U.S.S. Mariner and Vintage Seattle ahead of Accidental Hedonist.

So, the selection committee has met for the last few days trying to decide who is in and who is out of the tournament. There was the usual yelling, fighting, chair-throwing, and occasional moments of harmony. But finally, late last night, the committee emerged from their pizza-and-beer-induced stupor to put in my hands the lineup for this year’s Blarch Badness.
Read more

We close out Round Two with the U District Regional, which goes on Friday, the day of the week I’m most tired. So I end up writing pithier comments. Given my penchant for Faulkneresque 100 word monster sentences, this is probably the day to ask me to write something for you that’s under 500 words and over 4 sentences.

U DISTRICT REGIONAL
Regional Semifinals
February 16
#1 Not Martha vs #4 USS Mariner
Someone paged Megan earlier this week, and her readers showed up. She had more votes than the entire Capitol Hill regional. And now, she has USS Mariner — and its vast collection of Mariner fans and scalliwags — in her sights. But knowing Derek, he probably doesn’t give a rat patootie about this contest. Unless, of course, I mention his new book, The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, which you should pre-order a copy of today.

#2 Horse’s Ass vs #6 izzlepfaff
Capitol Hill Seattle played with fire. And they got burned. Bad. And hoisted on their own petard. And let’s assume there’s another military cliche here, because I’ve run out of them. Now it’s Goldie vs. Skot. Liberals vs. humorists. But aren’t most humorists liberals?

And here are links to the other three regionals: West Seattle, Capitol Hill, Ballard.

Next week, the Regional Finals. We’re getting closer to wherever the fictional finals site would be. The Space Needle? Elephant Super Wash? Dick’s?

The Ballard bracket is effectively busted. My $20 was on Defective Yeti going all the way, but that’s money wasted. Strangely, this is going the way my March Madness picks usually go — with my national champ pick going out in the round of 32.

But on to Round Two.

BALLARD REGIONAL
Regional Semifinals
February 15
#4 Electrolicious vs #8 West Seattle Blog
West Seattle Blog won going away in the biggest upset so far. Can they get past Ariel’s wedding-addled minions? Will they continue to annoy me with The Question? Signs point to yes… on both counts.

#6 BlatherWatch vs #7 #!/usr/bin/girl
The rumors of Zannah’s demise were greatly exaggerated, as her readers came through in a big way. Meanwhile, BlatherWatch comes through to meet her.

Tomorrow, Round Two wraps up with the U District regional. Reminder, you can still vote in the Capitol Hill and West Seattle Regionals.

We took your input. We haggled over who should be in or out. And now, it’s time to announce the brackets for Blarch Badness. Who has the Best Blog In Seattle? Let’s find out.

Originally, it was going to be 32 blogs, but after some talking we decided to add three “play-in” rounds, bumping the total number of blogs to 38. We’ve grouped the extras into certain classes you’ll see in a moment.

And an apology to the 30 or so we also considered that didn’t make it, in addition to the thousands around the area we just didn’t know about. We’ll do better next year.

So, without further ado, let’s warm up Billy Packer, cue the theme music, and unveil the brackets!
Read more