needle and the damage done

i'm going to admit to something embarrassing. last night leff and i voluntarily went to the space needle. and by that i mean "without people from out of town asking us to go with them".

see, pretty embarrassing.

i've always been a tourist in my own town(s) so this is nothing new. oh, the list of visited places i could make! (but won't.)

besides, our bumbershoot ticket stubs got us half off at the needle. and if there's one thing that i've always known about the needle it's this --it's too expensive for what is, essentially, an elevator ride.

the view is nice, however.

a nit to pick. the signage at the space needle. oh. my. on the ramp approaching the elevator there's one particular sign that reads "an angel was spotted over seattle". i mean, *gag*.

in this photo of the gift shop, you can see some of the signage that i'm talking about. it says "lift off" next to the elevator.



the signs are so corny they must've had them produced in iowa. ba doom ching!

right, right, the views. quite spectacular. here are some photos of leff's that illustrate that point quite nicely. before sunset:



it was a clear day so we could see rainier. (it's our favorite volcano.)



photos of sunset over the bay and the city at night:






have you ever noticed that no one takes photos of the interior of the space needle? problem solved. here's an arty shot of leff's that makes me think of tippi hedren.



this side of the needle is red.



but back to the signs. look, i have a thing for signs, ok? just skip over this part if you want. (they're cameraphone photos, so you might want to skip it just on principle.)

ok, so there's this one sign? it's all gloom and doom.



it's, like, accept someone as your personal lord and saviour just in case rainier shows up. 'cause rainier is coming and she's all wrathful and stuff.

the concept behind this sign



would put all the brouhaha about seattle's lack of a nice metro map to rest. because if we could have giant arrows marking exactly where things of importance were located just floating in the sky, it would be awesome. (forget about the proposed tunnel replacement for the viaduct, mr. nickels. this is the real moneymaker!)

offtopic and honestly? i'd love a metro map that shows the whole city. thanks!

back on topic, leff and i spent some time stalking tourists. we also found out that the needle is a voyeur's dream! the telescopes located around the observation deck allow you to view not only the beautiful scenery of this, my fair city, but it will also let you look into people's apartments, offices and hotel rooms.

i watched some guy watch television while a girl next to me yammered into her mobile about her church youth group. leff saw a map of the united states in someone's cubicle. (it was one of the maps where the states are all different colors. who knew you could see 50 states from the space needle?!) he also watched people watching televison.

the angle was wrong or we would've watched people eat chumbuckets at one of the kfcs.

so, in summary, the needle, good view but too expensive unless you have bumbershoot ticket stubs.