Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

We'd really rather forget about this whole thing, but since we started it, we may as well see this silly bars vote thing through to the end. There's just one problem: One of the brackets is in a tie and must go into overtime. Here it is. Make a choice, any choice, and then we'll move on with the next round.

We'll let the other brackets continue on as well. We never said it was going to be fair, did we?

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote, Gay Seattle

Sure, the voting process for our gay bars tourney in the regular season started out confusing. But that's the nature of regular seasons in any sport isn't it?

Now comes the time for the tournament. The first round has started. (Because they slow down loading of these pages, we won't try to copy the voting controls to this page this time around. Just click over to cast your votes.)

Here's a roundup of the exciting matchups that we see in this must-see first round. (Insert sound of martial music of some sort here.)

In Bracket #1 Dancing at The Cuff faces off against the winner of our ringer conference, Seagulls. Don't become complacent about this one. Hyperactive critters have shown themselves to be remakably strong players in other Seattle polls.

Bracket #2 features two strong nightlife contenders, Games at Madison Pub vs. Karaoke at The Crescent. Both have shown themselves to be tough teams during the regular season and conference playoffs.

A fascinating matchup is offered by Bracket #3 where Drag at Rebar squares off with Leather/Levi at The Eagle. The refs will have to be on their toes for this one. Expect some claws.

The Cuff makes the second of its three appearances in Bracket #4 where its After hours faces another double winner, Madison Pub, this time for its Wi-fi.

Bracket #5 should offer perhaps the quietest (but certainly the smokiest) of the first-round matchups. Two playoff winners will compete when Patio at CC Attle's tips off against Dining at Broadway Grill.

The Cuff makes its final appearance in Bracket #6 where After hours at The Cuff meets Coffee at Metropolitain.

Good luck to all. Let the games begin. This round will continue through the end of February. Bracket winners face off against each other in March. Warning: There will be a special wild-card contestant thrown in for the third round.

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote, Gay Seattle, Seattle

Our already interminable preliminary rounds is finally and mercifully about to end. You have just one more day to vote in the conference playoff round.

Because the voting controls are slowing down the whole blog page, I'm taking them off of here. You can still vote here.


Crescent, Changes, and Cuff compete in this one. When the tournament starts on Thursday Games @ Madison Pub will compete against the winner of this Karaoke playoff. Who will it be? Vote now.

The winners of the restaurant (Broadway Grill or Metropolitain) and patio (CC's and Eagle) conferences will face off against each other in the tournament. Pick your favorites.


So we're sure (uh huh) that you're eagerly anticipating the face-to-face matchups that will start on Thursday. Stay tuned -- if you haven't already fallen asleep, that is.

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote, Gay Seattle

We said at the start that this thing was going to drag on interminably. And it already has. But since we started it, we figure it's incumbent upon us to finish out this gay-bar vote sillyness. So this is the start of part two.

Despite an unexpected early whistle to end regular season voting (typical, since problems have been a feature of this thing from the start), we've declared the winners in that part of things that has been going on for more than a month. Now it's time to determine the winners of a few conferences that were split into two divisions. Pick your favorites in the polls at left.

The eagle-eyed among fans (both of you) might note that one of the split conferences, Pool/Games, is missing from the playoffs. That's because our officials huddled, debated, and finally decided that a winner of that split conference should be declared based on regular-season record alone. Madison Pub took 67% of the vote in Division 1. But that division attracted twice as many voters as Div. 2 where there was a three-way tie. It was such a dominating performance for Madison, that they get the prize without a playoff.

All of the conference winners will face off, tourney-style against the winners of the other conferences. And the winners are:

• Dancing: The Cuff
• Games: Madison Pub
• Drag: Rebar
• After-hours: The Cuff
• Patio: (TBD)
• Sunday T: The Cuff
• Coffee: Metropolitain
• Restaurant: (TBD)
• Wi-fi: Madison Pub
• Leather/Levi: Seattle Eagle
• Karaoke: (TBD)
• Critters: Seagulls

Congratulations. Logos will go up on the bars page, as promised, tomorrow.

When the tournament starts in mid-February, Dancing at The Cuff will face off against Seagulls; Games at Madison Pub will compete against Karaoke (somewhere); etc. Notice that one of the more facsinating matches will pit Drag at Rebar against Leather at The Eagle. That one, we love.

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote, Gay Seattle

Here's proof that a single voter can make a significant difference on the outcome of our much-criticized gay bars tourney: Even the most popular conference, Dancing, currently has garnered only 17 votes. The Cuff is now tied with Neighbours. Sugar has yet to get even a single vote. Click below and observe how you can change that.

7 choices

The prize

And why should you care? We're not sure it will make a lot of difference, but here's what the winners will get: Free web advertising.

During February and March, we'll display the logos of five conference champions on our much-visited Gay Bars map page. The single champion after the March Mania tournament will get its logo displayed for two months, April and May. (After that the business would have to become a sponsor of the Queen City Cruise -- which costs several hundred dollars -- to get a logo displayed there.)

Which five get displayed next month? As metblogs said, you'll need to get out your #2 pencil to figure out any of this stuff, but the five logos that will be displayed will be determined by post-regular-season power rankings: Logos of the winners of the five conferences with the most votes will be displayed after a coin-flip tie-breaker if necessary.

(As things stand right now, the winner of the Dancing conference would get top display.)

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote, gay business, Gay Seattle

A few of the conferences in our regular season of the Gay Bars Tourney aren't getting much love, despite help from generous blogs. We feature one of the unloved conferences below. Vote here if you care about this conference and then grab a #2 pencil vote for the rest of the many teams playing in this leadup to the March Marvels tourney.

Karaoke (Div. 1)

This is one of several split conferences where the final winner will be determined by a playoff. The winner of this division will face off against the winner of Division 2 where The Crescent has a significant lead.

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote

J from the CHS blog who inspired this sillyness suggests in a comment that our wealth of choices in the Gay Bars Tourney may be just a bit too... well, earnest. (Which is, of course, a trait of your WebWrangler's posts in general.)

Maybe. In case that's true, we'll throw in one more conference to make it all even more confusing. But it least, the new ringer conference offers a chance that squirrels or seagulls (or, you know... something else) could face off against The Cuff or Sugar or something like that in the finals. So vote for the new conference players and then go vote again for the rest.

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote

We're at half-time of our Gay Bars Tournament regular season which will continue through the end of January. We've seen the expected low-scoring matchups emerging from the first half, but the inspiration for this sillyness, Capitol Hill Seattle (CHS) blog, mentioned it so that could (but it probably won't) change.

So how did the clubs do in the first half? Our crack analysts (or, maybe that's drunk analysts) see it this way:

The 12th-Man nod at half-time goes to the Dancing Clubs conference where fans have posted 16 votes. (Not coincidentally, it was the first conference on our polls page before things were rearranged.) Neighbours is in a tight race with The Cuff for the conference title. Suprisingly, even though the majority of searchers who land on our bars page are looking for Sugar, it hasn't yet gotten a vote in that conference. (Which is, admittedly, partly to do to the alphabetical listings since getting to Sugar requires a scroll).







Division 1 of the Games conference is second in popularity with 12 votes. In that division, Madison Pub is rolling over its competition with 67% of the vote compared to 17% for The Cuff. Division 2 of that conference has only 6 votes. The Eagle is tied with its neighbor The Crescent in that division.

If the conference playoff were held today, we'd have a playoff vote among Madison Pub and The Cuff from Div. 1 and The Eagle and Cresent from Div. 2.






The surprise of the season's first half is the popularity of the Drag/Cabaret conference which comes in #3 with 11 votes. Re-Bar is rolling over its competition with 45% of the vote despite a suprise surge by Double Header.












The Restaurant Div. 2 conference is competitive with Metropolitain and Purr tied for the lead, but with Martin's and others in striking distance. Broadway Grill from the Div.1 would currently face the winners of that division in a playoff.







Despite an early lead in voting, the WiFi conference has fallen toward the bottom of the pack in popularity. Madison Pub leads Kaladi, but there are too few votes to make much of it.






Vote totals reflect the counts at about noon on 1/16. Votes on this page count the same way as votes on the tourney page. (Where conferences have been randomly rearranged.)

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote

It's finally and officially over now. Squirrels -- showing that they are much like other Seattle teams -- needed an exciting finish to squeak through to an unconvincing and sloppy win in the final of Capitol Hill Seattle's poll. They faced off in the final against the web varmints at Slog who are every bit as hyperactive as the sidewalk varmints. Slog has vowed to challenge the results.

Meanwhile, our own much less popular and far more confusing polls for Seattle gay bars limps on, at least until the end of January, when we might put it out of its misery.

Labels: gay bar vote, Seattle

As promised, we now offer you a chance to vote for your favorite bars and clubs in our Tacky Tourist Clubs Gay Bar Tourney.

Vote now for your favorite gay bars in Seattle.

This time around, we've slavishly copied Capitol Hill Seattle's popular polls by using the same web-based service that they've been using. This one lets anyone vote (at least) once a day, thereby doing what all bad good web polls should: Reflect enthusiasm along with popularity.

One bored cubicle worker checking in each day (or more often for cookie-mod geeks) could drastically affect the results. And that's what it's all about. That's enthusiasm for you. But another bored cubicle worker with a big address list could email this post or a copy of his preferred poll to all friends, acquaintances and tricks, thereby turning it into a battle of enthusiasms.

How the tourney works
We start with the regular season. Bars and clubs compete in eleven conferences. The conferences were determined by the tags we've used for months and sometimes over a year on our bars page.

During this, the regular season, each bar is competing in a conference that rates it for a single feature. Admittedly, it's confusing right now, but that's how it should be in regular season match ups when there are too many teams competing in too many conferences.

(Please, please, post a comment below if something seems unfair about the conference alignment. We'll fix the bars map right away, but we won't be able to change the tourney teams.)

Since we can only include seven options on any of the polls, some of the conferences are divided into two divisions.

In the second round, winners of each division in a conference will face off against each other and at least one other club chosen by vote totals of the non-winners in the conference.

We'll probably also set up at least one wild-card poll during the second round based on some bizarre criteria that we haven't fully figured out yet.

In the third round, winners of each conference (that gets some kind of reasonable number of votes) and of the wild-card poll will face off against one another. Stronger conferences based on vote totals will face weaker conferences.

After that, the winners of each poll will face off against each other. It's possible (even likely) that one bar might face off against itself. For instance, Bar-Q (dancing) might compete against Bar-Q (patio).

Confused? Don't worry about it. Just vote. If you'd like to do some research this weekend, get directions from our Seattle gay bars map.

We don't expect a huge number of votes in this silly little tourney, so that means that your vote will be even more important. Tell your friends. Copy one or several of the polls and add it to an email or your own blog.

We'll let the regular season run through January and then run the playoff rounds. If it weren't too similar to a term that's copyrighted by a litigious outfit, we might call it something like the Madness of March. But we won't.

So get out your Fighting Poodles pom-poms and VOTE often for your favorite in each conference.

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote, Gay Seattle

So, yes... [Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea barda culpa.] Your webwrangler admits that he screwed up last week in trying to copy the fun Capitol Hill Seattle [CHS] has been having with its poll tournament.

(Their vote is now closed. Although the results are not yet official, it appears that squirrels edged out Slog. The First Hill squirrels we saw today on Seneca St. seemed downright excited by the win even though it really applies only to Capitol Hill squirrels.)

But we haven't given up on our own version of this silliness. We have a still-hidden page almost ready to restart the voting in a format that more slavishly copies CHS, using exactly the same web voting forms that they've been using. (Poll forms that don't require a registration of any kind.)

We're going to divide the bars into a number of conferences based on the tags that have, for many months, been applied to the places on our gay bars map. (Check the list at the far right of that page to see what the tags are and which places are included.) Post a comment here or email us if you see something improperly tagged.

Watch this space for the opening next week of the admittedly confusing "regular season" that will determine tournament contestants. (Click the orange button to the left or the similar one in your browser's toolbar [Firefox, Safari etc. or IE7] to subscribe.)

Labels: gay bar, gay bar vote, Gay Seattle

[Update, 12/24: So we screwed up trying to use this voting form since it requires registration. We'll try again next week with a different voting technology.]

The Capitol Hill blog (CHS) is having so much fun with their bizarre votes, we thought we might join in with something similar.

Cast a vote for your favorite gay bar on this page. [See update below]

The control includes gay bars in town that have websites of at least some kind. The few, like Thumpers, that don't have sites are on our bar map, but not on this list because of limitations of the folks who make this happen.

We don't expect to see anywhere near the number of votes that CHS is getting because, well, they're getting votes because Dan Savage tells Slogists to go over there and vote. We doubt he'll do us that favor.

But that just means that your vote is even more important. You get just one vote for each place, so use the votes wisely. (We suspect, however, that multiple votes will be possible if you wait a day or so.) Click the up-arrow to add one point to your choice. Click the down arrow to remove a point.

I can't get the control to work on this page, even though it's supposed to work this way, but go to Squidoo GaySeattle page to cast your vote.



Update 12/22/06: OK, so I'll admit the "technology" being used for this vote is lame. It turns out that you can't vote unless you have a Squidoo account. That's dumb. Plus the widget that is supposed to allow voting by anybody from any web page doesn't work. It's a good idea that has been poorly implemented. I'll bring it up again when it's working properly.

Labels: Dan Savage, gay bar, gay bar vote, Gay Seattle, Seattle