Hello and welcome to a very special edition of Last Days: The Week in Review, created for our annual Regrets issue, in which we revisit seven regrettable days from a regrettable year. Let's start at the very beginning ("A very good place to start" —M. Von Trapp, Nazi punker), with the first few minutes of 2014, when a Seattle man with a history of alcohol abuse and antipathy against gays poured gasoline all over the carpeted stairway of Neighbours gay nightclub and lit it on fire. "The bar in the 1500 block of Broadway was occupied by more than 750 patrons celebrating New Year's Eve at the time," reported the SPD Blotter at the time. "The fire was quickly discovered before it could spread beyond the stairway and was extinguished with a fire extinguisher... An orderly evacuation was accomplished and no one was injured." Still, things could've gone much, much worse—a fact eloquently addressed at the time by US Army Staff Sergeant Christopher Bostick, a Neighbours attendee whose quick response to the flames likely saved many lives. "You know, in 30 seconds, if that fire did what the arsonist intended, there's no telling how many people could have died," Bostick told KIRO in early January. "This was a planned attack on a large quantity of people in order to affect an entire community. To me, that's terrorism."

•• Fast-forward six months to July, when Musab Masmari—the 31-year-old man who'd admitted to setting the blaze after being arrested en route to Turkey—was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for arson. In a letter to the court, Masmari attempted to blame his actions on alcohol: "I do not believe that I am a bad man but when I get drunk I have done bad things," Masmari wrote in a letter, excerpted at Seattlepi.com. "I swear that it is my intent to never drink again." However, numerous associates of Masmari told investigators of his anti-gay proclamations and "general hostility toward homosexuality." Whatever the case, Masmari is now working out his alcohol problems and general hostility toward homosexuality in a federal prison.

Speaking of recklessly intoxicated menaces to society, on TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, teen pop star Justin Bieber was the subject of a police investigation for felony egg-throwing, after allegedly pelting his neighbor's home with eggs, causing approximately $20,000 worth of damage. Soon after making headlines, Bieber's felony egg trouble was supplanted in the public imagination by an avalanche of follow-up drama, including allegedly driving under the influence, allegedly assaulting a photographer in Buenos Aires, and allegedly smoking so much weed on a private plane that the crew had to wear gas masks. But let's follow the original egg charges to their end, which came on July 9, when Bieber pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vandalism and was ordered to pay $80,900 in restitution, complete 12 weeks of anger-management classes, and serve two years probation. And, oh yeah: On November 24, Bieber will land at the top of Forbes magazine's list of the Highest-Earning Celebrities Under 30, with an estimated $80 million in annual earnings.

Speaking of upsetting stories, the year continued with WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, also known as the day the world learned of the Colorado businessman who took the easy way out in the hardest way imaginable—committing suicide by nail gun. Identified by the Denver Post as Richard Talley, the self-harming handyman was also the founder and CEO of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado. "Talley, 56, and the company he founded in 2001 were under investigation by state insurance regulators at the time of his death," reported the Post in February. "Talley died from seven or eight self-inflicted wounds from a nail gun fired into his torso and head." As notable as the method of Talley's death was the weirdness left in its wake: "Talley's 1989 wedding announcement in the Chicago Tribune noted he was... 'a member of the 1980 US Olympic swimming team,'" reported the Post. "A spokeswoman for USA Swimming on Thursday said Talley was not on the team."

•• Jump forward to summer, and the plot has thickened considerably: "The US Department of Labor says the title insurance company CEO who committed suicide had misappropriated more than $62,000 from employee retirement accounts, according to a federal lawsuit," reported the Denver Post in June. "Richard Talley of American Title Services Company in Greenwood Village allegedly deducted more than $111,000 from employee paychecks for company-sponsored retirement accounts, but more than half of it never reached those accounts." Condolences to all, especially whoever found the troubled CEO fatally riddled with nails.

Speaking of news-making departures, the year continued with THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, aka the day that 81-year-old comedian Joan Rivers died as a result of complications from what should have been simple throat surgery. The days after Rivers's passing were filled with celebrity tributes to her talent and rampant speculation about her death, which came to a head on October 28, when the New York Daily News reported that "Joan Rivers's daughter has hired a high-powered Manhattan law firm to file a big-bucks lawsuit against the clinic where the legendary comic went into cardiac arrest during a procedure in August, sources said."

Along with news of Melissa Rivers's wrongful-death suit against Yorkville Endoscopy, autumn also brought specifics of Joan Rivers's will, which found the deceased workaholic zillionaire giving money to an array of charities, including the meals-on-wheelsy God's Love We Deliver, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and Guide Dogs for the Blind.

In browner news, the year continued with FRIDAY, APRIL 4, when the Ann Arbor News asked a question for the ages: "Who has been defecating on children's slides in Ypsilanti's Prospect Park for the past five to six months?" As the newspaper reported, the mystery pooper—identified by police only as an "extremely misguided individual"—so regularly soiled the slides that cops installed a hidden camera to catch him in the act. (Also aiding the effort: A billboard taken out along Michigan's Interstate 94, encouraging residents to "Do your civic doody" and "Help us catch the 'poopetrator.'") Which brings us to May 14, when Ann Arbor News reported that "Ypsilanti's children's slides are free and clear of feces after the Ypsilanti Police recently identified a suspect." As authorities told Ann Arbor News, the suspect is a resident of a nearby halfway house, and there have been no further fecal incidents since police contacted the suspect.

In more predictable news, the year continued with SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, also known as the last day on earth for Jamie Coots, the Pentecostal pastor and star of the National Geographic Channel reality show Snake Salvation, who was giving a sermon at Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus's name today when he took a couple of poisonous snakes in his hands and was fatally bitten. Immediately after the snakebite, WBIR News reported at the time, parishioners called for help while Pastor Coots left for home, leaving emergency personnel to track him down at his house, where he refused medical treatment and died. "Cody [Coots's son] said his dad didn't believe in going to the doctor for a snakebite," reported WBIR.

•• Five days after Coots's death, National Geographic weighed in on the passing of the man who died doing the thing they put him on TV to do.

"Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time," stated National Geographic on February 20. "Tonight, tune in to a special episode that will examine the life of Pastor Jamie Coots, who was bitten by a rattlesnake during church service this past Saturday and died that evening after reports that his family refused medical attention following his wishes."

Speaking of people dying while doing what they loved, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, initially announced itself as the final day of Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Oscar-winning actor who was found dead in his Manhattan apartment with a needle in his arm, with his cause of death ruled "combined drug intoxication." But soon after the Hoffman news hit, the Seattle Seahawks commenced kicking the butts of the Denver Broncos to win Super Bowl XLVIII, turning this initially tragic day into a partially triumphant one. Thank you, Seahawks, for providing such an exceptional diversion from the day's sad and shocking loss, and RIP, Philip Seymour Hoffman—the tender way you spoke the name "Dude" in The Big Lebowski and the brutal way you bounced off the roof of that mattress truck in the outtakes for Punch Drunk Love will live forever in our hearts.

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