MONDAY, DECEMBER 25 Huzzah! Today was Christmas Day, and Last Days celebrated this delightful pagan holiday by gathering with friends to guzzle a lethal cocktail called an "Americano," which turned out to be champagne, a shot of top-shelf whiskey, and several heaping tablespoons of refined sugar to help the medicine go down. Mmmmm, mmmm, goodness! Unfortunately, our drunken consensus process led us to choose Cast Away as our holiday entertainment. Sadly, watching Tom Hanks wrestle with a coconut is a sure-fire method of inducing premature hangovers, and Last Days stumbled out of the Majestic Bay Theater feeling like we'd spent two long hours sipping sea water. Oscar, our ass.

··Also today: Last Days regrets that on this, the most festive of holidays, we must report that police in Coburg, Oregon stopped a Dodge van with missing plates driven by Joshua Emmans, 25, who was traveling with his wife, Amanda Emmans, 25, and their three children. After struggling with the couple (predictably, the man was wanted on drug charges), the officers discovered that the vehicle contained a rolling white-trash petting zoo. Crammed inside the van were a tabby cat, a pit bull mutt, three ferrets, a 24-inch alligator, and a popcorn tin filled with rats (some dead, some living). A thoroughly appalled Last Days blesses the beasts and the children and sends our sincerest condolences to the rats.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26 Strange animal stories continue as Reuters reports that two rare koalas have been stolen from the San Francisco Zoo. Though described by zookeepers as "the cutest things you have ever seen," the koalas (much like alligators or dead rats) are not really pet material, since they are cranky and smelly, subsist on an insanely specific diet of fresh, vertically growing eucalyptus leaves, sleep up to 18 hours a day, and often drop dead for no good reason. Since there is no known black market for the little critters (protected by strict laws in Australia), baffled zoo officials have questioned whether they might have been stolen with a more grisly purpose in mind. "Would someone want to eat a koala? Why would anyone want to do that? We don't know," bemoaned an obviously distraught and sleep-deprived zoo spokesperson.

··Also today: Every news source in the world reported that Michael McDermott is suspected of massacring seven co-workers in a shooting spree at Edgewater Technology Inc., an Internet consulting firm in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The huge man with a wild, scary beard was apparently distraught about the company's plan to garnish his wages for back taxes following a request from the IRS. Last Days is horrified by the senseless event, and finds it particularly creepy that the heavily armed McDermott did not end his rampage by taking his own life as these disgruntled lunatics usually do. Instead, McDermott was found sitting passively in a chair, his weapons still loaded and within reach, before being wrestled to the ground by a SWAT team. Spooky.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27 Today Robert Downey Jr. (free on $15,000 bail) pleaded not guilty to felony possession of cocaine, felony possession of the prescription anti-anxiety drug diazepam, and a misdemeanor charge of being under the influence of a controlled substance. Though Last Days certainly feels sorry for the troubled actor, we'd still rather see him rot in jail than on Ally McBeal, romancing that overrated brown paper sack full of chicken bones Calista Flockhart.

··Also today: Reuters breathlessly reported that "Eric Franklin Rosser, a former piano player in rock singer John Mellencamp's band, was added to [the FBI's] Most-Wanted List for allegedly producing and distributing child pornography--a first for the high-profile list." Last Days must ask what the FBI means by "a first?" Is this the first child pornographer on the list? Or the first keyboardist for John Cougar Mellencamp? We admit to bafflement.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28 America's current fad of workplace violence continued today in a ghetto of Philadelphia, when seven people were fatally shot and three others wounded after four masked men burst into a confirmed "crack-house" and started shooting. Though there will doubtlessly be no candlelight vigils for these innocent victims, the tragic situation was eloquently summed up by neighborhood resident Eugene Whiters, who told the Associated Press, "It's sad."

··Also today: Last Days is overjoyed to report that the koala bears were not eaten after all! They're back in their habitat, munching on leaves with exquisite slowness while two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, are in a world of trouble for kidnapping them. While Last Days applauds the sheer inventiveness of the fresh-faced marsupial snatchers, we suggest that the next time they need to express adolescent rage, they simply do what we did at that age: swallow a fist full of Mom's Valium, steal the phys. ed. teacher's car, and head out to the countryside for some angst-dissolving cow tipping.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29 Today a suicidal airline passenger, identified only as a 27-year-old Kenyan, grabbed the controls of a British Airways jet with 398 people aboard (including, bizarrely, former Roxy Music vocalist Bryan Ferry), sending the plane plummeting 10,000 feet. "In the struggle, the intruder bit my ear and finger, but my first officer and I managed to get him out of the cockpit with the help of several passengers," said the remarkably restrained Capt. William Hagan to Reuters.

··Also: Tonight a gorgeous candlelight New Year's service was held at St. James Cathedral. Last Days still cannot get over the fact that we actually went there on a date (nothing cultivates romance like ghostly Christian ritual). Stranger still is the fact that afterward, we jumped in the car and drove over to see the breathtaking rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The cognitive dissonance induced by the juxtaposition of these two activities still lingers pleasantly.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30 Last Days was just plain startled by the unexpected announcement today that the 128 year-old department store Montgomery Ward is shutting its doors and filing for bankruptcy. Did a single person on earth even know that Montgomery Ward was still open? We long ago turned to other outlets for our bolts of calico, mule harnesses, and ladies' undergarments. Anyway, RIP, MW.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 31 Last Days is thrilled to report that this year, our city had the sort of joyful, inebriated New Year's Celebration the rest of the world had last year (when Seattle pussies holed up at home waiting for Osama bin Laden to blow up the Space Needle). We rung in the New Year at a party hosted by the charming and gracious stars of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The festivities included a whole bunch of yummy vegetarian food; really, really good wine; a contemplative koi pond; a glitter cannon (courtesy of Cirque de Flambé, fresh from their gig at the Bellevue Art Museum); and lots of dancing and kissing around a roaring, white-hot fire pit. We hope everybody had as safe and sexy a holiday! We look forward to spending the next year with you.

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