MONDAY, JANUARY 31 Today at 7 am, a psychotic man fatally stabbed his roommate at the "Backpackers Hotel" on Seattle's lower Queen Anne Hill. Today at 10 am, a news poll revealed Senator John McCain to have a surprising and solid lead over Texas Governor George W. Bush in the New Hampshire Republican Primary. Today at noon, a whole bunch of people ate lunch. Today at 4 pm, Oprah Winfrey and her best friend Gayle hosted a television talk show on "High Tech Communications Makeovers!" and taught a 63-year-old grandmother how to surf the Internet. Today at 4:01 pm, the Associated Press posted the results of a study revealing that overweight women and underweight men have higher instances of clinical depression. Today at 4:15 pm, an Alaska Airlines MD-80 dropped 17,000 feet into the Pacific Ocean 20 miles off the coast of Malibu, killing all 85 passengers, including 47 Seattleites.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1 Today re-searchers from the University of California, San Francisco announced the findings of a study that could mess up the lives of many, many people. Contrary to popular opinion and past research findings, a significant number of gay men are becoming infected with HIV through oral sex. The disturbing new statistics, unveiled at the seventh Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, show that 8% of recently infected men in the San Francisco area acquired HIV from sucking dick. (Past reports placed oral infections around .3%.) Still undetermined is how many of the infected suckers were also swallowers; nevertheless, those of you who consider giving blowjobs a carefree alternative to anal sex, think again, and reacquaint yourselves with the harmonica method. Those of you who prefer to stand around (and perhaps read The New Yorker) while other people give you blowjobs, feel free -- receiving oral sex still poses virtually no risk of HIV infection. And those of you who are hysterical, humorless Republicans -- there is absolutely no way to acquire HIV from a licked doorknob.

··On a much better note, tonight San Francisco performance artist Alec Mapa opened his solo show I Remember Mapa at Seattle's Northwest Asian American Theater. It was delightful.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2 As federal investigations revealed more details of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, today the Seattle Post-Intelligencer devoted its lead news section to memorializing the crash's victims. Of course it's always a tragedy when people die suddenly for no reason, but as the (often shamelessly tearjerking) P-I profiles made clear, on Flight 261, we lost some unusually interesting and vibrant people: the humanitarian co-pastors of a Monroe, Washington Christian church, a beloved Burien-area physician and his family, the celebrated wine columnist for The Seattle Times, an adorable pair of young soon-to-be-newlyweds (one of whom was ambient DJ E.E.G.), and an equally adorable pair of gay husbands (one of whom was Northwest AIDS Foundation sweetie Paul Pulanco), among many others. Sadly, the multi-page memorial was tainted by the most unfortunate ad placement in the history of newspaper publishing: a half-page spread for Airtouch Cellular, advertising their new nationwide long-distance roaming charges and boasting the three-inch-high headline, "This rate only stops when you hit an ocean."

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the sacred wunderkind -- and he's a squooshy, balding old freak. Tonight thousands of thin white people with products in their hair crowded into Seattle's Paramount Theatre for a sold-out performance by the one and only Morrissey, the former Smiths frontman/current cult-figure solo artist who's taught several generations of oversensitive, undersexed teens how to love and pity themselves with aplomb. Traditionally, Morrissey shows are greeted like the Second Coming, but tonight's was a suspiciously subdued affair, with the usual shrieking adoration replaced with shocked grimaces as yesterday's mysterious, paper-thin sexpot revealed himself to be today's hammy, lumpy dud. There were some lovely musical moments: Mixed in among the largely non-descript solo songs (highlights: "Hairdresser on Fire," "Now My Heart Is Full") were several Smiths ditties, including one of the band's best and most overlooked songs (the gorgeous "Half a Person"), as well as their absolute worst (the ghastly "Meat Is Murder"). And while it was jarring to discover that someone who once inspired nearly sociopathic devotion now elicits merely a shrug, it was nice to see the old whining geezer still alive and kicking, even in a skintight faux-leather jumpsuit.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4 Today ABCNEWS.com reported the saga of Dr. Robert Smith, a British surgeon under investigation by the British Medical Council for amputating the legs of two healthy men. The two men -- one British, one German -- each paid the equivalent of $5,000 to have their functioning legs surgically removed. Before the operation, both patients had been diagnosed with apotemnophilia, a psychological condition in which a person desires to have a limb amputated, often deriving sexual arousal in anticipation of the act. An estimated 200 people worldwide suffer from the condition, with many taking amputation matters into their own hands -- placing legs across railroad tracks, shooting themselves in the knees. Dr. Smith is currently under fire for aiding the men in their "sickness," but Smith resolutely stands by his decision (which was approved by both the hospital's medical director and its chief executive). "It took me 18 months to pluck up the courage, but it was the most satisfying operation I have ever performed," Smith told British news reporters. "I have no doubt that what I was doing was the correct thing for those patients."

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5 In what was certainly the most horrifying 15 minutes for everyone on board, tonight an Alaska Airlines MD-80 (the same model from Monday's tragedy) experienced rear stabilizer difficulties (the same trouble that downed Monday's plane) on its way out of Reno. Happily, the plane managed a safe emergency landing back at the Reno/Tahoe International Airport, but still -- what the fuck? Calls to Alaska Airlines inquiring, "What the fuck?" went unanswered. (Two days from now, yet another Alaska Airlines MD-80 will be forced to make an emergency landing in San Francisco.)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6 Today Hillary Clinton officially announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, becoming the first president's wife ever to seek political office. Unfortunately, Madame Clinton's announcement rally, staged at the State University of New York at Purchase, was marred by the airing of a dirty Billy Joel song minutes before Hillary's stage entrance. "Your sister's gone out, she's on a date, and you just sit at home and masturbate..." blared Billy Joel's "Captain Jack" before shocked campaign workers ordered that the song be silenced. "The first lady does not endorse the message in the Billy Joel song," one campaign insider told the Drudge Report.

··Speaking of political gaffes, Last Days will give a wonderful, marvelous prize to anyone who sends us a videotape of Gary Bauer flipping a pancake and falling off a stage. Send to Last Days, c/o The Stranger, 1535 11th Ave., Third Floor, Seattle, WA 98122. God bless you.

··And finally, happy birthday to former presidential mannequin Ronald Reagan, police- slapping Hungarian Zsa Zsa Gabor, drunk slugger Babe Ruth, artsy-fartsy filmmaker François Truffaut, marble-mouthed newsman Tom Brokaw, former teen swooner Fabian, grave-robbing soulstress Natalie Cole, and the owner of the world's most beautiful male voice, Bob Marley!

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