MONDAY, MAY 28 The new week found Last Days lounging in a patch of sunshine in front of the Seattle's Best Coffee in Westlake, where we overheard a burly fellow with zero-percent body fat confide to his smaller companion that "wood is a complex carbohydrate." We admit this eavesdropped advice improved the taste of our enormous vanilla milkshake immeasurably.

• • Also today, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that late Friday night the police swooped into the first stop of the "Angry White Male Tour" at the Ballard Firehouse and confiscated a tombstone purported to have graced the grave of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein. Shane Bugbee, ringleader of the tour, which boasts live punk rock performances and a display of art and oddities, said the gravestone was a fake. "It's a really rude, exaggerated piece of artwork," Bugbee sputtered. Confiscating it "is the silliest thing I've ever heard of." Sillier than wearing a vest stitched out of a woman's torso, Shane?

TUESDAY, MAY 29 More inspired butcher news! Today the Associated Press reported the case of Bernard Perez, a 20-year-old charged with killing two people so that he could live in their New York apartments. Unlucky authorities found Perez lounging around one of his ill-acquired lodgings early Monday morning; they also found a victim's severed head stored under the sink.

• • Also today: Four followers of Osama bin Laden were found guilty in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Reuters reports that the deadly blasts--which took 224 lives--were part of the Saudi super-villain's worldwide scheme to snuff out Americans. A Manhattan federal jury convicted 24-year-old Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali, 27-year-old Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 40-year-old Wadih El-Hage, and 36-year-old Mohamed Sadeek Odeh of every charge lodged against them.

• • Also today, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 in favor of allowing professional golfer Casey Martin the right to use a golf cart between shots. (PGA rules require all golfers to walk during competition.) Twenty-nine-year-old Martin, who claims to suffer from a congenital circulatory condition that makes walking excruciating, said, "This is a big win for me, but I've still got to be hanging in there, working hard." Yeah right, you big baby.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30 Today at Sequoia National Park, "President" Dubya slipped on a green forest ranger's coat, stood in front of some huge trees, and allowed photographers to record his image as he announced new measures to tidy up America's national parks. Courtney Cuff, regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, told Reuters, "It's one baby step with so many steps backward."

• • And it appears that the faux tree-hugger's 19-year-old twin babies, Jenna and Barbara Bush, are following their pop's unsteady steps into substance abuse. Today Reuters reported that both of the darlin' gals are under investigation for allegedly trying to buy alcohol in an Austin, Texas, Mexican restaurant yesterday. Confidential to Jenna and Babs: Your father is the leader of the free world. We know this is depressing, but if we can face the painful truth, so can you.

• • Overheard at Dan & Rey's Market in Belltown as a silver-coifed matron in a linen suit pushed open the doors: "How wonderful! They've finally feng-shuied the convenience store!"

THURSDAY, MAY 31 Today Hot Tipper Brian W. provided invaluable insight as to why Last Days is driven to near-homicidal distraction by those damn fiberglass swine currently defiling our streets. "While waiting in line at Monorail Espresso," wrote Brian via e-mail, "a bike messenger asked out loud, 'When have you ever seen so many pigs downtown?' There was a moment's pause before almost everyone in the line shouted out in unison, 'WTO!' It seemed like street poetry." Thanks, you crazy beatnik!

• • Also today, 13-year-old Sean Conley of Aitkin, Minnesota, won the U.S. national spelling bee, ending a seven-round shootout with the word "succedaneum." Reuters reports that Conley is a computer genius who taught himself to read at the age of two. Last Days reports that "succedaneum" is a thoroughly useless synonym for "substitute." The young man won a $10,000 grand prize, an encyclopedia, and a set of Great Books of the Western World.

• • Also today: The Macon Telegraph reported the gloriously horrific story of the 47-year-old Texas woman who got her bottom lip gnawed off while she slept. Although the woman's family believes an "unknown chemical" is to blame, the woman admitted to police that she frequently allowed her one-year-old poodle, Shorty, to lick her lips after she drank sweet tea. She also confessed that the hellhound had taken her false teeth out of her mouth several weeks earlier and had chewed them up. Police detective Karen Stokes said that the woman dosed up on the antidepressant trazodone and drank sweet tea shortly after 10:00 p.m. on May 24 and woke up the next morning to find her bottom lip missing. After searching in vain for the missing lip, the officers checked the fluffy fiend's mouth, where they found telltale traces of lady lip. The unnamed woman was treated and released from the Houston Medical Center, where she will soon return for reconstructive surgery, creating a new lip with skin from her buttocks.

FRIDAY, JUNE 1 Nepal's royal familywas virtually wiped out late today when the heir to the throne, Prince Dipendra, shot and killed King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, and several other family members before killing himself, Reuters reported. Nepal's Interior Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said that up to 11 people had been killed in the shooting, but gave no further details. And while Last Days was unaware that Nepal had a royal family, we deeply grieve their passing.

SATURDAY, JUNE 2 Late last night, a suspected Palestinian suicide bomber killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 90 others when he blew himself up in a crowd of teenagers outside Pacha, a seaside nightclub in Tel Aviv, Reuters reported today. Searching for a lip in a woman's apartment is funny; searching for arms and legs in smoking rubble is not.

• • Also today: A five-day standoff in remote northern Idaho ended peacefully when the five armed children who had been holed up in their ramshackle house agreed to leave after hours of negotiations with police, friends, and family members. The plucky young'uns were immediately handed over to teen pop impresario Lou Perlman, who will produce the kids' debut album, Hands off My Maw!, by mid-July.

SUNDAY, JUNE 3 Today a record 12 Tony awards were bestowed upon The Producers, Mel Brooks' smash musical starring Ferris Bueller and that big annoying gay guy.