#FreeTango
#FreeTango Anup Shah/Getty Images

We went to Olympia and got you this mosaic: You’re welcome Catalina Vel-DuRay. Don’t say we never did anything for you. I guess we didn’t actually get you the mosaic since it was just relocated and we didn’t want to disturb it. Multiple moves can be traumatic for mosaics, especially in such a short period of time.

Sneak peek!
Sneak peek! Nathalie Graham

It’s in the Helen Summer Building and features a hispter-y John Bunyan-type and some planes and other things. A nice security guard directed me toward it and told me how to get the best view since it’s still being installed.

Arrest made in fatal carjacking: A 23-year-old suspect has been arrested in connection to a carjacking in Kent earlier this week. The owner caught the thief mid-jack. But, when police located the stolen vehicle, a pick-up truck, the owner’s body was found in the truck bed. The suspect has been arrested but not yet charged in connection with the case.

Has anyone seen Tango??? Okay, first of all, what is this Gig Harbor family doing with an African serval? The serval is a 6-year-old Tango. He’s apparently domesticated and declawed (fucked up, I know). He’s on the lam, on the run, and has been missing since Sunday. His family is worried. Be free, Tango. (Or not, since, y’know, you HAVE NO CLAWS!!!) I cannot believe THIS (see below) is an actual animal someone owns.

More on what’s next for clocks in Washington: We’re probably moving to year-round daylight saving time, baby! Earlier today, the state Senate passed Senate Bill 5139 by a whopping 46-2 vote. “Year-round daylight saving time” feels a lot like “no daylight saving time” but they’re different things! Don’t confuse them! Confusingly, even if our boy Jay signs the measure, Washington can only observe year-round daylight saving time if Congress passes legislation that lets states do so. The real point here is that clocks are confusing and we should do away with them. (I love chaos.) Anyhow, more from Seattle Times.

UW gave their athletic director a raise: So now they don’t look sexist anymore. Jennifer Cohen took over as interim athletic director in 2016 and, after five months, took over the position permanently. However, her salary was paltry compared to other athletic directors in the 65 Power Five conference programs. Despite helming a vastly successful athletic program, Cohen was still making a measly “$460,000 on a five-year deal, plus a $60,000 retention bonus,” according to the Seattle Times. Last August, UW quietly gave her that raise. Cohan now makes $750,000 with a $75,000 retention bonus. A 63 percent raise!

THE CBD MANIA HAS TO STOP:

Washington state Senate votes green: Two conservation bills passed this week in the Senate; one that would implement new energy efficiency standards for buildings in Washington and another that would set energy efficiency standards for appliances. The bills still have to go back through the gauntlet of the House and the Senate to get new amendments approved. Another bill in the conservation package that would reduce carbon content in transportation fuels is in limbo in the Senate.

Tech elites are worried they’ll be the next Becky pulled into Operation Varsity Blues: William “Rick” Singer, America’s most notorious test-taker, testified that “he had led 761 families through a ‘side door’ into the universities of their choosing,” according to Recode. Apparently, this revelation has made venture capitalists around Silicon Valley nervous. It turns out “move fast and break things” has its limits… like fraud.

Everyone is going to die: Yes, even Alex Trebek. Before you get mad, I’m not happy about it either, I’m just preparing for the inevitable. The good news—not that a reminder about our fragile mortality isn’t healthy every now and then—is that Alex seems to be in good spirits and his treatment is going well. He’s already thinking ahead to the next season of Jeopardy! Maybe everything will be alright. Likely, it won’t. Denial is easy to cling to, though.

Thank you for your service, Space Needle: Today marks the 58th anniversary of the groundbreaking for the Space Needle. A big day! In 1962 (when it was finished, one year after the groundbreaking), the Space Needle was the tallest building in Seattle—86 feet taller than the Smith Tower.

Your dentist is probably screwing you: Okay, I am so glad this Atlantic piece was written. I recently went to the dentist for the first time in years and was shocked at how many cavities I had. It’s pretty likely that I had them because well, you know, not going to the dentist for years, but this piece talks about how dentistry is fucked up. It’s a medical practice separated from other medical practices. It’s not evidence-based and it prioritizes procedure over prevention. The most common dental procedures (fillings, crowns, root canals, etc.) are often unnecessary. A lot of this has to do with the economics of dentistry; it’s expensive to go to dental school/start a practice/etc. and people’s oral hygiene has improved drastically, necessitating fewer dental procedures. It’s crazy! I still hate the dentist and now I’m highly skeptical of every single one I’ve ever been to, as you should be too.

Singapore’s airport is nicer than anything in this shit hole country:

North Korea conducts a weapon test: Kim Jong Un is testing a new tactical guided weapon. I guess all those talks with Trump didn’t amount to much.

Instagram meme creators have formed a union: This is ridiculous. And no, it’s not a joke. IG Meme Union Local 69-420 wants to “seize the memes of production” and is asking for worker protections because the memesters create so much content for the company (owned by Facebook).

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and non-binary feudal lords

A post shared by IG Meme Union Local 69-420 (@unionizedmemes) on


It’s nice that people are waking up to the fact that social media companies use our unpaid labor and contributions to score record profits (and return the favor by recording and giving away our data), but how is the labor that a meme creator spends on Instagram any different from the labor an anti-vaxxer puts into their anti-vax Facebook group? Should Facebook pay anti-vaxxers for the engagement they generate? Should Facebook pay journalists and media companies for creating the content on America’s favorite homepage, Facebook? It’s hard to say memesters should be paid by Instagram, especially when memes typically deal in stolen copyrighted images, which are somehow allowed to proliferate on social platforms.

A BeeSA from Pornhub:

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Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.

Nathalie Graham covers anything she finds fun, weird, or interesting. You can find a lot of that in her column, Play Date. Her work has also appeared around town in The Seattle Times, GeekWire, and the...

Chase Burns is The Stranger's former editor. He's covered everything from gay luchadores to chemical weapons to Isabella Rossellini's favorite pets.