MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10
Our nerve-racking week of terror alerts, suicide directives, and heartbreaking human delusion got off to a relatively benign start today with a Hot Tip from perennial Hot Tipper Mindy, who most recently reported her soul-crushing sighting of the fully dressed bride in the refund line outside a canceled Siegfried & Roy performance. Today's Tip also stems from Mindy's recent trip to Sin City, where the off-duty law clerk spent a long weekend reveling in glitzy entertainment and games of chance. But during one night of drinking and gambling at the über-swank casino/hotel the Bellagio, Mindy's luck proved too good to be true: She paid for a $6 bar tab with a $10 bill, and received $94 in change. "Obviously the bartender thought I gave him a hundred," says Mindy, who admits to pocketing the surplus without compunction. "It wasn't like I robbed a church," she rationalized at the time. However, Mindy's limber Vegas morals jolted painfully back into place as she returned to her job at Portland's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals--and found herself haunted by guilt over the illicit $94. Over the next two weeks, this guilt grew from a vague mental itch to a hot gnawing in Mindy's soul, eventually kicking the most morally rigorous Hot Tipper in Last Days' history into action. "I got the address for the casino manager off the Internet, wrote a short explanatory letter, and mailed it off with a check," Mindy says, adding that as of today, her $94 check has yet to be cashed. Last Days congratulates Mindy for cultivating what some might mock as a ridiculously stringent sense of right and wrong, and hopes the Bellagio put the recovered $94 to good use (perhaps re-gilding their toilet seats).

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11
Today brought the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, commemorated on the Arab satellite station al-Jazeera with the broadcast of an audiotaped address by Osama bin Laden, in which Islamo-fascism's top dog urged Iraqis to begin carrying out suicide attacks against Americans. "We stress the importance of martyrdom operations against the enemy," said bin Laden (according to the Associated Press), denouncing the U.S. for waging "psychological war" against Iraq, and giving Iraqis pointers on how to deal with U.S. military action. "We advise about the importance of drawing the enemy into long, close, and tiring fighting, taking advantage of camouflaged positions in plains, farms, mountains, and cities," said bin Laden, alluding to al Qaeda's ability to withstand heavy U.S. bombardment in Afghanistan. "With all the might of the enemy, they were unable to defeat us.... We hope that our brothers in Iraq will do the same as we did."

·· In much lighter but no less disturbing news, today Last Days received a Hot Tip from Kari, who was riding the #27 Metro bus late this evening when she found herself sitting across the aisle from a man with a long-haired Chihuahua in his lap. "Being a lover of toy dogs, I admired the cute pup with the sad eyes," writes Kari. "However, I soon learned that I am but an amateur lover of toy dogs, as the owner of the dog leaned down and began to make out with his pooch. I don't mean he simply let the dog kiss him on the lips, as many dog owners do--he opened his lips and Frenched that Chihuahua." Kari reports that she quickly looked away in disgust, but caught glimpses of the man having two more makeout sessions with his dog before her stop arrived. "Each time, the man opened his mouth and got intimate with the dog's tongue. His cheeks even did that 'sucking in' thing that happens when you're making out." Last Days thanks Kari for noticing and sharing, and offers best wishes to the man and his overly beloved dog.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12
Nothing happened today (unless you count the booting of contestant Frenchie Davis from Fox's American Idol due to Ms. Davis' previous topless appearance on a pornographic website, thus earning Ms. Davis the distinction of being the first performer in the history of world deemed too raunchy for Fox).

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13
After years of strenuous effort, marked by such classic assaults on good taste and human decency as celebrity boxing, Fear Factor, and the 2001 presidential inaugural address, tonight American culture reached its nadir with the broadcast of Are You Hot?, the mind-blowing new TV competition devoted to "finding America's sexiest people." Produced by ABC (in your face, Fox!), Are You Hot? takes the tepid trend of Star Search offshoots to garish new lows, eschewing both American Idol's obsession with talent and 30 Seconds to Fame's fixation on freaks to make room for nothing but pumped, primped, itching-to-be-judged American flesh. But where certain alternative newsweeklies mitigate the smarminess of their sexy-citizen searches via a second-party nominating system, Are You Hot?'s contestants are self-proclaimed sexy folk, which makes them infinitely mockable--a fact not lost on the "celebrity judges," comprising "fashion designer to the stars!" Randolph Duke, "supermodel" Rachel Hunter, and best of all, "international heartthrob" Lorenzo Lamas, who executes his task with the solemn gravity of a Supreme Court justice. As tonight's parade of "hot-abees" offered themselves up beneath a humongous, high-tech "HOT/NOT" sign, Judge Lamas rendered judgments heartbreaking in their precision ("Face--9.6, body--8.7"), pausing now and again to critique female contestants' thighs and crotches, highlighting offending areas with a laser pointer. Horrifying, yes. But for raw pathos, it's hard to top a newly rejected Hot/Not casualty, weeping and whispering to herself, "It's all right, I know I'm hot." (Although another contestant's professed motive--"To show my ex-girlfriend she dumped the hottest guy in the country!"--comes close.)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14
Today was Valentine's Day, the secular day of love and commerce celebrated in various North American and European countries by the giving of gifts, cards, and love tokens, and commemorated in Last Days' apartment by the smoking of pot, the eating of heart-shaped waffles, and the building of a blanket fort on the living room floor, in which we lay with our dream man Jake while listening to Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs in its entirety.

··Speaking of people we like: Today Matthew Richter, founder and executive director of local arts center Consolidated Works, was presented with a 2002 Rudy Award, one of 12 such awards granted nationwide by the locally based insurance empire Safeco, to "individuals who provide extraordinary leadership in the non-profit sector." "Matt is a master at taking minimal resources and sculpting them into final products beyond what anyone imagined," said Safeco nominator Phil Logsden via a Richter-hyping press release. For Richter's psychotically tireless dedication, Consolidated Works will receive $5,000, and Richter will receive a lap dance from Seattle Times theater critic Misha Berson.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15
Nothing happened today (unless you count the more than six million people around the globe who hit the streets to promote peace and protest the United States' impending war with Iraq).

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16
Nothing happened today (unless you count the panicked stampede that killed 21 patrons at a Chicago nightclub).

Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.