MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12 The week began with a Hot Tip from Steve, a helpful citizen concerned with the creeping contagion called measles, potentially served up by the creeping contagion called Starbucks. "According to the department of public health," Steve wrote, "one of the carriers of the measles outbreak was at the Starbucks on Olive Way at Summit Avenue from 7:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on January 31 and February 1. This person has exposed potentially dozens of people who may have shared items at the condiment stand, newspapers, and bathrooms." A quick call to the King County epidemiology department and the offending store confirmed Steve's shameful tale. Steve went on to say that the health department provided Starbucks with bright green flyers to notify their patrons of the nasty bug. Shockingly, the employees posted these flyers not at the entrance door and cash register where people might actually SEE them, but instead buried a single flyer on the community event board in blind adherence to "corporate policy." A call placed to Starbucks media relations' office was never returned, and presumably all Starbucks locations on the planet continue their noble battle against "visual clutter."

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13 Speaking of lethal errors in judgment: Today Reuters announced that the American military submarine USS Greeneville had a civilian at the controls when it struck a Japanese fishing vessel last Friday. A Pentagon official, who (perhaps wisely) asked not to be identified, insisted that the civilian (one of 15 invited aboard for a brief training cruise) was under "careful supervision." Nine people are missing and presumed dead from the Ehime Maru fishing vessel, which sank in about 1,800 feet of water nine miles off Diamond Head, Hawaii, after the carefully supervised collision.

··Also today: Three Lord Howe Island Phasmid Dryococelus australis (thought to be extinct for 83 years) were found alive and well and living on a single bush on a remote island off the coast of Australia, reports Reuters. "The thrill of seeing these long-lost animals made us feel like we had been transported back to another time, when they once dominated the nighttime forests of this magical group of islands," said Nicholas Carlile, an Australian scientist surprisingly capable of wringing poetry from a six-inch-long stick insect with mechanical-like legs.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14 After evacuating homes and closing I-5 for the majority of the day, Pierce County police discovered not the 350 pounds of dynamite they had suspected was stored in a Tacoma rental storage unit, but only the chemical building blocks of crystal meth, Reuters reported today. "With methamphetamine, with some regularity, we encounter explosives," Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said. "These people have reduced their left (brain) hemispheres to the consistency of leftover enchilada sauce." Having once had a thing for a man who taught himself to make crank out of road flares, Last Days can only agree.

··Also today: Unbeknown to us, the chimney of our charming Ballardian shack collapsed into our heating vent. Short of attaching a vacuum-cleaner hose to a car's exhaust pipe and idling in the garage, there is no quicker way to create a killing jar of carbon monoxide, and it was only our trusty mutt Franny's repeated demands for usable oxygen that saved us from certain death. The next time Last Days has a near-death experience that thoroughly annihilates so many brain cells, we hope to be in a penthouse suite at the Beverly Hills Hilton, snorting coke off of Russell Crowe's Oscar.

··And finally: Today the greeting card and floral industries suggested that we celebrate St. Vitus' Day. This heartwarming holiday bids us to remember the convulsive, frantic, jerky mass dances made popular by the fine folks of the Middle Ages, who screamed and foamed with fury as they suffered from the plague.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15 Today Rebecca Fyfe, a British backpacker adrift on a sinking ship in heavy seas off Indonesia, was rescued after sending an SOS message via mobile phone to her capable boyfriend, Nick Hodgson, who was drinking in a pub in England, reports Reuters. The plucky gal's cry for help galvanized the global village, which patched together the British Coastguard, the Australian Foreign Office, and finally Indonesian authorities, who towed the craft and its passengers to safety. It's a good thing Last Days wasn't on that boat. Not only has our cell phone been turned off for non-payment, but every last one of our boyfriends would have been too high on road flares to be of any use.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16 Last night's blizzard brought enough sticky snow to allow an inspired anonymous artist to craft an enormous penis (with an anatomically correct scrotum) on the corner of East Prospect and Broadway East. Hot Tipper Scott reports, "The balls were so large that people were sitting on them and getting their picture taken, just like children on Santa's lap!" Thanks for the tip, Scott!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17 Last Days' quip about killing President Dubya may bring the Men in Black a-knockin', says concerned Hot Tipper Liam. Today Liam kindly sent along an illuminating correspondence from The Reporters Committee of Freedom of the Press, concerning the Secret Service's harassment of Glenn Given, the student editor of the college newspaper The Stony Brook Press. On February 7, Given wrote an editorial entitled, "Dear Jesus Christ, King of Kings, all I ask is that you smite George W. Bush." Given's piece begged Yahweh for the death of Dubya as well as the annihilation of Carson Daly, host of MTV's Total Request Live. Humorless civil servants swooped down on the SUNY--Stony Brook college paper's offices on February 14, questioning Given without a lawyer present, submitting him to a psychological evaluation, and coercing him into signing waivers authorizing a search of his home and the release of his medical records. If this keeps up, Last Days can look forward to four years in satire jail, where we'll be sure to immerse ourselves in Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the first few years of National Lampoon, and all of our old Mad magazines.

··Also today: Drag queens, drunks, and notable luminaries of stage and screen gathered in a charming arts and crafts bungalow in Wallingford to celebrate the millionth annual "Red Dress Party." Nick Garrison, star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Comedy Central's Strangers With Candy, wore a fetching smock emblazoned with a fuzzy kitty. Sarah Rudinoff, another Hedwig trouper, sported a crimson ensemble evoking the recently departed Dale Evans. Hilarious performer Lauren Weedman, in town from New York to host the Women in Cinema awards, draped her slender frame with a scarlet frock that made her look like a sharecropper's wife contemplating a career in burlesque. The last thing we remember before being politely kicked out at 4:30 a.m. was guzzling pink wine from a box and pontificating to James Palmer, the guitarist of Dodi, about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Yikes! Thanks to host Burton Curtis. Can't wait for next year!

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18 The week ended with the shocking news that 49-year-old motor- racing legend Dale Earnhardt Sr. was killed in a dramatic crash in the final turn of the last lap of the 43rd Daytona 500. Last Days heard about the departure of the seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion from a sports commentator on cable television, who broke the hearts of rednecks everywhere with the poignant words, "There was nothing between him and the wall but speed."

There is nothing between you and me but Hot Tips. Send them to lastdays@thestranger.com or phone the 24-hour Hot Tips hotline at 323-7101 ext. 3113.