HUMP Film Fest starts Thursday at On the Boards.
HUMP Film Fest starts Thursday at On the Boards.

Did you vote? You’ve got a few hours to vote. It’s not hard.

Olympic viewership is very, very down: No one‘s watching the Beijing Olympics. No one watched last summer’s Tokyo Olympics. And by “no one,” I mean that last week’s opening ceremony drew 43% fewer people than 2018’s winter Olympic opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, and Tokyo saw a 42% “plunge” from viewers for Rio in 2016.

Here’s something to watch: I’m just sharing this to prove to my Dad that I watch sports.

Trending over at KOMO: “Trump says Joe Rogan should stop apologizing to ‘Radical Left maniacs.'” And that’s all I’ll write about Trump today.

Don’t Yell at Me on Broadway: The popular (and delicious) Taiwanese boba tea shop chain Don’t Yell at Me is expanding in Seattle, reports Capitol Hill Seattle blog. In addition to their spot on the Ave, they’ll open up next to the (temporarily closed) Dick’s on Broadway, in the Hollywood Flats building. When? Sometimes later this year.

When Stranger contributor Jordan Michelman visited the first local Don’t Yell at Me location in late 2020, he wrote:

Bubble tea is the sole and avowed focus of Don’t Yell At Me, with a menu that features traditional favorites—Taiwanese black tea, rose milk tea, osmanthus oolong—plus stuff like a mango smoothie topped with cheese foam, or homemade kiwi yakult. Each drink is presented with options for sweetness and level of ice fill, which should honestly be a standard set of optionalities for every beverage experience, not just at Don’t Yell At Me.

That cheese foam fucks me up. 10/10 recommend for a good time.

While dropping their predictable editorial pushing for more fare enforcement on Sound Transit, the Seattle Times Editorial Board highlighted a fun fact: “For the average rider, there’s a 98% chance of not seeing any Sound Transit personnel on the system,” according to outgoing Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff. News you can use.

Alexa, check my pulse: Amazon is rolling out its virtual “Amazon Care” program nationwide, it announced today. The company says it’ll expand options for in-home visits to around 20 US cities this year. Here’s the gist, via The Verge:

Amazon Care offers services like COVID-19 testing, prescription requests, and sexual health evaluations through its app. If a problem can’t be solved over video (in cities with the in-person option available), a nurse practitioner can come directly to the home.

Amazon is rushing to sign up employers, but “virtual care is an increasingly crowded space, with insurers also getting in on the telehealth expansion,” reports CNBC. At this point, so many things about the American medical system are shocking—a single IV drip can cost over $700?!?!—so Dr. Amazon preparing to dom the market isn’t really raising an eyebrow for me.

Good news: COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to fall across Washington, as Jas brought up in yesterday’s Slog PM. The tail-end of the omicron wave will stay with us for a bit. “We really don’t want people to rip off their masks or go to big parties quite yet — COVID activity remains a threat,” said the president of the Washington State Hospital Association this morning.

Meanwhile, in New York: “New York joins several other US states in rolling back mask mandates as infections fall.”

And in Seattle: The clock’s ticking. Mayor Bruce Harrell has until Valentine’s Day to announce what the hell he’s gonna do about Seattle’s eviction moratorium.

Speaking of Valentines: Here’s one of my favorite Reader Valentines posted on The Stranger:

To My Hubby McBubby
From the first moment I met you, choking at my front door, I fell in love with your silly, goofy self. Thank you for being my person. Love Honey Bunny

Choking? At the front door?? A mystery.

Post your Reader Valentine here. You have until Februrary 17.

Today at the Seattle City Council:

A highlight from Hannah’s thread is the politicking around abstaining:

Last December, the council passed a rule change that allowed council members to abstain from voting on resolutions that don’t directly relate to city business. Councilmember Pedersen championed the change; he fucking hates voting on this stuff.

This could be us, Washington: But you’re tripping.

The Oregon Health Authority is expected to release new draft rules for the state’s psilocybin system that would only allow the use of a single mushroom species and ban chemically synthesized psilocybin. The new system is scheduled to go into effect next January.

That update comes from sister reporter Abe Asher at the Portland Mercury. Some more blurbs from the Portland fam:

• Starbucks has fired a group of workers at a unionizing store in Memphis over what it claims are “significant violations” of company policy. Those workers just so happen to be organizing the union push. Go figure.

• The freezing of Afghanistan’s central bank reserves has sunken the country into a humanitarian crisis that has left millions in danger of starvation. Aid agencies are calling on countries like the US to release Afghan assets.

• Hundreds of students in the Twin Cities walked out of class this morning and marched to the governor’s mansion in St. Paul to protest the killing of Amir Locke by Minneapolis police last week. The state has not yet charged anyone with Locke’s death.

Another bit of national news: Secret Service had to escort and evacuate Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman (there’s never been a first gentleman), from an event at a Washington D.C. high school after the school received a bomb threat. Everyone is safe—but this shit is becoming way too common.

I don’t have any Oscar nomination hot takes: I’m behind. I still need to watch Flee, Parallel Mothers, The Lost Daughter, CODA, West Side Story, The Worst Person in the World, the new Macbeth, King Richard, Tick, Tick… Boom!, Nightmare Alley… yeesh, the list is long. Of what I’ve seen, I do recommend Summer of Soul, Drive My Car, and Encanto. Each a very different vibe. The Oscars are on March 27.

Something else to watch: Porn. Top-shelf porn. Starting this Thursday.

Let’s end the day with Denzel Curry’s new single, “Walkin,” which I’ve had on repeat. The way he raps “dirty, filthy, rotten, nasty little world” is fun.

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