Union Station plays itself.
Union Station plays itself. S. GREG PANOSIAN / GETTY IMAGES

The Oscars! Did you know some movies came out in the last year? Huh. The Academy handed out little statues to Nomadland, ChloĂ© Zhao, and Frances McDormand. Anthony Hopkins beat Chadwick Boseman for best actor and didn’t even bother to show up. Nobody dressed as Snow White, so I consider the whole thing a flop. Also, the venue this year was Union Station, which is an impressive “fuck you” both to commuters who have places to be, and also to the various Arclights around LA, where the ceremonies should have been held.

The US will send supplies to India to tackle a huge rise in infections. There were nearly a half million new cases reported on Sunday in India, and nearly 17 million cases cumulatively in the country. America will send oxygen supplies, testing kits, personal protective equipment, and materials for vaccine production.

A teen was shot at home in Rainier Beach. Last weekend a 2-year-old was shot in a parking lot, now an unidentified 16-year-old has been shot and killed. Police have not released any details, and Chief Adrian Diaz says “we’re asking the community to find, you know, any which way that we can make sure that we put these shootings to rest — and be able to also figure out who did the shootings as well.” Good to know they’re on the case.

King County is close to rolling back to Phase 2. We’re over the threshold for daily infections, and a hair’s-breadth away from the threshold for hospitalizations. Younger people are being hospitalized at higher rates than they were in previous months. Health officials say it’s probably due to people going out more, which, you know, come onnnnnn everyone can we please just not.

A lot of people are skipping their second vaccine shots. Over five million haven’t bothered to get their second dose. Please don’t be an idiot about this, everyone, I would really like to see another human being’s lower face in person again in my lifetime. A little more than a quarter of Americans now have both shots, and almost half have had one. I got mine on Friday, felt only mildly achey and tired, and wound up sleeping for about ten hours that night.

Lifestyles of the rich and odious: Here’s a fascinating breakdown of the various ways rich people avoid paying taxes like us little people, most of which amount to just declaring that they don’t want to. The IRS is currently going after Roger Stone for a million and a half, and I hope they turn him upside-down and shake him until he doesn’t even have any pocket lint left. NBC notes that Stone once approvingly cited creepo frog-lover Roy Cohn’s tax-dodging.

Big Steam sale is coming this week. Golden Week Sale is scheduled to begin on Thursday (Japan time), and is likely to have lots of tasty discounts on various titles. If you haven’t yet, pick up a copy of Monster Hunter World and various Finals Fantasy. Momodora looks like a cute platformer, Puyo Puyo Tetris is grand, and oh hey look a Phoenix Wright Trilogy! If you don’t care about games, you may now read the next item.

How do you even “embezzle” a VHS tape? An Oklahoma woman learned there was a warrant out for her arrest for a 12-year-old overdue tape of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. (Imagine explaining that one to your cellmate.) The charges were dropped after she turned herself in, claiming to have never even seen the show, which as far as I’m concerned is the real crime. Unrelated: This weekend I stumbled across some photos I took of a Christmas party that Melissa Joan Hart was at. She was nice.

Lots more Marvel. Fear not, nerds, Disney is packing your schedule with fourteen movies and shows now following the finale of the Birdman and Mr. Sad miniseries. Black Widow is hitting theaters and Disney+ in July, Shang-Chi is coming in September, Eternals in November, and a new Spider-Twink in December. The new Loki miniseries starts on June 11, animated What If
? later this summer with 23 (!) episodes, and Hawkeye, for some reason, will be late in 2021 along with Ms. Marvel. An “untitled Wakanda project” is also in the works, which is frankly more interesting to me than anything else on the list.

Christ, what an asshole. Tucker Carlson made a cute little joke about Harvey Milk’s murder in his college yearbook. Good to know he’s always been rotten to the core.

Speaking of which, Elon Musk will host Saturday Night Live. I’m old enough to remember when they got Steve Forbes to host. At the time, I thought, “Wow, that’s so bonkers, I can’t wait to see how weird this gets.” And then it was terrible, just absolutely terrible. Sometimes people who are not funny are just not funny no matter what show they’re booked on. Alas, we will almost certainly not see the only truly funny thing that could possibly come out of this, which is Elon Musk explaining to Bowen Yang what he thinks comedy is.

Eat more donuts. CNN has helpfully compiled a roundup of all the free stuff you can get once you’re vaccinated. For some reason, it’s mostly food, and the PNW is frustratingly neglected. Why don’t we have any White Castles around here? Enjoy your one daily Krispy Kreme donut, though, or your free lamination services at Staples. Seems like a missed opportunity for Trojan not to offer free condoms.

There’s been a breakthrough in a rash of local hole-digging incidents. We go now live to Todd Walker, who’s on the scene with the latest. Todd?