Watch your step this morning.
Watch your step this morning. Matt Baume

Enjoy another snow day. Admire the snow from your windows, go for a nice walk, sled down a hill. But for goodness' sake don’t drive. If you must get around, buses are still running — though they’re on limited emergency routes today, and there’s no telling where they might get stuck. Warming shelter info is here. The revised trash pickup schedule is here. And remember, don’t confine your neighbors to their homes by neglecting to shovel your sidewalk. (If your corporate landlord has failed to shovel, take a pic and send it my way.)

And cancel your New Year’s plans. Yeah, it sucks, but everything’s getting canceled. This week’s COVID spike is bad bad bad bad bad and it’s expected to get worse. Making things more complicated, COVID test sites will be closed or operating with limited capacity today because of the snow. Sorry, I know you had your heart set on seeing Dave Chapelle Friday night.

Here is an otter enjoying the latest snow. No, it’s not Deo from Bacon Strip, it’s an actual otter.

When will it end? Probably this weekend, when warmer temperatures will return us to our regular winter rain, and wash away most of the snow. (Leaving behind plenty of ice in the mornings, so stay alert.)


Brutal, but where is the lie?

Oh sure, you’re queer, but what if you could be professionally queer? Seattle Pride is hiring a comms manager. If you like talking about queer stuff all the time, knowing everyone in the community, and putting on parties, it could be you! Hopefully they fill this role soon (speaking as a reporter whose emails to the organization have lately not been answered Update: It was PrideFest that never responded to me, not Seattle Pride! They're different!).

Bring back this aesthetic. Here’s an absolutely spellbinding explanation by Portland-based nerd Cabel Sasser about how a very specific video effect, which will be familiar to anyone in an extremely narrow age range, was achieved. And needs to make a comeback.

Full thread here.

Here’s another look back at 2021 at the Port of Seattle. We already pointed out some highlights from the Port’s annual review, but Commissioner Ryan Calkins has a more conversational roundup that’s worth a read.

You MUST experience this thread. Here you will find a delightful story about how a Seattle mom in 1988 recruited random hot guys she saw on the street to appear in a hunky heartthrob calendar.


A little tease:

Big congrats to Oriini Kaipara. The New Zealand journalist is the first person with a traditional Māori chin tattoo to anchor a primetime news show. She seems great!

You are getting very sleepy, and greasy. Folks, I thought I’d uncovered every bespoke fetish on the internet and that nothing would shock me at this point, so imagine my sheer bliss upon discovering pompification. You know, that thing when someone gets erotically hypnotized and turned into an Elvis impersonator, with a big shiny pompadour? Marvelous. My best guess about why this might be a turn-on for some is that it involves a swaggering Fonzie-esque himbo attitude. But who can fathom. Anyway, I haven’t been this delighted since the days of alt.sex.fetish.robots. I love this and encourage everyone to romp out with your pomp out.