Farewell, ecoblocks. The illegal concrete blocks on SW Andover are gone, and SDOT crews hint that a bike lane may be taking their place. The blocks were placed there by neighbors who didnā€™t like seeing the effects of the housing crisis, because if you canā€™t see poor people, then their problems donā€™t exist. Meanwhile, The Seattle TimesĀ editorial board calls the blocks ā€œan understandable responseā€ to the Cityā€™s inability to solve homelessness. Brother, if throwing two-ton bricks into the street was a rational response to local political disappointments, Iā€™d run out of concrete before you could stop me.

Would you like to look at Donald Trumpā€™s toilet? No, of course not, but here are the pictures anyway, and I bet at least 10% of you will click the link. The photos are provided by a whistleblower as proof that Trump would rip up documents and throw them in the toilet. (This isnā€™t really the point, but the thing about them that strikes me is how clean rich peoplesā€™ toilets apparently are. Truly, it looks like a floor model.) Anyway, the FBI raided Trumpā€™s home today; no details about what they found, but Iā€™ve given up hope that THIS will be the thing that finally puts him away.

Sheā€™s driving off in that big convertible in the sky. Olivia Newton-John has passed away at 73 after a long bout with cancer. Of course sheā€™ll be remembered for her breakout role in Grease and her cheery pop hits, but one of my favorite of her appearances is in the memorably bizarre Xanadu, where she has a genuinely sweet number with Gene Kelly.

Ahmaud Arberyā€™s killers are going away for life. Travis McMichael and Greg McMichael were sentenced to life in prison today on federal hate crime charges. Arbery was going for a jog when the two men chased him and shot him to death in February of 2020.

Pro-Trump candidate takes the lead in Southwest Washington: Joe Kent jumped ahead of incumbent Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler after today's count of ballots coming out of Cowlitz and Clark counties, according to The Seattle Times. He nows leads JHB by 813 votes after having been down by 260 votes at last count. I'm sure he'll accept the results of this election if it survives a recount, which it probably will. If you want to stop Washington from sending a Trumpian Congressman to DC, now would be the time to don your blue jumpsuit and start knocking doors for Democratic candidate (and mechanic) Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who still leads the pack with 31% of the vote.

Five hundred fewer people have to worry about monkeypox. A King County vaccine clinic stuck five hundred people this weekend before running out around 5 pm. You will be shocked to learn that local asshole Kathy Lambert (last seen being condemned for sending out racist campaign mailers) used the occasion to engage in the exact sort of counterproductive moralizing that makes epidemics worse. In other Kathy Lambert news, here's a typo where she accidentally congratulates the head of a Christian school in Redmond on his inbreeding.

Design your dream rest stop. WSDOT is currently running a survey about what youā€™d like to see at the stateā€™s 47 highway rest stops. Once, when I was driving cross-country, I visited a rest stop in Iowa that had an art installation where you could play a giant pipe organ by slapping it with sandals. Then there was one in New Mexico that had a snake in the bathroom. My point is, Washington should combine those two things and build pipe organs that shoot out snakes when you play the keys.Ā 

Weird science strikes at Cal Anderson. Thereā€™s some David Lynch shit going on here.

Ironically, the people who did this would probably benefit from an enjoyable sexual encounter. Five weirdos threw rocks through the window of WinkWink, a sex shop in Bellingham, around 3:30 am last night. The vandalism follows a bunch of right-wing harassment over sex ed classes earlier this summer, which were spotlighted by malevolent fungus Tucker Carlson. The shop is currently running a fundraiser to help rebuild.

Are we in a housing crisis or a wrong-brick-color crisis? In a perfect world, weā€™d be prioritizing the construction of new housing. Instead, weā€™re going to spend months and hundreds of thousands of dollars arguing about brick color and balcony shapes.

Have you seen Kiely Rodni? The 16-year-old went missing from a California campground on August 6 during a large party.Ā 

Free health care! If you can find a way to squeeze it into your 109-hour workweek, ZoomCare is offering a free health care night this Wednesday at their Bellevue clinic. Itā€™s first-come, first-served. I personally have had great experiences with ZoomCare providers, so this seems like a good deal to me.

A dark time in local history. Up until the mid-1970s, Ted Griffin captured wild orcas and sold them (well, the ones that survived, at least) to various parks. The practice was ended, in part, due to public outrage after several dead baby orcas washed ashore. They had drowned when Griffin tried to capture them, and in an attempt to conceal their deaths he tied rocks to the bodies in the hopes that they would sink and decompose without anyone finding out. Some of the orcas he caught are still alive, and indigenous groups have been requesting their release for years to no avail.

Could managers please just not. After a group of Starbucks workers calmly presented a list of demands to a manager, the manager left the meeting and then accused the workers of kidnapping and assault. Hereā€™s some video from the meeting. Looks scaaaaary!

Are you going to eat that? When the weatherā€™s this toasty, food can grow some pretty unpleasant microorganisms very quickly. Hereā€™s the Washington Department of Healthā€™s advice for not getting food poisoning in hot weather.Ā 

See you in Hell, suckers. And by Hell, I mean Rhode Island, where Iā€™ll be spending all of next week quarantining before a family vacation on Cape Cod. Try not to do anything too newsworthy while Iā€™m gone, Bothell.Ā