• Last night's hot temperatures created an all-out neighborhood power blackout around 9:30 p.m., leaving 3,300 people in the dark, without working fans or air conditioning throughout Ravenna, View Ridge, Windermere, and Laurelhurst.
• Wondering what really killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago? Well, scientists at University of Washington say don't blame the comets! New research says it is unlikely the comets were responsible for the mass extinction.

Back where we come from, there's places known as "cooling centers". These are public buildings that are air-conditioned in the event of a deadly heatwave such as the one in which we currently find ourselves embroiled. We remember our afternoon cartoons being interrupted by ticker-style warnings about the heat and the elderly and cooling centers for those without A/C in the home. Libraries were the foremost among the list of these cooling centers. more ›

ARTSBLOG sent us this picture he shot of a few of the 280 people in line to buy air conditioners at the North Seattle Home Depot. "The guy up front said they started lining up this morning, said a truck of various air conditioners just pulled up. He said there was no way there were enough air conditioners on the truck for even a third of the people in line. The guy said they’ve been telling people this all day but nobody is leaving the line and they keep lining up," reports Art. "Man, nobody was talking and you could cut the tension with a knife. They were just sending people out with air conditioners that they were taking off the truck and they were sending them out through the lawn and garden department so there wouldn't be trouble." Check out his full post on the Great A/C Shortage of '09. more ›

• As of 9 a.m. this morning, Sea-Tac's cell phone waiting lot has re-opened. The new lot is twice the size, with nearly 100 spaces and can be found just north of the old lot on Air Cargo Road.
• My Ballard reported that around 3 a.m. this morning, a car collided smackdab into a utility pole at Market Street near Third Avenue, leaving the 27-year-old driver trapped inside. Rescue crews were able to cut the driver free, who was then sent to Harborview with non-life threatening injuries.