... we've decided to pull the plug on ourselves rather than watch another month go by without new posts.

It was fun getting to know our readers online and in person. It was fun making t-shirts and having several of our t-shirts stolen. It was fun crafting inappropriate photo illustrations. But now it's time to stop having fun. Let us pay tribute to what was:

Kelly: "Poor GritCity. I'll be sad to see it go. All I can say is, I'll carry you all in the fannypack of my heart."

Laura: "Blogging about Tacoma almost made me want to move to Tacoma."

Cole: "I’ll miss all the virtual friends and virtual money we made."

Niki: "I don’t even work here anymore."

In other words, thanks and happy Thanksgiving (almost). Feel free to share your remembrances or just delete us from your RSS feeds.

Oh, also, you should follow thenewstribune.com on Twitter. I happen to know the user name and password and occasionally sneak some fake stories humor in when the bosses aren't looking.

After having spent the waning days of summer soaking my 27-year-old bones in an Oregon hot springs, I come home to this.

Rain. Cold. A hungry cat who wants to know why I left the window ajar and the heater off.

Today may be my first day back in the office, but I'm determined to hang onto some of that vacation bliss.

So here's my oh-crap-it's-suddenly-fall remedy: Equal parts David Bowie (circa Ziggy Stardust for me, please) and Thai green curry (I like Silk Thai and Indochine).

Eat, rock, wear a sweater.

Former TNT arts critic Jen Graves (hi Jen!) thinks you have a sexual problem.

She cites three suggestive marketing messages from T-town that she's had the "pleasure" of discovering since this summer. So what gives? Are you feeling a little feisty lately, Tacoma?

If you were going to write a suggestive marketing message for the city, a particular event or location, what would it be? Keep it moderately vanilla, people. I don't wanna regret this post.

I'll start:

"Is that a Tall Ship in our South Sound or is Tacoma just happy to see you?"

Now, there's no denying we work hard here at GritCity. It takes effort to not get paid to write only one post about every two weeks.

But luckily, The News Tribune has welcomed a crop of interns for the summer and one of them actually wants to play with us.

Brian Everstine, who hails from that city on the other side of the mountains that rhymes with sugar cane, will be joining us for the next couple months.

We've already composed a list of duties for the little scamp. He says he'd be willing to do some of them, but won't say which ones. Ooh, the kid's got moxie.

So be nice to Brian when you see him around town. He's the one who dresses better than any of us.

Now, for the list.

Laura:
• Teach me how to play the guitar. If he doesn’t know how, he should learn how to play and then teach me.
• Siphon gas from other News Tribune employees so I don’t go broke driving back and forth from Seattle.
• Write some songs for my other cat, Tim. He’s feeling left out.
• Go and swipe my gym membership card across the gym scanner on days when I don’t feel like working out so it doesn’t look like I’m too lazy in their database.

Cole:
• Attend the Friday chalk contests for us. And win.
• Write three posts a day, under our names instead of his.
• Go play bocce for us. And win. And say his name is Cole.
• Be funny. And if he’s not, then, well, he can post under his own name.

Niki:
• Correspond with my mother via e-mail, telephone and, when necessary, in person – all while pretending he’s me.
• Recruit, screen and train suitors.
• Bring me a five-course hot lunch everyday in one of those cylindrical tin contraptions they use in India. (Poultry need not apply.)

Kelly:
• Peel my grapes. (I've never actually had peeled grapes, but I intend to start.)
• Vacuum my cat.
• Maintain the GritCity Facebook page and grow it’s membership by 1 million.
• Bring Laura fresh flowers on Mondays when she’s cranky.
• Baby-sit the Grit Baby and learn the real magic behind Cole’s Diaper Genie.

Here's Brian. You can tell he'll be up for the job.

Quick, name that city:

The draw of a neighborhood bracketed by an Interstate and a Superfund-listed river is obscure.… Then in the late 1990s, displaced artists and artisans drawn by cheap rents started moving to (redacted) to open tile works, Vespa repair shops and glass blowing studios.

You would be forgiven for guessing Tacoma. We've got our own little Beltway, the 705; the Asarco site; glass blowers; artists on scooters; and yes, cheap rent.

But this New York Times article is about Georgetown, the Seattle neighborhood, and how it's apparently the last bastion of art and culture in all of the Evergreen City.

Hm, that sucks.

“Georgetown is really the last outpost of any blue-collar, bohemian arts culture in Seattle,” said Larry Reid, curator at Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery.

The only conclusion I can draw is: Seattle is the new Tacoma. Go forth and gloat.

The UK's Daily Telegraph recently published a profile on Washington State resident Edward Smith, 57, who engages in what is known as "mechaphilia" -- or, sexual attraction to machines. Smith's machine of choice is the motor vehicle and admits to having sex with at least 1,000 of them since he was 15.

The winning quote of the article: "There are moments way out in the middle of nowhere when I see a little car parked and I swear it needs loving."

But his wandering eye has spread beyond cars to other vehicles. He says that his most intense sexual experience was "making love" to the helicopter from 1980s TV hit Airwolf.

The article doesn't say where specifically in Washington Smith lives. Any guesses?

First, an update: As some of you know, I've been covering politics for the past five months. If you didn't notice ... really? You didn't notice? Not once did you wonder where I was at? Well, that makes me feel great.

Deep breath. Serenity now. I missed you.

The reason I'm writing is that my colleague and film-reviewer extraordinaire, Soren Andersen, is writing about the upcoming "Sex and the City" movie. If any of you (and I know there are some of you) are interested in "Sex and the City" (that's an "and" not "or"), Soren would like to speak to you. Specifically, he's looking for fans who think (or want to think) they know a thing or two about the plot, courtesy of spoiler blogs. Or those who just can't wait for the movie to come out -- did you hear someone dies?!

So, if you're in that group, e-mail: Soren.Andersen@thenewstribune.com

My Friday unfolded just as promised: Hub pizza** (after a long but tolerable wait in an elbow-to-elbow dining room), followed by the Tree Roots in the Basement show at the Helm. I flirted briefly with King's Books, but did not linger.

I snapped a few shoddy pics from the show to upload. Look out for those later. But it made my heart happy to see all the young'uns of Tacoma out in their best skinny jeans and thrift-store dresses to support the artistic pursuits of their friends. God knows I didn't have my act together at 19. I was probably still wearing something made out of hemp.

** Loyal reader Dave L. says he, too, had pizza this weekend, at home, but burned it. The Hub did not burn my pizza, so that's an option to consider in the future, Dave. I'm sorry for your loss.

In other news of a Washington sort, a boy from Whatcom County beat all of us in terms of weekend ambition.

BLAINE, Wash. (AP) — A 13-year-old boy in Blaine is claiming the world record for blowing balloons with his nose.
Using one nostril at a time, Andrew Dahl inflated 213 balloons within an hour Friday in the town’s public library. His feat has been submitted for review by Guinness World Records.
His father, Doug Dahl, measured the balloons to make sure each was at least 20 centimeters, about 8 inches, the minimum diameter, and his mother, Wendy Dahl, kept the tally.
At one point he asked, “Does this count as practicing my trumpet?” His mother replied, “Only if you can play that with your nose.”

Ah, to be young again.

Instant human, just add espresso!

(beat)

The fact that I just wrote that unironically is evidence of the overdose of vitamin D I'm enjoying via my office windows.

No, I'm not out cart-wheeling down Sixth Avenue. Yet.

But I'm rather excited at the happenings around town tonight.

My evening is shaping up thusly:

• Pizza at the Harmon Hub (?!). This just occurred to me, but seems meant to be.
• Open mike at Kings Books, featuring this nice poet fellow from Spokane.

OR:

• CD release party at the Helm for Tree Roots in the Basement, starring my Blackwater regular coffee pal, Colin. When last we spoke about music over coffee, he said he was very excited about his new full-length album. I believe that may be a direct quote.

Both of these shindigs start at 7. The first is free, the second only 5 meagerly exchange-rated USD.

The world is at our feet, and fingertips. Go forth and conquer.

I'm a firm believer in news-by-flier, and there have been some gems around T-town lately.

Take the postcard I snagged the other day at Blackwater, published by Rusty George Creative, a local marketing firm.

It seems that today is Create Something Weird Day.

Says RGC:

We know what you're thinking. We forgot to make a Weird Holiday this month and now we're passing the buck. Like one of those fondue restaurants that make you cook your own food. Au contraire! This is an unprecedented opportunity for self-discovery. YOU may be even weirder than you ever imagined.

Imagine that.

Anywho, you can go to www.rustygeorge.com/weird to make up your own weird thing.

I'm proposing a Dress Up Your Cat in an Irksome Costume Day. I got inspired looking at the photos in our reader-submitted pet names gallery. Especially this entry from a reader who writes, "This is my cat Gummo in his bat suit, which makes him feel fierce and also very peeved."

I know the feeling.

My own dear Sescie Sugarplum would look ravishing in a similar getup.

So do your part and Keep Tacoma Weird. We're so good at it anyway. And if anyone has any of their own weird ideas, please do share. It's what we live for.

It's only a matter of time until the robots are telling us what to do. Thankfully, for now, we have humans like this on our side.

Congratulations to the Tacoma School of the Arts team that's headed to the international championships in April in Atlanta.

Don't ask me what I may or may not have been Googling, but I ran across this item: Tacoma Screw is now open in Pasco.

It gives me no small sense of pride when I drive around the state and see that Tacoma's very best screw products company has expanded beyond the reaches of our fair town. (And apologies to any and all inferior screw products companies who may be hurt by my declaration that Tacoma Screw is tops.)

In other news, it's 11:30 and I'm in Olympia, watching lawmakers do their business. Yesterday someone sent a Hillary Clinton nutcracker to the capitol, causing the building to be evacuated.

You should watch this video. It'll be more than worth your time:

I think that's enough for tonight. I don't want to blow anyone's mind.