Look, we're not going to sit here and give the Tacoma Public Library a bad time for holding a Mario Kart competition for ages 11-19 Thursday afternoon. Sure, we'd like to think you wouldn't need to trick kids into a library with video games, snacks, and the chance to win gift certificates to Gamestop, but you do. Kids these days aren't interested in anything not transmitted from a glowing screen of some sort. This is the future, and the Tacoma Public Library might as well embrace it. If that means holding the first ever Tacoma Public Library Mario Kart Competition in the Olympic Room of the main branch on a day when it's 80 degrees outside, so be it.

PREDICTION: The dreaded video game lobbyists will use this event for years to come as proof books and video games can coexist. They'll craft an entire ad campaign using images from the event, coining the marketing message: "There are words on the screen too!"

[Tacoma Public Library Main Branch Olympic Room, 2 p.m., free, 1102 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma, 253.591.5661]