This weekend we started our taxes, so we are now feeling particularly poor. In need of activities that that will suit our penny-pinching ways, while also distracting us from the cold hard reality of our financial state, we turn to Albany, a little town north of Berkeley. ...

Anyone been to the Cerrito Speakeasy Theater in El Cerrito yet? The Cerrito is the sister theater to the fabulous Parkway Theater in Oakland and opened this past November. ...

We got news this week on your entire potpourri of transit choices-- ferries and cable cars and non-cable cars all....

Local bookstore chain, Cody's Books has just announced that it is selling itself to a Japanese chain. Current owner, Andy Ross, will stay on as President of Cody's. Meanwhile, the former flagship Cody's store on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley that closed recently, prompting much hand-wringing, 60s nostalgia, and debate amongst armchair urban planners is now one of those temporary Halloween superstores. We are holding our breath for the ironic next phase of vacant large storefronts......

It's that time of the year. The 2006 NCAA men's basketball championship tournament starts this morning at 9:20 A.M. PST, ushering in nearly a solid month of the best that college basketball has to offer. Sixty-four teams from around the country, from conferences of different sizes and configurations, wade into the dizzying fray of sporting unpredictability that has come to be known as March Madness....

We love those Food Network cookoff challenges! Make a birthday cake for Elvis! Decorate the best gingerbread house! Who can make the tallest ice/pastry sculpture? So we can't wait for Food Network's coverage of the mothership of food contesting -- the biennial $1,000,000 Pillsbury Bake-Off. So Pillsbury picks 100 contestants every two years, to compete in categories like "Wake Up To Breakfast," and "Brand New You" (healthful recipes), and "Dinner Made Simple," among others. The recipes must include at least two designated Pillsbury products, such as Yoplait, El Paso salsa, and Pop-Secret popcorn, among many others. One lucky winner walks away with a million dollars; and other $10,000 prizes will be awarded, including most dairy, and best Latino-influenced. The Bay Area has traditionally done pretty well in the bake-off -- the most famous bake-off winner was the Tunnel of Fudge chocolate bundt cake, made by a San Franciscan, and the first male winner of the contest was from Redwood City (with a macadamia torte). This year, the Bay Area's sending six representatives, including a very pregnant Mountain View cook (making spinach wonton crisps), a 48-year-old San Francisco male painter who's been entering the bakeoff since he was 10 (deviled crab and cheese rolls), and acclaimed food contestor Roxanne Chan from Albany, with a tomato-corn recipe. (Also, a shrimp and rice salad from Windsor, a taco steak pasta from Monterey, and bear claws from San Jose.) The bakeoff takes place from March 19-22 in Orlando, Florida. Go Bay Area cooks! And contestants, you're all just lucky SFist Derrick didn't enter this year -- he'd totally clean your kitchen-timer clocks! ...

Is blogging so pervasive that it will enter your diet and your library? At SFist, we belive so. We have a vested interest, with contributors creating excellent, beautiful food blogs. So we shoot the question to Owen Linderholm. Owen edited an actual book, Digital Dish, a selection of posts from 24 different food blogs, four of them from the San Francisco bay area. Owen also founded Press for Change, from whom you can order......

Our concert picks for the week of 5/12-5/18. Welcome, welcome, hordes of new readers who have recently discovered what our loyal readership has known for months -- that SFist.com is our fair city's Best Local Blog. (This will not be the first nor last mention of this honor bestowed upon us by SF Weekly). But enough with the self-aggrandizing babble. Onto the concerts! Tonight Ivy conjures their dream pop at Slim's in support of their......

Way back in May, Slashdotter dacar asked "What Happens To Your Data When You Die?" Your computer, your web accounts, your password-locked digital devices would all be rendered useless to your surviving friends and family if you haven't prepared a list of logins before passing. In the tragic case of Marine Lieutenant Corporal Justin Ellsworth, who was killed in action late last year in Iraq, the Yahoo mail account he was using to communicate with......

A weekly foray into the not-so-fine art of sitting on a barstool and gettin' loaded. By Drew. East Bay Roadtrip edition! Besides brainy college kids and Pixar employees, just what is there across the bay? Quite a bit as it turns out. Sure, everyone knows about the breakneck gentrification of Emeryville and Albany, but there's just as many areas in and around Oakland that remain as they have been for many years. The College Avenue/Rockridge......