The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get......

First, we want to briefly mention that the last leg of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" finale took place in San Francisco. How did we not hear about this back in December when it was filmed?? First off, the teams had to fly from Hawaii to San Francisco, but for some reason, they had to fly into Oakland airport and not San Francisco. We have no idea why this was enforced as it didn't look......

It's the A-Race-Ing Maze! (and not related, but SFist Rain, how awesome that the finale of Amazing Race All-Stars was in SF?) As promised, Caltrans's work around the clock paid off handsomely, with a triumphant announcement yesterday evening (.pdf) that they were reopening the W 80-S 880 connection (the lower level of the collapse) as of 5 a.m. this morning. It took them about a week to get it working again! And apparently, traffic's......

Well, we lost two of our locals when the Cho brothers were eliminated on "The Amazing Race" last week. If you're wondering what they're up to now, it apparently involves random acts of karma. We just hope they don't partner up with some ungrateful Alabamians for this venture. Previously on "America's Next Top Model," Melrose continued to dominate the competition, while still looking rather old and fug in her photos. The girls entered a dance......

Previously on "The Amazing Race"--Superleg! No teams hit the pit stop and no teams were eliminated. And that meant our local Cho Bros were still in it! Ah, but for how long? As we witnessed in previous episodes, the Chos aren't particularly fond of heights, so this rappelling-down-a-building-face-first challenge (AKA an "angel dive") wasn't going to prove easy for the Chos, and they were in last place doing it. (What we want to know......

Thanks to Rita for filling in last week! That was an awesome post. We need to go on vacation more often! Previously on "The Amazing Race," the Chos hung in there while Team Kentucky's luck ran out. Go Chos! The Cho Bros, in fourth place, learn they will be making their way to Helsinki, Finland--Yay! The land of our peopes!--and for some reason, all of the teams are being provided with plane tickets to Paris,......

Hello! Our usual TV correspondent SFist Rain is on vacation this week, so she graciously let us sub in for the week. It's not her fault we're not nearly as good at this as she is! First up: The Amazing Race. We've never watched this show before until this season, and now we are totally hooked. Go (local) Cho Bros! This week's episode sees our six teams flying from the island of Mauritius to the......

Last week on "The Amazing Race" Godwin and Erwin Cho were incredibly nice to Team Kentucky and helped them move from last to first place, while the Chos came in fifth. And, in other news, Creepy Peter and Sarah were eliminated. The teams would be making their way to Mauritius (or Maur-i-titis, Mortious, and Maury Povitch. NO ONE could pronounce the country correctly). At the Kuwait airport each team realized that to get to......

The Amazing Cho Bros maintained their fourth place position at the end of last week's "Amazing Race." This week they opened their first Amazing Clue to learn they'd be leaving India and heading off to Kuwait to find a mystery location which was revealed to them via some video on a cell phone (it was Kuwait Towers). The Chos maintained their alliance with Team Doing It For Our Kids (aka Team Bama) and Team......

Once again, we begin with "The Amazing Race." The Cho Bros started the race in fourth place and set off on a train to Hanoi where they'd then have to catch a plane to Chennai, India. Uh-oh! Here comes the dreaded Indian leg of the race! At the train station, the teams were bunched as they waited for the train station to open. The Cho Bros seem to have an alliance with the Team Doing......

Last week on "The Amazing Race," the Cho Bros checked in at the pit stop in first place! Were they able to maintain their lead this week? Let's see, shall we? The brothers left the pit stop and headed for Hanoi while wearing their head lamps and shouting about going to Disneyland. They're finally exhibiting some real personality! Unfortunately, they got a bad cab driver and completely lost their first-place lead, getting to the first......

This was a much better week for our locals than last week when we lost two of them--TWO! Read on. On "The Amazing Race," bodybuilding brothers Godwin and Irwin left the pitstop in eighth place--AKA second to last place--and headed to Vietnam, although in their hearts, they'd already won because they've been able to see such wonderful things, and they've been together to see it all. Aaawwww. Everyone got on the same flight and started......

Well, it was a tough week for our reality locals. Let's see how they did, shall we? On "The Amazing Race" Godwin and Erwin began the race in seventh place and headed to Mongolia with the dubious distinction of also being the first Asian people fellow racers David and Mary had ever known. That's right, EVER. We don't know if that had anything to do with them falling into last place once they hit Mongolia,......

We're so pleased to have some locals to root for in reality TV this season. Here's the first of what we hope are several weeks worth of updates on how those locals are fairing. So far, they're all still in the running towards becoming America's next amazing race war model! Unfortunately, we didn't know last Sunday that we'd be writing this post, so we didn't take any notes during the premiere of "The Amazing Race."......

Maybe everyone's just happy that our server seems back on the job (more or less -- sorry for the confusion, contest entrants), but we're glad to see all the lively conversations going on in the comments this week. Whether you're following the Tour de France, heckling or supporting Chris Daly, discussing art, keeping your culinary cool, or demonstrating your West Coast stickball pride, we're enjoying reading all of it. What really got you guys going......

We -ists are an eclectic bunch, but there's a couple of things we all love: famous people, social causes, and wacky local facts. Join us as we starf**k, get virtuous, and learn across the -ist network! Austinist starts us off right by filling the famous person quota by interviewing Lewis Black, covers the social cause with a non-profit car sharing company, and gives us more wacky local facts than we can handle with Austin by......

We've clocked more hours in Maiden Lane's pocket-sized social club, Otis than our liver cares to think about, but the only famous people we've ever seen there were our guests. Ah, the nights we've spent scanning the crowd in vain, wondering "Is that Chandler, again?" When we staggered in their unmarked doors last night, the only thing we were scanning the crowd for was a fresh vodka and soda -- but our eyes alit on......

For the past couple of months, Wednesday evenings have been a difficult night to get through. There's just too damn much TV we want to watch! So it is with much relief that after tonight, our Wednesday TV burdens will be lifted slightly as several shows are hitting the finale stage. First comes the tricky 8 p.m. slot, which is filled by "Alias," "America's Next Top Model," and "The Amazing Race." "Alias" won't be......

Let us put this bluntly: The last season of "The Amazing Race" sucky, suck, sucked. They never left the continent, the tasks were as exciting as watching paint dry (and we believe that was, indeed, one of the tasks), and the whole "family edition" idea just blew. The show is at its best when the race involves flying from one part of the world to another, not when bickering families have to drive from......

This is a pretty boring week for TV. The only thing we're even halfway excited about is something Rita mentioned last week: There are some new episodes of "Animal Cops San Francisco" airing this week on Animal Planet. You can catch two episodes tomorrow at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. There are also a few reality show season finales this week, but we can't seem to muster any enthusiasm for those. At 9 p.m.......

We admit that when it comes to TV, we may know more than we probably should about the shows that we watch, but we know precious little about how those shows actually make it to our TVs. All we know is, if we pay our bill each month we can turn on our TVs, and our TiVos, and choose from a wide variety of tantalizing entertainment choices. And we're happy about that. That is......

While SFist would like to say that the continuing decline in the quality of some of our favorite reality programming has caused us to drop these shows and get on with our lives, we have to admit that just isn't the case. Sure, we were heartbroken by the ending of last week's "Amazing Race," where the most intolerant, bitchy, and all-around unworthy team beat out probably the two nicest people to ever compete on......

The final selection of official Fall TV Season Premieres have finally found their way to the boob toob this week, and one of them is actually worth the wait. The sixth season of The Amazing Race starts tonight at 9:00 p.m. on CBS with a two-hour premiere, and we couldn't be more excited. There is no better bet in TV watching this week than this reality series. "Reality series!? Ptooey!" you say, to which......