Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! It's almost here: new Apple gadgetry to make lives full again! Yerba Buena Gardens, where Apple's unleashes new iPhone announcements, revealed their exterior in anticipation for this week's iPhone 5 announcement (a cleaner, less splashier look compared to the previous decor). But what will the phone itself look like, you ask?

Well, according to Gizmodo, it's should be all kinds of fancy. "The phone will reportedly be a unibody design, with a two-tone back, and come in both black and white. And it turns out, all of the leaked internals fit perfectly into the leaked outer casing."

The screen size should increase a bit with a possible 4 inches (current iPhones measure 3.5 inches diagonally). Apple's fiercely anticipated doohickeys might also come with thinner screens that will allow for less LED use, thus taking up less space and saving you more precious battery power. Other rumors say that it could come with a much-needed new dock. Nowhereelse.fr has the next iPhone connector coming in at 9 pins (comparatively anorexic compared to the current 30-pin mammoth). And you might or might not be able to buy it on September 21.

Or the new iPhone could(/should) end up looking like the Hasbro Mickey Mouse Talking Phone. Who knows! Apple usually brims over with wacky surprises during announcement season.

The new iPhone reveal will come on Wednesday, September 12, in San Francisco.

Not only is Muni adjusting service levels to accommodate the bridge closure, they're actually reducing service levels on one of the days. On Monday, Sept 3rd, a bunch of lines will be suspended altogether; and every single remaining line will be operating on a reduced schedule. Of course, this info hasn't gone out to the press; you'd only know about it if you subscribe to Muni's RSS feed. You do subscribe, don't you?

Of course, they're doing this so that they don't have to pay overtime on Labor Day, which is very much in keeping with the spirit on that particular holiday. Good thinking, Muni! Another jorb well done!

Here's a list of Monday's canceled lines: 1AX, 1BX, 4, 7, 9AX, 9BX, 9X, 10, 14L, 14X, 28L, 31AX, 31BX, 38AX, 38BX, 38L, 41, 80X, 81X, 82X, 88.

--Turns out rescuers totally missed the car of the missing Alameda County woman and her priest friend, even though they got exact directions from 911. [Chron.]

--An Oakland Tribune sports columnist apologizes for calling the A's racist. [92510; read the original column cached on Google here.]

--Come to California, Barack Obama! [Calitics.]

--A pedestrian was hit by an SUV at Folsom and Main. [A reader, who requested that we give you the link to WalkSF, which we're happy to do.]

--Peter Ragone's in Rio. [Chron Politics Blog.]

--The guy who attacked Elie Wiesel last year pleads insanity. [Chron.]

--Hunger strike for immigrant rights outside Rep. Zoe Lofgren's office. [Merc News.]

--They might close the one Toyota union shop in Fremont. [The Truth About Cars, from a reader.]

--And finally, SFist MattyMatt asks us to remind you that Muni's going to be celebrating independence tomorrow by switching all lines to a Sunday schedule, so expect even longer wait times. Also, the trains will start running that day at 8am, three hours later than usual.

In the end, our source says, the route was quietly returned to Third Street on May 12th. But you'd be hard-pressed to find any evidence of that; tracking Muni's route changes is an exercise in outdated memos and record-keeping that's so spotty you might as well call it "record-losing."

So what's the current situation with the 54-Felton? We're not asking that rhetorically, we really want you, readers, to clue us in. In your experience, is it running on Third street, like our informant says it's supposed to? Or is it bypassing Third for Newhall, like Muni claims? Gee whiz, it sure would be nice if we could trust the routes that Muni has posted on its site ... but we can't.

"Re-routed via Newhall (until further notice)" says Muni's April 7 Major Permanent Service Change about the 54. In fact, Muni's own description of the route still indicates that it runs along Newhall. Meanwhile the nearly-always-incorrect 511.org shows the route running along Third, like it did before; and it has a confusing schedule that seems to describe a different route altogether -- in fact, 511 has no record that the "Major Permanent Change" ever even happened. Muni's service alerts, meanwhile, aren't organized by date or by line -- as far as we can tell, they're not organized by , and are arbitrarily removed from the site with no rhyme or reason.

After the jump: our anonymous tipster's report!

We love when public transportation officials have a light bulb go off over their heads.

The first thing they want to do is to train the train operators to make their announcements more audible and more frequent. Second on the agenda is fixing the speaker system so even if the drivers give clear and frequent announcements, people can hear them.

But the main thing they're talking about doing is adding video screens to both trains and platforms that give the latest BART news. What they will also show is the million-dollar question (literally) as BART is hoping they can run ads as a way of raising money for all this. After all, buying a whole bunch of video screens and putting them everywhere isn't the cheapest thing. Right now, BART has been accepting offers for video screens to be put on platforms but not in the trains.

We, of course, think this is a fabulous idea and would like to point out that we've seen those types of video screens in Tokyo. Ten years ago.

We’re considering booking our dream vacation now if the Olympic Games will be in San Francisco instead of Los Angeles or Chicago in 2016. Maybe it's a chance to try apartment or home swapping.

The prospect of Olympics in SF gives us pause. We have always loved living in the Bay Area, but remain in touch with our inner two year old, which means we still have a hard time sharing the City with the masses. It’s not that we don’t like the idea of money for the City (and all the restaurants, bars, and hotels therein). In fact, we like thinking of all those sporty hotties literally running around. Babes aside, we only foresee an Olympic size mess.

Grumpiness sets in deeper when we imagine the crowded MUNI and BART trains and traffic. Who doesn’t hate how bogged down life gets when there are crowds coming and going to the same places we are? Mr. Ford, what will MUNI do then? While there is ample time to address these transportation issues, MUNI’s track record keeps us skeptical.

If changes aren't made, there could be problems housing the athletes. What dumbass decided to put the athletes up at the old Hunters’ Point shipyard in an “Olympic Village”? Why house people in an area that already is saddled with impressions that it’s unsafe and filled with crime? The weather's warm, but it's a neighborhood said to be in need of re-developing -- more business, more programs, more support. On the other hand, maybe the Bayview Hunter’s Point district would magically get the funds, attention and police coverage it needs, along with more services for its residents. With the whole world watching, we’re betting the higher ups would get it all cleaned up just in time. In between our own elite training exercises of raising our fork and lifting beer bottles, we'll be watching.

How to get money, how to get money...hey, we'll solve some crimes! Arnold has offered rewards for information leading to the arrests and convictions in three Bay Area lukewarm cases. Apparently, if the governor receives a written request from a jurisdiction's police chief certifying that investigators believe the money could bring new leads and that victims' families support offering a reward, announcements like these are made. Jokes aside, if you have any information in any of these cases, please contact police in the city or county where the crime was committed.

If those crimes aren't high profile enough for you, how about the murder of Modesto resident Laci Peterson? And, yes, we know that her husband has been convicted of this crime, but that hasn't stopped his supporters, The Peterson Family Fund from offering a $250,000 reward for information that could exonerate Peterson or that could lead to the arrest and conviction of a different person in the crime. (Insert obligatory OJ joke here.)

Or, we just might buy a lottery ticket.

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For once, a BART delay not caused by "switching problems" at Millbrae -- those of you trying to cross the Bay this morning probably heard the repeated announcements about "police activity" at the West Oakland station, and the subsequent crawling-rate of the trains as a result. (We had a weekly with us through the stop-and-go, so tomorrow's We Read The Weeklies will be unusually thorough as a result.)

Turns out someone shouted out at the Oakland 12th Street station that there was a bomb on board. BART then evacuated the train at West Oakland, shut down the Transbay, and sent in the dogs. (Did anyone get panicky and jump on the tracks this time?) Nothing turned up (phew), but the police did manage to collar the two people who made the false threat and stranded over 20,000 commuters.

After a 30-minute delay, all trains are now running through the tunnel again, with about 7 minute delays from the schedule, and the West Oakland station has been reopened.

Update: SFist Jon, our intrepid South Bay-bound commuter adds: "Strangely, the commute to Millbrae/SFO was not only smooth running today, but early. For what it's worth, on Friday we were held up on the way to the Oakland Airport because, as the conductor said, 'problems at the station caused by someone with mental problems.' Turns out somebody tried to hop on top of the BART train before police brought them down."