Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

At the behest of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a piazza that will take up a block of Vallejo street is in the plans for 2007. The piazza will be located on Vallejo Street between Columbus and Grant, by the St. Francis of Assisi. If we can remember our North Beach geography through our fuzzy, alcohol drenched memories of North Beach, that's right by Busters (home of yummy Cheese Steaks) and Caffe Trieste. The piazza will include benches, trees and a "starving poets podium" for, well, starving poets. If we can remember our geography through our fuzzy, alcohol drenched memories, isn't there something like that in London? Says Tony Gartner, the president of the North Beach Merchants Association a nice restful place for "people to come and rest their souls." ...

It looks like Bud Selig's Barry Bonds voodoo doll is working as last night, before the Giants 2-0 victory over the Brewers, Barry was bonked on the head by a foul ball in batting practice. After all, having Barry hit 715 in the Home of Bud would be the worst possible PR debacle, not to mention total karma. The ball was hit by rookie Kevin Fransden, already making a name for himself with his bone-headed base-running blunders and propensity for being hit by pitches, who joked that he was expecting his locker to be cleared out after batting practice was over. The whole thing was so weird and out-of-nowhere that nobody reacted or did anything until Barry went down on the ground and was treated by the Giants' trainers. ...