February may well be our favorite month in San Francisco. Between the Chinese New Year parade, the glorious weather, and Noise Pop, there’s really no better place to be this time of year. Noise Pop officially kicks off tonight. To celebrate we’re reposting an interview with the man behind it all, Kevin Arnold, that we originally ran last year.......

Photo credit: sniderscion Torontoist spent its week uncovering who was behind mysterious ads for a drug called "Obay" that popped up across the country (Scientology? Frank Shepard Fairey?), first tracing them to an advocacy group called Colleges Ontario and then confirming their suspicions a few days later.Phillyist learned how to put on a puppet show – it's not as easy as you might think!Shanghaiist discovers that the average starting monthly pay for fresh graduates......

The Chinese New year parade for the year of the rat, 2008...

Good grief, this Chinese New Year business sure does go on for a long time. This weekend, it's a New Year Parade and a New Year Community Fair that'll be tying up traffic. A ton of major east-west lines will be affected on Saturday afternoon -- the 5, the 71, the 38, the F, the 1, and so on. Also causing trouble: the weather. Muni can barely keep its head above water when it's dry,......

Is there anyplace in San Francisco more charming than SOMA at night? No, there is not. And this President's Day, it'll be even charminger: construction and traffic reroutes on the Bay Bridge may cause a few heavy-flow days over the holiday weekend. If you're clever, you'll probably want to avoid SOMA in the late-night and early-morning hours. But then again, if you're clever, you probably already do. But it's not all blocked onramps and......

Wow, it feels like just yesterday that we posted something about the Symphony's Chinese New Year's concert for last year's Year of the Pig! Well, it's now the Year of the Rat, and the orchestra's raring to go! Last year's 14 year old solo pianist, Peng Peng, is now 15 and this year, he'll be playing a Mozart piano duet with 13-year-old up and comer Conrad Tao. The orchestra will again be helmed by Carolyn......

Well, that was fun. Last night out in the center-left bleachers, each time Barry Bonds came to bat, the crowd rose giddily to their feet. The stands brimmed with grins and shouts of encouragement and nervous energy. Mitts were pulled on. With each pitch thrown to him, photoflashes flared all about the stadium like Chinese New Year firecrackers....

Photos from the Chinese New Year Parade...

-Repair crews begin to clean up landslide in North Beach. -A 19 year old is shot in Western Addition and three were shot in the East Bay. -That civil injunction thing in the Bayview appears to be working. -Alex Tourk opens a lobbying and PR firm. -Anne Coulter's favorite person, John Edwards, is in town today. -If you want to see SFGate's collection of photos from the Chinese New Year parade, go here.......

Did you know that Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days? The last day, March 4, 2007, is the Lantern Festival. So, we're not too late in getting this crucial holiday food news to you: Your celebratory moon cakes could be a danger to your health. ...

YummySF makes us feel all warm and happy about the Chinese New Year. Check out some yummy (indeed!) dim sum pics from a Tai Wu Restaurant outing. Eating dim sum seems like a perfect way to celebrate. In other traditions -- mainly Lent -- World On A Plate has some drool worthy dets on buns, including items from Iceland, of all places. You've seen the photos, now do the reading. One intersting historical note:......

We always thought Chinatown would be a great place to do a Treasure Hunt as we're pretty sure you could find anything there-- artwork, toys, opium, you name it. Well, there is an official Chinatown Treasure Hunt, the 17th annual Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt, and we just happen to be holding a contest to giveaway tickets to take part....

If you're still recovering from the comment war over the Western-calendar New Year dance party with the Falun Gong, we've got a nice non-sectarian Chinese New Year musical performance with the SF Symphony to soothe your spirits! The SF Symphony rings in the Year of the Pig with their annual East-meets-West lunar new year afternoon concert on Saturday, Feb. 24 -- this year's performances feature works by local Asian-American composer Gang Situ, a traditional "gong......

We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. These are our favorite tidbits from today's offerings: SF Chronicle: Valentine's feasting with the one you love. We like Marlena Spieler's no fuss, no muss approach. We would totally make the cumin lamb chops with sweet potatoes and tomato-ginger chutney for our sweetie if we weren't catering tonight! If a restaurant outing is more your thang for Valentine's Day, Inside Scoop has dets on happenings around......

-State Senate votes for an early primary and to extend term limits. -College students everywhere to put down the bong and stage a national day of protest over the Iraq War. Then they'll go back to using the bong. ...

SFist's beloved A-list photographer Drew Altizer sends along the pictures he took from today's "Wild Hogs"/ Chinese New Year event. We haven't heard a word about this movie before, but it apparently involves Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy as four guys on a midlife crisis motorcycle tour of New Mexico? (Did we read this press release right? Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy?) Huh. Anyways,......

-Falun Gong not allowed in this year's Chinese New Year parade. -Almost half of the hospitals in California won't be earthquake compliant by 2012. -A car crash on Highway 101 near Santa Rosa kills four and injures two others. ...

We don't know about you, but it's friggin cold out there. Well, not for some of you. It seems as though places that are supposed to be cold are warm and places that are supposed to be warm are cold. Or maybe that's just us. Either way, we're freezing. Austinist said goodbye to their co-editor (sell-out) and played rumor monger ">on the SXSW lineup. And when dozens of dead birds littered downtown Austin, it's......

Guest review by M.C- of The Standing Room, with pictures by Civic Center's SFMike. N.B.: No one reviewing this concert, and no one posting the review of this concert has any affiliation with either Falun Gong or the People's Republic of China. When we heard about the NTDTV Chinese New Year Spectacular at the Opera House this past weekend, we were absolutely certain we knew what to expect. In our tender youth, our parents dragged......

Man, there's isn't any Bay Area connection to Dick Cheney shooting that 78-year-old guy in the face? We're so jealous of DCist and Austinist right now. Well, we gotta content ourselves instead with reporting on the in-your-face shenanigans of Board of Supes President Aaron Peskin and gadfly Wade Randlett instead. We know, it's not nearly as good. According to Matier and Ross, Peskin and Randlett were both at the Chinese Parade VIP stand. (There's a VIP stand for the Chinese New Year parade? Our invite must have gotten lost in the mail.) Randlett, who heads up the controversial moderate-to-conservative group SF SOS, was there with his girlfriend Lorna Ho. Ms. Ho, interestingly, is the SF school district spokesperson, and SF SOS has consistently advocated against school busing as a solution for racial segregation in the district.) Anyways, so Peskin sees Randlett, and blows his stack. Peskin storms up to Ho's boss, Gwen Chan, and demands that Randlett be ejected, saying that Randlett wasn't on the invite list. Chan passed the message to Randlett, who was like, whatever, "We have some history." The quail's in the bush! See the metaphoric buckshot fly, after the jump!...

Hey, did you see the Falun Gong protestors at the Chinese New Year parade? They were barred from marching in the parade -- organizers say it's because F.G. is too political -- but they showed up anyway. Those zany kids, always getting into mischief! Just like their leader, Li Hongzi, who caused a stir awhile back when he said, "the biggest cause of society's change today is that people no longer believe in orthodox......

Saturday: We're celebrating Chinese New Year by hitting the Chinese New Year Carnival, which runs from January 27 - February 2, daily, 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Admission is free to Walter U. Lum Place, Washington & Clay Street. Sunday: Consumating, "a site that helps geeks, nerds, hipsters, and bloggers find dates" (and, incidentally, is run by Ben Brown, former editor of our sister site Austinist) is throwing a big party this Sunday night, the 29th,......

This week's stage offerings: Three "Evil Dead" movies. One stage version. Two words: "so best."...

Hey photobloggers! Since you're bringing the digital camera downtown on Saturday anyways, don't forget to stop by and get some shots of the Chinese New Year Parade too! The parade starts at 5:30 at Second and Market, rain or shine, and goes until about 8. Lots of cute kids dressed up as emperors, dancing lions, the Centipede-like multi-man 201-foot dragon, and Miss Chinatown 2005 -- plenty of good material for your flickr account! They recommend getting to Chinatown no later than 5, but you can check out the street fair if you're there early. And just a friendly plug: we here at SFist love to show your work -- thanks again to Lackadaisical for the great shots of the Chinese Moon Festival he let us use last year -- so we welcome any and all pictures you want to send from your day! ...

Investigators have discovered that the fire that killed a fire captain in Los Gatos was caused by either a burning candle or incense stick used to celebrate Chinese New Year. The homeowners had been using the room as a prayer shrine, despite having previously been warned not to use the room at all after a previous fire had started in that same spot. The fire melted through a power line on the roof of the house, which then fell into a puddle of water, electrocuting the firefighter. Two female employees of Woodside's nonprofit Gorilla Foundation have sued the group and its president for sexual harassment. The employees claim that the president, Penny Patterson, informed them that Koko the signing gorilla, who is cared for by the Foundation, has a "nipple fetish" and pressured them on numerous occasions to take off their shirts and show Koko their breasts. Patterson is reported to have said to Koko, "Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples. I will turn my back so Kendra can show you her nipples." In sign language. Patterson also allegedly informed the women that displaying their breasts to Koko was a "normal component to developing a personal bond with the gorilla." Koko should go on the Howard Stern show! ...

And a Gong xi fa cai and/or Gong hay fat choi, depending on your dialect, to you! It's Chinese New Year's! Lunch is on your Asian-American friends, who should be flush with red envelope cash today. It's the year of the rooster on the 12-year Chinese lunar calendar, and people born either this year or who are turning multiples of 12 are supposedly independent, hardworking, and aren't afraid to tell you about it (roosters crow in all languages, we suppose). Along with the ringing-in of lunar calendar year 4027 comes the usual spate of well-meaning celebration of cultural difference yet sometimes vaguely-Orientalist news coverage has begun as well -- those of you trying to do business in Asia may have some wacky hijinks trying to get in touch with folks who've gone home for the holidays! For those of you who are less inclined to set off firecrackers or shake down the elderly for oranges, Jeff Yang gives some practical suggestions on celebrating Chinese New Year in a more modern way. The annual Chinatown parade not this weekend but next, on the 19th. This weekend, though, is the also-beloved Miss Chinatown USA Pageant, at the Palace of Fine Arts. ...

Thanks to The Standing Room for the picture tip! When Friendster goes bad -- a Cupertino child molester registered on Megan's List has been arrested for contacting other listed sex offenders and asking them out. Glen Westberg allegedly emailed five other listees, told them they looked cute, and asked them to check out his listing (and note how well-built he was). We really fear for the future of social networking. Cardinals, lock the doors......