Here's what we've missed in the world of Bay Area sports while trying to figure out who the Oceanic 6 are......

Shit. It's Valentine's Day this Thursday and by the looks of it most of you have already planned your perfect date. Three shows are already completely sold-out: The Kills at Rickshaw Stop, Slightly Stoopid at The Independent and Common at Mezzanine. While there are still several shows you can chance Thursday night, it might be wise to stay home and wait till the weekend to take your crush out. We are. Friday, the local music......

Twenty-four of the world's most bitchin-ass surfers are on their way to Half Moon bay for a dangerous showdown at this year's 2008 Mavericks Surf Contest. Shore stars like Shawn Rhodes, Greg Long (San Clemente FTW), Brock Little, Randy Cone, Santa Cruz's Tyler Smith, and more will take part in tomorrow's dangerous and exhilarating surf contest. The cold waters of Half Moon Bay combined with the Pacific storm winter weather make some of "the most dangerous waves in the world." This battle of the sea is not to be missed. Dude....

Let's hope no oil tankers crash into the Bay Bridge this week -- Gavin's out of town again, this time bundled up for snow as he campaigns for Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Not quite as temperate in the middle of the country right now as it was in his last two vacation spots this month -- guess Gavin still owes the Clintons for backing him in 2003 against non-Democrat Matt Gonzalez, huh? The Republicans......

The SF Symphony Gala last Wednesday night, is one of the poshest events of the year -- a must-attend for anyone who’s anyone who has the right to live, breathe, receive adequate healthcare in SF. We were lucky to tag along for the ride. The performance of its annual opening is an afterthought, and we were not sure if there wasn't some subtle subversion going on. We mentioned already the choice of the Fanfare for......

The SF Symphony returned from its trip to Europe and kicks off its 2007-08 season tonight, with a sold out opening night gala featuring MTT and Renée Fleming. We find it ironic that they will play Aaron Copland’s "Fanfare for the Common Man" -- a piece riddled with leftist political overtones -- to SF’s high society. Well then, it looks like the SF symphony is more subversive than we give them credit for this time.......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian. We should totally put needle disposal boxes in Golden Gate Park. Also, C.W. Nevius says that Newsom called him and yelled at him for 45 minutes after he wrote his first article on the issue. We'd put that call on mute. Gentrification is destroying Polk Street. City contractors still use sweatshop labor. Annalee Newitz has mice. Sonic Reducer's still at the Guardian. Cover article: Local bands to watch. You've......

You got questions, we got answers:...

In this week's installment, our Security Guy answers questions that were asked in last week's segment. But before we get into it, we'd like to point you to this story, about more concerns involving the collecting of fares on Cable Cars. ...

-Pelosi's in charge. -The Governator gets his inaguaral today too even if he's still laid up. ...

We might be not so happy with the weather these days but there are groups of people who are. Like skiers and snowboarders. Or surfers. Surfers are especially stoked these days because all this weather can only mean one thing-- it's time for the Mavericks Surf Competition. The moment one giant swell appears, the call will go out and within 24 hours, the Mavericks competition will go out. Seriously here-- apparently all the surfers who are going to compete are ready to drop whatever they're doing and get to the surf within 24 hours of the first major swells. It's like their wives are pregnant or something. We wonder if they all have their pagers going or some sort of automatic e-mail is generated. Or maybe the Surf Signal is flashed up in the sky. They even call this period the "Mavericks Wait Period." We see that the contest has a sponsor, but how soon will it be before the wait period has one? ...

We are very sad to report to you that Chris Daly is in the Chron today -- but not for hauling off and hitting anyone, or yelling at someone so loud that the cords stand out on his neck. Rather, he's got a totally sane and balanced and compassionate proposal for the extra money they've found in the San Francisco budget. What's more, it's an actual local op-ed on the opinions page, instead of......

We've been using our research time to ruminate on the growing importance of public perception of technology companies. As the most closely-watched technology company in the Bay Area, Google is getting criticism for supposedly not living up to its philosophy of "You can make money without doing evil". The issue now is Google's decision to censor search results on its Chinese site. In an interview with Reuters (vectored via CNet news.com), Sergey Brin acknowledges......

Schwarzenegger's political poll numbers are still down, there is one poll in which he is doing very well. Turns out, Arnie is Ubersexy! According to Men's Vogue, Arnie is the Fifth Ubersexiest man in the world, making him ubersexier than Ewan McGregor andr Pierce Brosnan, but not as ubersexy as George Clooney, #1 Ubersexiest male Bono, or Donald Trump (blogga, please). Not on the list was Rush Limbaugh, who has been whining about it ever since. As for his propositions' in the Very Special Election, we turn to the Prop. 77, the redistricting initiative because if politics make for strange bedfellows, this one is causing TomKat-like couplings. Besides the support of Mr. Campaign Reform himself, John McCain, the initiative got the support of well-known political reform organization, Common Cause. Well, sort of. Seems there was a bit of a disagreement over supporting it and it's rumored several board members threatened to resign in protest of aligning with a politician whose pro-business stand would earn the plaudits of Montgomery Burns. Also supporting the proposition is consumer rights group, CalPIRG. ...

The Bay Area should be proud of at least two high profile record releases from local artists this week. Oakland's own The Lovemakers drop their major label debut Times of Romance on Interscope Records, and San Francisco's John Vanderslice keeps it real by releasing his latest, Pixel Revolt, on indie stalwart Barsuk Records. Even if you can't afford to rush to the CD store on Tuesday, we wouldn't want you to go without some local......

>...or is it a DCist cameo on SFist? Our sister site notes that one of our local boys, Adam Werbach, and his new group, the November 3 Theses have invaded their town to wheat-paste flyers on the doors of the DNC. Kind of like Martin Luther, except he had 95 theses and the November Thirders only have nineteen. ...