The Washbag shuts its doors for good. (But didn't they, like, invent drinking? Or something like that?) [Culture Blog] Beware of the guerilla knife sharpener. [Curbed] Tetris cookies are good cookies. [The Snitch] FasTrak violators cost the Metropolitan Transportation Commission $3.5million. For shame. [Examiner] SF is oh so similar to Second Life. [ValleyWag] "O-N-E-L-E-S-S, I wanna be one less, one less." [SFBG] The real Ron Paul. Ick. [IKnowWhatImDoing] Image credit goes to artist Guy......

Top alt-flick cinema houses. [Gridskipper] Clinton takes it in New Hampshire. [Oakland Tribune]Rocchi on Chinatown vis-à-vis There Will Be Blood. (An aside: Any specific details about Faye Dunaway's behavior on the set of the former would be most appreciated. Just how difficult was she?) [Culture Blog]Newsom inaugurated. [The Snitch] Zoo Eviction? Is the question. [Curbed] Mike Martz joins the 49ers. [SFGate]Fresh, hot Tablehopper. (We like to be naughty and read it while eating a......

-- Those rectangular glassy lofts on Folsom and Fourth Streets are, in fact, award-winning rectangular glassy lofts. Also, love the windows. [Curbed] -- What to do in SF when it pours. [Gridskipper] -- Democrats having a spine? What a novel idea! [BeyondChron] -- Behold! Tinkerman's top 10 musical experiences and releases of 2007. [SFBG] -- Matt Gonzalez caught shopping at Community Thrift on Valencia. Dude, we also l-o-v-e Community Thrift! Why, it's where we......

-- Today is Yelp Day. How did you celebrate? Yeah, same here. (With all due respect to Yelp, Newsom will declare anything _____ Day these days, won't he?) [Eater SF] -- Ooooh! Those apartments near the Mint and Mezzanine. We want one. [Curbed SF] -- Homeless vets. [BeyondChron] -- Freight & Salvage wins $1.161 million? Jesus. [SFBG] -- Beth Spotswood totally likes Donnie Wahlberg. [Culture Blog] -- SF's EIR, bicyclists, and you. [Left in......

-- Why, it's our very own SFist Rita kicking it in the comfy confines (and breaking down the latest season of Project Runway) over at SFGate. Awesome. [Culture Blog] -- Japantown's J-Pop Center, well, pops. [Curbed SF] -- And look! It's your editor interviewed by SF Weekly. We don't come off as mildly-retarded as we did during the interview. Woo hoo! [The Snitch] -- Which '80s night is the best night? [Gridskipper] -- Yoshi's......

-- Ross Mirkarimi, sole supe against Clear Channel. [SFBG] -- Out-of-town drug dealers bring their goofballs and china white to SF. [Examiner] -- Stupid TV can't ever get us right, or so says the Streets of San Fauxcisco. [Culture Blog] -- San Jose kills cigarette smoking at city parks. [SJ Merc] -- SF is numero uno according to Conde Nast Traveller. [The Snitch] -- And yet we can't crack the top-ten as a prime......

-- Some very sad news: former SFist editor, writer, and gem of an all-around guy, Jeremy Nisen, switched addresses for now. Aw. But never fear, you can still catch his brilliance over at Curbed. Yay! [Curbed SF] -- We get introduced to a new KTVU personality heading to the Bay Area. Because you just can't stop on-air talent. Ever. [Culture Blog] -- AM shooting in the TL takes the life of teenager. [Examiner] --......

> -- Today's tale about Richmond's campers for peace. [Oakland Tribune] -- Ahmad Rahimi, a 16-year-old Hayward teen, killed by an Amtrak train. [Chron] -- Same-sex marriage stuff. [Examiner] -- Harvey Milk Club gives it up for Mecke. [BeyondChron] -- Getting all crankypants over Jew's real replacement. [SFBG] -- Stiletto stabbers receive a dose of vigilantism over the Internets. Watch out, ladies! [The Snitch] -- Spotswood on other possible Jew replacements. [Culture Blog] -- Case......

-- RIP: Chronicle cartoonist Phil Frank dies. [Chron] -- Busted water pipe downtown = Bay Bridge entrance difficulties. [ABC 7] -- What a good idea! MUNI cop ride-alongs. (Oh, you know you also love to see fellow riders get busted for no transfer/pass.) [The Snitch] -- Google's crusade for international privacy. Yay, Google! [Examiner] -- Yusuf Bey sexual assault lawsuit settled. [Oakland Tribune] -- US online video popularity soars. [Macworld, via IDG] -- The Cinematic......

Last night's innovative Chicken John/Josh Wolf Mayoral debate brought in "a dozen or so citizens," artists, and political fetishists. Even though it was on a Sunday night, anyone who cares about politics, SF, and progressiveness shouldn't have missed it. Naturally, we couldn't make it. Big Brother was on, and we're concerned about Jen and the near-physically/sexually-violent way that men in the Big Brother house have been treating her. Also, it was nomination night. But......

-- Are you ready for the genius that is Peaches Christ and her Midnight Mass cult-film series? [Bay Area Reporter] -- Television -- glorious, warm, loving television! -- on BART cars? Hmm. [Inside Bay Area, Oakland Tribune] -- Matt Stroud takes a brief, much-needed break from his Rocky-like boxing bootcamp training. [The Snitch] -- Affordable housing advocates get pinched by the fuzz. Remember, purveyors of justice: don't drop the soap! [Fog City Journal] --......

--Gavin Newsom angrily denies Chris Daly's cocaine allegations, calls them "sleazy," and calls for everyone in the Board of Supes to condemn them. Tom Ammiano says he thought it was one of Daly's better speeches. [The Chron (and audio clip), CBS 5 (with video of Daly at the meeting and Newsom's denial), ABC 7 (also with video), Fog City, Beyond Chron, Examiner, SF Sentinel. Watch the video from SFGov here, around item 36.] --Your Two......

--Spot (at least) four problems with this picture! [zippy_monster on Flickr, from the SFist Flickr stream.] --Fight at the Metreon! [Chron Culture Blog] --Pat Murphy claims to feel bad about his nemesis Chris Daly getting deposed as chair of the Board of Supes Budget and Finance Committee. [SF Sentinel] --Chris Daly takes his reassignment like a man. [Fog City Journal] --Hey! Our Ed Jew coverage goes national! Thanks for the referral, reader DM! [TPMMuckraker.com]......

--We feel so bad for the Chron with the layoffs. They try to lift everyone's mood with a zillion articles about animals in today's paper. --Someone's listed a Pinole bridge for sale on Craigslist. --Dumpster diving in Berkeley. --A lifesize Mousetrap game! --Hyphy's played out. --Former SFist editor Jackson West brings his blog roundup to the SFGate Culture Blog! --And what with all the excitement yesterday, we plumb forgot to give you guys this......

Yes, lucky readers, that's right: Jennifer Siebel's movie The Trouble With Romance is screening in San Francisco for the SF Int'l Asian-American Film Festival. And who better to review the press screener we received, than our special guest correspondent, and Chronicle Culture Blog Gavin Watcher..... Beth Spotswood!!!! The infamous SFist Rita took time away from her remote cave lair and evil blogging minions to hook me up with an advance copy of The Trouble with......

Before we get into the Jennifer Siebel links of the day, we'd like to put a theory out there. Remember Chron writer C.W. Nevius's theory that men were upset about Newsom's behavior with Ruby Rippey-Tourk because it violated the man code? (which is, in short, don't mess around with a friend's woman.) Well, we'd like to put forward the thought that one of the reasons why people are so angry with Ms. Siebel over her......

Greetings from the great beyond! We've just died and gone to blog heaven after this explosion of every single thing we're obsessed with over on the Chronicle's Culture Blog. RIP, us! Okay, so let's see, what do we have here... a 1) Catherine Bigelow-penned blog entry featuring 2) Britney Spears's bald head grafted onto the bodies of 3) local politicians and 4) Pac Heights celebutantes!! Over on our beloved former co-editor's new online adventure, with......

If we may be permitted to step out of subjective first-person plural for a moment: I've had a lovely time hanging out at Isotope and writing comic book reviews for SFist for the last year and a half, and it's very fondly that I'll be devoting this last post to some of my favorite books from that time. But this won't be a re-review of those titles; instead, I'd like to wander away from......

It's the return of our column where we compile all the attacks and defenses of Gavin Newsom in one handy place! This week it's all attacks, though. Send your Newsom defenses here! (or post 'em in the comments.) So... who's on this week's list? Let's bring 'em out! --Aaron Peskin and Ross Mirkarimi!: Luke Thomas at Fog City Journal reports that Supervisors Peskin and Mirkarimi decided to take advantage of Gavin Newsom's much-touted "open door......

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Hey, the EBX is starting a blog -- we hear those are very trendy. But they've got us listed as a link, right below the Culture Blog, so it's all okay! Bottom Feeder mocks the errors made by the Bay Guardian in its East Bay endorsements. Would you buy expensive organic meals prepared by these folks? Confrontational atheists meeting near Walnut Creek. Cover article: the woes of air......

Har har! We were going to post about this yesterday too, but forgot until today. Some wag managed to do an entire interview with KTVU Tuesday night about that fire near the Altamont Pass, under the name "Mike Litoris." KTVU has pulled the video from their website, no doubt out of shame, but the SFGate's Culture Blog's having some good clean fun with it, as is Leah Garchik. Leah, being a good reporter, did a......

We've always wanted to be mischaracterized in a bullying fashion by the Chron's Pink Pages writer Aidin Vaziri! So Vaziri, on the SFGate's Culture Blog, pokes some gentle fun at us for posting the picture that all our astute commenters agreed was Photoshopped, of a purported Phil Lesh fan falling off the Warfield balcony. But what we don't get is that Aidin says no one actually fell off the balcony at all and that......

With the advent of this Internet thingamabob, newspapers are finding themselves in quite a world of Darwinian hurt. In short, adapt or die. Lately, the Chron has been adapting by having some of their most favored writers do blogs on the SFGate side. Not a bad idea really as we're sure the idea of paying $30 a year to read Jon Carroll's cat columns is not going to bring in the cash money. How they've been getting the writers to do it is a good question as we have a feeling not many of them were that psyched on the idea. We're thinking either by gun point or with long-lost incriminating photos. ...

Wow, another year of SFist Reads seems to have whipped right by. Another year of online reserves checked out from the SF Public Library, another year of shopping at our fine local independent bookstores. As we here at SFist have eyes in the back of our heads, we happily look back over 2005 and ahead to 2006 for this year-end edition of SFist Reads. SFist Matt (an opportunity for wit will never pass this......

There's been an underground explosion at Post and Kearny, right outside the Ralph Lauren store at the Crocker Galleria. At around 10 a.m., people said they heard an explosion and saw the sidewalk rise up about 6-7 inches. Two manhole covers were blown off, as was a concrete cover, and the explosion blew up the glass front of the Ralph Lauren store. One woman was sent to the hospital with serious, but not life-threatening, burns. We wish her a speedy recovery. The authorities suspect that an underground transformer blew, but the bomb squad is going in before they let PG&E look around. Parts of Post, Sutter, Montgomery, and Kearny have been cordoned off as the investigation continues. Not a good day for PG&E, who just got hit with a possible $15 million fine for the 2003 above-ground transformer explosion. In other news, there was also a bomb scare at Civic Center (which was cleared without incident) around the same time. Meanwhile, the authorities are also worrying that the beached whale we told you about in Half Moon Bay might explode as well. (Really!) Also -- Flickr users, ABC News 7 wants to use your digital photos of the blast if you have any....

We're sorry, but that's it. We added the SFGate blog to our Bloglines feeds because we figured that we could just ignore Mark Morford and maybe there would be some good stuff. Seriously, we gave them the benefit of the doubt. But then one David Adams decided that he'd pimp Laurel Wellman's replacement Pati Poblete in our comments (go read it -- it's both poorly written and obsequious). For shame, SPAMmer! You even posted from......