Certain blocks speak to specific eras. While the local architecture can play a significant role, perhaps the most crucial factor is intangible...one that can’t be defined. It’s a mood we begin to sense as we sift around an area - what we imagine it to have been like so many years before, and in the case of certain places, how little it’s changed in the years since. Mission St. in the Excelsior had us thinking 1972 or so. Country Club Drive in the Parkside had 1954 down pat. Sturgeon St. on Treasure Island seemed rutted in about 1987. Amethyst Way in Diamond Heights feels like 1966....

Thanks to SFist Jackson for holding down the Blotter fort in our absence! The Meleia Willis-Starbuck investigation continues to develop, as the Alameda County DA's office confirms reports that Willis-Starbuck was heard on a cell phone telling the murder suspect, her close friend Christopher Hollis, to come help her break up an argument and to "bring the heat." Hollis came over immediately, with possibly up to three other people in the car. The driver, Chris Wilson, is out on bail, which was put up by his best friend's family. One other man in the car has been reported to have fled to Panama, and the other passenger, a woman, reportedly panicked at the sight of a gun and got out of the car before anything happened. Hollis is still in hiding, though friends and family have begged him to turn himself in. Several local attorneys report having gotten frightened phone calls from him but don't know where he is. In other Berkeley news, a man who was reportedly mentally disturbed rammed his SUV through the window of the Starbucks on Solano and Colusa on Tuesday. Numerous witnesses had gotten down all his information but it turned out it wasn't really necessary because, what with all the ramming, his entire front bumper fell off, complete with license plate. A store employee interviewed after the crash told a reporter, "I cannot talk to you. I am loyal to my company." See, it totally pays to give health insurance to your part-time employees! And back across the bay -- remember the doctor who was found killed in Diamond Heights with cherry pits around his body, but the DA's office refused to charge the leading suspect with murder until the DNA results came back from the cherry pits, even though they found the suspect driving the doctor's missing car? Well, the DNA results are back, and the cherry pits did indeed have the suspect's DNA on them, so the DA will now charge. ...

Brian Rossiter, the owner of "the most famous hand in America," has begun lashing out at reporters, describing his life as "hell" since the news broke that he sold his severed finger to Anna Ayala and her husband Jaime Placensia for $50 to drop in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Rossiter's mood seems to have darkened from Wednesday, where he was reported to have gone to his favorite bar, waved his hand around, and got his buddies to buy him numerous shots of his favorite drink, Goldschlager. Goldschlager? A prominent doctor at SF General was found murdered in the doorway of his house in Diamond Heights. Police are focusing on cherry pits strewn around the house and outside in his yard as possible clues. And the police have a man in custody who set fire to a building across the street from the Old Mint in SoMA last night. The man was seen running out of the building with a jar filled with liquid and screaming that he was involved with the fire. The SF Fire Department rescued six residents in the building who were either trapped in their apartments or had fled to the roof. ...