There sure were a lot of passengers along the 21 route yesterday -- right next to the race, boy, it sure was busy. Think of how many fares they must've collected! Or would have, if they weren't sending out broken fare boxes along one of the busiest routes of the day. Whoops. Bus 5528 was a free ride for anyone lucky enough to catch it; and out guess is that lots of folks got lucky......

Shut up about how nice it is outside! Nobody cares. The REAL news is that Bart is conducting a survey. A SURVEY! To see how they should redesign their fare charts. Go take it right now! It's probably the most enjoyable few minutes you'll spend during this whole unpleasant weekend.......

Remember that story our Muni Security Guy told us about that fracas between some security dudes and a bus driver? Well, you got comments and we got responses and we also got further updates which we'll post later. And remember, if you have any further questions you'd like to ask either our Security Guy or Bus driver, just drop us a line at jon@sfist.com ...

Care to avoid be ridiculed by your Thanksgiving hosts following your departure after din din? Good. Then pay attention. (For those of you who have T-Day hosts who regularly gulp Chuck Shaw or Yellowtail, ew, feel free to ignore this post. You're screwed anyway.) Here's what NOT to bring to Thanksgiving dinner: Cabernet Sauvignon (for the love of God, don't bring Cab) Merlot Petite Sirah Chardonnay (unless there is a crab dish) The varietals above......

From our Muni Security Guy-...

Back in high school, we had an English teacher who really drilled the Transcendentalists into our brains, especially that one Thoreau Emerson quote: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." What can we say? It still makes us think. Like about restaurants that have hardly changed in at least 20 years (the amount we can vouch for, since that's when we moved here from Southern California) if not 35 -- Juan's Place, in Berkeley. We......

Let's start with "The Next Iron Chef." For the challenge ("Resourcefulness") the chefs were broken into teams by last week's winner Chris Cosentino, of local restaurant Incanto, and the teams then selected secret ingredients for their teammates. The challenge wasn't a team challenge, though, so there was much crying of "sabotage" when the chefs got to their outdoor, charcoal grill-equipped location and saw their ingredients. Chris made a juniper-smoked breast of squab marinated with sherry......

This photo was taken last Wednesday at Fulton and Masonic around 7pm. You can't possibly imagine how packed this bus was -- people stepping on each other, on each others' laps, holding the ceiling-mounted LED display because there was nowhere else to get a grip, standing in both stairwells, and even sitting on the fare box. Why was everyone so eager to get on this particular bus? Because they'd been waiting about an hour, and......

What would Batman and Robin think? With its chic industrial/gothic design, the new “market hall” style Whole Foods that opened recently near Lake Merritt in Oakland certainly could be used for a set on the next Batman flick. (Note: we won’t be defending or condemning the corporation itself here. We instead refer you to Mark Morford’s sharp analysis of the friendly giant.) We wish we’d known about the opening day festivities, what with an......

If you're unlucky enough to be a regular Muni rider, you may have followed the ongoing ridiculousness involving the NextMuni displays at Church Street Station. As you can see above, the display now shows information. True to form, that information manages to be both wrong and useless. As we noted when MUNI pretended to take public comment on the location of these displays, it makes no sense to put arrival information after you've already......

Abandoned kids, wannabe models, sitcom groaners, socialite teens, and a screaming Brit. It must be Wednesday! Firstly, we have CBS's "Kid Nation," at 8 p.m., in which a bunch of kids are thrown into a western ghost town and forced to drink bleach. Or something. Shockingly, the notion that children were put into harm's way for the sake of a reality television program has raised the ire of local officials and some of the......

From the moment you first plugged it in, your home telephone has been waiting for the moment when its existence would be justified. And now! At last! The Gavin Newsom '08 Phone Bank is ACTIVATING! Six days a week, starting this weekend and running until November, the phone bank will will be harassing San Franciscans all over San Francisco: vote for Gav! As we know, he's got a pretty extensive collection of phone numbers,......

We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. Here are our favorite nibbles from today's offerings. SF Chronicle: Oooh, Ho, Hoh! (said with heavy French accent, mimicking one of our favorite cooking school instructors). The Grand Cafe has a new chef and Californicated French menu. We're seriously eyeing the $18 express (45 minutes!) lunch menu loaded with salad, entree and macaroons for a Friday in our very near future. Grand Cafe remains a lovely......

This week's installment: Bus comfort, back door hard-ons, and -- surprise! -- no official MUNI policy. When do you decide to make an effort to try and affect things on the bus (telling people to move back or making a fuss if people try and enter through the back door). And if you don't do one of those things, why not? This sort of thing lives in the Land of Personal Preference; there's no......

Here's todays sports news...

Since dogs on Muni has been such a topic of heated conversation lately, we asked our Muni Driver for his thoughts....

As the people who brought you the useless 511.org struggle through yet another year of technical glitches with their Translink scheme, BART's EZ-Rider is sailing along with new features and only a single public snafu (a misspelled URL in their last email newsletter). EZ-Rider works just how a transit card should: wave it over the turnstile and it automatically debits fare from a preloaded account; when necessary, it'll recharge itself by automatically grabbing $50......

In this week's Ask a Muni Security Guy, we wonder just who is that bald security dude? The answer will surprise you. And as always, we have answers to last weeks questions. Remember, if you have a question that you want answered, either email us at editor@sfist.com or post it in the comment thread....

DROP EVERYTHING. Seriously, clear your calendar for this one: it's a good old fashioned bell-ringing contest! By gum, it's been a while! Well, a year. Oh, and it's happening today. You didn't have any plans, did you? Sorry this post is so last minute, but once again displaying their organization's characteristic timeliness, Muni sent out a press release at the end of the day on Wednesday, letting us know about an event on Thursday.......

Our security guy returns this week with a post about the measure taken before a big event as well as some more answers to recently posed questions. ...

This week, we're going to do a Very Special Edition of "Ask a Muni Driver" as our driver is going to give us his list of "Things That Annoy the Crap Out of a Driver." He's also asking submissions from SFist readers to list their "Things That Annoy the Crap Out of Muni Drivers." We've probably beaten that into the ground by now, but either post a comment in the comment section or e-mail me at jon@sfist.com and we'll put together a list for next week. Anyways, back to the show. ...

We'll get right to this week's post in which our Security Guy once again asks questions that were asked in our last post, but first, we just wanted to remind you that if you have any questions you'd like our security guy to answer, send them to editor@sfist.com ...

SFist Sara gives you the lowdown on what to expect from the Frameline GLBT film fest, which starts up TODAY! Starting today, The Frameline LGBT Film Festival will be rolling out its rainbow carpet at the Castro and the lineup of guests is glittery. Besides appearances by RuPaul (for Starrbooty), Alan Cumming (for his directorial debut Suffering Man’s Charity) and Alexis Arquette (for Alexis Arquette: She’s our Brother), the fest is again offering a super......

Simon Says premiered at the Another Hole in the Head horrorfest on Friday June 1st at a midnight showing. Well, an 11:45 p.m. showing. Whatever, it was late for old fogeys like us, but the allure of Crispin Glover was too much to ignore. You know what can really prep you for a late night horror movie showing? Searching for parking in the Mission when your parking abilities are limited to spots that do......

This week, we're going to change things up a bit and go all History Channel on you as we explore the history of Muni Security. Next week, we'll go back to the usual responses to the various questions....

Duck meatballs from the Oakland Tribune. We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. Here are our favorite nibbles from today's offerings. It's short but suh-weet. SF Chronicle: Breaking bread with neighbors and "new friends"/potential love mates continues to catch on at community tables. An explanation from restaurant guru Clark Wolf perhaps explains why the post 9/11 trend has taken awhile to grow: "...Americans don't share space well. So it took a little......

The big reality shows have ended their TV seasons, which means we're left with the really crappy summer reality TV fare. And since reality TV tends to set the bar pretty low to begin with, you know the stuff they shove at us during he summer has to be really prime. Like "Pirate Master" for instance! This show screams executive pitch: "It's 'Survivor' meets Pirates of the Caribbean!" But being that we're only (semi)......

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. ...

SFist Sara's back, with your weekend picks in indie cinema! We are always going to tell you to see Other Cinema. You can set your watch to it, we promise. This week’s Incredibly Strange Music program is packed with punk rock/bad music video genius. We’re particularly into the experimental film Foucault’s Pendulum but there’s oddity for every taste, as curator Craig Baldwin’s program religiously offers. This week, however, the OC schedule has a staunch competitor......

Since we had so many questions asked of our Muni Security Guy last week, we decided to split his comments into two. Today, he answers the few remaining questions that were asked. And away we go... ...