You know how Mayor Gavin Newsom is supposed to make a special guest appearance at the Board of Supervisors meeting? At least once a month? To listen to their complaints, demonstrate that he's taking an active interest in neighborhood politics, powder the Supes' tender bottoms, and such? Well, it looks like he might not have to anymore, even though you, the voter, said you wanted him there. Over at Sweet Melissa, we came across......

Photo: innout/Flickr Yeah it is.......

Todd David Burpee, the man who kidnapped and raped a Palo Alto teen last week, just busted out a heavy confession detailing the hour-plus moments he spent with his victim. It seems that this was all because he was upset and "just [wanted] someone to take out his frustration on after a fight with his girlfriend," reports the San Jose Mercury News. They go on to say that "angry after a fight with his......

According Eric Thomas from ABC 7, who went into mighty graphic detail about what happened, a suspect was arrested today for the kidnapping and rape of a 17-year-old Palo Alto teen. A press conference is scheduled at noon (now!), where even more details, names will surely unfold. This past Wednesday a teen was kidnapped in Palo Alto, taken to Sunnyvale (on the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue), and then sexually assaulted. She survived......

How to stop the some of the ads appearing in your mailbox...

See this picture? Well, it's supposed to be of a grey Ford Taurus taken by our camera phone, but as you can see, it didn't come out. What this picture is supposed to show is the license plate # of a car with two people in it who, while stuck in traffic on 6th street, rolled down the window and dumped off the entire contents of some fast food trash onto the street. Right there. In plain day light. Just like that. Seriously, what the f---? What the hell makes somebody think that's right? Don't they know that Woodsy the Owl says they should give a hoot and don't pollute? ...

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

Guess where we went for dinner last night? That's right -- we went with friends to support our local public corruption whistleblowers, the fast food bubble tea and salty fried foods empire of Quickly. And of course, we had to go to one of the Quicklys in Tapioca Ed Jew's district! (there's two -- this one on Irving and 22nd, and another on Taraval. Extra bonus: check out that last picture at the link......

Our driver was on vacation so we only have a little bit this week, but today's post is more than enough to today as we tackle one of the biggest sources of Muni controversy-- drivers who run errands during their runs. And remember folks, you too can ask questions. Just drop us a line at editor@sfist.com. ...

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as......

What's with all the "McDonald's coffee is better than Starbucks," survey stuff going around? Evidently, a taste test or two places the coffee from the Golden Arches in a higher position than the ubiquitous chain-coffee house. This started about a month back with this Consumer Reports study, and has been percolating further on recent "stunning revelations" that McD's is going to serve actual espresso as well. One of the most bothersome aspects of this is major news concerns are talking and talking about it. STOP! PLEASE! ...

SFist re-runs an interview with John Vanderslice. He's playing at Noise Pop tonight. ...

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending......

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place. SFist Tourist......

Hungry Planet, the latest book by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, visits 30 families in 24 countries to take a look at what they eat. The book's subtitle is What the World Eats but the authors are a couple from Napa, the publisher from Berkeley: this is a local effort, and we can chauvinistically be proud of the James Beard Foundation award it just received. Each family in the book is photographed with all the......

This SFist doesn't eat meat, so maybe it's easier for us to hate on fast food restaurants -- after all, they're not so great for you and no one wants one in their neighborhood. But, heck, we sure do love our Burger King Simpsons watches. We're torn. Are fast food joints the blight Schlosser and company would have us believe, or are you "lovin' it"? (Incidentally, have you seen that McDonald's commercial where the......

SFist commeters pose for before and aftershocks when the mayor commemorates a 1906 earthquake...at 4:30 in the morning. A hot tip on the Chronicle vending machines comes in and the SFist war correspondent risks life and limb to post this dispatch from the frontlines. Houstonist announces their new Cops spinoff "World's Funniest Tazer Videos" and the possible cancellation of their pervs' "World's Grossest Bathroom Videos" and PBS trains cams on cows at, uhg, Mootube. Also,......

We just received last week the Slow Food Guide to San Francisco and the bay area, third guide in the series after New York and Chicago. The Bay Area is in smaller font in the actual title, but the guide actually makes a great job at not discriminating against the South and East Bays. We love Slow Food. Our s.o.'s roommate, Valerie, used to head the Berkeley chapter and many times we would step into......

SFist interviews John Vanderslice. Repeated for the Feist/ Vanderslice show at Noisepop 2006...

SFist inteviews musician John Vanderslice...

We loves us a good piece of meat, but we can't stand buying the factory-farmed animal products we find in most stores. An American obsession with cheap meat has left us with powerful producers who use their government-approved anonymity to wreak all sorts of travesties. (Have you read Fast Food Nation yet? You should.) We try not to contribute to this karmic sinkhole, and so we were happy to see Marin Sun Farms at......

Well, okay, so this may not be so helpful to residents of The City, but considering how many people we've run into from home and folks around these parts who've spent time in San Fran, consider this an appraisal of one of the best truck stops on the artsy-fartsy superhighway. We mean, if you're stranded somewhere in America's urban archipelago away from home, you'd be hard pressed to find a better island than Austin,......