We don't usually read the Op Ed pages of the Chronicle, because it's always either rehashed columnists from other papers or something like "give birth control pills to deer in Point Reyes" -- but can you believe it? The Chron actually got someone local to write about a local issue today -- if we're going to build out the MUNI underground, why not actually build it out and have a subway that runs to Fisherman's......

A slow-moving daily parade of idling vehicles stretching up Masonic Avenue...

Back in December, The Lovemakers, a glam-rock outfit from Oakland, decided to stay put and forego their national tour to record their next full-length album entitled "Love is Dead." (For a band called "The Lovemakers," that's quite a title!) According to their blog, they've also decided to "be a 3-piece [band] again for the next while live. Scott, Lisa and Michael Urbano on drums. Back to basics. Very cool. Very fun." What we didn't......

So, it's the eleventh hour and you've decided against crushing up a couple of Ambiens into a mug of fume blanc and calling it a year. Instead, you've turned that frown upside down, choosing to see what's happening tonight on New Year's Eve 2008. Good for you. And to help you out, here are some last-minute events for each neighborhood in the San Francisco. Just follow links for more info; they will provide you......

And now, some nice puppies that need your help... December has been an unfortunate month for Bernal Heights and fires. One fire that we haven't discussed yet is one that happened on December 22nd. In this Bernal Fire, Rocket Dog Rescue founder Pali Boucher became homeless and lost three fostered rescue dogs all in the blink of an eye. Since 2001, Boucher has been rescuing otherwise doomed doggies from Bay Area shelters, nursing them back......

A two-alarm fire at Bernal Heights home caused the displacement of two elderly folks. The blaze happened at 266 Nevada Street around 6:30 p.m. this evening. According to the Gate, "[f]irefighters found the home's two residents inside and brought them out to safety." Aw. Our heroes! Anyway, other than one of the rescued Bernal residents suffering from breathing trouble -- who was hospitalized for a short period of time -- no other injuries were......

Meet Joe Alioto Veronese...

Photo of a hummer...

-- Perverts. [ASD] -- San Francisco to go solar. [Curbed] -- SUV rampage remembered. [SFGate] -- Bernal Heights robbers? Oh noes! [The Snitch] -- The McKesson Corporation sued. Also, SFBG's got the love for the Examiner? [SFBG] -- The handitards over at Best Buy apologize for sending Scott Beale an inane cease & desist missive. Classic stuff, folks. [Laughing Squid] -- Blueprint -- it's not a good thing. (Eh.) [ValleyWag]......

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....

We got word today from an anonymous source that two residents of Bernal Heights -- including a former President of Golden Gate Audubon Society -- spotted a burrowing owl a block from their house on the southeastern side of the hill. The (sub?)species was confirmed by another Audubon-er. So, why does this matter? Because at the moment there is construction going on in the same area (i.e., landscaping improvements such as steps, etcetera) where......

Photos from the annual soap box derby...

Hey, remember that Question Time thingy? You know, that non-binding measure that voters passed which called for Gavin to appear in front of the Board of Supes and answer questions thrown his way while the rest of us get to kick back and watch the fun? Well, if you remember, Gavin kind of refused to do it and instead staged fake Question Time, "Town Hall" meetings throughout the city and wound up killing any sort of conflict over the issue by basically boring everyone to death. Even the chickens got bored and stopped attending. ...

We love it when events combine movies and music! So check out The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio, a documentary about the creation of a multi-ethnic world music orchestra from Italy. Diverse residents of the Piazza Vittorio neighborhood in Rome banded together and created the multi-ethnic world music orchestra in an attempt to save a historic movie theater from destruction. The movie then follows the orchestra's unlikely rise to success and the various musicians' stories.......

All of you YouTube addicts out there are probably familiar with many of the "absoludicrous"* found video clips from Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett's touring Found Footage Festival (*Mr. T makes an appearance in the "Celebrities Who Teach" series). The critically-acclaimed event will be in San Francisco tonight and tomorrow night at the Roxie Red Vic at 7:15 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. and this Sunday at the Parkway in Oakland for a 5 p.m.......

Aspiring painters of urban village scenes would do well to get themselves to Bernal Heights at once. From the armada of sandwich boards and the pony-tailed guy enjoying a pensive cup of coffee at Progressive Grounds, to the verdant street trees and the pair of rowdy sidewalk philosophers holding court near the eastern end of the block, it’s quite the bustling display along Cortland Ave. Private lives seem a low priority here, as even the back yards of local bars, cafés, and restaurants are open for business. Sidewalk rest stops are a big calling card on Cortland between Andover and Bennington, the heart of Bernal Heights’ vibrant commercial district. There are benches in front of restaurants (Valentina Ristorante), benches in front of salons (Bernal Heights Nail Care), benches in front of markets (The Good Life Grocery), benches in front of saloons (Wild Side West). The result: A remarkable feeling of community, evinced by how it appears as if everyone might actually know everyone else’s name. It’s like a West Coast version of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry...only on Cortland, there’s no Barney Fife. Auditions may or may not be held regularly at Skip’s Tavern and Wild Side West for the role of Otis the Harmless Town Drunk....

So many characteristics contribute to Pacific Heights’ identity: affluence on eager display, giant square parks, commanding views, boutique shopping, dogs! dogs! dogs! But, one element up here is continually overlooked. Of course, we’re talking about portable latrines on sidewalks. With home construction such a constant in this district, and with so many laborers needing to “tend to personal business” throughout the long workday, it’s no wonder Pacific Heights walkways are lined with blue or turquoise fiberglass toilets. Jackson St. between Pierce and Scott, where three of the nine buildings on the block are currently undergoing some sort of makeover, and where each construction site features its own port-o-let, demonstrates our point as well as any in the area....

-- Bridge? Closed. (They're gone! Quick, put away the bongs, and bust out the vodka, straws, and mirrors!) [Examiner] -- Near, far, wherever you are, free Wi-Fi must go on. [eWEEK] -- Two bodies found in Ingleside Heights. [Chron] -- Also, four other attacks in SF. How lovely. [SFist] -- While out jogging, Ross Mirkarimi helps apprehend two Western Addition drive-by suspects. Oh, Ross, you's so strong! [Chron] -- Good to the last drop,......

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......

-- Heklina (writing for SF Weekly again) on our newly crowned drag king. [The Snitch] -- Something or other about the state budget. [SJ Merc] -- Oakland man murdered on his birthday while being a good Samaritan. Suspect still at large, or on their way to the ninth circle of hell. [Chron] -- Bonds' 756th homer ball goes up for auction. [Examiner] -- Devaughndre Broussard: soooo the fall guy. [Oakland Tribune] -- Bernal Heights......

Four blocks of Bernal Heights have no water service right now: a cement truck doing repairs on Folsom Street tipped over earlier this morning, injuring the driver and damaging the water line. Two blocks of Powhattan and two blocks of Folsom are affected, they're hoping to get water back on by the mid-afternoon. Picture of the repairs on Folsom from the PUC website......

Did you see (video footage) all that smoke (pictures) yesterday? A fire at 17th and Noe Street between the Mission and the Castro at around 6:30 yesterday evening displaced at least 14 people, and sent seven to the hospital for smoke inhalation. One man had to be rescued off the roof. The fire spread to the building next door too, but firefighters managed to put it out before that building was too damaged. The SFFD......

We expect a lot from infamous Capp St. in the northern Mission, but a prim/proper-looking woman eating yogurt in a parked Mercedes-Benz with a license plate frame that reads “I’d rather be sailing” isn’t on the list of anticipated results. After all, the diciest of dicey Mission side streets has a reputation to maintain. Shootings occur here on occasion - some very recently. And does anyone else remember when one Capp resident had it up to here with the street’s more unsavory elements and hurled rebar at Guido the Killer Pimp and a few of his direct reports several years ago? This isn’t exactly Presidio Heights....

In San Francisco’s continuing battle of needs vs. wants, Sacramento St. between Walnut and Laurel proudly sides with the throng promoting antique galleries, fancy-dan hat shops, and other finer things. Everyone knows it can’t be soup kitchens and public libraries on every block in town. Just the same, every city worth its salt has a well-coiffed neighborhood or set of blocks where it’s OK to fly one’s sophistication flag high and proud. San Francisco is endowed with several such areas, and if Presidio Heights’ business district isn’t at the head of the class, it’s at least kissing the teacher’s ass a hell of a lot to get there....

C.W. Nevius continues his Homeless Encampment 2007 Tour with a visit to Corona Heights. His verdict? Not so good. He found twenty possible separate campsites as well as broken bottles and needles. Neighbors let it be known that the ever-popular "human feces" could also be added to the list. To make matters worse, there's a school, the Rocky Mountain Participation Nursery School, at the bottom of the hill and, well, won't somebody think of the children? ...

You know you’re dealing with an isolated stretch of Montgomery St. when a driver can’t reach it without first leaving Montgomery St. And in an addressing quirk that must drive new workers at the North Beach post office bonkers, the northernmost apartment building on this block is actually 303 Greenwich, even though Greenwich as a cross street doesn’t exist here. After all, the only cross traffic up here on the precipitous eastern slope of Telegraph Hill is on foot. Stunning bay views, folial grandiosity, and hill-hugging construction schemes dominate this block of Montgomery, bookended by the famed Filbert and Greenwich steps. The street itself is a bi-level roadway divided by a tall center wall lined with numerous pine trees, not dissimilar to Lawton St. in Golden Gate Heights, or Arlington Ave. in the Berkeley Hills. It’s designed for neither speed nor mass amounts of auto traffic. Aesthetically, however, it’s nearly unbeatable....

San Francisco socialites have been fellated for far too long by such hard-hitting glossies as 7x7 Magazine and San Francisco Magazine. Hell, even the pages from new society (excuse me, “philanthropy”) rag Benefit Magazine -- "the Lifestyle of Giving” is its tagline, God help us -- might lead you to believe that the upper crust would like nothing more than to head over to Bayview-Hunters Point and act as human shields from gunfire, saving the......

Modest, single-family homes. A cement mixer in one front yard. Security gates at the foot of several front stairwalks. Mercedes-Benzs everywhere you look. On this hilly block of Head St. in Merced Heights, where no vehicle even bothers with third gear, it’s clear where certain residents’ priorities lie...and often, it’s not in yard maintenance. But hey, check the ride in the driveway....

A couple blocks south of where Lower Mervyns Heights butts heads with Upper Chopper City, Divisadero’s business-dominated stretch begins to take shape. There’s a little of everything on this block between McAllister and Fulton, from the throwback corner diner, to the auto body shop, to the bar whose front window announces a list of “rules” to be obeyed. There’s also the Muslim center and the tattoo parlor. Even the pair of pizza places on the east side of the street take divergent approaches. The block’s eclecticism doesn’t seem to bother anyone early on this Sunday evening. The pies at sit-down place Little Star Pizza (deep dish or thin crust – you choose) look to be as popular as any in town tonight, while down the sidewalk at quick-service Stelladoro, police officers and less-armed customers quickly nip in and out for cut-rate slices. A door or two away, at the corner of Divisadero and Fulton, the sticker-strewn counter at Eddie’s Café appears as if it’s been helping mitigate hangovers with omelets, bacon cheeseburgers, greens, and grits for decades....

As discussed in the SFist Contributes tips page, what people heard in Ingleside Heights early yesterday morning was a mysterious car explosion. Witnesses saw a man park a car, get out of the car and into someone else's, and then the parked car burst into flames. Around 7:00 a.m, another car mysteriously exploded, this time in the Tenderloin at Ellis and Taylor. The two incidents aren't thought to be related -- but how weird. Gimmi......