While taking in the (allegedly) gorgeous weather yesterday, a 20-year-old Marin hiker fell from the cliffs above Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands, and died. The unidentified woman, while walking with her hiking partner who was hurt during a "rescue attempt," was, according to SFGate, "hiking ahead of her partner when he heard her scream and saw rocks falling. The man hiked down the hillside to help her. It was unclear how he was......

San Francisco is America's most "walkable" city...

We enjoy visiting Charles Hogkins' web site, Burritoeater. Not necessarily for the opinions within his numerous reviews of taquerias, more because we just like his writing. He's got a funny, quirky style that, in our opinion, trenscends simple food reviews. He obviously enjoys doing it, but doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. And, hey, his ratings system is based on 10 mustaches. That's just funny, as are the use of terms like "burstage abatement," and his description of Papalote's burritos as "rendered with such mechanical consistency, some have wondered if there’s a mustachioed robot assembling them in an unseen corner of their tiny kitchen." We chatted briefly with Charles about his favorite food and another hobby of his, hiking....

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

Remember that bad neighbor dude Bob Bertone in Visitacion Valley who terrorized his neighborhood with loud music, mysterious gunshots, explosions, and lots of junk in his yard? Well, his house caught on fire Wednesday when his water heater ignited a bucket of gasoline that was sitting too close by. The neighbors did a pretty good job of not looking too smirky as they were interviewed. Incidentally, Bertone ran for the Board of Supes in 2000......

If you’re hiking, consider charging up your iPod, as Seattlest finds out that a man lost during a hike was found by the glow of his iPod. That cleverness seems to be devoid in cops who were using police cruiser instant messaging clients - although we imagine IMs “so are you nakie” to be included in cop shows, just for realism. If only the cops were busting the Hummer-driving jerk who made a poor......

Around the Bay Area, especially with mountain bikers, the name Skeggs is spoken in the hushed, reverent tones usually reserved for a place of worship, which is fitting, because Skeggs is a church of nature that provides sanctuary and solace from the ever-encroaching anxiety of the modern world.

A flat fee for BART? -- And speaking of BART, a new BART stop is about to be built, the first one since the SFO extension in 2003. It'll be called the West Dublin/Pleasanton stop and will be built between the ten minute gap in stops between Dublin/Pleasanton and Castro Valley ...

--C.W. Nevius informs us that politicians say the darndest things on camera. --Barry Bonds's biggest fan feels like he's getting ripped off. He's now becoming AZ Diamondback Brandon Webb's biggest fan. --They're putting WiFi on AC Transits. --SF Board of Supervisors prez Aaron Peskin is hiking the John Muir Trail. --A blind pedestrian has a run-in with Critical Mass. --A reply-all screwup plunges the Fremont Union school district (for Cupertino, Sunnyvale, and San Jose) into......

Sometimes we get burnt out on politics. Sometimes, in order to watch TV, we actually turn on the TV. Sometimes, mainly when Google on our cell phones allows us to lose a baseball trivia bet more quickly than we ever thought possible, we get a little bitter about the vast resources of information on the web. In those quiet, still moments we gravitate towards blog posts that are about nothing more than introspection and personal growth. Antics so Blonde obsesses over her tax return, while Geese gets all in aflutter about the giant hole of suck that is MySpace. Amy LeBlanc gets all blissed out at her boyfriend's birthday celebration, the same as XT. Jennifer at Mental Hijinks lovingly documents her field trip to Pixar, with some more pix over at Kimi's post. Brimful reminds us of why we were English majors and swooned over poetry with her own beautiful post and Joel writes a piece that examines the politics and emotional growth behind receiving the Advocate in a plain white plastic wrapper and makes it cut to the quick. And sometimes, we just want to be left alone.

Then, somehow, despite the rain, we're done with introspection. We want to read totally inaccurate, absolutely false writing and believe it totally. We want fiction. Yes, it's marketing, but we don't care. If it's good, it's good.

Finally, after our cleanse, we're ready to face the world again. Ready to accept Microsoft into our lives, ready to go hiking or talk politics. We're ready for literature, rain and the apocalypse. We're ready and reading for you. SFist Jacob, contributing. "Morning Clouds on Bay Bridge" by Thomas Hawk. ...

We just moved from the Mission to North Beach, and waiting for us on the step of our new place this weekend was a copy of the North Beach Journal. Sadly, the Journal doesn't seem to be doing much with their website, so we're going to have to quote and paraphrase a rather awesome front-page feature — apparently the chain of Deja Vu strip joints in The City have settled with their stable of......

What an ambient summer week it's been and it's very likely to continue through the weekend. In fact, turkey wings crossed it will extend clear through the Thanksgiving weekend food coma. What do we owe this warm air, absence of damp Pacific winds and non-chilly evenings to? A giant high (pressure that is) holding court over the massive expanse of the Great Basin Desert (aka Nevada) which is pushing warm inland air over the western......

It's a total no-duh that the Bay Area is filled with natural beauty. The hills and the bay and the bridges and the ocean - all of it stunning and fabulous. And plenty of our citizens take advantage of this natural goodness - hiking, biking, camping, sailing. The number of nature-lovers here is really outstanding. The reason they can do this is because someone's gone to the trouble of protecting and conserving this land. You know if they didn't, it would be condos and The Gap from sea to bay and back again. The Trust for Public Land (TPL) is a national organization that works on land conservation - from large parks to community gardens. Locally, the TPL has worked their conservation magic on more than 125 places throughout our area, covering 24,000 acres. They identify and help purchase the land, and then turn it over to local groups to manage. They even do playgrounds! We're not a bit paranoid but it sure seems like the earth is out to get us lately so conservation is something we really think about and feel we could do better to support. And we love that TPL has a very broad list of ways you can help, including using pictures of their parks on your desktop - sample on the right. Man, now we want to go fishing!...

What in the name of Sam Francisco is going on here? We paid our dues. We holed up in our homes for the winter storms. We crawled along in Bay Area traffic thanks to local drivers that panic when water falls on their car. We even put up with a wet early Spring. And what do we get? A rainy, cold, overcast mid-Spring. This blows. Here we were gearing up with some great early......

New pictures for those of you who hate anarchy! Last week's winner, the Guardian: Okay, this has been bugging us since, well, forever -- why is the SFBG editorial page always exactly the same as the local news section? Is newsprint really that cheap? Just askin'. An adorable picture of Matty G. to illustrate the excesses of Superintendant Ackerman's new contract, and a First Amendment kerfuffle with sfgov.org over pulling its online video of the Building Commish kerfuffle. Cover article: secret military bases. A close reading of the new Patricia Unterman Food Lovers of SF book by Paul Reidinger (SFist Cedric, check it out!) Loving the childlike in the music scene. And hiking in France. (hmmm?) Last week's almost-winner, the East Bay Express: Awesome compare/contrast with the frat guys who shot the pledge with BBs and the rowdy countercultural dorm. CafePress! Cover article: keeping Jews off juries in Alameda County? Local hip-hop and the power that was the Nine Inch Nails show. And Savage Love: Dan will not be coining a disgusting term for "fristing" like he did for "santorum." (However, if you've got suggestions, post away in the comments!) The SF Weekly and the weekly of the week after the jump. ...

Not everyone at SFist had Columbus Day off, but that did not stop us from taking advantage of a beautiful, cloud free Saturday to head up to Point Reyes National Seashore. Point Reyes is only an hour away, but plan on spending at least one full day - there is a lot of driving to do in the park if you want to see the spectacular views from the lighthouse and still get some......

Earthquakes of magnitude 2-2.8 are nothing by San Francisco standards, but when Mount St. Helens starts feeling 10 of them in a 24-hour period, we here at SFist know that's not where we want to be. Mount St. Helens, the most active volcano in North America, last erupted in 1980, and has been closely scrutinized ever since. The USGS has issued a Notice of Volcanic Unrest, leading the US Forest Service to close many......