While Hannah Watson's found tent camping to be just fine at Burning Man over the past several years, this year she had a vision -- an art instillation of her own that would "not only be beautiful but provide (her) with comfort and a home while out the desert." She found an old Oregon transit bus for sale on craigslist and, since last April, has spent every weekend getting the old girl ready to fly to Burning Man. We got to check out the bus this past weekend....

SFist interviews Matt Costa ...

Our occasional series on the District 6 Board of Supervisors election! This week's episode: Everybody Hates Varnish. Yesterday, we were wandering with some friends in SoMA trying to find a place to get some post-work libations. As we entered the Varnish art and wine bar on 77 Natoma Street, we noticed a sign in the window: DRAKE '06, www.drake2006.com. Could it be? Could it be another candidate running against Chris Daly? After we ran through two, maybe three, glasses of Varnish's fine red house wine and shamelessly eating all the tasty chex mix they offered, we staggered home, logged in, and can report the following information! Candidate Matt Drake is a former mechanical engineer turned lawyer. Man, everyone running against Chris Daly is a lawyer! Drake doesn't say where he's working now, but says he's never worked in government. Other than that, he's an enigma. We're piecing this together from his (kind of boring) website and blog, but it looks like Drake supports pretty much everything Newsom supports, wants to build more market-rate housing in the Mission, wants a Home Depot in Bayview, and wants them to berth the USS Iowa here. Also, he loves trees and wishes more people filmed movies in town. Drake's throwing a fundraiser next Thursday at Varnish if you want to stop by; your suggested minimum donation is $30. If you go, get the house wine; it was pretty tasty. ...

Thanks for sending in more earthquake-related events, guys! There's so many that we're doing another post of upcoming events! Keep 'em coming in and we'll keep posting them. Don't forget, the big anniversary is April 18. The SF People's Organization is sponsoring a progressive's perspective on disasters in post-Katrina America, with a panel discussion on April 17th about how San Francisco can prevent displacement of the disenfranchised in the next disaster. 6:30-8:30 at Gordon......

The election last night wasn't the only big decision being made around here. Yesterday, the Board of Supes finally got around to voting on the Home Depot debate and by a 6-5 vote, approved the environmental impact report, thus making the Home Depot store a go. The swing vote came down to Aaron Peskin who voted for it because he thought he should respect a neighborhood's authoritah. Progressives are not amused. ...

We've got a crapload to cover. We'll try to keep it short... Just when the media coverage is focused on the election, Om Malik says San Francisco is moving ahead with citywide wifi. Meanwhile, down on the peninsula, Yahoo fires a battery of snark over Google's bow, while Eric Schmidt's colleague compares him to Darth Vader. Niall Kennedy lists his favorite podcasts, including tech, media and music offerings. And an enterprising Oaklander is driving......

-Conservatives throughout the country are frothingly furious about a ruling by San Francisco’s very own 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal for saying that parents don't have the right to be the sole provider of information about sex. That's what MTV is for. The suit was brought by parents who were outraged that a school in Palmdale California gave first, third, and fifth graders a survey about sex. The questions asked kids whether they found themselves doing things like touching their "private parts" too much or whether they didn't trust people because they thought they were looking for sex or whether they thought too much about sex and dear God, is that what first-graders are really thinking about these days? When were that young, the only thing we were obsessed with was "The Six Million Dollar Man." In response, Republicans have been talking about splitting up the 9th District which, of course, is being fought by Democrats. The 9th has always been a source of anger to conservatives for the kind of rulings that make people say "only in California." Like this ruling. Or the one about taking "God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance. ...

Was anyone else a little unnerved to see that "major earthquake in San Francisco" is listed as the number 2 scenario for FEMA practice, right below "terrorist attack on New York" and right above "major hurricane hits New Orleans?" And you know with all our gays and minorities and blue-state progressivism, ain't no one from the federal government coming to save our butts when the Big One hits here! And remember when we all thought there was a tsunami coming but no one in SF checked the emergency fax machine until an hour after the original warning? We're screwed! So we set out this weekend to buy us an earthquake preparedness kit. We know, we could put it together ourselves, but it'd be so much nicer just to buy a ready-to-go set. Do you know how hard it is to find an earthquake preparedness kit in this city? Costco had none. Safeway had none. REI was closed. We didn't go to Target because of the boycott for their Schwarzenegger donations, but they probably didn't have one either. Home Depot told us that they had five "a while ago" but haven't restocked since. Where else would we go for a pre-packaged kit? Rainbow Grocery? Cole Hardware? They don't have anything either. So here's our thought: why doesn't City Hall sell pre-packaged earthquake prep kits? Annemarie Conroy's Office of Emergency Service could get 'em at cost, have the kits emblazoned with a cute "San Francisco's Prepared!" logo of some sort, and sell 'em at community centers across the city. It would beat having to turn on the TV and see San Franciscans sitting on the roofs of their houses, waiting for someone at CNN to film our HELP US PLZ signs, as the SFPD struggles to find the right radio frequency for communications. After the jump, where we ended up getting our prep kit, plus everything your prep kit should have in it....

Special "We don't know how SFist Rita does it" edition. First up, last week's winner, the San Francisco Weekly. Dan Savage is on vacation! We have a feeling it will be a tough few weeks for the Weekly here at WRTW -- look for the Guardian, Metro and Express to land a few punches. Hint: you can read 'classic' Savage Love over at The Stranger. Are you an Arnie apologist? Speaking of steroids, Matt......

On last night's episode of "The Apprentice" Magna won the Home! Depot! challenge by building a box. And letting little kids rub their paint covered hands all over it. Makes sense to us. So what if Net Worth's kitchen cart was shinier and more challenging? If there's one thing this show proves again and again it's that success in business is all about thinking INSIDE the box. And in some cases, it's just about......

Brief compendium of Bay Area crimes in the last few days....