Oh no. Here it comes again: Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day. For those of you who eat, tomorrow B&J is celebrating their 30th birthday by handing out free cones of ice cream. (We hear their new flavor Cake Batter is downright spectacular, by the way.) Here are a few stores where you can grab some sweet, icy lovin' for nothing: Ben & Jerry's Argonaut 475 Jefferson Street San Francisco, CA 94109 415-263-7233 Ben......

Photograph of investigation at Times Square recruiting center by kerfuffle & zeitgeist on Flickr Gothamist found that an explosive set off outside the Times Square army recruiting center may be similar to five past bombings in New York City.Seattlest worried when severed right feet and bottles of rat poison started washing up on local beaches.Shanghaiist was surprised by Bjork's rooting for Tibetan independence at her concert (see video), and the political fallout has only......

We hate shit like this. 66-year-old Santa Clara ice cream man Santokh Singh Sajan made some dirty comments to underage ice cream patrons the others day. Sounds bad, right? And according to the Merc: Sajan allegedly made sexually inappropriate comments to two teenage girls, police said. He was booked Tuesday on charges of three counts of annoying a child - misdemeanors, according to police. The ice cream vendor, who drives white van that plays......

Whether official neighborhood status has been self-established by its residents or not, it seems Pierre (pronounced pyair-ee) Valley actually exists. In fact, based on the map posted on the neighborhood's website outlining the neighborhood boundaries, we lived in Pierre Valley for two years. But back when we resided on Tiffany Avenue (allegedly the longest block in the city), we lovingly referred to the neighborhood as the Intermission. Guilty. We were among those who tried to......

Aw. Earlier this month, the newest (and truncated) version of the OED got rid of many cherished hyphens. The editor, Angus Stevenson, "eliminated some 16,000 hyphens from the sixth edition," according to a New York Times article. Angus goes on to say, "“People are not confident about using hyphens anymore...[t]hey’re not really sure what they’re for.” Sad. We love us some gross hyphen use. But some of them remain, like hyphens in compounds ("well-being");......

We lost a geek last week, but we still had a local bachelorette to root for along with a "dream date" to our fair city on "The Bachelor"! The first group date involved clowns, and was therefore instant fast-forward fodder for us, especially since it didn't involve Sheena. Some chick named Hillary won a one-on-one date with Brad and they took a private jet to San Francisco and had a fancy dinner in a private......

At left: barf We couldn't get though this article about today's bust of the East Bay operation Tainted Inc., which produced "marijuana-laced candies, cookies, ice cream, peanut butter, barbecue sauce, granola bars and brownies," without gagging. (We can't even re-read that sentence.) Why? Because the taste to pot is vile. We know that after time one starts to develop a taste for the drugs to which they are addicted, but we can't see that......

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express. Dream cartoonist: Fascist zombies versus Marxist ones. So hard to tell the difference sometimes! The situation with the Oakland Trib union. Internal disputes at an East Bay lesbian bar. Cover article: should you store your baby's umbilical cord blood or donate it? Hand-churned ice cream in Fruitvale. Hey, we didn't know I Like Eating is a teacher! We would totally be in I Like Eating's homeroom class! Yoshi's......

Hey, why is Gavin Newsom's face pasted onto an Oscar the Grouch body in that graphic? Because he's taken over 300 trash cans off the streets. Why? Because they had too much garbage in them. We know! It's nutty! Newsom, in his defense, says that SF has more garbage cans than any other comparable city, and he thinks people are using them to throw away personal or commercial trash instead of signing up for garbage......

Photo of an overwhelmed garbage can with news of fewer cans in S.F. than before. ...

Let's face it, the great American cycling novel has yet to be written (not lately, anyway). And what cycling-related literature there is falls into one of three categories: inspiration, celebration, or perspiration. If you want to read about a one-legged mother of six who bicycled across the country to raise awareness about the papilloma virus, or Lance Armstrong's latest deep philosophical musings, or Chris Carmichael's detailed instructions for sprint repeats and heart rate monitor training, the world is your oyster. But if you're looking for compelling, engaging prose that explores the relationship between literature and cycling, well you're basically stuck watching Breaking Away for the 20th time (yeah, we know it's a movie).

Fear not for cyclerature though, because into the breech have stepped editors Paul Diamond and Erich Schweikher with a little ditty they like to call Cycling's Greatest Misadventures, a new anthology of original nonfiction cycling stories from Casagrande Press.

Okay, so nobody ever accused us of being especially observant, but we only recently recognized that "Naia", at 451 Castro Street, was a gelateria. See, the sign only says the name, and there's no logo of an ice cream cone or anything . . . we'd always assumed it was some sort of minimalist modern art gallery. On Sunday, we saw a few people outside eating frozen treats, and the lightbulb went off. We went in, and made pigs of ourselves. The first thing that hit us was the presentation: dozens of flavors of gelato, sorbretto, and soy gelato, vividly displayed in a glass case--a visual treat....

It's another fine mid-Spring night in San Francisco: 51 degrees, foggy, swirling winds. So what do people do? They put on their parkas and head over to Mitchell's Ice Cream in the Mission for some late night licking. On a cold Tuesday night with some 40 customers milling about, it seemed to be the hottest place in town.......

Hey -- more free ice cream! This one's not left to chance, like that whole "Dreyer's" thing. Anyone and everyone that shows up at Haagen-Dazs on May 15 between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. gets a free cone. The only caveat? It must be one of the company's special new flavors, "cinnamon dulce de leche," or "sticky toffee pudding."...

Oakland-based Dreyer's (Edy's to our friends on the right coast) seems to want to bring you closer to your neighbors . . . by making you enter a contest to win an ice cream party. Strange. But, you know: free ice cream....

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

At a conference yesterday hosted by people trying to find a solution to the increasing amount of families leaving the city, Gavin said things were improving. In the speech, he rattled off a bunch of things the city is doing to help families stick around, including new housing, tax credits, the improving school district, and the upcoming attempt at universal health care. Also: free ice cream!...

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

Saturday--the sun was shining, Dolores Park was full to the brim, and evidently everyone else had the same idea we did: "let's get some ice cream." Bi-Rite Creamery, which opened only a few months ago, is not quite half a block from the park (3692 18th St.). The line was out the door. We'd tried coming here a few weeks back, the last time San Franciscans were blessed with such nice weekend weather, but the line had been even longer then. Surely we're not unique in this regard, but we hate hate hate standing in lines. We won't for movies, we won't for restaurants, we'll only rarely, and reluctantly do it for coffee....

When we were kids, we loved to play spy and hide behind trees with a water pistol to shoot one of our friends. Of course, some people would frown on that type of behavior because shooting people is kind of bad and violent and why can't we give peace a chance? So for those wishing to be a spy but do so in a nice way, this Friday will be the new and improved Cruel 2 B Kind game, the benevolent assassination game. It's taking place this Friday at 7:30 in SOMA. It's like those assassin games you hear about, except with good vibes....

This more of a love letter to our favorite neighborhood place for a special occasion rather than a review. We can't claim to be impartial: we dig the place. Every visit we've had to Firefly, up on 24th Street near Douglas, has been special in its own way. Like the time the neighborhood lost power and we ate by candlelight. Or the awful time that we tried to fly to the east coast, waited in the airport all day, and were then bumped to a subsequent day flight--Firefly took us on short notice and made a horrible day palatable. ...

The BAGeL Radio 4th Birthday Party was a blast last Thursday, with great music, cupcakes and even a reunion with one of our childhood best friends who we hadn't seen since we were three and a half feet tall. We saw great sets by Birdmonster and Division Day (unfortunately we missed Two Seconds) and a good time was had by all. Despite the fact that we killed BAGeL Radio for about five full minutes......

Ahh clouds. Who likes clouds? Don't we all appreciate those clear days and clear nights? When the sky is all cloudy and grey, don't we complain? Well those clouds aren't just for looking at Ice Cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere but to trap in the heat and make things warm again. Which is why it doesn't seem so bitterly cold out there. In fact, it almost feels normal again....

Drinks and dessert first, are you ready? Affogato (ice cream and espresso) is one creamy-cold-sweet-meets-warmth drink we love to sip and serve. We think Chubby at Bunrab's on to something seriously great with the I forgotto adult version of affogato, pictured above. You may find it appealing if you'd like to "forgotto" holiday time with family, oy!......

Welcome to our thoughts on last Wednesday's episode of Top Chef on Bravo, which we hope will help psych y'all up for tonight's episode. We must say that this episode was a vast improvement over the previous one, and we're again psyched to continue watching season two. You might even say this episode kicked four teeth and a gigantic ass....

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Josh Wolf's mom writes a letter, as does transgender activist Chris Daley and an angry rebutter to Hiya Swanhuyser 's article about a rural rock documentary. The Bouncer's article about Huey Lewis and the mentally disabled won an award and is included in the Best Music Writing of 2006 anthology. Congrats, Bouncer! Are you an Apologist for the Blue Angels? If you're SFist Jon, the answer is yes. Skater......

SFist inteviews Shara Worden, of My Brightest Diamond. They will be opening for Sufjan Stevens in Berkeley October 10 and 11 2006...

While walking down 16th today we noticed something off, something unusual, something different and then we figured out what it was-- Kelly's Burgers looked not only closed but boarded up. The familiar outdoor tables were gone and the windows were papered over so you couldn't look in. There was no sign saying "closed for renovations" or even a sign saying anything. Is Kelly's Burger gone?...

We have to admit we don't take the Stinking Rose --"a garlic restaurant"-- too seriously: the only time we went there was on a Valentine's Day, and our date was with a group of people without dates. The choice of the Stinking Rose, Beverly Hills branch, of course was intended as irony. We were free to eat garlic that evening. Lemons, meet lemonade. Having garlic infused drinks, garlic spread on your bread, garlic appetizer, garlic......

Everyone's got a different idea for beating the heat this week, although most people seem to think ice cream's a good idea. Sugar Savvy discusses slow churned ice cream which also got a mention in the New York Times, while the Oakland Tribune talks about local artisinal ice cream in the Bay Area. In Praise of Sardines samples the gelato from Sketch at 4th Street in Berkeley. Up in Napa Nina does delightful things......