Londonist pondered who might be the next sponsors of the London Eye and whether or not readers would be willing to donate £1,000 each for a Londonist Eye.Shanghaiist was shocked to find a cameltoe in the city's only English-language paper. Gothamist believed that a writer who wanted pre-gentrified gritty New York and ended up getting beaten up during a mugging learned his lesson.DCist followed Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council to New Hampshire,......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

Poor Cal-- so close yet so far. Our theory about what happened is that the idea of Cal having the #1 ranked team in the country was so crazy that even in this year (decade, actually) of sports craziness, the God of Sports deemed that just too crazy and set the upset in motion. Of course, we're also looking at the Rockies in the World Series, so whadda we know? Okay, before the Raiders recap,......

Dodgers 6 Giants 4- Before we begin the fun, we'd like to draw your attention to a pretty interesting article by the LA Times' Bill Plaschke who writes how that two game series in '97, the Brian Johnson series, completely ruined the Dodgers for ten years. Long story short, the series devastated the team that season and knocked them out of the playoffs, making it easier for Fox to buy the Dodgers and promptly trash the franchise. Good stuff. Anyhoo, the Enchanter got Cained (our new verb for when a pitcher pitches a good game only to lose due to the Giants ineptitude) as the bullpen gave up four runs in the eighth to lose the game. The damage was done by Messer’s Kline and Messenger and is it us or does Randy Messenger look like a taller, skinner Turtle from "Entourage." As for Bonds, he did nothing of much importance but we couldn’t help but notice that when he hit what looked like a decent shot at hitting the homer, the fans stood up in excitement only to see it turn into just another fly out. When he was taken out, a huge portion of fans left the stadium and yes, it is fairly typical of Dodgers fans, but it was still a 3-2 game at the time. ...

In case you haven't heard, tonight, at precisely 12:01, THE VERY FINAL HARRY POTTER BOOK WILL BE RELEASED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD!! And by final, we mean final. The end. Finito. And with it, all the answers to all those pressing questions will be answered: will Harry die? Is Snape good or evil? Will Ron and Hermione finally get it on? And by the way, we just discovered Hermione is in Microsoft Word’s spell check. That’s crazy. ...

Here's todays sports news...

Here's todays sports news...

We've given up our dislike of this whole interleague baseball thing years ago when we realized that things like the Yankees coming to town for a series against the Gints is a pretty cool thing. The same with a set in Fenway also coming this summer. As for the yearly Melee by the Bay, we've sort of acquired a feeling of meh towards the whole thing. It's done every year so there's really not that much of a difference between this series and, say, a Giants/Phillies series or an A's/Indians series. ...

Here's todays sports news...

So with baseball starting up this week, we thought we'd turn over the previews to our favorite revolutionary, Leon Trotsky. Coming up, quotes that he thinks sum up the season and Leon's predictions. You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in, you. To a man we are told is the smartest man in baseball, Tony LaRussa, who finally overcame years of being the most annoying and most overrated manager in baseball......

We think Harry Shearer has one smart publicist. His book tour for Not Enough Indians hits Jewish Community Centers across the country. That likely guarantees attendance and eager book buyers. We caught Shearer's conversation with Jack Boulware Wednesday night at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center. Boulware had interviewed Shearer years ago when working for the now defunct Nose magazine. The two had an easy rapport, and it was clear Boulware had done his research.......

It's Thanksgiving tomorrow, which means a time to give thanks for all those things one gives thanks to. It's just how we celebrate the one-time settlers and Indians had a nice time of it before we took all their land away. Yay holidays! ...

A's 7, Indians 4- Rich Harden looked sharp in his first start in 3 1/2 months and Jason Kendall had three hits as the A's beat the Indians again. Your magic number is 4 with the Angels coming to town for a three game series. It's pretty simple, actually-- all the A's have to do is take two and champagne will be spilled at home. No scoreboard watching, no waiting around. Destiny, as they say, is for the taking. Oh yeah, Oaktown, get ready with some Montel Jordan cause you better be ready to party. ...

Athletics 4, Indians 3- We come to write in praise of the Magic Number. Oh, Magic Number, why do we love thee? It's just so baseball-- simple yet profound. After all, almost every team makes the playoffs in hockey or basketball and football is all about rules and legalisms (Team X will win the division if Team Y loses and Team Z loses but if Team Z wins by less then 4 points and Team Y wins on a Sunday occuring days before a full moon, then Team X wins the division). But not baseball. It has a magic number. Watching the magic number go down and down is one of our favorite moments of the baseball season. And what has this to do with the A's? The magic number is now 5. ...

Before the series with the Indians started up, Ken Macha was talking about how worried he was about the upcoming series. Didn't like the matchups. We weren't sure whether or not he meant it or whether or not he was pulling a Lou Holtz and trying to keep his team on their toes by playing up a totally inferior opponent. Regardless, the A's took the second game of a three game series as Bobby Kielty hit a grand slam home run in the sixth inning. Kirk Saarloos struck out eleven and added another vowel to his name for the effort. The Angels won but with the A's winning, the magic number is 6. ...

Indians 7 A's 2- The Indians ended the A's four game winning streak by routing Dan Haren. Haren's been pitching really well, but he's been hit hard by the Tribe in his career. In May, he gave up five runs in 5 2/3 innings and last night he gave up seven runs in 4 2/3. Overall, he has a 6.45 career ERA against them. The Angels didn't play, however, so the magic number remains at 7. The A's also play the Angels at home this weekend so if there's ever a time to do some jumping around and celebrating, it'll be this weekend. ...

SFist's award-winning sports desk continues on with their scintiliating discussion about the upcoming baseball season. Part 1 can be seen here

SFist Chris:On paper, in my opinion, the Junior Circuit is clearly the stronger league, so I'm looking for a team with a DH to win it all this year.

In Roman numerals, it's the letter M -- ChronWatch hits its very first one-oh-oh-oh of civic inaction, as the Berkeley fountain it first began pestering back in June 2003 remains in the exact same condition it was in 1000 days ago. June 2003! In June 2003, Matt Gonzalez hadn't even decided he was running for mayor yet! The fountain in question is in the Berkeley Civic Center Park, was a gift from the city of San Francisco back in the 1940s, and hasn't had running water in it since the 1960s. The City of Berkeley continues steadfastly to ignore the incessant sleeve-tugging and sad puppy-dog eyes of the ChronWatch staffers, and just keep telling the Chron they have no idea when the fountain'll be working again. It's not that Berkeley's done nothing -- in 2004, the fountain became the subject of a fight between preservationists, who wanted it restored, and American Indians, who wanted the space to be used to celebrate indigenous people. They compromised by agreeing to build an American Indian turtle sculpture on the fountain. But even that hasn't been approved yet either. The fountain isn't really very high on Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates's priority list, given that he just had to implement $21 million in budget cuts over the last two years. "We had people come to the microphone at meetings and ask us how the city can spend three-quarters of a million on a fountain when we are about to have more homeless on the street." We look forward to Fountain Watch Day MM in December 2008!...

Our friends at Larsen and Associates have come through for us again, ponying up passes for Trudell, which opens this Friday at the Red Vic. A documentary telling the life story of Sioux Tribe member John Trudell, this film begins in the sixties with his 21 month occupation of Alcatraz Island with group Indians of All Tribes, an act which is credited with birthing the contemporary Indian people’s movement. "After Alcatraz, Trudell was the......

After an unproductive week at the MLB winter meetings, the A's heated up the winter stove again: they traded minor league OF Andre Ethier to the Dodgers for major league OF Milton "Insert Game-Based Nickname Here" Bradley and major league IF Antonio Perez. That is: they traded a bird in the bush for two in the hand. Ethier was the AA Texas League player of the year--Bradley, the prize for the A's in this......

In May, while the A's struggled along 8 1/2 games behind Los Los Angeles Angeles de Anaheim Anaheim in the American League West, A's Brand Baseball promised not to mention the division standings any more until school started in the fall. It was hard to imagine, back then, that the A's would be playing meaningful games when schoolkids were buying pencil boxes and new backpacks, but here's this (Go Bears!), and here's this. After......

When the A's left the Bay Area for nine games against Tampa Bay and Cleveland, we at A's Brand Baseball wrote: Such a break from major league competition could be just what the doctor ordered . . . We were right, too: those games against the A's really helped out the Devil Rays and Indians. Until Monday night's 11-inning comeback win over Tampa Bay, the A's had lost 9 games in a row; it......

We don't mean to ALARM anyone ... but according to sketchy, unreliable camera-phone-based reports, there seems to be an IRISH FLAG being flown above the door of the capitol building. As per the Bloggers' Code of Ethics, we are honor-bound not to disseminate sheer speculation as to the implications of this strange turn of events; but it's pretty clear to us by now what's going on. Obviously, city government has been overtaken by a......

Hey, holiday revelers. We know you're very busy shopping for your terribly postmodern seasonal gifts, but if you can tear yourself away from that for just a moment there's a show going on that we think you might enjoy, if you're into Yiddish jokes and impressions of Jewish 80's celebrities. The show is called "It Could Have Been a Wonderful Life," and it's a one-man spoofing of the famous Xmas movie, fortified with heavy......

We don't mean to alarm you...but some kind of liquid has started falling from the sky. Thank Jeebus for KRON4 news, which informed us at the top of their 10-o'clock newscast that this strange substance is known as "rain" (or as Indians call it, "maize"), and that nearly two bone-chilling inches of it have fallen on the north bay! Noooooooooooooooo! Quick, buy an umbrella, and if you have time, learn how to use it! Board......

Barbara Boxer has gotten the Senate -- unanimously, no less -- to pass the California Missions Preservation Act, which will create a new nonprofit agency charged with upkeep for the 21 missions in the state and dedicate $10 million to the agency over a five-year period. This of course includes San Francisco's own pride and joy, the Mission Dolores. ...