San Francisco's musical offerings were bountiful Wednesday night ranging from Film School to Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings to The Thermals. It seems, though, that most of you made the correct choice: Vampire Weekend. Now we don't doubt that the other shows weren't amazing -- we were pretty miffed that there were so many choices on one night -- but clearly if you are anybody then you were wearing a blue pin-striped shirt, dark... more ›

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. more ›

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! more ›