Because we always enjoy appalling you this early in the morning, allow us to share some of the pricing details of the new luxury apartment project known as 38 Dolores, otherwise known as the new Whole Foods building in Safeway Heights, on Upper Market. A really swanky one-bedroom, first of all, will run you $4,595 a month, but might we suggest you just take last year's bonus, withdraw it in 10s and 20s, and light it all on fire.

One-bedrooms start at the completely unreasonable $2,950 — and we say unreasonable because if you look at the floor plans on Curbed, you'll see that even the more spacious units have pretty tiny bedrooms and combo kitchen-dining-living spaces referred to as "Great Rooms" even though a number of them don't look that great at all. Here, for instance, is what the entry-level one-bedroom looks like, and yeah, that's actually what people used to call a Junior One Bedroom, or Alcove Studio, because there isn't even a door on that bedroom.

One bedrooms like this corner unit are going for as much as $4,595 (ack, vomit, choke), and for a three-bedroom you might be paying as much as $8,100. In the words of one of our Facebook friends, "Are they on glue?"

Rather than saying it's across from the Safeway and the Mint, the marketing copy goes something like this:

At the apex of San Francisco's most diverse neighborhoods you'll discover 38 Dolores. Admire its sophisticated design. Applaud its eco-architecture. Celebrate its community support. Embrace a new way to live.

More like embrace a new way to piss your money away! Oh, but there's more.

Walking through the front doors of 38 Dolores is entry into a sanctuary of 21st Century living. Its fusion of design, art, and technology is a respite from urban clamor and an awakening to what can be done next...

Plus there's a green roof, and a butterfly habitat up there. Yep. Butterfly habitat.

A spectrum of blue, a fade of orange, and a patchwork of red, the Mission Blue, San Bruno Elfin, and Bay Checkerspot butterflies are protected and nurtured at their habitat. The habitat is a living representation of the sustainable lifecycle at the core of 38 Dolores’ philosophy.

We're going to go throw up again now.

[Curbed SF]
[38 Dolores]

Two days before President Barack Obama touched ground in San Francisco, an indictment was issued against John Gimbel, 59, of Crescent City, accused of threatening to kill the President in an electronic message sent to an unidentified recipient.

Part of Gimbel's sanity-estranged email, according to SF Chron read, "'Kill that ... wife of yours .. Do it to his children and family first in front of him. Failure to comply. That'll teach him.'" Then he rambled on about "fed shit" as well. (Death threats against Obama [or anyone who appears slightly to the left] are commonplace nowadays. This is very little to do with anguish about healthcare reform or economic woes than it does with a black man being in the Oval Office. Period. We digress.)

But, like most angry tough guys on the internets, Gimbel wasn't the most lucid man to begin with. The Chron goes on to report of an incident a few years prior when, in an email, he asked Crescent City residents to "[g]rab those hi-powered deer rifles, each and every, and get in groups of 50 and more and go breeze away to dust the skull of the police chief." This was over a $5 parking ticket. Charming.

Did you know that San Francisco-based Michael Savage, God-fearing KNEW performance artist who was literally banned from entering Britain for being mean, founded Rockstar energy drink? It's true. He used to be an herbalist hippie back in the day, dropping acid while fending off the advances of Alan Ginsberg.

Anyway, some communists want you not to drink his uplifting beverage. Because Savage has the tendency to say things like this:

"You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? ... [G]o eat a sausage and choke on it." - to a gay caller on MSNBC before he was fired from MSNBC.

Or this:

"...children's minds are being raped by the homosexual mafia, that's my position. They're raping our children's minds." (Don't forget their tender little bottoms, Michael. We're raping those too.)

And this:

Yeah. That seals it. LA is officially smarter than the Bay Area.

Wait, really?

BeyondChron's Paul Hogarth has a depressing article up about the Tenderloin's newest and ugliest building, above, offering up their street-level one-bedroom apartment for a whopping $1,500/month. For that. At Turk and Hyde. In a space where people are sure to kick in your window and sexually assault you twice a day.

BC goes on to point out that, yes, it is priceless when it comes to people watching, but the fact that this street-level space isn't being used as commercial property is a but perplexing. We can't image ever getting to sleep in that space sans the assistance of sweet Ambien.

Anyway, the place is available at the start of July. Slowly but surely, we are giving up on the idea of ever landing a one-bedroom or studio space in the TL. Sigh.

Image credit: BeyondChron

The Intrepid Travel, some sort of online travel guide -- one that clearly has no access to the internets, TV, newspapers, phones, water coolers -- is bestowing the SF Zoo (along with 60 others) with the title of Best Zoo of 2008. Yes. Yes, they are. While the title of Most Interesting Zoo of 2008 seems appropriate, we still can't figure out if this is some sort of joke. Here's part of the remarkable press release:

(Branford, CT) The San Francisco Zoo is one of sixty to be honored as one of "America's Best Zoos 2008" by The Intrepid Traveler, a travel publisher located in Branford, CT.

The zoo was cited for its diverse animal collection, special programs for visitors, knowledgeable and committed staff, and excellent exhibits. Among the must-sees: African Savanna, which lets visitors view animals from within the middle of the habitat after entering through a tunnel and emerging on a bridge inside a wraparound African panorama, and Primate Discovery Center, where animal lovers can view some of the rarest and most endangered monkeys in the world.

The man accused of assaulting and kidnapping Elie Wiesel -- attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, battery, stalking, elder abuse and hate crimes, to be exact -- changed his not guilty plea to one of insanity today. Earlier this year, if you recall, Eric Hunt, 23, stalked and dragged the Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor from an elevator at the Argent Hotel (recently re-branded Westin San Francisco Market Street, even though it's totally located on Third Street) and then assaulted him.

Diagnosed as bi-polar, and having already offered his mea culpa to Wiesel, today's third plea change makes sense. Sort of. According to Bay City News (via SF Examiner), Hunt "dropped his original insanity plea and simply pleaded not guilty this summer as his defense lawyer tried unsuccessfully to get the case moved to a court for mentally ill offenders." Held in a psychiatric hospital since February, his trial starts in March '08.

Also, skinny slip of a thing, isn't he? (His top simply hangs off him!) Not the Russel Crowe in Romper Stomper type we had imagined.


Image credit: AP Photo / Mike Derer