There was no sign of Mark "Cutback" Davis or Bob "Jungle Death" Gerard in the waves off Pillar Point on Saturday, but 24 of the world's ballsiest surfers were there to test their mettle against the huge, angry swell that is the Mavericks break. When the foam cleared and the judges scorecards were tallied, it was 24-year-old Greg Long from San Clemente, SoCal that ended up taking home the title of Mavericks Big Wave champion for 2008.

We've got rain, and we've got fire: two blazes within about twelve hours of each other in SF. The Globe restaurant in downtown will be shut down for a few weeks for repairs, after a one-alarm fire last night. The fire department says the fire was started by grease stuck in the restaurant's flue. Also, this morning, the SFFD is fighting a fire in an abandoned building on Mission and 7th that's threatening their own......

On the down side, it's raining (and will probably rain for the rest of the week). On the bright side, we managed to find an illicit YouTube upload of the Colbert Report episode where Stephen Colbert throws down a dance challenge to K-pop sensation Rain!! For extra self-referentiality, check out our own SFist Rain's take on Stephen Colbert's Rain challenge. We'll keep the video up on the site until we get a letter of......

Well, the bad news is still that we've hit a 12 year high for homicides in the City and County of San Francisco, with two weeks left to go in the year. On the statistical side, though, the SFPD year to date murder count has moved down by three victims, from 100 to 97. What happened to those three victims? Well, they're not any less dead, unfortunately. Rather, three of them were reclassified into non-murders.......

Did she find a horse's head in her office chair the day before? Embattled Susan Leal, who's refused to bow to pressure from Gavin Newsom to resign her position as the general manager of the SF Public Utilities Commission, was hit by a car outside City Hall as she was leaving meetings just before noon today. She was rushed to the hospital, where they found she was okay, if a little shaken. We like one......

Let's hope no oil tankers crash into the Bay Bridge this week -- Gavin's out of town again, this time bundled up for snow as he campaigns for Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Not quite as temperate in the middle of the country right now as it was in his last two vacation spots this month -- guess Gavin still owes the Clintons for backing him in 2003 against non-Democrat Matt Gonzalez, huh? The Republicans......

Whether you call it soda, pop, or cola, you'll have to pay more to buy it if Gavin Newsom gets his way: Matier and Ross report that Mayor Newsom is thinking about taxing city vendors of sugary soft drinks to pay for his Shape Up SF kid fitness programs. The thinking's that the fructose corn syrup that gets added to your Coke [we grew up in the South, so we call 'em Cokes, though we've......

Reporting from the snow-dappled streets of Chicago, it's your American Football Spectacular preview for this Saturday night's battle at The Stick as The Queen City's feline football franchise comes to town....

Ever since the SFist Reads column turned us back onto the awesomeness of checking books out of the SF Public Library, we've been big fans of the First Stop area of the Main Library, where the library put all their books they'd acquired in the last two years. We've spent many a pleasant few hours checking out the latest memoirs, or all the books in the 300 section, or randomly pulling out titles in the......

Bon voyag-ee, Cosco Busan! And don't come back! The leaky Cosco Busan ship that contaminated our beautiful bay with oil is expected to get clearance to get the heck outta Frisco, setting sail at noon today to head back to South Korea. We kind of have this vision of the ship disconsolately listing off into the sunset, leaving a trail of oil behind it, like when Wile E. Coyote hits something and walks off screen......

Maybe Tony Hall needs to put a yellow sticky on his campaign credit card and label it "FOR CAMPAIGN USE ONLY" -- the SF Ethics Commission has decided to proceed on charges against the former city supervisor based on the alleged misuse of funds in his star-crossed attempt to run for mayor last year, and his defense is that he used the wrong credit card. Namely, that $320 of what Tony Hall characterized as "office......

Goodbye, Ed Jew's attorney Steven Gruel! The revolving door that is beleaguered former District 4 Supervisor Ed Jew's legal team spins once again, depositing the pugnacious Mr. Gruel on the street and leaving the team's latest addition Stuart Hanlon (hired to replace Bill Fazio in the state criminal case) in charge of all of Ed's legal matters. Gruel, as you may recall, was handling Ed's case on the city ethics charges and the federal racketeering......

Carole Migden's girlfriend (OK then, "wife?" We refuse to use the sterile and patronizing "partner") Cris Arguedas, it seems, now must deal with yet another San Francisco diva: Barry Bonds. According to the Sacto Bee, the letter "h" eschewing lawyer "joined the defense team of baseball star Barry Bonds last week, as the long-time Sam Francisco Giant pleaded not guilty to charges of perjury." Arguedas is now part of a high-profile team that will......

Stepping out of his black Chevy Tahoe SUV, smashingly dressed, and fully aware that the media would bombard him beforehand, former glory Barry Bonds acted like a punk today after arriving at the U.S District Courthouse to make his plea this morning. Oh, and that plea of fibbing under oath to a federal grand jury regarding his steroids use? Not guilty. Ta-da. Basically, he came, said that he didn't do it, had a bond......

Joe Frazier was once quoted as sayin' "Kill the body and the head will die." For an NFL offensive unit, the opposite is the case. And here comes the context: it's your American Football Spectacular preview for lucky Week 13 of the 2007 NFL season....

The SFBC will have its annual fundraiser party this Sunday at 6:00 PM...

Remember that budget surplus? Remember when we were flush with cash and we decided to go on this spending binge and Chris Daly got into a fight with everyone because he wanted to spend the money his way and not everyone else's way? Well goodbye to all that because Gavin announced that we know have a whopping $229 million dollar deficit....

Hey, a local 12 year old from Foster City just won the world chess championship for the boys 12 and under age bracket. Champ Daniel Naroditsky won 9 games, lost 1, and played to a draw with the previous number 1 ranked preteen male. The Chron was unable to talk to him because of the time difference in Turkey (where the championships were held), but Daniel's proud father reports that Daniel's first question after......

Sounds like a mess down on 880 just north of Highway 84, where a big rig ran off the highway at around 1 a.m. this morning and spilled its cargo all over the highway. The cargo in question -- crushed cars. The driver suffered major injuries and was sent to the hospital; traffic is currently moving at about 20 mph and is expected to be snarled until 10 a.m. at the earliest, and CHP has......

We're trying to ease back into our regular SF Blotter posting schedule -- so we figured we'd start out easy: folks near the Towers building at Second and King had a bit of a scare last night, when at around 11 p.m., a guy started waving a gun around and saying he was going to shoot himself and anyone that came nearby. The guy had no previous criminal record but was having some problems with......

Today's Chron Bay Area section takes a break from covering the plight of lungless salamanders in Korea (why is this in the Bay Area section? Yes, yes, we know, it's because Cal researchers are researching them -- we're asking the question in a more philosophical sense.) to report that: oh no! Ed Jew's state criminal trial has been postponed again, to at least April 08. To justify the request for a further delay, Ed Jew's......

There's been so many murders lately that it's hard to find a new twist on the stories, so here's one: a Pizza Hut pizza delivery man was shot and killed in the Richmond last night as he was trying to deliver a pizza. Apparently, he got lost and was wandering around trying to find the house he was supposed to deliver the pizza too and when he was stopped by several men trying to rob him. When he tried to run away, he was shot in the back, something that anyone who has ever seen a Western knows is the coward's way. ...

Reporting from spa-side in Santa Ana, it's your American Football Spectacular preview of the next rung of pain on the agony ladder that is the 49ers' '07 season....

Former A's pitcher Joe Kennedy, 28, died at his home in Florida this morning. At this time the cause of death is officially unknown, but it was "sudden" and a brain aneurysm is rumored to be at fault, according to the Chronicle. Making his major league debut in 2001 with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Kennedy went on to play for other teams such as the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Toronto Blue Jays, and of......

It's kind of an interesting Presidential Race in that two of the leading Republican contenders, Romney and Guiliani, are basing their campaigns on bashing the liberal bastions they governed. The obvious reason is to throw some red meat at conservatives by saying not only are they not actually liberal, but that they based most of their governance on beating back gays, Jews, and dark skinned people liberals. So Rudy just put a commercial out saying that he tamed "America's Most Liberal City." This didn't sit well with New Yawkers, however, and Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College, fought back and said, “Blame San Francisco. We’re not No. 1.” ...

Monica Lewinsky's interest level in working for SF city government just went up a notch, as the SF Board of Supes overwhelmingly voted down Chris Daly's proposal to ban office affairs between supervisors and supervisees. (No, not affairs with supervisors like Chris Daly is a supervisor, affairs with supervisors like your boss. We could probably get a proposition on the ballot barring affairs between the San Francisco Supervisors and their constituents, though -- because, come......

Back during his halcyon days. Presumably. Dude. Duuuuuuude. After a four-year federal investigation, today cranky baseball icon Barry Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Ouch. And Jesus. He's like Pete Rose, but worse. Which? Again, ouch. According to CBS 5, "[w]hile Bonds was chasing Aaron amid the adulation of San Franciscans and the scorn of baseball fans almost everywhere else, due to his notoriously prickly personality and nagging steroid allegations, a grand......

It's been a mighty tough season to be a 49er fan; what with the bevy of broken expectations, the death of Bill Walsh -- and this week -- the passing of former Head Coach Dick Nolan. * San Francisco vs. Seattle Monday, November 12, 2007. 5:30 PM, PST. Week 10 The Battle Of Unnumbered Tears Before the 2007 season started, this week's game was to be the proving point, the crucial matchup where the rising......

With Chris Daly focusing on the birth of his second child (congrats, Chris and Sarah!), SF Board of Supes prez Aaron Peskin has manfully taken over the essential city function of provoking District 2's Michela Alioto-Pier: today's Matier and Ross column has MAP running crying to City Attorney Dennis Herrera and DA Kamala Harris about Aaron Peskin telling her "payback's a bitch" when she asked why he'd changed his vote on her proposed charter......

We're baaaaaaack! We missed you! Sorry we've been gone from the scene for so long -- yes, we've been swamped at work, but honestly, we've been so dispirited with this particular election cycle lately, we figured we were going to boycott posting until it was OVER. Over over over. So -- man, how irritating is this? It's never going to be over! Thanks to the city's questionable ballot-reading machines, it's going to take weeks to......