February may well be our favorite month in San Francisco. Between the Chinese New Year parade, the glorious weather, and Noise Pop, there’s really no better place to be this time of year. Noise Pop officially kicks off tonight. To celebrate we’re reposting an interview with the man behind it all, Kevin Arnold, that we originally ran last year.......

Photo credit: sniderscion Torontoist spent its week uncovering who was behind mysterious ads for a drug called "Obay" that popped up across the country (Scientology? Frank Shepard Fairey?), first tracing them to an advocacy group called Colleges Ontario and then confirming their suspicions a few days later.Phillyist learned how to put on a puppet show – it's not as easy as you might think!Shanghaiist discovers that the average starting monthly pay for fresh graduates......

The Chinese New year parade for the year of the rat, 2008...

Good grief, this Chinese New Year business sure does go on for a long time. This weekend, it's a New Year Parade and a New Year Community Fair that'll be tying up traffic. A ton of major east-west lines will be affected on Saturday afternoon -- the 5, the 71, the 38, the F, the 1, and so on. Also causing trouble: the weather. Muni can barely keep its head above water when it's dry,......

Is there anyplace in San Francisco more charming than SOMA at night? No, there is not. And this President's Day, it'll be even charminger: construction and traffic reroutes on the Bay Bridge may cause a few heavy-flow days over the holiday weekend. If you're clever, you'll probably want to avoid SOMA in the late-night and early-morning hours. But then again, if you're clever, you probably already do. But it's not all blocked onramps and......

鼠! Happy New Year!......

Wow, it feels like just yesterday that we posted something about the Symphony's Chinese New Year's concert for last year's Year of the Pig! Well, it's now the Year of the Rat, and the orchestra's raring to go! Last year's 14 year old solo pianist, Peng Peng, is now 15 and this year, he'll be playing a Mozart piano duet with 13-year-old up and comer Conrad Tao. The orchestra will again be helmed by Carolyn......

SFist interviews artist Misako Inaoka...

It's the new year so it's a new Ask a Muni Security Guy question. This one was inspired by seeing some lady eat chinese food on BART while also reading a magazine.... How do you handle food on MUNI? Technically it's not allowed but everyone kind of does it....

Oh Lord. Is this for real? From the SFist inbox this morning we received alarming news that Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel, like, totally hate Africans, or something like that. After the New Year's Eve announcement that the two were to enter holy matrimony, one concerned reader called "Mayor Newsom's Communication Office," wondering if the "rock he bought for his fiancee was not a blood diamond." After talking to an "incompetent" Newsom staff member......

Violence at SF nightclubs has been all the rage this year - all nine days, that is - and now a summit is being held this month in order to curb the violent tomfoolery. A few choice incidences to refresh your memory: Marcus Pepper, 26, was killed on New Year's Day outside a Ninth Street warehouse SOMA party; Clarence Corbin 34, was shot outside Jelly's Dance Cafe in Mission Bay; Club Vessel was, well,......

In our continuing Orwellian coverage, we present to you a BART fight captured on tape, which happened after midnight on New Year's Eve. Really now. We expect this kind of behavior on the 24-Divis or the 38-Geary, but not on BART. (It's classy and carpeted, for Christ's sake.) Anyway, we can't understand exactly what happened - although it looks, save the fearless citizen journalist, like a lot annoying people deserved a good punch or......

Continuing the photo theme for the New Year...* Bay Area Wanderer: Rockaway Beach, PacificaRang in the new year with seafood and beachwalking.Sometimes you've gotta get your frolic on. This was one of those times. Hello, 2008.Photo by the talented and attractive Jaime Sena......

Photo of fireworks for New Year's Eve...

So, it's the eleventh hour and you've decided against crushing up a couple of Ambiens into a mug of fume blanc and calling it a year. Instead, you've turned that frown upside down, choosing to see what's happening tonight on New Year's Eve 2008. Good for you. And to help you out, here are some last-minute events for each neighborhood in the San Francisco. Just follow links for more info; they will provide you......

If you haven't decided what you are doing to celebrate the New Year, it's okay - it seems that limited tickets are still available to tonight's biggest shows. We have a feeling they will go quick. If you don't like crowds, you can check out Radiohead's New Year's Eve bash on your couch with a bottle of booze. For the partiers, there are several options ranging from $8 at Hotel Utah to $100 at Cafe......

Moby must be sick with envy over this one. Tonight the "unconventional young network," Emmy Award-winning Current TV, will air a taped, private, hour-long Radiohead concert on New Year's Eve (and on New Year's day on broadcast Current TV.) Thom Yorke and his merry band of croonies will perform each track off of their top-listed 2007 effort, In Rainbows. With words that could spark the battle for the title of Christ 2.0, David Neuman,......

Free Rides on New Years Eve!...

SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others. Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list. Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island. LAist received a Christmas present in the form of a drunk Santa Claus in a g-string. Bostonist launched......

Mayor Gavin Newsom says that one of his "top priorities is to ensure that every San Franciscan has a safe and happy New Year. Riding Muni is a smart and green way to ring in the new year." (Thanks, Gavin!) And with a firm flick of his wrist, this New Year's Eve, starting at 8 p.m., Muni will be free all night, which is about what it's worth. The free rides come to a......

1) Waxed Mustaches. We've seen a few guys wandering around with this look, which takes the wispy mustaches that hairless hipsters of yore sported, and turns them into pointy weapons. Rollie Fingers did it better. 2) '70s-style tennis headbands. We first saw this last year at a Ratatat show, when we thought we had somehow wandered into a Bjorn Borg lookalike contest. This year, it got really out of control, as every eighteen-year-old with......

The last time we saw Sandra Bernhard, which was at Bimbo's earlier this year, we almost walked into her as we were leaving the ladies room and she was making her entrance from the back of the theater, crooning "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." After a stagehand or security guy or au pair grabbed and shook the holy hell out of us, preventing us from colliding with Ms. Sandra, we went......

Gearing up for the big New Year's Eve bash, several artists are playing mini-residencies (two or three night stays) this weekend including: Cracker, The Radiators and ALO. If you schedule correctly, you could probably see everything that you want. Though New Year's Eve has some rocking concerts, we are going to cover those shows later in the week. For now, let's focus on Popscene's continued success in picking the perfect bands for their Thursday night......

Kids, it's time to get rocking. (Especially before the "Private Party" dry spell that is coming on. Yikes.) This week, the San Francisco music gods are offering a vast array of newbies and veterans - something that we will graciously partake of any day of the week. Now that the bets are in (okay, so no one really cast any bets - how boring is that?), you can go to Cafe du Nord, tonight,......

My Morning Jacket's newest live recording entitled The 2006-2007 New Year’s Eve Skit Picture Disc Skit (Could they pick a longer title?) is available now through the band's website. The recording is from their New Year's Eve performance at the Fillmore last year. If you were there, you would know that it was a "Oregon Trail"-themed performance. (OMG, how cool is that!) But we're curious, how do you pull off an "Oregon Trail"-themed party?......

(If it's "Breaking News" on SFGate, it's good enough for us!) Some fantastic news! It's going to rain! One of the two topics we remotely even care about (the other being our hair) is the possibility of rain. Baptismal, cleansing rain! San Francisco seems to have skipped a harsh Indian Summer, more or less, this year. And that? Tickles us ever so. Now we're in the sweet spot: the chilly weeks between now and......

Well, that was fun. Last night out in the center-left bleachers, each time Barry Bonds came to bat, the crowd rose giddily to their feet. The stands brimmed with grins and shouts of encouragement and nervous energy. Mitts were pulled on. With each pitch thrown to him, photoflashes flared all about the stadium like Chinese New Year firecrackers....

We don't say this lightly, because there are really a lot of great artists coming out of the Bay Area, but we do have a current favorite: Birds & Batteries. We've been telling you about this co-ed quartet for a little while now, and our expectations for their new record were really high. Thankfully it's good news: we love I'll Never Sleep Again. It's still the B&B we met on their last release, but this......

We enjoy visiting Charles Hogkins' web site, Burritoeater. Not necessarily for the opinions within his numerous reviews of taquerias, more because we just like his writing. He's got a funny, quirky style that, in our opinion, trenscends simple food reviews. He obviously enjoys doing it, but doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. And, hey, his ratings system is based on 10 mustaches. That's just funny, as are the use of terms like "burstage abatement," and his description of Papalote's burritos as "rendered with such mechanical consistency, some have wondered if there’s a mustachioed robot assembling them in an unseen corner of their tiny kitchen." We chatted briefly with Charles about his favorite food and another hobby of his, hiking....

Photos from the Chinese New Year Parade...