Thomas Beatie, the with-child transgender male who stole the nation's heart on Oprah with his good looks and big baby beer gut, gave birth to a baby girl on Sunday. We repeat, the pregnant dude gave birth! That is all.......

The Bay Area is rife with celebrities right now. Oprah spoke at Stanford’s graduation. Beckham is playing soccer and selling underwear. Got any good stories or pix? Do share! Who needs the paparazzi when we’ve got SFist readers?......

Have you read Living Oprah, the greatest thing in the world, ever? Penned by a 35-year-old writer, performer, and artist living in Chicago--who doesn't give her name--for one year she will be living her life according to Oprah's edicts. Because Oprah Winfrey, as we all know by now, is Christ reborn. Over the past few years--after becoming one of the most powerful person in the world, arguably--has achieved an inner peace and sparkling clarity......

This year's Stanford commencement speaker? Oprah Winfrey. [SJ Merc]The Spots goes eHarmony-ish on us. [Spots]Milk screenplay writer Dustin Lance Black looks ten-years-old. We mean that as a compliment. [BAR]A street lamp dies, another night is over, the big cat exhibit reopens... [SFGate]With the return of Tyra's mildly-retarded ass comes Potes totally brilliant ANTM recaps. [TWOP]Meow: Harvey Milk Club prez Rafael Mandelman goes after Leno, Newsom. [BeyondChron]......

Speaking of Oprah, the fellow Aquarian just received American sculptor Daniel Edwards' chin-scratching touch. (You know, the celeb-loving guy who created that Britney-gives-birth sculpture?) Anyway, Edwards says his "piece pays homage to the closest thing America has to a living deity," hence its resemblance to the coffin of Egypt's Tutankhamun (King Tut!) Or maybe not. According to a thisislondon commenter: She's in the guise of fertility goddesses. It's about celebrating her feminity [sic] and......

"Static and squat," declares John King on the new residential tower, Soma Grand. And it only gets worse, beautifully so. [SFGate]Have a sumptuous yet refreshing woodchuck, raccoon, or squirrel recipe? Send it to Endless Summer and you could win a "guest blogging post." [Endless Simmer]Fashion on the 5-Fulton dazzles. [Nature abhors a vacuum]President George W. Bush is coming to the Bay Area tomorrow to make a cameo appearance in Milk, or something like that. [Oakland......

Barack's new SF HQ opens...

Back in October, we featured Josh Groban in our holiday section of New Tunes Tuesday. We suggested that it would be "perfectly Grobanized - gorgeous string accompaniments, long high notes, huge endings, orchestral arrangements, different languages and of course several collaborations..." It seems that everyone needed to be Grobanized this Christmas season especially after Oprah Winfrey's suggestion that Noel is "the one Christmas CD every family should have." Since then, Josh Groban's Noel has......

The gentlemen at Valleywag have footage of this week's all-YouTube episode of Oprah. (Et tu, Oprah?) Steve Chen and Chad Hurley tell the now famous story about their company's conception. It seems, according to them, that during a SF dinner party at Chen's "friends filmed each other with videocameras (!), and then realized the videos were hard to share." Then like magic -- poof! -- YouTube came about, turning a voyeuristic dinner host into......

Let's remember that Halloween also exists outside of the Castro. (It's not all about you, Castro denizens.) No, it's true. If you don't believe us, check out the many, many scary events going listed on I'm Staying Home for Halloween's site. A sampling: -- Balkan Halloween Masquerade at Ashkenaz (Eek!) -- All Hallow's Eve at DNA Lounge (Spooky!) -- Ghost Walk starting at City Hall (Blasphemous!) -- Kelly Rowland at Mezzanine (Boo!) -- Good......

Sean Penn isn't the only person who was captivated by the Chris McCandless story (first made popular in the Jon Krakauer book, "Into The Wild," and now a major motion picture directed by Penn, promoted on Oprah, and playing at a theatre near you.) In the early '90's Chris McCandless abandoned all his worldly goods, took on the name Alexander Supertramp and embarked upon a Thoreau-esque adventure trekking around North America, ultimately perishing in an......

After reading her porn-for-women article in O Magazine, a clearly horny Tyra Banks invited former SFist contributor Violet Blue to be a panelist on the Tyra Banks Show (think the Oprah Winfrey Show, but unwatchable) to chat about porn for women. Although a rich and thoughtful tet-a-tet was not to had during filming, thanks to the titular host, Violet did learn what some have already known but dared not to whisper: Tyra Banks is......

Here's todays sports news...

Send your Bay Area finds to found [at] sfist [dot] com, or tag them sfist and found on Flickr! Let us know where and when you found the item, and any other helpful info. Today's find was found in the trash of a copy shop several years ago. We heard that the creator of this flyer is a woman who kneels on the floor singing "Kumbaya," while pasting her rants together, and then she......

And by "tonight" we mean this afternoon...and then tonight. First off, if you haven't read The Road by Cormac McCarthy yet, drop everything and do it. It's a fast read. It's also one of the most amazing books we've ever encountered--don't let Oprah's choosing it for her book club turn you off of it. In fact, be thankful, because she has also managed to nab an interview with the incredibly press-shy author. You can......

Ralph Nader is in town this week to promote his new book, The Seventeen Traditions. He did an interview with KGO radio criticizing Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and 2008 Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton. ...

First the heartwarming - George Mark Children’s House and UCSF Children’s Hospital present a sneak preview screening of the live-action remake of Charlotte's Web at the Loews Metreon Theater (4th and Mission). The screening benefits GMCH and UCSF, each of which offer unique contributions to the continuum of care for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families. The remake of Charlotte’s Web features an all-star cast including Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey, Kathy Bates, Robert Redford......

Kick those schlumpy tryptophan and Monday induced sighs and blahs to the curb and check out Bacon Press’s Food Porn. We can’t much bear thoughts and photos of turkey, but the tantalizing pics of vibrant veggies and wholesome soup are pleasing. Barely a trace of heartburn there, family and friends-who-are-like-family (we’re trying to be a bright and happy holiday trooper here). Such healthful dishes may soothe and perhaps allow us to ease into our ill barely fitting Levi’s sooner rather than later. After zipping up, we’d never call the authorities from learning about food related theft in another newish Bacon Press Post so appropriately named: Steal this Brie. ...

Ask a MacArthur "Genius" - ROVA presents a Q&A with composer John Zorn as part of its Improv 21 series. As well as being a composer and saxophonist, Zorn runs a music venue in NYC and his own label that releases an eclectic range of music, from free jazz to Japanese noise, to klezmer. Subjects for Q&A will be chosen improvisationally and jump-cut from topic to topic, probably including discussion of Zorn's artistic influences,......

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbq's and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder? ...

We -ists are an eclectic bunch, but there's a couple of things we all love: famous people, social causes, and wacky local facts. Join us as we starf**k, get virtuous, and learn across the -ist network! Austinist starts us off right by filling the famous person quota by interviewing Lewis Black, covers the social cause with a non-profit car sharing company, and gives us more wacky local facts than we can handle with Austin by......

After a bit of a rough year, Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park recently celebrated its 51st anniversary as one of the great independent bookstores in the area - a dying breed as you well know. We got Clark Kepler to take some time out and answer a few of our most burning questions: For any readers who might not know, tell us why Kepler's is so awesome. For me and many others who've been......

Author Jami Attenberg wrote her first book, Instant Love right here in the Bay Area, so damn right it's an O Magazine What To Read This Summer pick. She's reading tonight at Book Shop West Portal (80 West Portal, sorry, no links to this new shop yet) at 7 p.m., and at 7 tomorrow night at Copperfield's Books (138 N. Main Street in Sebastopol), in an appearance sponsored by Napa's Pearl Necklace 'zine. Looking at......

The TableHopper is an fun email that we look forward to every Tuesday. Since you have to be a tiny nimble thing to gracefully hop on tables, we find this food-and-restaurant-scene newsletter incredibly sexy. Were we to jump on a table, we would look as ridiculous as Tom Cruise on Oprah's couch, and the table would crash under our weight. Lithe we are not. We leave this sport to the playful Marcia Gagliardi, a San......

Guess who's going to be on Art Bruzzone's SF/Unscripted show this week? Who's in the hot seat for our local version of Oprah, Larry King, and Joe Scarborough all wrapped up in one? You got it -- our esteemed co-editor SFist Eve!! She'll be talking about the "growing cultural/political influence of SFist . . . the blog about Cityscapes and people." (Growing political influence? Did our hard-hitting coverage of Gavin Newsom's love life help solve......

Man, we need some extra cash to get us through the weekend. We hate it when payday is on a Saturday! Our couch doesn't have cushions to harbor change (stupid Ikea PS), and Oprah's debt diet series has made us so afraid of check-cashing places that we cross the street to avoid them. (Tangent: Anyone else ever think that Oprah could solve all our debt problems on what she probably would have spent at Hermes?)......

Seems like almost every news site out there is all aflutter over James Frey's appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show today, and far be it from us to not join in the hubbub. Being that we haven't actually read Frey's book, we weren't too perturbed over the Smoking Gun's story. We didn't read the book and come away from it thinking, "Wow. I can't believe one man came out of that story alive. Like,......

Yep, we got nothing this week, as it was a fairly light week in Governator news. No motorcycle accidents, no protests in European countries, or disses by aging rock stars. There was a big lunch he held in which he chatted with the press, new poll numbers showing an upswing in his approval ratings, and murmurings of assisted suicide being the new medicinal marijuana. But other than that, bupkus. Plus, we're whacked out on cold medicine and last night's "Lost" left us with a really bitter taste in our mouth. ...

First, the obvious: There are two episodes of "Arrested Development" airing tonight, a new one at 8 p.m, and a re-run of "My Hand to God," in which Buster tries to deal with the loss of his hand, and Michael attempts to find out if he's really the father of Maggie's child. (Julia Louis Dreyfuss guest stars.) In other news, we were pretty bummed when we realized we had missed Oprah's Christmastime Favorite Things......

The loud crass holidays impeding your Oprah-like search for your spirit? Perhaps some time spent without the distraction of dialogue would help you clear your mental palate. Until the gentlemen come along and steal the voice of every damn Macy's shopper, perhaps a silent film or two this weekend would do the trick? Today at 2:30 p.m., Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive is screening Earth, straight from the 1930's Soviet Union. Gabriel Thibaudeau will accompany......