This is the game that John Madden has been gerly awaiting. A matchup of two classically built, smashmouth NFL franchises in a cold weather playoff game.

Pound the rock. Control the line. Stick 'em on D.

This is a football game for the NFL purist. Can't wait.

Photo via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Oh this is a smashing idea.

Jennifer Gooch's site One Cold Hand reunites missing single gloves with their owners. Yay! Since her site opened in March of this year, her finds have spiked considerably since winter began last month. And so has her press coverage: the New York Times, USA Today, and the Associated Press, to name just a few, have all picked up on OCH so far. The AP article notes that Gooch's first glove was "was a moist, lambskin glove that someone had propped up on a ledge on campus." (We're not exactly sure why, but: ew.)

Although not many of her found gloves have reunited with their other halves, Jennifer says that "[i]t's kind of whimsical and bittersweet ... it makes you feel there's this opportunity for benevolence." Well then, That said, it should come as no surprise to you that the Gooch is also a graduate student in the Carnegie Mellon University School of Art.

Sadly, her site -- which wonderfully breaks down single, lost gloves into categories like "leather," "left," "mixed materials," "ambidextrous," "synthetic," and so on -- isn't available in SF or the Bay Area. Not sure we're the glove-wearing kind of city that is Pittsburgh, but still, we personally lose several pairs of gloves during the winter season. Something like this would be nice to have around these parts. Alas. (Look at that, it is bittersweet!)

It really is all about the other side of Market Street now.

Along with neighborhoods that we've heard of before like Pike Place in Seattle; Hillcrest in San Diego; and Park Slope in Brooklyn, N.Y. -- our xenophobia runs deep, folks -- as well as hoods that we've never heard of such as Chatham Village, Pittsburgh; Eastern Market neighborhood of Washington, D.C.; Elmwood Village in Buffalo, N.Y.; and Old West Austin in Austin, our very own historic North Beach arrondissement was named one of the top 10 U.S. neighborhoods by the American Planning Association.

The study was based on this neighborhood having the cutest little coffee shop, that neighborhood having the most darling homes, their OMG!!!-factors, etc.

Ahhh, crap. During this week’s practice, 49er OLB Manny Lawson tore an ACL and will be out for the 2007 season.

This is a mighty blow to the nascent Niner defense, who had been counting on the former first-round pick to lend his lanky 6’5” frame and sprinter’s speed to the linebacking corps this year.

After two weeks of nail-bitin' wins over flawed NFC West opponents, the 49ers go to The Steel City to face the cultural might of the Steelers.

* San Francisco vs. Pittsburgh
Sunday, September 23, 2007. 10:00 AM, PST.
Week 03
The Battle Of Reality

Despite the recent coaching change, when it’s the Steelers, you know what kind of American football you’re going to get: power along both lines, an aggressive 3-4 defense matched with an offense built on power-running.

Now this is a team. It’s not the rebooted Cards or the formless Rams, PIT is a veteran, battle-tested organization. And for the first time in 2007, the 49ers will see what a real NFL franchise looks like.

* Photo of Kevan Barlow breaking away from Steeler defenders via SFGate.com

Next up on your American Football Spectacular: The Oakland Raiders host the wacktacular feast-or-famine Cleveland Browns, and the season’s first Bay Area TV blackout.

Where is the best place to see art in the area?
Hard to pick one since they all have something different to offer. I always enjoy shows at Ampersand International Arts, Gregory Lind Gallery and Southern Exposure. Over in Oakland Swarm and Blankspace

What's your take on the art scene here?
I moved from Pittsburgh, PA to SF so the scene was immediately inspiring with so many people making work.. I hadn’t been making visual work in Pittsburgh. Now that I’ve been working for a while and paying attention San Francisco feels a little small compared to the expansive scenes like NYC and LA. That’s good and bad when you consider the pressures to ‘make it’ in those over saturated places.

Something that most people don't notice/ appreciate about your art, that they really should.
I’m really a photographer at heart... also most of the wood I use in my work is 50 to 100 years old

Where can people can see your art?
as of Sept.1st at Swarm Gallery in Oakland and Ampersand International Arts in SF and on my website.

Let's get everyone ready for tonight's big Warriors Game.

-Golden State of Mind is PSYCHED for tonight's game.

-Deadspin points out that only the Pittsburgh Pirates have had a longer playoff drought than the Warriors.

-Nellie reminds everyone of the old Klingon Proverb that revenge is a dish best served cold.

-He also wants to remind everyone that they're not in the playoffs just yet and is kind of nervous about all this.

-So is this guy.

-Should the Mavs have sat down all of their starters in last night's game?

-And was it all done to avoid the Warriors in the playoffs?

Okay, yeah, we know, the Giants have to promote the hell out of this sucker as there's not much else to brag about on King Street these days and 2007 is looking even bleaker. But still, blogga please. We're San Francisco. We're a cultured city, one of the Bestest Cities in the World (or so we tell ourselves). We should not act like we're Pittsburgh or Houston or Milwaukee or any city in which anything halfway exciting is worthy of Big Deal status.

Okay, so Groovy Gavin talked about how great it'll be for the city in terms of business and tourism and all that and yeah, that's all good and he's right about that, but really, what's in it for us? The week long Fanfest looks pretty cool and the Home Run Derby could be a hoot considering the Cove, but as we don't have season tickets, we won't be going to the game. Same with most Giants fans. There'll also supposedly be all these killer parties that will be going on around the time of All-Star game, but as we're nobodies, the closest we'll get to going to them is reading about them in Rita's recap of the Swells Column. Oh, and a for the All-Star Game itself, despite it's tag line of "This Time It Counts," all we can say is yawn. The game hasn't been exciting or Must-See in years (if anybody asks, we think they should play the starters for the whole game and make it a real All-Star game, but nobody asks us).

And you know what? Frankly, after the World Cup, we're a little jaded about these so-called big sporting events. Unless some sporting event features tiny African nations, residual bad blood from wars of the previous century, and the possibility of somebody head butting somebody else, we just don't care.

Actually, if there was any chance A-Rod would head but Roger Clemens during the game, we just might reconsider.

It’s about that time again (for the first time). Time to heap a whole year’s worth of praise on to several lucky and talented establishments that did us the kind service of getting us drunk. Yes indeed, ‘tis the season for recognizing the best of the best, the places that don’t settle for second place, that realize life is a marathon not a sprint, and any other clichéd ‘successories’ slogans you can think of. Crack-a-lack-a!! Barrespondent Drew here to give out some FISTies!!

Like the Grammys, we’ll start off with the ‘dud’ awards like ‘Best Polka Recording’ and charge ahead to the big award of the night, the ‘Best Tejano recording’ award, if you will. But enough jibber-jabber, Let’s Do Dis!!

Best After Work Burger and Smoke: Zeitgeist. You would think a jam-packed gravel lot under a freeway filled with tattooed bikers would make for a slightly horrifying dining experience. Amazingly, this place not only serves one hell of a burger, but is an extremely friendly environment. It may be a little chilly at the moment, but as soon as spring rolls around, look for this place to start filling up in the early evenings with hungry Hell’s Angels looking for good grub.

Best Neighborhood Bar: The 3300 Club. The Outer Mission, a seemingly ‘forgotten’ neighborhood when compared to the crazy bridge-and-tunnel weekend cram fest that is the Inner Mission and SOMA, is a really convenient little getaway for anyone who doesn’t equate a good time with how hard it is to get the bartender’s attention. The 3300 is a nice, friendly, comfortable and easy place to hang out in all night.

Best Place To Watch Sports: The Kilowatt. A good rule of thumb when looking for a good sports bar is to avoid any place that calls itself a sports bar. Generally speaking, it’s usually a last ditch attempt by a desperate owner to fool tourists into thinking that they’re the only place in town where someone might be showing the ‘Cincinnati-Pittsburgh’ game. Truth is, there are a lot of ‘hipster’ bars all over the city that have satellite dishes and throngs of cheering drunks. At the Kilowatt, Lions and Jets games seem to get priority on the HD flatscreen, but there’s more than enough other TVs in the place to catch whatever game you’re interested in.

Best Dive Bar: The Uptown. As other bars trend up and down all around it, this place remains one of the best seedy little joints on earth. Disgustingly dirty but surprisingly comfortable couches await in the corner, one of the city’s best jukeboxes pumps out the tunes, and a good game of pool can be had with just about anyone there most nights. Your friends from Marin might find it a little scary, but sometimes, that’s exactly what you want.

The ‘Vibe’ Award For Best Environment: The Phone Booth. Dark, red and oh-so-cozy, this place immediately puts the world weary drunk at ease. That and enough space to move around in without ever feeling empty makes this place feel like the rec-room of your coolest friend. Killing an evening here isn’t a chore at all, in fact it’s the kind of place that surprises you when last call arrives and all your pre-evening plans of going to other places have totally been shot to hell.

And now that you’ve sat through the technical awards and five musical numbers choreographed by Debbie Allen, it’s time for the big one.

Best Bar Of The Year: The Tempest. Not yet reviewed as we just recently discovered it, this hideaway down the street from the Chronicle offices on Natoma between 5th and 6th is drunkard heaven. An excellent crowd, ridiculously cheap drink specials (like draft Pabst and a shot of Jim Beam for $4), and loads of local flavor make this our new favorite spot. You ain’t gonna impress anyone taking them here, but if you’re looking for a nice, dingy spot to knock back a few and don’t want to blow your student loan payment doing it, this is the place for you.

So there it is, another year in the books. Here’s hoping next year is as hard to recall as this one was.

Liver…Out!!