Results tagged “publicservice”

The pros and cons of law school

This week's installment: Bus comfort, back door hard-ons, and -- surprise! -- no official MUNI policy.

During a necessary walk to cool off our fragile emotional state after our third outage-induced computer shutdown, we were flummoxed -- that's right, flummoxed!! -- to find the windows of Jeremy’s (wonky designer brands for less!) adorned with images of...real, normal, visibly-ethnic people. Not a barely-legal, anorexic model in sight. The nerve!

When we talked to Phil Bronstein, the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, a few weeks back, he told us that "the Chronicle will continue to be packed with talented journalists who will keep providing what (SFist) Rita called 'an essential public service.'"

Phil Bronstein is the Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Mr. Bronstein agreed to answer a few questions for us. His responses directly address issues brought up by SFist and SFist's readers a short time ago. Notably, you'll see from his answers below that he'd appreciate more of the same. Here's a chance hear and be heard from one of the most important drivers behind news coverage in our area. See what he had to say to us below -- and let him know what you think.

While the Castro has that fabulous organ, the Red Vic (1727 Haight St at Cole) wins the prize for best popcorn, a very important aspect of our movie-going experience. Tonight the Red Vic screens the D.A. Pennebaker documentary, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, a cinema verité cult classic depicting David Bowie getting ready for and playing one of the last Ziggy-era concerts, featuring glam rock guitarist extraordinaire, Mick Ronson (who grew up Mormon). (7:15pm & 9:15pm)

The FCC took a break from fining people for cursing and investigated local news programs who aired video news releases instead of, you know, actual news. Two of the stations that were caught doing it were KGO and KPIX. Whoops. KRON did it too but for some reason isn't mentioned, but then again, nobody watches KRON anyways

We vowed we wouldn't do it, but since we're obsessively hitting refresh on our browser every five minutes anyways, we might as well! We may take off in a bit to hit some of these election parties we've been hearing about, but here's where we are for now. Updates on top, like a mini-blog.

that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post.

Okay, let's get the premise of this band over quickly, and with a minimum of references to Hufflepuff badgers and flying Bludger balls -- the band Harry and the Potters is made up of two brothers, one of whom calls himself Harry Year 7 and the other of whom is Harry Year 4. They write original songs all based on the Harry Potter universe, like "Save Ginny Weasley From Dean Thomas," "The Missing Arm of Viktor Krum," and "Horcruxes," among many, many others. This has spawned a whole genre of Wizard Rock, by bands like The Whomping Willow and Neville Longbottom; they've all put out what looks like a hysterical Christmas album, featuring a song titled "In My Room Of Requirement (It's Always Christmas)."

So, while for the most part we're very into doing coffee the "right way" (grind just before brewing, etc etc), there's a part of us that's super susceptible to gimmickry. We always want to try that new breakfast cereal ("But, sweetie, the marshmallows are shaped like PANTS"), or that new pizza where they bake your head right into the cheese-filled crust. So we're at the less-than-supermarket Thursday, and we see this 4-pack of Wolfgang Puck's "Rich Espresso Latte" beverage, which comes in a SELF-HEATING CUP. Whoa. Awesome.

Steady on, San Francisco! The city, if not the entire blogosphere, is still reeling from the lack of a SFist Tech Roundup post last week. But we have a very good excuse. All right, actually we don't have a good excuse at all. It's an incredibly dull excuse that involves southern California, spotty Internet connections, no outgoing e-mail access, and no good way to synch bookmarks between a desktop PC and a laptop.

The Giants announced today that will be helping out the tsunami relief effort by holding an online auction this Thursday and Friday to raise money. Things that can be bid on include throwing out the first pitch, a trip for four to spring training, taking a few swings at Giants pitching (hey, if it's Tomko you might be able to actually hit it), and other items. The big thing that will be auctioned off is the chance to hang out with noted good-will ambassador Barry Lamar Bonds before a game. If you're wondering just how much a meeting with Barry could net, keep in mind that people paid $7,500 last year to have private meetings with both him and Alex Rodriguez.

If you live in District 9, then you've probably witnessed one of Renee Saucedo's bike tours as she's ridden around town with friends drumming up support for her campaign for Supervisor. SFist loves that kind of personal approach to campaigning - and it means we can recognize the candidate even with a bike helment on.

As a public service annoucement for our readers, we here at EssEffist would like to warn San Franciscans to be wary of KFOG Artist of the Month, the Dave Matthews Band when they come to town for a concert at Golden Gate Park Polo Grounds on September 12th. Why? Because as reported by our friends at Chicagoist, they are a public menace, and not just because of their power-pop, neo-folk, smooth-jazz balladeering. While driving across the Chicago River, their driver Stefan A. Wohl released over eight hundred pounds of human waste onto a group taking an architectural tour of Chicago by boat. We warn you because the DMB is around town all the time, and boy do we have lots of bridges. Many of their top albums were recorded accross the Golden Gate at The Plant Studios in Sausalito. After their date at Golden Gate Park they'll be heading east, over the Bay Bridge, to go on a tour of swing states as part of the MoveOn/America Coming Together tour. We recommend avoiding your ferry commute or kayak trip until they're safely out of town.

Those of you who were bipedal in 2002 will probably remember almost every day that year, there was someone getting hit by a car on 19th Avenue or a child getting hit by a MUNI bus or something similarly bad, and they ran those ominous public service ads with taglines like "Sorry I killed your grandma, I didn’t want to spill my latte." Well, recently-issued reports show that walking in San Francisco has become significantly safer this year. Pedestrian-vehicle injuries are down 21% from last year (from 203 to 160), and pedestrian-vehicle deaths are down 50% (from 12 to 6). The police credit this news to an increase in citations (for both overeager right-turners as well as jaywalkers) and those little countdown clocks they now have at busy intersections. The police caution, however, that the problem is now people who think they can beat the clock, and note that if they catch you entering the crosswalk after the countdown begins, you can be fined for jaywalking. ....No way!

Taking the art of self-absorption to new and previously-unseen heights, a 22-year-old San Franciscan, Ben Vanderford, has acknowledged that he faked a videotape of his own beheading in Iraq. He originally taped the beheading a few months ago to drum up interest in his campaign for (what else?) Matt Gonzalez�s District 5 Supervisor seat. (He was running as an independent). However, when he lost interest in the run, he nonetheless decided to keep the video up on his website "as social commentary." He made fake blood, filmed the beheading at a friend�s house in Pleasanton, spliced in footage of mutilated bodies from Hamas websites, claimed to have been murdered by Al Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and modified the video to make it look "less high-quality." The video was found and reported as true earlier last week by the AP (which about 90 minutes later then was forced to somewhat embarrassedly report it a hoax).