Tidying up Justin Herman Plaza after this year's Valentine's Day Pillow Fight was far cheaper than previous years. Somewhere around $3,500, according to the Department of Public Works. "Feathers, trash and debris from the annual pillow fight in 2010 cost the department $35,000 to dispose of," notes the Bay Citizen, who suggest that dismal weather this year led to a meager turnout, "which contributed to the lower cost." [BC] more ›

You get a very special blotter today. Alas. more ›

Ah, beautiful Diviz. Is there no boulevard more perfect, more blissful? When we think "nice places to take an afternoon constitutional," we are drawn instantly to its divine charm. It is, simply put, an Eden. To alter it would be to play God. more ›

Hey, do you like to relieve yourself in public? If so, "urine" luck! The golden-shower-loving perverts at the Department of Public Works just denied the dangerous lunatics calling themselves Citizens for Halloween a permit for portable toilets, so you're going to have to make do with the neighbors' bushes, local storefronts, and taxis. Or you could just dress up as Louis Leakey and tell people it's all part of the costume. more ›

Even though you're probably too chicken to admit it, we know you're curious about the January 24th meeting of the SF County Transit Authority meeting (100 Van Ness Avenue, 26th Floor). They're planning to allocate ten milllllllllion dollars to some Transbay Terminal tomfoolery: that's extending Caltrain to the terminal, redeveloping the terminal's crappy neighborhood, and sprucing up the terminal so that it's the kind of place people actually go to. Most of that 10 million will pay for a year's worth of project management. more ›

A new report on the Department of Public Works just came out and it's pretty much not good. Kind of damning, actually. The basic gist of it as that they're spending way more money than they're taking in for not a whole lot of work. Basically, they're not cleaning up graffiti, not pruning trees, and not fixing pot holes. Of, if they are, they're spending way more money than they should in fixing them. more ›

San Francisco just received a grant of $1.8 million dollars that will go to helping clean up the streets in certain neighborhoods. The program, called the Community Corridor program, is already being used on Irving Street and with the new, extra money, will be expanded to the Haight, Western Addition and the Fillmore. The money goes to assigning a "block sweeper" for each section who goes around making lists of things that need to be cleaned and fixing them. There are similar programs in cities around the world. more ›

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About a month ago, everyone's favorite San Francisco homeboy, Robin Williams, thought he'd do something civic minded and gave the Department of Public Works a gift of $80,000. The money was supposed to go to repairing a retaining wall and median strip on Seacliff Avenue near his crib. Win-win for everyone involved, including San Francisco, right? more ›

Art critic and photographer Claudine, who has been something of a modern-day Chalfant or Ahern by cataloging photos of graffitti pieces throughout the city, left a comment in our Get Ur Geek On: Warbussing EssEff piece where we had posted a picture of his trademark frog on the mural space at Galeria de la Raza. She tipped us to a debate about the piece over at Flickr brought on by a posting at the gallery shop taking Ribity to task for defacing the billboard space, which often features some pretty exciting work (and is often tagged by others as well). The post reads: more ›