According to city records, the 24th Street corridor (between Valencia and Potrero) is hot spot for rats. "Mission Local found that city health officials have closed at least 11 restaurants citywide in the last year for vermin infestations. Of those, five were in the Mission District, and three of the five were on 24th Street: China Fun Fast Food at 3166, Usulutan Restaurant at 2990 and El Nuevo Fruitlandia at 3077." (Aw, cute.) All three stores have since reopened. [via SFGate] more ›

"I have no idea why people don't like this place" cries out a Yelper over PJ's Oysterbed. Well, here's one: Eater has word that, after shuttering its doors, the Inner Sunset's PJ's Oysterbed has left behind a seafood cassrole, if you will, of "rotting crabs and oysters." more ›

Today's news in refuse: more ›

At some point in 2003, we were at a meeting of the local puppetry guild (because that's the kind of rough crowd with which we roll) and someone mentioned that they'd done some concept art for Pixar involving rodentia. That's four years ago that those poor saps were playing with rats, tweaking every twitch and crumb day after day. more ›

Here's today's news roundup more ›

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. more ›

And so begins our second-to-last comix review here on SFist. It's been fun, but it's time to try new things. And now, on with the festivities: more ›

We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. These are our favorite tidbits from today's offerings: more ›

Sometimes you need to clean yourself up, get serious, and move in with daddie for a few months before you head to Latin America for a new gig. The District bids Jenna Bush adios. D.C.-based television shows have an elderly audience and DCist has some suggestions to fix that. They're also throwing Butterstick the panda bear a birthday bash. more ›

Animal hoarding's always been a lurid fascination of ours, along with people who have sextuplets, and Chris Daly. So have you been following this story about the guy who had over 1000 rats in his house? The man, Robert Dier, had initially tried to separated them by sex in three of the ten cages in his house, but soon became "overwhelmed" (the euphemism of choice for hoarders, according to the episodes of Animal Cops we watch). Interestingly/entertainingly, he lives in Petaluma, which is where Marilyn Barletta, the famous 200+ cat hoarder, is from too. (Note to self: think about opening a Petco in Petaluma.) The man also had seven cats in his house. When asked why the cats didn't eat the rats, the Animal Services manager speculated, "Maybe it was like working in a deli. After a while, you get tired of deli food.") Now, rat fans are outraged that the Petaluma animal shelter euthanized over 1000 of the rats. The collectors say they were trying to mobilize people to adopt them. The animal shelter said in its defense that many of the rats were feral, severely sick (some missing eyeballs, and others with teeth growing into their opposite jaws), and not really adoptable. Nine rats have been adopted, 30 have been sent to LA, 4 are in Rohnert Park, and 150 of the rats are still up for adoption. The shelter says it's carefully screening people, ever since last year when they discovered that someone who'd adopted a rabbit from them was a hoarder as well. (Note to self: That Petco in Petaluma would do great). The final note in this story? The rat hoarder is a convicted armed robber whose home was used as a hideout in the 60s by people trying to kidnap Frank Sinatra Jr., and as the animal shelter manager said:

He's an intelligent man to talk to, but he smells like rat urine. He told me that when he had only 100 of them, he'd let them sleep with him in his bed. They'd get all in his shorts and stuff. And you can't potty train them, so you know they were urinating and defecating in there.

Did anyone else get rocked at The Constantines' show last Friday at Cafe Du Nord? The packed and energetic crowd was treated to songs off their last three albums plus a passionate encore of "I'm A Man" by the Spencer Davis Group. After the show singer Steve Lambke was kind enough to let us compliment their set and tell us what he'd been reading (The Old Testament) and what albums influenced The Cons' sound (he mentioned The Millenium). We're postponing our regular giveaway until later this week, but stay tuned because it should be leave a lasting impression. more ›

Saturday: It's POMO 2006, which means all sorts of Filipino stage performances at YBCA. Our POMO pick is "Bronze Lit: FilipinoAmerican Voices in Literature", at 2 p.m. today, in which writers including Jaime Jacinto, Jason Bayani, Jason Perez, Jean Vengua, Leny Strobel, Marianne Villanueva and Barbara Jane Reyes read from their works. And it's free! more ›

Alas, there is no Buffaloist (yet), so we'll have to settle for Gothamist on this one...apparently, Joy Drati, one of Buffalo, NY's worst slumlords, was extradited from our own fine city of San Francisco last night. And, hey, this wasn't the first time. Mr. Drati, when will you learn? more ›

Clap your hands say Wednesday! Tonight: Have a mellow hump day in that interregnum between Christmas and New Year's and check out the Mission-area Community Music Center's jazz clinic performance at the Savanna Jazz Club on Mission between 25th and 26th Streets at 7:30. Thursday: After trying and failing to return to Virgin that horrendous joke CD you won in the office Christmas pool ("come on! It's still shrink-wrapped!"), stop by Union Square and watch the Bill Graham menorah get the fifth candle lit at 5 p.m. Friday: Well, no one's going to try and swallow an alligator here or anything, but the Academy of Sciences will be conducting its weekly snake feedings at the Steinhart Aquarium today. Most of the snakes will be fed humanely-euthanized mice and rats, but the Burmese whipsnakes will be fed fish. Feedings start at 2, and we're guessing no, they will not allow you to wear a python like Britney Spears either. Don't forget the Academy of Sciences has temporarily moved to SoMA. Picture of Ned McAllister with a snake from the Academy of Sciences webpage more ›

Happy Whatever-You-Want from all of us at American Football Spectacular! Let's have a look at the games on TV this wknd, shall we? more ›

Hey, did you know that the San Francisco County Transportation Authority is thinking about speeding up transit on Van Ness by putting in dedicated bus boulevards? BUT WAIT DON'T CLICK ON THAT LINK IT MIGHT CRASH YOUR BROWSER! The SFCTA, in their wisdom, has placed two JPEGs on their page about the proposed Van Ness corridor; one is a picture of how the dedicated lanes might look (pretty), and the other is a mock-up of how the MUNI map might be changed (acceptably), and each image is a bone-crushing TWO MEGS. The map alone is 6344 by 4843 pixels -- several orders of magnitude greater than an average monitor is capable of displaying -- and was more than enough to completely crash our modest laptop. Great work, SFCTA. more ›

Friday night, while we were hanging out with the SXSW crew for a last hurrah, friend (and roommate) of SFist Bayete got a last minute invite to an impromptu fight night at the club house of the inimitable East Bay Rats. While there he took some absolutely fantastic photos, and lucky for us, suggested that we may want to use one. We saw the pictures and said, "Hey, mind if we use a few?" And a photo essay was born. Dudes getting it in the face and boxing foxes after the jump. more ›

We've crashed the SFMoma Tenth Anniversary. We've crashed an East Bay Rats party. Last Friday, we crashed the nerdiest party ever, and we loved it. Not just because of all the free goodness from Google. But because geeks love nerds, even if we can't understand what the hell they're talking about. more ›

If anyone ever invites you to an East Bay Rats party, cancel whatever plans you may already have and go. Seriously. SFist has never seen anything quite like what we saw Saturday night -- a three ring circus of awesomeness, including a ring of fire, a boxing ring, and the ring of music. more ›

It's animal time on SFist again! Fwee! A Sausalito-based company called Genetic Savings and Clone (ha) that helped fund the cloning of this cute kitten (DNA donor on far left, surrogate mom in the middle, and cc: the kitten on the right) has sold its first cloned kitten to a Texas woman who donated the DNA from Nicky, her sorely-missed cat of 17 years. The woman has named the kitten "Little Nicky" and says the two cats are identical. "His personality is the same," she reports, noting that Little Nicky also loves to jump into water. The woman would not give her name, fearing reprisals from animal rights group who suggest that people just adopt the many cats languishing at shelters instead. The company estimates that it should be cloning the more profitable dog by next May at the earliest. From cats to rats -- a woman in the Haight woke up on Tuesday to find three crates filled with rats (176 of 'em) on her front doorstep. A known animal lover, she brought them into the SPCA for adoption. In the meantime, three of the rodents gave birth to 10 babies apiece, making it a grand total of 206. 138 of them have been adopted already (80 by local rat advocacy group Rattie Ratz) but there's still 38 left for that perfect present for your boss! (n.b.: it is never a good idea to give live animals as gifts.) There's a $10 adoption fee to cut down on snake owners coming in and "adopting" the rats as cheap food, and a 114-question application form (with questions such as your "hopes and expectations" for your pet). For some reason, both the Chron and the Examiner profiled the same rat adopter, which makes us think maybe she's the only person that's adopted a rodent this season (but that may be anti-rat bias on our part). more ›

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