Photograph of the Trump Soho by Riccardo Sinti Gothamist went to the scene of the Trump Soho construction collapse, which left one construction worker dead and others injured (an indirect culprit - Manhattan's hot real estate market, causing rushed construction jobs).Shanghaiist is confused by media reports as to whether Playboy will be available in China during the year of the Olympics.LAist got fugged in an interview with the Go Fug Yourself girls.Torontoist set hearts......

While crews repair a damaged cable, California Street cable cars will be down for the count today, but could return to service by early tomorrow. Sad, isn't it? According to Muni spokesman Alan Siegel, "[t]he cable runs continuously (up and down the line), so we have to find the one section of the cable that's damaged ... we have to run (the cable) slowly until that section gets into the car barn." [via SFGate]......

It seems CODEPINK, a female-based grassroots pro-peace (and judging by the photographs, anti-conditioner) movement, recently got all up in Condoleezza Rice's face at Capitol Hill. This protester, sporting bloody hands, got a little too close to Condi, shouting "war criminal!" at her before she was pushed away and snapped up by the police. Four other CODEPINK protesters were arrested. ...

Perhaps in the traumatic stage of denial, we forgot to bring you some old obit news. Vincent M. DeDomenico, who co-created Rice-A-Roni along with his brothers, died last Thursday at 92. We tasted the savory food product, but the pasta dish's jingle -- "...the San Francisco treat!" -- will live on as one of the most memorable San Francisco earworms of all time. And, of course, in all our hearts. RIP, dude.......

Thank goodness the Department of Homeland Security's on top of all the threats to American freedom -- the New York Times today profiles Nalini Ghuman (at right), a British musicologist and assistant professor at Mills College who hasn't been able to get back to Oakland to teach her classes and work on her book about composer Edward Elgar, because Immigration and Customs refuses to let her back in the country. Ghuman is a British citizen......

Andrea Froncillo and Jennifer Jeffrey teamed up last year to write stinky prose. (We'll re-use that pun as much as we please.) He is a chef/partner in a bunch of restaurants in the city, including the Stinking Rose and the Crab House, and she's a San Francisco-based freelance writer. We'll link to Andrea's blog too, but he hasn't updated it in a year. Slacker! We're especially frustrated since it's titled "Sex and the Kitchen," and......

Never having been huge fans of instrumental music, we were taken by surprise when we listened to Maserati's latest record Inventions For The New Season. Their own entertaining bio describes the music as a "post-psychedelic orgy of hooks molesting the tired cliche of math-prog" and/or "a post-disco drone machine bristling with the buzz-saw sound of 1,000 angry square waves nestled on a California king size bed of shoegaze swirl." We like to think of the......

Kathy Griffin seems to prefer the techie geeks. (And just who wouldn't?) According to le Hilton, Kathy Griffin is dating Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. (Yay! It's nice to see a redhead making good.) Is this true? Are they really spooning each other? We have no idea. But it'd be nice to see Griffin frolicking around the Castro again. Lord knows the strip needs something to keep it queer and interesting. (Assuming Wozniak lives in......

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take......

We found this photo in our inbox this morning. It may (or may not) be Condoleezza Rice. She's been in town for Bill Walsh's memorial service. As George tells us, after he snapped the shot at about 10:30 a.m. yesterday morning, "you could definitely smell the evil sycophant as she passed." Oh dear. Does that mean that she doesn't bathe properly? We hope not. The shoes and bag we can imagine her sporting, but......

San Francisco is a great city for eating, we all know this. But, man, is it great to have a chance to satisfy your urge for Hawaiian food every year at the Aloha Fest. This Saturday and Sunday, head over to the Presidio for some food, arts & crafts, laid-back music, and other great entertainment, courtesy of the Pacific Islanders' Cultural Association....

A public memorial is all set to honor Bill Walsh. It'll be held at Candlestick at 11 AM on August 10th and among the speakers will be Joe Montana and Eddie De Bartolo. A private ceremony will be held on August 9th at the Stanford Memorial Church. Speakers there will not only include Montana and DeBartolo, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Dianne Feinstein. Rumored to attend are Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State George Shultz who were friends of the Genius. Current owners of the 49ers, John and Denise York have also asked that the Governor declare a Bill Walsh Day. ...

-- Bad Boys of Runway: Project Runway enfant terribles Santino Rice and Jeffrey Sebelia help host and judge a fashion show along with the fascinating Denise Hale and the hilarious Marga Gomez. Juanita MORE! performs an opening number that’s not to be missed. (Like, seriously, don't.) The pre-show prefaces a screening of The Women (1939), with a VIP reception afterwards. Partial proceeds benefit CUAV (Community United Against Violence), so…yay! Show starts at 7:30 p.m.......

As promised, the San Francisco Mime Troupe performed in Dolores Park for the public last Wednesday and last weekend. It was the premier of the group's show "Making a Killing," which lampoons the current administration. We dropped by the Sunday performance; the photo above is during a charming ditty where "Condi Rice" and "Dick Cheney" were arguing over who was more popular. ...

Oh, Chris Daly's going to have a field day with this one for his own blog -- the Chronicle Local News Blog gleefully reports that, at Sunday's Celebrity All-Star game at AT&T Park, former college baseball player Mayor Gavin Newsom: 1) went 0-for, not hitting anything pitched to him; 2) was on the losing side of the 13-8 score for the National League 3) hit a pop-up, which was promptly palmed by Dancing with the......

It's the Fourth of July! Streamers! Bunting! Brass bands! And in San Francisco.... the opening of the hotly-anticipated SF Mime Troupe production in Dolores Park! The acidly-political theater group (note: not actually mimes, though it would actually be hilarious if one year they did do an entire production in mime) is putting on free performances of "Making a Killing" every weekend at local parks throughout the area until October. This year's play is about......

--They took away the hazmat license of the company whose truck blew up the Macarthur Maze. We can't really disagree with that. --Oh no! Puddles the hippo has died. He leaves his bereaved partner, Cuddles, and 16 children. --There's a lot of geek conventions in town this weekend. --And speaking of which, check out this Star Wars post office in Marin. --Two-alarm fire in the Richmond this afternoon. --The Gap's still having problems. --Condoleeza Rice......

Here's todays sports news of the day...

--They are going to reopen the Macarthur Maze by Memorial Day weekend! That construction company totally deserves their $5 million bonus. --We know why Chris Daly interrupted Newsom's meeting with the Venezuelan ambassador! To tell Gavin there's another Daly on the way! Congratulations, Chris and Sarah! --Someone died at Bay to Breakers. --The city may try to move Halloween to behind AT&T Park. --They're going to try and get Wi-Fi on BART. --Condoleeza Rice is......

Did you miss us last week? Here are our excuses: we caught a cold, had a birthday, and were up to here with work at our dayjob, for real. We're back now and anxiously awaiting a copy of Or, the Whale's brand new CD Light Poles and Pines to arrive in our mailbox. The few songs we've previewed on their site offer up banjo, steel guitar, and a chorus of male and female vocals......

Some fights seem really really important to the folks involved, and utterly mystifying to everyone else. You know like when you see two pigeons fighting over a hamburger bun, and you can't decide which one to root for because it seems like they both want the same thing and they'd just be better off sharing? Or another example: the unnecessary feud going on at the Cable Car Museum. Yesterday we mentioned a book by......

There's no more dizzying story of SF history than that of our local transit. If you think it's hard to keep track of the bus routes today, just imagine trying to sort through the patchwork of agencies and name changes and battling operators that've spent the last hundred years keeping us from getting from one place to another. A bite-sized chunk of that history can be found in the new book The Key System:......

SFist Wendy's favorite SFIFF film fest movie yet! It doesn’t get any better than this. Really. We headed to the Clay Sunday night, very relaxed and content as it was, having spent one of the most beautiful days ever up at Stinson Beach (never mind all the flies, anyone know what the story was with those flies!?), and now happily anticipating the latest SFIFF romance Once, featuring Glen Hansard, the lead singer of the......

It's time for American Football Spectacular's capsule reviews of the 2007 NFL Draft. Adventure, excitement,measureables!...

If it’s as beautiful and warm as everyone says it will be this Sunday, then we’re headed to the Thai Buddhist Temple in Berkeley for the Sunday brunch. We haven’t been in awhile, and we’ve been craving that Mango Sticky Rice. Brunch in general is not usually our thing -- the long wait to get seated for an over-priced generic egg scramble usually makes our tender hangovers worse and not better. But the brunch at Wat Mongkolratanaram in Berkeley does not disappoint. It’s a weekly fundraiser for the temple. For around $5, you can get a tasty and pretty authentic Thai meal, including their delicious mango sticky rice for dessert. ...

The neon sign that was added to the display of crosses near the Lafayette BART station was taken down as people thought it was too disrespectful. What, a neon sign not respectful? It's now back to hand-painted signs. Says Jeff Heaton, one of the organizers of the memorial "we'll keep it somber and low-key and quiet." ...

USC 23- Cal 9: We honestly felt Cal would have no chance with USC as we figured Cal to be merely a "Good in the Pac 10" type team, the kind of team who could beat the Beavers but not the big guys. But Cal put up a fight and held 'SC close for three quarters before finally giving way to a superior Trojan team. They did have the lead at 9-6 at halftime but between stupid mistakes, turn overs, and some bad breaks, they couldn't do much against the Trojans in the second half, leading to the playing over and over again of that damn USC fight song. We hate that song. ...

-In a surprise to no one, battle looms over free WiFi. We'd be more surprised if this thing ever happens. ...

We can't really confess to have been paying a lot of attention to this game but we noticed this weird thing during the first half of the game where every time we looked up, the Niners were either scoring a TD or making a big play or even getting a safety. Then we'd look up at the score and notice that they were getting throttled by the Chargers. The game was 35-19 at half time and was pretty much doing what they will with the 49ers, but still, the Niners always seemed to be doing something big....

--They might make MUNI free! --Jerry "Twinkle-toes" Rice put on the red and gold again -- but just for one day, so he could retire as a Niner. --Local hotel workers are authorized to go on strike again. --Are there too many coffee shops in San Carlos? --Instead of a recall, they should give just you a sleeve for your overheated PowerBook battery -- just like they do for coffee. "Warning! Contents may be hot."......