Skullcap-shatteringly brilliant blogger Diane Dorrans Saeks just posted what could possibly be the most important lifestyle piece you will ever read. Why? Because it's about Denise Hale, that's why. And yet? It's also about so much more. Or not. more ›

Rumors are swirling - swirling! - about Google and Facebook conducting clandestine meetings about about buying Twitter. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Executives at both Facebook Inc. and Google Inc., among other companies, have held low-level talks with those at Twitter Inc. in recent months to explore the prospect of an acquisition of the messaging service, according to people familiar with the matter." more ›

Although Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on his way out of the prized gig - company co-founder Larry Page, 37 (!), will replace Schmidt in April - he will be awarded $100 million worth of shares once he steps down. Which is nice. That's the dollar amount at which we start buying lottery tickets. So, you know, kudos all around, we guess. more ›

If we can leave you with one pertinent piece of information in our lifetime, it's this: When in doubt, turn to the . Why, it's chockfull of pointless rich-bitch information you need to know about this very second. Take, for example, their annual “A” list, which tracks "the Bay Area’s most talked about, scandalous, and admired celebs, socialites, politicians, and beautiful people during 2010" via how often their aggressively F5'd faces appear in the top-drawer publication. more ›

In lieu of trudging up those darned Noe Valley hills or having to deal with crazy neighbors, Anna Alberi, winner of this second annual Dream House Raffle, will receive $1.5 million in cash. The Oakland resident, who chose a cash prize over a fancy house, received a call informing her that she held the winning ticket on Saturday, July 10. "I’ve never entered a raffle like this before, and I couldn’t believe it when I got the call telling me I had won—I thought it was some kind of joke," says Alberti. "I had bought the tickets because I wanted to support YBCA, but now I’m so excited to be able to use the money to pay off my Oakland house." more ›

The tale of a project to put power lines underground in the Piedmont Hills goes very, very wrong: "So this company got to work on the undergrounding, and were shocked when they started digging and discovered that the ground there is actually rock. Um, yeah. So then, this company is all 'Oh, it’s going to cost another million dollars to dig through all this rock' and the people of Piedmont Hills were all like 'Yeah, we don’t want to pay a million dollars,' and went out and raised $30,000 instead. So the City Administrator was like well we have to finish it one way or another." Now the Piedmont Township is taking one-third of its general fund to finish a botched project that only affects 140 homes. Sweet. [A Better Oakland via Eye on Blogs] more ›

Number of people pictured in this week's Miss Bigelow's Social City: 28 more ›

The aggressively provincial rich bitches of San Francisco tell the luminous Catherine Bigelow how to end a party. In lieu of, say, telling guests, "Hey, thanks for coming, but Chelsea Lately is on now. Scram," these ladies employ more refined tactics to get guests out the door. more ›

Step right up! Step right up! The Gavin Newsom San Francisco carnival is coming to town! SEE .... the horrors that abound in the San Francisco Housing Authority! GAWK..... at the desperate lives of people trying to get by in the sub-standard apartment units provided by the city! GASP..... at the pitiful amounts of money residents try to live on! And then.... open your wallets! Won't you help.... for the children? more ›

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Some group out there with the name NewTithing Group got their hands on some 2004 tax returns, crunched some numbers, and determined that our rich people ain't that giving. In fact, LA's rich people totaly kicks our rich people's asses when it comes to giving, like twice as much. And we all know how much it hurts when LA kicks our asses in anything. more ›

Last week, somebody gave us a copy of the new 7x7 magazine and once we saw it, couldn't resist opening it up to take a look. How could you not resist any sort of "Hot 20 Under 40" articles. We love those kinds of stories! Is there anything more interesting and important than reading about what is hot? Especially about what is hot here in the city? Because as 7x7 says, "While celebrity culture generally favors the very rich or the very gorgeous it's different here. Style itself counts for only half in SF: You've got to have substance too." So who are these hot people? Do we know any of them? How does one become hot? Are we hot? more ›

We don't care if your voter information guide isn't here yet -- we can't wait any longer! It's that time of the quarter again -- for SFist's shallow surface summaries of the important issues of politics and public policy facing our city and state today that we're voting on next week. Thank goodness, there's only two state propositions and four SF ones. more ›

We thought we'd update you on the latest brouhaha being currently ha'ed about in the city which is the Fairmont's announcement a week ago that they were kind of sort of thinking that just maybe they'll convert some of their luxury suites into condos. This announcement quickly got Aaron Peskin's panties in a bunch and he immediately announced he was going to come down against it and introduce a ban into the Board of Supes. First he played the "landmark" card but then quickly switched to the "jobs" card when he realized that the section of the Fairmont that the hotel wants to convert is not the part everyone thinks of when they think of the hotel, but the ugly stepsister portion of it. The jobs card is an especially potent one because all of this is taking place amidst the backdrop of the still going on hotel workers strike. We can see how announcing a new plan that could result in a loss of jobs while in the midst of a strike could be seen as a bit inflammatory. We can also see, however, the confusion caused by Peskin in that he recently led the charge in preventing a waterfront hotel to be built over a certain height despite the fact that larger hotels mean larger work forces and smaller hotels lead to smaller work forces. more ›

In other cities we've lived in, the actual density of the ethnic Chinese population matters little to the density of Chinese restaurants. Seattle? The population is rather spread out, but the vast majority of Chinese restaurants are still downtown in the International District. New York? No matter what neighborhood you're in, you're never far from a Chinese restaurant. But in San Francisco, the restaurants seem to follow the community in general -- ya got your fancy places next to your rich people, your Russian restaurants in the Richmond, your Central American cuisine in the Mission. And so it follows that the best places to go for Chinese food are Chinatown and the Sunset. And yes, we're making totally specious generalizations here, and of course we could give a damn where we find great Chinese food or even who makes it (our country-bred Anglo mom makes a mean rice plate). But how else to explain the paucity of good Chinese restaurants in the Mission? more ›

A weekly exercise in keepin' it real about the San Francisco drinkin' scene, by your local barrespondent, Drew. more ›

More Mission woe -- over the weekend, there was a drive-by shooting on 26th and Mission on Friday 8:30 p.m., a stabbing at that same corner a day later, and a shooting at 19th and Guerrero. Kamala Harris came by to check things out (and get a burrito). In other weekend crime news, a man stabbed his ex-girlfriend in the neck in the Haight at the McDonalds on Stanyan, and three men were stabbed in a bar in the Bayview area. There were also two shootings at Divisadero and Eddy (the cops think gang-related). more ›