The battle over Gavin's new staffing plans went up a notch in lieu of a report by Board of Supervisors Budget Analyst Harvey Rose that will be released today saying that Gavin is spending $959,903 in raises and taking that money out of departmental funds. The report was done at the behest of Jake McGoldrick after the first initial reports came out about Gavin going around City Hall and making it rain....

Chez Panisse mafia don Alice Waters speaks to Charlie Rose. [Eater]Your alt weekly lawsuit word count. [Guardian 796, SF Weekly 1,559]SFPD deputy chief demoted. [SFGate]Minor earthquake grooves Pacifica. [Examiner]CBS 5 done got themselves a blog, they did. [CBS5]Tablehopper does Playboy? [Tablehopper]......

Back during his halcyon days. Presumably. Dude. Duuuuuuude. After a four-year federal investigation, today cranky baseball icon Barry Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Ouch. And Jesus. He's like Pete Rose, but worse. Which? Again, ouch. According to CBS 5, "[w]hile Bonds was chasing Aaron amid the adulation of San Franciscans and the scorn of baseball fans almost everywhere else, due to his notoriously prickly personality and nagging steroid allegations, a grand......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Serj Tankian - Elect the Dead: With his newest single, "Empty Walls," System of the Down's front man sings a passionate protest against the war. He cleverly sets his newest video in a daycare juxtaposing the violence of day-to-day objects such as silly-string, bubbles, helmets, doll houses and even a fun-dome filled with hundreds of plastic balls. His......

Ah, 1979…"I Will Survive" topped the charts and Bette Midler gave us "the Rose" (love, it is a river, you know). ESPN came into existence, the kids were into "Captain Caveman," and Muni got a new command center. Some things may have changed and gone away, but some things stay the same. Like Muni’s command center-- it hasn't been updated since those carefree days of Studio 54 and New Wave. ...

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......

Thesis: classic Italian opera represents the core tradition of the art form and success as a singer means being able to master the genre. Anti-thesis: opera is an evolving live form, and the work of contemporary composers is relevant, forget about the old dead ones. Synthesis: let’s toss a little bit of everything on the wall, old and new, domestic and foreign, we’ll see what sticks, and call it the Merola Grand Finale. To conclude......

Since we barely digest our own food, much less eat in public for fear people might find us shoveling heaps of it into our mouths, maybe you, dear readers, can help this rookie San Franciscan find a place to take the parents out? He or she is looking for a tasty, semi-semi-formal, non-Stinking Rose-y, yet inexpensive Italian place, and we can't seem to be of any help. What about you? -----Original Message----- On 8/10/07,......

-- Dreamgirls: Jennifer Hudson's performance as Effie White won her an Academy Award, and her end of Act I nervous breakdown ("And I Am Telling You") blew audiences to the back wall of the theatre. . She is the reason to see this movie. It also features Anika Noni Rose, a former A.C.T. student. Check out this musical loosely based on the rise of the Supremes tonight at 7 p.m. at the Castro Theatre,......

Hey, remember our friends at local Internet innovator, Digg? We talked in brief with the founder, Mr. Kevin Rose, a little while back. Well, according to a press release issued by Microsoft Corp., the two companies have signed a three-year deal to collaborate on advertising that will be relevant to Digg's users....

-- "Chilidog": Italo, "nu/no wave," (?) and disco sounds abound at the Transfer's Tuesday weekly dance party named after a most vile, vile act. (We’re sorry, but you will have to look up what a modern-day chilidog is for yourselves.) Music starts at 9:30 p.m. at the Transfer, 198 Church; admission is free and well-drinks are a ridiculously cheap $2! -- Fuckwolf, Prismatics, and 3 Leafs: Acoustic and plugged-in rock outfits -- some more......

No, you didn't dream it! There was a 4.2 temblor this morning at around 4:42 a.m., centered two miles east of Oakland on the dreaded Hayward Fault. It knocked out power in Oakland (poor PG&E, it's been a busy week), and broke the windows of the Safeway on Shattuck and Rose in Berkeley, and at a doughnut shop on College and Ashby (but with no interruption in donut service, they added) -- but in......

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. ...

--A guy jumped onto the field to say hi to Barry Bonds yesterday. Arrested, drunk. [The Chron photo pool, the Snitch.] --They're looking on the Oregon coast now for the missing Alameda County woman and her friend the priest. It's been three weeks. [The Chron.] --Alamo Square was cordoned off this afternoon after gunfire on McAllister Street hit a motorist in the head. [ABC 7.] --There were also shootings at Webster and Rose and Div......

Andrea and her pal hit the park. Photo courtesy Andrea. Our recent "3 Questions" subjects have included Megan Marrone, Kevin Rose, Phil Bronstein, and the founders of Yelp -- all pretty darned high-profile people. However, as compelling as we find those folks, our goal with the short-form interview was always to intersperse folks on the street; the folks you meet in your real life, who really are as interesting as, well, anybody. Andrea F.......

Quick, what was yesterday? Besides a lovely day -- it was also the deadline for Ed Jew to respond to the City Attorney with additional documentation of his residency. Did he do it? No! Jew failed to produce any of the requested documents, and also refused to submit to an in-person interview. His attorney, Steve Gruel, says it's because any statements he gives could be used against him in the criminal proceedings. Wasn't that true......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

La Vie En Rose (the Embarcadero) is a full course, all four food groups, soup and cocktails, dinner of a film. (It screened at the SFIFF, and we loved it then too!) And if you haven’t had your fill by the end of Olivier Dahan’s homage to the great Parisian icon Edith Piaf (breathtakingly portrayed by Marion Cotillard), you can always watch it again. The strongest cross-section of decadence and nutrition is the ATA’s Sunday......

You know who Kevin Rose is, right? He used to be on television quite a bit. Now, he's all over the podwaves, both audio and video, behind the scenes, co-hosting, and making guest appearances. And he's the founder and chief architect of a little operation called Digg. Digg.com, in all seriousness, is a very, very popular Web site that socializes news stories by allowing users to both submit and rank them. But, as you're on the Internet right now, you probably knew that. ...

That's it for the SFIFF this year! As SFist Wendy wraps up SFist's coverage with part 2 of her marathon week, congratulations to the San Francisco Film Society for two weeks of great cinema and we're already looking forward to the 51st! And on to Mezzanine Thursday night for the SFIFF closing night party -- with a surprise performer . . . . but before the final sendoff, we headed over to the Castro......

Thank you, SFist Jenna, for being a friend. Also -- erotica! Erotica Reading: Drop by the Good Vibes Polk St location from 7-8 for a tantalizing session with Dahlia Schweitzer, who will be reading from her novel, The Slightest Provocation, a historical romance, and Pam Rosenthal, reading from Seduce Me, a collection of stories about women who always get their way. Good Vibrations Polk is at 1620 Polk Street (x Sacto), SF. Golden Reunion:......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

For those who didn't get enough protesting in yesterday, today there was a bunch of protests throughout the day, probably inspired by the President's channeling of Axl Rose by telling the country that all you need is just a little patience (we didn't watch the speech, but wouldn't it have been great if he did Axl's little snake-dance in the middle of the it)? ...

Riddle us this, Batman: what does it mean if there's no parking to be had in the city, yet revenues made from parking meters isn't nearly what it should be? Give up? Well, so has everyone else because nobody can quite figure it out. And nobody's really happy about it. ...

em>You know, it's a weird thing about fireworks. We've seen them dozens of time, we're pretty much not kids anymore, and in pretty much everything else we've become jaded. Yet no matter how many times we've seen them, we're "oohing and aahing" just like everyone else. -Ain't no party like a New Year's party. ...

It's been All Quiet on the Stadium Front lately but just recently, the San Jose Mercury News got their grubby little hands on a whole bunch of complaints the 49ers have filed with the city of San Francisco. Lots of things falling, things flooding, and things breaking. ...

Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 67. Number of people pictured whose names we recognize: 8 (Trainas, Gettys, and figures in local politics only, including on-the-way-out Steve Kawa). Minority count: 4 (6%). Hats, capes, tiaras: 0, 0, 0 (but Gavin's hair looks a little funny). Getty v. Traina: 6-12. It's Dede Wilsey's Christmas party, that's why!!! Dede had laryngitis but wore Chanel and had the best hors d'oeuvres in town......

So the final pre-bowl Bowl Championship Series (BCS) poll is out, and guess what? Everybody's pissed about something, except for Ohio State and Florida, the two teams that received Golden Tickets to the big game. Different year, same BS for the BCS.

Because you all love sports so much, we're doing a daily feature on the latest in sports. Warriors 117 Kings 105- What's gotten into the Warriors? They've won four in a row and scoring like Leo DiCaprio in his "P----- Posse" days. Leading the way is Baron Davis who is playing out of his head and playing out of his head a lot as Nelson is playing him almost the entire game every game. Considering Baron's off-and-on again relationship with the injured reserve, we're not sure how smart a move that is. Also playing every minute of every game this early in the season is maybe not a smart move either. Anyways, he lead the way with 36 points. ...

We here at SFist are always eager to be entertained, whether in the form of governmental coiffure trends or pop cultural parodies. TradeMark of the Evolution Control Committee moved here from Ohio a few years back and never fails to entertain us with his copyright-skirting mash ups, a genre he pretty much founded back in the 80s. Evolution Control Committee performs tonight at a Creative Commons Salon and Fundraiser at Shine (1337 Mission between......