SFist interviews Amanda M. Lynch. Her ceramic pieces are gaining widespread acclaim and are featured in the second Garage Biennale...

"Low carb diet" had a lot of buzz in the past few years. Perhaps "low carbon diet" is next. A while ago we wrote about the possibility of saving the world through cuisine. We were being a little hyperbolic, of course. But a new diet, written by two Bay Area residents, quite literally aims to save the environment via your food consumption....

Okay, we're still freaking out about the Macarthur Maze collapsing, but here's the other news we were trying to compile when we found out about it this morning. --Civic Center SFMike went to check out Impeach Beach and caught this picture of an adorable doggie! Thanks for letting us use it, Mike! --Bevan Dufty said something mean about Gavin Newsom. He's since called to apologize. --Biotech's moving to San Francisco. --Liveblogging the baby eagle......

Let's travel southwards down to San Jose (wait, don't go!) as today, students at San Jose State University will be voting on a non-binding resolution about changing their name. At issue is whether to keep on keeping on with SJSU or change it up to Cal State University San Jose. ...

-Warriors road woes continue as they get rolled by the Milwaukee Bucks, 122-101. Are the nails being placed in the coffin? Tim Kawakami moves past the standard "will the Warriors make the playoffs" story to give the eulogy for another Warriors season that bites the dust. ...

Sharks 2 Blues 0- the Sharks good early run continues on as they shut out the St. Louis Blues. It's their second shutout in a row and their third straight win. It's also their third win in five of its past six games and nine of its past eleven games. Not too shabby. ...

SFPD not surprised that a member was off doing kiddy sex junkets in Asia as they sort of knew it for years. -Caltrain board approves plan for Wi-FI on Caltrains. Thousands of commuters jump for joy. ...

A former San Carlos mayor is filing an appeal of his conviction for defrauding the Belmont-San Carlos Fire Department out of $13,000, by using public funds to pay for a political consultant who failed to win a campaign back in 2003. The fountain at San Jose State smells bad. An occupational therapy major says it's this year's "stank smell," as opposed to last year's, which was their trees. However, a business management major says he......

Fans of the fir might not find this surprising, but SFist has learned through a source connected with the Stanford Athletics Department that head football coach Walt Harris will not be back next year. Not if the team runs the table, not if they win a bowl game. Not in a boat, not with a goat. No way, no how.

The news here is not that Harris will be gone at the end of the season -- that much is fairly obvious -- the news is that the decision has already been made. From here on out, the coach, the school, and sadly, the team are just playing out the string . . . for nine more games.

Man, things couldn't get much worse for Stanford football fans. Not only did they lose to lowly San Jose State last weekend, 35-34, but the infamously irreverent Stanford band has been put on provisional status after a series of incidents culminating in vandalism of the 'Band Shak' last July. Meaning that the only horns blaring at Stanford Stadium this weekend will be playing for the Navy's Midshipmen. Don't be surprised if you see a maudlin......

These are not good days for the Stanford University Cardinal. In an upset with all sorts of subtext, the Cardinal lost to San Jose State University, 35-34 as SJSU came from 20 points behind. This is a huge victory in the same way it was a huge victory when all the slobs beat the snobs in those early 80's teen comedies. Stanford turned the ball over three teams in the second half-- one of them being an interception in the end zone-- and were completely unable to stop a rampaging Spartan running game. With two minutes left in the game, Stanford drove down the length of the field only to have Spartan defender Rakine Toomes knock the ball from WR Evan Moore's hands. SJSU is now 1-1 and Stanford is 0-2. ...

This SFist was actually kind of excited about the chances of the college football programs around the Bay this season, with the Pac 10 looking wide open. Then Cal got whipped like cream by Tennessee, getting nothing from potential superstar Marshawn Lynch (whom we've been watching closely for years), while Stanford was creamed like butter by Oregon, saddling themselves from the start with a conference loss. So when we were asked to write a weekly......

Yet another reason for Cody's to close -- writing like this! San Jose State University runs the Bulwer-Lytton Bad Fiction Writing contest -- and has announced this year's winner. Bulwer-Lytton is, of course, the man who started his novel with "It was a dark and stormy night." All entries in the contest must be a single sentence, but can be as long as you like. This year's winning entry: Detective Bart Lasiter was in his......

Ain't no better way to celebrate the Fourth of July than by watching the Coney Island Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Competition: our buddies at the mothership Gothamist even liveblogged the whole thing! (yes, yes, it's terrible that Americans waste so much food when people in Africa are starving. We promise to give money to Jeffrey Sachs's End of Poverty program to atone for our rapacious delight today, okay?) And what's our local connection? Second-place eater and up-and-coming American star Joey Chestnut, who almost dunk-and-swallowed top dog Takeru Kobayashi out of first place with a strong start out the gate. Chestnut's a San Jose State engineering student! Yay Area whut! Alas, Chestnut started to flag about 6 minutes in, allowing Kobayashi to peristalsis his way back up to the top at the end. A nail-biter, to be sure -- but now Chestnut's claiming some malfeasance might have occurred -- at around dog 50, people noticed that Kobayashi might have suffered what the eating competition circuit delicately terms a "reversal of fortune," which is an automatic DQ from the competition. Witnesses say that Kobayashi spit up into a cup, but that he (warning, it's gross) swallowed it back down before it hit the table -- which doesn't count. Chestnut's decided to view it as a bad refereeing call, and promises to be back again next year. This summer, Chestnut's training regimen included drinking 2 gallons of warm water every morning to stretch his stomach; eating 40 dogs a day 3 days a week, and the day before he left for New York, he ate 54 dogs in a practice run. We may be betraying our Bay Area affiliation here, but we're hoping they were Rosamunde dogs. Picture from the Chron by Laura Morton....

Victor Willis, the Village People cop, is the gift that keeps giving to the Blotter patrol! (We especially liked the headline, "Willis's destiny is the J-A-I-L" from the San Mateo County Times.) Willis failed to show up for court -- again -- despite the fact that his lawyer's worked out a plea bargain where if he surrenders, he'll serve 16 months. America's Most Wanted had a film crew on site to film what turned out to be the no-show. And hey -- we had no idea Willis had been married to Phylicia Rashad! San Francisco Superior Court judge Newtom Lam's mother died of several heart attacks three days after being struck by a cable car on a blind hill at Filbert and Mason. At the time of the accident, Mrs. Lam seemed okay and was speaking with investigators, but it turns out she fractured her skull and had broken her ribs, collarbone, and hip as well. Walk SF is holding a vigil on Monday at noon and participants should bring bells. ...and you thought you were unenthusiastic about school starting again! San Jose State put out a nationwide APB when a meteorology professor went AWOL for the first week of class. The professor hadn't called in, hadn't been seen since finals last semester, and was reported to have been having "employment and personal issues." He was found when someone at a Comfort Inn in Pennsylvania looked up from browsing Merc News articles online and saw the very guy whose picture was filling up the screen. Turns out the professor had been hiding out there for over a month. ...

Tonight: at 6:30 there's the reception for the San Jose State University Junior and Senior Industrial Design Show, at the Santana Row Design Within Reach. "The presentation will feature concept projects ranging from product design to interaction design that explore the wide range of possibilities in materials and manufacturing, user analysis, and form development." Saturday; We're singing our little hearts out with the San Francisco Symphony, at one of their sing-along events this weekend.......

To the tune of Beethoven's Fifth: Beethoven's skull...... Beethoven's skull..... So it turns out some guy in Danville's had fragments of Beethoven's skull sitting in a safe-deposit box, and he's turned them over to San Jose State, which apparently collects bits and pieces of Beethoven's body for their Center for Beethoven Studies. (The Center also has a lock of Beethoven's hair.) Is Beethoven like Lenin now or something? The Center is hoping that by examining the bones, they can determine whether Beethoven was killed by lead poisoning, and possibly extract DNA to determine whether Beethoven's deafness had a genetic component. There's a press conference later today, and the results of the forensic study (.pdf) will be released in the latest issue of the Beethoven Journal. (Look for it right behind US Weekly on the newsstand!) Says William Meredith, the director of the Beethoven Center, "I have no doubt that they are Beethoven's skull bones. Whenever I hold them or work with them, they strike me mute for the whole rest of the day. It's not a describable feeling.'' We'll go with the description, "ewwwwww." (but we're easily grossed out.) Picture of reconstructed skull from the Merc News, courtesy of SJSU and the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies...

With all the tragic events going on in the South, it's way too tempting to look for an angle and try to find a way to make it about ourselves. But we do have a local angle happening right here in the Bay Area, a pretty interesting one, in fact. And that is the fact that tonight; the Oakland Raiders are playing the suddenly homeless New Orleans Saints. It goes without saying that the events of Hurricane Katrina make things like sports come off as meaningless. More so about a football game that's meaningless to begin with. But yet, despite it all, teams are still trying to get in some practice, players are fighting for spots, and football goes on. The Saints arrived in the Bay Area last Monday to train at San Jose State University, fleeing the city on Sunday night, one of the last flights allowed out of New Orleans. The trip was several days earlier than planned. Team members have said that they spent most of the time leading up to their flight trying to get their families out. Several players have also admitted to missing team meetings because they were too wrapped up in watching the news to make it. ...

Last week's winner, the cybersquatting Metro! The only thing that looks more obscene than the term "Sfist" is "Sjist" -- we'll leave it at that. Meet the San Jose State contemporary classical music faculty. San Jose City Tow. Cover: The Metro continues to celebrate its 20th anniversary all year! A collection of essays about San Jose and the Valley throughout the years. A variety of arts events around SJSU. And the Straight Dope: does alcohol affect your period? (maybe). Next up: The SF Weekly! A dizzying array of political gossip from Matt Smith (Fifi Ma, SEIU, and Clint Reilly). Infiltrator protests for animals. (We totally saw that "Korea: Stop Killing Man's Best Friend" protestor the other week! Maybe the guy with her was Harmon!). Asian gang gets barber licenses. A play called "I'd Kill For a Parking Space" (heads up, Standing Room!). The Weekly's at the SFIFF, just like us. Cover article: New Order. And Savage Love: tips for 16 year old straight girls. The East Bay Express, the Guardian, and the pick of the week, after the jump. ...

Bono makes appearance at Glide Memorial on Sunday, singing "Stand By Me" and talked of meeting the pope and offering him his "fly" shades. San Jose State cheerleaders get into a somewhat violent altercation with fan who thought their routines bordered on the lascivious. It looks like the electioneering communication reform bill will become law in time for the next campaign period. Everyone's been assured that bloggers will be exempt. Nancy Pelosi gave Tom......

It's not enough that students at San Jose State University have to sit and watch their teams be not very good at athletics, but now they have to sit and watch them without the dance team. Last Wednesday, the dance team was suspended for being too sexy that it hurts. Literally. This all started last month when a long-time booster and alumni Ray Silva, 74, complained about a performance the dance team was doing to......

Recap of the weekend's football action....

Special Tuesday afternoon edition. It's an exciting time for football fans, as the NFL preseason was wrapped up and the college season got off and running. In case you were busy at the beach, out of town or catching up on chores, EssEffist will be here to second guess coaches and players at the beginning of each week with a wrap-up of the weekend in pigskin. The much-hyped Cal Bears opened the season strong, rolling over Air Force 56 to 14. They're currently ranked 13th in the coaches poll and some early season wins could get them into the top ten in short order. EssEffist would like to point out that if you have to lose a game, Cal, lose it early - it's the end of season polls that count. Stanford, currently unranked, trounced the hapless San Jose State Spartans 43 to 3. Ouch. Turns out the Spartans lost six players to Academic decertification just one day before the game. EssEffist didn't even know that the Spartans were good enough to bother cheating. The 49ers managed to preserve their win-free preseason by losing to the Chargers 31-15 at home. If the 49ers were to move to LA (and, presumably, change their name), now would sure be the time to do it. They might have sullied their record with a win if two of three touchdown passes would have counted - instead, all three were discounted due to penalties, and EssEffist thinks the receivers coach wishes he still had T.O. around to blame. They gear up for the Falcons next Sunday. The Raiders squeaked past the Rams 28-24 over in Oakland, finishing the meaningless games at three and one, with all three of their quarterbacks making appearances. It looks like the starting job will go to Rich Gannon next Sunday in Pittsburg even though Kerry Collins has looked strong as a field leader....

In keeping with our previous commitment to root for San Jose State football this season, the beleaguered Spartans will be hosting Morgan State University, a historically black university on Sept. 18 -- and their nationally renown marching band, the Magnificent Marching Machine....

San Jose State has formally announced that it will continue not to decide whether or not it will continue to field a Division I-A football team....

Things aren't looking good for professional sports in San Jose. It seems that because of dismal attendance and the lack of a new stadium, the Anschutz Group is looking to sell the San Jose Earthquakes to Mexico's Club America [Espanol], who would then shop them to cities in Texas - including Houston, San Antonio and Dallas....