Several rallies in Northern California happened today calling for lawmakers to help on a moratorium of foreclosures. ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) helped spark the protests, calling on all "mortgage lenders and servicers to implement a 90-day foreclosure moratorium and to use this time to modify loans to affordable terms for homeowners."......

As particulate matter from the 850 wildfires has ruined our famously crisp and sought-after air in the Bay Area. On the plus side, though, it has made for some gorgeous sunsets.......

If you've noticed over the past couple of days, it's smells a bit smoky, a bit ashy in Baghdad by the Bay. It seems, according to CBS 5, Northern California is suffering from about 950 wildfire right now.The top half of the state is, in essence, on fire. Yikes! So far, Carmel Valley residents have been forced from their homes due to the massive blaze in the Los Padres National Forest over in Monterey......

Last night's five-alarm wildfire in the San Bruno Mountains, which threatened homes in South San Francisco, has been 75 percent as of this morning. The crisp weather and fog -- which has mercifully killed this past weekend's vile heatwave -- has helped firefighters attack the blaze successfully. A total of 300 acres have been scorched so far. Brisbane residents who were asked to evacuate their home were allowed to return just before midnight last......

A wildfire on San Bruno Mountain may threaten some homes on the South side of the mountain along Sister Cities Blvd tonight. These shots, taken by a reader on Drake Avenue (across Hillside) at around 8:35 p.m., show the fire heading close to South SF as "numerous firetrucks rush[ed] to the scene along with several helicopters on hand to battle the flames from the air." The area is a new development of million dollar homes and are "in the line of fire."...

While an unidentified man was using an auger transporter (?) a South SF asphalt plant Graniterock on Wednesday, he somehow managed to get caught up in the presumably tricky machinery, and die. At about 7:32 p.m., firefighters responded to the plant at 1321 Lowrie Avenue. According to Battalion Chief Tom Azzopardi (via Bay City News), "[s]omehow the machine started up and he was trapped in it." The man, it seems, died before the firefighters......

50-year-old Chiu Chun Wong of San Lorenzo was killed yesterday after a 15-ton section of concrete came toppling down on him. Ouch. According to the Gate, the fatal workplace incident occurred at "J.C. Steel Fabrication at 220 Michelle Court shortly before 1 p.m. Tuesday." It seems that while Wong and another worker were putting a chain "around the bottom of the 20-foot-by-12-foot wall," the chuck of cement slipped, fell, and struck Wong, killing him......

Update: Oh damn! The video's not working. It's a compilation of all the various calls we've gotten. We'll try re-uploading it when we get home from work. If you're like everyone else on the planet, you've been getting endless recorded calls about carpet cleaning. "Hi, this is Allison, blah blah blah, press 8 to schedule a carpet cleaning," the recording goes, or it's "Dave" with the same spiel. Sometimes it's "account services" calling about......

Although neither death nor illness have been reported, State health officials are warning people not to eat tofu produced by South San Francisco-based Quong Hop and Co....

Nothing gets our treasure hunting heart pounding as fast as a crowded taco truck tucked away on a parking lot. Unfortunately the delicious meal we wolf down sometimes makes our stomach heave just as fast. Fear not, we've located the healthiest taco truck south of the Department of Public Health. ...

We know the question you always ask yourself, each day in the morning when you rise and trudge miserably to your job at the cheesecake factory (not the restaurant, but the actual industrial complex in South San Francisco where they make the cheesecakes): Why does no one understand my deep abiding love of the ukulele? Oh but someone does. Uke Apocalypse takes the balcony at Isotope Comics tonight at 8pm, performing selections from Purple......

--Did you fall back? --Old(er) people use the Internet. --Babies eat organic. --Protest against the war yesterday. --Homelessness is a difficult problem. --A debate breaks out at Left In SF about what Rob Black supporters think Daly should have been doing in District 6. As for us, we'd like Chris Daly to personally pee on our block. --M&R relate an incident involving the Gettys' butler, a cup of coffee in the Marina, and overzealous cops......

Submissions go to yvesdroppings at gmail dot com. Old man outside bar: "Smoking kills." Smoking hipster: "Only the good die young." -- From Ingrid/Bar in TenderNob Teen girl: "I don't know why California has so many bushes. They're so ugly. I hate them. I just want to burn them all up." Teen guy: "Yeah, they look like pimples on my butt." -- From Alex/On Caltrain, going past the bushy hills of South San Francisco SUV-Driving......

SFist reviews Colma: The Musical at the SFIAAFF...

As a fan of Point Break, Sugar and Spice, and Killing Zoe, we've wondered about the innate practicality of robbing a bank in a mask. "Your peripheral vision must suffer" we'd muse "and it's gotta get hot in there! What a stupid idea." Apparently, it's less stupid than we thought, as clown-masked gunmen successfully robbed a South San Francisco bank this morning. Thieves entered the 211 Airport Blvd branch of the First National Bank......

We're kind of on a pro-BART kick today -- which may be due in part to the fact that we've been taking the BART down to Millbrae all week. We understand that not too many of you are doing that, which may explain why we haven't heard very much about the coolest station art ever, these totally rad pictures/murals on the walls of the South San Francisco BART station. The picture above doesn't do it justice, but they're holographic scenes. They show these little pictures of local scenes, like sailboats and California history -- but as the train zips by (or as trainwaiters walk by), the pictures change! They're like art versions of flipbooks! Animated murals! IT IS SO COOL!!! For example, one of the pictures is a series of photos from the South SF Fire Department showing a firefighter sliding down a pole. Other pictures include the changes on South City's Grand Avenue, factory workers, and the biotech industry (we haven't seen that one yet, but we hope it's a DNA strand undergoing transcription and translation). How'd they do it? Is it something about polarized glass? The only news article we could find about it says something about "multifaceted glass tiles," but isn't that just like our kitchen counter? It doesn't show us scenes of South City. Could someone please explain it to us? Meanwhile -- if you're heading down South Bay-wards, or just glumly staring out the window with your roller bag wedged between your knees on the way to SFO, make sure you look out when you get to the South City BART stop. Public art at its best! Picture from the South SF city site...

Any other "Law and Order" fans reminded of the show's episode entitled Fluency upon reading about the fake Tamiflu seized at a South San Francisco post office? Tamiflu is one of the two drugs believed to help fight the Avian Flu. The fake stuff has been arriving in this post office since November 26. They have none of the active ingredients of Tamiflu, and the FDA is still trying to determine if any of......

Muy Bueno! (Like that one's never been come up with before.) Jennifer Bueno, the woman who was hit in the face by a folding chair at an A's game, finally filed suit against the Texas Ranger who pitched the lawn decor at her husband for his sassy mouth, and the Rangers' organization. One of the reports we heard said that her husband Craig was supposed to be at the press conference too, but he works at the fire house with the three guys who got in the accident and tied up traffic yesterday on the San Mateo Bridge. Police are baffled about the mysterious beating of a 13-year-old foreign student in South San Francisco last week, just blocks from his host family's home. Robbery wasn't a motive, since the boy had all his money and his mp3 player on him. The boy is in critical condition at SF General, and authorities are offering a $12,000 reward for information. And interestingly, remember how the City of Fremont decided not to enforce burglar alarms unless there was proof of an actual break-in? Well, they did a study to see what happened after they adopted the policy, and robberies in the city are actually down 9%. Burglar alarm associations say it's too soon to tell. ...

In tech news, stoned graphic designers were stunned when they realized that they had no idea that Adobe was going to swallow Macromedia whole. South Park laughs to keep from crying. After singlehandedly sparking off a department-wide investigation into drinking on the job after showing up to work drunk, Fireman Steve Gritsch manages to get a DUI! We're thinking it's a quiet protest against the Muni fare increase In the California Gubenatorial " ">Where......

[Ed. Note: There's nothing more flattering than having people offer to write for you because they like your site and have something new and interesting to add to it. So please welcome our new weatherman, SFist Ted, who's busy running Dogster and Catster when he isn't pretending to point to happy suns and clouds in front of a bluescreen in his basement.] What an uneventful week to start as SFist Weatherman. Last week had......