San Franciscans have already had a year to enjoy the Green Zebra Guide coupon book. We here in the East Bay wouldn’t know about that, since we’ve never seen that book ourselves, although we’ve heard tell of its exploits. However, when we found out that a coupon book specifically for East Bay eco-minded businesses, organic food, restaurants, sustainable living services, and entertainment was on its way to our little forgotten corner of the bay, we......

As it's Valentine's day, it's only fitting to talk about love... or lack there of... or rather the unique ways technology is helping people find love. This morning, the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle is stamped with a great story about how Silicon Valley execs have put love second to their job and are now using what appears to be a very successful matchmaking service in order to find the right mate. To be fair though, this strategy is expensive - - ($500 for entry level?!?! What?) So We've hunted down some other services that are lest costly, less time consuming and probably less helpful, but definitely very entertaining......

We're at SXSW, so this week's column is a day late and a dollar short. It's a bird, it's a band! OK, since we're late for a date with some breakfast tacos in Austin, we will cut and paste a description of Guillemots from Allmusic.com: "The multinational Guillemots, comprised of English singer and classically trained pianist Fyfe Dangerfield, Brazilian guitarist MC Lord Magrao, Scottish percussionist Rican Caol, and Canadian double bassist Aristazabal Hawkes, use their......

While Silicon Valley is famed for its tech start ups, SFist is a fan of a lower tech start up. A crew of Stanford undergrads started a company called Jet Pens, to feed the craving for Asian writing supplies that are hard to find in the US. In terms of life's luxuries, pens are a pretty managable one. The difference between the crappy free ballpoint you got from the pizza place and a fancy......

It was a good year, it was a bad year. Here's my list of the so-best parts of 2004, in no order at all. So-Best photo: I'm not a super big fan of Norah Jones or anything, and it has no SF connection whatsoever, but I've been dying for an excuse to use this picture for months now. (I like the letter Y just fine, though.) So-Best city hall trend: Rate this year in local politics triple-X! Sex, violence, and foul language: F-bombs dropping like bunker busters, groping at the Gettys, and hand-to-mouth pumping action -- and that's just for two branches of the local government! Throw in some sizzling-hott judicial/executive same-sex marrying action, fights galore, plushie love, vandalism, computer hackery, and those ever-present Asian fetishists (you just love them for their money), and phew, you'd definitely have to prove you were over 18 to get into this movie! So-Best blotter entry/b>: The pranksters who stole the bronze Hermes outside the University Club. Runner-up: The angry Texas Ranger throwing the chair at heckling Mr. Bueno and hitting his wife in the nose. So-Best commuter tale: This was back in April, back when SFist was just a twinkle in our publisher's eye -- but remember that dude who threatened to kill himself on the Bay Bridge and tied up traffic for thirteen hours? And then they proposed shooting a big Spiderman net under him? The highlight of your westbound commute. Runner-up: The Baby Bullet/BART hookup finally working out is saa-weeeeeet. It could only be better if it actually went at like 200 miles an hour so when you looked out the windows, things go all blurry. So-Best makeshift top 40 radio station: I'm still torn up about the death of Z95.7. But now that I've finally gotten MTV Hits from my cable company RCN and TiVo DVR and an ipod to go, I'm completely up to date. (Damn you, Max Martin, and your catchy new Kelly Clarkson tune.) Runner-up MTV Networks so-best: Have you seen the new VH1 Classic show The Alternative? So-Best things I've learned at sfist: How to reserve books at the Public Library. Who this band the Arcade Fire is. How many different crime movies and TV shows were set in San Francisco. And all these cool people I have the privilege of writing with (awwww). Keep reading in 2005!...