SFist is obsessed with the Hi-Tec C pens (once you've written with one, you'll never go back), but Jet Pens has something for every style and budget. Looking for a good stocking stuffer? How about the Sakura Aqualip 5-pen set (only $7.50)? Or you can go even cheaper with their Dollar Specials. Or if you're giving to impress, there's the Ohto Tasche Fountain Pen - 4 Color Set ($75). Pardon us as we wipe the pen-freak drool off our chin.

Jet Pens is offering a cool prize pack of one Hi-Tech-C pen and one Jet Pens t-shirt (black, with the logo you see to the right -- how cute is that?) to the winning SFist readers. Enter by midnight Monday to win.

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: Nope, not Gav+Kim (you all breathe a sigh of relief). 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. Look at that letter Y!

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, ranked choice voting 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: 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).

Let's go watch the fireworks over the Ferry Building for 2005!

The technology sector here in the Bay Area has taken a big hit over the last few years. We all know it, even if we don't work in Silicon Valley. Restaurants struggled, retailers and advertisers lost revenue, young workers have found it harder to get entry level jobs because they've been displaced by laid-off techies, companies have been slower to upgrade their systems and hire new staff and those left have been asked to work longer hours. The ripple effect from our main regional industry have been devastating. One activist, Natasha Humphries, addressed the House Small Business Committee, telling them her story of being flown to Bangalore to train her own replacements.

The workers appear to be on pretty solid ground in calling for a boycott, too -- a federal court in 2002 found that the Claremont’s owners had violated numerous labor laws, including illegally coercing employees to vote against a union, interfering with workers’ rights to organize, and prohibiting workers from talking about a union at the resort. The Claremont was also found to have illegally prohibited employees from making negative comments about management in 2003. Wow, sounds like a great place to work.

The Berkeley City Counsel has issued a resolution in support of the workers (.pdf), and various local businesses have honored the boycott, including Kaiser, Intel, and various departments of UC Berkeley. Last month, when Deepak Chopra went ahead and held a weekend seminar at the Claremont, despite being asked not to, he was faced with yoga protestors, "striking warrior poses and focusing on their breathing."

Personally, SFist believes that spa workers should be paid bonuses just for having to sit in a small, airless room all day, breathing in patchouli fumes and listening to New Age music. There's much better spas throughout the area for those of you with money to burn and shoulder tension to work out who want to support our workers this Labor Day. And finally, even if you aren’t the kind of person who feels strongly about picket lines, it seems that you really don't want to get a massage or full body mud wrap from someone who’s unhappy about working on you anyways.