Back after the July 4th break! The winner from two weeks ago: the SJ Metro. This Media News Corp. group taking over the Merc News is bad for local news coverage. Dude! We need to start following San Jose local politics -- one of their city council members eloped last weekend! Annalee Newitz liked Transformers. Bodybuilders in San Jose this weekend -- look at the cords on that guy's neck! Cover article: we're embarrassed to......

Remember yesterday, when Supervisor Ed Jew told the city attorney that the reason why his water bills were so low at his purported house in the Sunset because he showered at his flower shop, and we said we wanted to see the water bills for the store? Well, lookee here! The Bay Guardian's gone and done it -- and there is no running water in the flower shop. NO!!!! Well, to be precise, the flower......

Here's todays wrap up of the news...

Gavin, Schmavin -- bored now. Call us when a shorn-headed Gavin goes bananas outside Kimberly Guilfoyle's house and starts whacking an SUV with a bright-green umbrella! (Maybe Britney was just looking a little too much forward to a drink at the end of her workday as well.) Anyhow, since everyone insists on continuing not to run for mayor against Gavin Newsom (including us, though that's very sweet of you to suggest it, Jill and......

Man, we thought we'd be able to get through a week without any sort of Gavin bombshell, but we were wrong. As the saying goes, everytime we think we're out, he pulls us back in. So today there's a big story about Ruby Rippey-Tourk taking a paid ten-week leave of absence maybe illegally, maybe not. Basically, the time off given to her was not commiserate with the amount of time she worked. Now, employees down in city hall are allowed to give their sick time to somebody if they really, really need it and supposedly, Ruby's fellow coworkers donated their time to her. The question, of course, is whether or not they did it out of the kindness of their own hearts or whether Gavin asked them to while making all sorts of hints about how they should really, really donate their time. The Bay Guardian is reporting that the time off was requested by her husband, Alex and that her coworkers wanted to help out. Fog City, however, says that her coworkers weren't very down with it all. The other thing is that the money she was given was much more than normally allowed. ...

You know how Gavin said we were "seconds" away from inking a deal with Earthlink/Google over providing free WiFi to everyone in the city? Well, "seconds" might have been a slight exaggeration but late yesterday, a deal was actually reached, the i's dotted, the t's crossed, and pen was put to paper. Soon the entire city will be a "hot spot." But we knew that already. ...

Yes, New Year's Eve is considered amateur hour. Which is never really our problem with it. Like Halloween, New Year's Eve is one of those holidays where you feel like a loser if you don't have like at least three or four things to go to. Or if you don't go out. It might be better in the long run to avoid going out but for those few moments when the ball drops and everybody's popping champagne and a whole bunch of people are kissing people they shouldn't necessarily be kissing, staying at home by yourself and watching it on TV ain't that much fun. That's why we like wearing headphones when we're home on this night-- that way you can pretend nothing is going on around you. ...

SFist Rita is on vacation, so we're guest-reading the weeklies for her this week. Plus, it's the last weekly week of 2006, so we will be tallying up this year's picks to anoint a Weekly of the Year at the end of this post. Last week's winner and in at 4th place for 2006 with 6.5 WotW points, the Metro: Gary Singh on Rudy Rucker's new book Mathematicians in Love. Cover: Year in Review for......

-The Sierra's finally say hello to snow. -2007 is going to be the Health Care-iffic. -The San Francisco Transportation Authority is all set to begin an environmental review for a rapid transit bus line on Van Ness. How much difference in the environment could a MUNI bus being on time be?...

It's another installment of.... Who's! Attacking! Newsom! Now! Where we compile all the negative things people are saying about the San Francisco mayor and report it in bullet form! We'll run a Who's Defending Newsom Now post next, as soon as we find someone defending Newsom, besides Peter Ragone. So here's the list! --Sean Elsbernd!: Newsom's erstwhile ally on the Board of Supes in District 7, Elsbernd is irritated that Newsom's new "let's fix the......

We're pretty unhappy that a couple of yayhoos managed to ruin what looked like a very nice time yesterday in the Castro. So are a lot of people -- all the local blog servers were whirring away processing everyone's comments on the story. You guys did us proud with your thoughtful conversations about what the Castro and the city's next steps should be (and we appreciate how nice you guys were about that weird spam......

>-We've been trying to wrap our heads around Lettergate, otherwise known as Much Ado About Paking, and think we finally have a bead on it. Or maybe not. Anyways, the story goes like this: there's been this big debate over parking in the Mission Bay/South of Market area where all this big condo building is going on. The debate, as usual, is between Chris Daly vs. the Gavster and the nefarious Downtown Business Interests over how many parking spots should be allowed to be built, Daly, wants to limit the amount of spaces to be built while Gavin doesn't. A reworked Daly measure was put up for vote and passed by a 7-2 measure. That, however, isn't really the controversy, but what happened during the debate was. During the debate, Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier and Acting Planning Director Larry Badiner read a letter from Planning Director Dean Macris, who was out of town, saying he's against Daly's measure. It became obvious to everyone who was there, however, that the letter didn't really come from Macris. It wasn't signed, wasn't on official stationary, there were two different versions of it, and the letter contradicted several things that Macris had said earlier. Needless to say, people were not amused. ...

Our friend used to work as a counselor treating outpatients at a residential facility for treating people diagnosed with mental health problems and drug addiction. Sometimes her work required her to stay overnight, where she often slept on a couch at the facility. After a while, she began feeling itchy and developed a rash of spots. The problem? Likely, bedbugs -- little blood-sucking parasites that just love warm, sleeping people. After the New York......

Well, the internets are all abuzz over the 8th annual "One Night Stand," put on by SomArts. We're willing to go with the flow and recommend an erotic art party -- not to mention Indra, known as the "Courtney Love of Cabaret." Wow. That's a reputation to live up to. The Bay Guardian peeps are throwing a Hell-Raiser Happy Hour at the Cannery Building. Yes, we're biased -- but it can't be worse than......

roundup of the Bay Area weeklies...

roundup of the Bay Area weeklies...

roundup of the free weeklies...

Herb Caen, SFist's idol and mentor, called us (in a play on President Taft's quote) "The City that Knows Chow." And how. In San Francisco most of the food press arrives on SFist's doorstep on Wednesday. The Chron, The Weekly, The Bay Guardian - first, second and third helpings of food in print. Why do we obsess? I'm not sure. But the eats around here are the best....