Matier & Ross were all over this nugget of news today: bronze plaques will be placed in locations where the city's homeless have died. The "memorials" will be placed in Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi's districts, which include the Tenderloin, Civic Center, Haight-Ashbury and Western Addition. Each will be 2 feet by 2 feet "human-shaped plaques" and "[inscribed] with details of the deceased's lives and the circumstances of their deaths," according to the Chron. Let's......

The Chron got all investigative reporting today and discovered that after getting raises in 2002, the Board now meets less than when they did before the raise. Let's see...more money...less work hours...how do we get that job?...

It was announced today that SF Chronicle's editor, Phil Bronstein, will be "shifting his role from running day-to-day operations in the newsroom to taking on broader strategic responsibilities at the paper and for its owner, Hearst Corporation." Whoa. What's more, you will get to read more of that Bronstein voice: In addition, Bronstein will write for The Chronicle and sfgate.com. "I got into this profession because of my great love for words and how......

With the perpetual rebuilding process that is the San Francisco 49er franchise, every so often an old part of old successes will cycle back through SF. This Sunday, Gilroy’s second-most-favorite export returns to the Bay Area at the reigns of Chucky Gruden’s particular strain of West Coast Offense. You never should have been run out of town, Jeff....

Oh this is bizarre. And scary. An old man was arrested today for not following a "restraining order that prohibited him from having any contact with employees of The Chronicle." Oh my. It seems that Julian Hartzell, 64, made "inappropriate contact" with some of the Chronicle staff this past summer. The paper then got themselves a restraining order against him, but he continued to try contacting employees. So? He was arrested. What kind of......

In an effort to tame the trolls, SFGate's site (as well as a few others like ThinkProgress) use software from an outside company that implements a unique "block user" function. This feature blocks all comments made by a user from view by anyone but themselves (upon login). That is to say, whenever the quasi-banned user logs in to the site, they see their comments intact; but to everyone else, the offending comment is simply......

After yesterday's fog-induced Cosco Busan/Bay Bridge crash -- resulting in 58,000 gallons of fuel and 8,000 gallons of "heavy-duty bunker fuel oil" spilling into the Bay -- Baker Beach, Crissy Field, China Beach, Kirby Cove, and Fort Point beaches (or "beaches" to some of you purists out there) have been closed. Large blobby slicks as big as 50 yards long and 20 yards wide have been spotted off Tiburon and near Mill Valley's Bayfront......

Most people can't comprehend our near OCD level obsession with Chris Daly, Ed Jew, Gavin, and the Board of Supes. So, we're cool when people ask us questions like, "How do you know this?" or "Why do you care?" or "How do you stay awake during all those board meetings?" We've gotten over it and understand most people's position, which is why we just want to say that our mental health is okay and......

The Chronicle called Ed Jew's office today, and his legislative aide Barbara Meskunas said he wasn't in because he was sleeping. Jet lag, you know. According to the Chron, Tapioca Ed, did, however, have the time to pen an essay for the Sunset Beacon (which has not yet put Jew's essay online, but you can read last month's), in which he says he wants to "clear the air" about the allegations. In the essay, he......

SFist Sara surveys the local view of Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Who knew it had a trenchant analysis of constitutional law? The current contribution to the mass spoon-feeding that is the summer blockbuster schedule is Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Not as strong as the first film and far stronger than the second (which stunk like dead kraken), World’s End is 168 minutes of pee-inducing ocean battles. Don’t think we’re hacking it;......

The Chronicle has been doing a lot of back-slapping over their work in the BALCO case, turning their two reporters, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, into full and official Martyrs of the Constitution, complete with the victory lap around the newsroom. Yay, Chronicle. But maybe they shouldn't be so excited....

Last night, we went to last night's Warriors/Cavs game, a game the Warriors lost in overtime. Now, we'll let Basketball Chris do the analysis and post-game wrap up, but we wanted to make an observation of our own. Mainly, that we went to see Lebron and we were disappointed. But not surprised. ...

-The Rai-duhs are going to take their time looking for a new coach which is code for "find somebody desperate enough to take the job." The Betting Fool wallows in the Raiders' misery. ...

Two small plane crashes -- one into a tank of raw sewage in Gilroy, and another onto Highway 4 in Contra Costa County. The Highway 4 crash involved a pilot who misjudged the location of the landing runway in the low cloud cover Thursday, and tied up traffic for miles. They're still investigating the Gilroy crash; investigators got a later start because they had to drain and disinfect the tank before it was safe to......

Lucky Carol Ness! The Chronicle Food section scribe is off in Turin, Italy, to update us on a BIG meeting for the Slow Food Movement. Her detailed reporting has always shined (ring the full disclosure bell: yes, we used to intern there, and yes, we have pals there, including our husband). Of particular note is the fact that many Californians--both famous and not so much - are participating. For the record, Dairy Queen at The Ethicurean is interested and green with envy over the Turin happenings. Mmmmkay. We're not sure we agree with Ms. DQ that the Bay Area scene is “as deserted as New York in August.” We'd rather be here, with all the artisan chocolate with tea notes, pumpkins, squash, beets, and cavolo nero popping up. We mean it, we really, really do. ...

As we think fondly back on our college days, we've come to the conclusion that alcohol is never going to taste as good as it did before we turned 21. That, however, may not be true for poor Brittanie Mountz, who just got busted by the Chronicle's Cecilia Vega for possibly drinking with the mayor while underage. According to Sunday's Matier and Ross (posted on the 'Gate Saturday evening, which is why this is going......

Sure, we talk all big about how we're above crass materialism and how yuppie bastards are ruining this town for us Missionistas -- but okay, we'll fess up: we are extremely excited about the Westfield San Francisco Shopping Centre's reopening of the old Emporium space on Market and Powell this Thursday (the 28th). Cross your fingers along with us that the opening ceremonies will include Gavin cutting a red ribbon with a big ol' pair......

Okay, here's an update on that lawsuit against AT&T and the Federal Government for illegally snooping on people's phone calls and e-mails. Basically, there are about seventeen similar lawsuits out there in the midst of the legal world and because they're all sort of similar-- whiny Al Queda supporters suing the telecoms and government for doing something unconstitutional, they've been mashed together into one big lawsuit sandwich. That sandwich will be heard in San Francisco's very own Federal Court by one U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. The reasoning is because out of all the various suits out there, the AT&T one is the most advanced. Bully to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation and how awesome would it be if they started their own University just so people could say they go to EFF U?) and the ACLU for being on the ball. ...

Okay, so it’s not a great time to flip your house, and rents are rising, but there are still some real estate developments that are not bad news. Retail rents across San Francisco are up 2.6% over last year to an average of $32.11 per square foot, indicating some competitive demand. Demand = more business in the city. We love business in the city, especially when it might lead to jobs – and it looks......

This week, after years of dithering, the 49ers announced that there finally is A Stadium Plan. OK. What plan? The Chronicle's Matier & Ross say that gleefully impudent Chron sports columnist Ray Ratto's incisive piece about the team's lack of movement on the stadium put the spurs to the Niners making the conciliatory announcement that they have A Plan and that they are putting a lot of work into The Plan. OK. So, then? ...

Well, it's April 19, 2006, and the goodwill created by celebrating disaster rising above disaster has now officially dissipated. The Chronicle reports that numerous public officials are disgruntled at various protocol lapses that left them feeling insufficiently fawned over at the big 4:30 a.m. party.

There was predawn political infighting because some elected officials weren't offered a coveted spot on stage, an awkward moment when the master of ceremonies called into the audience to locate former Mayor Willie Brown even though he was standing not far behind her, and what should have been a memorable finale with the crowd singing a roaring rendition of "San Francisco" puttered out because many didn't know the lyrics.

It snowed in the Bay Area this weekend -- the first March snowstorm since 1896. And we're not just talking snow like in the Sierras or maybe on the top of Mount Tam -- there was snow in Danville, on Mount Baker in the South Bay, and even some snow in San Francisco by West Portal. The last time it snowed in San Francisco was in 1976, and we got about an inch. (Click here for some interesting SF snow history: SF's largest snow was 3.7 inches in downtown on Feb. 5, 1887.) We didn't get a huge 1887-style blizzard on Sunday, but Highway 17 was closed for three hours on Sunday morning for snowplows, a section of 280 south of 92 was closed, a seven-car pileup on 80 was blamed on hail, and in the area's biggest car pileup in ages, 28 cars spun out of control in the snow on the north side of the Waldo Tunnel just outside Sausalito, as unsuspecting motorists sped out of the downhill-heading tunnel only to be faced with snowy, slippery roads. As an immigrant to San Francisco from a snowier clime, this correspondent assumes you kids out there will have no idea what we're talking about when we say that we're sorry this didn't happen during the week so you could have a snow day from school. Know why we know you won't know what we're talking about? The Chronicle had to provide a definition of snow for its bewildered readers!!! We love this city.

While snow falls in flakes and looks more like small ice shavings, hail is balls of ice, usually small. If the trees are white, [National Weather Service meteorologist Brooke] Bingaman said, it's probably snow.

Well, it's awards season around the Blogosphere. You've got your Food Blog Awards, Bloggies, your Webbys -- heck, it's the first week in January and SFist has already won one. So when we saw that the Most Valuable Network was holding a poll to crown a best writer for 2005, we figured it would be a good chance to put in a plug for our favorite MVN blogger, Dave Isaacs of The City. Besides......

We decided to cheat a little for the letter S. Instead of choosing a restaurant name, we settled on an entire cuisine - from S is for South of India. By the end of the meal, at popular new spot, Dosa, we realised that the initial of the day would more aptly describe S is for "Secret" recipes. The menu is apparently full of them. We detected a wave of excitement fluttering through San......

We've heard of evergreen news stories, but this an evergreen story about decorated evergreens: assorted East Bay neighborhoods inevitably have one or two streets where the decorating is absolutely over-the-top. We are dying to head out to Pleasanton to Widmer World -- 132,000 lights, plus wood figurines and a live Santa, all on Bob and Susan Widmer's lawn. We'll be joining 3,000-5,000 of our closest friends for that one, if previous years' visiting estimates are......

Fans of fancily feathered fowl were flummoxed a fortnight ago when they awoke to find that the flora that many of the famous parrots of telegraph hill called home was cut down. And yes, the sentence above makes no sense, but go with it. The trees were cut down early Monday morning by property owner John Cowen who said he had to cut down the tree because it was old and falling apart and needed......

If we haven't given you enough ideas on what to do this weekend, how about hanging out at the Chronicle looking for famous people? From an email sent to Chronicle staff earlier this week: Those of you working in and around the downtown building for the next two weeks will see some activity on the part of a movie crew as they prep for shooting of their film on Sunday, September 18, and Sunday,......

We had a lump in our throat Saturday when we read that Ember, the Bayview pit bull who had been set on fire, was euthanized due to the severity of her injuries. And before we get any comments/hate mail on why pit bulls are good prospects for euthanasia regardless, let's all think about this again: someone set this animal on fire, and left it to die. This dog fought to live for three weeks......

Our concert picks for the week of 8/4 - 8/10. The Heavenly States is a band from Oakland that we should all be proud to call our own. In addition to playing truly infectious noise pop, they were the first and only US band to play Libya and they were name-checked by Chris Martin of Coldplay as one of his favorite bands. Ted's upside-down left-handed guitar playing kind of mesmerizes us and Genevieve is so......

For the second time in as many weeks, our pals at Londonist have provided minute-by-minute reporting on what is presently being reported as another terrorist attack on London. Described as "not a major incident", as of 6:53 a.m. Pacific this morning, CNN is reporting that at least four small bombs have detonated on public transportation, resulting in at least one injury thus far. In terms of our local commute, the BART representative we spoke......