When we talked to Phil Bronstein, the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, a few weeks back, he told us that "the Chronicle will continue to be packed with talented journalists who will keep providing what (SFist) Rita called 'an essential public service.'"...

A couple days ago when we lamented NextMuni's lack of text-messaging, helpful reader HM pointed out that we don't have to wait for them to implement such a useful feature -- you can hack up your own NextMuni predictions with a site called TextMarks. We checked the site out, and whaddya know: it works! Go ahead and try out some of the predictions we set up: text 2216HARRISONIN to 41411. Here's how it works:......

If we may be permitted to step out of subjective first-person plural for a moment: I've had a lovely time hanging out at Isotope and writing comic book reviews for SFist for the last year and a half, and it's very fondly that I'll be devoting this last post to some of my favorite books from that time. But this won't be a re-review of those titles; instead, I'd like to wander away from......

If a staged opera is a traditional meal, with an amuse-bouche of an overture, a few appetizers of introduction to set up the drama, some meaty bits in the middle and as a palate cleanser, a tragic ending, then the Merola Grand Finale is an all-you-can-eat buffet: the highest quality items, for sure, not a $7.99 Vegas buffet. But we were confronted to the same dilemma: which singers to pick to highlight in a review?......

...and it's the special silver linings edition! We're mixing up the format a little and starting off with the East Bay Express. Why not? Bottom Feeder reports on a fight in a Contra Costa condo complex where one person tore out someone else's topiary duck. So Method and Red. Gay couples aren't sorry they demanded equal rights. Cover article: Julia Butterfly Hill (the chick who lived in a tree for two years) started her own......