Another public display of commemorative prose, folks. What with this plus the animals trying to escape from the zoo, you'd think the end is nigh, a big earthquake is on its way, or Aunt Flo has come for an extended visit. While mincing down Third Street to AT&T Park to catch some tasty waves, we came across the most darling bouquet of fresh flowers, above, lying on the sidewalk. While trying to steal them, we......

Attention conspiracy buffs: There's a secret project underway to seize control all of San Francisco's traffic lights, just like how the terrorists did in Live Free or Die Hard. Well, okay, the civic initiative (called "SFgo") isn't TECHNICALLY a secret; while it's true that nobody talks about it and current information is hard to come by, that's just because the project is really really boring. But here's something to spice it up: President Bush......

UPDATE: according to one eyewitness who went to the police station after the drive-by to make a report, "all of the gunshot victims died." However, after talking to SFPD, all victims are listed "critical or serious" condition as of noontime today. We had falsely reported otherwise. Oops.) A little after 1 a.m. this morning, three people were shot near the intersection of Stillman and Third streets. Right after the dozen or so gunshots jostled......

The man accused of assaulting and kidnapping Elie Wiesel -- attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, battery, stalking, elder abuse and hate crimes, to be exact -- changed his not guilty plea to one of insanity today. Earlier this year, if you recall, Eric Hunt, 23, stalked and dragged the Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor from an elevator at the Argent Hotel (recently re-branded Westin San Francisco Market Street, even though it's totally located on......

An update on news about the oil spill ...

According to Bay City News, "two separate Friday night shootings that occurred within about an hour of each other sent three men to San Francisco General Hospital." (And it's not even Halloween yet. Jumping the gun a bit, yes?)...

-- "The Crib": Shitty City Nights' only decent club night, the one where you're not called a "faggot" if you happen to be walking outside of it (i.e., on Friday and Saturday nights). Why? Because tonight's for the homos. Hip hop, Top 40, and club hits abound at this popular 18-and-over twink night. Tonight's theme: Messy Britney. Do your best sloppy Britney Spears tribute on stage, and win a bag of crystal meth, or......

-- The 2007 Bay Area Rhythm Exchange: Stepology (which we can only hope is very much like "Vibeology") presents tap stars Channing Cook-Holmes (Riverdance, Gangs of New York, Bojangles), John Kloss (Tap Heat), Deborah Mitchell (The Cotton Club, Black and Blue), Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards (Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, Bamboozled), Sam Weber (Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood). 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre (SF War Memorial and Performing Arts Center), 401 Van Ness; $19-$22. -- Chrome:......

-- All About Eve: Brutal, drunk, rapid-fire dialogue; famous lines ("Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night," etc.); and a backstage story told so, so, so well make this '50s film more than just a camp classic. Starring Bette Davis. Screens tonight at 7 p.m. at the Castro Theatre, Castro & Market Streets; $9.50. -- Rush: Canadian rock flows freely at 7:30 p.m., Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, (Mountain View); $29.50-$79.50.......

Hey did you know that sometimes Muni makes mistakes? It's totally true! For example, you might not know this, but the launch of the T line was not without the occasional snafu. We refer, of course, to the confusion with the 54-Felton: according to a source at Muni, speaking on condition on anonymity, the 54 was re-routed onto Newhall to make room for the Third -- but nobody noticed that the new streets weren't......

We actually got just a little bit choked up when we read Muni's farewell to the 15 line. The damn bus line's been running since 1940 -- sixty-seven years! Before that, there were electric trolleys; before that, the line was pulled by unicorns or something. So goodbye, old fiend. Time to step down to open that back door in the sky. Muni's tribute: Public transportation on Third Street began as a horsecar line and......

As you can see, the pouring rain was wreaking havoc on Gavin Newsom's carefully-styled coif this morning at the Second Fake Question Time townhall meeting in District 10's Bayview district. We arrived at the Whitney Young Child Development Center at the tail end of an angry pre-game protest about how the mayor's office has neglected the Bayview, and we were also too late to get any of the complimentary lanyards that the MUNI information......

Hey, the new MUNI T Third line is finally open! That's the new light rail route that goes (.gif) from Castro Station down Third Street, through Dogpatch, down the Bayview, past Monster Park, and all the way to Sunnydale Avenue. We decided to spend our day off today checking it out. The T-Third is running in beta from now until April 1-- it's only running on weekends and every twenty minutes (though we waited about......

As we all know, Gavin is up for re-election this year (and why 2007? Aren't big elections supposed to be in even-numbered years? Is this one more "only in SF" type of thing?). So today's Examiner gets all up in Gavin's grill and checks him out. They recap his bout of recent bout of bad news, interview him (blue tie sighting!), and hand out report cards on his 2003 campaign promises. ...

Ahh, the Third Street light rail (the "T-Third")...for so long just a gleam in a transit rider's eye. Well, this weekend it's going to be tested out. Which is great for people who want to ride it. But not so great for people who are looking to drive in that area because MTA will close the Islais Creek Bridge and the 4th Street Bridge to test it out....

-St. Boniface Catholic Church in the Tenderloin is having a money crunch which could affect it's ability to handle the homeless. -Cabbie is found shot to death in the Richmond Annex ...

In Color 2 (2475 Third Street, Suite 251 at 22nd Street) The Ghana Youth Photo Project Opening Benefit Reception: Fri., Aug. 25, 6-9 p.m. Last October San Francisco Camerawork’s youth mentoring program First Exposures sponsored Jamie Lloyd’s trip to West Africa to bring a photography program to 11 youths in Ghana’s capital city of Accra. The children not only learned a new skill but were also given the opportunity to visually represent their country, culture,......

We're getting pretty antsy, waiting for service to start on Muni's fabled new Third Street line. It was originally supposed to be operational when, like, 2005? And the delays just keep mounting. The lastest obstacle: getting driver signed up and trained for the new line. Muni was dragging its feet on that, and for a while it looked like the training process would mean an additional couple months of delays -- but the SF......

Ironic, that one leaving for work early in the morning to avoid traffic can end up causing it. A man driving to work in Palo Alto around 5:30 this morning slammed into the side of a 60-foot-long delivery truck on Middlefield near San Antonio. The man claims he didn't see the truck, which seems a little weird to us, because the truck had blocked three lanes of Middlefield as it was backing into the Toyota of Palo Alto lot. The guy was going under 20 mph, and wedged his 1994 Acura Legend right underneath the trailer. Fortunately, no one was injured, in part because the guy was going so slow and the car was relatively low to the ground. Up in San Francisco, the professionally-sensitive CHP have announced that a woman was found wandering in a daze by the side of 101 S near Cesar Chavez around 7:30 this morning with minor bruising and bleeding. According to the article, the woman, who was picked up at the corner of 16th and Mission, was "negotiating for some type of services" with the man, whom she reports not knowing, when they got in an argument and he pushed her out of the car near the 280/101 split. Gee, what do you think was going on there? The woman claims the car was going 60 mph, but the CHP says her injuries would have been much worse if that were true. Call 1-800-TELL-CHP if you have any information. ...man, finding the third entry is always the hardest. Um, MUNI is closing down parts of Third Street this evening as they test the electrical system for the new Third Street rail. You'll see a flash and hear some popping sounds at 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. tonight. ...

Last week's winner, the new tabloid-style redesigned Bay Guardian. Pool of blood! Murders! Headless Body In Topless Bar! All for their 40th anniversary. Looks good -- but this type is hard to read. Various outrages in our city. And man, we thought this "Wade versus Redmond" ad on page 17 for the Third Street Gym referred to Tim Redmond. The redesign's throwing off our skim-o-tron! Cover: The SFPD ignoring Asian-American gang stabbings in the Tenderloin. And Sonic Reducer declined to go to a party with a Fleetwood Mac cover band featuring Joanna Newsom as Stevie Nicks!?!!?!??! (Well, it was raining pretty hard last week....) Making a triumphant return, the San Jose Metro!. Second Amendment advocates in San Jose use Chris Daly's own Prop H to get the right to bear arms into the state Constitution. Please, no more propositions! Haven't we learned from our mistakes of the past? Cover article: excellent Chinese subregional food in Milpitas (Darda rules). Why do alternative-rock listeners have to go all anti-Latino about the switchover at 104.9? And SFist Eve's horoscope: she should expand her spiritual life. After the jump, the two New Times publications (the Weekly and the EBX). ...

Okay, we're only just getting back on the yoga wagon after taking a long extended break from physical activity of any kind. (we're not even running for MUNIs anymore, that's how lazy we've gotten.) But on our first day back, our new yoga teacher mentioned that there's a super sale going on this Saturday for yoga gear from local company Yoga Mats! What better way to reward oneself for re-downwarding one's dog than by buying cute sports accessories? And you know, you can never really justify buying, say, a gorgeous yoga mat bag for yourself ("I can just carry my mat to Yoga Tree," and then you feel like a doof walking down Hayes Street with a big ol' sticky mat under your arm like a hobo), but wouldn't that make a lovely gift for the ardha chandra sana-ist in your life? They've also having a sale on more traditional purple sticky mats and those little bricks that are so handy as you struggle through the triangle pose, if you're an actual diligent yogini and practice at home as well. The sale's at the Third Street Holiday Warehouse at 2455 3rd Street (between 20th and 22nd Streets) and features not only Yoga Mats but lots of other local vendors, including The Cat's Pajamas (PJs as featured on Will and Grace), pet accessorizers, Emily The Strange, and letterpressers, among many others. Cash preferred. Picture of yoga mat from Yoga Mats...

Hey folks living around 16th and Folsom -- the DPT's thinking about installing those nifty countdown crosswalk signals in your neighborhood. The thing is, though, they don't come cheap; they'll need $50,000 to go up. Whether you think that's a jim-dandy idea, or you agree that the money would be better spent ripping out the asphalt and installing a community garden, breeze on by the SFCTA's monthly meeting on December 7 at 6 PM......

That's all we are saying in our Dog Patch neighbourhood where officials have been trying to improve the sidewalks by planting rows of young saplings. In a location where our car gets broken into and vandalized on a regular basis, we are not surprised that there are people who for some reason think it's clever, smart or even fun to go and spoil the very things that are intended to improve our hood. Trees,......

...because SFist Rita can't! OK, last week's winner was the Guardian. It's their 39th anniversary, and we're talking about housing in the city. Cover story: characterless and expensive condos on the East side. The Warfield sues the Weekly, claiming, among other things, that a Bill Graham staffer threateded to "f**k up" the Warfield. (SFist f**ks stuff up all the time, where's our cool lawsuit?). Oakdale projects are unbelievably squalid. Third Street light rail will......

"No, no, the X-Files do exist!!" A man went a little nuts in the lobby of the SF FBI office and did about $7,491 in damage as a result. (Do they keep all their receipts in the FBI or what?) After Maximillian Lee Schweitzer was told he could not meet with an agent (the article doesn't say for what reason Mr. Schweitzer needed to see someone), he flipped out, threw a potted plant against the wall, snapped some legs off the reception-area chairs, and broke some glass display cases before the feds got him under control. This murder case in Orinda is really starting to freak us out. So Susan Polk, 47, is accused of killing her 70-year-old husband Felix Polk. Susan met Felix Polk when she was 15 and he was her treating psychiatrist. Susan Polk has said she's psychic and that she predicted 9/11, and back in the 80s, she also accused some local day care workers of ritualistic child abuse. Susan claims that Felix had been abusing her for years; Felix made statements that he and his sons lived in fear of his wife. Further weirding us out, Susan and Felix have three sons. Two sons are cooperating with the prosecution, and one son is testifying on her behalf at the criminal trial. And two shootings in broad daylight yesterday -- one in the Bayview and one in Richmond. People fleeing the Bayview shooting left footprints in wet concrete being laid for the MUNI Third Street extension, and in Richmond, a man walked up to a stereo store and just started shooting. ...

For those of you wondering why BART has been almost MUNI-like, it's because of a that's throwing everything off. Due to that little glitch, switching equipment is malfunctioning somewhere between Colma and Millbrae and the result is a stopped BART. In order to fix the problem when it occurs, BART drivers have to get out of the train, walk up the tracks and manually switch the thing themselves. The result of the little software problem has been delays up and down the line as trains have been held up anywhere from a few minutes to a full hour. SFist can fully vouch for the problems as we've missed our connections at Millbrae twice in the past week and the only thing that's kept us from having a severe case of Pub Trans Rage is memories of the N Judah....

We're on a lighter posting schedule today in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. -- we hope you have the day off to spend at a number of Bay Area celebrations scheduled for today. (If you don't get the day off, spend all day playing Public Enemy really, really loud). In San Francisco, the MLK parade will begin at 11:30 at the Fourth and King Street when the "Freedom Train" pulls into the Caltrain station, and goes up Third Street, down Market, and ends at Civic Center Plaza. Starting at 12:30, Representative Barbara Lee will speak, and local American Idol finalist LaToya London will perform. Dr. King advocated racial justice, most famously in his I Have A Dream speech in 1963, and was assassinated in Memphis in 1968. Keep the dream alive. ...

The drive to recall Supervisor Sophie Maxwell has failed, with over half of the almost 6000 signatures gathered invalidated for one reason or another....