Results tagged “travel”

For anyone who might be reading this before heading to the airport, expect delayed flights today. Although the FAA's Atlanta-based computer system is back up after an earlier system crash, they expect a ripple effect of residual delays throughout the day. Earlier this morning, all Bay Area flights were stacked at the gate, so it will be slow going today, folks.

David Byrne -- the tall guy in ivy league favorite Talking Heads/the man behind the score of The Last Emperor -- wrote in last week's Wall Street Journal about the perfect city. San Francisco was one of them, or so he thought.

This hilarious Oakland! "promo" by SF sketch comedy group/film production company Killing My Lobster has been making the rounds in recent weeks. Topics such as slow jaywalking, ghostriding, Zachary's vs. Little Star, and East Bay hipsters are covered.

Gay.com named the winners of their annual Travel Awards. To no one's surprise, San Francisco was named Favorite Domestic Destination. Woo hoo! Gavin, of course, was equally elated. Because this means more much-needed tourist dollars. "On behalf of the city and county of San Francisco, it is a great honor to be recognized as the 'Best Domestic Destination' in the US in the 2009 Gay.com Travel Awards," said Newsom. "I am proud to represent a city with so many historic firsts for the gay and lesbian community -- including the birth of the rainbow flag, home to the first openly gay men's chorus and the first LGBT chamber of commerce. We look forward to the readers of Gay.com creating their own 'only in San Francisco' experience." (Speaking of which, what's your own 'only in SF' experience, readers?) The winners (which includes the W winning Favorite Hotel Chain and London, England being named Favorite International Destination) were chosen by thousands of Gay.com's readers over the last two months.

Los Altos native Brian Kells reached out to local news stations this week after his fiancé of three weeks, Jill St. Onge, died very suddenly at a guesthouse on Phi Phi Island in Thailand after symptoms resembling poisoning. A young Norwegian tourist died only a day later after staying at the same guest house and showing and similar symptoms, and a similar case occurred only a month prior to another tourist. The deaths are making news around Thailand, but so far the U.S. Embassy hasn't been much help to Brian, so he's trying to make television appearances to draw attention to the case. His only theory so far is that there was something toxic in the air in the room where they stayed, and that his fiancé had spent about six more hours there than he had. He also began vomiting after spending three hours in the room. This is why we're suddenly glad we can't afford to go anywhere.

Swine flu-fearing travelers exit from the international terminal with their faces covered with masks at the SFO on Tuesday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fancies herself a star more than an elected official, at least according to a NY Post report that claims team Pelosi has been "berating military officials to get the best planes." According to the Rupert Murdoch-owned gossip rag, "Pelosi, who clashed with the military to get nonstop service when she flies home to California with police protection on government planes, revealed a particular fondness for Gulfstream's sleek G-5 - a plane glamorized in Hollywood films and rap videos."

by Tiffany Maleshefski

Yesterday we mentioned the delightful work trip/vacation San Francisco supervisor Bevan Dufty and city treasurer Jose Cisneros took to Australia for Sydney's Gay Mardi Gras. Trannyshack founder Heklina was there, too. And many readers fretted about whether or not city tax dollars went to pay for this trip down under -- an excursion, it should be mentioned, that will reportedly bring in much-needed tourist dollars to SF. Anyway, according to Dufty's office:

Today we're not going to be talking about just BART. Well, technically, it's myBART; and we're astonished to report that it's actually a rather good idea. Here's how the website describes itself:

Dear AlertSF,

We love Gridskipper's edge as of late. Take, for example, today's revealing top 8 San Francisco bars with the "crappiest crowds." Rankings 8, 7, 6, and 5 are Beauty Bar, Medjool, Swig, and R Bar, respectively. In all fairness, you need to visit good ol' Gridie to find out just who made the top four. (Also, regarding the number-one spot, we've never visited the sorta chic spot but have heard mixed reviews. Is it...

Although the T-Mobile store on Third and Market streets failed to make the list -- they're (allegedly) rampant fibbers over there, people! -- be sure to read Gridskipper's spot-on and delightful San Francisco Bad Service Board Game. They map out the top six as follows:

This past Thursday while we were en route from Denver to SFO, we were thoroughly enjoying the in-flight movie when screams suddenly broke out from the rear kitchen. Since we happened to be sitting in the very last row of the plane, we were especially caught off guard by the commotion and were forced to break focus from No Reservations (which was actually quite charming) to see what was going on.

Update: We just asked Heklina if it's true. "Yes, honey!" she replied. "Sometime in spring or early summer [of '08]." So...there you have it. Similar to the club night in question here, this is shocking. On Heklina's MySpace page, she tells us that she plans on shutting down Trannyshack -- San Francisco's longest-running (alternative-y) drag show, etcetera -- soon. Very soon. Heklina says, "I need to feel challenged and no longer feel I have...

-- Why, it's our very own SFist Rita kicking it in the comfy confines (and breaking down the latest season of Project Runway) over at SFGate. Awesome. [Culture Blog]

-- And then Nancy was all, "Like, what the hell, you guys?" [SF Examiner] -- The Central Subway Project. [Transbay Blog] -- Now you don't have to leave your bedroom to travel. Ever again. Yay! [The Tech Chronicles] -- The seven rules for talking (and not screaming self-righteously) about gentrification. [Neighbors Project] -- Behold: SF Weekly's new food blog. [SFoodie] -- A censure-free DiFi. [SFBG] -- After it was revealed that he was, and...

Last week Numb3ers -- that Tiffany network show starring the reportedly-difficult-to-work-with Rob Morrow -- featured an Alternate-Reality Game (ARG) as a plot device. It turns out that this was an actual launch for an ARG, Chainfactor. The idea is this: a players find codes on l'Internets as well as in real world locales. Take, for example, the tip we got that a hidden code is hidden at one of the billboards or advertisements on 24th Avenue and Geary. (Probably a hidden message about Satan, no doubt!) Word is that "most of the other ads that have been located appear to include the word 'chain'...most of the 'codes' appear to be a word accompanied by a 9 digit number."

-- Awesomeness: GG Park road to close on Saturdays! Yay! Mind the bison! [Examiner]

-- Clean up to take weeks. (But probably longer, we're betting.) [SFGate]

-- Chicken John hosts the Loser's Ball. Which a lot progressives did. Lose, that is. [Politics Blog]

-- The WGA strike suuuuuucks. As does a fall season full of reruns. [The Bastard Machine, The Snitch]

-- Barry Bonds: your San Francisco diva. [SFGate]

Photos from the annual soap box derby

Photo of the long long line of people standing around waiting to get their passports. Still

We caught Phil Setzer, the violinist for the Emerson String Quartet, being driven down between performances in Santa Barbara and Orange County. We hope it was in a stretch limo, as these guys have won eight Grammy awards and critical acclaim everywhere they go. They are the only chamber music group to ever win a best classical album grammy, and they even got two. So they better travel like the rock stars they are. They'll be up here on Sunday for a performance at Herbst Theater presented by SF Performances. They'll play the integral of Brahms string quartets, or, as we like to say, tunes from their latest CD.

Among San Francisco’s myriad neighborhoods, few are as widely misunderstood as the Outer Sunset. Location certainly plays a role. To your average Upper Haight resident – to say nothing of your average South of Market or North Beach resident – this beach-adjacent community may seem as distant as Honolulu, with an N-Judah trip that may rival a flight to Oahu in terms of travel time. But it’s sometimes easy to forget that San Francisco is a mere seven miles wide, and that the folks out west do have phone numbers that begin with 415, rather than 808.

Put on your party hats, folks. SF won yet another No. 1 spot to come-look-at-and-eat-interesting-stuff. This time the honor arrives care of Conde Nast Traveller magazine's annual Readers' Choice Awards.

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist.

Anyone else out there enjoying the lightning storm currently underway south of the city? When was the last time we were privy to such a spectacle?