Over the weekend we went to Casanova's and realized that hipster beards have achieved some sort of critical mass. It appeared that every fourth person in the bar had some sort of beard, giving the bar a high HBQ (Hipster Beard Quotient, a stat derived by dividing the number of beards per customer, multiplying it by the size of the crowd, and then dividing it again by the square footage). The HBQ was not quite Boogaloos high but high nevertheless. We also noticed that there were also a high variety of beards seen, meaning that the beard craze has gone from it's "classic" phase to "gothic" phase....

Sorry for the day late post, but it was a hectic weekend, and we just couldn't bear having to recount the tragedy that was this week's "Project Runway" without at least one good night's sleep behind us. Let's get this over with. Last week's pathetic challenge still hung in the air this week with the designers discussing Carmen's exit, and Chris proposing a "Project Runway" fragrance that would be a mixture of tears, sweat,......

Man, we can tell how long we've been doing this by the number of Zagat posts we've amassed! The 2008 edition is out: your nice alphabetical list of restaurants with a grade for food, decor and service, as rated by the users of Zagat. This year, it is going 2.0, with the introduction of such spiffy new things as colors, as in two of them, black and red! Post-it "love it" tags to customize your......

San Rafael-based Edutopia Magazine, which is brought to us by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, looks to the future in its latest issue, identifying 10 ideas or trends that its experts believe can improve K-12 education. We found them thought provoking, and hope you agree. ...

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too - two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

You mean those train tracks are actually used by real trains? The City of Berkeley is working to implement a quiet zone to prevent the freight trains from sounding their whistles at intersections due to complaints from residents of this traditionally industrial area. While we find train horns romantic, we must admit that we might find them less so if they were not so off-in-the-distance. Though we wonder why the City didn't make the developers......

We've never been to London, so we've never shopped at Topshop. Anybody we've met who's ever shopped at Topshop always raves about it. "It's like H&M, only better!" they say. Usually followed with, "When's it coming to the US?" ...

Tonight is another epic shindig at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (701 Mission at 3rd), celebrating the opening of R. Crumb’s Underground, a thematically-organized show of collaborative drawings (including work with his wife, Aline), self-portraits, and counter-cultural chronicles, including early and new work, plus rare film screenings of some of the blues, swing and "exotica" bands that inspired Crumb's Cheap Suit Serenaders. The soirée also celebrates the opening of The Black Factory by William......

We're covering for SFist Jon today! --Left in SF asks progressives to play nice in the Migden-Leno race. Hilariously, Chris Daly refuses, twice. --Beyond Chron gives the lowdown on David Latterman and Rich DeLeon's SPUR talk about recent city voting trends. --PartyParty is unhappy about Gavin Newsom's plans to veto the 6 month trial of car-free Saturdays in Golden Gate Park (despite reports saying that it doesn't reduce the number of park visitors). --Getty v.......

All the political junkies in town know that David Latterman and Rich DeLeon's cogent analyses of the current local political scene are statistically sound, politically astute, and so cannily call the upcoming trends that it's a little frightening how accurate they are -- but we love them the most for their gorgeous maps! The map to your right (from this analysis) is the percentage of people ranking more than one choice in the supervisorial races......

A recent article in the New York Times titled, "Can Polyester Save the World?" got us really clammy at the thought of wearing man-made fibers 24/7 (like how we feel when we wear polyester), but it also got us thinking about how our clothing has a pretty big carbon footprint in terms of how it's made and the care involved, such as washing/drying, dry-cleaning and ironing. In addition, "fast fashion" trends, which are enabled by cheap clothing chains like Target and H&M, have added clothing to the list of items piling up in our landfills. ...

One of the countless trends in the non-profit arts world that we run across during the course of our day job is new initiatives by august institutions to ply their wares to younger audiences, kinda like Pepsi's "Choice of a New Generation" Campaign years back. SF360 is an effort of said type by the San Francisco Film Society. Tonight the Society presents the latest SF360 Film+Club a once-a-month evening of film and clubbing, featuring selected......

We regularly try to come up with a clever title that sums up our event picks for the day, and today's Tonight events seem to comprise a number of the big trends fueled by internet-land. Food activism - New College (766 Valencia St. near 19th) hosts "Eating Locally, Thinking Globally," organized by Christopher Cook of the Grotto. Join food experts, activists, and San Francisco city supervisors for this evening of education -- and action......

SFist Mary Ladd tells us what it's like on the other side of the buffet line! We need to relax, pronto! A killer gig of taking care of other people -- otherwise known as catering -- leaves us with sore muscles, red eyes, and a smile on our face. Say Wha? Don't let anyone lie to you and say catering is easy. It's not. But we are crazy enough to enjoy doing it. Something about......

We here at SFist are always eager to be entertained, whether in the form of governmental coiffure trends or pop cultural parodies. TradeMark of the Evolution Control Committee moved here from Ohio a few years back and never fails to entertain us with his copyright-skirting mash ups, a genre he pretty much founded back in the 80s. Evolution Control Committee performs tonight at a Creative Commons Salon and Fundraiser at Shine (1337 Mission between......

We've held out this long, and we're only gonna make this jokes once, but this summer, watch out for... Drinks on a plane! (We'll now run across the street and demand of the priest an appropriately harsh prescription for penance.) But don't worry, technology and, to a lesser extent, the Bush and Blair administrations, are here to protect you. With biometric terrorist detectors, other tech that's been around for generations, and the latest in arbitrary......

Eyes always peeled, nose always to the grindstone, corpus madidus Nico has noticed a disturbing trend in our fair city recently: a resurgence of the mustache. Odious as it may be, its staunch defenders will say a little mustache can't hurt you (make you question their prevailing wisdom perhaps, but no actual bloodshed). Anyway, they will argue there's nothing wrong with a little hair on the lip. Not only are they de rigueur in Hollywood,......

Maybe you should have voted for Prop A this election cycle after all -- at the halfway mark for 2006, there've been 45 murders this year, putting us on pace for 90 by Dec. 31. At this point last year, there were only 41 murders, but the grand total for 2005 ended up at 95, leading us to assume that maybe homicides aren't linear functions. (In 2004, there were 88 murders, for those of you......

Please welcome contributing SFist Bailey (that's her on the left) and her guardian, Stan, and they sniff out (ha!) the dog-friendliest spots in the City. Welcome to the Year of the Dog. To celebrate and honor this year, we will keep our paws to the ground and our nose in the air to uncover all the best places to whine and dine at the generosity of others. This is a column for all the......

Hey, do you remember way back to two weeks ago when the latest member of the -ist family came on board and SFist Eve said we couldn't think of a reason to hate on them yet? Well, now we have one -- the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team has announced that they're decamping to Houston. MLS was reportedly unhappy with the persistent low attendance numbers at Spartan Stadium, and after San Jose was unable to reach an agreement to build them a new stadium downtown, and despite a rally of their faithful fans, the team decided to flee. Houston will make an official announcement tomorrow at 10 a.m. central time. We know, we know, it's our fault for tempting the Houston gods! We're sorry, Bay Area soccer fans! Funnily enough, the same week SFist Eve called down the vengeance of Houston on our fair -ist region, SFist Chris also posted about strange trends in migrating team names. Perhaps taking a note from this, San Jose has at least managed to keep ownership of the "Earthquakes" name. Because .... the Houston Earthquakes? Is there a fault in Texas that no one's told us about? San Jose says they'll bring soccer back as soon as they can find a new sponsor. ...

With Anne Rice only writing for God and "gothic" becoming synonymous with crazy teen killer, those of us who like our music how we like our coffee are left twisting in the dramatically flattering wind. Fear not, as Jill Tracy is here to deliver us. Equal parts performance artist, evil MC, filmmaker, musician, and bad-ass icon, Jill Tracy and The Malcontent Orchestra will be at the Hypnodrome all weekend as part of the Thrillpeddlers'......

You know how all those 'hott trends' seem to start in New York, and float out here fanned by the butterfly wings of fashion and lifestyle magazines? Well, this summer, the 'buzz' isn't about hemlines or heel heights -- no, it's about the must have epidemic, West Nile virus! And now San Francisco has finally joined the club. We lived in Brooklyn during the summer West Nile fever gripped New York City, and let......

The votes from Ohio are in! The hanging chads have been dimpled! The electoral college has matriculated! We're calling the SFist Hottest SF Supervisor race -- and the Marina's own Michela Alioto-Pier takes the crown and beauty pageant sash! Fweeeee! Go Balloons! Where are our fricken balloons? Michela, after a slow start, rallied as the voting continued, and ultimately won with 25% of the vote, a full 6% ahead of our next closest two (Chris Daly and Fiona Ma tied with 19% each). Ross M. trailed behind in fourth place, with 16%. Trends to watch? Well, interestingly, your political hotttness vote seems equally split between progressive men and moderate women, San Francisco. Would things have come out differently with ranked choice voting? Would Mirkarimi have forged an alliance with Ma? And what if Matt or Gavin had gone with an endorsement? All things to think about. Meanwhile, thanks for playing, SF! Enjoy the pictures of MAP! ...

This week, we were struck by how we related to each and every thing our fellow 'Fisters sent to us to compile for this column. While we won't go as far to give you the rundown on what we have on our online reserve list, or what we're looking forward to buying the next time we're in one of our fine local independent bookstores, we just can't restrain ourselves from self-indulgently chiming in on......

Last week's pick, the Guardian. Tim Redmond dislikes the Pope. The editorials come out anti-Alioto-Pier's TIC proposal (curious, since the paper comes out on Wednesday when the vote was on Tuesday). Cover article: a harrowing tale of how hard it is to get insurance coverage for carpal tunnel and other repetitive-stress injuries under saggy Schwarzenegger's attacks on workers' comp. Annalee Newitz goes to Washington. A review of the awesome Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant. Hip-hop porn. And an excitingly self-centered interview with Deborah Gibson in Sonic Reducer! ("When I saw Britney Spears, I thought she was Mini-Me." Mmmm? Do you remember Debbie Gibson in a short-short Catholic schoolgirl uniform? Us neither.) The SF Weekly. SFist Jon -- we mean, Matt Smith, comes out against Leno's hemp cultivation bill. Mecklin endorses the Honduran pope candidate. Apologist: Alex Fagan not guilty? Whaaaa? Cover article: why saggy Schwarzenegger is trying to destroy public pensions. Vote for us in the 2005 Best of the Bay balloting! (in the category of "best yoga studio!") Hot music trends for 2005 (Go! Team, suit jacket over t-shirt) and a hilarious interview with Scott Weiland about his high school. And Savage Love: bondage. The East Bay Express (list-o-mania!), no Metro this week (we're back to reading only hard copies), and the Weekly of the Week after the jump....

For those of you who were wondering, yes, we are actually here for the panels. Kind of. We're also here to get drunk and make out. But only after discussing copyright reform, comment spam, the need for more diversity of voices in the blogosphere, the nature of journalism and the latest trends in technology. Because that gets us hott. Ever since the computer meltdown, though, we've been beholden to the computers in the press......

Ack. The camera broke. Far be it from the Trimethyldioxypurist to post a coffee shop review without a photo. Time for a bit of a screed. After the discovery of the holy grail of Bay Area coffee last week, it's a good time to sit back and take stock of why we do this. And how we go about it. Is it time for a change in format? After a mere three months? And......

What with the tsunami and the upcoming inaguration, disaster scenarios are all the rage. To help calm down an unsettled world, the German Reinsurance company, Munich Re, has come out with a list of cities around the world that are at highest risk for some sort of “mega-disaster.” Our little neck of the world, that being the Bay Area, comes in as the second most vulnerable city, beating out every city except Tokyo. Woo......

A close friend of SFist has been fending off some hacker attacks of late. If any of our readers can offer guidance in protecting a box or tracking down some hackers to plead our case for them not to harass friendlies, we'd greatly appreciate it -- especially if they happen to speak Portuguese. Travel down to the San Jose Tech Museum and tele-arm-wrestle a human opponent across the country. That's right - using telehaptics, you......