On "America's Got Talent," Oakland schoolteacher Michael Strelo-Smith (check out his Web site and tell us just what the hell that thing in the upper left hand corner is) had a cold during his second performance, but sang anyway. Whether it was the cold, or his rather boring presentation, we can't say, but the judges deemed it not good enough, and he didn't make it to the Top 20. But Kashif and Boy Shakira......

Santa Cruz's Shauna Noland had a new partner on "So You Think You Can Dance," and he must have been a lucky charm as they did not need to "dance for their lives" this week. We're thrilled. On "Pirate Master" Nessa continued her flirting with fellow pirates who were open to it. Sean and Jupiter were not, and deemed her conniving, vowing to have her cast adrift at the next...casting adrift ceremony? During the treasure......

On "America's Got Talent" a local dance troupe called Hot Pink Feathers failed to impress the judges with their Carnaval-inspired gyrations. See the YouTube clip above for a sample. Santa Cruz dancer Shauna Noland was voted into the bottom three on "So You Think You Can Dance," but "danced for her life" and was kept around for another week by the judges. For some reason, our TiVo forgot to record "American Inventor" last week......

There were a lot of locals in the world of reality TV this week! "America's Got Talent" included an audition from an East Bay music teacher named Michael Strelo-Smith. He had an OK voice, but he was kind of boring. He swears he can sing anything and everything, but so far we are unimpressed. "Last Comic Standing" continued its trend of finding comedians who have been around for years, and presenting them as new......

So many recalls afoot these days, we're starting a new column! Today's recall news: a reader passed along these pictures of today's rather-sparsely attended Recall Peskin rally on the steps of City Hall. Looks like they got about a quarter of the 40 folks who signed the Peskin recall petition in the first place -- and it looks like we're the only people who even have news of the event up anywhere online. Our......

As part of the National Queer Arts Festival, graphic artist and memoirist Alison Bechdel is speaking at Michelle Tea's Radar Reading Series at the SF Public Library tonight! We've been huge fans of Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For for, like 10 years now (we're latecomers -- she's been drawing the strip since 1987), and her first graphic novel, Fun Home, about her relationship with her closeted gay father totally blew our mind with......

As we've already explained at tedious length, the bay area's old 511 service is basically useful to nobody (aside from the military contractor who we're paying $11,000,000 to maintain it for the next four years). But good news! There is finally a phone number you can call to get all your transportation questions answered: San Francisco's new 311. That's right -- 311 is doing the work that 511 promised but never delivered. Five-eleven still......

And so yesterday it was made official-- our Little Nancy is now Speaker of the House. No matter what you may think about her-- ultra-liberal, corporate sell-out, uninspirationalparty hack, and inspirational career woman-- it's a pretty big deal. Among other things it means, yes, pork, tons of pork headed to us. More pork than an All You Can Eat night at Jimmy Dean Sausage Emporium ...

--Why's Lawrence Wong getting in so much trouble for accidentally crossing a picket line when the Bay Area Reporter did too? --The Stanford Band frets about its future. --The SF hip-hop dancer (Allan) from the first season of So You Think You Can Dance supports Krissy Keefer. --Maggie Lynch compares MUNI to Lemony Snicket. --Skip school, go to jail. --More cops in North Beach. Why aren't there more cops in the Western Addition? --Pat Murphy......

Man, we were all set to start up a new column about our new favorite reality show "Who Wants To Be A Superhero?" (which is tied as our new favorite show with our other new favorite reality show, HGTV Design Star. Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance are our other favorite reality shows.) So the premise of Who Wants To Be A Superhero is that Stan Lee, of Spider-Man and Fantastic Four......

We figured SFist Eve would appreciate this one. As Muni riders know well, the tunnels can be, well, problematic. Uncle Wendy over at You Can't Force Me to Blog put together a verbatim intercom transcript from a recent experience stuck on the train. Unintentional hilarity ensues. Even better is the anecdote about a BART driver (engineer?) assuming a stoppage is due to an earthquake, which would pretty much terrorize anyone. So she proposes that......

SFist reviews Architecture in Helsinki...