Spotted this flyer in Upper Haight an hour ago… (shot + uploaded with my Ocean.)

Anyone going? I might run down to see what it looks like; we’re already swamped here with news vans and helicopters :(

Update: I just ran out and took the image below, with a couple more of what it’s like right now, after the jump. Yes, it’s freezing outside. Thank you Jonathan, for lending me a camera.

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Car sharing is a great way for us carless types to have easy access to wheels whenever we need them. I’ve been a Zipcar member for a little over a year now, and love its ease of use, with online & mobile booking, and availability all over the city. I also get to drive all kinds of cool cars (like Priuses and Mini Coopers)! Members also get to use cars in other cities, like New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto and London.

It’s about to get a little better!

Today, Zipcar and Flexcar have announced their intent to merge (read the press release here). This is great for members of both services, for we now get better insurance and even MORE cars/locations to choose from! Flexcar also adds Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to the cities a member can share cars within.

I’m pretty excited about this merger and hope it encourages more people to use car sharing!

Above photo is of Prius Paltrow on my recent trip to the Wine Country.

Felt like a 3.0 pointer here in North Beach, but too soon to tell I guess. Epicenter is south of San Jose. More info on the USGS site:
USGS Recent Earthquakes

Update: now they say 5.6.

Checking out various trivia venues, thought I’d post what ones I know about- please feel free to add your favorites in the comments!

• Mondays
  • 8 PM Blackthorn just started a Brainstormer trivia, Inner Sunset, 8th & Irving
    Probably one of the decent trivia nights I’ve experienced. You get a flow of UCSF braniancs, and locals, which makes it an interesting blend.

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Wednesday is the last day of the DonorsChoose Bloggers Challenge and this is our last plea to donate what you can to some amazing charities. Metroblogging readers have directly impacted the lives of over 500 students so far and there are a lot of new charities to choose form. A big bunch of them local to the San Francisco area. Please take a few minutes and check out the page and donate a few (totally tax deductable) dollars and help some local SF kids get a beter edumacation so they don’t end up haing to blog for a living :-) See the list and donate here.

You can read my original post on the Bloggers Challenge here.

Enrico’s at 504 Broadway will be packed this Sunday afternoon as it’s hosting a “wake” in honor of namesake Enrico Banducci . The neighborhood will no doubt turn out in droves to celebrate the amazing & colorful life of grand showman Enrico with his family and friends. The event is scheduled this Sunday Oct 28Th @ 1pm and open to general public with an open mic forum.

Banducci passed away on October 9th, but leaves behind an iconic entrepreneurial legacy that includes not only his namesake Broadway cafe but also the Clown Alley hamburger stand, and most famously the hungry i nightclub. This intimate venue, refused to serve drinks during the entertainers sets, and helped launch the careers of The Kingston Trio, Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory, Jonathan Winters, Maya Angelou, Woody Allen, Prof Irwin Corey, Jonathan Winters, and even Barbra Streisand. He fed the talent his famous free sandwiches, and nurtured free speech and art in a very conservative era.

Banducci , who might have had more wives than real business sense eventually lost too much money running his most famous venture, and an era ended when he sold the Hungry i name off by 1970 to topless club king Sam Conti who used the name as a strip club at 546 Broadway.

More on Enrico’s enduring legacy after the jump
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SF’s large Mac enthusiast population will be busy downloading & installing this weekend’s latest marching orders from their turtlenecked cult leader Steve Jobs…

Leopard, for those not prone to follow upgrade lingo, is the new $129 operating system upgrade from Apple’s Cupertino HQ.

First released as a beta to attendees at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference at Moscone in June, the long delayed Leopard is now considered street worthy and fit for 64 bit multi-core Intel processors.

Ipod users and Iphone abusers are eagerly anticipating trying out their new wet grassy default wallpaper and 300 some quirky features & improvements. Top touts include stuff like Time Machine, Automator, Spaces, Docking With Stacks, Cover Flow file views and other geektastic gizmos built into the fresh code for the Mac platform.

Here’s a link to a guided tour.

Longshoreman’s Hall, the same venue where the notorious Acid Test’s were held in the mid 1960′s, is hosting a concert and special benefit fundraiser this Saturday night. While it’s very unlikely that Ken Kesey or Jerry Garcia will be in the neighborhood, their spirited disciples and old friends sure will, and carrying a torch for a special charity.

If you were down with The Summer of Love or would just like to carry that spirit with ya into the current millennium perhaps you’ll dig this “Far Out” benefit concert event for the “Hope and Beyond” Student Service-Learning Project.
Amongst the organizers are John Helms, the brother of legendary rock promoter and Family Dog member, the late Chet Helms.

Saturday’s benefit concert at the historic labor venue near Fisherman’s Wharf will be fun for all involved and raise much needed funds that go to India to get AIDS testing and prevention programs rolling in that populous but unprepared region.

Amongst the performers participating in this benefit gig are Summer of Love survivors like Mike Wilhelm of The Charlatans and the remaining members of The Quicksilver Messenger Service. Members of the younger generation might want to check out the band Lane Four, a recent KFOX radio contest finalist featuring Gregg Allman’s 14 year old daughter Layla. She’s the co-emcee for the evening and student body president of her school in the Redwood City School District. The event is open for FREE for the first 100 + adult San Francisco residents pledging to be HIV TESTED, and $25 thereafter for all pledging HIV testing.

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Former Stanford provost ,alum and oil tanker namesake, Condoleeza Rice was confronted before her testimony in a House chamber today with a Code Pink member waving bloody hands in her face. Bay Area congressman and chairman of the House Foreign Relations committee Tom Lantos shouted “Out!,” while Desiree Anita Ali-Fairooz, the red paint wearing woman protester, was hauled away shouting “War Criminal! War Criminal!”.

Seconds later in a video, one catches the violent take down of more Code Pink members by Capitol security for who knows what offense, possibly wearing the same pink shirt too many times to the building. 5 demonstrators in all were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, including locally based activist Medea Benjamin.

It’s not the first time Code Pink has disrupted Rice. At a Commonwealth Club event in May, Benjamin and three others interrupted a speech by The Secretary of State at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall shouting “Stop the torture. Stop the killing. U.S. out of Iraq,” as police led them out of the auditorium.

Short video clip of Condoleeza’s less than enthused groupies at the Capitol building below…
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The Coalition of Aging Rockers has lost a comrade, and he likely was the cleanest liver of the bitter bunch, the least alcoholic and most studious, but it was his damn kidneys that gave out anyway at the age of 40. Billy Joel & later Me First & The Gimme Gimmes have reminded me musically that “only the good die young“, and indeed that seems true, as we have sadly lost another one of the good guys.

Longtime local SF musician Lance Hahn, who lovingly named his punk rock band after his favorite Muni streetcar line has died after long battles with kidney ailments in an Austin Texas hospital this past weekend. Best known for fronting his band J Church, Hahn operated out of San Francisco from the early 90′s for almost a decade until he relocated from a flat near 16th on Valencia St to Austin in 2000.

He had originally come from Hawaii circa 1990 with a scrappy trio known as Cringer, which played shows at venues like The Women’s Building, Komotion & Berkeley’s Gilman St Project. Eventually he formed J-Church which released literally hundreds of recordings on tiny indie record labels all over the world including his own Honey Bear imprint. While not a technically gifted singer, he parlayed a vast array of musical influences including everything from Crass, The Mob, Radiohead, Poi Dog Pondering to ELO, into a blend of pop infused punk that became uniquely identifiable & influential, remaining well regarded in the underground music scene. He had no shortage of themes & subjects, composing improbable rock titles like “Leni Riefenstahl’s Tinder Box”, “The Dramatic History Of A Boring Town” , or “Socialist Newspaper”, all the while delivering each song with an overall emotional sincerity rarely heard in a jaded age. One memorable release to check out would have to be his Mission District opus “Camels, Spilled Coronas & The Sound of Mariachi Bands”. For those who’d like a broader overview, perhaps the compilation of rare 7″ tracks called “Nostalgic for Nothing”.

For more on Lance Hahn and his life, and some video & sonic samples of his songwriting, head below the fold…
pic courtesy Fat Wreck Chords
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