A year ago I blogged about Josh Bazell, a doctor at UCSF who had just gotten a million dollar book deal. Well, the book, Beat the Reaper, has just been released, and Leonardo DiCaprio has just been signed to star in a film of the comic thriller. I’ll let that E! Online article give the one-line summary of the book: it’s “a comic suspense tale about a former hit man hiding out as a Manhattan emergency room doctor whose cover is blown after a mobster recognizes him.” The main character is also a martial arts expert who kills people with his hands, as well as with — not to give away the ending — a particularly unique weapon.

I caught up with author Josh Bazell on Thursday and talked to him about his book and his work as a newly minted M.D.

How did you decide to write a novel about a hit man who has become a brilliant doctor?

I was interested in writing a book about the extent to which people can change their own identities. I was focused on that issue at the time because I was doing my medical training, and I was probably curious — and maybe fearful — about how it might change me.

Much more after the jump

Courtesy SFist — which provided a huge public service by untangling the stupidity of Muni publishing dozens of proposed route changes on dozens of separate PDFs — here are all the proposed changes to Muni routes posted to SFist’s Flickr set. SFist rules today.

Among the several radical changes:

• Bryant Street is totally out of luck. No more service in the Mission District or South of Market. That means that if you wanted to take a bus to or from the Hall of Justice — like if your car was towed and you wanted to get it back — you have to catch a bus on Folsom and then walk two blocks.

More changes after the jump

The public comment period for the new Institute for Regeneration Medicine at UCSF is underway (also known as the Stem Cell Research building). If you are interested, UCSF is planning on building over 71K square feet of essentially lab space on the hill behind the hospital located at 505 Parnassus. This project is on a fast-track, expected to break ground in August of 2008. The window for public comment closes on March 3, 2008.

Taking a cursory review of the Draft Mitigated Negative Declaration (who knows what that means?) the structure looks kind of cool and modern. Built into the slope of the hill to minimize impact to the observer. The document states that the new building will meet the UC Regents minimum LEED rating, I’m not sure what that min is but it’s exciting the building will keep an eye towards LEED cert.
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Everyone knows that the city’s parks are in need of some help, and while cutting all the shrubs and finally chasing the live-in speed freaks out is a start, there are other issues afoot.

One Cole Valley Neighborhood NIMBY is angry, and getting no where with the folks ensconced in historic McLaren Lodge, he’s been reaching out to Board of Supes Prez Aaron Peskin at City Hall. In fact in a recent open letter, he claims that Peskin, is “Our Only Hope”, giving the nerdy Telegraph Hill dweller a rep more akin to the one Princess Leia heaved on Obie Wan Kenobi.

Perhaps such Sci-Fi dramatics are warranted when you spend hour upon unpaid hour voluntarily analyzing the topsy turvy alternate universe of the 2005-2006 Park & Rec expenditures, something the city doesn’t seem to have time to do. It’s a wacky world where one guy can turn a park patrol gig into a 6 figure feast & make more than 70% of his pay via overttime, and yer average staff gardener or debris truck drivers can literally rake in over $80,000 a year, yet basic services like public restrooms languish.

With the recent California Supreme Court decision that declares gov’ts must release public employee salary information…who knows, maybe something will finally come of this long running ten year fiasco.

After all, it was in a city employee audit in 1996 that this comment was made:
” By providing a culture of unfettered acceptance and opportunity for individuals to increase their salaries substantially over base levels, the City may be inadvertently encouraging its employees to overwork themselves and to manipulate the work scheduling system to achieve personal economic advantage.”

Huh? like G.W Bush said of the effects of Katrina, who could have ever imagined or foreseen such a thing occuring?

Not the folks in charge in McLaren Lodge anyhow… hmmm, maybe the guy in charge of the still fk’d up stables can get a job running FEMA?

The full letter to Peskin about SF tax dollars at work in the parks after the jump…
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(From Ephemera.)

I mentioned Café du Soleil in an earlier post, but I went back to try the food and do some work. It’s a nice little place–I’d like someone who’s actually been there to verify this, but I imagine it feels very much like a French neighborhood cafe. It’s very laid-back, very friendly, and very conducive to reading, conversation, and all the other things one should be able to do in a cafe. (And blogging–I’m sitting in Café du Soleil right now.) More on the food after the jump.

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Today I made peace with the fact that, yes, I am one of those neighborhood busybodies. Someday I will have the city complaint line on speedial. I’m okay with that.

It’s just that I have this innate sense of justice. And when I see the jerks of the world getting away with their jerkiness, it burns me up inside.

Here’s the story. Last Thursday night, as I was taking the pups on their last walk of the evening, there was the unmistakable sound of a moving car hitting a still one. A car alarm blared out and the dogs and I turned to see a purple Scion speed down Carl Street and off into the night. No note, no nothing. A hit and run. Bastard.

My car was similarly hit on Carl Street a few years ago and it cost $7,000 to fix. Insurance covered it, but my rates went up for a year. Probably some drunk idiot stumbling out of one of the bars and driving when they shouldn’t. Same thing happened to this poor car – it had been sideswiped from front to back. I made a mental note to keep an eye out for purple Scions.

Then, this morning, I saw the same purple Scion. I knew it was the same car because it had a dent and a broken taillight right where it hit the other car.

My mind raced. I could leave an angry note! No, better, I could etch a few choice words on the side of the car with my keys! No, better! I could go to the store, buy yellow spraypaint, and write HIT AND RUN on the side of the car. But I did none of those things. Instead, I took a photo.

Later in the day, I called the police and reported the license plate number and what I’d seen. Then I took the photo, added personal note to the people involved, made a poster, and put it up in several places on my street with enough tape to make it a huge challenge to remove.

Yeah, I’m a neighborhood busybody. But it could be worse. I could be a bastard who smashes into parked cars and flees the scene.

I know, I could be fighting global poverty or working on a cure for cancer or something. But those are problems too immense to think about. If I can bring a tiny bit of justice to my little corner of Cole Valley, that’s enough for me.