The San Francisco Zoo announced today that Leanne, the 230-pound Sumatran tiger, is now caring for three newborn cubs. The SF Zoo, which came under scrutiny after last year's tiger-related mauling death of 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr., says that this is the first birth of Sumatran tiger for the zoo since 1956. It turns out Leanne had three of the cubs over a week ago, but kept them accidentally hidden from view of zoo cameras. According to the chief of veterinary services at the San Francisco Zoo Jacqueline Jencek:

Leanne has been excellent at tending to her litter and she has managed to keep them hidden from our camera, which had made it difficult for us to determine how many cubs really were in the nest box....[i]n addition, she managed to lick the camera lens at one point, slightly blurring our view.

Adorable, people. Just adorable.

The newborns will not be on exhibition until they gain strength and coordination, which should be about "several months" from now. The father, George, lives in the now infamous cat tiger grotto.

Chicagoist knows what it's like to like the Cubs. But naming your kid Wrigley Fields? At least they can breathe a little easier now that Grossman's out and Griese's in. Maybe all that sports excitement is what caused them to forget basic facts about US history?

With the abrupt departure of LA's top transportation manager and more controversy over bicycle commuters, LAist is ready for the city's traffic to get moving again. What's not stuck in gridlock is Hollywood, who is already into their first week of the Fall TV season. Greg Grunberg of NBC's "Hereos" gave an interview, Phil Spector got away, the world saw Natalie Portman go nude on the internetz and more of your favorite novels are being made into terrible movies. If that wasn't enough, the harassing paparazzi are no friends to the regular citizens of Los Angeles. At least the people have about a million festivals to relax at this weekend. And if all else fails, the coolest lizard in the world will make you smile.

Torontoist checked out the Polaris Music Prize Gala that saw international superstar surpass local unknowns like The Arcade Fire to win the $20,000 prize. They ranked some local pizza joints (delicious!). They checked out yet another newspaper redesign, and yet another museum redesign. Oh, and they totally had a sweet virtual reality panorama of its Distillery District.

Cubs 5 Giants 1- And so it was that the Enchanter was dealing: eight innings, no runs, seven Ks and most amazingly, only eighty eight pitches thrown. He was breezing so free and easy that when the top of the ninth began, the game was only an hour and a half long, so fast that we missed most of the game when we took a break to watch "the Pickup Artist" on DVR (err, wait. we meant "News Hour with Jim Lehrer). A half inning later, the Giants were down 5-1 as Lincecum gave up a quick three hits and the tying run before getting some gas thrown on the fire by the bullpen. There goes the five game winning streak, Lincecum's first complete game, and our dinner. In a season full of total disasters, this was one of the most disastrous. On McCovey Chronicles, they pointed out this was the first time in awhile that the Giants played their "A Team," meaning all the vets Brian Sabean overpaid to play on this team. We all know how that goes. Part of the reason why the Giants won those five games was because they let the kids go out and play. Let that be a lesson to you.

A's 6 Jays 4- Dan Haren got the win even though he wasn't quite sharp and the A's are now only one game away from the magic number of .500. We got nothing really to add to this as the Blue Jays are one of those baseball teams so out of the loop of everything that we often forget they're in the league. Can you believe that somehow, the Jays won two World Series and were at one point a mini-dynasty? And speaking of which, whatever happened to Cito Gaston?

Giants 4 Cubs 2- See, the Giants score more than three runs and the Giants win, although we use the word"score" loosely as the winning two runs came on a bases loaded walk and an infield squibbler that just avoided going foul. The big Giants news, however, has been the resigning re-signing of Brian Sabean and attendant gnashing of teeth by Giants fans. While we're not sure we want to defend Sabes or the decision, we do think he might not be the droid Giants fans are looking for. More like the Scooter Libby. In last week’s Sports Illustrated, there’s a quote about what a super stupendous owner the Angels' Artie Moreno is by an unidentified GM who says that Moreno is "...an owner who wants to win. I mean, really wants to win... who, from the minute he wakes up, is all about whether he wins or loses that day." We don't think that's necessarily true of Magowan.

Rangers 11 A's 4- Now that it’s been confirmed that the Harry Potter book has been leaked online, we’re totally terrified of going online. Without even trying, we've been spoiled on a few things and we weren't even looking at Harry Potter stories. It’s become obvious that the best thing to do from here on out is to not even go online until we finish the book just to keep from getting more spoiled. And we’re not talking just pop culture sites or entertainment sites, but sports sites and news sites too. We're completely terrified that, like, we'll be in the middle of reading Frank Rich's latest screed against the administration and right in the middle of it, he'll say something like "excuses to stay in Iraq are deader than Voldermort after Luna Lovegood summoned a patronus of a giant bucktooth ferret to kill him” (note: not a real spoiler) And speaking of things sucking, the A's got clobbered by the Rangers.

Cubs 3 Giants 2- The Enchanter enchanted but whatever fireballs he threw weren't enough to win the game as once again, the Giants offense failed to show up and the bullpen burped up another lead, this time in the eighth. Speaking of no offense, we did a little number crunching (based on hearsay and conjecture and our high school level mathematical skills) and figured out that the Giants have played in forty-two games in which they haven't scored more than three runs. For those scoring at home, that's a about 47% of their games. Not too surprisingly, their record is horrible in those games: 5-37. The team, however, is fourteen games under .500 which means the team isn't too bad when they score runs. In fact, we called up one of our accountant friends who told us that all of this means that the Giants have a record over .500 when they score over three runs. What we're saying here is one has to wonder what this team would be like if it they had another decent bat. Or two. In fact, one has to wonder what would have happened if they took all the money they threw at Barry Zito and instead gave it to Soriano (guessing, of course, that any lackey pitcher from AAA could have the same stats as Zito does). You can also sort of get a glimpse into the drunken game of Jenga Sabaen tried to play on a very rickety table this season in that if a bunch of hitters (Roberts, Vizquel, Aurillia, Durham) hit close to their career averages, this team isn’t that bad. Not great, but not bad. Well, maybe a little bad.

Rangers 4 A's 1- And speaking of not scoring more than three runs, there's the A's who haven't scored more than three runs in eleven games and now find themselves closer to the cellar dwelling Rangers than the division leading Angels. In fact, one has to wonder if this team is pretty much donezo. The Angels are a pretty, pretty good team and unlikely to choke up a 12 game lead. As for the wild card, there's way too many teams in front of the A's and it's pretty much conventional wisdom that the Wild Card team will be whomever loses that big ole dog fight in the AL Central between the Tigers and the Tribe. In other A’s news, the A's traded barely hitting catcher Jason Kendall to the Cubs for a bunch of minor leaguers

We imagine Brian Sabaen lying awake all night, in his MLB licensed San Francisco Giants sheet, and having nightmares that he's sitting in his GM box and watching as the San Francisco Giants take the field only that there isn't any San Francisco Giants and the fans quickly boo and leave the stadium as Peter Magowan tut-tuts him and Barry Bonds just bends over and asks him to inject something into his ass.

Why do we think this? Because the free agent signing season is in full gear and so far the Giants have gotten nada. Zip. Bupkus. No signing at all. Which is a problem when half your team is free agents. Seriously, there's a chance the Giants will be posting ads in Craigslist looking for people to play second base.

It's also problematic because this off season is a jigsaw puzzle wrapped in a Jenga game. There are only so many top-notch free agents but there's a lot of money out there. So not only is everyone bidding exorbitant amounts of money but also everyone's bidding for them. So if you pay an exorbitant amount to a free agent and sign them, then you have less money to go after another exorbitantly priced free agent. Or you get no free agents and see Sabaen's dream. Or go looking for bargain bin talents at reasonably expensive contracts and cross your fingers and hope that magic somehow strikes.

And needless to say, all this makes it that much more inevitable that we'll see Barry Lamar yet again.

Training camp. Whether you're fans of the Chicago Cubs, the Arizona Cardinals, the Boston Bruins, or even the Golden State Warriors, it is a time of hope. A time to believe. A time to go all in with the Karma chips and think the unthinkable. A time to take a flyer on 125-1 odds that the hometown squad can rise up and revel in the glory of a championship.

Last week, the Warriors opened training camp for the 2006-2007 NBA season with much fanfare and dare we say, hope. The Warriors open practice on Monday was well received by the fans, but did little to dampen the media skepticism. For those burned by too many years of woeful results and overarching marketing, this year may seem like more of the same (especially with a roster that doesn't look that much different from last year's 34-48 squad), but if you can't suspend disbelief in favor of some unbridled (and possibly unsubstantiated) optimism during training camp, then why bother caring about the team at all.

OK, we're willing to believe, at least for now. Annointing Mike Dunleavy as the next, uh Billy Owens, may be a bit sketchy, and we're sure that Amare Stoudamire is licking his chops thinking about matching up against the Warriors new starting center, Troy Murphy, but at least new/old coach Don Nelson is doing something. At least you can see the wheels turning. One of the problems with former coach Mike Montgomery was his lack of creativity and vision with regard to personnel. Nelson has vision up the butt, but as Marc Foley's teenage, uh, proteges will tell you, that's not always a good thing.

With Pietrus in the lineup full-time (at least until his first injury of the season), the Warriors may have a fighting chance this year. Photo from ESPN.com.

Considering Barry's love of drama and his love of hitting most of his momentous home runs here at Whatever-the-hell-it's-Named-Park, it'll be a good bet that he’d hit both 715 and 716 this week. What'll make it especially better is that Dusty Baker's Cubs are here for three games and then it's a three game home stand against, yep--who better?-- the LA Dodgers. Beat LA!

In Giants-land, this is a big deal and there's already much anticipation about what the scene in McCovey's Cove will be like this week. If the weather is good this weekend and he's still at 714 or 715, this weekend will be pretty nutso, which is kind of what we're hoping for as we got bleacher tickets to Saturday's game.

In the rest of the country, however, it's a different story, as most people appear to be having that mixture of resignation and dread that people felt about the birthing of Spederline Baby #1. In Philly, Barry blasting #714 drew loud boos and chants of steroids, but only after much gawking and excitement. Bud is nowhere to be found this week, preferring Milwaukee to the Bay Area this absolutely beautiful spring-like week. The official stance is that this is merely the passing of #2 on the Home Run list and that it's really Henry Aaron's record that deserves something, a fairly logical point in some ways. But in some ways, not. Hammerin' Hank may have the record, but the Babe has the Myth. Babe Ruth is baseball and to surpass the Babe in career home runs is a pretty big deal. Bud's decision is booed by some, cheered by others.

Us, well our prediction is that no matter what happens, it won't happen on Saturday. We've missed 500, 70, and 600 by a day. We expect our streak to continue.

Let's start with the bad news: so far the only Hot Stove action the Giants have pulled off is trading one relieving re-tread for another relieving re-tread for yesterday they traded LaTroy Hawkins for Steve Kline. Kline, who gained a measure of infamy for giving his then-manager Tony LaRussa the finger (ha!), is considered a get for the Giants because he’s left handed and they lost their only left-handed setup man when Scott Eyre left for the Cubs. Or maybe not.

It also appears that signing Matt Morris has been made more difficult in that his former team, the Cards, are now in hot pursuit of him. If he is resigned by the Cards, that would leave the available starting pitchers still out there to be somewhere between nada and not worth it. One note, however-- one of the pitchers rumored to be discussed in trades is Kris Benson of the Mets. Benson is more famous for his FHM posing, Playboy negotiating, Howard Stern interviewing, crazy-ass wife, Anna. Hey, you gotta get fans to go the park somehow and having Anna around just might do it.

How dreary are things for the Gigantes right now? The big decision today could be whether or not to resign Slappy, aka J.T. Snow (much more about that later when the decision is announced). Also rumoured to be in the mix is Once and Possibly future Giants Bill Mueller. Brett Tomko, meanwhile, appears to be headed to Texas (good luck with that) and Pedro Felix appears to be headed anywhere somebody will take him. And worst of all, the A’s are in hot pursuit of Frank Thomas, which will make the A’s just flat-out scary next year.

And the good news? The Dodgers just signed Grady Little as their manager.

While we can think of about fifty places in the Mish to practice your Downward Dog without even trying, it's nice to find places where we can practice our favorite set of postitions without looking like we were stranded by our dates in the Cow Palace parking lot after Exotic Erotic. Since none of those Yoga Tree joints will let us practice our California Roll and the Metereon threw us out after our last Popcorn Bucket, we have to look a little further afield, like, at those places where people are to have sex in public -- sex clubs.

Now, every gay man in San Francisco worth his gag reflex already knows where to go (Eros comes to mind), and the Power Exchange dominates as the destination for the heaving, humping tourists that leave lube stains on our fine city every weekend. Ever eager to find a place that embodies something we don't usually run across, we're excited to see the sticky, sweaty emergence of all-genders, all-orientations, utterly queertastic Deep Ocean Productions, who promises to:

...model sex-positive attitudes and promote erotic well-being through a unique array of services including private parties, fantasy weekends, retreats and classes designed to cater to the diverse needs of our customers and foster a safe environment for erotic empowerment. We create an open and non-judgmental atmosphere for people of all ages, body types, ethnicities, experience levels, genders and sexual orientations to explore their fantasies.

Translation: sex parties a taxi cab ride away with themes that include "Swingers, Bisexuals Bashes, Girls Take Charge, Blatino 'DL' Thug-a-Thons, SM/Bondage Power Play, MTF Lust-Capades, FTM 'Man on Man' Parties, The Bears Dens: Bears, Cubs & Otters, Kink and Fetish Balls, Dykes who Crave Cock & the Pricks who want them, Pansexual Pandemonium, The Ultimate Debauchery: A Sexual 'Freak For All', Kinky Family Fun: Age Play for Mommies, Daddies & Their Naughty Girls & Dirty Boys." Anyone hungry for a roll?

Please welcome native San Franciscan, sexpert, artist, bestselling author and Bay Blogger Thursday alum SFist Violet, nee Violet Blue of Tiny Nibbles.