This just in: "At 1300 hours today [1 p.m. -- SFist], possible Mountain Lion [Pretty, pretty fluff puff with a big, wet nose] seen on trail on San Bruno Mountain [at his or her home]. If mountain lion seen, call 9-1-1 Sent by XXX to Brisbane, San Bruno, South San Francisco, Daly City (E-mail accounts, Pagers, Cell phones) through SMC Alert." Consider yourselves warned. (Thanks, KatyG, for the details!)......

If you've noticed over the past couple of days, it's smells a bit smoky, a bit ashy in Baghdad by the Bay. It seems, according to CBS 5, Northern California is suffering from about 950 wildfire right now.The top half of the state is, in essence, on fire. Yikes! So far, Carmel Valley residents have been forced from their homes due to the massive blaze in the Los Padres National Forest over in Monterey......

Last night's five-alarm wildfire in the San Bruno Mountains, which threatened homes in South San Francisco, has been 75 percent as of this morning. The crisp weather and fog -- which has mercifully killed this past weekend's vile heatwave -- has helped firefighters attack the blaze successfully. A total of 300 acres have been scorched so far. Brisbane residents who were asked to evacuate their home were allowed to return just before midnight last......

A wildfire on San Bruno Mountain may threaten some homes on the South side of the mountain along Sister Cities Blvd tonight. These shots, taken by a reader on Drake Avenue (across Hillside) at around 8:35 p.m., show the fire heading close to South SF as "numerous firetrucks rush[ed] to the scene along with several helicopters on hand to battle the flames from the air." The area is a new development of million dollar homes and are "in the line of fire."...

Good grief. You’re really struggling getting your luxury SUV into that space in front of Tena Pro Nails, aren’t you? Do you have an 11 A.M. pedicure appointment? It’s a few minutes after the hour...

Upon quick glance, Portola’s main business drag, San Bruno Avenue, seems acutely workaday compared to a few of its neighborhood-cousins around town. If Russian Hill is a cute little summer dress and the Mission is an old Air Supply T-shirt worn tightly and ironically, Portola is a pair of blue Levi’s—straight-leg ones. And the hair looks terrific....

Mayor Gavin Newsom says that one of his "top priorities is to ensure that every San Franciscan has a safe and happy New Year. Riding Muni is a smart and green way to ring in the new year." (Thanks, Gavin!) And with a firm flick of his wrist, this New Year's Eve, starting at 8 p.m., Muni will be free all night, which is about what it's worth. The free rides come to a......

A few hours later after a car hit a man at the same intersection in Portola, a Muni bus stuck and killed a pedestrian on Thursday night at around 8:30 p.m. The 9X killed a woman in her 30s at San Bruno Avenue and Bacon Street. According to CBS 5 (via Bay City News), "details of the incident were unclear. Muni spokesman Alan Siegel confirmed the accident occurred but said he wouldn't comment on......

We are going to eat SO MUCH food next week, aren't we? That is to say, isn't everyone? This royal-we business makes it hard to communicate sometimes. Does the Queen have this problem? Anyway, yes, everyone will eat lots of food next Thursday, because if they don't that means they hate America. That goes for poor people, too. Doubly so. So what will you eat? We posted some bang-up tips awhile back for gravy and......

Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a weekly series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist each Wednesday, around the lunching hour. View the map of all published Blocker episodes. Blocker, No. 15: Baltimore Way in Crocker-Amazon Just as Four Corners National Monument exploits the fun one can have straddling multiple political boundaries at once, the 100 block of Baltimore Way between Naylor and Cordova holds a certain......

Remember the Jamba Juice hepatitis A scare? And remember how we said there were gymnasts competing in a national meet in San Jose a few weeks ago? Well -- you guessed it -- it turns out the gymnasts might have been exposed to the virus. The hepatitis A carrier made smoothies for the gymnasts during the meet and in the trade shows outside. She claims she used good hygiene and food safety practices throughout (wearing......

Photo of Sutro Tower in the fog...

There was a huge and spectacular fire at an abandoned warehouse on Treasure Island early Thursday morning. The SFFD let it burn because there was no risk that the fire would spread and it was too dangerous to send people in. They had to use the fire boat (which uses water from the bay) to put out the flames because there wasn't enough water pressure on Treasure Island itself for the hydrants to work. A......

--Happy 77th birthday, Willie Mays! --Comparing rebuilding the maze to acupuncture. And hey -- the 80/880 connection is reopening tomorrow! That was fast! --Cinco de Mayo in San Jose wasn't nearly as bad as it's been before. --They let Fajitagate Alex Fagan Jr. into the Army Special Forces? --OMFG -- there's a chihuahua race in San Bruno next week!!! --Profile of the Warriors fan who came up with the "WE BELIEVE" slogan. Picture of Willie......

For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is "Ghost Ride the Whip," let us get you up to speed. Ghost riding is when the driver of a car puts it in neutral or allows it to idle, and then the driver (and passengers) exit while it's still rolling and dance beside it or on the hood or the roof. It was started in the Bay Area and was coined by Mac Dre and later popularized by E-40, as part of the hyphy culture, which features ghost riding as one of the automobile tricks done in sydeshows....

Special all-vehicular edition! You know that Palo Alto crime wave? Well, it turns out it was mostly due to one hard-working guy, who broke into 43 cars over the summer. In other car-related mishaps -- a man in San Bruno who tried to ghost-ride the whip, as detailed by hyphy master E-40 (wherein one person accelerates a car in gear and then shifts it into neutral, while another jumps on the roof and dances on......

You, the voracious reader, will soon be left to repine most piteously, for a most sorrowful event is pending. Yes! Local author Lemony Snicket's final book in A Series of Unfortunate Events, titled The END, is being released next month. The final volume to this terrible collection will no doubt fill the reader with terror, pity and sorrow once they learn the final fates of the unlucky Baudelaire orphans. Worse - there will be no......

Hayes Valley has turned into a friendly neighborhood. They have a perky positive attitude, with banners saying haYESvalley. See: YOU are in the neighborhood with the YES inside, thus YOU are the affirmation of what is possible. We'll put little +++ signs around you. That is instant karma shining right on you. Take that, mariNO. Plus, they did get rid of some seriously bad feng shui, with a freeway off-ramp like a wart on the......

Man, whose job do we not want this week? BART spokesman Linton Johnson's. Poor Linton had to do yet another round of ritual apologies after a massive computer failure crashed BART for about two hours in the middle of the evening commute yesterday. It's been a pretty hellish month for BART, as you can see by perusing our Your Commute archives. (We're only posting on this because we assume SFist Jon has spent the night somewhere between Millbrae and San Bruno, hoppin' mad.) BART just installed a new computer system to run the trains, and three completely-separate incidents have crashed the system every day this week so far. Because BART themselves didn't know how long it would take to reboot, they weren't able to give accurate time estimates -- and adding insult to injury, the first time they thought they got the system up, it crashed like five minutes later. Big ups to Johnson, though, who really has this apology thing down. And as we got on BART this morning, we picked up a marigold-colored apology bulletin from BART Media & Public Affairs, apologizing profusely for the problems, explaining the situation with the computer, and saying they're working hard to fix the situation. It made for good reading as we were stuck between 16th and Civic Center, waiting for the smoking brakes from a train ahead of us to cool down. Picture of the beleaguered Johnson by the Chron....

Our inchoate suspicions were answered -- the music student whose $175,000 loaner violin disappeared has now recanted her story that the violin was stolen from her locked trunk and admitted that she filed a false police report. The violin itself mysteriously turned up on the steps of a church in San Bruno -- possibly after the violinist learned that the insurance company would not cover the instrument's "loss." Maybe 2006'll be a better year for the SFPD! File under heartwarming -- two couples driving home from two separate New Year's Eve parties in San Jose saved a toddler from a burning van on the Lawrence Expressway. The mother, who was driving, had apparently continued driving the van after its left front tire fell off, and sparks from the wheel well set the car on fire. The mother jumped out of the car but somehow managed to lock herself out and the child in. The partygoers smashed the window with a heavy flashlight and got the baby out safely. And file under ...."a machine gun???" The BART police broke up a fight at the Balboa Park station at 3:40 a.m. on New Year's Day, and found out one of the (teen) perps had a Tec-9 assault weapon on him. We have two thoughts: 1) good thing that kid had until April 1 to report that gun to City Hall, and 2) we sincerely hope this doesn't cut into our chances of getting 24 hour BART service around here! ...

Well, they executed Tookie Williams. He declined a last meal and ate the standard prison fare instead (mac and cheese and green beans), and it took him 36 minutes to die after the lethal injection. Stealing bikes from disabled kids! You're going to hell for that one! And speaking of going to hell, a woman in San Bruno was convicted of dragging a hapless Jehovah's Witness into her house last Christmas day and beating her with a butcher knife. The Jehovah's Witness rang the wrong doorbell (we'll say). At the sentencing, the defendant conceded that maybe she'd "overreacted," and that she's getting psychiatric help now. The NRA suffered a setback in their anti-Prop H litigation, as the appeals court tossed out their lawsuit and said to sue in the trial court instead. Didn't we say that too? ...

We ranted about the City's lack of any free access to NBC months ago, but it looks like KNTV might finally be nearing the completion of that tower they've been promising us for years. If that's true, cable-less and dish-less viewers will be able to change that dial old-school style to channel 11 and bask in the glow of the Technicolor Peacock once again, maybe as soon as next week. Too bad they weren't......

The FCC has finally come to the rescue of those of you who haven't succumbed to the Comcast cable juggernaut – San Jose's Channel 11 has been given approval to build a new transmitter in San Bruno, so NBC will be making a victorious return to your broadcast dial....