As we've reported earlier, two guys who attend Boalt Hall law school at Berkeley were caught on security cameras at the Flamingo in Las Vegas, likely during a bender, chasing a bird that was part of a wildlife exhibit, and one of them then allegedly beheaded it. Now the one who's accused in the killing has pleaded not guilty.

Justin Alexander Teixeira's attorney appeared in court in Las Vegas today to enter a plea of not guilty. Teixeira, who lives in Placerville, did not attend the hearing.

Teixeira, 24, and his friend Eric Cuellar, 25, stand accused of animal cruelty, and Teixeira is also accused of felony animal killing and torturing charges following the October incident at the Vegas hotel involving a helmeted guineafowl, and threw the body of the bird at his friend.

If convicted, Teixeira could face up to four years jail time and it could seriously jeopardize his legal career. The judge scheduled a hearing for April 24, at which time he will decide if there's enough evidence to proceed.

Cuellar previously pleaded guilty to lesser charges, paid a small fine and restitution to the hotel, and will have to attend an alcohol counseling class.

[Tribune]

It nice to see that the farming and ranching traditions of Livermore's past live on to this day. You see, seven men were nabbed this past Sunday in connection with a cockfighting ring on the 4000 block of North Livermore Avenue. Ick.

Busted while a fowl fight was in progress, officers arrested three gentlemen from Alameda, two blokes from Livermore, one from San Jose, and another from Las Vegas. Police officers also uncovered "300 gamecocks being used or prepared for use in cockfights" as well as 150 gamecocks and hens in an unincorporated part of Livermore. All of the birds, it seems, are worth up to $500,000. Wow.

Authorities are in the process of finding "sustainable homes" for the poor little birds.

Once considered acceptable in the US--even our founding papas George Washington and Thomas Jefferson used participated in the sport--cockfighting is now banned in all states except for Louisiana. Britney Spears' home state will officially outlaw cockfighting in August of this year.

Let's face it, underneath all of our progressive thinking and alleged altruism, we're a vain city. Thank God. After all, we are Californians nestled in a land of impossible waistlines and beauty. That said, is the above image what the double decker buses will look like? (Minus the tasteful Las Vegas backdrop, of course.) Hmm, we really didn't think this through. We thought that we'd be seeing ever so charming red double decker buses climbing up the hills of SF, filled with people spouting out dry humor while having a spots of tea. "The Deuce" here is, well, pretty ugly. (As are these.) The above auto unit will be similar to tthe ones we will see. Very soon.

Needless to point out, we're worried. If any of you see a double decker bus chugging along, do take a shot and send it to us, won't you? They should be in operation any second now. Or something like that.

There's only one new show premiering tonight and we're going to pull out an old chestnut because we just can't resist, and when you're dealing with a show that's as stale as this one, it's appropriate. The show premieres at 9 p.m., is called "Moonlight," and it sucks.

OK. Maybe we should explain that. The show is about a detective in L.A. who is also a vampire. And it sucks. We liked it much better the first time we watched it, when it was called "Angel." Comparisons to "Angel" are more than apt since David Greenwalt was a showrunner on both. Of course, he only worked on a few episodes of "Moonlight" before leaving, which is just one of the many changes this series has undergone since it was announced last season. The only constant has been lead actor Alex O'Loughlin, as the vampire Mick St. John, sporting an annoying, raspy, fake American accent. He's not nearly charming enough to carry an entire series, but he has to because none of the supporting actors bring much to the show, including Jason "Logan Echolls" Dohring as a 400+ year old vampire with a baby face and a fat bank account. And, believe it or not, the pilot we saw actually opened with the voice of Julie "Chenbot" Chen interviewing Mick the vampire, so he can set up the "rules" this vampire show will apparently try to follow. And while that sounds kind of cool--you know, a robot interviewing a vampire--it isn't. It's just very, very clumsy.

Prior to the suck is the season premiere of "Ghost Whisperer," starring Jennifer Love Hewiit and her haunted cleavage. The season premiere of "Numb3rs" is also on CBS at 10 p.m.

Over on NBC are the season premieres of "Deal or No Deal" at 8 p.m. and "Las Vegas" at 10 p.m. So, in other words, for at least another week, Friday can join Saturday as a no-TV-night.

Another one of our favorites (though in a completely different genre,) The Crystal Method dropped their first album in August 1997. Ten years and four studio albums later, we have been inundated with The Crystal Method on TV shows (CSI, Bones, House and others), movies, video games and even commercials. Last week, they re-released their first CD, Vegas, The Deluxe Edition completely remastered. There is a bonus re-mix CD that features remixes by Paul Oakenfold, live versions and a couple of videos.

Well, as expected, the beautiful and beloved bandshell in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Panhandle has been scheduled for destruction this weekend. Anybody hoping for a dramatic Vegas-style implosion ala the Geneva Towers will be disappointed as the thing will be carefully dismantled in hopes of future use.

Where can it be placed in the future? What can you do to help, maybe this weekend, you busy? Who killed off this little project that received national attention? What did the cops think about it - did they object? See you after the jump.

Southwest has gone a little nuts about the news themselves -- are you also getting emails where they're giving you triple Rapid Rewards credit if you book a ticket online out of any Bay Area airport, or this fly three trips from SFO to LA or Las Vegas and get a free ticket? these crazy fares! $39 to San Diego? Are they worried people aren't going to fly Southwest or something? So not a threat -- have you seen those lines in Oakland??

So it sounds like Oakland's going to stay the main hub, but if you're flying to SoCal or Chicago, you've got a Southwest SFO option. SFO flyers, (ding!) You are now free to move about the country. (We always really liked that advertising tagline.)

Andrew Frame was recently named by BusinessWeek as a "top entrepreneur under the age of 30"--one of the next generation's best and brightest in the tech world. He's aiming to fulfill that promise with ooma, a company he founded in 2005 that has a whole new take on telephony. The ooma hub device will connect to a broadband connection and replace your traditional phone service, leading to vastly reduced phone bills--it enables unlimited U.S. domestic calls to any wireless or landline phone number. While the hub device itself weighs in at about $400 for those not lucky enough to be early adopters via the company's "White Rabbit BETA program," bills beyond that initial investment will be negligible. General availability should happen some time this fall.

ooma's gotten media play for a couple reasons -- nobody doing business in Silicon Valley is immune Valleywag's sharpened pen, after all. Also, much has been made in the press and on the podwaves about the involvement of Ashton Kutcher in the company. Can ooma succeed? We have no clue. It sounds pretty cool to us -- we'll leave the prognostication to those tech types like Engadget and Mossberg. We're more interested in the man behind it all -- and Frame, a San Francisco resident, answered a few questions for us:

1) ooma's located in Palo Alto, but you're a San Francisco resident, right? What brought you to the city? Why's Palo Alto a good place for ooma while San Francisco is a good place for Andrew?

I was born in Las Vegas but came to the bay to work for Cisco. San Jose was pretty boring for a young single guy, so I somehow convinced Cisco to allow me to work from home out of Manhattan Beach. After doing that for a while, I decided it was time to return to the bay. I wanted to start a company with a huge vision and it required one of the greatest teams ever assembled. At ooma we first had to build the product, which required a wide range of engineering talent. A high concentration of software and hardware talent exists in San Jose, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, etc. Palo Alto was the obvious choice for the office, but I chose to live in San Francisco. San Francisco is one of the greatest cities in the world – outstanding restaurants, beautiful views, rich history, diverse communities, and colorful character.

This morning, SFO crews found a dead body lodged in the wheel well of the nose of a United plane coming in from Shanghai. It might have been a stowaway.

A woman was arraigned in Denver yesterday, after getting arrested on Monday for beating her kids on a Frontier Air flight that took off from SFO. Witnesses report that she seemed intoxicated on the flight, was yelling and hitting the kids, and then threw a drink at a flight attendant and then followed the attendant into the aisle while yelling and pointing. This lady's got our vote for the SF Board of Supes!

And we've got a new airline flying in! Starting today, you can start buying tickets on Virgin Air from SFO to LAX (starting at $44) or JFK (starting at $139). Flights to Dulles and Vegas are forthcoming.

Campus tree residency news! At Cal, it turns out those people living in the trees to protest the UC's plan to cut them down themselves did significant damage to the trees in question by cutting off the tops of the trees to put in their sleeping platforms. Ah, the sweet smell of irony. Meanwhile, at rival Stanford, they've finally evicted a veteran who's been living in the tree grove off Palm Drive for almost 10 years. (Does anyone actually pay to live at Stanford anymore? Goodness.)

In San Mateo, they're investigating claims that a police deputy was busted in the act in a county courthoouse. The deputy was busted by a court reporter, who saw a pair of male buttocks dashing down a back hallway. No one would go on the record, except for a spokesperson for a judge on that floor, who said it definitely didn't happen in that judge's courtroom. People are wondering if the sheriff can really make a fair ruling on this, given that the sheriff was recently himself busted at a brothel in Las Vegas.

And maybe it's not your dryer after all. Two cats in Los Altos have brought home, one by one, seventeen odd socks over the last few weeks. After flyering their neighborhood ("Neighbor, are you losing socks?"), they've figured out someone has a bag of laundry in their driveway (though that person hasn't come by to reclaim the socks, and refused to comment to the newspaper when they called.) One of the cats' owners notes there's a bag of some other laundry in that neighbor's driveway too. "I just hope the cats don't bring home the underwear." Ah, it reminds us of the Beanie-baby stalking cat in the East Bay around Christmas of last year.

--Hey! Did you ever do coke with Gavin? [Fog City Journal.]

--Chris Daly explains himself. [SFGov.org.]

--What's fun doing for Pride Weekend? [SFPartyParty, Bay Area Reporter, SF Weekly's All Shook Down.]

--They busted JT Leroy. [Chron, via the AP.]

--No more bottled water for the City and County of SF. [CBS 5.]

--That local kid who tried to blow up the UC Riverside graduation? It was so he wouldn't have to tell his mom he'd dropped out. [LA Times.]

--Crime surge in Oakland. [NY Times.]

--A man from San Jose's been missing for three weeks from Las Vegas. They're also still looking for the Alameda County woman in Oregon. [Merc News; Chron.]