Results tagged “walnutcreek”

Walnut Creek police are investigating an armed robbery at a Chevron gas station Sunday night, (Oh hey, speaking of Walnut Creek, did any of you catch Prayers for Bobby this weekend? It aired on Lifetime. It was about a Walnut Creek mother, Mary Griffith, whose fundamentalist Christian beliefs eventually lead to the suicide of her gorgeous, young, homosexual son. And it was good. Really good. It did a seamless job of addressing the biblical roots of homophobia, showing how effective said roots are at pulverizing the spirits of young gay men and women. But this prompts a crisis of soul searching, leading to Griffith's enlightenment and redemption via queer advocacy. Also, Sigourney Weaver plays the mother and she's typically remarkable in every scene. While it's cliched to say, Weaver commands the screen whenever she appears. Probably because she kills aliens. Anyway, Prayers for Bobby will be replaying on Lifetime for the next month or so, and we recommend you checking it out.) No arrests were made.

Starting today, eight Bay Area shelters are offering free spaying/neutering to pit bull owners. Although a few shelters, such as the East Bay SPCA offer the free service year-round, the organizers of Bay Area Pit Fix Week are hoping that by offering spaying/neutering this week, the lives of thousands of pit bulls (and the people they otherwise might maul if not for being fixed) will be spared.

Image credit goes to Plug 1 at WhatImSeeing

Attention conspiracy buffs: There's a secret project underway to seize control all of San Francisco's traffic lights, just like how the terrorists did in . Well, okay, the civic initiative (called "SFgo") isn't TECHNICALLY a secret; while it's true that nobody talks about it and current information is hard to come by, that's just because the project is really really boring. But here's something to spice it up: President Bush just gave it a half million bucks in the FY2008 Omnibus Appropriations. (Along with $12 million for the next phase of the Third Street line, and the impending Central Subway disaster.)

We just heart reading Two Cents to find out what people on the streets of the Bay Area think about a wide range of local, national, and international topics.

According to CBS 5 (interrupting us right in the middle of The People's Court, no less!) "East Contra Costa County residents are being evacuated from an area near the unincorporated town of Knightsen because of a possible explosive device found inside of a residential motor home." Motor homes and explosive devices? Who could've imagined!? Anyway, that's all the info posted so far. We'll update as soon as more info becomes available. Update: Taken (again!)...

It was week on "The Bachelor" which is always good for a laugh. Or a cringe. And Brad's visit to Walnut Creek to meet Sheena's parents was mainly in the cringe-worthy department. The day started with Sheena's parents dragging her and her bachelor behind their boat in an inner tub. Which, you know, fine. Some people like that kind of thing. But then Sheena's mother started talking about astrology and the stars and how Brad and her husband are the same sign and the big dipper can be seen from their jacuzzi and she knows Sheena is the one and she couldn't take her eyes off of Brad's eyes and both his eyes and Sheena's eyes together are "Wow!" and she and her daughter are totally ready to commit to marriage.

Either under the table for protection or hiding from someone sporting a fiendish fannypack-khakis combo, Catherine Kilkenny of San Jose's Willow Glen looks scared as all hell, doesn't she? Many people were. Last night's 5.6 earthquake, which we didn't feel but hear the majority of you did, tore nerves to shreds, shook the ground, and sent magazines flying to the floor. In a little over 12 hours, it managed to cause quite the stir....

Last week on "The Bachelor," Sheena-From-Walnut-Creek was granted a coveted one-on-one date with Brad-the-Bachelor, and it turned out to be the date in which Sheena got to choose her evening gown from a roomful of mannequins, ate dinner amongst balloons and a string symphony, and was given a pair of diamond earrings (which she got to keep). But the highlight of the evening, for us, was when Sheena walked down the stairs in her new gown, and proceeded to fall on her ass. Not that we have anything against her; she's one of the least annoying of the girls, although she does have a tendency to go into a high baby talk when she's around Brad. (Uh-oh. Shades of Trista there!) In the end, she was given one of the final roses, which means this week she will be taking Brad to meet her family (presumably in Walnut Creek).

While the number of ladies on "The Bachelor" was cut down considerably at last week's rose ceremony, there are still way to many women to keep track of. Thankfully we only need to focus on Sheena, Queen of Walnut Creek. There was a bit of excitement in the house when some chick apparently fell down some stairs and Sheena found her and called the paramedics. Needless to say, she didn't go on the group date to the beach, but Sheena did, and she did nothing of note the entire time, while other girls demanded body shots and sped into the ocean topless. But boring must turn the Bachelor on as he ended up giving Sheena a rose.

Oh lordy, but Mondays are going to be a crowded night of television. Let's go through tonight's premieres network-by-network, starting with ABC.

[NSFW]

--One person is dead after a Caltrain hit a car in Palo Alto this afternoon. [CBS 5, Merc News.]

The other day, we told you our impressions of Naia Gelateria (nutshell: pretty good overall; you should particularly dig it if you enjoy having a ton of varieties to choose from). We wanted to know a little more about this Bay Area company, so we approached Trevor Morris, the company's general manager. He's been running the company since 2003, and had prior experience in the restaurant industry before that. He took the time to answer a few questions.

Tomorrow's the finals of the National Spelling Bee! We've already got our TiVo set for the semifinals (which happen while we're at work), we've cancelled all our evening plans for the finals (on ABC), we're already practicing not catching any spoilers of the event online throughout the day (your SFist updates tomorrow may be a little slow as a result), and we're trying to find a marimba player to play background music behind us all day, for that extra feel. H-double O-R-A-Y!

Dilbert artist and bay-area restaurateur Scott Adams poses a query to his readers: what can be done about the bone-crushing competition from chain restaurants? Just like Wal-mart, the Cheesecake Factory and PF Chang are putting the squeeze on locally-owned spots like his Stacey's Cafe in Pleasanton and Walnut Creek. So, to boost business, he's been trying to find a smart way to bring customers into his banquet halls, and he's turned to the internet for clever suggestions.

--Chihuahua race!

This Friday will be Critical Mass and everybody is curious to see what happens, not the least of which is the Mayor who supposedly has a lot riding on it (see, riding, get it? Get it? We made a pun!). We are told that if things go wrong, it could reflect poorly on the Mayor as it will show that he is unable to control simple things like several hundred anarchist bikers out loose on the streets. Hey, wouldn't that discussion only encourage bikers? You know, like a biker would start thinking "hey, if I scare some poor, unsuspecting family from Walnut Creek, Gavin's approval rating could go down to 60%."

Here's todays roundup of news stories

Here's todays wrap up the daily news stories.

As if we don't have enough wars going on, the first shots were fired in yet another war, that being the War on Easter. Five years ago, at the behest of a Jewish resident, Walnut Creek decided to take the Easter out of Easter and replace it with spring. So the Easter Bunny became the Spring Bunny, Easter Egg Hung the Spring Egg Hunt and so on and so forth. This was no big deal until somebody wrote into a newspaper complaining about it. And somewhere out there, Baby Jesus started crying.

We got this forwarded to us in e-mail recently and it's kind of funny. Who doesn't love busting on people from the East Bay.

Hey, do you guys remember the story about estranged Daly City politico couple the Berlangas, where the ex-wife and the ex-husband were running against each other for a seat on the City Council and the ex-wife accused the ex-husband of doing it to intimidate her and got a restraining order against him for stalking her? Well, he was sentenced to 15 days in the county jail and 32 hours of anger management classes for violating the restraining order last week. Also, neither of them won the election -- the ex-wife came in fifth and the ex-husband came in seventh.

That little protest in Lafayette with all those crosses symbolizing all the dead soldiers in Iraq was taken up a notch with the placement of a big, neon sign giving the numbers of dead solders. Previously, there was just a hand-painted sign.

While we're focused on the Mayoral race and the rest of the media is focused on the Presidential race (Lord, save us), the netroots are already focused on the next congressional race. In their cross-hairs? Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Walnut Creek). Her crime? Playing footsie with the President. Nobody wants to see that.

A missing Savannah cat named Mondo has been returned home to San Anselmo after going missing for a three weeks. A Savannah cat is a cross between a regular domestic cat and the African serval, and the people who found Mondo thought he was either a baby mountain lion or some kind of cheetah or bobcat. Savannahs have long legs and friendly demeanors, and are considered very high-energy. Mondo also has very "chatty meows."

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Hey, the EBX is starting a blog -- we hear those are very trendy. But they've got us listed as a link, right below the Culture Blog, so it's all okay! Bottom Feeder mocks the errors made by the Bay Guardian in its East Bay endorsements. Would you buy expensive organic meals prepared by these folks? Confrontational atheists meeting near Walnut Creek. Cover article: the woes of air traffic controllers in Oakland. Brazilian food in Richmond. Cheap wines for everyone! The Pacific Mozart Ensemble sings in Berkeley with Sufjan Stevens, who alienates the crowd briefly by cheering for the Tigers. And Lyrics Born is playing this weekend!

Forget PTA bake sales, a coterie of SF's movers and shakers are hosting "Hot for Teachers," a party to benefit projects in Bay Area schools, at Club Mezzanine (444 Jessie St. near 5th and Mission). Enticements include: gourmet mac & cheese, a Van Halen tribute band, and a chance to win live auction "Hot for Learning" packages like ... "How to be Mayor." As Gavvy-N is on the honorary host committee, we're thinking we know who the instructor of that one will be.

Okay, let's get all those big headline news items up and out of the way: Scott Dyleski is guilty of killing the wife of Susan Polk's lawyer; creepy John Karr who used to live around here remains creepy but is no longer considered the JonBenet Ramsey killer; and that guy they think maybe have molested over 100 boys is serving as his own lawyer at trial. Also, five murders in three incidents in SF over the weekend.