Another weekend approaches. And with it, the weekly buying of fun: the barroom bacchanal, where stacks of $20 bills are transformed into liquid fun before your very eyes, where desperation is turned into drunken bliss before you can say, "loan deferral." (Enjoy your 20s, kids).
San Francisco is a busy drinking town, and we are not alone. Americans spend $161 billion a year, according to one estimate.
But nothing chases a vodka-tonic-and-a-pack-of-Marlboro-Reds dinner quite like a bump in the bathroom. So it might not come as a surprise that Americans also spend an awful lot of money on illegal drugs, according a RAND Corporation estimate prepared for the US drug czar.
About $109 billion, give or take, was spent on cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin in 2010, RAND's study says.
LGBTs, along with many others, are celebrating the death this morning of the virulently anti-gay Rev. Fred Phelps. The 84-year-old Phelps died at the Midland Care hospice in Topeka, Kansas late last night.
Before his death, Phelps was reportedly excommunicated from Westboro Baptist Church, which he founded in 1955.
Phelps spent his life fanning the flames of hate and celebrating death -- he and his followers joyously picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Phelps and company also picketed the Oscars, the funerals of celebrities, and even funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming the soldiers were killed by God because of America's tolerance of homosexuality.
Court records obtained by SF Weekly reveal disturbing allegations leveled against Sarah Slocum, San Francisco's self-anointed Google Glass martyr.
Update 12:28 p.m.: Officer Gordon Shyy says it was an unidentified female pedestrian who was killed while walking east on Visitacion this morning just after 11. According to police, the driver was also headed east on Visitacion Avenue and hit the pedestrian as he turned left onto Bayshore Boulevard. The driver continued toward Leland Avenue before making a U-Turn. He then slowly drove by the collision scene.
After checking the scene, the driver fled toward Bayshore Boulevard, Shyy says.
The vehicle was described as a white dodge Durango suv with a black ski rack. The driver was described as a Hispanic male or light-skinned black male. No further information was provided at this time.
Original story 12:06 p.m.: San Francisco police are en route to the scene of a fatal collision in the city's Visitacion Valley neighborhood.
Police had no information at this time other than the driver sped off after striking the victim at Bayshore Boulevard and Visitacion Avenue. No word on whether it was a pedestrian or another driver involved.
Because milking a cow isn't an option in the Bayview, a 38-year-old San Francisco man allegedly robbed a local restaurant for some milk.
The bizarre incident happened at about 1 p.m. yesterday when the thirsty man walked into a restaurant on the 3800 block of Third Street, grabbed a bottle of milk from the fridge and guzzled it down as if he was in his own kitchen.
There's some troubling news over at UCSF this morning. Officials are alerting about 10,000 individuals that computers with their private information on it were stolen from the medical campus earlier this year.
According to a statement the university posted on the UCSF website, the unencrypted desktop computers were taken sometime around Jan. 11 from the Family Medicine Center at Lakeshore. The computers contained some personal and health information of UCSF patients.
"While there is no evidence that there has been any attempted access or attempted use of the information involved in this incident, UCSF is responding with the highest level of caution and concern," officials said in a statement.
So double up on that Prozac and put on your best fake smile.
After you pull yourself together, head down to Union Square and gather with other cheery people to express how unbelievably happy you are on the "Happiness Wall." It's exactly what it sounds like: a wall where you scribble down at least one thing that makes you happy.
If you can't think of anything that brings you joy, then today is the time to do something that will bring you joy, like multiple scoops of ice cream, ice skating, or a group hug.
