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Sponsored: SWOON SF Guy of the Day, Broke-Ass Stuart

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SWOON and The Bold Italic have found your SWOON local guys of the day. SWOON is available on both Android and Apple, so it has thousands of faces to browse.

Name: Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart (@brokeassstuart)

Neighborhood: I call it The Smission. I'm right on the SOMA/Mission border. I guess technically I'm in SOMA by a block. This means I'm a grown-up now since I no longer live in the Mission (**Whispers** I'm not really a grownup)

Gig: That's certainly the question isn't it? I'm a freelance writer (The Bold Italic7x7Lonely PlanetConde Nast Traveler, etc.) an author (buy my most recent book!), a TV host, and a party thrower. Plus I bartend because being a writer doesn't really pay very well.

What's your favorite place to pick up women?: Pretty much any place but a bar. Most of the time people are either too guarded or too drunk in bars. It's so much nicer meeting women in places where there's not a hundred drunk idiots slobbering on them. I met my first love on the 71 bus, and my second one at Power to the Peaceful in Golden Gate Park. Luckily I'm pretty gregarious so I meet people fairly easily.

Where's your go-to date place? I often bring women to Spec's on a first date. It's a good litmus test. If they don't dig Spec's, they probably don't like lots of things that are awesome.

Where would you have your last meal on earth?: That's a tough one! Am I allowed to say something that's not in SF (SF food snobs just shit their pants when I said that huh?)? There's a Vietnamese place in San Diego called Phong Trang that basically fries a whole lobster and then puts it in what I call Magic Sauce. It's pretty spectacular. I've always said it was my death row meal, so let's go with that.

Who's your favorite quintessential local character?: Frank Chu, the 12 Galaxies guy. I love his dedication to trying to warn us about whatever the fuck is happening with the 12 Galaxies. Every time I see him I say, "Give 'em hell Frank!" You should too. It should be a thing that we all do.

What would you change about SF?: I'd make it so that the rents weren't so ridiculous and all the good people that have helped make San Francisco the amazing place that it is, weren't being shaken out by greedy landlords. I'd also want there to be a solution to our homeless problem. My heart breaks every day in this city when I see the broken people who live on the street.

What are you up to these days?: Lately I've been doing some really cool events. I'm doing a weekly Wednesday happy hour called Color Me Badd. It's so amazing! It's '90s slow jams, coloring books, cheap drinks, and free bar food! There's nothing like watching someone color in a page from a Ninja Turtles book while signing along to "I'll make love to you" by Boyz II Men.

I'm also doing a monthly party called Freaky-Deaky Friday. It's the fourth Friday of the month and it's a costume box party! We have free sandwiches from Ike's, kick ass dance tunes, and a box full of costumes you can put on. You don't have to wear one if you don't want to, but you can also pick the best shit out of your costume box at home and wear it to the party.

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Swoon finds cool people nearby who are interested in you and lets you chat if you like them, too. It's anonymous until you both like each other.

Categories: Love, Sex & Dating, Love, Sex & Dating, Sponsored Story, Sponsored Story

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SF Restaurant Forced To Close Over Bacon

http://www.youtube.com/embed/D3C4jO7pmRw

I've known bacon to do a lot of things – mend friendships, cure hangovers, and even walk seven miles through San Francisco – but I've never known it to lead to the death of a restaurant. And before this weekend, I didn't think it possible for anyone to complain about the mouth-watering aromas that come from fresh fried bacon. 

But some Upper Haight residents obviously don't feel the same way. Bacon Bacon – the brick and mortar cafe located at 205A Frederick Street – was forced to shut down on Friday after neighborhood residents complained about the smell of bacon constantly being emitted from the space. 

Excuse me? Did you just complain about bacon? From a restaurant called BACON BACON? 

Locals also accused the eatery of disposing of grease in the gutter, and when the police responded they found that the restaurant lacked the proper health permits to continue operating. Bummer. 

Thankfully, someone else think it's ridiculous that pot heads in the Haight want their local cured pork supply to stop. Saturday Night Live ribbed San Francisco during Amy Poehler's surprise appearance in the "Weekend Update." She quipped, "It'll be really tricky to walk up to a cop and complain that something smells like bacon." 

Nor is everyone willing to idly sit by while Bacon Bacon is persecuted. Avid fans have already begun fighting back, launching a petition and voicing their grievances on the restaurant's Facebook page (In the meantime, you can still enjoy Bacon Bacon via its roving food truck).

After all, bacon might just be the beginning, what are they going to take from us next? Donuts? Pizza? 

The horror. 

Categories: Upper Haight, Food & Drink

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Poop Delivery Service?! Yup, It's for Real

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Recently, a friend introduced me to the founders behind IPoopYou.com, an SF-based company that sends "high quality, farm raised, and eco-friendly, hand-picked animal poop" via snail mail. You can send the package to yourself or to anyone you choose, signed with your name or, even, anonymously. Apparently, business is booming for this dung delivery service. I asked Guillermo Sanchez, "Shit Executive" at IPoopYou, to explain more about what, exactly, the company is all about.

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Abby Wilcox: So let’s start with this question since I Poop You is such a novel idea. What exactly is a professional poop delivery service?

GS: Although it is funny, it’s not a joke. For the first time ever, people can send and receive grade A organic animal poop in the most classy way possible – neatly gift wrapped in a pretty little box. With the click of a button people can select the finest poop from Northern California. 

AW: How did this whole idea start? Was it a joke among friends?

GS: The idea has been always there. There are hundreds of reasons to send and thousands of people who deserve poop mailed to their doors. We believe that through humor, efficient and professional business practices, and ethical treatment of everybody in the equation (animal or otherwise), we are breaking taboos, allowing friends to share a whole new expression of feelings, and filling a niche that nobody had really conceived of yet.

And come on, sending flowers is so last year.  

AW: How would you describe your clients? A scorned lover, a sworn enemy, an off-the-wall prankster or your average joe?

GS: Our clients are awesome! All of them. I would say it’s just people like me and you… Folks able think out of the box and with a strong sense of humor. They really understand our message and through that they give their recipients an unforgettable surprise.  

AW: What’s the funniest reason someone has used your service?

GS: I couldn’t pick just one of them, they all are very special to me. One that I particularly liked was from a girl who sent our stinkiest poop to her boyfriend in respond to all his farting. 

AW: Where does the poop come from?

GS: Each and every poop is hand picked from local farms from the Bay Area and greater peninsula of Northern California, the mecca of slow food and organic agriculture.  

AW: You have poop specialties like “Cow Chocolate Pudding” and “Horse Spring Rolls”… What’s in a name?

GS: Every poop is different and they all have their own personality. Like a fine dining locavore restaurant, we are making sure that the descriptions match the quality of our product and the care that goes into...well...the "making", and...uh..."handling"...of it. 

AW: What’s your top seller?

GS: Cow or Pig I guess. 

AW: How do you package the poop?

GS: A special gift deserves a special packaging. Every poop will arrive at its destination in a beautiful gift box including a leak-proof container that keeps the aroma always fresh and smelly. You can also add a personalized card. 

AW: Is it legal to send poop in the mail?

GS: Yes. Otherwise we would not be doing it. Even though there are certain restrictions, that’s why our clients must accept our terms of use and privacy policy. You can learn about that at our legal page.  

AW: Do you find that many of your clients want to remain anonymous?

GS: Very few of them. The majority like to have their orders signed.

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Why Star Trek is as San Franciscan as Sourdough Bread

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(San Francisco’s first appearance in the Trek universe, in 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture) 

Star Trek is known for boldly going where no one has gone before, but Star Trek Into Darkness, the franchise’s latest offering, spends about 50 of its 130 minutes in a place millions of us have already been: San Francisco. In Star Trek’s fictional universe, the city is home to Starfleet Headquarters – more or less the capital of the galaxy – and Captain Kirk and his successors have found reason to return to the Bay Area again and again in Trek’s nearly 50-year history. Here are a few reasons why San Francisco’s relationship with Star Trek can be expected to live long and prosper: 

Recognizability: Like the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes, the Golden Gate Bridge tacitly situates our heroes on Earth, which is important since they’re usually somewhere else. There are a handful of landmarks that could do this job – the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall of China, for example – but San Francisco’s distinct geography makes it recognizable from a bird’s (or a starship’s) eye view as well. Inland cities fail this test: at a certain altitude, it’s hard to distinguish Paris from Tulsa. The overhead view was used to great effect in J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot, when the villain launches a drill from space into the San Francisco Bay, just a stone’s throw off Fort Point. 

 Here’s the drill descending toward the peninsula:

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And here it is about to strike. Marin is up top; Golden Gate Park is just visible at bottom left.

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Cutting-edge technology: Silicon Valley didn’t exist when Star Trek first aired in 1966, but it’s no secret that the tech mecca has subsequently brought several Trek technologies into the real world – notably smartphones, tablets, and speech recognition software. Some programmers at Google even admitted recently that they’re consciously working to develop other specific Trek devices. 

Progressive culture: The United Nations’ founding charter was signed in San Francisco, and Star Trek's casts are famously diverse – both by the show's fictional standards (e.g., a Klingon serving alongside humans) and in the real world (where else on TV could you find a Russian, a Japanese man, an alien, a black woman, and a corn-fed white Iowan working together as equals in the 1960s?). The Bay Area is not exactly free of race- and class-based conflicts, but San Francisco’s reputation as an inclusive city fits Star Trek to a T. As it happens, the city made its first Trek appearance in 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, just a year after Harvey Milk took his seat on the Board of Supervisors. 

LGBT identity: Star Trek has encountered species with three genders, no genders, and those which swap genders over a lifetime. It has also explored male pregnancy and a society in which women are the historically dominant sex. Furthermore, in the future BART and Muni have been replaced by a mass-transit system delightfully named “Trans Francisco” – which also happens to be the name of a 2010 documentary about transgender people in the city. Here’s a train stop in the Mission:

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(Screengrab from the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Non Sequitur”

Shipbuilding: The U.S.S. Enterprise was built in a San Francisco shipyard, just like countless Navy vessels during World War II. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was well acquainted with this association, as he served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps, and crossed the Pacific in Navy vessels. (Legendary art director Matt Jefferies, who designed the original Enterprise and many of its iconic sets, was also a pilot in Europe and Africa during the war). And Star Trek's captains borrow many customs from the Navy, from their ranking system to the boatswain’s whistle ahead of ship-wide announcements to burying lost crewmen at space. 

Reasons why Starfleet should NOT be in San Francisco: Despite Star Trek’s abundant cultural ties to SF, even a non-Trekkie could think of a few reasons why Starfleet should have been built far away from the Bay. Recently I asked Alan Dean Foster, one of the writers of the first Trek movie, about this, and he had this to say: 

“Given the choice myself, I would have opted for a more geologically central and stable and more climatologically transparent location, with more room for expansion (assuming that real estate in the future will not be free for the taking). New Mexico, for example… where the Spaceship One/Virgin Galactic folks are operating from… 

 “On the other hand," he added, "the food in SF is better.”

Categories: Film, Only In SF

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Use This Flowchart Before You Trust Yelp

The entire city of San Francisco is about to get wasted on Sunday. Here are some important items you should consider before that seven miles of drunken stumbling: 

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If there's one thing SFers love, it's a scary interactive maps that reminds us about the potential dangers of living in (and affording) our beloved city. Based on theft data from the SF District Attorney's office, the IDG News Service put together this handy dandy interactive map of where all the cell phone and tablet thefts have taken place in the city over the past year. And just in case you are confronted with imminent theft, here are some tips on how not to fuck up your mugging. (InfoWorld)

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But while you still have your phone, you may want to consider downloading this free app. Buycott –  the work of one Los Angeles-based 26-year-old freelance programmer, Ivan Pardo – allows you to scan the barcode on any product to trace its ownership all the way to its top corporate parent company, including conglomerates like Koch Industries. Even better, if you have certain causes near and dear to your heart you can program the app to tell you whether or not the parent company supports gay marriage or opposes GMO labeling. (Forbes

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Photo by Gary Soup

The most bike friendly city in the nation ... is not San Francisco! Yes, the city that diligently celebrates Bike to Work Day, Bike-In Movies, and has thousands of commuters pedaling down Market St. everyday (thanks to our new bike barometer, we can actually quantify this) has been ousted from the top spot. So who's the new pedaling hot shot? Portland. (HuffPost SF

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Photo by twelves

Now we all know that this Sunday is Bay to Breakers – the lovely exhibition of booze and costumes that is sure to have your mind in a daze. But in case you'd rather spend your Sunday waiting around for Game of Thrones, SFist presented 15 signs that you're too old (and/or jaded) for the city's biggest play day. But in case you're roaring to go, print out a game board of our Bay to Breakers Bingo for a fun new way to get blotto. (SFist)

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Finally, in light of the amazing season finale of Kitchen Nightmare featuring those crazies in charge of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro in Arizona, here's a nice infographic to decide whether or not you can trust those scheming Yelp Elite. Follow the paths of plausible scenarios to determine whether or not you should actually eat at a specific restaurant. (Wired

Categories: Civic Life, Tech

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