A woman in San Mateo has covered the roof of her house, her garage door, and her car with what she claims are messages from God. According to the story, the messages are a barely intelligible garble involving cloning, abuse, rape, the Mafia, Castro, Hitler, the Constitution, hurricane Katrina, Watergate and President Bush. Sometimes, she starts reading her messages to the world using a loudspeaker on her car. Lovely!

She started doing this in early 2006 after her husband moved out and she lost custody of her son. Gee, I wonder why her husband would leave her!? Perhaps it’s because she’s nuts and wanted to get away from her. Now, the city of San Mateo has ordered her to take down the messages from her roof or face fines of $50 per day starting in late March. Will that be enough to stop the messages!? Stay tuned.

All I can say is that car is fucking priceless! I almost want to drive to her house to take a picture of it before she goes to jail. This type of crazy just doesn’t happen every day.

An obese 26-year-old man Chinese guy died after a seven-day “marathon” online gaming session on the last day of the Chinese New Year holiday. The guy weighed 330 pounds and probably didn’t move much for seven days. My guess is he developed a blod clot that traveled to one of his lungs.

Anyway, the article continues to say that about 2.6 million — or 13 percent — of China’s 20 million Internet users under 18 are classed as addicts. Huh!? China has 1.3 billion people and there are only 20 million Internet users under 18!? They must mean 20 million online gamers under 18, not total Internet users under 18. It seems low to me. Can that stat be right!?

Newsom’s stalker has a dangerous history of violence and was diagnosed as bipolar. Great! These are exactly the qualities you want in a good stalker. I mean, really!? If he was just an average guy with no mental problems the story wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining and fun for everybody.

The big news of the day is a landslide in North Beach that took out seven buildings. These buildings are now red-tagged, which is only one inspection away from condemned if the damage is deemed irreparable. The sad news is that people from 80 units in 4 buildings will have to find another place to live. Melissa and I are very familiar with the red-tagging process, since we had to move after our apartment building caught fire back in 2001, just days before 9/11.

Strangely, Melissa and I happened to walk through Telegraph Hill to see Coit Tower and the bike race that was going on last weekend. We hadn’t been to Coit Tower in years and decided to head up there on a whim. As we walked down from Telegraph Hill, I had commented to Melissa that I had never noticed the condos on the top of the hill that slid above Broadway! How’s that for serendipity!?

Apparently the mayor is being stalked by a guy that takes pictures of his bulge at public events, has touched him wearing purple latex gloves, and–the straw that broke the camel’s back–got into his apartment building under false pretenses. Needless to say, the mayor is seeking a restraining order against this psycho.

The first thing we find out on this episode of the race is that during the Pit Stop, Drew couldn’t catch his breath and needed to get oxygen a total of four times due to altitude sickness. It’s funny that they mentioned this, showed Drew getting oxygen for about 20 seconds, and abruptly continued with the race. You can tell that the producers are concerned that Drew may knock himself out of the race for medical reasons.

The first clue advised the teams to make their way from Ecuador to Santiago, Chile. All teams made their way through to a flight from Lima, Peru to Santiago, but Rob & Amber and Team Prada did not make the flight due to a delay in their connecting flight. This essentially took Rob & Amber from first place to last place. All of the teams went to a Roadblock that was open in the middle of the night. Awesome!

The Roadblock was a hard ass puzzle that allowed Team Prada and Rob & Amber to get to sixth and seventh place. Ultimately it didn’t matter since all of the teams were bunched up on the same flight to Calama, Chile. The interesting thing about this is that it didn’t allow the teams to sleep through the night. It was a flight, followed by a Roadblock, and immediately followed by another flight.

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It’s been discussed on-and-off for many years, but Coit Tower may finally get a well-deserved makeover just in time for its 75th birthday celebration in 2008. However, the additional traffic that an improved tower may bring is scaring nearby residents.

Seattle residents are angry at the store sign for a new dog store called High Maintenance Bitch. They are really pissed at the sign but not the products, which include Gel-ous Bitch bath gel and Street Walker paw cleanser. I don’t own a dog, but I would totally go to this store. Hell, I wish there was one in my neighborhood!

I think it’s time to settle down, Seattle!

New Zealand fishermen have caught a 990-pound, 39-foot-long squid in Antarctic waters. That’s a whole lot of calamari!

I personally believe that the future of UI design will include touch technology and voice recognition, much like what Tom Cruise uses to search through precog data in Minority Report. This amazing video found on the MacRumors site shows a demo of multi-touch screens being developed by a company called Perceptive Pixel. It’s simply amazing–check it out. Via Knowing.net, thanks Larry.

Microsoft confirms Halo 3 beta keys will be inside first shipments of Crackdown. Microsoft promises that the Halo 3 beta experience is more than a demo and will be a robust experience. I have just been notified by Gamefly that Crackdown shipped to my home. Hopefully I will be able to review the Halo 3 beta firsthand.

Study finds that surgeons who play video games are more skilled than those that don’t. And here everyone thought that video games just gave you stronger hands for masturbation! While video games make for better surgeons, playing more than one hour of video games per day decreases a kid’s chances of getting into medical school. Oh, the irony. Big ups to Masher for sending me this.

A San Francisco man returned from a two-week vacation to his apartment in the Haight-Ashbury district and nearly tripped over a dead body in his apartment. The cause and time of death of the deceased is not yet known.

Within the first minutes of this first episode, the teams were all introduced. Kevin & Drew admitted that they are “five years older, five years more out of shape.” Rob & Amber claimed that they have new tricks in store that will help them win the race. Uchenna & Joyce admitted to having problems in their relationship because of their failed attempts at having a child through in vitro fertilization. Teri & Ian looked like they are in way better shape than before, kicking ass on some bikes. We’ll see.

The start of the race was some park in Miami. Phil warned everyone not to take anyone else for granted. Duh!? The pre-race speech was nothing special. The same thing that everyone has heard before was said. Then “travel safe, go!” Teams found that they needed to make their way to Ecuador. As the teams ran to the cars, Charla was actually ahead of Drew. That has to be a bad omen for them—they are out of shape!

Teams got to Ecuador on two flights that were two hours apart. The first flight had the lead five teams which included Rob & Amber, Teri & Ian, Oswald & Danny, Charla & Mirna, and John Vito & Jill. The teams were sleeping on cots under a tent in a restaurant terrace! This seemed strange because the teams normally stay at hotels and seems to stay in separate rooms. Maybe the All-Stars edition is about keeping the teams in closer proximity than usual in between legs. If teams can’t get private time at the leg stops, prepare to see some fireworks.

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There are no race “virgins” here. Everybody has been on the race once before and knows what to expect. I don’t foresee any alliances, except maybe the Coal Miners attempting to make friends. They may make friends, but I doubt that there will be any team waiting for another like in the last race, that means you lame ass Cho Brothers!

There will be some secret weapons too! According to Charla, she will be wearing “heelies,” the roller shoes that little kids wear with wheels on the heels. According to the pre-race interview, Charla expects Mirna to pull her through airports and other places on these “skates.” At least they admit that Charla may break her leg or get hurt in the process. That will be some crazy shit to see.

Oh, and Teri & Ian claim to be using disposable underwear that they don’t have to carry around once they use them. Surely we won’t see them, but the fact that they admitted this in the pre-race interview is proof that they are uninhibited, or crazy.

Commercial real estate is hot again in San Francisco. Companies with leases expiring in the South Bay are deciding to move their operations to San Francisco to be closer to tech workers, cheaper rents, and the city lifestyle. Yahoo and Microsoft already have offices in San Francisco and Google may soon be joining them. Also other existing SF tech firms are expanding their space.

Due to the increase this will have on commercial real estate lease prices, residential real estate prices may also go up. Perhaps the upward pressure on commercial prices brought about by the influx of Web 2.0 companies will offset the overall slowdown in the residential real estate market. This effect is likely to be stronger near downtown, where the tech companies are located, and not in the outer districts like the Sunset or the Richmond.

Up until today, I thought that San Francisco only maintained a sister city relationship with Assisi, Italy, Which makes sense because the cities share the namesake of the same patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi. However, a quick search on the city website found that San Francisco maintains sister city relationships with 14 cities around the world! Who knew? The website also has fun facts about San Francisco including the official city bird, tree, and flower.

Melissa and I just returned home after taking a walk to the Ferry Building and back in what has to be the most beautiful February day in San Francisco history. It was 70°F degrees when we left, shortly after 10 am, at high noon at the Ferry Building it was about 74°F degrees, and right now it has cooled a bit to about 69°F degrees. By all intents and purposes, it’s a perfect day in San Francisco.

Typically, the weather here from January through March means almost constant rain and cold. However, this year has been an anomaly with little or no rainfall for weeks and months at a time. Although the lack of rain is disturbing, you can’t argue with the weather for the last three days. It’s been fantastic!

This is a reminder that the Amazing Race 11, the All-Stars edition, will debut this Sunday night at 8:00 pm on CBS. In a recent TV Guide interview, Phil Keoghan revealed that the challenges are much more difficult and overall they are “wanting to push things a little harder because they’ve done it before.” Be sure not to miss it.

I just found this funny video series titled Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager. It’s a simple premise, Darth Vader as the day shift manager of a small grocery store. It sounds a little corny at first, but whatever you do, don’t underestimate the power of the dark side! These videos have great effects, high production value, and have to be seen to be believed. If you are a fan of Star Wars, the five video episodes in this series will have you rolling on the floor laughing your ass off. Enjoy.