By almost any measure, UCSD's Larry Smarr is a superstar of science and technology. Hardly a week goes by, the record shows, when the onetime astrophysicist-turned-Internet-guru isn't out jetting around the country, speaking before trade …
I was stoked because I like the Dragons. And when I started writing this "Crasher" column, the first party I went to made me miss Lucy's Fur Coat and Marshall Crenshaw playing at the Casbah.
Dear Matthew: The other day my wife was recounting her childhood story of how she leaped from the garage roof with her self-made parachute. She survived the crash landing but not without getting "the wind …
Heymatt: Where does the term 420 come from? Does it refer to a term used by California state patrol to signal pot smoking in progress? Also the term marijuana-- I know it's a girls name, …
Dear M.A.: What�s the deal with white chocolate? Chocolate gets its brown color from the cocoa bean. Are there white cocoa beans? -- Garret from San Diego but living in Mexico Ya know how places …
Amid the windswept wastelands of the Anza-Borrego Desert, Borrego Mountain's twin buttes (the East and West buttes) rise with low and broad profiles. From a distance they may look unremarkable, but at close range they …
Michelangelo, no. Mundane, yes. Although there is no money in the till, most San Diego politicians still talk about prodigious projects as if they were a painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, rather …
Wait six months. That's the message native vegetation experts seek to convey to backcountry landowners itching to replant and reseed the scorched shrubs and wildflowers and cut down the blackened trees on their properties. "That …
San Diego's District Three city councilwoman Toni Atkins, who's up for reelection this year, has been picking up some interesting campaign money from out-of-town contributors. Particularly noteworthy: a series of at least nine $100 checks …
My exposure to and subsequent interest in Amici Park was a by-product of waiting inordinate lengths of time for the #16. I began to refer to it as “the bus that never comes.”
Food = joy…guilt…anger…pain…nurturing… friendship…hatred…the way you look and feel.… Food = everything you can imagine. — Susan Powter Tim Klepeis, the chef at Adams Avenue Grill, spoke hesitatingly at first. “I think the greatest reward …
The object is to stick a marshmallow into your mouth and say "chubby bunny." The one who can say that with the most marshmallows wins. One guy spit out bits of marshmallow and drooled down his chin.
From San Juan Capistrano to Lake Elsinore, two-lane Ortega Highway (Highway 74) stretches like a snake over the midriff of the Santa Ana Mountains, giving road warriors a taste of southern Orange County's wild east …
San Diego's massive pension deficit and retiree health-care liabilities have created two warring political camps: the roses and the garlics, or stinking roses. In coming months, it should be clear that the garlics have the …
Sooner or later, according to Bill Farrar, president of the San Diego Police Officers Association, tragic events will expose how understaffed the city's police force is. At 1.65 per 1000, San Diego has one of …
National City mayor Nick Inzunza filed an amended personal statement of economic interest after a complaint to the district attorney last fall from local government watchdog Mel Shapiro. Inzunza had failed to list a raft …
If you’re any kind of sports fan, you’ll have to admit you’re at least a teensy bit jealous of La Jolla resident Dick Enberg. And why not? You sit in your living room, watching the …
I ended up staying so late at this party that Lederer had to subtly hint for me and the last guest to leave his house by saying, "We have to start cleaning this place up.”
Heymatt: Do jumbo jets have keys? If so, has anyone ever lost them and delayed a flight? -- Jay, waiting on the tarmack We have so many other, more annoying ways to delay flights these …
Yo Matt: Why can't I buy music videos? I'd like to own Thriller and some others without waiting to see them on TV. Can you help? -- Lisa, San Diego Lisa, you're just so discouraged …
Matt: Why is Goofy Mickey Mouse's best friend, but Pluto's his dog? Shouldn't Pluto be his best friend, by definition? And Goofy has a son named Max, but they never mention Max's mother. Who is …
South of the broad, gently shelving beach at La Jolla Shores, the shoreline quickly changes character, becoming rocky tidepools, a fringe of wave-tossed boulders and cobbles, and steep cliffs. Just offshore, the deep, submarine La …
Call it the Florida flimflam. You would almost think that Richard Lerner, president of Scripps Research Institute, has taken lessons in snookering the public from his good friend, Padres majority owner John Moores. Scripps plans …
The old Le Meridien Hotel appealed so much to Roger Perez as the reception locale for his 1993 wedding to wife Renee that one day on his lunch hour last summer he went back to …
Ex-San Diego city councilman Bruce Henderson, who has already taken on two multimillionaires, Alex Spanos and John Moores, in his never-ending battle on behalf of truth, justice, and taxpayers' pocketbooks, now finds himself facing off …
You can still see downtown, but a new condo complex blocks much of the bay view. “It’s not the same as one floor up, where you get the whole bay. It’s $150,000 more for the whole bay.”
Well, hell. You might suppose that a few decades of reviewing movies, especially the two-plus since Ronald Reagan moved into the White House, would have inured a person to mass displays of bad taste and …
When Brian French jammed the seventh round into the shotgun, it was the last shell he had. The first five he’d shot in warning. The sixth he’d fired 40 seconds earlier, and it had torn …
Frank Doubleday, in Europe at the time Norris bought Dreiser’s novel, on his return home read the manuscript and hated it. Not only did Doubleday not wish to publish it, he thought it filthy and morally wanting.
There was an attractive woman in her 40s standing near me. As I was leaving, I heard her say, "It's such an honor to meet you." I turned to see she was talking to Mr. Flynt, not me.
Hey there, Matt: Every so often, while walking barefoot on the beach for a sunset stroll, I'll look down to check out the rocks and shells and notice something that makes me put my flip-flops …
Yo, Mattmeister: What is Boxing Day? -- Jeff Foxmore, La Jolla The day we're allowed to punch out someone who's annoyed us most in the past year? Unfortunately, no. It's not even a U.S. celebration, …
Uh, Matt: If my invention is the greatest thing since sliced bread, how long would that be? If you get my drift. -- Curious George, San Diego Not sure I do, George, but why should …
A cork afloat on the ocean bobs up and down. By contrast, developer Corky McMillin bobs and weaves, to and fro, when discussing finances. It's time to uncork the secrecy behind the Corky McMillin Companies' …
Lonnie Glasco shows off photos of a bevy of 18-wheelers and cars parked up and down his street, Dunbar Lane, in the East County community of Blossom Valley. Pictured also are vehicles strewn all over …
It was a banner season for Chargers star running back LaDainian Tomlinson -- who makes a reported $1.75 million or so a year and could get as much as $38 million over the course of …
One of California's historic hot spots, Placerita Canyon Park hosted the state's first gold rush (1842), farming, oil exploration, and movie-making. You can contemplate these historical details as you visit the park's superb nature center …
Dear MatAl: Long time listener, first time caller. Me and my cohorts were messing around with the age old mystery of how many times sheet of paper can be folded. We got as high as …
“I could love a duck!” the American poet Theodore Roethke wrote hyperbolically, manically, in one of an astonishing series of longish poems usually referred to as “The Lost Son” poems. I’ve always liked ducks myself …
When you see a poem in The New Yorker, it’s there: (1) to break up the page; and (2) as a gesture, a sop to those who associate the idea of poetry with highbrow culture and class.
The 3M Co. of St. Paul, Minnesota, is one of the world's best-managed companies. It is among the 30 blue chips making up the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It makes Scotch tape and thousands of …
Prospective home buyers in San Diego have waited for months for prices to stop their upward climb. In Tijuana, they're no longer waiting. Many Tijuanenses are leaving the city's colossal rental market and buying their …
1. San Diego's U.S. Attorney's office once had a staff of 122 prosecutors. How many have resigned in the past year? A. 15 B. 20 C. 27 D. 34 2. By losing to the Kansas …
The year 2003 was a busy news year. But more than a few interesting developments somehow eluded that bastion of the local establishment, the Union-Tribune: The Arts San Diego Symphony president and CEO Douglas Gerhart, …
Wilderness Gardens Preserve, a 676-acre jewel of county parkland near Pala in north inland San Diego County, encompasses the grounds of an old ranch -- the former retreat of Manchester Boddy, owner of a Los …
She introduced me to her boyfriend, a 6'3" redhead named Cenoura. She told me, "That means carrot. When they see you, they give you a nickname by looking at you."