Grace Carroll is the kind of girl you’d trust for a scoop on the San Diego scene. She’s pretty, blonde, smart. She tends bar in one of La Jolla’s hottest restaurants, where the clientele isn’t …

From superior product engineering to reckless financial engineering: that’s how America has declined from a society that makes goods to one that shuffles money around — obsessively gambling with excessive debt. This is the gist …

Giovanni Cornejo had his head under the hood of a car when he first heard the commotion. He looked up and saw a woman at the Shell station across the street trying to hold a …

Where Was Mom? I just had a comment about that article about Jadean, the girl that got killed in the car accident (“There’s Been an Accident,” Cover Story, June 5). It really pisses me off …

It’s been a very good San Diego election cycle for Linden Blue, proprietor with his brother Neal of General Atomics, the La Jolla defense contractor responsible for the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle and other nifty …

La Jolla’s Blue brothers aren’t the only locals in the business of making unmanned aerial vehicles. In fact, San Diego is such a hotbed of UAV development that last week it hosted the Association for …

Former Union-Tribune enterprise reporting editor Susan White has departed the paper and is now in New York working as an editor for a new foundation-funded website that debuted last week, promising to deliver in-depth reporting …

Nautical Disaster plays bluesy pop with a dose of ’80s new wave to keep things clubworthy. The three-piece rose from the ashes of the Daffodils, who split in July 2006. “Everything was going great,” says …

The Smithereens spent the first few years of their career developing a formula and the next two decades touring behind it. Some have correctly identified the celestial hierarchy of their harmonies as a postcard to …

Montreal’s Unicorns had good songs, but they were one of those indie pop acts that gets by mostly on goofy charm. Their cheap-sounding instruments, unpolished playing, and silly onstage puppet shows were part of their …

“If your dog cannot be commanded with ‘come’ and ‘stay’ 100 percent of the time, you should probably not have your dog on a trail,” says Allen Riedel, author and hiking enthusiast. “Most places in …

You almost kind of expect to have some bad dates in your twenties. I’ve had my share: Still Living at Home Guy, Always on His Cell Phone Guy, Just Not Ready for a Relationship Guy, …

Thirty Years Ago“Larry was so nice at first,” Mary sighed, recalling the nights she had spent in his warm embrace. “But then he started getting weird. He bought a big German shepherd and brought him …

My folks have been retired for five years, and they’re spending their golden years on the road. There have been trips to China and Peru and a train tour of Canada. This year, they’re sticking …

All my adolescence I spent here. In Mauritius. This island is more home to me than any other place I’ve been. Not that I prefer it or anything of that sort but in the sense …

Earlier this year I got an Evite to a “white-trash party.” I could tell these partiers would be trouble by what was written in the Evite: “We have spoken with the bus drivers and they …

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. — G.K. Chesterton It was not an invitation — it was a challenge. It didn’t say “Mac and Cheese Party,” it said, “Mac and …

The city is a procrustean bed for man’s wildness. His heart and eyes disfavor straight line and timidity. Children know this. Set a child down on grass, and he’ll strip his shirt off, pick a …

The multiuse trails of Marshall Canyon Regional Park (for hikers, mountain bikers, and equestrians) thread through Marshall and Live Oak canyons in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The inner recesses of both canyons …

I came up with a term because I hate the term “beastly”; I think it doesn’t rhyme off the tongue as well. But “beasty” describes something so gnarly. It’s just, like, anything that is a …

It was Father’s Day on Sunday, and fathers got at least three rounds of shouts and applause at Bayview Baptist Church — grandfathers and great-grandfathers, too. (At least five of the latter were in attendance.) …

Greg Budney is curator at Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds (Cornell University). Among birders, this is authentic fame, as good as it gets. He’s been working at the library since 1980. Budney’s job is like …

As I begin this I am looking out the back door onto the rain-spattered deck, which in turn looks out on a common garden area and its foliage bowing and scraping to me in the …

It’s an amazing feeling, sitting up to a bar watching the Padres on a bunch of great screens, including one that’s 12 feet, while the actual Padres are playing in the actual ballpark about, oh, …

Since the last time I reviewed Chateau Orleans for Mardi Gras, 2001, it’s been through at least two changes of ownership. I wasn’t crazy about the food, and then the second-to-last owner complained that our …

Asilk thread seams together the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, the tarot, feminism, and Alfred Stieglitz, the photographer whose impresario activities in the early 20th Century promoted American modernism and the careers of Charles Demuth, …

“I heard from one of our customers that the Zombie Lounge was going to be for sale,” says Chris Heaney, owner/operator of the Kadan in North Park. Heaney is now the principal owner of the …

Steve Weinberger wants to keep you from embarrassing yourself at the next concert. In his new book No Air Guitar Allowed, Weinberger runs down nearly every humiliating move and bad rock stereotype that can be …

“As a singer, I sound like Elvis Presley, no matter how hard I try not to,” says James Kruk, who disbanded his former group Fake Booby Judy and became, for a time, one of Poland’s …

For about five years, singer-guitarist Joe Rathburn has played on the outdoor patio at the Tin Fish restaurant and bar at the foot of Fifth Avenue. When nearby Petco Park opened, Padres fans would walk …

Because money from both major and indie labels is drying up, bands have had to get creative to raise funds. Eve Selis offered six “levels of participation” to help fund the recording of her new …

Album: Yippee!!! (2008) Artist: Hotel St. George Label: self-released Where available/price: Taang! Records downtown, Thirsty Moon in Hillcrest, and M-Theory Records in Mission Hills for $8 Songs: 1) Old Lies Told Well 2) It’s the …

Heymatt: I have read many a time that albatross spend most of their lives out over the ocean and never come ashore. Well, I guess they have to come ashore to lay their eggs. If …

The Tiki House in Pacific Beach is a very surf-friendly venue. I’ve seen surf bands from around the world tear it up behind the pool table and on the stage built for a one-man band. …

Recipe by Trey Foshee, executive chef, George’s at the Cove I cook at home just like everyone else cooks at home — I look in the fridge and see what’s in there. But I have …

Clue: The palace of Shangri-Laos? Describe this location, name the nearest cross-streets, and win a Reader T-shirt. Enter by completing the form below. Last week's place: (clue: Yowler at the third jewel's theater?) Life-size sculpture …

It's common knowledge that the housing market is in the dumps. In last month's Standard and Poor's/Case-Schiller home price index, prices for the first quarter of 2008 plummeted 20.5 percent compared to first quarter numbers …