Some people believe God to be the first hypnotist: He put Adam to sleep and took out a rib to make Eve. It's a leap, but today hypnotism is used as an alternative to anesthesia …

“They start saying, ‘I’m going to drink some young, and I’m going to cellar some.’”

"I'm told they'll let me be Miss USO San Diego until either the troops don't like me anymore or I can't sing."

Forged by local uplift of the seafloor roughly two million years ago, today's Palos Verdes peninsula lay surrounded by the ocean for hundreds of thousands of years. Later, the alluvium that covers today's Los Angeles …

Is Thanksgiving the new New Year's Eve? Increasing numbers of folks, from empty nesters to newcomers far from home, are opting to have restaurants cook their feasts. Many of you start e-mailing me as early …

A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004; 208 pages; $20. FROM THE DUST JACKET: While traveling in Calgary, Alberto Manguel was struck by how the …

'It's a chess match -- with guns," says Pure Promotions director John E. Favourite. From each team, seven players carrying paintball guns get seven minutes to grab a flag a little over halfway across a …

In the 1960s, 1500 people attended La Mesa First United Methodist Church each week. Today, Reverend John Fanestil remarked, "a typical Sunday would be just over 200. There is a long-term demographic challenge that all …

After seven and a half years as the morning DJ at R&B oldies station Magic 92.5 (XHRM-FM), Greg Cook was released from the station October 29. The Magic 92.5 is now without a live morning …

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. -- Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde Bachelorette Party (B.P.) -- An event at which a bride-to-be drinks excessive amounts of alcohol and …

"I can't do this. I'm sorry." In an emotional plea to his fans, Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard cut a live radio broadcast short on 91.1 FM, saying he could not continue to …

Five thousand copies of the new Reeve Oliver EP CD were bound inside the November issue of Surfer magazine. "Not many indie marketers have been able to pull something like this off," says Devin Johnson, …

Mike Kamoo's (of the band Static Halo) homegrown label, Earthling Records, recently signed as a subsidiary of Boston's Wishing Tree Records. Wishing Tree distributes nationally to over 15,000 retail outlets. The first three Earthling CDs …

"This is the first time we've done this," said Chuck Perrin, manager of Dizzy's, a jazz club in East Village. The Seventh Avenue venue -- a converted trucking warehouse that was also the first stage …

"I just want other bands to know they should stay away from Talent 2K, period." Homegrown blues guitarist Paul Alvarado, 49, says he has been playing music for over 30 years. But last year he …

When actress Juliette Lewis played the Casbah a year ago, the show sold out. It only lasted 20 minutes, but there was a fight in the crowd, and cops showed up, so that made it …

Harmonium, the nonprofit group that runs the Epicentre/San Diego Regional Teen Center on Mira Mesa Boulevard, has let Brian Witkin, 19, owner of Real 2 Reel Records, operate a store in its building, which will …

Word around the downtown club scene is that Tuesday nights at Martini Ranch's upstairs space, the Shaker Room, may discontinue because of a lack of patronage. (The Shaker Room is usually open Wednesdays through Sundays, …

I didn't get invited to a single party on Halloween. Maybe that's because it fell on Sunday and everyone had their parties on Friday and Saturday. I went to about ten different ones and figured …

I've developed a feeling of revulsion for the L.A. Lakers. I hate their arrogance, hate the gaggle of 25-year-old millionaires who refuse to play hard -- or play as a team -- until the last …

How many economist/lawyer authors create prose that sparkles, twinkles, zings, has you chuckling? Maybe only one: Solana Beach's Todd G. Buchholz, with degrees from Cambridge and Harvard Law School, whose books, such as New Ideas …

On August 14, 2002, elevator doors opened to let Neil Rico into the lobby of the Comerica Bank building in downtown San Diego. As Heritage Security Service's supervisor in the building, Rico figured he knew …

Is a Union-Tribune editorial endorsement now equivalent to a political kiss of death? That's what some local insiders say, judging from the results of last week's voting. The biggest blowout came in the races for …

've been thinking about buying time. Between the kids, the house, the bills, the cooking, the cleaning, and all the rest of it, I seem to arrive at bedtime well short of checking off everything …

This is weird. Last year I was sitting right here in this ancient Wild West shack in Old Town, in the selfsame squiggly wrought-iron seat, drooling over English tea and crumpets, waiting on dusk for …