“This is a joke,” says my three-year-old as she thumps into the kitchen. Patches of red dot her pale cheeks, and I can see nearly all of her tiny teeth inside her wide-open grin. Clearly, …

On Sunday, July 5, at approximately 2:30 p.m., a sidewalk peddler was spotted on the southwest corner of Tenth Avenue and J Street hawking “ice cold water and Gatorade” to baseball fans walking around Petco …

A man identified only as a black male (raza negra) by the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado was found shot to death near one of Tijuana’s main drags, Sánchez Taboada, on Monday at around …

While on a "heli-hiking" trip in the Canadian Rockies (more specifically the Bugaboo Range), we were hit suddenly with a heavy snowstorm, which was unusual for July. Heli-hiking involves a small group, with a guide …

Josh Johnson was playing a video game in his home near the intersection of Allegheny Street and Calle Tortuosa on Monday, July 6, at around 5 p.m. when he heard a loud crash. He said …

I put sour cream in my coffee because I didn’t have any milk. I searched through my refrigerator for anything that could possibly be utilized as a splash of creamer. Salad dressing, mayonnaise, soy sauce, …

Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca has been getting some of the best reviews of any release this year. Music site Stereogum asked, “Wait, is Bitte Orca the best album of 2009?” Note the question mark. New …

In the mid-1990s, Jay Farrar founded a group he called Son Volt after he broke with Jeff Tweedy and left Uncle Tupelo, the band they had formed together. Son Volt, often called an alt-country band, …

Gayle Skidmore was 11 when she confiscated her father’s 12-string guitar and taught herself to play. By the time the San Diego homegirl moved to England to study at Oxford University, she was experimenting with …

I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts. — John Steinbeck ‘I’m going to ask you both to …

Hello, Matthew: What exactly is your brain doing when you use one of the five senses in a dream? I always figured it was just some outside influence that your brain incorporated into your dream, …

Visitors to downtown hotels are a piddling few. Residents of downtown condos are a piddling few. But that won’t stop the establishment from diddling taxpayers for more downtown development — a travesty because outlying parks, …

La Colonia? Ah, yes. The story comes back as I sit up to the old tiled bar. “1697–1997,” says a weaving hung on the wall. “Celebrates the 300th anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Baja …

The La Jolla Playhouse’s popular Page to Stage series, which presents readings of works in progress, has an astonishing track record: Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays was a major Broadway hit; Doug Wright’s I Am My …

San Diego Democrats don’t have much sway on the Southwest Border Task Force set up by Barack Obama's Justice Department. Only 3 members of the 21-member board hail from San Diego County, and 2 of …

Call it blind loyalty, if you like. For a place to tell me his story, Clark Waters chose the Denny’s restaurant at the corner of Pacific Highway and Hawthorn Street. Only days earlier, he had …

Fact Mangler How does Ken Leighton mangle the facts? Let me count the ways (“Pay the DJ,” “Blurt,” July 2). 1. He prints ridiculous claims unchallenged. For starters, Jefferson Jay claims (to quote Mr. Leighton) …

GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman has been getting lots of campaign cash from some of San Diego’s most famous Republicans. One of the most prominent is Doug Manchester, the hotel magnate whose financial backing for …

With unemployment soaring, news that a San Diego–based aircraft carrier may be pulling out for good would come as unwelcome news to local politicians. On the other hand, one Seattle-area congressman has been trumpeting that …

Fictitious countdown of the final six weeks in the twelve-month tour of an army bomb squad in Baghdad five years back, The Hurt Locker seems on a limited sampling to have excited other commentators more …

Thirty Years AgoNED AND NEDDER: Happy new habitat! With so much love to keep you warm, isn’t that fireplace superfluous? Kandee in Klairemont. FARRELL’S: Waited on me 6-28. I’d like to know you. Reply through …

I’ve got stripes, stripes around my shoulders, I’ve got chains, chains around my legs…— Johnny Cash (based on Leadbelly’s “On a Monday”) For months I’ve been meaning to eat at Kitchen 1540, formerly the more …

“We got a cease-and-desist letter over the title of our album The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Morality,” says Aaron Spaulding of a Conscious Few. “The CD came out last October, and we just got the …

A local promoter of live hip-hop events maintains that San Diego’s dominant promoter has become such a force in the scene that he can freeze out competitors. Because he is afraid of repercussions, the smaller …

One of Ansel Adams’s most familiar and famous images, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, is the photographic equivalent of Aaron Copeland’s orchestral suite Appalachian Spring, John Ford’s movie Stagecoach, or Edward Hopper’s painting of a corner …

“I was stationed in London, England, for eight years and played in a band over there called Fuse,” says Navy retiree Lando Martinez, aka Fat Lando, front man for Hocus. “I was the token Yank …

In the past couple of years, San Diego County has opened two new flora- and fauna-rich open-space preserves just south of Ramona. Both are key links in the county’s Multiple Species Conservation Program, which aims …

The Cribs. In 1887, a reporter for the San Diego Union grew a beard, wore threadbare duds, and stealth’d through San Diego’s red-light district. He was shocked to see drunks on every corner. Some clung …

By all appearances, local jazz singer David Patrone was beheaded on Sunday night, June 28, in Alpine. The incident occurred onstage in the Dreamcatcher Lounge at Viejas Casino at approximately 10:15 p.m., toward the end …

“Temecula Sunrise,” eh? Listeners to this gorgeous track on Bitte Orca, the acclaimed month-old fifth album from Brooklyn art-rock band Dirty Projectors — headlining at the Casbah tonight — may wonder what it’s all about. …

The idea of building a new downtown library has been teetering on the brink of fiction and non-fiction for over a decade. But during recent months, dwindling fundraising efforts, a ballooning city deficit, increasing project …