4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Matthew Alice

Matthew Alice

For more than 25 years, Matthew Alice answered readers’ questions in his column, Straight from the Hip. No subject was too obscure for Alice, and the notorious answer man settled bets on everything from astrophysics to the word origins. This is an archive of Q's and A’s dispatched from the Alice Research Institute over the years.

Matthew Alice was written for about 20 years, ending in mid-2012, by Linda Nevin, who passed away on Feb. 15, 2013.

Articles by Matthew Alice

Poolside shooting near UTC involving Selis and Wilf clans

University City massacre done by developer family donor They are the crème de crème of San Diego business and political society, giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to both Democrats and Republicans, and in turn ...

March 20, 2023
Guitarist Rob Logic transforms the neighborhood

Spring Valley is the new North Park About three months ago, the bar donned a large sign reading “The Bancroft” next to Fannie’s old marquee, which now entreats — perhaps tongue-in-cheek — “I assure you ...

February 6, 2023
Allied Gardens invaded by 2000 sq ft houses

Too many mansions Boyer's 1400-square-foot house sits on 50th Street, immediately to the east and uphill from the proposed development, where bulldozers are currently grading the land into terraces on which will sit 25 new ...

San Diego roads that have disappeared, vanished movie palaces

The Lost Roads of San Diego In 1944, the land between Midway Drive and Sports Arena Boulevard (then Frontier Street) became combed with the short streets of a wartime housing project. After the war, transients ...

December 6, 2021
Missing body parts of Napoleon, Peron, Pancho Villa

Pancho Villa’s head — the story behind its disappearing One of Pancho Villa’s sons, 21-year-old Pancho Augustin Villa, had just been declared “violently insane” by an L.A. judge and was confined to a psychiatric hospital. ...

October 9, 2021
Every free-roaming cat kills 50 to 100 birds annually

Save the songbirds! Of 9000-plus bird species, 6000 are in decline, 1000 heading for extinction. Urban Wisconsin has 1295 free-roaming cats per square mile. Cats kill 1 to 3 million birds each day in the ...

October 3, 2021
See's chocolates vs. Whitman's, how they make round M&Ms

Whitman's Samplers vs. See's An unmarked lid allows Mrs. See and her customers to free-associate, sweets-wise, and put whatever they like into a box. If this idea seems frivolous or frightening, here’s another solution. Make ...

September 26, 2021
California king beds, men's briefs vs. boxers, why Mickey, Goofy, Donald, Pluto have three fingers

People from other countries are pushy waiting in line As much as Germans like body- and ego-protecting seclusion, Middle Easterners, according to Hall’s studies, like companionship and family closeness. For them, there is virtually no ...

September 12, 2021
The historical Saint Diego, A-12 spy plane, ABS brakes

The real Saint Diego If he’d stayed on the islands, our city now would probably be called San Miguel, the name originally given to the area by Juan Cabrillo. But around 1450, Diego went to ...

August 30, 2021
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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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