Featured Articles from SFGate

Finding military records -- and learning the truth about someone's war experience -- is not as difficult as it seems once you know where to start. B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley the authors of "Stolen Valor" a book that exposes phony Vietnam veterans have put together some helpful hints on the book's Web site (www.stolenvalor.com). To get your own military records simply write a letter to the National Personnel Records Center Army (or Air Force or Navy) Records Center 9700 Page Avenue St. Louis MO 63132 (more detailed information is available at www.nara.

We're a feisty group the Vietnamese. Get us together in a room and we'll debate endlessly over the north and south of our politics the clashes of our history the contradictions of our culture. But mention pho (pronounced fuh) -- our beloved beef noodle soup -- and immediately our differences vanish. Our eyes shine our faces beam. All of a sudden we've become an agreeable family with a love for one another that's as strong compelling and reassuring as the beefy steam that billows and curls from a bowl of pho. Sound overstated?

There are two types of people in the world who don't love Paul McCartney - communists and John Lennon. Actually, I don't know what I'm talking about because communists love Macca because he always sings "Back in the U.S.S.R." (OK, maybe the Chinese communists don't like him because he boycotted their country, but that was because of the dog fur and stuff.) Anyway, since everybody loves Sir Paul and he's going to be play at AT&T; Park on Saturday, we closely followed his "Up and Coming" tour around the world, checking the nightly set lists to figure out what we should expect when he arrives here.

The San Francisco 49ers, trying their darnedest to move south to Silicon Valley, now want a rent decrease at Candlestick Park because it's in such bad shape. The Niners recently filed a formal claim with the city, a precursor to a possible lawsuit, saying they have lost revenues because the city hasn't maintained the stadium as required in the lease signed back in 1969 and amended over the years. The claim, at least the second over maintenance that the team has lodged with the city since 2007, doesn't specify a dollar amount for the alleged damages other than saying it's greater than $25,000.

Rammed earth, sod, yak wool, reclaimed wood, oriented-strand board, straw ... nowadays, the smorgasbord of offerings in alternative building methods and materials is staggeringly abundant, if not a little confusing. On the one hand, you've got architectural innovators advocating prefabrication to make a better "housetrap." With high-tech products and cutting-edge mass production, they are trying to develop a new housing methodology: designerly, affordable, energy-efficient houses built to withstand anything, come hell or high water.

T he landmark San Francisco Chronicle building sits like a grizzled old cinder block at 901 Mission St. San Francisco CA 94103. It's squat and bulky and desperately needs a paint job and a deep colon cleanse and some shrubbery. Do you want to see it? Do you want to see its cluttered rooftop and see all the buildings surrounding it and zoom in to the point where you can if you squint just right see various cars in the street and the giant parking garage next door and to where you can almost if you get a good magnifying glass observe various sunlight-deprived writers and editors milling about Mission Street smoking cigarettes and discussing how to win more Pulitzers?

I was at the dog park the other day, chatting with a dog-obsessed friend who knows me really well, when another dog owner came over and mentioned that her dog had recently been diagnosed with a bladder infection. I smiled at her and opened my mouth to ask a question, and noticed that my friend was shaking her head, scrunching up her eyes and basically indicating with every available bit of body language that something terrible was about to happen. I frowned, and asked, "What?" "Please," she said.

Joe Montana is back, and the 49er Faithful will want to know how soon he can suit up, unretire No. 16, and go after that fifth Super Bowl ring. But the nearest he'll get to a game is the glow of the Candlestick lights that he can see from his high-rise condo in downtown San Francisco. At 54, Montana and his wife, Jennifer, have no kids at home, so they've sold off their homes. The ranch in the Wine Country has been listed for $49 million (a coincidental price point). They've downsized into a leased two-bedroom on the 41st floor of Millennium Tower, six floors above former 49ers President Carmen Policy.

Sam Altman was leaving a computer science class at Stanford last year when he wondered where his friends were. It's an age-old question, but it got Altman thinking of a different way of arriving at the answer. Alton's creation, for which he left school after his sophomore year, is a service called Loopt, which allows mobile phone users to locate friends using Global Positioning Satellite technology on a cell phone. The service, which is being offered on Boost Mobile, provides a real-time cell-phone map that pinpoints the location of friends who have agreed to be tracked.

This much we know for sure: You do not touch the third rail. You do not betray your closest friends. You do not eat the fuzzy part of the cheese. You do not rise up from the watery depths too rapidly, lest you go quickly insane. You do not drink five cups of coffee and three shots of absinthe and then attempt delicate brain surgery, blindfolded. You do not drill for oil a mile down in the pristine seas and have no reliable backup systems should something go horribly, horribly wrong.

There are words that, when combined, have the power to create far more questions that answers, and not many are more intriguing than the phrase "nude cruise." Having heard for years about voyages large and small populated entirely by folks wearing nothing more than SPF-4,000 sunscreen, I wanted to find out more -- purely in the interest of thorough journalism, of course. Imagine the benefits: no calculating outfits based on formal nights; no using the expensive laundry service on board; packing everything for a weeklong vacation in a fanny pack (so to speak)

Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012. "That date has not one stitch of biblical authority," Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. "It's like a fairy tale." The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011. The Mayans and the recent Hollywood movie "2012" have put the apocalypse in the popular mind this year, but Camping has been at this business for a long time.

Graduating from high school is a treasured rite of passage and emotional touchstone for most students. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer California students have the opportunity to experience it. The national high school graduation rate of 68.8 percent in 2007 was 3.1 percentage points higher than in 1997. As a country, that means far too many students are still slipping through the cracks - but at least we're making small steps in the right direction. An exception is California.

If you've been living in this country at least 15 years, odds are you have a T-shirt collection. Odds are also that you can't remember where half of them came from, although, thankfully, it's usually spelled out for you in chunky type. I was in a volleyball tournament? I signed up for that credit card offer? And really, what fashionista in the Bay Area wears your standard men's T-shirts? They're big, they're boxy, they're shapeless -- in other words, terribly unflattering. The wonderful thing is that an ugly old T-shirt taking up space in your drawer can become something much, much better with a good-quality pair of scissors and a little ingenuity.

Peter Pan: Multimedia play. By J.M. Barrie, adapted by Tanya Ronder. Music by Benjamin Wallfisch. Directed by Ben Harrison. With Nate Fallows, Abby Ford, Jonathan Hyde, Itxaso Moreno et al. Through the summer. Threesixty Theatre, Ferry Park, S.F. Two hours, 20 minutes. $30-$85. (888) 772-6849 . www.peterpantheshow.com . The flying is fantastic. As Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Wendy and her brothers take off for Neverland, the audience flies with them through a 360-degree, lovingly detailed wraparound aerial view of Edwardian London that skims the steeples and glides down the Thames, ducking under an arch or bridge on the way. The Crocodile - that ticktocking nemesis of Captain Hook - is fabulous as well.

Hundreds of thousands of Californians will soon receive their last unemployment check unless and until Congress extends federal benefits. Those most at risk of losing benefits immediately are people who are at or nearing the end of either their regular state benefits or one of four federal extensions. In addition, people who are receiving what California calls Fed-Ed, the very last round of benefits, could lose them immediately no matter where they are in that process. A test vote in the Senate on a bill to extend benefits failed Wednesday.

Toy Story 3: The Video Game: Developer: Avalanche Studios. Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios. $29.99-$49.99 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 (reviewed on PS3); also available for DS and PSP. ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+. Given the consistent quality of Pixar films, the inevitable video game adaptations have a hard act to follow, having been relegated to passable but forgettable children's fare. The more uncanny aspects of Pixar movies - the nuanced storytelling, the striking emotion - are among the trickier qualities to translate to a game, much less in a category traditionally marketed to children.

In a nutshell: Chatroulette.com allows strangers to connect via random video chats. Cool factor: Users just fire up Chat Roulette and start talking to strangers through a Web cam and instant messaging system. When you get tired of them, you just push "next" and start a new session. Note: You'll need a Web cam. And though the terms of service forbid obscene or pornographic imagery, there is always a chance that's what you'll get, so be prepared.