I first moved here as a delinquent teenager in '93 or '94 and ended up living on Clement Street for nine years. Back then they used to have live food markets between 4th and 6th Avenue where you could buy live chickens, live fish, frogs, weird stuff . I had just moved there, and it was like moving to Chinatown. I remember I went out one morning to get a cup of coffee, and a guy at one of the markets was putting out a live turtle on the table. I thought, "Oh, that's kind of a novel thing to see. Someone will take it home as a pet." Then he pulls out this jagged, curved knife, opens up the shell right in front of me, and starts putting in little flags with Chinese writing on them, maybe naming the different organs of the animal that people could buy. That was something I wasn't expecting to see.

At the end of the day, anything that didn't sell would get thrown into the gutter, and huge swarms of seagulls would come in. If you want to know what San Francisco used to be like, this is one of those things that's changed. Clement Street used to be super gross to walk down. People did not ever want to go down there. It's a lot different now. It has a French restaurant, book shop, kids' store. Now it's pretty clean. It's not Walnut Creek or anything, but there aren't half-dead animals in the gutters anymore.

Let me say it again: may the fourth be with you. Today is officially (or unofficially) Star Wars day. You have probably seen that on numerous “Star Wars” friends’ Facebook pages already. The Toy Maniac is, without a doubt, a Star Wars fan. However I found myself in quite a quagmire as I may have exhausted every topic on the toys. For Vader’s sake, I have even done the Top 100 Star Wars Figures ( Star Wars has always meant a lot to me. The film itself is wrapped in so many of my childhood memories. As I got older it started to find its way into my teenage years with the Zahn Novels. Then, in college with the release of the prequels each summer. Now there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t see something of George Lucas’ creation.  ). My Holy Grail of Star Wars figures is a Blue Snaggletooth. Why? Ultra rare and the price for one today is close to $200. I know a store that has one and it’s just sitting there.  To be honest, I want