Let me call you tweetheart…

If you use the Twitter microblogging platform, you might want to follow these members:

SFEarthquakes for minute by minute updates on seismic activity.

FoodNut or SFRestaurants for links to Bay Area restaurant reviews.

Cheeseboard Pizza for this Berkeley eatery's pizza of the day tweet.

USCFpeds for the lastest news and research findings from UCSF Children's Hospital.

SFist or SFStation for Bay Area news, arts, events, and more.

San Francisco Weekly for links to articles from their website.

San Francisco Government Jobs for links to (you guessed it) job listings.

Oakland Museum and the de Young Museum for your fine art fix.

Southwest Airlines and JetBlue for breaking news, deals, and rapid problem-solving.

Know of other Twitter streams Bay Area residents would find handy? Leave the links in a comment.

Valentine's day dining

Sure, you can wait until the last minute to think about where to take your honey-bunny to dinner on Valentine's Day.

You can also pretend to enjoy the dubious grub at some questionable eatery that just happens to have plenty of empty tables on February 14.

Instead, make a reservation at one of the eight restaurants suggested by Thrillist/San Francisco. Fabulous food without the inflated prix fixe pricing. Yum.

Thinking big

Imagine a 24-room home…in just 344 square feet.

Hong Kong architect Gary Chang has remodeled his apartment three times to get the most from the limited space available.

So before you grumble about not having enough room, read about his home in a recent New York Times article.

Picture this...

Whether you're new to the Bay Area or a lifelong resident, you'll enjoy the hundreds of photos (and stories) on FogBay.com.

Don't miss the photographer's links list of events, shops and restaurants.

Culinary resolutions for 2009

New year, but same old kitchen?

Mark Bittman, a.k.a "The Minimalist," offers some great ways to up your cooking game in this New York Times article.

Bittman's blog is worth perusing as well.

Happy holidays

Whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year, there's something quintessentially festive about 10 nicely dressed men singing in harmony.

Thrilling? You decide

Thrillist is a new lifestyle/food/shopping website with editions for several cities, including San Francsico.

A golden age for first-time home buyers?

"Five or 10 years from now, when the financial crisis has ended and housing prices are up smartly once more, we will look in the rearview mirror and realize that we missed a golden age for first-time home buyers."

So begins a recent article in the New York Times. Read it here.

The Treasury Department's next move

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Treasury Department is strongly considering a plan to intervene directly in the mortgage industry to dramatically force down rates.

Read the entire article here.

Fannie Mae to temporarily halt foreclosure sales and evictions

Breaking news!

The following is reprinted from a Fannie Mae email announcement.
Please note the Lender Letter is a link to a PDF.

Fannie Mae has issued Lender Letter 04-08 announcing that we are halting all foreclosure sales on occupied single-family properties that are scheduled to occur from November 26, 2008 through January 9, 2009. This temporary halt also applies to eviction lockouts of occupied single-family properties.

These actions allow affected borrowers to retain their homes while we work with our regulator and conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to implement the previously announced streamlined loan modification program by December 15, 2008.

To facilitate borrower communications, servicers must instruct foreclosure attorneys to send letters to borrowers whose foreclosure sales are halted urging them to contact their servicer, so that together, the servicer and borrower can continue working to resolve the delinquency.

For complete details, including other servicing and reporting requirements, please see Fannie Mae Lender Letter 04-08 (PDF) on our 2008 Lender Announcements and Letters page on eFannieMae.com and the news release on fanniemae.com.