Casino M8trix, the $50-million, 16-story Tetris block alongside the freeway near San Jose's airport, Swallow currently owns the city's oldest card room, Garden City Casino, with partners Peter and Jeanine Lunardi, and they want nothing more than to shut down the aging facility and replace it with a 21st-century gambling establishment. » Read More

Thanks to Silicon Valley's diverse, ever-changing population, it isn't necessary to travel to Bangkok or watch Bizarre Foods to experience some truly weird cuisine. We've got plenty of it right here. Marinated pig's ear? Sewer-scented fruit? Fried grasshoppers? Cow brain tacos? Silicon Valley has it all. » Read More

Do you find yourself spending too much time at Sur La Table, staring at exotic kitchen implements or having erotic thoughts in the cookbook section of one of the few remaining bookstores? Those may be warning signs. Seek help. Or give in. » Read More

With new songs like "Wrecking Ball" and "Death to My Hometown," Bruce Springsteen has taken aim at the decline and corporate makeovers of American cities, as well as the financiers whose disinvestment in American manufacturing has fueled their demise. He's kicked it up a notch, from romanticizing working-class American values to a frontal assault on the global financial system. » Read More

It remains a movie mystery. Why is Howard Hawks, the subject of a major 38-film retrospective at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, still the least-known of the major Hollywood directors? Hawks was responsible for some of the best films of icons like Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe—herself. » Read More

We use advanced technology to recreate the low tech warmth of yesteryear. We share personal photos with perfect strangers. Everyone's now a photographer, a publisher, an artist. Digital photographs are the psychedelics of a new generation, able to alter reality without 12 hours of down time. » Read More

OK, so print's dying, but someone forgot to tell our readers. They cast more votes for more establishments in more categories than at any time in Metro's history. The winners represent an informative slice of life in Silicon Valley in 2012, the year we're all supposed to die-let's just hope someone forgets to remind the Aztec gods. » Read More

3-D printing isn't just a pipe dream for a better tomorrow—it's happening today. And it may just change commercial enterprises forever. On Star Trek: The Next Generation, crew members use a machine known as the replicator to make replacement parts for the ship, prepare food and fix Captain Picard's usual: "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." » Read More

When San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed terms out in a little more than two years, the roster of prospective mayoral candidates ranges somewhere between a couple and a couple too many, depending on who assesses the field. Invariably, in every discussion, two names pop up: San Jose Councilmember Sam Liccardo and Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese. » Read More

Chez TJ will turn 30 years old this year. Three decades is a long run for any restaurant, but what's more remarkable is that Chez TJ continues to be a culinary hit maker. The restaurant has become an unlikely training ground for some of the Bay Area's top chefs. » Read More

I am standing just outside San Jose City Council Chambers, looking at garbage. Literally. Photos of Coyote Creek grace the walls of the curved wing at City Hall. Sculptures comprised of garbage extracted from the creek emerge from pristine white pedestals. Designs of Highways 280 and 680 and the creek are pasted onto the walls, designating the beginning and end of the new exhibit whose title says it all: 'Welcome to Coyote Creek.' » Read More

In his first four years in office, Obama has signed off on an absurd increase in raids on medical cannabis collectives-more than the number that took place in G.W. Bush's administration-despite vowing he wouldn't "use Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state laws about medical marijuana." » Read More

Featuring a lime-green cover with hidden text visible only when one tilts it correctly in the light, Leonard Mlodinow's new book, Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (Pantheon), explores just what its title, um, suggests: "The surprising and exotic forces at play beneath the surface of our own minds." » Read More

Born and raised in San Jose, Sheridan Tatsuno has lived and worked with the poorest and richest people of Silicon Valley. His life story is a combination of opposites. Emerging from working-class Japantown and San Jose High School to becoming one of Silicon Valley's top strategists since 1983, Tatsuno has consulted some of the most notable zillionaires this valley has known. » Read More

The origins of marijuana's annual holiday are shrouded in myth but widely thought to be code for 4:20pm, the meeting time at which a few "stoners' would gather at a designated location to smoke. These days, 420 is used in so many contexts related to cannabis culture that it's easy to lose track. The term "420 friendly' describes a person comfortable with a marijuana-smoking mate on a dating site. » Read More

After three long years, endless meetings, phases of competition and rounds of elimination, the winning team of Chico MacMurtrie, Geo Homsy and Bill Washabaugh has constructed a 10-foot-high prototype of the Organograph, possibly the most ambitious public art project ever conceived for San Jose. » Read More

If one contemplates the San Jose condition through a polarity of native and exotic, then interesting street-level phenomena will occasionally manifest themselves on a higher plane. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but a recent coincidence proved that things are seldom as they seem. Stories exist beneath every rock and pebble of our landscape. » Read More

The term "home-grown' used to have a negative connotation in cannabis circles. It meant the pot lacked potency, sophistication and depth. No longer is that the case, as nursery and garden center crowds grow larger each day. » Read More