Two weeks ago came news of P.F. Chang's imminent arrival in Fresno. Today, The Bee's Bethany Clough reports that the Cheesecake Factory is coming to Fashion Fair, sending Fresno's chain restaurant profile skyrocketing even further.

From the story:

The Cheesecake Factory averages about $11 million a year per restaurant -- compared with $3 million to $4 million for Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar, Chili's and TGI Friday's, according to Technomic, a research and consulting firm in Chicago.

"That's huge," said Lydia Zabrycki, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Economic Development Corp. serving Fresno County. "The sales tax to our area would be fantastic."

Time to start a Banana Republic / Pottery Barn Watch. Hat tip to Mike Osegueda.

For lovers of independent film, this is a good thing to know: The Bee's Lew Griswold reports that Tulare will be holding its first independent film festival in September, featuring Murderball, March of the Penguins (link to Donald Munro's review; I can personally attest to the overpowering cuteness of this documentary), The Edukators, Me and You and Everyone We Know, The Chumscrubber, 5x2 and Grizzly Man (which looks very interesting; have you caught the trailer?). More on the festival at TulareCulturalArts.org.

Frank D tags to One by One Leadership's September field trip to Pleasanton, CA, a thriving Bay Area burg. "City nerds" are invited to join the visit for $65, which includes lunch with the city's mayor and economic development director, tours of some of the city's recreational facilities, and a taste of the city's downtown.

Fun fact: Craig Scharton, director of One by One's downtown revitalization program, used to be executive director of Pleasanton's Downtown Association, so this is a return to old haunts for him.

For mementos of Saturday night's concert at the Tower Theater, check out LiveSportsImages.com. Good-quality photographs of every performer are available for preview online, and you can order prints, t-shirts, and other trinkets printed with any of the images as well.

More RotT-related tidbits:

• Love for the concert from KFSR's Frank D.
• Fresno Famous last week was all about the concert, and don't miss the podcast.
• Rock of the Tower on Myspace: Have you been friended?

Here's a common scenario: You've plunked down well over $1,000 of your hard-earned cash to buy a brand-new PC. Now you want to be able to edit photos and audio, to design Web pages, create spreadsheets and presentations, and all that other stuff computers were made to do. And the software that came with your computer isn't cutting it -- it's lacking in features and difficult to figure out.

You could go out and spend almost $1,700 to purchase Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Adobe Audition and the Microsoft Office suite. Or you could enter the world of open-source software.

By the way, for those of you who installed Greasemonkey, make sure you don't have a version higher other than 0.3.5 installed (thanks, Scott!). More info here.

If you missed this weekend's stories from The Bee, make sure to check out yesterday's A1 story "Laws with Teeth," by Kerry Ginis. From the article:

Neighbors found Tyler Babcock's naked body lying in a pasture on a cold January afternoon. Two large dogs - including a pit bull mix - had brutally attacked the 6-year-old boy. They tore apart his flesh and ripped his clothes to shreds. Tyler's injuries were so severe that nothing could be done to save his life. The dogs that killed Tyler were frequently spotted roaming the Fresno County neighborhood about a mile east of Clovis, just north of Shaw Avenue. The owners weren't required by law to keep them on leashes or confined to the back yard.

FresBlog is polling site visitors about whether pit bulls should be banned in Fresno. (Note, though, that Fresno County officials say they aren't trying to ban pit bulls, but to regulate their care.)

From MTV.com comes word that Weezer and the Foo Fighters will hit Fresno on their joint arena tour through the U.S. The press release is "not a definitive tour itinerary," and it includes no information about venues, dates or prices, but it's "at least a start," MTV says. Word from Weez/Foo band management is that the tour will run through late October.

The latest local story getting picked up in news broadcasts around the world is that of 11-year-old Maribel Cuevas, who threw a rock at some boys in her neighborhood who were pelting her with water balloons. One of the boys was hit by the rock and had to go to the hospital for treatment. Right now Maribel's awaiting prosecution on felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon, after having spent three weeks under house arrest and five days at juvenile hall.

The story is roiling the blogosphere, including local blogs Sour Grapes and FresBlog. ABC 30 has video of the story.

The Fresno County grand jury, The Bee's editorial board and The Editor of Fresno Famous all agree: Fresno, now the top metropolitan area in the country for injection drug users, needs a needle-exchange program.

Update: FresBlog begs to differ.

Victoria and James recommend a Central Valley day trip that's not in the guide books:

Even though the California guidebooks said there was nothing to see there, I remembered from school that it is the major place where fruit is grown. It is particlarly famous for Sun Maid rasins and other dried fruits (about 200 different varities in the San Joaquin valley if I remember correctly). I thought that it was unlikely that we would be visiting that part of the world again so it would be good to see some of what goes on there. I phoned the Sun Maid raisin factory but was told that they did not do tours. Listed directly under them on on my internet search was a place called 'Sun Empire Foods.' So I phoned them. The man that answered the phone was wonderful and invited us for a tour of his factory where they process dried fruits into chocolates! (Candy here in the US). Much more exciting! But, we were to be there on a Sunday. Not a problem to him - he would open the factory especially for us!

File this under: Oh, how'd you know it was my birthday? You didn't have to give me anything. No, really, you shouldn't have. Seriously. ... Punk.

In honor of Cooper Shadrick's 15th birthday, his classmates gave him a broken leg. It's the gift that keeps on giving, a heartwarming high school tradition, the "birthday beating." Now Cooper's family is suing the Visalia Unified School District, which in turn is filing legal actions against the birthday beaters and their families.

P.F. Chang's fans, take note. Expect the restaurant to open in the River Park complex by the end of this year. Construction begins this month, says Rod Anaforian from developer Lance-Kashian & Co.

Remember when we showed you satellite photos of Fresno landmarks on Google Maps? Well, Google recently unveiled a piece of software called Google Earth, and these satellite images beat the other ones hands-down. So, once again ...

Check it out! It's the Bee! And, oh! Look, it's the Tower Theater! River Park! Parlier!

You can pay to upgrade to an even better resolution, for some quality stalking.

Two articles about new solar technologies today reveal the promise and risk of the industry. This Wired article profiles the company that's creating a cheap, innovative solar rooftop unit called the Sunflower 250. And the SF Chronicle takes a look at solar nanotechnology, an attempt to make an end-run around the need for expensive silicon in solar installations, which investors are beginning to eye hungrily.

Both articles acknowledge that many people familiar with the history of solar tech believe it will take another 20 years before solar is economically competitive with fossil fuels. And the solar industry has seen a lot of hype and vaporware (i.e. highly anticipated technology that fails to show). One Web site even breaks solar photovoltaic cells into four types -- monocrystalline, polycrystalline, amorphous and vaporware -- describing the last as "the one that pops up in the news about every 3 months, proclaiming the next major breakthrough that will make plastic spray-on solar cells that will cost around 5 cents a watt." "After almost 30 years in this business," the Web site says, "we are still waiting for one of those to actually reach production, and I suspect we will be waiting for another 30."

While he was in town, the Beehive caught up with renowned comics theorist Scott McCloud. In this rather comical Q&A, Scott talks about the mechanics behind comic strips, the four schools of comics art, why reading comics is such hard work, and more.

A LiveJournaler has gone to the trouble of collecting all the Fresno-dissing on the Internet in one place. More Fresno-dissing ensues, of course. Will our own intrepid LiveJournalers step up for the defense?

Update: LJFresno responds.