Cyclones: A Monday night rubber-game win over the State College Spikes. Comment.

Checkin’ in with: The Brooklyn Paper checks in with Victoria Bailey, the woman who brought a TKTS booth to Downtown. Comment.

Greenpoint: A plan to convert a vacant Greenpoint church into condos is meeting with widespread approval, but neighbors are cursing a decision to remove religious icons from the landmarked house of worship — an alteration that the project’s architect said he made in hopes of not scaring away potential tenants. Comment.

Cyclones: Two out of three ain’t good when you’re a struggling team trying to get back in the playoff hunt. But after a can’t-hold-the-lead loss in Jamestown on Friday night, the Cyclones split the first two games of a home series against the State College Spikes, setting up a must-win rubber game on Monday night at Keyspan Park (not that home cooking is helping the 12-14 Cyclones get out of last place: they’re only 6–7 within the friendly confines of Keyspan). Comment.

Brooklyn Heights: Maybe it should have been called “The Confusing Placement of Stone.” Comment.

Podcast: The Brooklyn Paper’s award-nominated podcasts took a step towards immortality this week, as Paper reporters and editors burned the midnight oil to build a new video studio. Editor Gersh Kuntzman and reporter Ben Muessig take you on a guided tour. With video … Comment.

Art: Next weekend, “The Dark Knight,” the latest movie in the Batman franchise, opens in theaters nationwide. Hidden away in Red Hook, however, is another look at the Caped Crusader — and what it lacks in box office glitz, it more than makes up for in graphic authenticity. Comment.

Smartmom: Hepcat and The Oh So Feisty One spent the night before her graduation from PS 321 coloring her hair blue. Hepcat is quite the artiste when it comes to applying Manic Panic hair color with a paintbrush (it must be all those painting classes he took with renowned abstract artist Elizabeth Murray at Bard College back in the 1970s). Comment.

Music: Just because Brooklynites are ga-ga for outdoor summer concert series, it doesn’t mean that bands prefer them to the confines of a nightclub. “I like playing indoor shows, hearing the reverb and the natural sound of the guitars coming off the wall,” said Britt Daniel, lead singer of Spoon. “Some people love nature — I love nature in doses.” Comments (1).

Bridge ‘Park’: Decades of planning will culminate in a small, but usable, Brooklyn Bridge Park by the end of 2009, state planners promised this month — but the same officials admitted that they don’t know when, or if, key parts of the 85-acre open space and condo development will be completed because of a lack of public funding. Comments (2).

Cobble Hill: Long Island College Hospital says it’s going to fix up dilapidated playgrounds on its Cobble Hill campus this summer after a flurry of complaints from parents thrust the beleaguered hospital into action. Comments (1).

Cobble Hill: The old Independence Bank building at the corner of Court Street and Atlantic Avenue is finally beginning to look more like a Trader Joe’s. Insiders say the supermarket, the quirky chain’s first in Brooklyn, is on pace to open in late September. Comment.

Dining: Sweat dripped from customers’ chins into their mugs of Sixpoint beer. The fumes of grilling pork rose to meet the smell of close, hot bodies. And then it began to pour. This was the second annual UnFancy Food Show, a celebration of Brooklyn food artisans and small producers in a defiantly un-fancy setting in Williamsburg. With video … Comment.

Bay Ridge: The death of would-be Republican congressman Frank Powers has split the Staten Island and Brooklyn wings of the so-called Grand Old Party. Comment.

“Lighten Up, Brooklyn” has slimmed down further from its already reduced heft of last year — but Borough President (and Weight-Watcher-in-Chief) Markowitz said the two park walks he’ll lead this weekend are more than enough to get people to finally make good on those New Years resolutions. Comment.

Two Smith Street restaurants are baring their Bastille Day pride with an enormous “petanque” tournament on Sunday. Comment.

Cyclones: The 11–11 Cyclones can’t seem to get on a roll. For every heroic, come-from-behind win this season, there seems to be a blown save or a seven-walk inning to bring the Brooks back to earth. Here are all the game summaries since our last edition. Comment.

Bensonhurst: Two armed thugs held up a cellphone store on Bay Parkway on July 7 — but one was later disconnected from the scheme by police. Comment.

Crime: There were at least four major thefts of copper piping in three neighborhoods last week, the latest in an ongoing spike in thefts of the increasingly valuable golden brown metal. Here are the sordid details. Comment.

Play’s the Thing: Fans using merely literal vision see only one person at third base when the Cyclones are in the field, but those baseball aficionados gifted with more figurative sight can see three persons at the hot corner for Brooklyn — Zach Lutz, and standing behind him, his parents. Comment.

Dining: Fort Greene bistro Chez Oskar to celebrate Bastille Day — and its 10th anniversary — with live music, fire-eating, a prix-fixe menu and more! Comment.

Bay Ridge: A man robbed an unsuspecting woman at gunpoint inside her 10th Avenue home on July 6. Comment.

Prospect Heights: A woman was arrested on July 5 after fighting with another driver with whom she collided. Comment.

Ups & Downs: The Cyclones have truly become the Chosen people. Comment.

Ups & Downs: Monday was a beautiful day for a walk on Coney Island — too bad that Cyclone pitchers took that literally. Comment.

Breaking Chews: We’re dishing up Brooklyn’s latest food news! Comment.

Williamsburg: A blade-wielding villain mugged a 21-year-old woman as she waited for an M train at the Hewes Street station on July 6. Comment.

Cobble Hill: A man walked into a mugging on Centre Street after a Sharpie deceived him on July 1. Comment.

Park Slope: A thief grabbed a woman by the throat and swiped her handbag in an early morning mugging on Carroll Street on July 6. Comments (1).

Brooklyn Heights: Cops arrested a 31-year-old thug in Brooklyn Heights after he tried to steal an off-duty correction officer’s gun, cops said. Comment.

Theater: Each year, there are more Shakespearean productions in the borough than we can count, but on Friday night at the McCarren Park Pool in Greenpoint, fans of the Bard got more for their money with the Woodshed Collective theater company’s “Twelve Ophelias.” Comment.

Fort Greene: A Catholic high school on Clermont Avenue reported that someone stole $7,000 from its vault between June 25 and 26. Comment.

Ups & Downs: Luz Portobanco, the starting pitcher in the first game in Cyclones’ history, died in a car accident on July 5 near Managua, Nicaragua. Comments (5).

Greenpoint: A bike-riding thug shoved a 55-year-old man to the ground and stole his wallet on June 30. Comment.

Ups & Downs: The 11–10 Cyclones finally had their first off-day on Tuesday, July 8. Comment.

Art: Brooklyn Paper photographer Tom Callan is a star at “Click!,” the publicly curated photo show currently hanging at the Brooklyn Museum. Comments (1).

Event: Of all the immigrants who’ve made homes in Brooklyn, there’s still one group that doesn’t quite fit in: the parrots. Comment.

Brooklyn Heights: Brooklyn’s beloved sign lady has gone from sign maker to sign doctor. Comments (2).

Shopping: The Hibiscus Day Spa, open since 2005 in Stuyvesant Heights — and going on two months in its new location — has unveiled its latest beauty treatment: a retail shop stocking skin care essentials, lounge clothing and spa accessories. Comment.

Williamsburg: Ferry service returned this week to Williamsburg and DUMBO after seven months out of water, but operators say the service will run aground again this winter if the city doesn’t provide funding. Comment.

Bus ridership in Brooklyn has jumped more than 25 percent over the past decade, but service has only increased 8 percent, according to a new study. Comment.

Fort Greene: A New York City cop who lived mere feet away from the war memorial in Fort Greene Park died on July 4 in Afghanistan in a “non-hostile incident,” according to Department of Defense. Comment.

Podcast: Congressional candidate Kevin Powell promised that comedian Dave Chappelle would headline a fundraiser for him in Manhattan on Wednesday night — but when Chappelle didn’t show, Powell was left to clean up the mess. Here he is, in his own words, from the stage of the hip-hop club Eugene in Manhattan on July 9, 2008. With video … Comment.

Park Slope: Call it the New York Crimes. Comment.

Park Slope: The last of four homeless men who camped out at Old First Church is now sleeping elsewhere, though he still commutes to “work” every day. Comment.

Downtown: Cadman Plaza looked more green than ever on Thursday when a plastic case loaded with what appeared to be $100,000 popped up on the pedestrian plaza near the statue of Henry Ward Beecher. Comment.

Letters: You recently reported on the saving of Victory Memorial Hospital (“Victory wins!” July 1). While it is good news that SUNY Downstate will continue to provide some health care services for our community as a walk-in clinic or urgent care center, we still will not have an emergency room or access to the full range of services that once existed at this location. Comments (1).

Bay Ridge: Bay Ridge residents might be able to breathe a little easier this summer. Comment.

Williamsburg: Bicycle traffic across the Williamsburg Bridge is soaring, just-released statistics show — and neighborhood bike advocates are claiming victory in their bloodless battle for bike bragging rights over Brownstone Brooklyn. Comments (1).

Podcast: Though no one noticed it at the time, former world hot-dog-eating champion Takeru Kobayashi clearly cheated in the closing seconds of his battle against champion Joey Chestnut on July 4 at Nathan’s in Coney Island. This video, shot by Kobayashi’s counter and Brooklyn Paper Editor Gersh Kuntzman, shows the last 10 seconds of the contest. Watch how Kobayashi continues to chew new food, even after announcer George Shea has completed his countdown to the finish. With video … Comment.

Brooklyn Heights: If Paris was the inspiration for a car-free pedestrian plaza on Montague Street that began on Sunday, the stretch instead looked a more like, well, a normal quiet Sunday on Montague Street. Comment.

Podcast: After a fairly egregious false alarm, DUMBO has finally achieved true neighborhood status: The area down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass now has a bona-fide hot dog stand. Brooklyn Paper Editor Gersh Kuntzman and Señor Editor Vince DiMiceli bring you the full story, including a flashback to our prior video about the faux hot dog stand a few months back. With video … Comment.

Parenting: All the fun things you could be doing with your kids! Comment.

All the news, gossip, tidbits, bric-a-brac and potpourri from your neighborhood. Comment.

All the important meetings you should be going to. Comment.