After their American Idol hour was unforgivably interrupted by the San Francisco Police Department making an announcement last night, a reader writes to SFist asking: At about 8:55pm tonight, my viewing of American Idol was disrupted by the SFPD making an announcement in the middle of our street that there will be several rounds of LIVE AMMUNITION fired in the next few minutes as they test a new gun fire detection system. I live......

UndergroundfilmMaker Festival: It goes a little something like this, "In an era where filmmakers are called 'users' who 'generate content,' [Hey now! -- sfist] Undergroundfilm wishes to put the spotlight back where it belongs: behind the camera." So far the festival has had three rounds. The portfolio submission, filmmaker interview, and finally, new projects. Now, the filmmakers have been narrowed down to six and-- sigh. Okay, this is starting to sound a bit convoluted.......

We told you a few weeks ago about Platinum Studios' "American Idol"-style contest for comic creators, through which the winners will get a "multimedia development and publishing deal" based on their concept. At that time, we spoke to local guys Kevin Buckley and Marcus Thiele about their entry. We've just talked to another local writer/artist team with an entry in the Top 50: Navin Prasad and Chris Weiermiller....

Platinum Studios, a comic book publisher (KISS 4k (yes, about the band) and Hero by Night) is hosting a sort of "American Idol" for comic creators. A few of those contestants are from right here in the Bay Area. Kevin Buckley is the writer on this project and an artist in his own right, though Marcus Thiele, his partner, is the artist on their pitch: "The Strange and Many Eyes of Dr. LeFaux." Kevin and Marcus took a few minutes to talk about their art and living in the Bay Area. ...

No performance in Berkeley would be complete without a political statement. The Tyrant, a 65mn chamber opera west coast premiere which kicked of the Berkeley Edge Fest Thursday night at the Zellerbach playhouse, on the UC campus, does not disappoint. A tyrant, operatic tenor John Duykers, is confined to his throne, afraid of being overthrown if his august tush were to sit somewhere else. The libretto is loosely based on an Italo Calvino short story,......

And by "tonight" we mean this afternoon...and then tonight. First off, if you haven't read The Road by Cormac McCarthy yet, drop everything and do it. It's a fast read. It's also one of the most amazing books we've ever encountered--don't let Oprah's choosing it for her book club turn you off of it. In fact, be thankful, because she has also managed to nab an interview with the incredibly press-shy author. You can......

--They reopened the Macarthur Maze! And of course, now the bridge is backed up. --TiVo is getting a lot of angry emails after the triumphant conclusion of American Idol was cut off by recorders not padded with extra time. Always pad your live shows, people! --Left In SF notes that no one sees Tapioca Ed Jew in either his Sunset house or his Burlingame house. --There's a hilarious picture of Al Gore at his reading......

Meet local boy Aaron Drake, who's trying out for the Boston Pops' American Idol-style PopSearch singing contest that we told you about last week, trying out on Edwin McCain's "I'll Be." In hard-hearted Boston, it's apparently become sport to download auditioners' clips and mock, but we'd never do that here in San Francisco -- go Aaron! If you've got that version of "A Moment Like This" and a video camera ready to go, here's......

--There were more bikes than cars on Market Street today for Bike To Work Day. Soon we will realize our dream where every car driver is assigned an individual biker to yell at them with a camera in hand. --Better to be biking to work than on MUNI -- as some of you reported to us, there was a massive meltdown in the tunnel this morning when the computer system crashed. Maggie Lynch says......

We can't stop laughing about the fight at the Boston Pops concert last week! Classical arrangements of popular music make us crazy too! So we're psyched to pass along the news that the Boston Pops is holding a national American Idol-style Pops singing competition, called PopSearch. The Pops specifically asked us because they know there's a lot of talent out here in the Bay Area! You can send in your audition through YouTube (here's......

Here's today's sports news...

Here's todays wrap up of the news...

Seeing beyond Sight What happens when you give visually impaired children cameras and ask them to capture their everyday life? Come find out at this exhibit for a new book by Tony Deifell, Seeing Beyond Sight: Photography by Blind Teenagers. Accompanying the revelatory photographs is commentary and reflections by the artists. If you can't make it tonight, the show runs until May 12 but stop by around 6 until 8pm to catch a glimpse of......

Our feelings regarding the sneaky scheduling of Gavin Newsom’s Third Fake Question Time this Monday can best be expressed through American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee’s latest single, “Over It.” The purple halter dress she wears in this video is pretty cute, too. However, just because we're over it doesn't mean we're not secretly putting together a special Fake Question Time ensemble in the hopes of running into some chick dating some dude (not to......

-Sharks finally come home after a long road trip to play the first team in their division and their arch-nemesis, the Ducks, and lose. Ann Killion says the Sharks aren't making it any easier on themselves. -Scott Ostler has a new "Knucklehead of the Day" bit on the Sports Columnist blog on SFGate. His latest two knuckleheads are Peter Magowan for positioning Brian Sabaen in just the right way to be thrown off the......

-Let's get the Barry news (that being Barry B.) out of the way first. Essentially, George Mitchell, the guy supposed to look into the whole steroid thing, told everyone he wants Barry to cooperate. Barry told him to go suck an egg. Well, not really, but he basically said that he can't while he's still under investigation for perjury. You know, we think if there's any good thing to come out of being under investigation, it's that you don't have to answer anything. Did you accidentally delete "Grey's Anatomy" off of TiVo? Can't comment on that because it might interfere with the investigation. Did you steal my turkey on swiss from the office fridge? Can't comment on that due to the pending investigation. See what we mean? ...

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending......

-Warriors get beat down by the Clips, 103-90. Considering the Clippers are one of the teams that the Warriors need to pass in order to make the playoffs, that's a bad loss. -Stanford loses to UCLA, making them an official "bubble team" and Cal loses to USC making them an official .500 team. -The bad news: Sharks lose to Calgary. The good news: their round trip is over. Also, they didn't get in any ten......

Fog City Journal is reporting that Matt Gonzalez has been in talks with a campaign manager, Nicole Derse, about running. We're all guessing it's for Mayor but who knows with Matt? We've heard speculation that he might be going for Kamala's job. Or maybe he's doing his patented "wait for the right moment" thing to try and snag a spot on "American Idol?" We hear his rendition of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" is pretty amazing.

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Tonight at the Darkroom Theater (2263 Mission St. at 19th) is the Miss American Fido Show, a comedy spoof of American Idol and an "open mike" contest to find the worst act in SF. The Producer and Host of the show is Mark Tyne, the Music Director for the "Blood Splatter Theater" group Primitive Screwheads and the self proclaimed "King of Bad Entertainment". During the show performers of any age, with any act, are......

SFist Jon's away this weekend, so you're stuck with us! --Yahoo's Jerry Yang is donating $75 million to Stanford. Does that mean he'll get fewer calls from the alumni giving committee.... or more? --SFPartyParty's offering a bottle of wine to the (over-21) author of the funniest email to Gavin Newsom about his cancellation of the How Weird electronica/peace Street Fair. Meanwhile, Left in SF spreads the word about a How Weird letter writing campaign.......

Reality TV: Will it never end? Apparently not. And we're sorry, but we just can't get behind this three-seasons-a-year crap. "American Idol" has it right: once a year is all you need. But despite the complaining, we're still hopelessy addicted, and find watching these shows more entertaining when there are locals we can root for and/or mock. For now all we have are two castaways on "Survivor: Fiji Islands," Yau-Man, a 54-year old computer......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year!...

Holy fancy baby Jesus on a Kaiser roll, the 49ers beat the Seahawks? In storm conditions in Seattle?! Wow. This was unforeseen. That's a sweep of the division series on the year, keeping the Niners' tiiiny window of playoff chance alive. How could this have happened? Here's how:...

If there's anything we love, it's saving the world through song and dance. That's why we're so jazzed about Help is on the Way for the Holidays VIII, "a gala holiday concert for everyone." Ticket sales, starting at $45, will go towards helping the pediatric HIV program at Children's Hospital Oakland, Lyon-Martin Women's Health Services, and Project Inform -- all very worthy causes. And guess who'll be performing! Well, a better question might be,......

Torontoist visits the site of a new Frank Gehry structure, stalks "the elusive Bahamas streetcar", and watches Tom Green get surgery. Phillyist rejoices in the Phillies' wild card chances, mourns the injuries sustained by Eagles defensive end Jevon Kearse, and goes pirate on our asses. SFist notes that Guns and Roses were in town, that San Franciscans are taking over reality TV, and that the San Francisco Chronicle's skills of original nomenclature could use some......

We can't believe that after more than a month of half-assed watching of "Rock Star: Supernova" we've only just now figured out that the contestant named Storm Large is none other than the Storm from Storm and Her Dirty Mouth, a San Francisco band. How dumb are we? It had crossed our minds when we first saw her on the show, and heard her name, that it was awfully odd that there was another......

San Francisco is proud host of a new reality show called "How to Get the Guy" that's unfortunately not a descendant of Will and Grace, Queer Eye, The L Word, American Idol etc. Also a biodefence lab is coming to the East Bay and SFist teaches wine pairing. Getting on the wrong train sucks. Getting on the wrong train and becoming the victim of what will later be described as a "stabbing spree" really sucks.......

We're still recovering from two weeks of finales glut, not to mention a three-day weekend full of way too many episodes of "The Dog Whisperer," (episode after episode, all Cesar seems to do is convince dog owners to take their pets on nice long walks while saying "Tssst!" and using their "hands as a mouth, for biting." And yet, we can not look away!!). Anyway, all that TV watching has turned in to a big......

The weeks starts out right when a sucker punch on the field lands Chicagoist in the middle of a Sox/Cubs throwdown and the fists continue to fly in the comments. Despite suburban resident Ms. Pinney's best little try no books will be banned anytime soon and the El is really really gross. Houstonist is there to start compiling the punditry when when the guilty, guilty Enron verdict comes down. This guy seems to be able......