One of the most effervescent, most joyously infectious things we heard last year, was Ian Bostridge and Kate Royal in a duet from Handel's Acis and Galatea, Happy We (excerpt here). We streamed it on-line from the BBC-Proms coverage, and it made us so fuzzy inside, that if it were legal, we totally would have installed a streaming audio capture software to make a copy on our computer (that and, oh say, John Adams' Dr......

We came back from taking down the recycling yesterday evening to find we had locked ourselves out of our apartment. "Noooo!!" [Insert Emo Darth Vader ballad here. Warning -- audio.] We dialed the apartment manager on the call-box but got his voice mail. Lucky for us, the manager, who wouldn't be back until 10:00, called our s.o., who wouldn't be back until 8:00, and our s.o. called our friend who lives a few blocks away.......

Looks like there's one more fall premiere to deal with tonight on CBS, and boy howdy, is it a doozy. It's called "Viva Laughlin," and it premieres at 10 p.m. before moving to its regular timeslot this Sunday at 8 p.m. If the idea of a drama that occasionally has its characters bursting into song immediately has you flashing back to painful memories of "Cop Rock," we wouldn't blame you. But remember that musical......

"I love that word 'relationship'. Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship. A relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm... Britain. We may be a small country but we're a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that. And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that." - Hugh Grant, as Prime Minister, in Love Actually ...

Okay, this was a pretty cool event. Peter Morgan, the writer responsible for both Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren's Oscars this year (for The Last King of Scotland and The Queen) won the film festival's second annual Kanbar Award for excellence in screenplay writing -- so they had him up for an hourlong talk about his distinctive docudrama perspective on contemporary historical events and the flawed personalities behind them, and then they screened The Deal,......

Waiting for tonight...whoa-oh. NBC is plopping a new drama series in the 10 p.m. Thursday slot tonight, and it's called "Windfall." Summer series? Or midseason replacement that never made the cut and is being burned off in the next couple of weeks? You be the judge. It's an ensemble drama about a bunch of friends who win the lottery, and examines how the money effects them all differently. Luke Perry is amongst the cast,......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

Here in the SFist Tech Labs, we're committed to two things: science, and our readers. So we'd never let anything like the debilitating headache we've been going through for the past 18 hours or so keep us from bringing you the links to tech news you deserve. While we read the symptoms on BBC's health page, you can follow along. Throbbing Pain Ars Technica is reporting on a new California bill that would ban......

'Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and all through the house, "Creature Comforts" was airing, and it included a few mouse....er...mice. OK. We promise never to attempt lame rhyming ever again. But we DID want to let you know that there's a "Creature Comforts" marathon on BBC America tonight, starting at 7:30 p.m. with the premiere of "Merry Christmas Everybody!" If you've ever seen Nick Park's Oscar-winning short "Creature Comforts," then you......

Your Cal Bears are off to Vegas to play BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl. Fun, right? Enjoyment and excitement in America's gleeful den of inequity, right? Stuff that'd make shorthaired guys in visors and Abercrombie shirts go "WOOOOOOO!" with arms upraised, right? Well, yeah, in part. As pointed out by American Football Spectacular's religious consultant Ms. No, Mormons aren't supposed to gamble. Further, according to the BBC's write-up on Mormon ethical practices, "Gambling in......

Boy--we sure love completely subjective awards, and we're super thankful for a chance to give out a few of our own. People who've been reading our "Trimethyldioxypurist" missives will not be especially surprised by the winners. For those who are strangers to our periodic ramblings about coffee and cafes around the City by the Bay, here are our favorites among the many, many cool, delicious, and often unique coffee choices at which we overcaffeinated......

As we settled into our seats for the world premiere of documentary It's My Country Too, there was a generalized hubbub as a tall man wearing black and carrying a guitar case strode down the aisle. We heard his escort say, "It's so weird that no one's recognizing you!" Turns out that man is Pakistani-American rock star Salman Ahmed, the narrator of the documentary It's My Country Too. Ahmed is the lead guitarist for the band Junoon, which has been called the U2 of Pakistan. We think this makes Ahmed Bono (scroll down to read Bono's letter to Ahmed), since the Edge doesn't seem to take too many positions on global politics. It's My Country Too follows Ahmed as he travels America trying to see how 9/11 politics have affected the Pakistani-American community. After the jump: Muslim comedians, Muslim lawyers, and the founders of the website Muslims for Bush (who are Salman Ahmed's aunt, uncle, and cousin). Picture of Salman Ahmed from the BBC website...

So you get a bunch of free Stones tickets and a luxury box to see them opening night at Fenway handed over to you by some company out of the kindness of their hearts. So you then sell them for a cool hundred thousand to anyone who wants the pleasure of seeing the World's Greatest Rock Band in the company of our Governor. Great idea, right? What could go wrong? Lots. ...

When we were a kid growing up in Seattle, we remember when Washington State tried to pass a law barring minors from purchasing music with Tipper Gore's infamous Parental Advisory stickers on them. Our grandmother, an honored member of the local ACLU chapter, even offered us up as a potential litigant in a class action suit if the law was passed -- we agreed, figuring we might get a free copy of "Straight Outta......

The scene at the Kabuki for the last night of the Asian-American Film Festival was jam-packed, with three movies all starting at the same time, and people dressed to the nines for the closing party. We were in attendance at the sold-out show for part three of the thirteen-part series Chinese Restaurants, a labor of love for Chinese-Canadian director Cheuk Kwan, who has eaten in Chinese restaurants around the globe -- including Israel, South Africa, Mauritius, Cuba, and Turkey -- and sought to learn the stories of how the proprieters came to live in these unexpected places. Chinese restaurants are a constant source of fascination -- the co-sponsor for the screening was the Chinese Historical Society, which is currently showing an ecstatically-reviewed photography exhibit of Indigo Som's pictures taken in Chinese restaurants in Mississippi. (You may also remember Som's other project, collecting all the Chinese takeout menus from across America.). The movies screened on Thursday -- Three Continents and two shorts, BBC House Special and Selling Louie's Village -- all explored the role of the Chinese restaurant in representing the Chinese diaspora. Egg Foo Young, a Chinese restaurant in Norway, and Chinese people with Liverpudlian accents, after the jump. Images from ...

There's really only one TV show to talk about this week and we all know what that is. "America's Next Top Model" winner Eva Pigford is going to be on "Kevin Hill" tonight! And then there's something called The Academy Awards on this Sunday. Ahh. We kid. (Or pray at the Church of Ironic Detachment, take your pick.) Of COURSE TV is all about the Oscars this week. We won't talk about the nominees......

Way back in May, Slashdotter dacar asked "What Happens To Your Data When You Die?" Your computer, your web accounts, your password-locked digital devices would all be rendered useless to your surviving friends and family if you haven't prepared a list of logins before passing. In the tragic case of Marine Lieutenant Corporal Justin Ellsworth, who was killed in action late last year in Iraq, the Yahoo mail account he was using to communicate with......

We must have missed this in the midst of all the Apprentice hoopla, but last week the San Francisco Board of Supervisors did what they do best- passed a sweeping, half-baked but well-intentioned measure to put on the ballot. The legislation this time? Handgun ban. And we’re not just talking about the sale of handguns, but the owning of handguns. In something right of the fevered dreams of the NRA, the legislation calls for......