SFist Jessie helps kick off Opening Night at the SF Women's Film Festival! Yesterday was the opening night party of the Women’s Film Festival ! The night kicked off with LGBTQ films and included acoustic band Trusting Lucy performing before the show, trailers for movies on everything from Gwen Araujo to trannie-bike-messenger-speed-addicts, shorts by writer/ director/ actress and general lesbian-icon Guinevere Turner, and then a Q&A with Ms. Turner herself (yes we have a new......

Just because the governor put a stop to marriage equality a few months ago, don't think gay legislation is down for the count. There's still plenty of work to be done: next week, the state Assembly will be voting on three gayish bills. AB 606: Safe Place to Learn Act would ensure that school districts are enforcing anti-discrimination policies; AB 1160: Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act would instruct juries that "panic strategies" (that is,......

Your SF weekend assaults roundup: A shooting at 5 p.m. on Saturday at Mission and 18th, followed 45 minutes later by a stabbing at Mission and 17th; a shooting in Visitacion Valley Saturday night/Sunday morning; a shooting at Broadway and Columbus outside Vietnam Restaurant; and a shooting outside 330 Ritch. Hey, if you hate alternative music of the late 80s that much, just say so! Good Samaritans at the North Berkeley BART stop -- people waiting on the platform Sunday interceded to stop an attempted robbery of a woman waiting for a Richmond-bound train. Four people were injured (one seriously), but they caught the would-be robber. The BART stop was then closed for three hours as the police came by for interviews, a weapons search, and to clean up the station. BART says maybe September 11 is not the best day to try anything funny on a transit system. And yesterday, an Alameda County jury returned two second-degree murder convictions in the Gwen Araujo case, and hung again on the third defendant. The jury rejected first-degree or the hate crime enhancements to the penalties. ...

In this time of Gulf Coast suffering and the fourth anniversary of 9/11 coming up, it's good to see that everyone in Berkeley still has things in perspective -- an 11-year-old girl is frantically searching for the stuffed mouse she lost when she thoughtlessly tied it to two helium balloons and let it fly out her window. Here's the lost and found ad they posted. Her mother says, "Mousie is a part of the family," and they hypothesize that the mouse may have blown out to Ohio by now. The girl, somewhat defensively, says, "I know it's not a real mouse. I know there are bigger tragedies, like the hurricane. But it's a tragedy to me." In actual criminal news, the Alameda County DA's office has brought charges against an Oakland cop who was allegedly illegally stopping cars driven by Asian women and then "patting" and kissing them. Shouldn't that cop be focusing on looking for a stuffed mouse tied to two helium balloons in the skies instead? And the jury in the Gwen Araujo case has come to a verdict on two of the three defendants on trial for killing the transgender teen. Those two verdicts are sealed as the jury continues deliberating on the third defendant. ...

The retrial of Gwen Araujo's killers is under way, and the defense is trying a somewhat different tack this time....

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly: The Best Of ish! We nearly threw our back out getting it out of the box! So here we are, flip flip flip, feeling smug that we already know a bunch of the best of picks ("Best Nepalese food: Pssssh, of course it's going to be Little Nepal! We are too old school for this town!"), and -- holy crap! They gave us best local blog! Yipes, nowhere left for us to go but down. Full gloating will commence in separate posts -- but we would also be remiss in our solipsism if we neglected to mention the mention of this very column, so thank you very much, SF Weekly! (You know we only kid because we love.) In other news, readers vote Chris Daly worst local politician, and Golden Gate Bridge best local landmark. And hey, we get to send SFists Jackson and Eve to the big awards ceremony now too, right? Fun! Okay, it's not really all about us -- so we're moving on, to the East Bay Express: A kerrayyyy-zee letter from a person who wrote a book about cooking for a dog with food allergies. Why isn't the Oakland City Council race interesting? Cover article: a totally, totally fascinating article from a juror on the first Gwen Araujo trial about why they hung. Hilarious I Like Eating comic about the challenge that is Todai. And a dry-as-a-gimlet (are gimlets dry?) review of the Coldplay show. SFist Jackson's mainstream media debut and the pick of the week after the jump!...

SFist would like to point out that if you haven't had a chance to give for the Tsunami effort, you still can. We know it's hard in the weeks following Christmas, what with your budget probably blown to bits. This is the last time we ask, we promise. That doesn't mean we won't highlight other ways you can help in the future, like HiMY SYeD's Global Vigil for January 26th. We're not perfect. Couldn't......

Wondering what the status of the retrial of Gwen Araujo's killers was? We were, too, so we called a few people to find out....

Like SFist Emily, I'm bad at lists. So I'm just going to relish the chance to write in the first person singular for a moment and break down the highlights and lowlights of the year for me, in no particular order: Best Moment of the Year My Life: Getting married Bravest Mayor/Person Most Wrongly Accused of Losing the Democrats the Presidential Election: Gavin Newsom Senator Who Actually Should Take the Blame: John Kerry Worst......