Every Monday, Logler.com presents its "Casual Games Global Top 10," a list ranked by data from major download portals. Just so happens that the number one game this week is called "Big City Adventure: San Francisco," by Jolly Bear Games. ...

Please allow us to let our geek flag fly for a few moments. If you've never read a comic book, never participated in a pen-and-paper role playing game, or if you don't know who any of Robert Asprin, George R.R. Martin, Wendi & Richard Pini, or Glen Cook are, maybe just skip to the next entry. But if any of the above apply to you, please read on. We've recently encountered the most wonderful comic book anthology -- it's called "Elfworld." ...

Huge thanks to Dapper Dan J for sending along his pix of tonight's Zombie/Bike mob! Dan reports a smaller CM crowd than usual, maybe due to the weather: It sure was a scene downtown on Friday afternoon. We left our house around six (meaning that we missed the big > pillowfight), but got down to Market and Sansome in time for the first of the zombies to lurch past. Honestly, we've never really seen......

On Saturday, fantastic Hayes Valley comic book store Isotope played host to Ed Brubaker, who's as hot a writer in the comics industry as anyone. Recently, a story of Brubaker's made headlines nationwide (and Colbert, of course): the death of Marvel Comics' icon Captain America. ...

It's that thing you do when you're not browsing the Internet. Or maybe it's that thing you do while you're browsing the Internet. Anyway, would it kill you to get out of the house and meet some other masturbators? The 7th Annual Masturbate-a-Thon is coming up yet again (Saturday, May 26th, 2pm to midnight at The Porn Palace, 415 Jessie). Eight hours is the somewhat unhealthy-sounding record; do you dare attempt to best it?......

The last of our slightly less-than-timely coverage of the Alternative Press Expo, which took place last weekend, focuses on folks telling their sequential art stories in a longer form. Which, as much as we love the other stuff, is really what we dig the most. We focus on Ted Naifeh, Dave Dwonch, Joseph Costirlos, Von Allan, Jaimel M. Hemphill, and Javier Gonzalez....

Hey, Folks, welcome to part two of our APE coverage. The Alternative Press Expo was this past weekend, and there was so much fun stuff we had to break our coverage into several tasty morsels. If you missed part one and want to read about some folks making with the funny, please feel free. In this post, we're focusing on some creators that combine a less obvious type of humor with some great art and a generally longer form of storytelling....

The Alternative Press Expo (or APE) was this past weekend at the Concourse here in San Francisco. The show, which is put on yearly by Comic-Con International, features indy and small press creators of zines, comic books, mini-comics, and more. After getting Larry Young's help to kick off our coverage, we attended on Saturday. We met so many cool people and saw so much neat stuff that we're breaking our experience into several posts. First up: the funny stuff. ...

The Alternative Press Expo is this Saturday and Sunday, and hot damn we're psyched. Who better to help kick off our celebration of alternative press than one of the guys doing comics right? Larry Young is a fixture at APE -- his company, AiT/Planet Lar has been presenting there for years, exhibiting a diverse and interesting line of OGNs ("Original Graphic Novels") and other comic books. We spoke to Mr. Young about his company and pending projects....

We've long been a fan of Japanese comics, or manga, as they're commonly called. Local publisher Viz, who is responsible for much of the product that American audiences see, sent us a review copy of Death Note Volume 1--and we're blown away. The book, story by Tsugumi Ohba and art by Takeshi Obata, is by far the best manga we've read, and, in our opinion, is readily accessable to those who aren't your average comic book or fantasy reader. The only thing a fresh reader might find offputting at first is the fact that it's printed, and must be read, right to left (pages and panels, not words). Even so, this book gets our highest recommenation and we can not wait for the next one....

We first met Shannon O'Leary at the last Alternative Press Expo, where she was showing the floppy versions of her books Pet Noir and Fortune's Bitch. Now, she's about to publish a hardbound, 120+ page graphic novel version of Pet Noir and, lucky us, we got an early review copy. We share our impressions and condect an interview with Shannon! ...

It starts innocently enough: first you're just stretching your neck now and then while you're sitting at your office computer. Next thing you know, you need a flexbility hit every day -- squeezing your hamstrings before walking up a hill, pulling your arms behind your back all night long instead of going out and seeing your friends, spending all your cash on yoga mats rather than paying the rent. But the high keeps wearing......

The holiday parties and dinners are adding up, but we can't let that slow us down, even if we're, uh, having an interesting time fitting into our jeans. But here at SFist, we cannot allow carb counting, calorie obsession or shallow breathing in our 501s prevent us from all the cocktails the holiday has to spare, no sir. Which is why we're thanking our lucky stars, bombshells and cherry-bomb pinup idols for Bombshell Betty......

SFist is more Kraftwerk than Craftsworker. At our mid-century ranch headquarters, there's a rather large cupboard with various scraps of fabric and yarn, paint and glue and all manner of funky specialty tools. This is the area known as the Island of Dead Crafts. Every so often we remember the pride we had making that macaroni owl at summer camp and decide that our lives would be much more fulfilling if we could make......

Oh man, this is cool on so many levels. First, you've got your crafter chic, and by a local blogger, no less. That's an awesome piece of handmade American merchandise. Conversation starter? Got it. Good cause? In spades. But the best part is that it's for sale!This Flying Spaghetti Monster plush toy will be on sale on ebay tonight. All proceeds up to $1000 will be matched and donated to the National Center for......

We don't mean to ALARM you ... but it's possible that President Kennedy is in VERY GRAVE DANGER. Although similar recent efforts have mostly failed, our very own Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Leland Yee is pushing a bill -- AB 450 -- that would fine retailers $1,000 for selling M-rated video games to the under-17 set. Leland, himself a child psychologist, points to surprisingly convincing evidence that violent play can lead to violent behavior,......

At the Alternative Press Expo (or APE), overstimulation is an understatement. There is a ton going on here. Held yearly in San Francisco, heretofore in February, APE took place this past weekend, April 9-10, at the Concourse Exhibition Center. ...

Hark! Do you hear the hosannas of angels wearing roomy striped ponchos and the clicking of bamboo sticks? That's right -- the hipster goddess of knitting, Debbie Stoller, is in town promoting her new book, Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, a sequel to her massive hit, the original Stitch and Bitch: The Knitters' Handbook. Stoller, who also edits the zine Bust, is all about bringing knitting to the new millennium: reclaiming knitting as a feminist art, organizing knitting circles (or Stitch 'n Bitches), encouraging a community of online knitters and crafters, and now, writing a new book that features even more contemporary knitting patterns from contributors across the nation, such as snazzy rasta caps, yoga mats, bags with pictures of Jim Morrison on them, and Henry Rollins dolls, among others. Stoller will be bringing her intarsia mojo to San Rafael's Dharma Trading Company tonight. Tomorrow, she'll be launching a new program with Amtrak, Stitch-n-Ride, where knitting circles can take Amtrak from Oakland to Sacto every Tuesday (and free patterns from Stoller's book will be distributed -- you can find them online too). If you're a knitting commuter, meet at 5:30 in Oakland, take the train to Sacto, and then triumphantly carry Debbie aloft a carriage made of knitting needles to Rumplestilskin's for another reading. Those of you who don't commute by train, Stoller will be back in SF on Wednesday, for an appearance at Urban Knitting. And hey, can someone teach us how to knit with double-pointed needles? Thanks to Rebecca G for the tip!...

The crowd at the Castro Sunday night, at the Asian-Am film fest's centerpiece presentation for Evans Chan's documentary Sorceress of the New Piano was about one-third new music aficionados, one-third Asians who'd played piano in the past, and the remaining one-third seemed to be people who thought a woman who played the toy piano would be interesting to learn about. Yup, the toy piano. Like Schroeder. Margaret Leng Tan, called "the diva of avant-garde pianism" by the New Yorker, has been exploring the limits of the sounds that can be created by the piano for the last 20-30 years. Tan started out with the standard classical repertoire in her studies at Julliard, but by the time she began working on her doctoral dissertation there, she was becoming more and more intrigued by the possibilities of the piano beyond the keyboard and more as a percussive instrument in its own right. She worked closely with John Cage on his pieces for prepared piano (where screws, nails, and plates are inserted in the strings of the piano to affect the sound), began playing the works of Menlo Park's Henry Cowell (who wrote pieces not just for the fingers but for the whole arm, where the arm presses down on long spans of the keys -- like when a cat sits down on the piano), performed pieces where the piano lid is closed and the pianist drums on parts of the piano, and performing works by George Crumb, involving strumming, pulling, and bowing the strings of the piano. So what comes after that? A toy piano performance. Yeah! Picture of Margaret Leng Tan at the toy piano from her publicity stills...

Hey photobloggers! Since you're bringing the digital camera downtown on Saturday anyways, don't forget to stop by and get some shots of the Chinese New Year Parade too! The parade starts at 5:30 at Second and Market, rain or shine, and goes until about 8. Lots of cute kids dressed up as emperors, dancing lions, the Centipede-like multi-man 201-foot dragon, and Miss Chinatown 2005 -- plenty of good material for your flickr account! They recommend getting to Chinatown no later than 5, but you can check out the street fair if you're there early. And just a friendly plug: we here at SFist love to show your work -- thanks again to Lackadaisical for the great shots of the Chinese Moon Festival he let us use last year -- so we welcome any and all pictures you want to send from your day! ...

One of the stupider reasons cited by opponents of gay marriage is that if we allow gay unions, we'll have to allow pederasty, bestiality, incest, and positions other than missionary. "If someone's capable of being gay," the thinking goes, "then they must be capable of anything." Of course, we know better; just like straight people, most gay people have personal limits that prevent them from doing anything with animals or siblings or kids. But......

We usually save these things for the blotter, but this one can't wait until Friday. Six students and a knitting instructor at Montclair's Knitting Basket in the Montclair Village in Oakland were held up at gunpoint Monday night by a man described to be a white 60 year old homeless man missing two front teeth and carrying a camouflage-colored rifle. A witness said, "He looked very out of place at a knitting store." The suspect was also wearing (yup) a knit black hat. The police are on the lookout, and the Montclair Village security staff will escort nervous shoppers to their cars if asked. This is why we're sticking with cross-stitch. ...

We're so sorry this is, like, really late. We were really trying to represent while SFist Jon was abroad, but even digital things slip through cracks. Damn you spammers, creators of our need for imperfect spam filters! Damn you all to hell! At least you won't have to wait long for the finale. SFist BFF Brenda's unfiltered, week four NaNoWriMo update after the jump.......

[Ed. Note: This piece is a little discursive, but I think that it really captures quite the slice of San Francisco. Please indulge SFist Matt and let him take you away on a long, strange trip through the world of fuzzy bunnies.] So, let's say that you've decided that your image needs an overhaul. Maybe your current look is wearing thin; it's just not you, the crowd is tired, the music sucks. And there's that......

[Be sure to check out the coverage of Los Santos on LAist!] We loved the last Grand Theft Auto, Vice City. The eighties music and cars, the neon glow of faux deco, the massive amounts of senseless violence, simulated sex and cocaine references. We knew that the only way they could top it would be to move it to city a little more conducive to quality car chases, and they have - it's called San......

Annoyingly, Christmas seems to come earlier every year -- an egregious example of this being that new flick with Ben Affleck and Tony Soprano. However, we'd like to spread the word about an impending holiday tragedy that, with some local support, can be averted, or at least minimized. Comic Relief, the renowned, award-winning "comic bookstore" in Berkeley, is being evicted from its current location, where it has been for almost 18 years. The timing is......

You know, our busy urban lives are fraught with so many seemingly unsolvable troubles that it's nice to hear, now and then, that our leaders are tackling problems that don't actually exist. The nonexistant ones are so much easier to claim to have solved, after all. We're informed by the Richmond Review that the California Psychological Association has named its "Legislator of the Year 2004." The lucky winner is State Assembly Speaker pro Tem (whatever......

There are video games that are popular with gamers - Counter Strike, Half-Life, Halo - and then there are video games that become cultural phenomena. The audience is drawn not so much by the game itself as to the world or story that the game describes. Who can forget the comic carnage of Mortal Kombat? The crossing of the gender gap by Ms. Pac-Man and Ladybug? The legions of fans of all ages who would......

Those of you paying attention may have noticed the lack of a certain warm, witty, and meticulous voice of reason on theater, social issues, and graphic design on this site as of late -- well, that's because our own SFist Cheshire is getting married this weekend! Mazel tov, Chesh -- we can't wait to hear how it goes! Meanwhile, in Cheshire's honor, we're providing a post about the ins and outs of planning a San......

Last week, Chris Brennan posted an Internet warning regarding Kryptonite bike locks....