The insane worldwide panic preceding a potential (though unlikely?) worldwide pandemic of swine flu reached new heights today, with Australian flights from California being screened before deplaning and a woman in Hong Kong hospitalized after visiting (gasp!) San Francisco. more ›

href="http://torontoist.com/2008/02/phototo_snowbal.php">photographing a big, organized snowball fight.

You have, well, two entire days to fill out and return your application to become a torchbearer for the San Francisco leg of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay. The San Francisco relay -- which is entitled, dear Christ, "A Sustainable Journey" -- is the only North American stop on the Olympic Torch Relay, which will make the sporty flame's U.S. visit that more special to us in the Bay Area. Or not. more ›

-- Carmen Jones: Based off of Georges Bizet's famous French opera Carmen, the adaptation was made into a successful Broadway musical, and then a '50s film staring Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, and Pearl Bailey. Now, see it again on stage right here in SF. The curtain goes up tonight at the African-American Art & Culture Complex (762 Fulton); $15. more ›

at SFO Tuesday morning. The flight, with 400 passengers aboard, boarded around midnight, and was scheduled to take off for Hong Kong at 1:20 a.m., but ended up sitting on the tarmac until 7:30 a.m., when it was finally scrapped for mechanical problems. more ›

We cannot get away from the transportation theme around here at Team SFist this week! The latest travel-related news relates to bubble-tea connoisseur Supervisor Ed Jew: despite the pending FBI investigation into his finances, he's left the country for a pre-planned trip to China. (Thanks to the Usual Suspects for the tip!) more ›

Sex is good for you. So is wine. Oh, and chocolate. We think most of know this on an instinctual level, but it's nice when a bunch of experts agree. Of course, the Taste 3 conference is attended by chefs, sommeliers, vintners, and others associated with finer dining, so it only makes sense that the crowd was told stuff they pretty much wanted to hear. more ›

The North American debut of for the SF Int'l Film Festival premiered at the Castro Theatre Friday night and it must have been a sweet moment for Berkeley-born, Bay Area-raised, local boy Daniel Wu who directed and stars in the movie. After graduating from the University of Oregon, Daniel stumbled into modeling and acting gigs while backpacking through Asia and became a bona fide heart-throb in China. more ›

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place. more ›

The crowd at the Kabuki Theater on Friday night had more hip-hoppers than usual, as SF Int'l Asian-American Film Fest attendees eagerly lined up three-deep for the sold-out showing of No Sleep Til Shanghai, a documentary following Chinese-American rapper Jin Au-Yeung's 2-week 8-city tour of Asia. The excitement reached a fever pitch in the pre-screening intros, with eager Asian-American MCs shouting out "Holla!" as Jin himself called in on the producer's cell phone to say hi. "There's probably a lot of Asians there, right? So TURN OFF YOUR CAMCORDERS!" Best part: everyone laughed.... but no one actually turned their camcorder off. Jin is a Queens-based rapper who stormed into battle dominance on 106th and Park with his quick rhymes and sharp racial analysis -- he's often been called the Asian Eminem, though to Jin's credit, he seems profoundly uncomfortable with that title. Jin was then signed to the Ruff Ryders label, and released his first album, "The Rest Is History" in 2004. In support of that album, he went on an 8-city 2 week tour of Asia, camera crew in tow. It was his first time in Asia (other than Hong Kong). After the jump, Jin meets some lovely Asian ladies, freestyles in Cantonese and Mandarin, and does an awful lot of interviews. Picture from No Sleep Til Shanghai more ›

Another great weekend for movies here in the Bay Area! For example: more ›

destroying whatever acting cred he has left. Tucked away in some random corner inside a wood display case at the San Francisco War Memorial is a fabric that experts are beginning to think is the first Filipino flag. And try saying that ten times fast. more ›

Where we're from, we have a fine and vibrant Chinatown. Not huge, but you can certainly get anything there that you can get here (well, except in the produce department). Still, we drop by Chinatown every Christmas to pick up the kind of trinkets, doodads and gewgaws that you can get for less than five bucks and hand out to that friend you run into from high school that you totally forgot to get a present for. We're loving the little embroidered purses which you can slide a mix CD, some tea or a box of nice incense in. Gift and wrapping in no time and for less than the cost of lunch. more ›

We were wondering why we've never seen the Governator prowling the streets of San Francisco looking for "Special Interests" to eliminate, Commando-style. At first we thought it was because hardly anyone here voted for the guy. Turns out it's because his Hummer H2 would be illegal on most of San Francisco's streets! Read the Slate article gleaned from Defamer. more ›