First, the obvious: There are two episodes of "Arrested Development" airing tonight, a new one at 8 p.m, and a re-run of "My Hand to God," in which Buster tries to deal with the loss of his hand, and Michael attempts to find out if he's really the father of Maggie's child. (Julia Louis Dreyfuss guest stars.) more ›

Aw, SFist Eve -- look at the little bunny rabbit! The Oakland Animal Shelter is looking for people to help foster the 30 baby bunnies they found being illegally sold at an East Bay flea market, where they found 6-8 bunnies all crammed into a tiny box. The bunnies are too young to be spayed/neutered or to be adopted, but the shelter is running out of space for 'em. No, you may not pick one up to give as a holiday present either; the shelter won't allow it. From the small to the large -- divers raced out to free a humpback whale that had gotten entangled in crab pot lines near the Farallones Islands, just off the San Francisco coast. The whale had somehow managed to get wrapped around four times in lines weighing about 90 pounds total, which were cutting into its blubber and dragging its blowhole under water. When they freed the whale, it reportedly gave them all a quick nuzzle before swimming away (presumably as fast as possible). And starting today, the Peninsula Humane Society will begin adopting out the animals rescued from the Gulf Coast. The national Humane Society asked local shelters to wait until Dec. 15 to allow hurricane victims as long as possible to reunite with their pets. Before adopting, do note -- you may be asked to surrender it if its original owner shows up. more ›

Hey! Grateful Dogs is having an adoption event this Saturday from 12-3 at the West Portal Starbucks. Overcome your knee-jerk contempt for corporate coffee long enough to come and see some of the little pups you've met on SFist, as well as some new faces. SFist Franny will be making an alumni appearance there as well, so be sure to say hi! If nothing else, stop by to say hi to Billy! more ›

Saturday: We're going to the first Amoeba Auction, planned to be a weekly event to directly aid musicians and independent relief efforts on the Gulf Coast from Hurricane Katrina. Unique, one of a kind, and collectible items (the VIP tickets to Bauhaus at the Warfield will be ours, bitches!) Amoeba will match all winning bids from the auctions, so you can bid with impunity. It all starts at 4. more ›

A good friend of ours recently moved to San Diego, and has found herself an unintended housewife. Complaining about the bordom of such an exsistence, (while jokingly acknowledging that some folks would kill for such problems), we agreed that "at least (she) has a library card." But it's totally true that the library has gotten us through boring times both long (chronic illness) and short (the N Judah -- wait, that's long, too). The SFPL's online reserve system has helped us prepare for any book needs, and our fine local independent bookstores keep us covered for any permanent-ownership demands that might arise. more ›

This week's adoptable pet (he'll be featured on SFist all week long on the left side of the site, half-way down) comes to us from Grateful Dogs Rescue. Not to sound like the dude who tried to sell us a used Vespa the other day, but we almost didn't pick Louie for this week's Find a Friend because we want him so badly ourselves. (Yes, we do note the resemblance between Louie and SFist's own Franny. What of it?) more ›

With the baseball season over, we are now faced with this big question: now what do we do with ourselves? -Bay Area bound refugees from Hurricane Katrina are discovering something about the Bay Area: it's friggin expensive here. FEMA gives families a little over $2000 a month to get by until they get resettled either elsewhere or back in New Orleans and as we all know, $2000 a month in the Bay Area doesn't get you very far. Especially if you have a family. And that's not the only problem. In a quote we find awfully scary for various reasons, one of the evacuees said he was looking at a place in West Oakland, but didn't want to move there because, among other things, the "schools weren’t good." Considering Louisiana is well known as a poor, backwards-ass state, what does that say about the schools in Oakland? -In response to the increasingly controversial controversy over TIC conversions and Ellis Act evictions, Gavin has announced that he will form a task force to look into it and got Aaron Peskin to help out. We're not experts on housing policy, but we think we can save a whole bunch of time and money with this solution to the issue: build more housing. more ›

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Saturday We're going to Southern Relief's first SF Fundraiser for the Victims of Katrina. There will be t-shirts, tote bags, stickers, pins, baked goods and a prize drawing in exchange for donations to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina relief effort. On the steps of the Christian Science Church (655 Dolores) from 10:00am to 3:00pm. more ›

Local theaters help out with hurricane relief. more ›

Even though this column’s supposed to be about the bars of San Francisco, given the unbelievably tragic events of the last couple of weeks, we simply must pay due respect to the drinkin’-est city this side of Bavaria. Of course we're talkin' bout New Orleans. Things may look bad now, but we know that you’ll rise again and take back your rightful place at the throne of Fat Tuesday’s mayhem. more ›

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. more ›

Was anyone else a little unnerved to see that "major earthquake in San Francisco" is listed as the number 2 scenario for FEMA practice, right below "terrorist attack on New York" and right above "major hurricane hits New Orleans?" And you know with all our gays and minorities and blue-state progressivism, ain't no one from the federal government coming to save our butts when the Big One hits here! And remember when we all thought there was a tsunami coming but no one in SF checked the emergency fax machine until an hour after the original warning? We're screwed! So we set out this weekend to buy us an earthquake preparedness kit. We know, we could put it together ourselves, but it'd be so much nicer just to buy a ready-to-go set. Do you know how hard it is to find an earthquake preparedness kit in this city? Costco had none. Safeway had none. REI was closed. We didn't go to Target because of the boycott for their Schwarzenegger donations, but they probably didn't have one either. Home Depot told us that they had five "a while ago" but haven't restocked since. Where else would we go for a pre-packaged kit? Rainbow Grocery? Cole Hardware? They don't have anything either. So here's our thought: why doesn't City Hall sell pre-packaged earthquake prep kits? Annemarie Conroy's Office of Emergency Service could get 'em at cost, have the kits emblazoned with a cute "San Francisco's Prepared!" logo of some sort, and sell 'em at community centers across the city. It would beat having to turn on the TV and see San Franciscans sitting on the roofs of their houses, waiting for someone at CNN to film our HELP US PLZ signs, as the SFPD struggles to find the right radio frequency for communications. After the jump, where we ended up getting our prep kit, plus everything your prep kit should have in it. more ›