Here at SFist, we have a general editorial policy of opposing everything; but we've looked, and there's just very little to dislike about "Family Appreciation Day." Except maybe the logo. Seriously, what font is that? It looks like something from a used car dealership. But aside from that, it's actually a pretty cool initative. Which is probably why Gavin's trying to take credit for it, as if he has now personally kissed every baby......

Compared to the same time last year, this week BART saw a 20% jump in riders traveling to SFO during the Christmas week. How was this done? Well, according to reports, the dramatic increase was partly due to a "Kids Ride Free" promotion, which exposed itself to an unsuspecting public on 12/22. (Thankfully, we missed this promotion by one day. Lucky us. But tell us, was there an inordinate amount of little people on......

Here's todays sports stories...

While crews repair a damaged cable, California Street cable cars will be down for the count today, but could return to service by early tomorrow. Sad, isn't it? According to Muni spokesman Alan Siegel, "[t]he cable runs continuously (up and down the line), so we have to find the one section of the cable that's damaged ... we have to run (the cable) slowly until that section gets into the car barn." [via SFGate]......

Can you believe it's been a year since James Kim died in the Oregon mountains? We're very sorry to pass along the news that another Northern California family is missing in what we're hoping is not going to be another family holiday tragedy story. The Dominguez family went out last Sunday to cut down Christmas trees in the Sierra mountains: the father, Frederick, and his three children, Christopher (18), Alexis (15), and Joshua (12). That's......

Whether you call it soda, pop, or cola, you'll have to pay more to buy it if Gavin Newsom gets his way: Matier and Ross report that Mayor Newsom is thinking about taxing city vendors of sugary soft drinks to pay for his Shape Up SF kid fitness programs. The thinking's that the fructose corn syrup that gets added to your Coke [we grew up in the South, so we call 'em Cokes, though we've......

We were in the Upper Haight last night, walking with friends along the street to the Magnolia for a late-ish dinner. We walked past a small group of punk-ish kids sitting on the street with a "give us some money [insert ironic saying here]" sign. They were talking with a guy who was standing there with a beautiful husky dog on a leash. We'll repeat - that dog was gorgeous. As we passed by, the......

Japantown's new Sundance Cinemas Kabuki will offer the more discerning moviegoer (i.e.. people who self-consciously laugh out loud during Shakespeare comedies) something, well, more. Curbed SF has the full rundown on the new movie house that's sure to make you feel even that more self-righteous than you already do while braving the choppy waters of independent film. Check it: Designed by Berkeley-based ELS architects, the renovation of the former AMC Kabuki 8 utilizes post-consumer......

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

The DIY cool kids are having their holiday bash tonight, and you, yes you, can get in on the action. We like ReadyMade parties because of all the style tips we get by gawking at all the hipness that surrounds us. The holiday party is especially great because local merchants, makers, and creative people hock their wares for the first two hours. It's the perfect place to pick up a unique and cool present.......

Oh this is bizarre. And scary. An old man was arrested today for not following a "restraining order that prohibited him from having any contact with employees of The Chronicle." Oh my. It seems that Julian Hartzell, 64, made "inappropriate contact" with some of the Chronicle staff this past summer. The paper then got themselves a restraining order against him, but he continued to try contacting employees. So? He was arrested. What kind of......

Sigh. The popular kids are at it again. No stranger to playing fast and loose with the law, noted homeless taxi driver Grasshopper Kaplan -- you remember, that guy who ran for mayor this year and received a decent 1,400 votes -- was arrested yesterday. Why? According to the Snitch, he was "sentenced on Monday to nine months in county jail for threatening a passenger while driving his unlicensed taxi." Hmm. How zany. Oh......

Kids, it's time to get rocking. (Especially before the "Private Party" dry spell that is coming on. Yikes.) This week, the San Francisco music gods are offering a vast array of newbies and veterans - something that we will graciously partake of any day of the week. Now that the bets are in (okay, so no one really cast any bets - how boring is that?), you can go to Cafe du Nord, tonight,......

The cold weather - and holiday festivities - descended upon Gothamist. The Rockefeller Christmas tree was lit, Broadway stagehand finally ended their strike, and NASCAR decided to run their victory lap through Times Square. There were disturbing photographs revealing the working conditions in which many city manholes are produced and ninjas were also a hot topic, either robbing homes or entering into alibis. But the city was really rocked by how Rudy Giuliani's visits......

"James Frey Is A 'Rockstar Vampire' On Facebook" Hee! Care of the kids over at Gawker, this hed brings up a good point: we haven't a clue as to how play this newfangled vampire game, and we're afraid to ask. Please, Facebook family, stop biting and baiting us. We feel like we're back in junior high, stuck on the football field, frightened by this touch football game all the other kids seem to play......

In North Beach fights breakout and mild vandalism occurs after bars close at 2 a.m. This chaos, typical for any city, makes some of our sensitive city dwellers cranky before bedtime. Or whatever. So, the City Planning Commissioners somehow got it into their heads that closing pizza parlors on the the Broadway strip, pizzerias that normally stay open until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., before 2 a.m. will solve a slew of problems. According to the Examiner:...

Yeah, we plan on running this bit into the ground. And then some. Well, well, well. Well. Huh. It looks like Mr. Van Sant is having yet another open casting call for his Harvey Milk biopic, Milk. Seeing as how are the Gena Rowlands of bit-part/background acting, we're going to attend the casting call. Again. Clearly, our picture taken at the last audition was either destroyed by a envious auditioners, or it was lost......

BeyondChron has a civil point/counter-point debate going on about Yoshi's SF, which opens its doors today. But let's go back a bit, shall we? If you didn't know, San Francisco has the most cheery pockmark on its record: the "Negro removal" period. During this time historic buildings were torn down and black Western Addition residents were shooed out of the city. A movement that "never succeeded in driving all blacks from the Fillmore," but......

It’s early on a Saturday afternoon, and we’ve somehow found our way to Paris. OK, we’re not in Paris. Rather, we’re poking around mellow South Park between 2nd, 3rd, Brannan, and Bryant Sts., where arrondissement 94107’s narrow ellipse of green space merely feels a bit Parisian. The scene in the park is, for the most part, typical and ephemeral: young parents with their kids at the playground, couples chatting on benches or picnicking at tables, dogs and their attendant humans. Falling leaves pepper the ground with muted autumn color. South Park’s twist on the familiar neighborhood park theme, however, is the regular presence of down-and-out’ers at its west end. Nobody seems to demonize the two or three unshowered men hanging about, and while we’re not interested in joining them for a game of checkers or anything, it seems to be a case of no harm, no foul – at least on this afternoon....

Those wacky comedic troupe kids over at SPF7 honor two-time Oscar-winning Yalie and secretly Sapphic actress/director Jodie Foster with "poetic poetry poems" as performed by a spot-on Foster look-alike. (Good Lord, that was a lot of hyphening. Whew.) She's no Meg Tilly or Jewel, but then again, who is? Anyway, check them out. (One more after le jump!)......

It seems that Disney is putting more eggs into the digital animation basket here in the Bay Area: they're setting up a studio in our neighbors to the north, Novato. Teaming with director Robert Zemeckis (the genius behind Back to the Future and now the Angelina Jolie animated nudie flick, Beowulf), the pair is forming ImageMovers Digital—a digital animation studio focused on the "Is that really animation or isn't it?" type of filmmaking. Disney......

The airtight smiles. Awesome. For those of you somehow not tempted into becoming a part of Van Santian art -- or, you know, if you sport a vagina -- might we suggest catching round II of the Leno vs. Migden smackdown? Sponsored by the Harvey Milk Club, this meeting is sure to ruffle a few plumes and have local politicos affectedly scratching their chins for days to come. That's right, kids, it's on. It is......

Nice package. -- Of Montreal: Someone was talking of this art-rock outfit the other night -- quite controversially, in fact -- and we thought that they were talking about the city in Canada. Because we're old. Of Montreal goes on tonight with Grand Buffet and MGMT at 9 p.m. at Great American Music Hall; $18. (They also perform tomorrow night and on Wednesday; the kids just love them that much, you see.) -- Donuts:......

The International Animation Festival starts tonight, kids. And speaking of them, don't bring yours to tomorrow night's wonderfully smut-filled orgy of animated shorts, Top Drawers. What's more, one lucky soul will get a free pair of tickets to tomorrow night's screening. You will have the chance to see such "playful, sexy shorts" as Signe Baumane's Teat Beat of Sex and Kelly Sears's Drift. So, the fifth person to send us an email to editor......

SFist interviews local band Social Studies. They rock. ...

Just what San Francisco really needs – renovated horse stables in Golden Gate Park! That's right. Proposition G, if passed, would raise $750,000 towards revitalizing the existing dilapidated stables. Proponents of the prop claim that this is all for the youth of San Francisco. Well, they must be thinking about little Spencer and Avery of St. Francis Wood, cuz we're pretty sure that the kids who go to John Muir Elementary in Western Addition......

The kids over at Curbed SF have the word on one polling place that's also an open house. Gross. Over in the enchanted Excelsior District, early morning voters have also been getting the hardcore sales pitch for a 6BR polling station that's going for $888,888. Not a bad price, btw, but still. Anyway, check it: "Went to vote this morning at 900 Persia Street in the lovely Excelsior District. Not only is it a......

In a city littered with film festivals, few of them stand out. This is one of them. Starting this Thursday (11/6), the San Francisco International Animation Festival will sample a wide array of animation with a selection of the finest, boldest and most exciting animated films and videos from around the world, including frame-by-frame and computer-assisted animation. The festival opens with Leslie Iwerks' examination of Pixar, perhaps the best-known and most successful animation house......

Mission hipster haven, Ritual Roasters, is hosting a stellar art event organized by curator/painter/illustrator extraordinaire, Sacha Eckes. The show runs through December 2nd and features artists Timothy Buckwalter, Bill Dunlap, Sacha Eckes, Nancy Mizuno Elliott, Christopher Jernberg, Alexis Mackenzie, Paul Madonna (whom we interviewed in May), Mike Monteiro, Fred Rinne, Brion Nudah Rosch & Ifton Schlinger and Micke Tong. Each artist has created about three pieces of art, which have been framed in white,......

During the wee hours of the morning, a woman sporting a French maid outfit was arrested for going the wrong way down the northbound lanes on (the) 280 in San Francisco. She caused (only) three collisions before she was finally nabbed by the cops....