*FILM: The 5th Annual San Francisco Irish Film Festival kicks things off with Garage by director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Mark O’Halloran. This is followed by a reception with the Consul General of Ireland, Emer Deane. According to LS, "other highlights include Speed Dating, a romantic comedy about a lovelorn amnesiac; the award winning Irish-language feature film Kings, and finally The Undertaking, a documentary about Irish American undertaker and poet Thomas Lynch, who is......

San Francisco's musical offerings were bountiful Wednesday night ranging from Film School to Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings to The Thermals. It seems, though, that most of you made the correct choice: Vampire Weekend. Now we don't doubt that the other shows weren't amazing -- we were pretty miffed that there were so many choices on one night -- but clearly if you are anybody then you were wearing a blue pin-striped shirt, dark......

Here's todays sports news...

Attrition has been one of the Warriors' best pickups this offeseason. While the Warriors have taken some baby steps forward, many of the Western Conference rivals have been moving in the opposite direction.

When looking at the Warriors chances to make the playoffs this year, it runs from the bottom up....

-- Oh noes: local homes sales are in the crapper. [SJ Merc] -- Sex assault charged against Sacto Kings player Justin Williams. [CBS5] -- More lighted landmarks to shutdown during Saturday's Lights Out SF. [Examiner] -- Suing Ed Jew. [SFGate] -- Jon Stewart and Daily Show confusion. [BeyondChron] -- Not guilty plea in Bailey murder. [Oakland Tribune] -- Gayrab party. Ha! Get it? Yeah. Anyway, check out Bibi this Saturday at Club Eight. [SFBG]......

-- Grey Gardens: Kiki & Herb's Justin Bond hosts one of the most splendidly tragic documentaries every made, about life inside a rundown East Hampton mansion with Jackie Kennedy Onassis' eccentric aunt and cousin. Little Edie look-a-like contest happens before the show. The psychosis starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Castro Theatre, Castro and Market Streets; $6-$9. -- Pundits With Punchlines: South Asian comedians highlight this night of comedy. Samson Koletkar, Hasan Minhaj, and......

As we were just telling SFist Mihi, everything is better with an emu in it! It's easy to make a heroic character lovable and the bad guy despicable, but it's much more of an accomplishment to turn a fallible, sweaty, chubby guy with real flaws, including a seriously questionable moral compass, into a sympathetic character. Congorama, a charmer of a movie directed by Philippe Falardeau manages to do just that. Congorama is a lovely tale......

SFist Mihi goes Cantopop! The North American debut of Heavenly Kings 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. Heavenly......

Here's todays wrapup of sports news...

(A little late, because we're fixing our servers around here today.) Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 70. Number of people pictured whom we recognize: 8 (including Charlotte Maillard Shultz, Stephan Jenkins, and a certain precious Bumblebee!) Minority count: 7 (10%). Getty v. Traina: 1-3, with Gettys represented by Swells stalwart Gavin Newsom. Bumblebee sightings: 2! Ms. Jennifer Siebel attended a benefit party/auction for Tipping Point, and will also be......

The Pond's horrible ice and Teemu Selanne's illegal stick helped the Sharks avoid being down a man in overtime against the Ducks last night. Selanne was called for unsportsmanlike conduct at the beginning of overtime, negating a Craig Rivet penalty that was carrying over from the end of regulation, and San Jose went on to win the shootout for a 3-2 victory. The Sharks came back to even the score after being down by 2 goals in the first period, and both teams helped their playoff positioning against the Dallas Stars. ...

Here's todays wrap-up of the sports news ...

-The Sharks clinched a playoff spot with a win over the LA Kings, 3-1. Sure, it was pretty much a given but it's still nice to say. Patrick Marleau had two goals and one assist to lead the way. -Frank Gore is now making bank. -Athletics Nation tries to make sense of the A's spring stats. -Tim Kawakami gives us today's "what will the Raiders do with their draft pick" post. -Ray Ratto takes up......

We're calling it right now -- cancel your reservations at the midtown Manhattan Day's Inn, cuz' ain't gonna' be no Warriors representative at this year's NBA Lottery. After 12 years, THE STREAK IS OVER -- your Golden State Warriors will make the playoffs this year as the number eight seed in the Western Conference.

Unlike Monte Poole or Tim Kawakami, there is no "will they or won't they" coming from SFist. This is a done deal. Their season-long fever has broken just in time, and the Warriors now have only to avoid full-scale collapse and they will walk into the playoffs unchallenged.

Over the last 12 years, nobody has really accused the Warriors of having their act together. They've burned through a litany of coaches, a couple of really bad GMs, and more than one first round draft choice with nothing to show for them but more new coaches, front office suits, and first round draft choices.

Another hallmark of the modern-day Warriors' mean mean stride has been their fast starts, awful middles, and decent finishes. Even in their worst years, the Warriors managed to finish the season on an uptick, perpetually giving false hope for the next season – even if that hope was just a Lottery pick.

This year had all the looks of more of the same, but a funny thing happened on the way to the cellar: the bottom fell out of the middle of the Western Conference.

SFist interviews Bart Davenport of Honeycut...

So where are we in the whole Bonds on Speed story? According to the Giants, they didn't know Bonds tested positive at all which sounds kind of silly, now doesn't it? Barry also went out and defended Mark Sweeney, which is nice of him to do considering Barry threw him under the bus. ...

New year, same crap. Actually, it's still 2006, so maybe the Warriors are just clearing their pipes of the last dregs of bad karma before starting a new year and a new franchise era -- one that will be known to future Warriors fans as The Warriors Decade. Either way, Saturday night in Sacramento, fate and bad planning teamed up to dish the Warriors a cosmic double-tap, with the Kings throwing in an unhappy ending, for good measure.

Jason Richardson broke his hand, first round draft pick Patrick O'Bryant was optioned to the minors, and the Warriors took a 116-97 facial from the Kings.

-The Niners beat the Seahawks in what has to be a bit of a shocker, 24-14. We'll have more on this later. -In a game KNBR called the "signature victory" for the Warriors, Baron Davis hits a three with 1.2 seconds left to beat the Rockets. -Sharks have their three game winning streak snapped in a 4-2 loss to the LA Kings. -Now a cyclist is caught up in the BALCO mess. -Peter Magowan wonders......

Ho' boy. Somebody better call FEMA. Fire up the buses and make sure that the Oracle has plenty of cots and bottled water, because there could be a CAT5 disaster looming in the Warriors future.

Last night at the Oracle, the team was able to withstand the Sacramento Kings, 126-113, in a game that the hometown hoopsters controlled from the opening minutes, but there's storm clouds brewing. Ironically, last year's killer storm, Hurricane Artest, was in the house to remind the Warriors about decision making. It was ironic, because the Warriors again find themselves toying with the idea of voluntarily welcoming an NBA bad boy into the fold even as their team chemistry seems to be taking on a little water.

-Baron Davis leads the way to a win over the Sacramento Kings. Apparently, he's not too happy over him being mentioned in all the Iverson rumors. But is even trading for AI a good idea?...

Because you all love sports so much, we're doing a daily feature on the latest in sports. Warriors 117 Kings 105- What's gotten into the Warriors? They've won four in a row and scoring like Leo DiCaprio in his "P----- Posse" days. Leading the way is Baron Davis who is playing out of his head and playing out of his head a lot as Nelson is playing him almost the entire game every game. Considering Baron's off-and-on again relationship with the injured reserve, we're not sure how smart a move that is. Also playing every minute of every game this early in the season is maybe not a smart move either. Anyways, he lead the way with 36 points. ...

-Union and police commission not getting along after two on the commission said that cops occasionally kill people. -Ammiano's bill to decrminilize dope moves forward....

As we've been watching the World Cup, we just can't but help think just how much fun it would be to be there. After all, it's soccer, it's beer, it's Katenrauchwurst-- what else do you want out of life? But alas, we were too late to sign up for tickets and our friends who are going didn't take us. What to do...what to do... Hey, we just found out a way to go-- just give tons of money to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez? He's taking some of his biggest fund raisers to Germany to watch the Finals. Total cost per person? $25,000. Airfare isn't included, but tickets, hotel reservations, and "welcoming gifts" are. We don't, however, think by "welcoming gifts" they mean "hookers"-- unless Duke Cunningham is involved. ...

This SFist doesn't eat meat, so maybe it's easier for us to hate on fast food restaurants -- after all, they're not so great for you and no one wants one in their neighborhood. But, heck, we sure do love our Burger King Simpsons watches. We're torn. Are fast food joints the blight Schlosser and company would have us believe, or are you "lovin' it"? (Incidentally, have you seen that McDonald's commercial where the......

SFist reviews Sharon Jones and the Dapkings...

Our concert picks for the week of 4/7-4/13. Who wants some free concert tickets? Rob Thomas, frontman of bazillion-selling megaband Matchbox 20 has stepped out with a solo record entitled Something to Be that will be released April 19th. SFist wants to send you and a guest to the kickoff of his solo tour at The Fillmore on Friday April 15th. We'll even invite the winner to write about their experience for SFist, if they're......

In the "Um, yeah, but Rich Gannon's practically a member of AARP and Kerry Collins is a chump" department, agent Dante DiTrapano is confirming the news (which will stay unofficial until the trading period opens on March 2nd) that Minnesota Viking Randy Moss is going to become part of the Silver and Black Attack. He'll be joining recently re-signed Jerry Porter in what looks like on paper as a pretty impressive wide receiver package......

We're sure there are some people out there who are all interested in the AT&T/SBC merger because of what it means to the stock market. And we're sure there are some of you out there who are interested in the merger because of what it means for your job. But we here at SFist are interested in it for only reason -- what name will the Giants now call home? While the people behind......

Music-loving good samaritans, this is your lucky week. If you like to enjoy a little partying and live performance in exchange for your charitable contributions, you have no less than six different tsunami relief benefits to choose from. On Friday, The Independent is having their second benefit, featuring members of New Monsoon, ALO, Samantha and the Ritual for a donation of $10-50. Great American's benefit that night with indie kings Gibbard, Kozelek, Richman and Bachman......