MUSIC: Late '90s Santa Cruz band the Huxtables headline a night of "fun rock" tunes. Take, for example, the song their dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons, "Dungeon Master," which they had to revise after the latest edition of the game was released. Talk about staying true to your deliciously dorky roots. (For a more in-depth explanation of this adorable geek-rock song, go here.) Alt-country band the Bitter Sweets and Two If by Sea open......

Photograph of memorial outside Heath Ledger's NYC apartment Gothamist learned that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment, cause of death unknown so far (but apparently the masseuse who found him called Mary-Kate Olsen before 911).Bostonist considered sending a link about the Super Bowl, but damn! The New Kids are reuniting!Although Sylvester Stallone is a native of New York City, his Rocky character lets many Philadelphians consider him a native son......

Though this may amuse a smattering of transplants who neither want this city to grow nor evolve into the world-class city it secretly is, a new global Monopoly board is coming and San Francisco is not a part of it. You see, people of the earth get to vote to see which of the 68 world cities will make the final 22 on the global board game. San Francisco, it seems, is not on......

This is the story behind the best egg nog--and the best egg nog traditions to accompany it. First, we must explain that this recipe is a secret. It was a secret when Mr. George P. Hunt pried it out of a man named Otis Terrell in Shanghai in 1926, and it was a secret when Mr. Terrell pried it out of Carl Seitz, a lumber executive from Virginia, some years before. We always take......

Bundles & Passages Series: Leaving Shanghai, 2006 After living in Shanghai for several years, 27-year-old Bay Area artist Aliza Cohen returns home to boast her new series, Bundles & Passages, featuring work that reflects her feelings of time-honored culture shock while living abroad. She describes her paintings and drawings as a "deep exploration of my experiences traveling throughout China and Southeast Asia, as well as my recent return to San Francisco...this collection of artwork......

Airport news! This morning, SFO crews found a dead body lodged in the wheel well of the nose of a United plane coming in from Shanghai. It might have been a stowaway. A woman was arraigned in Denver yesterday, after getting arrested on Monday for beating her kids on a Frontier Air flight that took off from SFO. Witnesses report that she seemed intoxicated on the flight, was yelling and hitting the kids, and......

Our sister site over in Shanghai notified us to this. Sure, on the surface it seems like a viral, isn't-that-darling clip of a Chinese man executing a well-choreographed tribute to "U Can't Touch This" by Oakland native MC Hammer. But the underlying theme here is a heartbreaking one of a young man craving a scrap of affection from a frosty and heartless mother whose only concern is that of her gauge. Watch it and......

SFist Christopher Rogers sends in this picture he got outside the bar Shanghai Kelly's (in District 3) last Thursday. No other news to report, it's just a fun picture.......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

Killer Cupcakes, served at night? Sounds like some dark, sexy, yummy fun is happening tonight at at Albion Alley near the Kilowatt Bar. Pretty hostesses will serve killer cupcakes and candies, and there's a mural project to take in. There's the added bonus of refreshing bevvies available for purchase inside the Kilowatt. 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 3160 16th Street in SF. Skip over to the Roxie after your sweet tooth is satisfied,......

SFist Mihi reports in from the SFIAAFF this weekend! The world premiere of Shanghai Kiss played on Saturday night at the Castro Theatre and the house was packed. One of the themes running through the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival last year was about how there weren't enough Asian-American men in movies. Clearly things have not improved since out of the three movies we saw over the weekend, two of them featured the......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... ...

Well, whaddya know -- sorry for misrepresenting the accuracy of the SFWall gossip: Gavin Newsom is in fact going to Japan! According to press secretary Peter Ragone (so take it with a grain of salt), Newsom is leaving tomorrow and coming back on Tuesday -- hope he'll have a chance to catch cousin Joanna Newsom's Saturday Osaka show while he's there. Gavin's trip is occasioned by the 50th anniversary of San Francisco's sister city relationship......

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all. Phillyist paid tribute to her this week with a heartfelt letter to her and an obituary. And now, the awkward......

Digital Camera Test: $10 Walgreen's Innovage Mini. ...

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly....

Cultural Learnings of Blogosphere for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of -Ist-a-verse Jagshemash! Borat is a hit. It's getting rave reviews, grossing millions, and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. In Shanghai, Borat would be observing Inane Learnings......

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for?...

Let's look back at a week in which no site in the -ist network adopted anyone from Africa......

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbq's and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder? ...

If it weren't for our life as an -ist, we're not sure we'd ever leave our apartment. Fortunately, to fully -ist, one must seek out the new, the fresh, and the unknown. Brand new, or just new to us, that's what we're all about this week. Phillyist keeps it fresh by getting a new motto, learning to prioritize, and taking in an experimental indie rock show. Torontoist does their first post in franglais, gets ready......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on......

We were out of the area for most of this week, so we're only just now getting our hands smudgy with the alternative press! (Virtually smudgy; we're also reading everything online, because we can't be bothered to go outside and hunt for weekly distribution boxes that still have weeklies in them halfway through the distribution cycle.) Sorry for the delay! Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Bottom Feeder was attacked by a Canadian goose......

We -ists are an eclectic bunch, but there's a couple of things we all love: famous people, social causes, and wacky local facts. Join us as we starf**k, get virtuous, and learn across the -ist network! Austinist starts us off right by filling the famous person quota by interviewing Lewis Black, covers the social cause with a non-profit car sharing company, and gives us more wacky local facts than we can handle with Austin by......

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. You can protest someone at his office, sure, but when the whistle blows at the end of the day can you follow him home? D.C. has sports fans, apparently, and elephants aren't really cut out for zoos. There's this trick where you can read information from......

San Francisco is proud host of a new reality show called "How to Get the Guy" that's unfortunately not a descendant of Will and Grace, Queer Eye, The L Word, American Idol etc. Also a biodefence lab is coming to the East Bay and SFist teaches wine pairing. Getting on the wrong train sucks. Getting on the wrong train and becoming the victim of what will later be described as a "stabbing spree" really sucks.......

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian: Mocking Dede Wilsey and Newsom about the DeYoung parking situation. The Guardian gets distracted from its single-minded focus on Village Voice LLC to decry MediaNews's purchase of the San Jose Merc News. Letter from a Peoples Temple survivor asking for further investigations into a CIA conspiracy. Hipsters worry that they're accidentally causing gentrification in Oakland. Sonic Reducer reviews an album of songs sung by actors. You know, we may have to download the version of Ewan McGregor singing Sade (or Jennifer Garner singing a show tune. It's totally awesome to work out to!!!!!.) A review of the Flipper reunion show from April 8. It took them a month to get that up? New brunch place in Noe Valley, Shanghai soup dumplings in the Sunset. Cover: Daniel Clowes. And SFist Eve's horoscope: be more confrontational. Watch out, crazy commenters! The SF Weekly: Nate Cavallieri, ex-Weekly writer, won a journalism award for his cover article about a guy who works with gang members. Congratulations, Nate! Matt Smith on Chris Daly, Mission Housing, and someone saying that Daly speaks with a "forked tongue" -- outraged Matt Smith spittle flying everywhere! N.B.: Matt Smith reports that Chris Daly has adopted a policy of "not speaking to me." Gay cop sues. Orphan pigeon rescue. Cover article: why won't the SF Unified School District back smaller schools? Meredith goes BBQ, while SFist Ced roasts some ribs of his own! And Savage Love: do any fetishists want to buy a letter-writer's breast milk? Direct all responses to Dan Savage, not us. The EBX's Best Of issue, and the Metro -- after the jump....

There's a whole wide world out there, and here's the proof: DCist revels in The University of Maryland's basketball triumphs, marvels at Metro's security strategy, and applauds DC local Katie Couric's new gig. Phillyist is all about the Philadelphia Film Festival. OK, not all about -- they still have time for loitering, underage sex, and random wacky news. LAist would have to send a camera around the world to get shots as bizarre as Katie's......

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...

Gothamist posts on the capture of a NYC perv thanks to Little Brother and a camera phone. They also scour the city for vodka martinis and Shamrock shakes and spot the friend from the Wonder Years at a city law firm. New York police think that Littlejohn is their man. Houstonist is no stranger to megachurches or stripmalls or mega-strip-churchmalls. The children of Houston are under assault by unknown forces as this week a playground......