Huh. The San Francisco Police Department has put the kibosh on tomorrow's Dolores Park free cash giveaway care of Cash Tomato. Check it: This Saturday 23rd February at 10am, we had planned to hide hundreds of tomatoes with cash attached in Dolores park, a tomato/cash treasure hunt if you will. Yesterday, 21st February we received an email from SFPD telling us that we are unable to do this, that by giving away money within......

Lucas (1986), Say Anything (1989), My Bloody Valentine (1981): The first film has socially-retarded Corey Haim falling head over heels in love with a sensitive football player, Charlie Sheen, or something like that; Cameron Crowe's tale of teenage love and angst has John Cusack causing egregious noise pollution when he holds up a ghettoblaster pumping out a Peter Gabriel ballad; and the final film has a murderer in a small coal mining town killing......

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. In......

This is rich. The San Francisco Police Department are now having to investigate their own brethren. It appears that last Saturday morning, SFPD missed finding a firearm on a female suspect being booked into the Tenderloin station. A police spokersperson would only confirm that "officers heard a shot come from the holding area just after 11:00 Saturday morning. When they went in officers found a woman detainee and a small handgun on the floor.......

Second verse, same as the first: The San Francisco Zoo will remain closed on Friday, December 28, 2007. Please visit www.sfzoo.org for information as to when the Zoo will reopen to the public. According to their site, the zoo claims to be closed "out of respect for the victims of Tuesday's incidents," although we imagine that their reverence for said tiger attack victims has waned considerably. Just saying. In all reality, the continued closure......

Feel that? Why, those are your heart stings being tugged care of us and this cool little guy over here on the right. (Who like totally did not just make us completely tear up right now, so shut up!) Before we launch a few gift giveaways, why not take a moment to donate some money and/or effort to something worthy? Like giving people food, for example. No gift is too small and every bit......

Today's toy test event in Union Square....

Attention citizenry! The SFPD needs your help. Especially if you're a web designer. They're currently conducting a poll, with the help of a Massachusetts company called, ominously, the Public Safety Strategies Group. Do you like foot patrols? Do you know where your police station is? Have you been the victim of a crime lately? These and other exciting questions will be answered on tonight's episode of "The San Francisco Police Effectiveness Review"! Sadly, the......

Yay! Exciting news. We just love award shows! And now we have something to look forward to. Something to be proud of. Something that will take our gaze off of Ryan Seacrest’s creepy, over-animated mouth. Wait, what? The San Francisco cast of Jersey Boys is performing at the Emmys? Whoop-dee-do. How are we supposed to get excited about that? Sorry to be a tease, but we do have one thing to look forward to......

It must be oddly freeing to have an ongoing, very public work-related crisis, because Officer Andrew Cohen seems to have a lot to say these days. And why the heck not? It's an interesting opportunity to take a look into the mind of what a veteran police officer -- one that no longer has to play politics -- really thinks. We got his opinion on the recent 'use of force' at AT&T Park. ...

This past Sunday, under blazing blue skies in the City's snuggly warm SOMA bosom of Yerba Buena Gardens (YBG), there were no microphones, no stage lights, and no admission fees (and sadly no news coverage). There was plenty of energy though in the form of 10,000 spectators watching 267 actors in 77 different shows on 10 stages for the fourth annual San Francisco Theater Festival (SFTF).

The festive and well-attended public event filled not only the outdoor venues of the YBG like the Stone Stage, the Waterfall, and the Rock Circle, but also filled up indoor venues the Metreon and Zeum.

The San Francisco Theater Festival is an annual free event intended to build the theater-going audience by acquainting people with live-theater performance in the Bay Area. "It's always a bit of a crapshoot" SFTF Executive Producer Bill Schwartz told SFist on Tuesday, but he loves what he does and hopes that people will continue to join him in making the Bay Area a truly great theater town.

Yay! SFist Mihi's back on the scene, covering the opening night festivities for the SF Jewish Film Fest! The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) is the first and only Jewish film festival in the world. At least that's what the President of the SFJFF said at the Castro Theatre last night when he introduced the opening night movie, Sweet Mud. This is the kind of thing that makes us so proud to live here.......

Photos of the Harry Potter's Knight Bus in Civic Center...

There were a lot of locals in the world of reality TV this week! "America's Got Talent" included an audition from an East Bay music teacher named Michael Strelo-Smith. He had an OK voice, but he was kind of boring. He swears he can sing anything and everything, but so far we are unimpressed. "Last Comic Standing" continued its trend of finding comedians who have been around for years, and presenting them as new......

Phil Bronstein is the Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Mr. Bronstein agreed to answer a few questions for us. His responses directly address issues brought up by SFist and SFist's readers a short time ago. Notably, you'll see from his answers below that he'd appreciate more of the same. Here's a chance hear and be heard from one of the most important drivers behind news coverage in our area. See what he had to say to us below -- and let him know what you think....

The San Francisco world of restaurant gossip columnists went head over heels when Grace-Ann Walden retired from the Chronicle and the Inside Scoop column. She had all the info, friends in all dining rooms, ears in all the kitchens, she was our go-to-writer every Wednesday for all the tips on new restaurant openings, closures, chef musical chairs and overall juicy gossip. Who was going to dish it to us? We are thankful that Marcia’s Tablehopper......

What's the price of a free society? Lunatics running around loose: online threats have lead UC Hastings to shut down, just for today. What are the threats? Who's responsible? We don't know. What we do know is there are a lot of unhappy, unpredictable, desperately fragile folks in the world, some of whom have had the bad luck of being burdened with pain from which it may seem impossible to ever recover; and we can......

While reading the San Francisco Sentinel, we couldn't help but notice that Pat Murphy has made himself an extremely awesome personalized SFist t-shirt! (we don't have the rights to run the picture here, but it's the last picture on the page). LOVE! The San Francisco Sentinel IS First-Ist! Thanks for the support, Pat! Anyways, if Pat's shirt inspires you to make your own personalized SFist gear too, check out our Spreadshirt.com shop, which should be......

Their name's the stuff our dreams are made of but the first minute we spend at The San Francisco Chocolate Factory doesn't bode well. "Do you make the chocolate here?" We ask, our dowey eyes full of Charlie-like wonder. The clerk winces as she sets us straight. We feel her pain: for the next thirty minutes every single walk-in repeats that same question. But fear not; though the place lacks factory creds, boy, they bring on the chocolate. And the San Francisco. ...

-The Sierra's finally say hello to snow. -2007 is going to be the Health Care-iffic. -The San Francisco Transportation Authority is all set to begin an environmental review for a rapid transit bus line on Van Ness. How much difference in the environment could a MUNI bus being on time be?...

The San Francisco Film Critics Circle announced their season ending yesterday, something of which we are constantly told could mean something when it comes to the Oscars. The idea, we guess, being that these awards are like the NCAA brackets: Movie A wins the SF Flim Critics and movie B wins the LA Film Critics award, then they go off to meet the winner of the New York Critics Awards with the winner being the front-runner for Oscar gold. Or something like that. ...

-The San Francisco Unified School District is still trying to figure out what to do -Here's a really sad story about a funeral director who's presided over forty funerals this year -In the BALCO case, the Chron argued in papers filed with a Federal Appeals Court that protecting confidential sources is essential for the public interest. -Somebody on Death Row in San Quentin commited suicide -Fog City Journal says watch out for this dude. -Pelosi......

-Veterans Day celebrated with parades and a memorial featuring boots. -Scientists head up to the Sierras to try and track Global Warming. ...

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority unveiled plans recently to help speed up the MUNI bus routes on Van Ness street, part of their Bus Rapid Transit plan. As part of that plan, they are also talking about setting up a system that will let actual riders get actual times of actual buses arriving at actual bus stops. Now how about that? ...

-Dick met Bush yesterday and in one of his speeches Bush talked about how he's going to end poverty and bring world peace. No, just joking, he talked a lot about terrorism, Iraq, 9/11 blah, blah, blah. But that's not the big thing. No, the big thing is, and we kid you not, there is an actual George W. Bush Elementary School in Stockton. And the library is the Laura Bush Library. We'll leave it up to you to make with the jokes, but if you want a starter joke, the obvious one is if the library carries "My Pet Goat?" ...

Aw, yeah! Though the Midnight Mass film series has ended, Peaches Christ isn't done with us yet. This Saturday, she opens the doors of the Bridge Theatre for one last midnight extravaganza, The San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival. From their release: Filmmakers Peaches Christ and Vinsantos created the event as a direct response to their own films being rejected from "legitimate" local film festivals The programmers proudly present over-looked and underrated local talent.......

Total number of people in the pictures of this week's Swells: 58. Minority count: 16. (27.5%). One group of pictures is from the SF Ethnic Dance Festival. Number of people in the pictures whose names we recognize: 4 (Vera Wang, the director of the SF Ballet, the SF Ballet principal dancer, and Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams at his wedding, above). Getty v. Traina: 1-0. Number of hats: 0. Number of horn-rimmed glasses: 4. Percentage of......

Wednesday's in a stage 2 heat emergency! Tonight: Feeling discombobulated by the big three-oh? The San Francisco Cody's is hosting the Bay Area editor and local contributors from the latest women-telling-it-to-you-straight anthology, The May Queen, featuring women in their 30s reporting about their lives today. The thirtysomething fun starts at 7 p.m. Thursday: Feeling discombobulated by the influence of market forces on horror movies? Techsploitator Annalee Newitz is reading from her new book, Pretend We're......

Here's an update on a couple of stories we've been following. -After Gavin vetoed the "Healthy Saturdays" initiative, the Board of Supervisors voted to see if they could override Gavin's veto but couldn't. Once again, the vote came down to a 7-4 vote, not enough to override, with the Usual Suspects-- Alioto-Pier, Dufty, Elsbernd, and Ma-- voting no. The next steps are unclear at this point. McGoldrick says he's in negotiations with Gavin to come to some sort of resolution to the initiative but people are skeptical of Gavin's intentions. Maybe we'll have another ballot measure, but apparently this issue has been deemed too important to be left to us. BTW, we're a little confused about the fact that all the pro-bike people keep on saying Gavin vetoed the measure because he's the bitch of the rich. When did neighborhood activists and activists for the disabled and all the other people who came out against the measure suddenly become rich and powerful developers? Anyways, check out this hilarious interview with Gavin on the Bay Guardian's web site, an interview that takes place while Gavin and the reporter are riding bicycles to City Hall on Bike to Work Day. We imagine the reporter and Gavin puffing away, muttering curses at each other underneath their breath and trying desperately not to roll their eyes too much lest they accidentally crash into other bikers. ...

It's a sad for us at SFist when we see a journalist even lazier than we are, but we've found one in The New York Times' Nathan Lee. In a move that seems almost calculated to make The San Francisco Chronicle entertainment coverage seem less lame, Lee makes himself sound kind of silly in his review of locally produced film Quality of Life. Here's how the piece opens: The Mission District of San Francisco......