By Gordon Elgart more ›

Last week Numb3ers -- that Tiffany network show starring the reportedly-difficult-to-work-with Rob Morrow -- featured an Alternate-Reality Game (ARG) as a plot device. It turns out that this was an actual launch for an ARG, Chainfactor. The idea is this: a players find codes on l'Internets as well as in real world locales. Take, for example, the tip we got that a hidden code is hidden at one of the billboards or advertisements on 24th Avenue and Geary. (Probably a hidden message about Satan, no doubt!) Word is that "most of the other ads that have been located appear to include the word 'chain'...most of the 'codes' appear to be a word accompanied by a 9 digit number." more ›

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. more ›

It would be so cool if the conductor replaced his baton with a wiimote at , a concert of video game music. The event features widely known songs from games in the Final Fantasy, Sonic, Zelda, and Mario universes, as well as slightly more dubious selections such as Chronicles of Riddick and Battlefield 1942. We can't say we've ever hummed along to anything from Morrowind, and the omission of Bubble Bobble is UNFORGIVEABLE, but we'll try to control our rage. Curtain goes up May 26, 2007, at 8pm at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. more ›

More mysterious criminal events in Fremont! This time, someone dropped a five-foot tall safe off a truck in the middle of the road. The safe had been pried open, revealing...... a collection of about 70 Star Wars action figures, still in their original packaging. Somewhere, a broken-hearted fan weeps. more ›

When we were kids, we loved to play spy and hide behind trees with a water pistol to shoot one of our friends. Of course, some people would frown on that type of behavior because shooting people is kind of bad and violent and why can't we give peace a chance? So for those wishing to be a spy but do so in a nice way, this Friday will be the new and improved Cruel 2 B Kind game, the benevolent assassination game. It's taking place this Friday at 7:30 in SOMA. It's like those assassin games you hear about, except with good vibes. more ›

A 21-year-old trainjumping transient from Portland fell out of a Union Pacific train that she and her rottweiler were hitching a ride on. The train was in Benicia and moving at about 50 mph at the time she and the dog fell out -- but she died not from any injury from the fall but rather, from drowning in the shallow puddle in which she landed. The dog was injured too, but they have no word on its condition beyond that. Apparently 2-3 people die each day on Union Pacific property from trying to jump on or off a moving train, or from trespassing on the tracks. more ›

Cold? This?! Quit complaining. It's not so cold out there. At least you're not being chased by pissed-off giant insects on a ruined planet that's colder than ice-cold. Capcom's Lost Planet: Extreme Condition drops today for Xbox 360, bringing its third-person alien-cappin' happy fun time to y'all. more ›

It's January 1, and here are the best things from the last 365 days. more ›

Last night SFist actually braved leaving their apartment and went out to Capcom's Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions Launch Party. Because whenever somebody offers us free drinks, we're there. Plus, launch parties are pretty fun in that you can play video games without feeling like an anti-social loser. So what does a launch party look like? And how good is the game? Well, after the jump, we got more photos and SFist Christopher has a brief review of the game. more ›

Man, if you want to go drag-racing, don't kill members of a royal family -- the 18-year-old suspect burst into tears after a judge in San Mateo County refused to lower her bail from $3 million. The DA was unmoved, saying, "Highway 101 is not a video game and it's not a racetrack." That's right -- that's what 280 is. more ›

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Last week's winner, the Metro! Hilarious letter from a candidate for the SJ city council that 1) misspells Ron Gonzales's name and 2) gets the date of the election wrong. (Hey Metro, why aren't your letters online?) Gary Singh had a bitch of a time trying to get a burrito in SJ on May 1. Closing down the jailhouse law libraries, and no, the SJ Fourth Street Bowl will not be closing. Chinese youth orchestra performs a piece in tribute to Sarah Winchester. Cover article: the crappy salmon season this year. Rapper who waits tables at Chili's -- check out his track "Tip Yo Waiter." And a frightening picture of an R Kelly doll. No, it is not stained yellow. more ›

Last week's winner, the Guardian (which now has no pictures of the current cover on its site for us to use to illustrate this post -- this is a picture from Sonic Reducer): How Tim Redmond set up wifi in his home. Robert Haaland, subject of the latest poorly-scanning Joe O'Donoghue poem, pens an op-ed on the Gap. Background on the (now-averted) school strike. Doesn't Janet Reilly kind of look like Tori Spelling? [picture is not online] NoJANETrious! Cover: motorcycling around the world. A life coach named Pat Murphy, who does not run the SF Sentinel. [we like the new web design but it's awfully hard to find articles on it; you'll have to read it on paper.] Annalee Newitz gets called fat on Slashdot. We need better indie rock DJs. And the sex columnist on sock fetishes and fire fetishes. more ›

SFist interviews Chuck Jordan more ›

Our holiday horn of plenty continues to ejaculate forth yummy gift goodies -- this time, you've got a shot at winning a DVD of "Zatch Bell," a new (for US audiences) anime series, released for North American consumption by San Francisco's own Viz Media. more ›

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Josh Wolf captures the one, the only Frank Chu on tape. Listen and learn, people. Harder to capture is reclusive local author Laura Albert JT LeRoy. Also at large is the motherf**ker who vandalized Farmer John's coastside teepee. more ›

Realtor-slash-blogger Matt Lanning points up a new information site, San Francisco Bay Window, for that rare beast known as a San Francisco homeowner. Hey, it's free to dream, right? Cheesecake Factory employees dreamed of being able to take breaks, and now their dream has come true. more ›

Boy, have we got some bad Cow Hollow ideas for you! Have you guys been following the whole "turning Fillmore Street into a ski slope" thing? So Icer Event Management has decided to shave enough ice (12,000 cubic feet of it) on Aug 27 to turn Fillmore Street from Broadway to Green Street (and Vallejo from Steiner and Webster) into ski jumps. (A 14 foot lane will be left open for emergency vehicles and for people who live there to get home.) This is all for Jonny Mosely's 30th birthday, and to film footage for a video game. Hilarious! But wait -- it gets even better! Wait until you hear how everyone's reacting! There's a Hindu temple on that stretch of Fillmore -- and right outside their meditation room, the event planners are setting up the apres-ski lounge, sponsored by Otis. What's more: the monks don't drink. The Pac Heights neighborhood association isn't very happy either, especially because the weekend right after the skiing one, the Grand Prix is coming into town next. "People are incredibly disrespectful of private property at these events. It's a real intrusion. We view this in the same class as street fairs," fumes the neighborhood associate president. (Aw, come on, everyone loves a street fair!) They've tried protesting to (hottest supervisor") Michela Alioto-Pier, but she's told them there's nothing she can do, because the ski people have already gotten all the necessary permits. The ski people are slightly confused by the reaction. "We really, really do not want to upset the neighborhood," the organizer told the Chron. "This thing is going to be done well and in a first-class way." And -- here's our absolute favorite part -- "We want to show San Francisco as an exciting place to visit, as opposed to a place with a lot of homeless." What goes on up there North of Market??? more ›

Sometimes, video games journalists seem vaguely Colbert-ish: earnest, confident, utterly out of touch. (Case in point: G4's "Judgment Day," with the slogan "all verdicts are final" -- oooh, the verdicts are final, OMG, they're totally the new Judge Judy.) But we're cautiously optimistic about "Reset," a new gaming news/lifestyle show, locally produced by Big Love Productions. Anchors include trustworthy fragdoll Kat Hunter (whose work SFist likes) and Raymond Padilla (whom we don't know, but he has a pleasant email demeanor) as well as Zoe Flower (who's Canadian and therefore potentially awesome). It's damn near impossible to find quality reporting in video games journalism -- it generally either consists of inarticulate fanboys churning out bland feature-lists, or poindextery assclowns trying to fit Foucalt into a review so they can call it New Games Journalism. So far, "Reset" only has one episode online, but they seem to know what they're doing: low on rhetoric, big on content, what's not to love? more ›

baseball-related mathematiasis, SFist comes to you this fine Monday afternoon from sunny Denver bearing a first-hand report of yesterday's Giants/Rockies finale at Coors Field, along with a look back at the Giants' performance in past week and a peek ahead at the week to come. more ›

EA Games got James Caan and Robert Duvall to reprise their Godfather roles, lending their likenesses and voice talent to a new video game based on the movie franchise. Lest we forget, EA Games has also come under fire lately for allegedly overworking its employees. more ›

You know your movie stinks when even SFist, worshipper of all things crap, watches the trailer to your movie and thinks we're watching a substandard parody. Such was the case when we saw a commercial for Alone in the Dark, a movie which has a detective played by (recently seperated) Christian Slater going to a place called Shadow (freakin') Island. We laugh, but it's actually the latest installment in an empire that includes a video game (aren't all the best movies based on video games?) and comic book. Alas, this ubiquity and stellar cast (theatrical luminaries Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff join Slater in the film) are not enough to save this film from being just awful looking. That said, we'd rather watch it 10 times than have to watch A Love Song For Bobby Long even once. Ugh! more ›

It's been a while since our last Get Ur Geek On, so we've got a lot of hottness today and will use a bullet list, power-point style, because our attention spans have begun to shrivel in inverse proportion to our abdomen's expansion:
• Dan Gillmor, the last top tech writer standing at the San Jose Mercury News, has decided to leave the Knight-Ridder corporate family to become a 'Citizen Journalist.' Is that a fancy term for unemployed blogger? [From Slashdot]
• PowerLight, of Berkeley, has installed the world's largest solar array in warm, sunny Germany. SuperaffenT****nturbogeil, naturlick! [From SFgate]
• Apple can't keep up with demand for Mac computers, so you better get your butt down to the Apple Store and grab what you can, or your relationship will founder on the rocks of the iRiver. [From Cult of Mac]

And the saga continues. Electronic Arts seems to have pissed off one too many geeks, and now that this story has gone public details are beginning to emerge that don't look good for the world's leading video game maker. San Francisco's Schubert & Reed LLP will be representing an unknown number of employees in a class action lawsuit that contends Electronic Arts had wrongly classified a large number of artists and developers as exempt from overtime when, under state and federal law, they were not. In the meantime, Kotaku points out that EA is going after label Cherry Lane Music and jokes that they're "just looking for another set of employees to exploit." more ›

Global Citizen Center. David, who is running against the heavily favored (not to mention heavily funded) Michela Alioto-Pier has the endorsement of Matt Gonzalez, Chris Daly, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. more ›

Citius, Altius, Fortius -- and Kotaku? What's being styled as the Gamer's Olympics, the finals of the World Cyber Games, are set to kick off tomorrow. Seven hundred video game players representing 62 countries, out of over a million who started out in the prelims, will converge on the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco to play an array of video games for medals and (more saliently) cash prizes totaling $425,000. more ›

Esseffist is not the biggest football fan in the world, but we definitely love video games. And while many have tried, nobody is taking John Madden Football's spot in the starting lineup. With their release of Madden 2005, Redwood City based Electronic Arts celebrates fifteen years of making the best-selling video game of all time. That's right - last year's version grossed as much sales as the movie Shrek (which was made nearby at Palo Alto's Pacific Data Images), and this year it promises to be even bigger. The Chron gave it the top rating - jumping, clapping dude. Esseffist is looking forward to putting Marcus Tuiasosopo in at quaterback and running the option behind Robert Gallery. more ›