While not all of us are fortunate enough to zip around in swank Aston Martins, or have sleek Tesla waiting for us on the horizon, the "bus of the future" is the next best thing. Well, almost. Yesterday, if you recall, we reported on the Connected Bus' dramatic at the Federal Building. On the green machine, according to Mayor Gavin Newsom, you can "[y]ou can download music, you can play video games. It's a......

First off, we are not gamers. Our Mom decided, at a very young age, that gaming was evil and for the lazy. (Wtf! Right?) We've tried several times to get into it but it seems now that everyone can kick our ass. We hate losing, so we refrain to play but really it's all our Mom's fault. Damn you, parents. Now that we have that out of the way, gaming has become a huge......

Honestly we have no idea what to do with this press release we just received, other than hug it and squeeze it and love it and take it to bed. The damn thing looks like a MySpace or something, and it's about as comprehensible. Something about Cloris Leachman? On a boat? With videogames? "What will Grandma say next?" the press releases asks, and "is she single?" WHAT? And then there is also a section......

Think back to 1997 - doesn't seem like too long ago on paper, but yeah, a lot has happened since then. Tonight we jump back to 1997 to revisit one of our favorite artists, Abra Moore who is playing Cafe du Nord, tonight at 9:30pm. 1997 was a big year for her: a Grammy nomination for her hit single, "Four Leaf Clover" and her video featured on MTV and VH1. Fast forward to this year,......

To celebrate 07/07/07, local modern Japanese theater troupe Theater of Yugen is presenting The Cycle Plays, an all-day festival of pieces influenced by Japanese Noh theater traditions. The performances use Noh theater conventions and imagery but present stories about figures of American pop cultural legend -- so there's a piece about Ted Kaczynski, a play about Helen Keller (pictured at right), and an adaptation of A Long Day's Journey Into Night. Plays start at 9:30,......

Who doesn't love a party? Particularly when there are video games involved? Next Tuesday, Square Enix is hosting an anniversary party to celebrate the 20th year of its Final Fantasy series. It will be at the PlayStation Store in the Metreon, and will be fans' first chance to buy FF2 for the PSP...

Every Monday, Logler.com presents its "Casual Games Global Top 10," a list ranked by data from major download portals. Just so happens that the number one game this week is called "Big City Adventure: San Francisco," by Jolly Bear Games. ...

It would be so cool if the conductor replaced his baton with a wiimote at Play, 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......

According to Game Informer Online, Nintendo of America may be relocating -- and one of the rumoured destination cities is right here in San Francisco. More employment opportunities are always good, especially establsihed companies that can bring some economic stability -- not to mention fun aspects like more local video-game testing opportunities....

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. The yutz alert is on high after the horrific Virginia Tech tragedy: the UC Berkeley law student who posted a fake threat on a blog that......

The latest issue concerning the DPT is sidewalk parking and what to do about it. The issue raised it's head a few months ago when Jake McG asked for a crackdown and now, the DPT has some ideas on what to do about the issue. Mainly shrug their shoulders and tell everyone "whatta you gonna do about it?" ...

Courtesy of the Bay Guardian's politics blog, we get the latest word from Chris Daly's second favorite organization, the Police Officer's Association. In an online posting to fellow Police Officers, Union President Gary Delagnes discussed the reasons why it's been difficult these past few years recruiting new cops. He lists a bunch of the usual reasons: the coast of living in SF, the occasional danger involved in the job, unappealing working conditions, but then finds the ultimate culprit for the lack of new recruits: Gen X sucks. ...

We may be crafty, but that doesn't mean we don't enjoy spending hours in front of a TV with some good video games once and a while. We'd love to tell you that we spent most of our childhood knee deep in crayons and paper mache, covered in finger paint, but we grew up in the suburbs of Jersey and in-between trips to the mall we played video games. Zelda, Mario Brothers, Pitfall, Pole Position, X-men, we like to think those pixilated masterpieces influenced our crafty minds. Sure, we can get with some Wii, but when it comes down to it, we prefer 8 bit graphics. So we were thrilled to see this crocheted Atari set on Craft's blog yesterday, and even more giddy when we saw the TV with Pitfall on the screen. We did some digging, and found some more art and crafts inspired by video games we thought you should see. What a wonderful marriage of two things we love. The amazing crocheted Atari above and the TV below were both created by Christine Domanic. As Craft mentions in their post, Christine also has an Etsy shop and starting in May she will be doing custom orders for any Atari game you'd like to have crocheted. Pretty fantastic. ...

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....

SFist interviews Oliver Chin, author, and Immedium publisher...

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

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....

-The rain and all the usual stuff causing havoc on the roads. -Teachers to get Lunar New Year off. Oh, and students will too. -Vallejo cops shoot a driver for extremely reckless driving. -Thanks to activists in the Bay Area, people will be able to whack off to a more eco-friendly Victoria Secret's catalogue. -The Ex thinks the Transit Effectiveness Project should do a book report on how Portland does public transportation. -Berkeley U.N. Center......

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....

They’re superheros, but they never have a chance to do anything super aside from bicker and cuss. This week, Isotope’s turned us on to James Cochalka’s Super F*ckers, a cutely-drawn story about a band of mostly-abusive twentysomethings with vague powers. The group is recruiting new heros, but the day is overshadowed by conflict: a time-bubble containing Vortex's childhood is accidentally punctured by Jack Krak's elbow; a mysterious pink tumor lusts after the blonde chick;......

The Susan Polk trial was in recess today, but it was still a pretty busy day for the local courts, which decided: *that kids who failed the state high school exit exam can still graduate if they've met all other requirements, because many of the students who didn't pass were in substandard schools. *that tuna doesn't need a mercury warning label, because that's something the FDA should decide. Besides, there's not that much mercury in......

We in the labs like to make fun of San Francisco, but if there's one good thing about SF, it's that it's not LA. The videogame trade show E3 is going on this week down in the City of Miserable Angels, and we're very happy to be skipping this year and not having to deal with the smog and money and sweat and desperation. Of course, we're still scouring the internets for any hint......

If you think the Ma v. Ja race is content-free, you should try the State Senate District 8 race between Leland Yee and Mike Nevin. Yawn, unless you like trying to figure out the byzantine nature of state politics personal relationships. (i.e., why didn't Gavin Newsom endorse San Franciscan Yee over San Mateo County's Nevin? Does it have something to do with the mysterious feud between Fiona and Leland?) However, it looks like Yee's got......

For once, there's an actual "we" behind the royal SFist first-person plural -- SFists Rita and Wendy went to see Play on Wednesday night, and were told, kind of challengingly, by SFIFF staff they would only give us two tickets if we were both reviewing the movie. We accept your challenge, SFIFF! Here's a brief summary of the plot, so you can follow our dialogue: Lonely Cristina finds depressed Tristan's stolen briefcase at the beginning......

More nonsense from the world of videogames: the best-selling game of the moment is Bethesda Softworks' epic role-playing game Oblivion. That popularity has made it a target for modders and, now, opportunistic politicians. The story began when the Entertainment Software Ratings Board announced a re-rating for the game, bumping it up from its original "Teen" rating to "Mature." [all links in this article are from GameSpot News] The ESRB claimed that Bethesda and publisher......

The Electronic Entertainment Expo is so close you can almost taste the LA smog and the tangy sweat of desperation. In honor of that, this week's round-up is all videogame-related news. Nintendo gave bloggers-who-think-they're-funny a present on Thursday by announcing the new name for their upcoming Revolution console (warning: slow-loading Flash site). It's going to be called "Wii." Seriously. With a "distinctive ii spelling" that's pronounced like "we," "wee," "oui," and "Wheee!" Early buzz......

"Our princess is in another castle!" remains protected speech at the moment, thanks to a ruling from Northern District Judge Ronald Whyte yesterday. The ruling placed a preliminary injunction on the law written by San Francisco Assemblyman Leland Yee and signed by Governor Schwarzenegger last month. We're happy about the injunction, and not just because it guarantees kids will be able to develop the skills they'll need to survive in an increasingly zombie-slaying and......

>-The Governator signed a heapload of bills on Friday and vetoed a few. The two that are attracting the most attention are bills banning the use of certain supplements for High School athletes and further restrictions on the selling of video games to kids. Why they're so high profile, besides the obviousness of a down-on-his-luck politician resorting to the ole "Save the Children!" politicking, is because in both cases, he went against two industries-- video games and nutritional supplements-- in which he had financial stakes in. And we're pretty sure we can say we have the only Governor who can claim that. ...

Ah, is there no more universal gesture for our youth than sticking in a cartridge, getting a flashing grey screen, then pulling the cartridge back out and repeatedly blowing into it until Contra finally agrees to boot up? Modern gamers might seem a bit insular and antisocial at times, cooped up in the house with their polygon counts and tethered to wifi for FFXI; but the monthly meetings of the Bay Area 8-Bitters Fun......

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......