hen we last wrote about the San Jose Sharks, we were wondering where the hell captain Patrick Marleau's game went. It looks like he found it around the trade deadline (more on that below), and has been on a pretty decent stretch since then. As have the Sharks....

READING: Idiolexicon Poetry Series brings together different types of poets -- from slam to experimental, hip-hop and academia -- having them share a stage. Tonight, the lineup includes performances by poets Stephen Meads and Myron Michael, and music by Cynthia Weyuker. Happens tonight at the Boxcar Playhouse. COMEDY: Part of local sketch comedy troupe SPF7, Justin Lamb and Jay Starr perform tonight at Club Deluxe. MUSIC: One of the Innovators of the Bakersfield Sound,......

Hal Holbrook in "Mark Twain Tonight": Julia Sugarbaker's husband and Oscar nominee for this year's Into the Wild, Broadway veteran Hal Holbrook won a Tony Award in 1966 for playing satirical American writer in this performance, and he's been doing it ever since. This one-man show draws on observations taken from Twain's own material. A real treat for admirers of American literature. The show starts tonight at 8 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center......

* Jacksonville vs Pittsburgh Saturday, January 5, 5:00 PM PST Wild Card 2008 The Purists' Battle This is the game that John Madden has been eeeagerly awaiting. A matchup of two classically built, smashmouth NFL franchises in a cold weather playoff game. Pound the rock. Control the line. Stick 'em on D. This is a football game for the NFL purist. Can't wait. Photo via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette......

The NFL's 2008 Wild Card Wknd has arrived at the same time as this rainstorm front......

Filled with a combustible mix of conceit and twink rage, Leigh Wolf, hot piece of ass and President of the College Republicans at SFSU, interrupted Sean Penn's Dennis Kucinich-endorsement speech on Friday. Basically, he quietly held up a sign that (incorrectly) whined about Sean "supporting the moral majority's America's Enemies, " or something inane like that. Meaning to impress someone more than make an important or clear statement, Wolf's protest... oh, who knows? But......

-- Cinema Soundscapes: This evening of "voice, music and cinematic exploration" features mezzo-soprano vocalist Silvie Jensen and woodwind musician Bodhan Hilas headlining a night of sound oddities and Stephen Parr film such as "A Dream of Wild Horses," (1971) and "“Symphonies in Stone" (1942). Starts at 8:30 p.m. at Oddball Films; $10 (RSVP) -- Ingmar Bergman Tribute Night: The Castro Theatre seems to have an Ingmar Tribute Night every week. And we love it!......

Tonight's lone premiere is a show we have such little interest in we didn't even bother to check out the pilot when it was available for free online. It's called "Life is Wild" and it premieres at 8 p.m. on the CW. We really have nothing more to say about it, and in fact, the main purpose of this post is to make sure everyone knows about the premiere of "I Love New York 2"......

Sean Penn isn't the only person who was captivated by the Chris McCandless story (first made popular in the Jon Krakauer book, "Into The Wild," and now a major motion picture directed by Penn, promoted on Oprah, and playing at a theatre near you.) In the early '90's Chris McCandless abandoned all his worldly goods, took on the name Alexander Supertramp and embarked upon a Thoreau-esque adventure trekking around North America, ultimately perishing in an......

Aspiring painters of urban village scenes would do well to get themselves to Bernal Heights at once. From the armada of sandwich boards and the pony-tailed guy enjoying a pensive cup of coffee at Progressive Grounds, to the verdant street trees and the pair of rowdy sidewalk philosophers holding court near the eastern end of the block, it’s quite the bustling display along Cortland Ave. Private lives seem a low priority here, as even the back yards of local bars, cafés, and restaurants are open for business. Sidewalk rest stops are a big calling card on Cortland between Andover and Bennington, the heart of Bernal Heights’ vibrant commercial district. There are benches in front of restaurants (Valentina Ristorante), benches in front of salons (Bernal Heights Nail Care), benches in front of markets (The Good Life Grocery), benches in front of saloons (Wild Side West). The result: A remarkable feeling of community, evinced by how it appears as if everyone might actually know everyone else’s name. It’s like a West Coast version of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry...only on Cortland, there’s no Barney Fife. Auditions may or may not be held regularly at Skip’s Tavern and Wild Side West for the role of Otis the Harmless Town Drunk....

-- The Arcade Fire: LCD Soundsystem and Wild Light open for this white-hot -- that's right, white-hot, or so we hear -- Canadian indie-rock band. Music starts tonight at 7 p.m. at Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View; $19-40. -- High School Musical: You know what? We watched this on Disney and it sucked us in. Sad, yes. Absorbing, for sure. Ray of Light Theatre and School of the Arts (SOTA) put on......

It seemed like everyone in the beer-geek world was at the Toronado for their 20th Anniversary party on Saturday night. The place was packed to the absolute gills with locals, brewmasters, and beer fans who'd flown in for the occasion (we met a guy who'd come from Vancouver). Several brewers of note had made special beers for the occasion, and we were lucky enough to score a table and sample a few. We loved......

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian. More problems with the construction at Hunters' Point (this time: asbestos). Chris Daly is on it. A construction worker falls off the Golden Gate Bridge and his employer avoids liability because they used the wrong legal name on the OSHA citations it received. Send all legal paperwork to FSist, everyone! More taxi permit shadiness. Man vs. Wild -- who cares if he stayed in a hotel, he drank water......

Here's todays sports news...

The on-again-off-again proposal by the Wayans Brothers to build some sort of Wayans World at the site of the Oakland Army Base is back on as an Oakland City Council committee voted to allow negotiations to begin anew. A proposal was introduced awhile ago but fell through when the Wayans brothers were unable to come up with anything in the way of a plan....

Today and tomorrow only, Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39 is playing host to a 25-foot-long, two-ton salmon called "Fin." It's part of the travelling road show by an organization called "Save Our Wild Salmon" that hopes to curtail the depletion of endangered salmon in the Northwest by building support to remove the four lower Snake River dams in Washington State. The road show, called "Extinction Stops Here!" has in recent days been in Marin, Vallejo, Oakland, and Berkeley....

Emerica's "Wild in the Streets" event to promote skateboarding hit San Francisco this morning. It was a beautiful day for a skate, and there were plenty of lookey-loos in attendence, as far fewer people than usual had to work. We were on hand and managed to snap a few pics despite the throngs of spectators. Then, suddenly, the dozens of young men and women whooshed off to their next destination....

A gay African-American high school English teacher at the private Urban School is recovering from three stab wounds he received a few weeks ago while eating at the Taqueria Cancun down near Mission and 29th Street. A woman came into the taqueria and started yelling racial and anti-gay slurs at people in the restaurant, and when the teacher and his friends tried to get away from her, she attacked him with the knife. The SFPD......

Sherman, set the way-back machine to when the Cops Gone Wild video came out. Seems like the issue has reared it's ugly head again and another twist in the story has appeared. Dan Noyes is reporting that for some strange reason, out of all the cops who got in trouble for appearing in it, none of the Asian cops who appeared got in trouble. And by none, we mean nada, zilch, zip, As a result, say hello to a $20 million dollar lawsuit. ...

The Sharks dispatched the Mustard Men in 5 games, which makes the series seem a lot less close than it was. 3 of the games were decided by one goal, with Game 1 in double overtime. Even Game 2, the Predators 5-2 win, was not decided until late in the 3rd period. Nashville's undisciplined play (they led all playoff teams with almost 30 minutes of penalties per game) was their undoing, even though the Sharks power play was more or less ineffective, and often frankly ugly to watch. But it was one more way to wear down the Nashville defenders, and keep their skill players on the bench. Patrick Marleau again scored some big goals, and Joe Thornton took the first step toward erasing his playoff-choker reputation with dominating play and 6 points in the series. Nashville wasn't the only team to distinguish itself with dirty play in this year's playoffs. The Calgary Flames managed to steal the spotlight by having their backup goalie come in to play lumberjack to the Detroit Red Wings Johan Franzen's, umm, old growth redwood late in Game 5 of their series (Franzen, fittingly, scored the series winner in Game 6). Then the Flames' Jarome Iginla and Daymond Langkow got in the act late in the game (cross-checking plus slashing and sucker-punching, respectively). Classy. Brad May of the Anaheim Ducks got a 3 game suspension for sucker-punching the back of Minnesota Wild defenseman Kim Johnsson (who is both emphatically not a pugilist, and happened to be Minnesota's best D man), which then caused a multi-player dust-up between the Ducks and Wild during the *pre-game skate* of Game 5 in their series. ...

Everyone loves the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, right? This poor little girl doesn't. And actually, we don't blame her. This video looks like something right out of The Birds......

Hey kids, remember Critical Mass? Did you know it still happens? Why, we haven't heard that much of them since the Great Bicycle Uprising in 1997 when they (or the police) staged a mini-riot after His Willieness tried to crack down on them. Today, they're back in the news as a new story of wild behavior is making the rounds. The story comes from today's Matier & Ross and to make a long story short, a nice, typical mini-van owning, suburban family was out in the city celebrating a birthday and got caught right smack-dab in the middle of Critical Mass. According to the story, it quickly devolved into Bikers Gone Wild. ...

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......

-San Jose gets back to where it all belongs with a 3-0 victory over the Minnesota Wild. The Sharks appear to be playing up and down lately-- a win here followed by a loss there-- and this is definitely one of the up games. ...

Here's what's opening this week: Wild Hogs About four wannabe bikers who stumble into a chapter of Hell’s Angels, the film looks like an updated (and not-so-yuppie) retelling of City Slickers. Wild Hogs features Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, John Travolta and William H. Macy. A huge event for the Chinese “Year of the Pig” saw all four of the film’s stars in some sort of parade on the Embarcadero. There were supposed to be floats-- and motorcycles, of course. We hear you couldn’t pay press to attend. Let's hope the same can't be said of the movie. ...

SFist's beloved A-list photographer Drew Altizer sends along the pictures he took from today's "Wild Hogs"/ Chinese New Year event. We haven't heard a word about this movie before, but it apparently involves Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy as four guys on a midlife crisis motorcycle tour of New Mexico? (Did we read this press release right? Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy?) Huh. Anyways,......

Pacers 108 Warriors 106: In detailing the game, the Chron's Janny Hu actually uses the word "upset" to describe the Warriors loss. Now when was the last time those words have ever been said about a Warriors loss? Probably sometime last century. In this game, Al Harrington (who Chris Mullin tried to get in the off-season) sunk a last second three pointer to lead the Pacers over Golden State. ...

We're back! Until our editor returns from vacation, that is. --Daly's not wearing green beads anymore. --They're opening a Trader Joe's in Oakland! --Wild pigs contaminated your spinach. --There was a minor fire at the Slanted Door yesterday at the Ferry Building. --Surveying the homeless in Golden Gate Park --Gelato wars in Los Gatos --Was it sexism that only scantily-clad female cheerleaders were suspended after a Halloween party last year? Picture from the SJ Merc......

We here at SFist are always eager to be entertained, whether in the form of governmental coiffure trends or pop cultural parodies. TradeMark of the Evolution Control Committee moved here from Ohio a few years back and never fails to entertain us with his copyright-skirting mash ups, a genre he pretty much founded back in the 80s. Evolution Control Committee performs tonight at a Creative Commons Salon and Fundraiser at Shine (1337 Mission between......

As this disheartening, dispiriting, and disillusioning Giants' baseball season comes to a close, it is quite possible that there is still a chance that this season could be saved, redeemed even. For all could be forgiven, all forgotten, with just one act, one thing, one simple, simple thing-- knocking the Dodgers out of the playoffs....