You think Hallwoeen on the Castro is a nightmare of douche-baggie proportions? Try the Oracle Open World 2007 convention, which is happening this Sunday, November 11 through Thursday, November 15. And it sucks for us plebeians. Imagine nerds and sales tools infused with a false sense of power. (Except for any Oracle SFist reader; you're all golden.) Imagine nasty Oracle PR bitches who hangup on local media outlets trying to get a modicum of......

Jake Shimabukuro Playing at Yerba Buena Gardens...

What's better than picking up a Beard Papa cream puff across from the Metreon over your lunch break? Eating that Beard Papa cream puff while catching the free symphony concert at Yerba Buena Gardens tomorrow! The performance starts tomorrow at noon, and the orchestra's scheduled to perform some Shostakovitch, selections from Strauss's Salome (with a soprano in tow), and the Tchaikovsky symphony that the orchestra will be performing in Scotland next week. Bring a......

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.

Some organization we've never heard of and could probably care the less about, the American Institute of Architects, put together a list of the Top 25 Bestest Buildings in San Francisco. Look for attendant show on VH-1 featuring snarky comments from Hal Sparks, Ian Michael Black, and Rachel Harris. ...

Today, at the Yerba Buena Gardens, officially Mark Leno kicked off his "Stick it to Carole Migden" campaign. In attendance were such notables as Phil Ting, Kamala Harris, and the Ma-ster. ...

We just went to a birthday party for a one-year-old, and with the bikini-clad ladies, the rock-band and the wild animals, it was cooler and more elaborate than any party scheme we've come up with in recent memory. Do kids really think they can have it all, the perfect skin, the crazy parties and their parents' love and approval? Will ever-younger people take everything from their hard partying elders? Well it is time to strike back, and we'll begin at Zeum....

Gavin, Schmavin -- bored now. Call us when a shorn-headed Gavin goes bananas outside Kimberly Guilfoyle's house and starts whacking an SUV with a bright-green umbrella! (Maybe Britney was just looking a little too much forward to a drink at the end of her workday as well.) Anyhow, since everyone insists on continuing not to run for mayor against Gavin Newsom (including us, though that's very sweet of you to suggest it, Jill and......

San Francisco's a lovely city, but it would be even nicer if someone did something about this damn zombie issue. Seriously, it's getting to be a real problem. We have no problem with legions of undead who want to swing that way in the privacy of their own homes, but when they insist on peddling their brain-eating smut out in public -- where the children can see! -- tolerating them is just political correctness......

Today's the opening day of the new SF Symphony season, with a Gala at Davies Symphony Hall and a performance of Stravinsky's violin concerto with Christian Tetzlaff soloing, and Dvorak's Symphony No. 8, with of course MTT at the helm. Then, the orchestra abandons us to woo the European crowds in the neutral countries of Luxembourg and Switzerland. They come back in time for a free noon-time concert in the Yerba Buena Gardens on Sept.......

Saturday morning, around 7am, a line started forming outside the Metreon to see British playwright Tom Stoppard's new film, based on a late-70s film by a young experimental filmmaker from USC. By 9:30, the line stretched down around Jillians and up over the stairs, spilling into Yerba Buena Gardens -- about 1,500 people were estimated present. But these were small-scale nerds, not the type who camp out for weeks; as employees of the LucasFilm......

We'd like to take a moment to remind you that tomorrow will be officially one month since the Tsunami disaster. Friend of SFist HiMY SYeD is asking that folks drop by the site and light a 'virtual candle' for the victims. This is pretty neat -- just click on the picture of the sculpture at Yerba Buena Gardens, and you can leave a candle and a note expressing your thoughts and feelings. For every......

It's January, which means it's time for the long awaited Macworld SF. Nothing like gadgets and booth babes to get the geek blood flowing. If you haven't had your fee paid by your publisher or employer, or don't have the money to spend for yourself, then you can at least join Jason Shellen, Biz Stone and Eric Case for lunch at Yerba Buena Gardens. The invite from shellen dot com: Let's meet at 12:30pm on......