SFist interviews the Reverend Billy of "what would jesus buy?"...

SFist Grace checks out a sneak peek of the new P.T. Anderson movie, There Will Be Blood. There will also be: greed, husksterism, rage, isolation and open-handed brawls. The Castro Theatre recently hosted a sneak preview of this film, which is slated for limited release in mid-December. Based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!, Anderson's latest film features Daniel Day-Lewis as David Plainview, an unpredictably violent and spiritually aimless oil-baron-in-the-making. Shot in the desolate......

SFist interviews Jason Poranksi of Beirut, who are performing two nights at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco...

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending......

What, you don't believe in Santa Claus? Don't tell Dr.Lloyd Darrow, a self-proclaimed 'Santa-ologist', whose made it his life's mission to uncover the truth about this elusive fat man who visits us just once a year. Darrow's proof the jolly man exists include a lost video from a 1949 polar expedition, the Santa Papyrus dating from 1342 B.C., and an actual jingle bell found in the wreckage at Roswell, New Mexico. ...

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,......

And today's study unleashed upon the world concerns the chances the kids have of succeeding in life. According to said study, kids today in California don't have that much of a chance to succeed. Out of fifty states, we come in thirty-fourth. Ouch. That's way behind #1 state, Virginia but much better than lowly New Mexico which comes in at #50. Ha ha, sucks to be you. And here's our little questions-- how much credibility can you give a study that puts a state that came this close to electing George Allen as Senator as #1? ...

Chiefs 20 Raiders 9- We didn't watch this game, we didn't listen to this game, we didn't even know this was a game. It wasn't until we went to SFGate did we realize the Rai-duhs lost another game. Your totals: three interceptions, two fumbles, four sacks, and 307 total yards. The Chiefs even went for it on fourth-and-more-than-one-yard a couple of times just because they could. At this rate, the Raiders are one game away from having one of the Top 10 worst offenses since 1978. And which is worse- the O line or the QB?...

SFPD not surprised that a member was off doing kiddy sex junkets in Asia as they sort of knew it for years. -Caltrain board approves plan for Wi-FI on Caltrains. Thousands of commuters jump for joy. ...

So much bike-on-bike violence -- a 64-year-old woman pedaling her bike off the sidewalk on Oak and Scott was broadsided by another biker going 25-35 mph down Oak. The woman (who wasn't wearing a helmet) is in the hospital with serious injuries. The other biker was found not at fault and won't be cited. The first murder of a paraplegic man in Foster City in almost 10 years, from last week, just got a little more complicated: the authorities think the murder might be linked to another weird incident llast week in the South Bay, where a man went to a gun shop in San Carlos, asked to see a gun, and then ran outside and shot himself. Turns out that man and the victim, Brandon Hepponstall, had recently been introduced to one another. Hepponstall was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident 11 years ago, was an avid horse gambler, and had a criminal record involving an incident where he brought an obviously-fake bomb to the Bay Meadows race track. And a couple who visited San Mateo from New Mexico for a church retreat back in June were sentenced in absentia to three years probation for child endangerment, after authorities found one of their eight children sleeping on the sidewalk behind the tailpipe of their SUV, with the car still running, at 4:30 a.m. No one seems to know why only seven of the kids made it inside the house, or why the car was still running. ...

Full of more holiday cheer than Santa Claus after a weekend bender in Vegas, Barrespondent Drew returns with more reasons to put down that A-Team DVD your friends gave you for Christmas as a joke and head out to the local. A huge mistake is made by people all over the place every single day. From the largest metropolis to the smallest little craphole in western New Mexico, people are constantly confusing what makes......

Writing an opera on the subject of the atomic bomb is a risky endeavour. For the sheer difficulty of the task, of course, but also because it unleashes the easy metaphors: will it be a dud, a fizzle, or a bang? We will say: a big bang -- but while we were blown away by the music, our appreciation is relativized by some other wrong decisions with the set direction. The opera focuses on the last days leading to the explosion of the first atomic test bomb, in June and July 1945. It is centered about J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), the scientific director of the Manhattan project, and the founder of the Los Alamos research lab. Let's get some local pride going: Oppie was a member of the Berkeley faculty, as many of the top scientists at Los Alamos (the UC still runs that lab in New Mexico). He lived in the same east bay hills as John Adams, the composer of the opera. We hear that the UC is now considering adding Opera spots to the Nobel parking lot, in case another member gets the honor. Photos by Terrence McCarthy- SF Opera...

Well, on the bright side, at least someone around here won something. The only good thing about the Bush victory is that our adorable editor SFist Jackson won 1115.org's electoral map contest! SFist Jackson, horrified to see that he had called it as a squeaker for Bush (287-256, if our math is correct -- SFist Jackson says he got New Mexico, Nevada, and New Jersey wrong), asked in penance that his prize of an......

Weekly football wrap-up....

The Star-Spangled Banner was written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812 on the back of an envelope as he saw with pride that the American flag still flew over Baltimore's embattled Fort McHenry. If Cal stirs similar feelings in you -- can you see that banner doth waving? The Cal band is sponsoring a contest for you to write the lyrics to the new UC Berkeley fight song....