Look at them go!

In 1990, Kevin Bacon put on a dazzling performance in Tremors, a film about mutant worms and trailer parks. As children, we played a game in which, side by side with Kevin Bacon, we would destroy the underground monsters and bring peace to the world. Each kid carried out the appointed duties with great seriousness -- for us it was not only a game, it was making Mr. Bacon proud and protecting mom and dad from harm.

Whether it's starring in Tremors or claiming the principal is a sea monster, one thing is for sure -- children are capable of creating outlandish and spectacular worlds. Aiming to illustrate this potential while building literacy skills with inner-city kids, StageWrite presents "Short Plays by Short People: Rotten Lunches & Bubblegum Punches" on Friday at Brava Theater Center.

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Mary Jane Watson / Flickr

Expect things to be a bit crowded.

Even if you're generally allergic to marketing campaigns, Bike to Work Day -- happening tomorrow (Thursday) in San Francisco and beyond -- seems like one of those can't-lose deals. Bicycling in itself isn't that difficult, but if you're going to join the commute, here are some things to expect and ways to get prepared.

Bike to Work Day was initially part of American Bike Month, established in the 1950s by the League of American Bicyclists (hey, not all K-Street lobbyists are evil!). In our far-flung corner of the nation, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is leading the charge. The group says it expects "hundreds of thousands" of people in the Bay Area to observe tomorrow's event, including Mayor Ed Lee and 10 of the 11 supervisors. It has its own Bike to Work Day information page, including group rides, "energizer stations" throughout the city, and bicycle mechanics who'll be out to help. On offer at the energizer stations in the morning and evening will be goodies, schwag-bags, and encouragement, because bikes are just that terrific. Here's a link to an interactive map showing where the stations are.

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SF Weekly art director Andrew J. Nilsen gives you a first-person perspective of what it took to compete with the top-notch racers in the recent Bring Your Own Big Wheel 2012, a race down Vermont Street, which is as twisty and curvy as the famous part of Lombard Street, except it's not famous (and its surface just looks like road, rather than fancy-schmancy bricks).

The video (set to the Dead Kennedys' "Police Truck" among other tunes) also includes pre-race tuning and customization as well as front- and rear-view perspective of the downhill action.

Nilsen got such a kick out of this project he created another video on what the race looked like from the sidelines -- except things are going backward, at four times their normal speed.

"Party!" says Nilsen.

Click through to see his creation.

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Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

We read about BarBot 2012 online a few weeks ago and immediately sent the organizers a "radical clarity" question: "So, at this event, robots are serving drinks?" And the reply was clear: "Yes. Robots are serving drinks."

That bears repeating: "Robots are serving drinks."

Tonight. (Friday.) At PariSoma.

That's more than enough to make us show up, but there's more to tell.

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Charlie Jane Anders

What would we need if we were stranded on a desert island? Of course, if we were practical folk we would say a knife or tools, but we're not that type -- we want chocolate and books. There can never be enough books, and we're astounded by anyone who thinks there can be too much chocolate. Fortunately, we're not stranded on an island, but that doesn't mean we don't want to spend our time reading and eating. Charlie Jane Anders, known for the reading series Writers with Drinks that has run for more than a decade, on Sunday hosts the San Francisco Bookstore and Chocolate Crawl. Despite how the e-reader has ravaged the printed page, this city still has an abundance of independent bookstores, and it's time we paid tribute to them.

Starting at Green Apple Books and finishing at Modern Times Bookstore, the crawlers shall descend, wild-eyed and ready to read. Each bookstore is conveniently located next to chocolate vendors, so we can read our books and eat chocolate too. Costumes are encouraged -- and comfortable shoes or hiking boots are highly recommended.

Click through to see the points scheduled for visits on the crawl.

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The economy sucks, but we don't care -- the Bay Area is home to artists so talented they deserve to take over the world. That's why the Masterminds grants are given to three local and emerging artists who need that little push to become even more awesome.

SF Weekly has narrowed down the potential winners to 10 finalists, with the three winners being chosen Feb. 16. at Public Works during Artopia. Until then we're going to fall in love with their creative work all over again by featuring the profiles (written by our arts critic Jonathan Curiel) of two finalists each day right up until the event. Today meet Baldur Helgason and Laurie Halsey Brown:

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The economy sucks, but we don't care -- the Bay Area is home to artists so talented they deserve to take over the world. That's why the Masterminds grants are given to three local and emerging artists who need that little push to become even more awesome.

SF Weekly has narrowed down the potential winners to 10 finalists, with the three winners being chosen Feb. 16. at Public Works during Artopia. Until then we're going to fall in love with their creative work all over again by featuring the profiles (written by our arts critic Jonathan Curiel) of two finalists each day right up until the event. Today meet Lisa Alonzo and Jon Kuzmich:

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San Franciscans are serious about partying. We've been to a lot of fancy dress events, and a lot of events that weren't "fancy dress" per se, but which were treated as such, apparently just for kicks. But the Vau de Vire Society's Edwardian Ball last weekend inspired the most spectacular -- and thoroughly thought-out and executed -- costumery we've ever seen donned by so many people in one place. The playboy mansion would blush at the amount of cleavage on display, blossoming over a whale graveyard's worth of boned corsets, and framed in taffeta, lace, and feathers. Men wore top hats and fedoras and multiple-piece suits. The Edward Gorey theme inspired more macabre features such as white contact lenses and cadaver-glam makeup. A striking and slightly confusing element was the pervasion of steampunk -- goggles everywhere, leather hip holsters, and jewelry made of old watch parts.

Calibree Photography

True Edwardians dyed their mohawks to match their tartans.

People dressed to party like it was 1909, and many also had the dances down. This was most apparent in the earlier portion of the night, when the ballroom floor wasn't filled to capacity, and many couples took advantage of the free space to perform elaborate and antiquated ballroom moves while the rest of us gawked enviously and wondered whether Arthur Murray's still existed. One couple danced an energetic skipping jig around the floor in circles; later that night they huffed through an escalatingly tempo'd Lindy to the honky-tonk trio in the basement. Many couples waltzed, most in a traditional box step, but one intrepid male couple swung a fearsome Viennese -- fearsome in that both parties executed complete 180 degree turns with every measure without spiraling into the wallflowers or crashing and rolling into inadvertent flagrante delicto on the dance floor.

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I went out on a first date with a girl who is also a recently added Facebook friend. During dinner she kept bringing up things I had already read about on FB, but I lied and pretended like I didn't know because that's creepy, right? At what point am I allowed to admit I FB stalk her? A month? Longer? More >>

The Punk Rock Swap is set to go live this weekend at Speakeasy Ales and Lagers in the Bayview. What's the Punk Rock Swap? Assistant brewer and helpful organizer Joe Smith says, "You can expect people selling records, clothing, tapes, mix CDs, and other random crafts they've created."

Highlights include a cassette tape mix swap, where you can re-home your old Bad Brains vs. The Bangles mix and walk away with an entire album of Link 80 covers. Right on. There are $3 beers on tap, food from Eagle Dog (with veg/vegan options, natch), and DJ's Kirka Sherpa, Güera, JoNeric, and 1 TBA.

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