I just realized, with tremendous sadness, that Halloween is just six days away. Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year, and we just got our spooky decorations up this weekend, so the Halloween season will only last a week or so for us.

Just when I was thinking about crying into my Pumpkin Ale, I saw this story from X-Entertainment over at TotalFark:

the peeple behind Peeps have clearly sensed a much older age demographic becoming impossibly interested in their product, because they’re outright catering to us, now. Oh sure, they might pretend that all of these upstart holiday edition Marshmallow Peeps are like Trix cereal in their for-kidness, but there’s no way kids can account for that many varieties of the one and only Peep. Nuh uh. They’re for office eating, for dorm room snacking and for me to fill little chocolate dollhouses with. Agree or disagree, but there’s no denying that Peeps absolutely own the holidays — every last one of them, and Halloween ain’t no exception. We’ve seen plenty of spooky Peeps during the course of X-E, and of course, the bad boys of the marshlands have totally struck again with totally new Halloween Peeps for 2005. And this time, you can fucking paint them.

That’s right, my friends. You can paint punkin-shaped peeps with black icing.

Arriving with a black vial of official Cake Mateô squirty icing stuff, you’re free to turn candy into canvas and make with your inner Michaelangelo. It works pretty well, too — the icing doesn’t drip or smudge much, and assuming you can find inspiration within a pumpkin-shaped Marshmallow Peep, you’re going to be so awesome at this.

Oh. Em. Gee. First thing in the morning, I am driving to the drug store, and I am buying every last one of them.

This weekend Penelope and I made a trip up to IKEA in Burbank and bought a new bed, dresser and a couple of cool lamps. The Burbank IKEA seems to be somewhat nicer compared to the IKEA in Carson which never has what we are looking for and is usually thrashed from a combination of neglect and general IKEA quality.

I have been buying crap furniture from IKEA (which means engineered to fit into a box in Swedish) since I started living on my own after High School and I know a secret that IKEA probably doesn’t want you to know. If you build your furniture following the instructions exactly it will last about 1 year as long as you don’t ever move it from the place you first put it. There is an exception to this rule and this is it: Use Wood Glue.

When you are building your furniture you will notice that the nuts that look like packman aren’t really well suited to be a permanent load bearing fastener, but they do make great clamps, which is essential when you are gluing wood. Once the glue is dry it will be stronger than the wood its self and you will be able to move your furniture without it catastrophically failing, which is a good thing.

A friend of mine just started blogging for the local (L.A. County) edition of a progressive website called Courage Campaign. Headed by the former chair of Dean’s campaign in California, the organization behind the website is looking to implement broad changeóincluding an end to traffic gridlockóstatewide by focusing activity on a local (county) level.
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I don’t remember ever noticing it before, but while the BF and I were waiting in the staggeringly long line at Fry’s in Burbank last night, I saw that all the male employees were in white shirts and ties. I figured maybe Fry’s is doing that whole, high-class eatin’ establishment thing where the chick waiters and the dude waiters all wear the same geek-chic, shirt-and-tie uniform ó after all, they do have a restaurant (of sorts) inside.

But when we finally got up to the register, the (male) employee told us that no, the chicks do not in fact have to wear shirts and ties; in fact, he added gloomily, the girls didn’t have to wear uniforms at all.

As a former 8-year-wearer of black watch plaid, you’d think I’d be all “woo-hoo! one for our side!” But let’s face it, sometimes uniforms are cool. Especially geeky ones.

Two LA artists (Sam Durant and Jim Shaw) shows in New York…continue reading

Paul Schimmel may be touting drug culture in Ecstacy at MOCA, but to the Getty it’s no laughing matter…continue reading

Aqua Art Miami, the first time fair in Miami with a focus on the west coast, has just put the catalog for the fair and gallery exhibitors up on their website available to download as a PDF…continue reading

Just got notified that the Bicycle Kitchen’s Second Annual Benefit Party Costume Ball is set to begin spinning at 8:30 p.m. this Friday, October 28, at Hangar 1018 south and east of downtown.

There’ll be plenty of Pabst Blue Ribbon, loads of sounds spun by DJs Sloepoke and Mataji, live musical performances, capoeira demonstrations, prizes for best costume, competitions such as mini-bike jousting, sprint races and track-standing, shwag raffles, and auctions of track bikes and a custom art cruiser. To get in the mood there’s a pre-party “cemetery ride” scheduled to start from Wilshire and Western at 6 p.m. Suggested donation is $7 and it’s 18 and over.

I’ve gotten a few requests asking for an update on The Derby sitch, so here it is (via Franklin Avenue):

The Skunks of Los Feliz, which has been closely following the impending destruction of the Derby/Louise’s building at the corner of Hillhurst and Los Feliz, points us to a new Save the Derby blog. …

As first reported earlier this summer, Adler Realty plans to secure a zoning change allowing for a mixed-used housing/commercial development on the site. LottaLiving.com quickly launched the Save the Derby site, and the the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Modern Committee also got involved. …

Now, it looks like Adler is looking to bring Whole Foods into the space — at least, if these renderings provided to the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council are any indication…

Meanwhile, the Skunks suggest attending the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council meeting on Nov. 10 to express your concerns over the proposal — and sign the petition.

UPDATE: The creator of the Derby blog notes in the comments below that there’s actually another meeting you should attend:

I’m worried though your site and the Skunks site both have a date for a meeting on Nov. 10th. However the postcard we recieved in the mail stated a neighborhood meeting with Adler Realty on Oct 26th at 7pm to discuss the Derby/Hillhurst Square.

There’s been a rumour floating around for awhile now that the New Times newspaper organization was going to be taking over the L.A. Weekly (plus the Village Voice and a smattering of others). L.A. Observed is reporting this morning that the rumours are true. If you have any experience with the sameyness of the New Times papers, or it’s more top-down Libertarian editorial stance, this is a might bit unsettling. Also of note, the new conglomerate of Villiage Voice Media and New Times will be called, strangely, Villiage Voice Media. Can you say “capitalizing on your smaller, better competition’s superior reputation?”

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a friend of mine being denied tables at dessert purveyor Sweet Lady Jane. Well, I think I’ve uncovered the truth behind the seating fiasco.

You see, the building that houses Sweet Lady Jane used to house the original Ma Maison. Back in Ma Maison’s heyday, it was Orson Welles’ favorite restaurant. In fact, he ate there nearly every day, including the day before he died in 1985. Rumor has it that he loved the place so much that he never left.

Apparently, ol’ Orson’s ghost is seen in the building regularly, usually accompanied by the scent of a lit cigar. My guess is that he doesn’t like to be bothered by crowds, and the staff at Sweet Lady Jane was just doing his bidding. So, if you’re ever denied seating there, I say, blame Orson. Especially if you smell cigar smoke.

Looking more like Rock Stars than Opera singers, this isn’t your stuffy formal dress event. Think Queen pomposity. The East Village Opera Company is playing tonight at the Knitting Factory, 7021 Hollywood Blvd, at 8:30. I’ve been listening to their downloads this morning and they’ve successfully counteracted my mood due to the overcast weather. You can listen to downloads on their site here.

Updating that post from last week, there’s more information on those costumed characters hanging out on Hollywood Blvd.:

The sidewalk in front of the Chinese Theater may seem like a Tinseltown paradise where delighted visitors cavort with shabby versions of their favorite movie characters, posing for no-strings-attached pictures with Batmen and Charlie Chaplins before returning to measuring their extremities against the Chineseís world-famous concrete monuments (ìMommy, Tom Cruiseís hands are the same size as mine!î). But this is Hollywood, after all, and things are rarely as innocent as they appear. Concerned that many of these characters were shaking down tourists for tips, the LAPD called a Starving Superhero Summit to lay down the law, and when the super-behavior didnít improve, the cops went deep undercover…

We donít want to give the impression that all of the characters littering the Boulevard are violent and corrupt; somewhat predictably, there are twin Johnny Depps (in Capt. Jack Sparrow and Willy Wonka flavors) who seem committed to keeping their vocation pure.

On Friday I wrote about the completely terrible time we had at Screamfest and how we’d been promised a full refund first thing in the morning by the organizers of the event but had still not received one. I also sent an e-mail to the contact listed on their site asking about the refund. After I made that post Wil Wheaton pointed out that reputation is everything in this economy and said:

“I hope that they’ll make good on their promise to provide full refunds to the people who couldn’t get them at the theatre . . . if they care at all about their reputation, I’m sure that they will.”

“There are a ton of events scheduled for the rest of the weekend — events that I’d really dig, like a screening of Friday the 13th — but there is no way they’re getting any of my money until those refunds go out.”

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to tell Wil that all was great so he could attened any of the events because as of this moment I still haven’t received a refund for anything. What I have received are a few e-mails arguing the situation and so far claiming that I will NOT be receiving a full refund. I’ll post those full e-mails after the jump but since Douglas Welch asked me to “Please post the names of the organizers so we can all avoid anything they do in the future” in the comments of that last post I thought I’d do that right here.

This info is from the Screamfest About Us section. An interesting subnote here, they have a page of Testimonials about the event, a good number of which come from people who are listed as being on their Advisory Board – does that strike anyone as odd? Anyway, the person I spoke with the evening of the event who promised me a full refund for all the tickets I bought that night, those for Land of the Dead and Severed was Rudy Scalese who is listed as the Director of Development. The person who has been answering my e-mails is Rachel Belofsky who is listed as being the Festival Director / Founder. There’s also someone named Stan Winston on this “core” page who I have had no interaction with but I did read a quote from him on the Testimonial page about how awesome Screamfest is. E-mails with Rachel are after the jump.
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I just read this article over on the LAT website about MAV spending a couple of days touring the skid row area in Downtown. At one point a junkie shot up and a crack head smoked crack right in front of the mayor. I think it is good that MAV got a good look at how messed up it is down there and I hope he will be pushing the city to do something about it and help the people who are forced to live in such squalor.