Local cutups-made-good the charming People Under the Stairs (yes, charming–they’re funny and put on a fun show) bring their kicka** brand of underground hip-hop to the El Rey this Friday and you should go see ‘em. If you haven’t heard them, go here to listen to a few tracks. They jokingly refer to themselves as “Fun DMC” and it’s a great way to describe their sound–they’ve got a little Tribe Called Quest, a little Jurassic Five…good times. Wanna go? We have free tickets for you. Just tell me your favorite classic hip-hop cut in the comments below & we’ll choose a few lucky winners to go party at the show. woot!

Wanna buy tix instead, oh ye of little faith? Here you go.

I stepped out my front door a second ago to check the Brrrr factor to help the kids decide what to wear.  What a pleasant surprise – the San Gabriel Mountains are covered in white.  Look before it melts as this is one of my favorite views, especially from Downtown LA.  Why its so nice I think I need to ditch my Dad duties, dig out my forest pass and head up to Azusa Canyon for some shooting before it gets all melty.

Pic by me from my front porch, it does get bigger with a click.  There is an update after the jump. Read the rest of this entry →

Nope.  Its lawn circles, more precisely senior student lawn circles.  The decades may roll on but seniors still seem to find it appropriate to use the biggest patch of grass on school property and use their jeep to cut some circles in the lawn.  (I have it on VERY good authority it was a jeep, not a truck or suv).  It grows back so minor foul and no long term harm.

Pic by me with the trusty cell cam and gets bigger with a quick click. Read the rest of this entry →

CNN is reporting that the Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies has chosen Saddleback Church’s Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation at Obama’s swearing in ceremony in January. Warren was an outspoken supporter of Prop 8 and has also been openly critical of Obama’s stance in favor of reproductive choice.

In a newsletter sent in October by the Lake Forest CA-based church, Warren said of Prop 8, “This is not a political issue — it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.”

Warren hosted a “presidential forum” at his church last summer attended by both Obama and Senator John McCain and challenged each candidate on “faith-related issues.”  Ultimately, Warren did not endorse either candidate.

Obama said (albeit quietly and not more than a few times) that he opposed amending California’s state constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage, and he enjoyed enormous support from the gay community in terms of fund-raising as well as turning out gay voters. Although CNN is saying Warren was chosen by the CCIC, that Obama has obviously signed off on this is a bitter disappointment. Choosing a divisive figure to lead the invocation at his own inauguration encourages more of the same: bigotry masquerading as “religion.”

Et tu, Barack?

I went to Bed Bath and Beyond Budget in Culver City today to play the 20% coupon game (where you’re supposed to feel like you got a deal by using their 20% off coupons to offset their marked-up prices), and found the place surprisingly empty.  Was this a sign of the Next Great Depression?

Granted, it was mid-afternoon, likely an off hour between lunch time and after work.  And perhaps BBBB is not a Christmas shopping destination, except for practical people like me.

vacuum cleaner bags?  you shouldn’t have!  really, you shouldn’t have.

Indeed, the parking lot was pretty full, so maybe hordes of Christmas shoppers were next door at Target, where you can buy toys and iPods with your household cleaning fluids.

I did my part, picking up a fancy photo album covered in nice dead cow for one of “my people.”  But I have to wonder what Christmas is going to be like this year, in Culver City and elsewhere.

Even though I work for a company that (now) does have office space, I do have the privilege of working from home from time to time. So I understand the feelings of occasional isolation and stir-craziness freelancers, consultants, and other office-less workers may feel from not having co-workers around. Though a nearby coffee shop might serve as a decent temporary office, when you work on your own, ordering a peppermint mocha latte is a far cry from the festivities of an office holiday party.

Enter Marjorie Kase and Tracy Fleischman, who are putting on the Freelancer’s Ball tomorrow night at the HMS Bounty. No cover, but there are also no hosted food or drinks. What IS promised is a diverse bunch of other office-less party-goers (writers, bloggers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, and tech people have RSVP’d), $3.25 vodka tonics, and “kitschy” Secret Santa gifts (if you bring one for exchange) in the $5-$10 range. They’ll also be taking donations for the Los Angeles Food Bank.

RSVP and more details on the Facebook Event page.

The First Annual Freelancers Ball: A Festivus for the rest of us, a Christmas party for the office-less
Start Time: Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 8:00pm
Location: HMS Bounty
Street: 3357 Wilshire Blvd
City/Town: Los Angeles, CA

In today’s LA Times, Steve Lopez claims he won’t take back any of what he wrote on Sunday about the ongoing El Coyote restaurant boycott being unfair to the employees of owner/manager/Yes on Prop 8-donor Margie Christoffersen, but there is a whiff of back pedaling as he recounts several of the emails he received from readers who disagreed with him.

(An aside: When the story broke last month, Christoffersen was identified as “the owner,” then “an owner,” then “a manager-owner” and now she is identified as “a manager.” Do I smell an attempt at damage control?)

In his column on Sunday, Lopez wrote of the distress (actually he said “blubbering”)  that came forth from Christoffersen when they recently met at a diner at the Farmer’s Market; business at El Coyote has dropped off by 30% since the boycott began. Lopez also quotes employees who support her, opposed Prop 8 and extoll the virtues of living in a free society. I assume that includes the right to boycott, or to patronize businesses that you please or that please you.

Christoffersen’s husband tells Lopez “she will never, ever be back here on a Thursday night,” which was the restaurant’s big gay night for years, so I guess that means she’s boycotting her own restaurant too. Read the rest of this entry →

LA Tweeps giggled with glee when Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mayor of Los Angeles, started Twittering. Many, including our own Sean Bonner questioned the legitimacy of the account. After all, @villaraigosa‘s updates consisted of nothing more than “thanks for the follow.” What is this, amateur hour?

Anyhoo… I just noticed his last update, from December 12:

Sounds like the baton has been passed to an intern. So, any hope of Tony the Tiger tweeting about hitting the Galleria with some hot side action has gone completely out the window.

In all actuality I wish I had the MyKey feature on our Focus.  Like many buyers of the Ford Focus, ours is meant as the car for the new drivers in the house to use to learn to drive.  The Focus has all the right qualities for the new driver: perfect size, great economy and safe as well.  

Ford upped the ante and gives the parents more controls to help ensure the new driver is staying safe with MyKey.  The feature is available on the 2009 Ford Focus initially and will eventually be rolled out some of the other models in the Ford line.  I actually wish I was in the market for a new car as this would be high on the list for my soon to be licensed teen.  

In short MyKey allows the holder of the parent key the ability to set parameters of the cars use to help make certain some risks the young driver faces are minimized.  Its a huge leap from back when I got my license and my folks tracked mileage.  The MyKey system allows parents to set specific parameters to ensure safety equipment is used and potential distractions are limited.  It makes the “valet key” seem prehistoric with the features it provides.  The features are easily set with the parent key and can only be altered with the parent key.   Some of the features a parent can select that I really liked:

• Limit volume on the sound system to 40%
• Allow sound system to operate only when all front seat belts are in use
• Limit speed to 80 mph
• audible speed warning at preset speeds
• Prevent disabling of the Advanced Traction Control system

You can download the entire press release if you want the details: ford_mykey-press-release.  To see some pics of the options as displayed during programming  you need to make the jump.  To get the full deets on the new logo, well you have to make the jump as well. Read the rest of this entry →

I’ve had enough of this wild egg nog chase. Early on each holiday season I’m usually quick to nab a couple/three bottles of Broguiere’s — otherwise known as THE BESTEST DAMNED BESTEST EGG NOG EVER MADE EVER DAMMIT AND DON’T ARGUE THE POINT. But this year, I slacked. And now I’m sans Brog’s and jonesing. Hard!

So much so that on my way home last night desperate for a fix I stopped a Pavilions, a Ralphs, two Vons, a Petco, and one locals-only market on the corner of Adams and Redondo whose name escapes me but it had something to do with a horse I think… Bronco, maybe? Moving on.

In short: none of ‘em had the supreme stuff. Oh sure with the exception of Petco they had quote/unquote nog by the dozens of flimsy paper cartons. But they didn’t have Broguiere’s Egg Nog, and I’m telling you, once you’ve sampled the best, a waste of time and taste are the rest.

But check it: I’m through biking/driving/crying around town on such a futile and frustrating search for the sought-after chalices of the famed elixir. So don’t tell call me an idiot for not hitting the Super King in Glassell Park or the Gelson’s in Sherman Oaks or the Bristol Farms/Whole Foods wherever they are. Spare me the knowledge that the Silver Lake Trader Joe’s cut a deal with the devil and from an inventory questionably obtained is selling nothing but the stuff until they run out or New Year’s Eve, whichever comes first.

Give up? Oh hell no: I’m goin’ proactive. I’m going pilgrim. I’m going to Montebello. Because it is nothing less than a bonus for all of us in the greater Los Angeles area that Broguiere’s is within reach. That’s right, the very dairy wherein the nog-of-all-nogs is lovingly extracted by magic velvet elves directly from sacred singing cows into hand-sculpted buckets of ice imported in blocks directly from the North Pole before being poured into bottles of polished crystal for distribution* is in our midst. Your mileage may vary but according to The Google, Broguiere’s Farm Fresh Dairy is 12.7 miles from my front door to their portal of deliciousnessishness.

Gonna get me out to 505 South Maple Avenue, 90640 and get me some this weekend. Hours: Saturdays, 7 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Sundays, 8 a.m. – 2 p.m.

* Totally true — and some bottles may sport decorative portraits of Huell Howser.

What with all the hullabaloo over Illinois Gov. Rod Blagevich allegedly wanting to sell the US Senate seat President-Elect Barack Obama is vacating, I want to congratulate the coy and clever writer of this L.A. Times headline in today’s paper about the designs recently elected L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas has on the State Senate seat he left behind:

Ridley-Thomas Backs Price for his Senate Seat

But in this case the county’s newest supe hasn’t gone greed, he’s simply endorsing State Assemblyman Curren Price (D-Inglewood) for the job. About the only thing better would be:

Ridley-Thomas Names Price for his Senate Seat

First off, apologies. I’d promised you a 7 p.m. update last night and I failed you. I know how many of you were depending on my diligence and I totally blew it. In my feeble defense, it was too dark and too freakin’ cold last night to try and ge-ge-ge-get a photo. Plus by then in my meteorological opinion the rain had ceased. Mostly.

So at 12 hours past due it is this morning that I offer my final tally. But as was pointed out in the comments of Stromwartch No. 1, my initial measurement of 7.5 picas was a total FAIL, because the utensil features a little bit extra that’s not part of the count. Gah! So the water that fell between Sunday night and Monday morn was probably about 10 picas or almost 1.75 inches. Whoa.

Now for my final reading as of this morning at 6:40 a.m. I used good ol’ fashioned Stanley measuring tape (not a lame pica pole with a silly extra bit of rounded tip) and it shows that just slightly more than a full and complete 2.0625 inches (or 13 picas) of liquid refreshment divebombed my section of Silver Lake:

Future updates at a date to be determined on a date to be determined.

Arriving at work yesterday, I couldn’t help but spot this awesome parking decision. The lines are clear and I’m sure there were other cars already parked near him before he arrived so that there was some kind of model to follow. After I parked, I even checked to make sure there was no obstacle blocking him from pulling up all the way. No obstacle. (click for maximum parking tardness.) I wonder how long that bumper would have lasted in a Target or Toys R Us parking lot…

This is the best photo I could get of this insane parking job in the strip mall at Glendale and Fletcher, so allow me to explain exactly what you’re looking at. To begin, it’s bad enough that the black SUV in the front is parked over the striped area indicating the end of the parking row and is jutting out into the traffic lane on the left side of the photo. What’s worse, however, is that the genius in the silver compact somehow deduced that there was a corresponding spot behind the SUV that was completely in the traffic lane. The lesson here? They paint lines on the ground for a reason, and if there’s a steady stream of cars backed up behind your parked car angrily honking away, you just parked in the middle of the road.

The beautiful and bombastic cabaret-punk Miss Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls) will be at the Fonda this Tuesday supporting her new solo album, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer,” and we have tickets! Put a link to your favorite picture of her in the comments below, and we’ll randomly select a few winners to go to the show, which she plays along with The Danger Ensemble, The Builders and the Butchers, and Zoe Keating.

You can buy tickets to the show, which I’m sure will sell out, here.