Found a little opossum love triangle happening around our house this morning, with two big males tussling for the opposably thumbed hands and feet of a little lady. The fight was over pretty quick and the loser — poor guy! –  slinked off  with his semi-prehensile tail between his legs but thankfully little more than a wounded ego, leaving the victor (at right) awesomely willing to be photographed with his fair maiden:

As some of you may already know, I’ve been cataloging the painted electrical boxes in my neighborhood. Actually I’m not even sure they’re electrical boxes, or what they’re used for exactly. All I know is that there’s occasionally a guy with a toolbox and a pocket protector standing in front of one with his van parked behind him, peering inside at what appears to be the control panel of the Millennium Falcon.

Today’s example resides at Alexandria Avenue just north of the intersection with Hollywood Boulevard. And you can tell, because there’s a little map on one side letting you know exactly where you are. It’s like the directory at the mall, only at the outdoor border of East Hollywood and Greater Griffith Park, with nary an Orange Julius or Hot Topic in sight.

The little person is the "you are here" stamp. I think I saw that dude's cousin on a men's room door.

These are painted by the dedicated community artists at LA Commons, by the way, which I failed to mention last time. More pics after the jump.

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Yes, those are magnifying glasses in the rain, underneath an overhang of jasmine.

Before plunging headlong into your weekend, may I suggest relaxing & gazing upon the backyard art installation / gypsy caravan / gallery / working, bacon-and-mimosa-slingin’ kitchen inside a gypsy wagon that is the Gallery At the End of The World in Altadena, run by artist and enormously creative individual Ben McGinty.

Check em out at their next bimonthly Artbender Weekend (June 1-3) & traipse all of the 20 seconds up Lake Avenue to the local and awesome dive next door, the Rancho Bar.

By the good graces of our friends at Goldenvoice, we have one final pair of Coachella tickets to give away.

To win, you need to tweet at both us (sorry nontweeters) and goldenvoice (in the same tweet please–it’s easier for me to keep track of that way). You can find us at http://twitter.com/LAMetblogs.

And not just tweet at us, but tweet at us and tell us what one of your favorite LA Metblogs posts has been.

Preface your tweet with @LAMetblogs @goldenvoice, then let ‘er rip.

Goferit!

Photo of the inimitable Amanda fucking Palmer at Coachella, by flickr user vonlohmann under a Creative Commons license.

I’m a sucker for Tomatoes.  I grow at least six varieties every summer and this weekend my plants are going in the dirt.  I love them sloppy and dripping with Miracle Whip on a sandwich, sliced with fresh mozzarella, basil and a sprinkling of salt and balsamic vinegar, but my favorite is picked warm off the vine and popped into my mouth on a hot summer afternoon.  So you can  imagine how excited I am to find out that this weekend is the Monster Tomato and Pepper Sale at the Fullerton Arboretum!

Yep, from 9am to 4pm this Sat & Sun there will be 230 varieties of tomatoes for sale for three bucks each.  They’ve got peppers galore too.  Over 75 varieties, which include Hottie, a large orange habanero and Bhut Jolokia, which is the world’s hottest deadly pepper.  I never thought peppers could be deadly until a friend of mine keeled over after eating a super hot chili pepper.  He passed out trying to out testosterone the other males at the table by eating a ridiculously fiery pepper.  Everyone thought he had a heart attack and called 911, but he revived just as the ambulance pulled up.  True story.

Anyway… if you like tomatoes or peppers and want to get your garden on, check it out.

I’m a big fan of the Mystery and Imagination Bookstore in Glendale. It’s a great place to get quality used copies of just about every type of genre fiction. It’s where I’ve been getting my original Ballantine copies of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter novels*, and, along with the Brand Bookshop across the street, is one of my favorite places in the city to disappear for several hours.

So you can imagine the degree to which I peed my pants when Mystery and Imagination sent me an email a few minutes ago (I’m on their email list) alerting me that they won’t be open on Sunday because they’ll be selling books at the Black Ace Books 31st Annual Vintage Paperback Collectors’ Show and Sale. The cool part: The event will be chock full of science fiction and fantasy authors, who will be signing their books (at no charge).

I’m excited about Larry Niven, author of the Ringworld series (which, for you video game fans out there, gave some inspiration to Halo). Also present will be alternate-history guru Harry Turtledove, a host of Cthulhu Mythos writers**, and many, many more. Here’s a complete list. (Sadly, Ray Bradbury apparently had to cancel, as did Frederik Pohl, who co-wrote The Space Merchants, one of my favorite SF books of all time.)

Here are the details:

31st Annual Vintage Paperback Collectors’ Show and Sale

Sunday, March 21, 9 AM to 5:30 PM

Guest House Inn Convention Center

10621 Sepulveda Blvd

Mission Hills, CA 91345

Admission $5

* Sadly, Burroughs will not be at this weekend’s event, as he has been dead for six decades. However, Richard Lupoff will be there, and he’s a highly-regarded Burroughs scholar, as well as one of the contributors to Philip Jose Farmer’s Dungeon series, which I’m a huge enough geek to love.

** What’s the collective noun for Cthulhu Mythos writers? I’m thinking “fhtagn.” If you get this joke, you are hereby invited to my birthday party. Or, actually, that might be a terrible idea. Forget I said anything.

A few weeks ago, I somewhat Venn diagrammed the differences between the various library cards in my wallet.   Given the massive cuts to our public education system, these library cards represent an exceedingly rare acknowledgment from our government that having an educated populace is indeed a desirable goal.

… or not.  As if throwing up barriers to getting a decent education in this state weren’t enough, our fair city now is contemplating enormous cuts to our local libraries.  In light of everything else, this seems to be particularly cruel: it’s not enough that you have to contend with less (public education, social services, etc.), you have to contend with less of the already few things that feed your mind and soul.  If the LA City Council’s proposal to slice into the library’s already stretched budget goes through, we’ll be looking at shortened hours, branch closures (probably in the communities that need the library the most, but I digress), fewer new books – the list rambles on and on.  Save the Library and Los Angeles Public Library supporters* both are organizing petitions on their respective websites to encourage those of us who like access to our books to protest the cuts.  In addition, attend the City Council meeting on the 24th – not only do you get to use one of those cute golf pencils to complete a speaker card, you can give those members a piece of your bookworm mind.

Photo courtesy dogwelder via the Metblogs Flickr pool.

* Kim Cooper points out in the comments that the site is not actually an official site of the LAPL.

gets bigger with a click, courtesy from Daphne Wang who was there last year.

This is billed as the world’s ultimate radio-control expo which will be an action-packed event featuring the world’s latest and fastest radio control products, such as tanks and boats; planes and helicopters as well as trucks and race cars.  Attendees have opportunity to test drive some of the best RC rock crawling trucks on the market on a 1,200 square-foot course, as well as see and try out the newest products on the market.

With tons of excitement for both adults and children, the expo also offers the chance to witness the world’s most advanced micro RC drivers competing for a spot in the PN Worlds Championships; hotshot pilots flying everything from micro planes and helicopters with extreme aerobats; pro drivers from across the country competing in the first-ever RCP Rock Crawling Challenge and the world’s best nitro racers in trucks and buggies competing on a 10,000 square foot dirt track!  Whew, got it all out.

If you love cars and RC toys as much as I do this is a must attend event.

Where: Fairplex, Pomona 1101 W. McKinley Ave. Pomona, CA 91768
When: March 20-21, 2010 Sat. 10am – 6pm and Sun. 10am – 5pm
1 Day General Admission: $15.00
Children 12 and under are free with a paid adult. More details at the LA Fairplex.com.

This Sunday, March 21, is the Los Angeles marathon. 26.2 sunshiney miles through our awesome City of Angels. If you are running the marathon, more power to you, good luck, stick to your training and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!  (I speak from experience…)

If you are not running, be aware of road closures and plan ahead, they can really mess up your whole Sunday morning. This year’s marathon starts at Dodger Stadium, then to Downtown, then heads through Hollywood, West Hollywood, West LA and Santa Monica, depositing the athletes at the ocean. Click here for a map. Streets closures will be in effect for approximately 5-6 hours.

The marathon starts as follows:
6:55 am: Wheelchairs
7:00 am: Hand Cycles
7:07 am: Elite Woman Only
7:25 am: Elite Men & Full Field (including the racewalking division)

Hat Tip to The Open Daily for the reminder!

(Photo by planetc1 and used under CC license.)

Tonight is the return of Down & Derby roller disco at the Echoplex in Echo Park! They’ve got rental skates & plenty of booze, which is a winning combination if I’ve ever heard one. (Thu) Skate on in

Locanda del Lago in Santa Monica is celebrating the LA Marathon with special deals. I had the pleasure of interviewing co-owner West Hooker recently and while I was in too much of a rush at the time to sample the Nor-Italian fare, previous visits had already apprised me of its sheer awesomeness. I’d suggest the antipasti buffet for the freshness–they will have just bought everything over at the adjacent SaMo farmer’s market. Or try the Burrata all Coppa, buttery pillows of boutique mozzarella with coppa, a unique salami-style charcuterie, and fresh apples drizzled with a sweet balsamic nectar. The prosciutto/Roma tomato/mozzarella panini are sublime as well. Tasting Table tells me they’ll give you 15% off if you say the word “marathon,”  and if you were crazy enough to run and can actually still sit up, show ‘em your runner number and they’ll give you double portions. (Sun) Nom nom nom

Burners Without Borders: Human Translation is an underground party for a good cause taking place at the notorious Red Loft. (It’s back, phoenix-like, so you can swing on the giant indoor swing and swing in…any other way you want, really.)  Growing out of the Burning Man community’s “Burners Without Borders,” a Peace Corps-style organization, and featuring artwork, DJs and music, it’ll help you save the world while potentially frying your synapses. (Sat) Groovy man

In the realm of guerilla uses for a junction box, this is awesome to the power of awesome (English version not visible on side facing street):

Found this morning on Vermont, immediately north of 4th Street.

Designate your driver early no matter where you are in LA, not just in Arcadia.  Let the kiss you get be on the cheeks not the one you plant on the car in front of you.  Direct from the APOA website the warning for tonight:

Members of the Arcadia Police Department will be conducting a DUI Checkpoint at a location within the City of Arcadia during the evening or St. Patrick’s Day, Wednesday, March 17, 2010, between 8:00 pm to 2:00 am. St. Patrick’s Day will undoubtedly see many celebrations and the Arcadia Police Department reminds you to party responsibly; don’t drink & drive! If you have been drinking and don’t have a designated driver, consider the use of Jan’s Towing and their free “Tipsy Tow” program. Jan’s will tow your vehicle and offer you a ride home in the local service area for free.

Last week your intrepid LA Metblogs crew met at Crash Space for a strategic planning session to develop a range of content generation initiatives to be implemented over the coming months. This meeting rapidly degenerated into a series of juvenile toilet jokes and graphic descriptions of horror movie torture sequences. Yes, yes: This is your Metblogs team hard at work.

But a few good ideas came out of the mess, like spring crocuses blooming from a heap of dog poo. And we thought our readers would like to hear about them. Thus we present the meeting minutes. Like an idea? Have an idea of your own? Let us know in the comments. We welcome your input. We may not run with all these ideas, but if any of them get a good response, we’ll be more likely to explore it.

8 PM. The group gathers. Cherry pie from Ralph’s bakery and fruit punch from Ralph’s juice aisle are served. Bristlebots are played with.

8:12 PM. First Star Wars reference. My notes are unclear on the joke itself, though it was probably a veiled sex pun. Likely candidates include “This little one’s not worth the effort” and “Aim for the exhaust port, just below the main port.”

8:16 PM: First real idea of the night: A series on movies in which Los Angeles is a character — similar to the our Songs About LA series. Ideally, these would be posts about films in which LA is an indelible part of the story, like Gotham City to a Batman movie. Look for this coming up.

8:32 PM. Idea: Another movie-themed series that explores local “forgotten” movie locations. The examples we came up with were… Read the rest of this entry →

So, there was an earthquake this morning. It woke me up but didn’t get me out of bed. Apparently it woke a lot of other people up too; the tweetosphere was abuzz with hashmarks in front of the word “earthquake.” My favorite tweet? From @mattngyuyenn, simply: “Who farted?”

The deets: 4.4, hit at 4:04 AM (numerologists take note), epicenter was Pico Rivera-ish. Looking around the web, it seems like nobody was hurt. Here are the data from the United States Geological Survey.

The upshot: Not too severe, but half the city, having felt the earthquake, looked at their alarm clocks and said, “ah, the hell with it, I’ll just get up,” will get really, really tired at around 2:00 in the afternoon today. So be aware of this if you’re driving or near heavy equipment at that time.

I recently decided I can never fully trust people who don’t like pizza.

Seriously. If we are ever having a conversation, and at some point during this conversation you claim not to like pizza, I will look askance on any subsequent statements you make. Because you’re either a posing contrarian — in which j’accuse, dammit! — or your life experiences are so woefully extrinsic to my own that they cast a light of uncertainty onto all of our future interactions. Pizza is a pleasant constant, like sunshine or morning tumescence. If you don’t like it, there’s a good chance you’re part of the scouting vanguard of an impending alien invasion, and there are some things about humans you just can’t mimic. Nice try, you Cylon bastard.

I’m much more forgiving of people who don’t like good pizza, which is why I still have friends. I know guys from Cincinnati who think pizza should never flop over when you pick it up from the plate. I have friends from central Pennsylvania who think Pizza Hut is an acceptable option. I even have a native Texan friend who eats pizza by scraping the toppings off the crust with a fork. Whatever. Opinions differ.
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