We now return to your regularly scheduled STROMWATCH!!1!

Steph was my neighbor across the hall in college (for the one year that we both attended Antioch) and we took a creative writing class together. The class was crap, but her writing was always amazing.

Now: Antioch is in Ohio, Stephanie lives in Chicago, and the book is set in Wisconsin. So why do I mention it here? Because she is going to be in town next weekend doing two book-related events.

Saturday, July, 12, she will be doing a reading and signing at Book Soup in West Hollywood at 5:00. Also reading and signing will be local author Alexa Young, whose book Frenemies came out this spring.

Sunday, July 13, Stephanie and Alexa will be joined by other local authors and several local bands at the Virgin Megastore at Hollywood & Highland for their Rock ‘n Read event. I am so excited about this that it’s kind of absurd. Books! And music! Together! I can’t believe this sort of event doesn’t happen all the time. It all goes down at 3:00 and is ALL AGES. Their is an optional $10 suggested donation which will enter you to win a whole bunch of goodies including books and CDs.

See you there?

(Image by Will Campbell and Google)

Wil Wheaton is having a good week. He had the opportunity to work with Seth McFarland. Then he took the time to write a wonderful post about writing and spilled the beans that his work-in-progress is “a noir kinda thing, set in a dystopian future Los Angeles.”

Will Campbell hit a bike-riding milestone and immediately began planning a way to beat it.

Sean Bonner stopped to smell the journey. (Er, or something like that.)

Last week there was a sooper-sekrit Metblogs get-together, which the Slackmistress wrote about. Also at The Slack Daily, the story of a beautiful dog who needs a home.

Girl in the Room has a pretty belly!  She also writes about another labor of love, her husband’s film Half Life.

Girl’s Gone Child wonders what the hell BabyCenter is thinking with their “Your baby is the size of” updates.

The End of Motherhood? is thinking about children’s privacy and how much they’re entitled to from their parents.

Peggy Archer succeeds in grossing me out (not an easy task).

Jane Espenson alerts aspiring TV writers to a new deadline for the Warner Bros Writing Workshop, and shares the good news that they really are just looking for good writing.

Molls…she wrote shares a sweet moment.

And Chez Shoes shares a sample of how much Angelenos can suck.

I’ve been looking for a jogging stroller for a while. (I don’t really jog, but I need something that can better handle both the crappy sidewalks in my neighborhood and the sand and rocks on minor hikes. And you know, I could jog. Maybe.) My budget is teensy and I want a used one with inflatable non-fixed wheels and a canopy. I also don’t want to drive very far to pick it up, what with the price of gas and all–go far enough and I might as well pony up the extra cash for a new one. Of course, perfect strollers keep turning up in Redondo Beach and Rancho Palos Verdes. I am not even sure where that is.

So naturally I’ve been looking for a while. I was checking every day or two until my brilliant friend Erin suggested that I subscribe to the RSS feed for my search. “The what, now?” I mean, I know what RSS is but I had no idea it was available for Craigslist searches.

How I did it, behind the cut for anyone who needs the assist. And if you’ve got another good Craigslist tip, please share in the comments!

Since I’m already subscribed to the feed for jogging strollers in my price range, I’ve created a new feed to look for a carriage for my son’s Dolly. I went to losangeles.craigslist.org and clicked on the baby & kids tab in the for sale section. There I searched for the terms “doll carriage” in the $4-15 range. This was my results page:

I clicked the RSS button at the lower right, which automatically took me to google (I have Firefox preferences set to do that).

I selected google reader, as I don’t use my google homepage. That took me straight to the feed:

It was really that easy!

I did not like avocados, hot sauce, or sour cream.

I learned to love avocados in my late teens. I like to eat them with a spoon, sprinkled with salt and lime juice. Soy sauce or Bragg is also nice. Don’t you judge me.

But sour cream and hot sauce remained ingredients only; never condiments.

Until Los Angeles. Now, I’d love to tell you that I learned to love real Mexican condiments by eating real Mexican food, but the truth is that all I learned to love by eating real Mexican food was real Mexican food. No, the truth is much scarier.

I learned to love sour cream and hot sauce at the International House of Pancakes. Yes, folks. I learned to love sour cream at the IHOP in West Hollywood, and hot sauce when I first tried Cholula at the IHOP on 6th near Vermont.

It’s all of those things, but it isn’t any one of them alone.

We’re walking more. The taco stand that I used to send my husband to on the Vespa? I walk there. Larchmont. I used to drive to Larchmont! It is 1.7 miles door to door between my apartment and Village Pizza. I’m embarrassed. And the park! I have driven to the park, which is even closer (1.3 miles).

I’m walking everywhere that’s in my neighborhood. But more importantly, I’m changing what I consider my neighborhood. It’s a slow process, but it’s good.

Photo (of my neighborhood, natch) by me. Click for full size.

Friend of Metblogs Jessica Stover’s website for her film, Artemis Eternal, has won a WebVisionary Award. Congratulations, Jessica!

Over at Anti-Social Networking, Slackmistress reviews Newsweek’s article on hot nerd girls.

Mike ran into some less-than-nerdy girls, and they were rude. I blame Sex and the City.

Chez Shoes tries the bus for a second time, this time with some success. What the hell are they thinking, putting televisions on buses?

And Wil Wheaton is taking a short blogging break. Did I really just link to a post about not posting? Well, yes. I did. Because I want to know: what are you doing with your summer?

Winston created Special Effects and Make-Up Effects for motion pictures starting in 1972. He’s best known (arguably) for the Terminator series. He also directed Pumpkinhead, which is the saddest horror movie I’ve ever seen, and a favorite.

My heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.

Reading the article I immediately thought of Robin Lee Graham, who sailed around the world alone when he was 16, but took five years to do it. Graham is an autodidact whose book Dove relates his voyage and follow-up Home is the Sailor tells of his choice to quit Stanford after a year and become a homesteader in Montana.

I can’t wait to read Sunderland’s book (assuming that he writes one). And personally, I’m hoping he’ll skip the standardized tests. He is getting an incomparable education–why should he prove that he knows how to take a test?

Bon Voyage, Zac!

Fearful of a SAG strike, Peggy Archer risks shooting herself in the foot (no, not literally) to keep working in the short-term.

The economy is so bad that people are selling cemetery plots on Craigslist… or are they just taking advantage?

Ellen Bloom goes on a field trip with the LA Conservancy to see our city’s theatrical history at Joseph Musil’ Salon of Theatres.

And Will (the other one) reminisces about a moment of his life before Los Angeles. (His what, now? Weird, I know.)