Tomorrow night a new era of Beer Pong will be upon us, with the inaugeration of Beer Pong 2.0.  Instead of all of the bouncing with real ping pong balls, all of the action will be virtual.  There’s still a slot or two open.

(And for the purists, there will be an old skool beer pong 1.0 table set up outside for anyone who just wants to play beer pong.)

It’s at Life on Wilshire, doors open at 8pm.

Sounds like a fun time and it’s change we all can believe in.

Don’t worry, the California Democratic party has rented an E-Billboard across the street from the Home Depot Center to ask Governor Palin less filtered questions:

To submit a question for our electronic billboard, text the keyword ASK then the question to the number 69866

For example, send to 69866: ASK You said you’d run a respectful campaign on the issues, what happened?

Keep your questions under 160 characters including spaces and remember to keep them family friendly since we’re showing them in public.

Awesome!  Click here to watch the billboard live!

(h/t Online Video Watch)

experience and food quality, but when this flyer showed up on my door,

I certainly wanted to give it a try.

Congrats on a well designed take out menu!

seen on Zach Huddleston’s Facebook.  More info here and here.

The Ninja from askaninja.com will be telling stories from his life and then the talented cast of improvisers will use that as inspiration in an improv format known as the Armando.

Show is at 8pm at IOWest on Hollywood.

Click here for more info and tickets.

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updated to reflect that the show is tomorrow 6/7/08.

Went to the Lakers Game last night.  They won.

Our lawyers threw us their tickets and we had a nice time.  It was the second Lakers game I’d been to.  The last time was when Shaq had just left and the team and the fans were a little down in the mouth.

These were pretty good seats, 16th row and had a face value of $230.  So it’s just under a grand for a family of four.  <gasp!>  But I guess theoretically one can get $10 tix, but essentially the lower tiers and the boxes are all in the corporately priced range.  The third tier, aka the nosebleeds, is for the common man.

My Ninja partner Douglas did the smart thing and took the subway to the game.  I drove and had the privilege of paying $20 for parking.

The crowd was pretty into the game, lots of clapping and cheering.  The announcer was still creepy — after the Laker Girls do a dance he intones lecherously “LLLLLLLAKER GIRLSSSSSS”.

Our tickets got us into the Royal Room, which is just a bar with overpriced food and drinks.  But they add a velvet rope, so it must be cool inside.

I left with a lot of the fourth quarter remaining.  The game was fairly in hand and I didn’t want to wait in traffic.

Overall, even with free tickets, it’s not something I’d do regularly.  The food and the parking, even by sporting venue pricing, is a little on the high side.

And it’s a little crazy that flying two people to spring training and catching a game is cheaper than two Lakers tickets.

Such is life in LA.

Following up on this morning‘s topic of crazy rent pricing, is the outrageous cost of buying a house. IrvineHousingBlog covers our pathological need to compete and how out of whack out housing pricing is — when LA County’s median income is half of what is needed to buy a median priced home, there is something terribly, terribly wrong. Thankfully the idiots that ruined the market for the rest of us are getting their comeuppance…

Even if you could afford to buy a home, you prolly wouldn’t want to put it along the 110 Freeway. Home to the most recent rash of Freeway shooting to the South and adorable, but antiquated construction to the North, this first freeway is where Americans go to die on the road.

Well yesterday was fun.  Tiring but fun.  In honor of my Dad’s birthday I took him to Angels Spring Training in Arizona.  It was a hoot.  In front of a sold out crowd, over 8000 fans strong, the Angels beat the Brewers 11-4.

This was my first time to Spring training, and a couple of impressions and more pix after the jump.

First, a ton of families especially dads and sons and grandsons were there.  Young kids too.  I think it’s spring break for a lot of schools.

There were a lot of peeps from Wisconsin.  I tried to get a good let’s go Angels *clap, clap*, *clap, clap, clap:* a couple of times, with no such luck.

A ton of peeps were trying to get things signed.  The whole first base line was packed with fans looking for a signature.

The players were kindest to kids.  Throwing extra balls into the stands and helping out the next generation get into the game.

Fans were overwhelmingly white and well to do.  This was a luxury — it took us a trip to get there and it was in the middle of the day.  Not too many working class families can consider that.  Regular Angels games are far more diverse that this crowd.

The stadium was very intimate.  No bad seats, but the rows were cramped.  There was a lot of places for watching in the outfield on the lawn and it was nice to walk around.

It was a great day and a good excuse to spend some happy time with my dad.  Now I’ll need to figure out some day trip to go with my mom.  :)

A couple more pix of me being geeky at the park here.

The Big Lebowski is one of those films.

It’s hard to imagine another film capturing so many disparate elements of Los Angeles’s character into one coherent form.  The laid back people, the rich folks, the pornographers, the showbiz aspirants, the fanboys, the hippies, the fascist cops, the weird artists.  They are all in there.

I love it so much.  The details (look at the toilet seat cover), the people (Walter!), the places, and the writing.

The writing is so brilliant.  It works on the surface, watch-it-one-time level, but repeated viewings reveal the subtle layers of recursive dialog.

The movie is such a classic that my business partner has devised the Lebowski test — if a potential love interest doesn’t like the film, just walk away.

Thanks to WelcomeToLa for the reminder.

Spotted outside the Beverly Center.

My question is how do they fix it?

“My accent is not ridiculous enough, can you fix that?”

Of course!

“I have an accent that sounds Russian, but I’m from the Bulgaria.  Can you fix that?”

Yes.

“Small animals burst into flames when I say certain words.  Can you fix that?”

No, you’re a dragon.  Accept yourself and move to a less populated area.

Or maybe it’s just an enterprising Hyundai repairman.