The folks I work for throw a little bit of fun and excitement on Thursday nights at 3 Clubs in Hollywood. It’s called Hot Mess and tomorrow should be the hottest and messiest of our good time Thursday nights yet. My roommate and “famous” music blogger Mark Robot will be facing off with Scott Sterling (of the new LA Metromix(he’s the Blipster!)) in a 7″ DJ battle and the Veils will be there to spin some records as well. Also, I will be there and I am really cute. What more ingredients do you need for FUN?! It’s not like you’re doing anything tomorrow night anyway. C’mon.

You’re the best. When I left town last week I woke up at 5:46 but still made my 6:45 flight! Yeah, it was the longest line at security I’d ever seen too! It took at least that long just to get checked in at JFK in New York. I know everybody on this blog is all in love with you and wanna go ride bikes with you and everything but, seriously, it’s cause you’re pretty rad and EASY. It’s not wrong to admit that we love you because you’re easy, right?

xoxo
-me

PS: I also love your website and how it’s full of fun historic facts! History is the best.

Google maps street view has finally come to LA! Now you can stalk your ex from home!

Okay, you can’t really stalk them, more like just pretend like you’re standing outside of their house, BUT STILL! It’s still coming online and there are still plenty of unviewable streets, so if you live on one of those streets, watch out. Google Maps is coming! I’m so excited! I can’t even express how much I love maps.

Of course, this also means that people will be swarming all over our fine city to find girls’ underpants (of course, they went back and removed it) and any other sort of wacky things they can. Have you found anything questionable yet? Put it in the comments!

“Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday!”

“Who the hell is having a birthday party outside my window. At 8 in the morning?!” I thought. It wasn’t the first time I’d been awakened to strange and particularly annoying sounds coming from outside my window. A few mornings before it was “Oh my god! Oh my god!” that pierced my ears in the morning.

Such is the glory of having a neighbor with a bird. Or, as I more recently discovered, two birds. Loud. Screechy. Talkative. Birds.

To start things off, why would you ever want to own a bird? They’re filthy. I’ve seen more than one crap where it eats. What would possess someone to own TWO birds that make loud screeching? When I’m trying to sleep?

Now, I haven’t talked to said neighbor, so maybe this post is just passive-aggressive posturing, but what can someone do about such a thing? The LA noise ordinance stuff is a little confusing. I have zero contact with this dude, so I’m not sure exactly how to approach this whole thing.

Does anyone else have neighbors with wildly annoying pets? What did you do about it?

Sometimes this city surprises me. Okay, actually, this city surprises me all the time. Like last week when I couldn’t go ANYWHERE because the 5 freeway was a parking lot. Or maybe it was today when I read that the City of Los Angeles is going to be launching a new program where they set up local bands to play while you’re on hold with them! Yeah, they’re gona pull 10-12 unsigned local acts every year, pay them $500 for a song and then play their jams as hold music for a year before doing the whole thing again.

Whose idea was this? Seriously. It’s one of the coolest programs I’ve ever heard from in a city where local music can languish under the radar of most people who live here. I’m not sure who is picking the songs, but let’s hope once they post bios and pics at CultureLA.org we’re going there to find out who is singing that awesome song while we were waiting on hold FOREVER.

via The Daily Swarm

Tanya Selig is first in line at Skylight Books. She started her wait for the new Harry Potter book at midnight last night. She’s trying to get all of the books in the series read before midnight tonight when the final book in the series is released. She’s not going too fast though because “people keep distracting her,” here’s wishing Tanya luck. Good times!

Sometimes when I find weird stuff like heavy machinery smashing things up inside a little open building in downtown, I think it’s pretty sweet. I forget how trashy and industrial you are sometimes. I just thought I’d send you this photo my roommate shot. Dude, it’d be great on your myspace profile or something.

xoxo
-benjamin

PS – Can you figure out how to lower my rent? Oh and maybe put a subway near my house? Cool.

Looking for a good time on Friday night? Well then, I suggest drinking heavily and then coming down to the New Beverly Cinema at midnight to see ELECTROMA! A new film by Daft Punk. Yes, that Daft Punk. The film is a crazy, desert, robot, buddy film involving robots who want to be human. The trailer is above and the flier is after the jump. All the cool kids are gonna be there, also me.

Oh, did I mention that this will be the US PREMIERE of the film? If you get super into it you can go and buy your own Daft Punk helmet too. Yeah, it’s only $65,000…(Get one for me too!)
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Hey dorks! I know there are TONS of you out there and, well, you’re reading a blog. Right, well, if you’re the kind of dork who loves Firefly and all that Joss Whedon stuff you’re gonna be super-pumped to hear that the SoCal Browncoats (that’s dork-talk for “Dudes (and lady-dudes) who LOVE FIREFLY) are throwing their second annual charity screening of Serenity tomorrow! It’ll be at the Laemmle One Colorado in Pasadena. Just like the last one all proceeds from the screening and sales items will be donated to Equality Now. Tickets are on sale online until midnight tonight. You can click on the purchase button at the website above. Tickets are $12.50 each online (cause Paypal sticks you a little), or $12.00 when purchased in person. Tickets are only on sale til tonight at midnight online so get to it! (Oh, and you know I love the dorks and the Firefly, I’m not hating. C’mon. Somebody send me pictures of the screening and everyone dressed up like their favorite characters….PLEASE!)

Sometimes we forget how crazy things can actually be in our fair city. Sure, Hollywood has a new shiny surface on it, but underneath there is still some of the sleaze and slime that was so prevalent just 10 years ago. You can see it in this video clip from TMZ where a car pulls up to the Roosevelt Hotel last Thursday night and opens fire at one of the entrances. Yeah. What?! It’s bizarre to me that things like this happen at all, let alone over a parking space (so I hear.)

Unfortunately, crime is something that is all too prevalent in LA today. You already know about LAPD’s Crime Maps (here & here) now you can also check in on “It’s a Crime” from the kids over at dailynews.com blogs. It’s a pretty impressive run down of what’s been going on across the city in crime. As well as offering a daily crime blotter with the daily crime rundown, there’s also a lot of stories here that don’t get much press attention but are, I think, still pretty important to know about. The way that some of the articles are hidden behind jumps is a little bit awkward but overall this is a very informative site. Take a look.

Child Benjamin was crushed today to hear the sad sad news that Don Herbert, perhaps better known as Mr. Wizard, passed away in Bell Canyon today. To understate it just a little bit, Mr. Wizard was the shit. Who doesn’t remember sitting around watching Mr. Wizard as a child (he’d been wizarding since 1951, c’mon, even you old folks should be hip to the Wiz.) He inspired generations of kids to blow things up in their backyards and think science is awesome.

If you need some more info you can check in on the Wikipedia page for Don Herbert or this awesome page at the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

The video above is Mr. Wizard appearing with David Letterman in February of 1982. Let’s all go make some science tonight, eh?

A quiet walk along the LA River reveals all manner of things.
(Hint: the burned-out shell of a car sitting under the bridge at Fletcher was probably the most fun/eerie thing I found. What’ve you got?)
Of course, click the image for bigger-making.

People are weird. Even more so late at night, something I found out last night when I rolled into the Arco by my house in Atwater Village to pick up a cold beverage. Normally, there are some weird folks chillin in the area and I’m pretty used to it. Harmless homeless people, some drunks from the Roost of the Bigfoot Lodge, nothing too exciting. I don’t know the dudes who work at the Arco anymore but they’re normally pretty pleasant. Last night was no different, well, mostly. I walked in and said hi to duder behind the counter who I saw was eating a burrito. When I came to the counter with my frosty Cherry Coke he rang me out and then showed me this little book that was sitting next to him.

“Do you know what this is?” he said to me.

“Uh, yeah. I said.” Thinking it was some tarot cardy sort of thing.
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Uh oh! Time for another jury duty post! That’s right, I spent most of last week (and a bit of the week before) on jury duty down at the Metropolitan Courthouse. At first I thought it’d be a fun little adventure away from work but it quickly turned into a little thing our bailiff called “the longest trial in this court’s history. No, really.” 8 days doesn’t seem like that long, but I guess in terms of traffic/DUI trials it’s quite some time. It felt kind of like a month. Anyway, I come to you, loyal bloggers LA with some hot tips for your time should you be called to jury duty in our fair city.
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Boi from Troy may’ve been on to something with his whole “Two LAs” theory.

Maybe I’m the only who didn’t know that Wilshire was shutting down between Catalina and Vermont for what looks to be another immigration rally, complete with TONS of police, news cameras on platforms and American flags aplenty. Things are still getting set up down there but should be underway shortly.

LA Indy Media Center has the scoop.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez are among those expected to join immigrant-rights activists Thursday for a march and rally to denounce the actions of Los Angeles riot police at a May Day rally at MacArthur Park.

The event will begin with a town hall-style meeting at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, followed by a 10-block procession to MacArthur Park, where organizers will hold a candlelight vigil and a series of performances.

More photos after the jump.
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