From the ladies  that brought us “shit girls say in L.A.” now comes a quick riff on Coachella which most of the music lovers in L.A. will be heading out to the desert for shortly.  If you have the time to check out their entire channel on youtube do check out the Trashy Girls.

snapcious logo

We all run around with our phones snapping pics and sharing the world as we see it.  Until now you either tossed onto social media like twitter or photo sharing sites like flickr and shared it with a few friends and that was it.  West Hollywood based F.8. Interactive just changed what you do with your pics via Snapcious.

Snapcious takes your image sharing to the next degree. It gives you missions to fulfill with your trusty phone cam and post onto the game.  From there other Snapcious review and rate your pics and the winners in many categories are announced each day. Each time you post a pic you get points.  You also collect points for suggesting missions, rating images and making comments on what you see.

The game is the brainchild of long time blogging.la contributor Mack Reed and a few others at F.8 Interactive.  Since its launch on iTunes a few weeks back it has picked up followers across the globe.  You can download it from iTunes HERE and join the fun.   Complete guide on points and how to play HERE.  Best of all…its a FREE app.

Unlike some of the other social media pic sharing places like, um say Instagram, you own the pics forever and don’t sign away any rights in the TOS.  Thats a biggy for me as you never know which images I will wind up using for sale that I want to keep control of.

There is a short video after the jump that explains the game and how to play as well.  Read the rest of this entry →

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Do you write a blog?  Like to read blogs? Like to meet the folks behind a blog?  Well then this annual event is made for you.  There are usually a few dozen local bloggers there and their groupies (not including each other).

This is the 5th annual held at this park, but if you have followed me on blogging.la for a while you will know that we, a large diverse group of us bloggers in the SGV, have been getting together since ’07.  This picnic got going when it was determined we needed to do it annually in one location and blogger Timothy Rutt of the Altadenablog got it all rolling for us.

This is a pot luck affair so bring a tasty bit to share with the group.  Don’t be surprised if it gets blogged too.

Deets: March 30, 2013, 11AM – ???, Farnsworth Park,568 Mt Curve Ave, Altadena, CA 91001  MAP HERE

Hat tip to @Waltarrrrr who tweeted this morning.  The stealing of the tip jar at Antigua Bread in Highland Park was all caught on video.  Do you recognize the thieves?  If so you might want to tip them off their antics were caught on video or let Antiqua Bread know how to get in touch with them.

I spotted this on the Smoking Tire’s channel this morning.  Pretty awesome downhill boarding just outside the city limits.  Interesting to note that these guys had helmets on, much better than the yahoos I was behind recently on Laurel Canyon doing this WITHOUT helmets.

Smoking Tire for those of you who don’t know is owned by Matt Farah who runs Smoking Tire.com and was interviewed by me a couple of years ago.  Good guy, great cars and car reviews all taking place in and around Los Angeles.

Blogging leads one on many adventures, Brett Lemick and Ross Everett of Los Angeles are about to partake on a new one.  Fresh off  digitour that they served as hosts, these Los Angelenos are 1 of 6 Teams that will race from L.A. to New York (save your boos) and back home again in a NBC reality show that starts March 31st.  The show will pit the teams in challenges as they road trip across the country.  The teams will have home audience fans that will help them with their challenges.  In the end the winning team and one of their “fans” will win a new 2013 Ford Escape.

As a couple of YouTubers they have already vlogged as much as they can about the show in the opening video in this post.  They are looking forward to the trip and have been promised by the producers that they will be “terrified” by the tasks they will need to complete along the way.  Brett and Ross did their due diligence in preparing for this race.  They watched last years Focus Rally that included teams of Los Angelenos for clues as to what sort of challenges they can expect.  To even better hedge their chances they have been working with personal trainers to be in best shape possible for those challenges. Read the rest of this entry →

Some of the everyday "uniqueness" we find in the L.A. area

After my recent Hollyhock House tour, I met a friend from out of town at the Figueroa Hotel for a drink. At the bar by the pool, we met a woman named Rachel who said she was holding a meetup for the local Atlas Obscura chapter. My friend got all excited at the mention. I thought, what the hell is Atlas Obscura? Turns out, it’s a bit like blogging.la.

Read the rest of this entry →

I’m guilty of more than a few.  You?  I particularly like the dig about moving to the West Side…a place I barely know as there is simply no easy way to get there from where I live and there is never any parking.  There, I said it.

I just learned that on the ninth day into the fourth month of his thirty-ninth year as a pressman at the Los Angeles Times, Ed Padgett was fired. Fired as a result of some sort of clandestine investigation conducted by human resources for reasons he’s not at liberty to divulge at this point. Fired over the fucking phone.

I was unsuccessful in an attempt to leave a comment of support or of use on his blog. I was swinging too severely between outrage and sadness. Still am. So I came here. To tell you a little something about Ed — which isn’t much, but it’s better than me cursing or crying.

Probably about five or six or so years ago we first met online here at Blogging.la. In January 2007  I posted an open invite for any and all fellow lunatics to join me in making good on a long-time resolution to walk the entire 24-mile length of Sunset Boulevard from Union Station to the sea. Ed commented that he was interested but had other plans. When the fateful day came in February I was joined by another B.la reader Don Hosek and USC grad student Lisl Walsh and off we went.

After the jump, Ed magically appears around Mile No. 23.

Read the rest of this entry →

Its hard to pick out what is “normal”  Hollywood Blvd weirdness vs regular stuff on Halloween.  A few more in costumes and begging to be photographed videoed for free is probably the only difference. Its sort of Halloween Light compared to the insanity that is WeHo but it is subway easy and still festive enough.  His original blog post HERE.

John Cho and Kal Penn as Harold and Kumar

The folks over at 8 Asians is running the contest.  Pretty simple rules you ask a question of John Cho and Kal Penn, they’ll read them, answer them and pick a winner.  All the details HERE at the 8 Asians post.  Its very important you ask the questions on their post as they won’t be looking here.  Seriously, ask the actors not the character (like my knuckle-headed kids insisted on).

While you are at it take a look at the 8 Asians blog.  They look at numerous issues, serious and humorous that affect the Asian American community.  The humorous ones are the most fun, but its all good.

Just a simple plug and we are cross posting with permission.  As well as using their publicity photo with permission.

I love businesses that support the art. I even like them better when they give up space to showcase new and emerging artists.  That is exactly what South Bay Lexus in Torrance has done.  They have donated space on their lot for a bunch of pods to be set up as pop up gallery spaces.  There are over 50 pods, over 400 artists, curators, museums, galleries and fun, one-stop shopping for art.

More information on the art and artists can be found on Fine Art Trekkin’ Torrance and Fine Art Trekkin’ South Bay.

Deets: 9/3 & 9/4/11Saturday and Sunday Sept 3, 4 noon-6pm. South Bay Lexus.24777 Crenshaw Blvd. Torrance, California 90505

The 99 Cent Chef, one of our celebrity judges, videoed the whole thing and crunched down a few hours into a nice documentary of the day.  Fun crowd, fun times.

More picks of the day in my flickr set.  If you have images of the day you want folks to see sound off in the comments with a link to them.

Joker Beethoven, Jesus, and Justin Bieber all showed up

How awesome was yesterday’s Blogging.la 2nd Annual Donut Summit? A picture is worth a thousand words, so you can look at the pics after the jump and judge for yourself.

We had enthusiastic attendees (I estimate at least 100). We had the creative Blogging.la crew, especially Alexandra and Lucinda whose production and organization were off the charts. We had expert celebrity judges. And we washed it all down with stellar Intelligentsia Coffee. Yeah, it was something special.
More pics after the jump

In 2003, Mike Schneider and Maria Villar, a young married couple living on Franklin Avenue, started a blog of the same name. More than eight years have passed, they have moved to another part of the city and added two kids to their family, but they continue to chronicle all things Los Angeles and more.

One of my favorite Franklin Avenue features is the restaurant reviews. They have visited hundreds of eateries and provided short and sweet write-ups with just the essential information. High points, low points, what they ate and whether or not they will go back. I’ve referred to it more than once. In addition to eating, Mike and family attend and report on lots of local events, such as the annual Festival of Books and ice skating downtown. They chronicled the remaining years of the Ambassador Hotel and its eventual demise. For the past few years, Mike and Maria have organized the Great Los Angeles Walk. Over 100 Angelenos joined them for the entire 15.8 miles of Wilshire in 2010.

You’ll also find frequent coverage of the local media on Franklin Avenue. Mike is a media insider and L.A is a media town, so it makes sense. Look for posts featuring everything from retro newscast videos to screenshots of Los Angeles locations appearing in tv shows, which I get a kick out of. Franklin Avenue is a personal blog and is peppered with posts about family and occasional out of town vacations. But, it always comes back to Los Angeles, the city that Mike and Maria call home and enjoy exploring.