LA’s broke & getting broker – so let’s all (or rather a select few) take our minds off it with a “free” ride on this yacht that will cost us yet another $Mil or so next year alone….

Villaraigosa, you are SO FULL OF SHIT!

Tent City at Venice Beach

Yesterday was my annual pilgrimage to Venice Beach with the kids for their end o’ summer/back to school field trip.  (I celebrate the latter).

It is so sad to see the changes going on in Venice right now.  Where the sidewalk was once lined with artists and musicians it is now packed with EZ-up tents selling mostly swap meet type crap.  To even get to the tent city one has to wade through a gauntlet of a dozen or so “independent musicians” hawking their latest CD in a very aggressive in your face manner.

I can count on my hand the number artists left on the sidewalk of Venice Beach.  It was sad to see so few of them left.  It was even sadder to see the number musicians has dwindled to less than a handful.  I miss them all, they were the heart and soul of the Venice Beach that I have come to love over my years here. Read the rest of this entry →

So a Chowhounder whose screename is “kauma” posted a topic earnestly titled “Donut Summit: Who’s Going?” yesterday. It and the ensuing short if surprisingly snarky and dismissive comment thread was discovered and passed on by one of my fellow B.la contributors.

When I checked it out I found the first commenter, “Mattapoisett in LA” who decided to get critical equating a few typos found in one of our posts as somehow indicative of a lack of organizing skills. His skills at spotting mistakes was promptly applauded by “kauma.” Then commenter “sushigirlie” responded to that saying it seemed “pretty telling that they couldn’t get the donuts shops to donate donuts.”

In defense of the awesomeness of tomorrow’s event and the triple-deckered phenomenality of everyone here at Blogging.la who’s chipped in and pitched in to put this thing on, I posted what I considered to be a fair and untrollish rebuttal, replete with wink at the end in the form of a typo-laden twist on a biblical reference, because, yeah, that’s how I roll. Sometimes.

Checking back awhile later to see if anyone responded I found something magical must have happened because my comment was nowhere to be found in the thread. A dubious poof: had it been a posting failure on my part or had someone in that thread closed to opposing points of view (and/or snarkily cliché’d twists on bible quotes) intentionally deleted it?

So I decided to re-post, trying to get as close as I could to my original thoughts. After it, too, successfully posted, I took a screencap (after the jump; click it for enhanced readability).

Read the rest of this entry →

Bathroom Etiquette

Bathroom etiquette takes many forms.  Yesterday I was in a high-falutin office complex in Santa Monica and spotted this sign in the mens room.  It made me laugh, then it made me wonder what the hell happened that made them post the warning.  They not only ask you to clean up after yourself but then enumerate the steps to do so.

The image is kinda crappy as it was done with a cell phone.  To save you the squinting eye strain here are the steps in short.  Flush more than once to leave a clean bowl, make sure the ass gasket is flushed completely, make sure the seat is dry and lastly wash your hands.

Granted it made for a really nice clean restroom and there are plenty of others in the city that could use similar instructions.  Where is your favorite potty stop in the city?  Least favorite?

Pic does get bigger with a click.

Los Angeles Magazine June 2009

As far as I’m concerned Antonio Villaraigosa walled himself off from me way back a few months before his first election in 2005. First he started posting election signs that phonetically spelled out the pronunciation of his last name (ELECT Vee-ahh-ray-go-sah!) to help educate those who were obviously having trouble wrapping their tongues around that contrived conjunction of his and his then-wife’s last name. Shortly after that, he led me to vote for Hahn when he decided to pander to the animal activist vote and kneejerkedly blurt out his support for closing the elephant exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo, as if that’d be the most important order of city business to get to the moment after being sworn in.

Then came all his missteps and failures and that silly affair with that TV news reporter and the divorce and more missteps and more failures, which just built the divide between him and me all that much thicker and higher.

In fairness, the wall came down a bit shortly after his re-election when I’m guessing his Hummer-lovin’ transportation deputy Jaime de la Vega had someone phonetically spell out “bicycle” (bye-sea-cull) for ‘Tonio and after practicing it diligently he actually said the word publicly for the first time. Shortly after that revelation someone got a picture of him astride a borrowed fixed-gear at a community event in Baldwin Hills, and that endeared me him a little more to him me. Then, as we all know, that high was followed by the low of him pedaling along Venice Boulevard where he took a bone-breaking tumble trying to avoid an inattentive cab driver. But from that near-disaster came his understanding that supporting bikes on the streets and cyclists’ rights to safely ride them there would be a lot easier and more positive a pet project than, say, taking over the school system or running for governor, or spending more time out of the state campaigning for a presidential candidate, or dating other local news reporters… well, scratch that last one.

And my belabored point is? Belabored more after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry →

embiggen with a click

Sigh…one really can’t win at my kids ortho for parking in the tiny lot.  It doesn’t help when some douche in a giant SUV takes up two spaces.  What you can’t see as it is hid by the shadow is the demarcation line dividing the two spots ol’ lard ass hogged up.

Pic with my trusty cell phone…gets bigger with a click.

I just want to take a moment to exploit this public forum to send out some very personal gratitude to the LAFD’s emergency responders.

Thankfully, it was only water spurting out under high pressure this morning and not blood, but the intrepid (and so handsome!) dudes appeared in a jiffy and had the situation under control in short order.

Did I mention they were gorgeous? And that after battling the water I looked like a drowned rat?

Oh and before you downgrade my IQ by 50 points you should know that They couldn’t find the water shutoff to the house either.

In fact, now that daylight is upon us and calm is restored, I’d really like to know where that shutoff is….

(and PS, kids: if you’re gonna sleep naked, maybe have some clothes in your handy emergency kit. Just sayin.)

Honestly.

I saw This Person shopping at a Santa Monica Ralph’s last week, fully without irony.

She and her friends were not looking to see if anyone would notice the robe, nor were they in any sort of Dude-like good humor.

I would have been willing to Consider giving her a pass if she at least bought milk and/or Kahlua, but all they bought was a few bags of Doritos.

They wandered the store, jabbering in a language I failed to identify (and I’m pretty good at that), and exuding general bitchiness.

Ugh.

No thank you.

(No, I don’t show her face. And neither should she.)

The other day leaving work, I eased out of the driveway to make a right turn and head home, but I was so busy looking left for a break in street traffic I didn’t see the bicyclist on the sidewalk coming from the right. He subsequently yelled in my car window about watching where I was going and I yelled back about getting the hell off the sidewalk. Because that’s how I roll, yo.

I think sidewalk bicyclists are both annoying and dangerous, and lately I’ve noticed a marked increase in their numbers. I don’t know if it’s the high price of gas forcing more and more people to self-locomote, or if there’s some sort of bike-on-the-sidewalk-to-work campaign I haven’t heard about, or if it’s just part of the secret plot to make my commute more ever-more obnoxious. Regardless, I had a whole bloggy rant planned today about scofflaw cyclists and how you shouldn’t expect motorists to be looking out for you if you’re not obeying the traffic laws.

And then…I actually researched the traffic laws.

Who knew? Apparently you are, in fact, legally allowed to bike on the sidewalk in L.A. So go on with your bad self, bicyclist. Ride that vehicle on the sidewalk. Hell, take your whole family with you. Annoy everyone and endanger yourself. Because L.A. law allows it. We can’t legislate good manners or common sense.

(Daquella manera’s photo used through creative commons license.)

make the jump for uncensored

It caught my eye not in a good way.  Seriously, if you’re buying clothes, buy clothes that fit.  Nothing is worse than sitting down to dinner and having a big hairy butt crack staring at you when you look up from the menu.  Or plate.  Seriously its a total what not to wear moment.

Pic by me with my trusty cell phone.  To see it in its still blurred maximum glory you need to make the jump.

Read the rest of this entry →

Posted without comment. Be afraid.

How easy is it to get your oven (or any appliance) fixed these days for a reasonable price?
Yeah: Difficult.

Or should I say, how easy is it to get a simple estimate over the phone before so you can assess how much cash you’ll need?

Almost impossible.

Unless you know about Antique Stove Heaven.

The fun and games started when my oven died. I did a search for LA Oven Repair. I called at least 6 repair places: AAA Appliance Repair, West Coast Chief Repair, AAA Service Repair, Ameripro… the list goes on.

Every single one refused to give me an estimate before coming out. Even a broad, ‘I promise I won’t hold you to it estimate’ was met with a horrified, “absolutely unheard of! No one in Los Angeles will do that!”

Seems talking money is a big no-no when you want to get something fixed these days. Ameripro even hung up on me! I guess I was asking too many questions. When I called back immediately, the same guy who hung up on me affected a ridiculous fake British accent (this really happened) and then put me on hold for 8 minutes til I gave up!!!!

Mind you, I was very cordial and said I just wanted a super general idea of the price for the specific problem. Every single place I called, except Antique Stove Heaven, refused to quote prices over the phone, would not give hourly rates, wouldn’t give the price of the part (I knew what I needed…and had actually looked up the part price online just for info, and was willing to pay retail). The standard answer is, “We charge a flat rate, say a minimum of $165, but could be up to $500 but we can’t give an estimate til we see problem.” Even though I knew what the fix was.

They offer to come and check out the issue for $25-45 which is credited to the repair should you hire them, but you can’t figure out the approximate cost before they come out.

Is it only me, or does this seem crazy? Clearly it works for the repair company but not for the consumer. Once they are there, you are pretty much locked in.
Then I remembered that years ago, I needed a repair on my old O’Keefe and Merritt stove (a dream stove if there ever was one) and Antique Stove Heaven fixed it fantastically! They are a local company, family owned and have restored old stoves for the past 30 years. My current stove was an entirely different animal, newer, but still… broken.
So I called expecting the standard, “we don’t quote prices over the phone” routine. And voila! Completely different experience. Not only did Antique Stove Heaven quote me the exact price it would cost to fix it, but they came right out and got it up and running immediately!
Yay!!!! for a business in LA who will actually give you a straight answer and do what they advertise. And a big relief to have an idea of what something will cost before you dive in!

I’ve never cared much for the term “la-la-land” as it was ‘most always used in a derogatory manner.  How dare you disparage the city I love in that manner.  Well the Oxford Dictionary folks have taken it a step further and given the term credibility without noting in the definition its a “derogatory” noun.  Their exact definition:

la-la land n. can refer either to Los Angeles (in which case its etymology is influenced by the common initialism for that city), or to a state of being out of touch with reality—and sometimes to both simultaneously.

What say you on this addition to the dictionary?  More power to the haters or are you non plussed over the addition?

Pic by me of the L.A. iconic palms in Venice Beach, taken with my beloved “che-ez snap” that shoots in all of .3 megapixels.

On Broadway b/w 2nd & 3rd

Here it is. Your full-service wedding and divorce “chapel.” They’ll even do you’re taxes too! I wonder if you get a discount on your divorce case if you were married there.

*Spotted while on my jury lunch in Downtown.

Ugh.