Someone took white paint and removed a letter, sorta like jumbo white out in action.  Spotted at the long abandoned Monrovia Hospital and Urgent Care Center near Wild Rose Elementary.

More than 13 million homes are not ready for the switch to digital TV next year, according to Nielsen Media Research. Analog is so 2007. But, Los Angeles did not get the memo. Neither did Portland, Albuquerque, Houston, Minneapolis, or St. Louis. People in these cities are still using their old POS TV with no converter.

What does this mean? Well, it means that sometime during the course of 2009, your super-fly Zenith corner monstrosity with its 13 VHF channels will fade to fuzz. Probably during American Idol. Right when they announce that the winner is…………

There’s no bus, no Sandra Bullock, and Officer Jack Traven has aged about 14 years, but Keanu Reeves is back wearing the LAPD blue…

Deep throat voice over: “In the streets of L.A., every cop wants justice. But how they get it is what sets them apart.”

Keanu in his most sinister delivery: “We’re cops. We can do whatever the hell we want.”

Opens April 11th. [IMDb]

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From KNBC:

Officers responded Friday to Blair High School in Pasadena after a report of a person with a gun on the campus. At least eight squad cars were at the school, which remained on lockdown at noon.

Around 12:45pm, CNN showed live video of students being evacuated, with hands held on their heads.

CBS2 adds:

The classroom-by-classroom search was continuing at the school, which is located at 1201 S. Marengo Ave., at about 1 p.m., the dispatcher said. So far, there has been no sign of anyone with a weapon.

1:32pm: While some news reports are that students being allowed back into the school, live video is showing long lines of students being moved out of the school, with hands against the back of their heads, and being led into another building on campus, possibly the gymnasium.

It took Vietnam Veteran Bob Weiland 74 hours to cross the finish line - 26.2 miles away. He got there using only his arms and his will.

It was the Los Angeles Marathon. The year was 1988.

Photo by Michael Haering, from the Los Angeles Public Library

Only the lamest airplane airline evar!

Um okay, so like these girls? Nisreen Swedberg and Sarah Williams? They are like 18 year old students from Tampa? And they came to Los Angeles on Valentine’s Day for a vacation? But their flight was like totally lame and they were fully discriminated against by the airline–I mean totally!!11! And just because they are young and pretty? And now they can’t ever fly on Southwest again? Well who would want to after hearing their story??!

Here’s Sarah’s totally correct explanation about the whole deal:

“I think they were just discriminating against because we were young decent-looking girls. I mean, nobody else on the plane looked like us except us,” she said. “[The flight attendants] were like older ladies. We were younger. Who knows, they could have been just jealous of us because we were younger.”

Okay so I’m like supposed to tell both sides to the story? But I’m going to make you click through to the next part to read the rest, okay? Don’t be lame, just do it!! It’s totally worth it because you can see a rad video of Nisreen (!!!) and Sarah and see how hot they totally are!!
(more…)

That’s right, The New York Dolls are coming back, and you know you wanna see ‘em.

Fortunately Metblogs is looking out for yeh. I’ve got two pairs of tickets to give away for the March 7th show at the Henry Fonda Theatre.

So here’s the deal: David Johansen, The Doll’s front man also played one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite Bill Murray movies. Hint: It’s a Holiday Movie and he plays a Taxi Driver. (David Johansen, not Bill Murray.)

No, not Groundhog’s Day. Different Holiday.

Hit up the comments with a quote from Mr. Johansen part in this movie from his Past, and I’ll either pick my favorite quote or select at random, which is basically the same thing ’cause all his lines are hilarious and I can’t choose anyway.

This also means if the quote you wanted to use has already been used you can use it anyway, it won’t hurt your chances of winning. It just has to be a quote of his from the movie in question.

Get It? Got it? Good.

New York Dolls
Henry Fonda Theatre
6126 Hollywood Blvd,
Hollywood, CA 90028

During my drive to work today, I heard that the person responsible for the shooting on Wednesday has been apprehended.

A quick look at the LA Times local pages gives more details:

On Thursday, police arrested Billy Ray Hines, 24, who they said is a member of the 48th Street Crips and who they believe was responsible for shooting into a crowd of people at the bus stop. Police said the suspect’s two intended victims fled the scene and remain at large… [Police Chief William J.] Bratton said Hines is expected to be charged with at least 10 counts of attempted murder, which include the two intended victims.

Of the five wounded kids, only one girl remains hospitalized. The three adults are stable. All victims are expected to recover.

As a side note, when I told my students about the incident on Thursday (and not all of them had heard about it), they kinda shrugged their shoulders and said, “It sounds gang-related.” I chalked it up to a general apathy and resignation: Is this incident that extraordinary to them? When I told them today that the suspect had been apprehended, the general consensus was, “I’m glad they caught him. It sucks to shoot kids and old people” (teenagers are a tactless, aren’t they?). Perhaps not as apathetic as I thought.

PS: I rewarded their show of sympathy by giving them their weekly quiz.

New York’s popular “Time Out” magazine may be launching a Los Angeles edition within six months. But can it fly?

Portfolio.com’s Mixed Media blog reports that the magazine’s founder is hoping to raise up to $60 million to create “Time Out” editions in L.A., Dallas, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and Miami, in addition to the current U.S. cities of New York and Chicago.

Because the new editions would be web-only, at least at first, the target markets don’t have to meet Time Out’s usual criteria of a well-defined downtown area and a large base of mass-transit commuters who frequently pass by newsstands.

A few years ago when I regularly spent time in New York, Time Out was as indispensable as the LA Weekly here for movie and event listings. A notable difference, likely due in large part to it being a full color, glossy magazine, is that Time Out costs over $3 per issue. I can’t imagine Angelenos spending that kind of money with other print options such as the Weekly or City Beat free and easy to find.

Even a free web edition is a financial gamble, considering Los Angeles currently has a crowded market of local online magazines such as Metromix, the L.A. Times Calendar, and the Weekly and City Beat’s own web editions (not to mention countless blogs).

And let’s also not forget Real Talk LA, the upstart magazine that launched last year to great hype only to cease publication after one issue.

Which isn’t to say that with a slate of fantastic writers and a top notch editor Time Out Los Angeles couldn’t succeed - just that the odds are stacked against it.

Note: “Time Out” started in London in 1968, where it is still published, and currently has twenty city versions being published worldwide, including Chicago and New York. [Wikipedia]

A car chase Thursday evening lasted over an hour as a reportedly stolen vehicle was tailed by police up and down the 405, the 10, and assorted surface streets as the suspect went on and off freeways, including a long detour downtown. The chase finally ended when the suspect gave up in Santa Monica just outside the McClure tunnel (where the 10 becomes the PCH).

The suspect is reportedly also wanted for a suspected kidnapping.

CBS2 has a slideshow of the events culled from their live coverage that was streamed online.