Philippe’s, which has been family owned and operated since 1927, is celebrating its centennial tonight. The restaurant will be celebrating by serving up their famous french dip sandwiches for only 10 cents, along with 5 cent coffee… but only until 8pm tonight!

They estimate that they’ll sell 6,000 sandwiches today. Expect long lines, so you might still have time to get your butt over there.

Random Facts:
1,000 lbs of meat is used each day = 300,000 lbs per year
3,000-4,000 sandwiches served daily
40 gallons of mustard is consumed weekly

h/t: Christina O at Yelp

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Admit it. You’ve eyed their well-manicured lawns and fabulous window treatments. But, do you know for sure which of your neighbors are actually gay?

Fightin’ Mad Mary of Studio City counted. Then, she made a chart. A gay house chart.

6 out of 14 households on FMM’s block represent alternative lifestyles of the rich and possibly famous. And she finds them to be very nice people. Will this lead to the inevitable GoogleGay from GoogleEarth?

FMM also has a gallery of various lawn signs from the ‘hood. Signs for politicians, props, and poop. Yes, poop. Clean up after your maverick canines!

Map of the Gays from Fightin’ Mad Mary and Q!

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Have you been touched by a virus?

Campus officials believe it was a norovirus, not contaminated food, that sickened about 130 University of Southern California students this weekend.

University spokesman James Grant says a preliminary investigation found a norovirus to be the cause of campus illness, that led to 1 to 2 days of vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhea. Grant says the initial findings won’t be confirmed until test results are returned from the county health department in two to three weeks.

The school has ordered 3,000 bottles of hand sanitizer and 2,000 containers of sanitizing wipes to distribute on Monday, when classes will resume as regularly scheduled. [full story]

UPDATE: About 70 more people came down with it today. LA Times story

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Sean first posted about the in-progress move here a couple weeks ago, and yesterday was the first opportunity I had to bring in a front wheel desperately needing a new hub/rebuild and step inside the giantness that is the new home of Orange 20 Bikes in the famed Bicycle SquareQuadrantZoneDistrictRealm. DotCom. Also known as the corner of Heliotrope and Melrose in East Hollywood.

Turns out my timing was as impeccable as my taste in homegrown velocipedic establishments as yesterday was their first day of bustling operations in their new castle:

After stepping inside and gaping at the absolute vastness of all that additional square footage I made my way back across what may have been a change in zip code to the service/repair area — itself easily as large as the entire shack that was O20’s first home across the alley out back.

Greeted by proprietor Jim C. I guesstimated that the place must be three billion times bigger and he corrected me down to reality.

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Santa Monica/Venice Beach

It was also the perfect day to walk 18.5 miles in preparation for The Big Walk down Western Ave. on October 18.  (That’s less than two weeks away!)

I’m really looking forward to it for many reasons, the main one being that walking for hours and hours gets awfully lonely, even with an ipod stuffed full of podcasts and music.

I saw a few interesting things along my walk yesterday, though no mysterious doors in the ground like last time. Mostly it was just a gorgeous day to be out.
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The annual post-burn reunion party for L.A. Burners went off tonight in a blur of glitz. I’m no official judge, but the event seems to be much happier in its new location, the L.A. State Historical Park (yes, the Cornfield) where there’s plenty of rolling, grassy space for sound, light, art and wardrobe fantasy.

Grass isn’t playa, and bored/curious police helicopters don’t buzz Black Rock City every five minutes during the real Burning Man festival, but the L.A. edition of the whole counterculture art carnival drew some 4,000 people (we heard from the Rangers) - most of whom were dressed to the teeth (like these fine bat creatures), and the remaining 20% of whom were dropjawed, plainclothes lookyloos who shelled out $20 a head to gawk.

Photos of a few of the rest of us follow the jump. Read more

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Too many personal commitments to see a candidate that’s a 72-year-old’s hearbeat away from being the top of the Republican ticket?

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)

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In an odd convergence of diametrically opposed politics and figures who have advanced and set back the women’s movement in this country, Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin are both in Los Angeles today for campaign events.

Clinton will speak tonight at a fundraiser for “Angelenos Go Green for Obama,” to be held at the Edison in downtown Los Angeles.

The event is being billed as the first zero-waste, carbon-nuetral political fundraiser. Electricity for the event will come from biodiesel generators and only compostable utensils and plates will be used.

It being Tinseltown, celebrities are a part of the package tonight with Meg Ryan, William Baldwin and Catherine Keener expected to attend. Jon Bon Jovi is slated to perform, although Chris Cornell was initially scheduled to entertain when the event was announced two months ago. No word was available on whether he will still appear.

Palin is speaking in Carson this afternoon at the Home Depot Tennis Stadium. Her campaign says she will answer questions submitted by text and email, which will most likely be culled to the few that match her limited range of simplified folksy talking points. I assume the three Black Hawk helicopters that just did a low pass over my place in Silver Lake were headed there, this being enemy territory.

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The Gary Scott blog reports that suburban LA resident Paul F Little, aka Max Hardcore in the world of porn has been sentenced in Tampa for production of sadistic porn. His films are reported to involve the ingesting of various body fluids.  Tampa Bay Online has the full story.

He was found guilty on 10 counts of distributing porn by mail and Internet in Federal Court.  As a participant in one of LA’s biggest industries (reportedly $12 Billion a year) his wares catered to the sadistic side of that business.  He argued the materials were meant for the more liberal European market.  He never explained why he accepted orders from Florida which didn’t allow the material.  What, he expects us to believe he doesn’t know that each state has its own ideas on what porn is legal for sale within their borders?

The judge argued that the female actor appeared to be humiliated and in pain which would have made the films illegal.  The LA guy argued it was just good acting.  (Has anyone ever seen good acting in porn?)  The actor was reported to be in the trial at the time and according to the defense attorney: ”The person that was involved in the conduct sat [in court] with a smile on her face and wrote your honor a letter saying, ‘Judge, this was a beautiful part of my life.’ ”  The judge obviously didn’t buy it.  (Oh sweet lawd how can anyone turn down that argument?)

Aside from what a person views in their own home and right to self censorship, is anyone else even a bit concerned about the money spent to take this through trial when there are bigger issues for our criminal justice system to devote their time too? 

Have fun with the comments (we don’t censor like the Tampa online did), am off to Mo Valley for a weekend of basketball tournaments.

(PS:9:15AM forgot to add Pasadena Star News has an article and note this man is not the former Pasadena Councilman with the same name)

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Hmm. It’s fun to mess with the meaning of a headline by not capitalizing or punctuating properly.

• The Ninja tells some stories about Dodger’s Security

• CandyBlog.net informs us that See’s has limited edition Pumpkin Spice Lollypops that should be available until Thanksgiving. Yay!

• Kara and her friends go see a movie solely because their friend is in it.

J Keith’s van Straaten’s photo stolen from jkeithdotnet

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I have heard twice today on KPCC that tomorrow (Saturday evening) there will be the following things happening:

5:00pm USC playing Oregon at the Coliseum

7:07pm Dodgers vs. Cubs Game 3

7:15pm UCLA vs. Washington State at the Rosebowl

8:00pm Neil Diamond at the Staples Center

There is also an Obama thing downtown with Hilary Clinton speaking in the evening as well.

So if you are heading down there for any of those things — ride a bike, take a bus, take a train, get there early, carpool, etc etc. If you were just going to head downtown for no good reason, I would avoid it like the plague!

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

LA, you know I have much love for you, but some days…some days lady, you really work my nerve.

I’m trying to make some cheese.  It’s really basic: salt, milk and rennet. It’s finding the rennet that is making my head explode. When I was a kid, we learned how to make this cheese from an Egyptian lady.  Luckily the halal meat market in Diamond Bar (shout out to the Jibanis!) carried it, so it was no problem to get it and we made this cheese almost weekly. But all the Eid ul-Fitr festivities are this weekend so there is no way in hell I’m driving out to Diamond Bar for some plant extract. So, I turned to the internet.

I didn’t want to order it online, because I wanted to make the cheese today. Yesterday, I figured if I posted the question to Twitter which also feeds directly to my FriendFeed account then I’d get a response and pick it up in the afternoon. You’d think with all these self-described LA-based “foodies” who follow me on both services, that someone could have pointed me to a local store. I received exactly zero whole responses.

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click will take you to larger google map for directions

One of my favorite groups to support where I can is the Foothill Unity Center.  With offices here in Monrovia and Pasadena they serve the Foothill Communities poor, homeless or just plain in need.  This weekend they are holding a yard sale in a parking lot across from the Expo Home Center.  People all over the community are donating clothing, furniture, misc kitchen stuff even a TV or two.  All of the proceeds will go to benefit the many projects the Foothill Unity Center has going on all year to benefit our communities.

Sadly, I won’t be able to be there as I’ll be down in Mo Valley for basketball tournaments.  However, I have several bags of teen/pre-teen and womens clothing, bedding and a TV all for sale to help the “unity center” as we affectionately call the group.

Details: Saturday 10/4 West Maple Avenue, Monrovia CA.  Between Maple and Alta Vista in parking lot on North Side of Maple, across from Expo.

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Spotted this tweet from Metro. What did I miss?

Did the Red Line go dark? Is it because California is broke? Is it because we need more nucular power? Is it because one of them doggone mavericks tripped a breaker somewhere over there?

Explain.

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Susannah Breslin at The Frisky is reporting on leaked info that Hustler Video is at work on an adult film inspired by GOP VP nom Sarah Palin entitled Nailin’ Paylin. I can’t help but wonder if this is the possible source of the racy “Palin Lookalike for Adult Film” Craig’s List post that Julia stumbled across this week? Given that the CL post specified “no anal required” and one of the leaked tidbits that Breslin reveals is that Nailin’ will feature “the Russians, who come knocking on her back-door,” it seems there must be multiple Palin-themed adult films in the works. Quelle surprise.

Via BoingBoing

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