Public Eyebrow Groomer as seen on a Metro Bus

Since I began my adventures in public transportation earlier this year, I have seen a lot of rude, inappropriate and often strange behavior from my fellow carbon-based life forms. I have seen people carelessly put their shoes on bus seats.  I have seen someone leave a half-eaten sandwich on the floor of the train. I have seen a perfectly nice looking middle-aged woman forcibly push her way to the front of a line of people boarding a bus, just to be the first one on. I have shared personal space with people emitting body odors that would make a mortician gag. Yes my friends, I have been to hell and back and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

While annoying, I have grown to accept many of these acts of humanness as part of the deal when taking public transportation. Still, when I see something like today’s featured Metro rider, I can’t help but make a public mockery of it.

Today, while making my connection to the Metro Red Line, I sat across from this girl who was plucking her eyebrows. Maybe some of you think this is OK, but let me tell you, YOU ARE WRONG. Some personal grooming is acceptable on public transportation I would say. Like powdering your nose or putting on lipstick. However, anything involving body hair is an absolute disgusting DON’T. You wouldn’t shave your armpits on the bus, would you? Would she? I don’t know. Fortunately, I made my connection before I had to find out.

I exited my dentist’s Miracle Mile office not long after 10 a.m. this morning confronted by the absolute beauty of the day — its comfortable crystal clarity prevented me from beelining it on my bike to work. So I took the long way to Westchester. Instead of heading south to Culver City, I cut through Beverly Hills got up onto Santa Monica Boulevard and rolled that thoroughfare all the way to its end where I paused to enjoy the breathtaking views from the palisades before cranking it south along a near-barren beach bikepath to Venice and its pier from which I observed sea lions and dolphins before snapping the above shot of the solitary surfer surveying his vast empire.

Glorious days like this are enough to bring a tear to my eye.

On November 14, 15 and 16, locals will have the opportunity to check out Nissan’s first ever zero-emissions electric car, the LEAF. This will be the first public unveiling of the LEAF in North America. You can check it out this weekend at the following locations:

Nissan's New Electric Car Debuts in LA this Weekend

November 14, 2009 10am – 9pm
Third Street Promenade
1351 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA

November 15, 2009 11am – 8pm
Americana at Brand
233 S. Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA

November 16, 2009 9am – 5pm
University Southern California
3501 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA

According to Nissan, the LEAF handles and accelerates like a V6 and has a top speed of up to 90mph. It will have an average range of 100 miles per charge and the battery will charge in 4-8 hours on a 220V home charging unit. At quick-charge stations, it will charge to 80% in about 26 minutes. Although Nissan has not released exact information on pricing, they say that they are “targeting a price in the range of other typical family sedans.” The LEAF will be on the road in some states in 2010, with mass-production beginning in 2012.

To attend one of the unveiling events this weekend, register on their website here.

Buttermilk Truck's Red Velvet Cupcakes

With the explosion of specialty food trucks on the LA food scene over the past year or so, fueled in part by the immense popularity of Kogi BBQ, the undisputed monarch of motorized food purveyors, announcements of new food trucks were becoming somewhat noisy and commonplace. Sipping a cocktail at a bar one night, I overheard a couple gush about The Grilled Cheese Truck. Getting a pedicure, I witnessed the entire staff at the nail salon go nuts over the Nom Nom Truck. Just as I my inner cynic began to roll her eyes and slap a jumped shark sticker on the bumper of the food truck craze, someone said two magical words that snapped me right out of it, like a plunge into an ice cold bath.

“Buttermilk Truck.” I could almost smell the warm vanilla in the air when I heard those words.

Buttermilk Truck, scheduled to launch this Wednesday, November 11 at The Brig in Venice, is a “breakfast diner on wheels,” boasting chicken and cinnamon waffles, red velvet cupcakes, Hawaiian bread breakfast sliders and more. They make their pastries from scratch and even offer a late night menu – because we all know the best time to have breakfast is before the sun rises.

Hawaiian Bread Breakfast Sliders

Like many of LA’s nouveau gourmet food trucks, you can follow Buttermilk Truck on twitter to keep up with where they are going to park their truck next. Also, LAist has compiled a rather comprehensive twitter list of just about every food truck in town. <——– Just click there to access the list.

I may not be able to make it to Buttermilk Truck’s launch this Wednesday, but you can guarantee that I will be the first in line when they drop by Silver Lake.

For more information on Buttermilk Truck and to check out their complete menu, visit them at http://buttermilktruck.com/.

This morning, Harold and I were sitting at the counter at Millie’s waiting for our breakfast and I noticed how the potatoes, pancakes and french toast all share the same tight grill space as the corned beef hash, bacon, sausage and pork chops. I’m not vegetarian, but I began to wonder if this is something that bothers vegetarians. Are you OK knowing that your rosemary potatoes are cooked within inches of bacon and the same spatula used to flip a hamburger patty is used to shovel those meatless potatoes onto your plate? Is it OK if meat juices touch your veggies as long as you don’t actually eat the meat? Are these potatoes still fit for a vegetarian diet? I don’t have a strong opinion on this, so I ask you vegetarians: How far will you go to make sure that your food is prepared in a meatless environment?

A fresh batch of rosemary potatoes are thrown on the grill

Millie's Busy Breakfast Grill

A little art never hurt anyone, not even Tom Bradley.

The LA Times just highlighted this study by a group called Priority Pass that lists LAX as the third worst airport – in the world, behind Heathrow in London and Charles de Gaulle in Paris.  I’m a bit skeptical – after all, this group is comprised of frequent business travelers who probably expect foot massages when they land.  Personally, I think there are other domestic airports that are worse (Houston’s comes to mind, and not because it’s in Texas).  Nonetheless, we all know that our home port could use a little (a lot) of improvement.  The airport has received over a billion recession dollars to improve and upgrade its facilities, and the LA Times has some ideas on how to use this money (some are blatantly silly, others are more serious).  My top gripes are after the jump.

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As the holiday season approaches and your calendar begins to overflow with festive party invites, we at Metblogs urge you to act responsibly, especially when it comes to alcohol consumption.

Our motto is: If you’re going to be making a merry mess of yourself all over town, please do us all a favor and go home with a stranger.

OK, maybe that’s not an official Metblogs motto, but it should be. The thing is, there are many alternatives to drinking and driving. You can take the Metro, call a taxi, hire a limo, appoint a designated driver, call a sober friend, call Alcoholics Anonymous. Still, with all of these options, so many of us will choose to get behind the wheel of our own car and drive home after a night of boozing. I am not proud to admit how many times I have done this in the past.

According to Y Drive, “The main reason people drink and drive is that they don’t want to leave their cars behind.”

Y Drive's Magic Folding Scooter

That’s why Y Drive came up with an innovative and affordable service that eliminates this factor altogether. When you call Y Drive, a professional driver will come to you on a folding scooter. For a flat fee of $38, the (more…)

Somewhere in Culver City lies this storage unit.  And in this storage unit lies all my stuff.  My stuff fits into the smallest storage unit I could find (4′ x 4′ x 3.5′), which is pretty impressive considering that my home has only one closet.  This is a result of me getting rid of lots of stuff when I moved to Southern California after a lifelong stint on the East Coast.

See, I did what I think a lot of other people do: move out here with the least possible baggage, literally and figuratively, to start a new life.  Many of us come here with the idea that (1) it’s something we need to try once in our life; and (2) we’re going to try it for a year or so, to see if we can “make it,” whether professionally, socially, in the arts, as a complete reinvention of self, or whatever that term may mean to us.

Inside my storage unit, aside from things like luggage that I use, are boxes filled with books and other items that I can’t seem to let go of.  One such item is a framed painting that my mom painted decades ago as a student.  That painting got as far as the open trunk of my car at the Goodwill in Gaithersburg, Maryland, my hands grasping each side of the frame, before I decided that, one day, it may be the only thing I have of hers that she actually made.

My “year or so” California trial is about to reach its three year anniversary.  And I’m still traveling light.

Pile of garbage in the NaturalMind parking lot, as seen from an apartment complex driveway next door

It wasn’t easy for me to find any information on the business that is moving into this space. A Google search didn’t reveal much, but I eventually found a post on SilverLakeNews.com announcing the grand opening of “NaturalMind” in September 2009 (with September almost over I assume they have fallen behind, as the building remains vacant).

From what I can tell, NaturalMind is going to be some kind of beauty salon, owned by a guy named Arnaud Ozharun. I found his e-mail address on the SilverLakeNews.com post, which I assume he wrote. Unfortunately, the e-mails I sent him were returned with this message, “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: arnaud@naturalmind.com.”

On SilverLakeNews.com, Ozharun posted a rather lengthy description of his business and also of himself, describing NaturalMind as, “A utopian take on beauty.” Which made me laugh out loud when you consider the pile of garbage he has been forcing his neighbors to look at for months now.

“Natural Mind is a place to contemplate things other than oneself, yet change.” - Arnaud Ozharun

Whatever dude. I’m a reasonable person when it comes to things like this and I understand that, from time-to-time, it is necessary to deal with certain urban inconveniences, such as construction. I’m totally fine with that. What really bothers me is the garbage. Aside from the fact that it is likely harboring vermin, it’s (more…)

Yes, I know it’s hot. It’s hot, and it’s in Pomona; these things are true. Even so, you should go to the LA County Fair because it’s soooo fun. Seriously–mini monster trucks, fried snickers, the tilt o’ whirl, mechanical bulls, and baby goats. You tell me how you could pack more fun into one 24-hour period. I went last weekend with some of my compadres, and here are some visual highlights. You can click them all to make them bigger and thus more fair-like.

The fair is a treasure trove of the outsized and grotesque. What better king than King Taco?

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